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Updated: June 25, 2025
"He obtained admission by a clever ruse," the Baron explained to the police agent. "And then he threatened me." "It's untrue," I protested hotly. "I have merely called to see you regarding the young English lady, Elma Heath the unfortunate lady whom you consigned to the fortress of Kajana." "The mad woman, you mean!" he laughed. "She is not mad," I cried, "but as sane as you yourself.
Although I had paper, I possessed no pencil with which to write, therefore I could only communicate by signs with the mysterious prisoner of Kajana, the beautiful dark-eyed girl who held me irrevocably beneath the spell of her beauty. All the little acts of homage I was able to perform she accepted with a quiet, calm dignity, while in her deep luminous eyes I read an unfathomable mystery.
"Your names?" demanded one of the fellows, glancing at us as we stood together in expectation. Our host told them his name, and asked why they wished to enter. "We are searching for a woman who has escaped from Kajana," was the reply. "Have you seen any woman here?" "No," responded the wood-cutter. "We never see any woman out in these woods."
I succeeded in bribing the water-guards at Kajana in order that you might secure the lady's release. But it seems that just at the very moment when you were about to get away one of the guards turned informer and roused the governor of the castle, with the result that you all three nearly lost your lives.
"We should both be arrested at the frontier. It would be best to go into hiding here in Petersburg. I believed Woodroffe to be my friend, but I have found only this day that he is my enemy. He knew that I was in Kajana, and was in Abo when he learned of my escape. He went with two other men in search of us, and discovered us that night when we sought shelter at the wood-cutter's hut.
It would not be the first time that persons have been silenced in secret at Kajana. Many fatal accidents take place in that fortress, you know." Where was Elma? What was the cause of her inexplicable disappearance into the gloomy forest while we had slept? I returned to the hotel where I had stayed on my arrival, a comfortable place called the Phoenix, and lunched there alone.
Then next day, while walking alone out beyond the town of Helsingfors, as I often used to do, I was arrested upon the false charge of an attempt upon the life of Madame Vakuroff and transported, without trial, to the terrible fortress of Kajana, some of the horrors of which you have yourself experienced.
If I do not return, your Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Petersburg will be pressed for a reason." "Which they will not give." "Then if they do not, the truth will be out," I said laughing harshly, for I saw how determined he had become to hold me prisoner. "Come, call up your myrmidon and send me to Kajana. It will be the first step towards your own downfall." "We shall see," he growled.
Has the lady been arrested?" "No, your Excellency. Every effort is being made to find her. Colonel Smirnoff has already been relieved of his post as Governor of Kajana, and many of the guards are under arrest for complicity in the plot to allow the woman to escape." "Ah, yes. I see from the despatches that a reward is offered for her recapture."
"The affair of the English lady is a most extraordinary one," remarked the Chief of Police, toying with his pen as he sat at his big table. "She seems to have met this Englishman up at Tammerfors, or at some place further north, yet it is curious that her passport should be in order even though she fled so precipitately from Kajana.
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