Nada put to her the shrewd question. “Is it impossible for you to take any steps yourself, Madame?”
A shamed expression came into the singer’s beautiful eyes. “Alas, Princess, I fear I must admit it is. If the Prince could trace anything to me directly, his vengeance would follow me very swiftly.”
Nada shuddered. She had long ago ceased to entertain any illusions as to her brother. She knew he was hard, tyrannical, brutal, and pitiless. But this conversation with the foreign woman had thrown a new and sinister light upon his character. There was in him, in addition to these disagreeable qualities, a strong criminal taint.
He did not intend to spare Corsini, and from what she had just heard, he would not, if necessity arose, spare the woman to whom he professed attachment, but would punish her ruthlessly for daring to thwart his plans. And the poor young Princess shuddered again as the thought crossed her that he would not be likely to spare his own sister, if she offended him in the same way.
It was not till the middle of the next day that Katerina had charmed out of Peter certain information which confirmed her worst fears.
Briefly, the information amounted to this. The Prince had sent one of his trusted servants into the country to order relays of horses. A travelling carriage was to be waiting at midnight close to the Zouroff Palace. But Peter either did not know, or would not tell, who was to be the occupant or the persons in attendance on the carriage.
One little important detail he had dropped. The carriage was to make its first halt at Pavlovsk, the first stage of the journey, on the Moscow road.
There was no longer any doubt in Nada’s mind as to the Prince’s intentions. Corsini was to be entrapped on leaving the Palace and thrust into the carriage; in all probability, drugged and bound. Of his ultimate fate she shuddered to think.
She knew the Chief of Police, General Beilski, well. He was an old friend of the family, also one of the Emperor’s most trusted adherents. While devoted to her mother and herself, he had never shown himself much attached to the Prince.