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Still all curiosity to hear further details on the ingenious piece of espionage against my own nation, I took off my shoes and crept up to a spot where I could crouch concealed and overhear their conversation, for the Italian night was calm and still. They talked mainly about affairs in Finland, and with some of Oberg's expressions of opinion Polovstoff ventured to differ.
They'd surely ascertain all that before they made the raid, you bet. The affair was a risky one, and Dick Archer is known as a man of many precautions." "But he is on extremely friendly terms with Elma. It was he who succeeded in finding her in Finland, and taking her beyond Oberg's sphere of influence to Petersburg."
"In London, at Claridge's, we met my old schoolfellow Muriel and her father a friend of Oberg's and in response to their invitation went for a cruise on their yacht, the Iris, from Southampton. Our party was a very pleasant one, and included Woodroffe and Chater, while our cruise across the Bay of Biscay and along the Portuguese coast proved most delightful.
"He followed closely behind the Signor Commendatore. Markoff, a clever secret agent of Baron Oberg's, came with him." Then for the first time I recollected that the man I had recognized in the Strand was a fellow I had seen lounging in the ante-room of the palace of the Governor-General of Finland.
"I have heard that the vessel was scuttled somewhere in the Baltic." "That is true. Oberg's purpose having been served, he demanded half the property on board, or he would give notice to the Russian naval authorities that the pirate yacht was afloat. He attempted to blackmail my father, as he had already done so many times, but his scheme was frustrated.
But it was not until the third occasion, when the yacht was at Villefranche, and our squadron being at Toulon I got four days' leave to go along the Riviera, that my suspicions were aroused, for at the very hour when I was dining at the London House at Nice with Muriel and a schoolfellow of hers, Elma Heath who was spending the winter there with a lady who was Baron Oberg's cousin that a great robbery was committed in one of the big hotels up at Cimiez, the wife of an American millionaire losing jewels valued at thirty thousand pounds.
At all hazards, for my love's sake as well as for mine, I saw that I must escape him. The ingeniousness and cleverness of Oberg's spies was proverbial throughout Finland, therefore he might not be alone, or in any case, on arrival in Petersburg would obtain assistance in keeping observation upon me. I knew that the Baron desired my death, and that therefore I could not be too wary of pitfalls.
I asked, after a pause. "They were, of course, well paid, and were kept in ignorance of what the supposed owner and his friends did ashore." "But Oberg's connection with it?" I asked, surprised at those revelations. "Ah!" exclaimed Muriel. "The ingenuity of that crafty villain is fiendish. Before he got into the Czar's favor he owed my father a large sum, and then sought how to evade repayment.
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