nly a few hours. I'm _en route_ for Petersburg."

"What luck; wish I was. Berlin's all right, of course, but a bit stodgy;
and they're having a jolly lot of rows at Petersburg,--with more to
come. I say, though, what an awful shame about that poor chap Carson.
Have you heard of it?"

"Yes; I'm going to take his place. What do you know about him, anyhow?"

"You are? I didn't know him at all; but I know a fellow who was awfully
thick with him. Met him just now. He's frightfully cut up about it all.
Swears he'll hunt down the murderer sooner or later--"

"Von Eckhardt? Is he here?" I ejaculated.

"Yes. D'you know him? An awfully decent chap,--for a German; though he's
always spouting Shakespeare, and thinks me an ass, I know, because I
tell him I've never read a line of him, not since I left Bradfield,
anyhow. Queer how these German johnnies seem to imagine Shakespeare
belongs to them! You should have heard him just now!

'He was my friend, faithful and just to me,'

--and raving about his heart being in the coffin with Caesar; suppose he
meant Carson. 'Pon my soul I could hardly keep a straight face; but I
daren't laugh. He was in such deadly earnest."

I cut short these irrelevant comments on Von Eckhardt's verbal
peculiarities, with which I was perfectly familiar.

"How long's he here for?"

"Don't know. Rather think, from what he said, that he's chucked up his
post on the _Zeitung_--"

"What on earth for?"

"How should I know? I tell you he's as mad as a hatter."

"Wonder where I'd be likely to find him; not at the _Zeitung_ office, if
he's left. I must see him this afternoon. Do you know where he hangs
out, Medhurst?"

"With his people, I believe; somewhere in Charlotten Strasse or
thereabouts. I met him mooning about in the Tiergarten this morning."

I called a waiter and sent him for a directory. There were scores of Von
Eckhardts in it, and I decided to go to the _Zeitung_ office, and
ascertain his address there.

Medhurst volunteered to walk with me.

"How are the Cayleys?" he asked, as we went along. "Thought that
handsome Miss Pendennis was going to stay with them all the summer. By
Jove, she is a ripper. You were rather gone in that quarter, weren't
you, Wynn?"

I ignored this last remark.

"How did you know Miss Pendennis had left?" I asked, with assumed
carelessness.

"Why? Because I met her at Ostend on Sunday night, to be sure. I
week-ended there, you know. Thought I'd have a