Whatever its motive might have been, it had had the desired effect of preventing the Doctor from returning to Servia.
In various quarters Rolfe made diligent inquiry, and established without a doubt that Maud Petrovitch had within the past ten days or so been in Belgrade.
A young officer of the King’s guard, a Lieutenant Yankovitch, had seen her in the Zar Duschanowa Uliza. He described her as wearing a white serge gown and a big black hat. She was walking with a short, elderly, grey-haired woman, undoubtedly a foreigner—English or American. He was marching with his company, or would have stopped and spoken to her.
Another person discovered by Drukovitch was a domestic who had once been in the Doctor’s service. She declared that early one morning when going from her home to the house in the Krunska where she was now employed, she met her young mistress Maud with the same elderly woman—a woman rather shabbily-dressed. The pair were passing the Russian Legation, and she stopped and spoke.
The young lady had told her that she was only on a flying visit to Belgrade, and that she was leaving again on the morrow. To the servant’s inquiries regarding the Doctor his daughter was silent, as though she did not wish to mention her father.
According to the servant’s description. Mademoiselle Maud looked very wan and pale, as though she had passed many sleepless nights full of anxiety and dread.
The Prime Minister’s wife had no recollection of telling her husband about meeting the Doctor’s daughter. Somebody else must have mentioned it to the grey-bearded statesman, who, full of the cares of office, had forgotten who it had been.
A third person who had seen Maud, however, was one of the agents of secret police on duty at the railway station. It was this man’s work to watch arriving passengers, and detail agents to watch any suspected to be foreign spies. According to his report, made to the chief of police, Mademoiselle Petrovitch arrived in Belgrade late one night with an elderly Englishwoman and a tall, thin man, probably a German. They hired a cab and drove out to an address near the Botanical Gardens, on the opposite side of the city. Recognising who she was, he did not instruct an agent to follow her. The two ladies returned to the railway station four days later and left again by the Orient express for Budapest.
The officials of the international express, in passing through Servia, are compelled to furnish to the secret police the names and nationalities of all passengers travelling. When the train arrives in Belgrade the commissario is always handed the list, which is filed for reference. Upon the list on that particular day was shown the names of Mademoiselle Maud Pavlovitch, of Belgrade, and Mrs Wood, of London.
The girl had only slightly disguised her name.