And yet, the carriage containing Corsini, drugged and bound, had been surrounded at Pavlovsk by the police. Somebody, then, had given information. Who was that somebody?
His suspicion fell at once on Fritz, the German, chiefly, perhaps, because Fritz had been found guilty of minor acts of disloyalty in previous transactions. For a man of his acute intelligence, it was, perhaps, a little surprising that he did not, at first hand, suspect Peter.
But Peter had just disarmed his suspicions by handing to him Madame Quéro’s card. Yes, Peter was loyal, if every other person was tainted with treachery.
There emerged from his strenuous efforts to get at the truth some clear and certain facts, according to his own deductions, which were, of course, erroneous.
Madame Quéro had been informed by Fritz of the actual facts: that Corsini was to be kidnapped just outside the precincts of the Palace, that the carriage was to stop on its first stage on the Moscow road at Pavlovsk.
He had to admit that there were flaws in his reasoning. If Madame Quéro had got this information from Fritz, and she was resolved to save Corsini, she could have informed the police herself. Why had she come to the Palace, to invoke the assistance of Nada?
Pending his cogitations, he had recourse to stimulants, as was his wont on such occasions. Amid the fumes of alcohol he solved the problem, as he thought. Quéro, not wishing to appear herself, had made his sister her instrument. He ground his teeth, and vowed implacable revenge upon his once sweetheart, La Belle Quéro.
But his anger against his sister was hardly less burning. To think that this innocent young girl, only just out of the schoolroom, should dare to thwart his plans.
He burst into her sitting-room, his face red and inflamed from his secret drinking. She recognised the symptoms at once. He had one of his wild fits of brutal and unreasoning rage.
He attacked her at once, in unmeasured language.