“Favourable,” I replied, whereat she smiled in gratification.
An hour later I succeeded in obtaining a short confidential chat with the hall-porter of the Royal York Hotel, whom I found quite ready to assist me. As I had suspected, Dmitri had failed and formed utterly wrong conclusions, because of his lack of fluent English. It is always extremely difficult for a foreigner to obtain confidential information in England.
The hall-porter, however, told me that their visitor was well-known to them, and had frequently stayed there for several months at a time. He had, he believed, formerly lived with his invalid mother at Eastbourne. But the lady had died, and he had then gone to live in bachelor chambers in London. From the bureau of the hotel he obtained the address, scribbled on a bit of paper—an address in Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, to which letters were sometimes re-directed.
“And he has a friend—a doctor—hasn’t he?” I asked the man.
“Oh, yes, sir. You mean Doctor Ingram. He was down here with him the other day.”
Having obtained all the information I could, I telegraphed to Hartwig at the Savoy Hotel, asking him to make inquiries at Albemarle Street and then to come to Brighton immediately, for I dared not leave until I could place my little madcap charge in safe hands. I knew not into what mischief she might get so soon as my back was turned.
That afternoon we strolled together across the Lawns, and presently sat down to listen to the military band.
She looked extremely neat in her dead-black gown, which, by its cut and material, bore the unmistakable cachet of the Rue de la Paix, and as we passed up and down I saw many a head turned in her direction in admiration of her remarkable beauty. Little did that crowd of seaside idlers dream that this extremely pretty girl in black who was so much of a mystery to everybody was a member of the great Imperial House of Russia. She was believed to be Miss Gottorp, whose father had been German and her mother English, both of whom were recently dead.
Seeing her so often walking with me, everyone, of course, put me down as the lucky man to whom she was engaged to be married, and I have little doubt that many a young man envied me. How strange is the world!
When in a tantalising mood she often referred to that popular belief, and that afternoon, while we rested upon two of the green chairs set apart from the others on the Lawn, she said: