“What can I reply?” he said in a low tone. “Every inquiry I can devise is in progress. All the ports are watched, and observation is kept night and day upon the house in Lower Clapton from a house opposite, which Matthews, of New Scotland Yard, has taken for the purpose. Her Highness has not been there—up to now. Markoff is in Petersburg.”
The great detective—the man whose cleverness in the detection of crime was perhaps unequalled in Europe—drew a long, thoughtful face as he halted with me beneath a street-lamp.
People hurried past us, ignorant of the momentous question we were discussing.
“Where is Drury?” I asked suddenly.
“Ah! That is yet another point,” answered Hartwig. “He, too, is missing—he has disappeared!”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
At Tzarskoie-Selo.
Just before eleven o’clock that night, accompanied by Hartwig, I called at Richard Drury’s cosy artistic flat in Albemarle Street, and in answer to my questions his valet, a tall, thin-faced young man, informed me that his master was not at home.