“No—not exactly; at least, I think not,” Sir Charles replied. “But please ask no more. I will tell you the truth when I have established it.”
“I wish I could discover where Maud is. Surely it is strange that the Prime Minister’s wife should have said she met her lately here, in Belgrade.”
“Maud Petrovitch is not in Servia. I am certain of that point.”
“Why?”
“Because her father would never allow her to return here after that tragedy at Topschieder.”
“The assassin—the man who threw the bomb. Where is he?”
“In the fortress—condemned to a life sentence,” the diplomat answered. “He was caught while running away from the scene—a raw peasant from Valjevo, hired evidently to hurl the bomb. He was subjected to a searching examination, but would never reveal by whom he was employed. He was tried and condemned to solitary confinement, which he now is undergoing. You know the horrors of the fortress here, on the Danube, with its subterranean cells—eh?”
“I’ve heard of them,” responded the younger man. “But even that fate is too humane for a man who would deliberately kill an innocent child!”
“A life sentence in the fortress is scarcely humane,” the British Minister remarked grimly. “No one has ever entered some of those underground dungeons built by the Turks centuries ago. Their horrors can only be surmised. To all outsiders, who have wished to inspect the place, the Minister of Justice has refused admission.”
“Then the assassin has only received his deserts.”