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."

The police-officer strode into the inner room, glanced around to make
certain that no one was concealed there, and then returning to me asked,
"Who are you?"

"That is my own affair," I answered.

The mystery of Elma's disappearance while we had slept annoyed me. She
seemed to have fled from me in secret. Yet could she have received some
warning that the police were in search of her? She was deaf, therefore
she could not have been alarmed by the banging on the door.

"Your identity is my affair," declared the man with the fair, bristly
beard, an average type of the uncouth officer of police.

"Who is your chief?" I inquired, as a sudden thought occurred to me.

"Melnikoff, at Helsingfors."

"Then this is not in the district of Abo?"

"No. But what difference does it make? Who are you?"

"Gordon Gregg, British subject," I replied.

"And you are the drosky-driver from Abo," remarked the fellow, turning
to Felix. "Exactly as I thought. You are the pair who bribed the nun at
Kajana, and succeeded in releasing the Englishwoman. In the name of the
Czar, I arrest you!"

The old wood-cutter turned pale as death. We certainly were in grave
peril, for I foresaw the danger of falling into the hands of Baron
Oberg, the Strangler of Finland. Yet we had a satisfaction in knowing
that, be the mystery what it might, Elma had escaped.

"And on what charge, pray, do you presume to arrest me?" I inquired as
coolly as I could.

"For aiding a prisoner to escape."

"Then I wish to say, first, that you have no power to arrest me; and,
secondly, that if you wish me to give you satisfaction, I am perfectly
willing to do so, providing you first accompany me down to Abo."

"It is outside my district," growled the fellow, but I saw that his
hesitancy was due to his uncertainty as to whom I really might be.

"I desire you to take me to the Chief of Police Boranski, who will make
all the explanation necessary. Until we have an interview with him, I
refuse to give any information concerning myself," I said.

"But you have a passport?"

I drew it from my pocket, saying--

"It proves