But Peter was determined not to implicate his sweetheart, Katerina. In this respect he was a slightly better man than his master.
“Your Excellency will excuse me; my lips are sealed. One must be faithful to one’s comrades. There are wheels within wheels, as you well know.”
The Prince nodded. He knew Peter well. In many ways he was docile and obedient, but it was always politic not to push him too far; on such occasions the valet was apt to take on a spirit of sturdy independence which his master was compelled to respect. Wild horses would not draw from him how, or through whom, he had discovered that card.
“Leave me, Peter, if you please,” commanded Zouroff. “I must be alone to think this thing over, since you say your lips are sealed.”
He shook his fist angrily in the direction of the retreating valet. “Ah, for my good old father’s days,” he murmured regretfully. “I would have had it out of you with the knout then, my excellent friend.”
Left alone, Zouroff pondered out all these things in his subtle brain. The treacherous Madame Quéro had come to the Palace, to seek whom, and to what purpose?
Rumour, gathered at the stage door, and in the more intimate circles of the profession, averred that the handsome singer was in love with Corsini. He had also his impressions of his sister in connection with the handsome young Italian. He had watched them together in that prolonged conversation on the night of the concert at the Zouroff Palace, on quitting which, Corsini had been abducted.
Rapidly in his own mind, he reconstructed the sequence of events. Madame Quéro was in love with Corsini. He gnashed his teeth as he remembered he had been fool enough to suggest to the Spanish woman that Corsini must disappear. She had acted on that hint and come straight to the Palace to invoke his sister’s assistance in rescuing Corsini.
His sister was in love with Corsini herself. The two rivals had united to save their common lover, and their measures had been well taken. The police had met the carriage at Pavlovsk, rescued the drugged and inanimate Director of the Imperial Opera, and brought him safely back to St. Petersburg. And, in the capital, so Zouroff was assured by his spies, he was being safely guarded by Beilski’s men. The Government and the police were proving themselves very cunning, almost as cunning as Zouroff himself.
So far he had reasoned things out very logically. Now came the one thing for which he could not account. To La Quéro he had given no details, and as he had not given them to her, she could not communicate them to his sister. Here was a final stop.