"I will serve your Excellency in any way he may command." His words suggested a brilliant idea.

I had this man in my power; he feared me.
"Well," I said after some reluctance, "there is a little matter in which you might be of some assistance.

If you will, I will reconsider my decision of complaining to Petersburg." "And what is that, Excellency ?" he gasped eagerly.
"I desire to know the whereabouts of a young English lady named Elma Heath," I said, and I wrote down the name for him upon a piece of paper.
"Age about twenty, and was at school at Chichester, in England.

She is a niece of a certain Baron Oberg." "Baron Oberg!" he repeated, looking at me rather strangely, I thought.
"Yes, as she is a foreigner she will be registered in your books.

She is somewhere in your province, but where I do not know.