n he had found in the strong box a
sum very much smaller than he had always counted on, and with some
foundation; and before him, with almost complete certainty, appeared
the conclusion that the maid's disappearance was connected with the
theft of his mother's money, and especially of the securities in his
sister's name, and that all this was nothing but the doing of Natasha
and her companion Bodlevski.

"Very good! Perhaps this information will come in handy!" he said to
himself, thinking over his future measures and plans. "Let us see--let
us feel our way--perhaps it is really so! But I must go carefully and
keep on my guard, and the whole thing is in my hands, dear baroness!
We will spin a thread from you before all is over."

XII

THE BARONESS AT HOME

Every Wednesday Baroness von Doering received her intimate friends. She
did not care for rivals, and therefore ladies were not invited to
these evenings. The intimate circle of the baroness consisted of our
Knights of Industry and the "pigeons" of the bureaucracy, the world of
finance, the aristocracy, which were the objects of the knights'
desires.

It often happened, however, that the number of guests at these
intimate evenings went as high as fifty, and sometimes even more.

The baroness was passionately fond of games of chance, and always sat
down to the card table with enthusiasm. But as this was done
conspicuously, in sight of all her guests, the latter could not fail
to note that fortune obstinately turned away from the baroness. She
almost never won on the green cloth; sometimes Kovroff won, sometimes
Kallash, sometimes Karozitch, but with the slight difference that the
last won more seldom and less than the other two.

Thus every Wednesday a considerable sum found its way from the
pocketbook of the baroness into that of one of her colleagues, to find
its way back again the next morning. The purpose of this clever scheme
was that the "pigeons" who visited the luxurious salons of the
baroness, and whose money paid the expenses of these salons, should
not have the smallest grounds for suspicion that the dear baroness's
apartment was nothing but a den of sharpers. Her guests all considered
her charming, to begin with, and also rich and independent and
passionate by nature. This explained her love of play and the
excitement it brought, and which she would not give up, in spite of
her repeated heavy losses.

Her colleagues, the Knights of Industry, a