Twelve weeks had elapsed--cold, weary weeks of constant sledging over
those bleak, snow-bound plains, westward, back to civilisation.
On the twenty-seventh of April--I have, alas! cause to remember the
date--at six o'clock in the evening, I alighted from the train at
Brighton, and Hartwig came eagerly forward to greet me.
I had journeyed incessantly, avoiding Petersburg and coming by Warsaw
and Berlin to the Hook of Holland, and that morning had apprised him of
my arrival in England; but, I fear, as I emerged from the train my
appearance must have been somewhat travel-worn. True, I had bought some
ready-made clothes in Berlin--a new overcoat and a new hat. But I was
horribly conscious that they were ill-fitting, as is every man who wears
a "ready-to-wear garment"--as the tailors call it.
Yes, I was utterly fagged out after that long and fruitless errand, and
a I glanced at Hartwig I detected in an instant that something unusual
had occurred.
"What's the matter?" I asked quickly. "What has happened?"
"Ah! that I unfortunately do not exactly know, Mr Trewinnard," was his
reply in a tone quite unusual to him.
"But what has occurred?"
"Disaster," he answered in a low, hoarse voice. "Her Highness has
mysteriously disappeared!"
"Disappeared!" I gasped, halting and staring at him. "How? With
whom?"
"How can we tell?" he asked, with a gesture of despair.
"Explain," I urged. "Tell me quickly. How did it happen?"
Together we walked slowly out of the station-yard down in the direction
of King's Road, when he said:
"Well, the facts are briefly these. Last Monday--that is five days
ago--Her Highness and Miss West had been over to Eastbourne by train to
see an old schoolfellow of the Grand Duchess's, a certain Miss Finlay--
with whom I have since had an interview. They lunched at Mrs Finlay's
house--one of those new ones on the road to Beachy Head--and left,
together with Miss Finlay, to walk back to the station at half-past
seven o'clock. Her Highness would not drive, but preferred to walk
along the Promenade and up Terminus Road. When close to the station,
Dmitri--who accompanied them--says that Her Highness stopped suddenly
before a fancy needlework shop, while the other two went on. The Grand
Duchess, before entering the shop, motioned to Dmitri to walk along to
the station, for his surveillance, as you know, always irritated her.
Dmitri, therefore, strolled on--and--well, that was the last seen of her
Highness!"
"Impossible!" I gasped.
"I have made every effort to trace her, but without avail," declared
Hartwig in despair. "It appears that she purchased some coloured silks
for embroidery, paid for them, and then went out quite calmly. The girl
who served her recollects her customer being met upon the threshold by a
man who raised his hat in greeting and spoke to her. But she could not
see his face, nor could she, in the dusk, discern whether he were young
or old. The young lady seemed to be pleased to meet him, and, very
curiously, it struck her at the time that that meeting had been
prearranged."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because she says that the young lady, while making her purchase,
glanced anxiously at her gold wristlet-watch once or twice."
"She had a train to catch, remember."
"Yes. I put that point before the girl, but she remains unshaken in her
conviction that Her Highness met the man there by appointment. In any
case," he added, "we have been unable to discover any trace of her
since."