The police were utterly puzzled at the entire absence of motive.
On my return to my rooms I found orders from Bindo to start at once for Petersburg, which I was compelled to do. So I left London full of wonder at my exciting experience, and not until my arrival at Wirballen, the Russian frontier, six days later, did I discover that, though my passport remained in my wallet, a special police permit to enable me to pass in and out of the districts affected by the revolutionary Terror, was missing! It was a permit which Blythe had cleverly obtained through one of his friends, a high diplomatist, and without which I could not move rapidly in Russia.
Was it possible that Julie and her friends had stolen it? Was it to be believed that the scoundrelly Baron had attempted to take my life by such dastardly trickery in order to secure that all-powerful document?
That it was of greatest value to any revolutionist I knew quite well, for upon it was the signature of the Minister of the Interior, and its bearer, immune from arrest or interference by the police, might come and go in Russia without let or hindrance.
Were they Russians? Certainly the language they had spoken was not Russian, but it might have been Polish. Where was the young man who had been my fellow-victim?
Loss of this special permit caused me considerable inconvenience, for I had to go to Moscow, and the Terror raging there, I had to get another permit before I could pass and repass the military cordon.
Yes, Julie Rosier was a mystery. Indeed, the whole affair was a complete enigma.
I duly returned to London, after assisting Bindo in trying to make a coup that was unfortunately in vain, and then learnt that the body of an unknown young man in evening dress had been found in the river Crouch in Essex, and from the photograph shown me at Scotland Yard I identified it as that of my fellow-guest.
Through the whole year the adventure has sorely puzzled me, and only the other day light was thrown upon it in the following manner—