d and absorbed, and Marie described her mistress as laboring
under an extraordinary excitement.

At last, on the very day the train crossed the Chinese frontier on
the way to Mukden, Marie came to me with a decisive report.

"Sophy has won!" she declared. "I overheard them talking again last
night. Ever since they left Tomsk they have been having a dispute,
Sophy declaring that the Colonel did not love her, because he
suspected her, and he, the stupid creature, swearing that he trusted
her entirely. It appears she had got out of him that he was carrying
a paper of some kind, and so she said that unless he gave her this
paper to keep till they reached Dalny or Port Arthur, she would not
believe in him, nor have anything more to say to him.

"In the end, she was too many for him. Last night he gave her the
paper in a sealed envelope, and I saw her take it from her breast
before she undressed last night."

"Where is it? What has she done with it?" I demanded anxiously.

"I can't tell you that. She had it in her hand when she dismissed me
for the night. It looked to me as though she meant to break the seal
and read it."

Full of the gravest forebodings, I hurried to the rear of the train,
got out my inspector's uniform, though without effecting any change
in my facial appearance, and made my way to the smoking-car.

Colonel Menken, who had just finished breakfast, was settling himself
down to a cigar and an illustrated magazine.

He gazed up at me in astonishment, as he perceived the change in my
costume.

"So the Princess was right!" he exclaimed angrily. "You are another
policeman."

I bowed.

"And charged, like the last, to protect me from my cousin and future
wife!"

"From the person who has robbed you of the Czar's autograph letter to
the Emperor of Japan, yes!"

Menken recoiled, thunderstruck.

"You knew what I was carrying?"

"As well as I know the contents of the telegram which the Princess
sent from Irkutsk to the head of the Manchurian Syndicate--the man
who has sworn that the Czar's letter shall never be delivered."

Colonel Menken staggered to his feet, bewildered, angry, half induced
to threaten, and half to yield.

"You must be lying! Sophy never left my sight while we were at
Irkutsk!"

"We can discuss that later. Will you, or will you not, reclaim his
majesty's letter--the letter entrusted to your honor?"

Menken turned white.

"I--I will approach the Princess," he stammered, obvi