‘As it happened, Nikolai did speak of them when he told me of the two strange women who had come to the Hôtel de Paris, one of whom claimed my acquaintance. But that part of Emilie’s plot misfired. I did not connect the pearls which Mademoiselle Fântóme was wearing with the ones which had been a part of the fabulous collection of my great-grandfather – the Czar. I thought Nikolai was talking nonsense, and so I did not, as Emilie had anticipated, make the enquiries which would have speeded up the hour of her triumph.’
‘It was a strange revenge to choose,’ Mistral said reflectively.
‘But a clever one,’ the Grand Duke replied. ‘She knew, you see, that the one person I really adored was my only son.
She had doubtless heard that Nikolai was very gay and very easily attracted by a pretty woma
