“And you went and interviewed the Princess?” asked Corsini.
“Yes; fortunately I found her alone; her mother was in bed with a feverish cold. She was nervous and agitated, as was to be expected, but one moment’s glance at her face convinced me that she was no guilty woman, enmeshed with her own consent in her brother’s vile schemes.”
The young man drew a deep breath of relief. He had always held the highest opinion of her character. There would be some satisfactory explanation forthcoming of her actions.
A little note of pomposity and self-congratulation crept into Beilski’s voice. “I need hardly tell you that an innocent and inexperienced girl like this was as wax in my hands. With a woman of Madame Quéro’s experience, my task might have been more difficult.”
“I can quite believe it,” murmured Corsini.
“In five minutes I had the whole truth out of her. Well, perhaps, not quite the whole truth,” admitted the General reluctantly, “for, woman-like, although she has no love for her brother, she did not want to give him away, to render certain the punishment which he richly deserves.”
“And her story, your Excellency?” asked the young man eagerly.
“Briefly it was this. Madame Quéro called upon her to report that there was a plot to decoy you and convey you to an unknown destination—she did not know, or pretended she did not know, your ultimate fate, neither did she know where the carriage was to start from; she was only sure that the first stoppage was to be at Pavlovsk. This of course was Nada’s version. It at once occurred to me that these ladies, if they knew so much, would know a little more. They were not both of them ignorant, but, of course, one might be. Which was the ignorant one?”
“The Princess, of course,” said Corsini at once. “La Belle Quéro knew where the carriage started from, but did not want to implicate Zouroff, as it was drawn up so close to his residence. She pretended ignorance.”
The General leaned back in his chair and laughed genially. He was very pleased with himself, for what he was about to relate was really his own master-stroke. It owed nothing to the more inventive genius of Golitzine.