Chapter 15
JUST OFF THE STRANDA week had gone by. The Nord Express had brought me posthaste
across Europe from Petersburg to Calais, and I was again in London.
I had left Elma in the care of the Princess Zurloff, whom I knew
would conceal her from the horde of police-agents now in search of
her.
The mystery had so increased until now it had become absolutely
bewildering. The more I had tried to probe it, the more
inexplicable had I found it. My brain was awhirl as I sat in
the wagon-lit rushing across those wide,
never-ending plains that lie between the Russian capital and Berlin
and the green valleys between the Rhine-lands and the sea. The maze
of mystery rendered me utterly incapable of grasping one solid
tangible fact, so closely interwoven was each incident of the
strang
