ent was precious. "I just saw a hat and some dark
hair--"

"Dark, eh? Should you know her again?"

"I guess not. I tell you I didn't really see her face."

"How could she know you were an American?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Perhaps she can't speak any language but English."

"What is this?" He held up the handkerchief, and sniffed at it. It was
faintly perfumed. How well I knew that perfume, sweet and elusive as
the scent of flowers on a rainy day.

"A handkerchief. It fell at my feet, and I picked it up before I started
to run."

"It is marked 'A. P.' Do you know any one with those initials?"

Those beady eyes of his were fixed on my face, watching my every
expression, and I knew that his questions were dictated by some definite
purpose.

"Give me time," I said, affecting to rack my brains in an effort of
recollection. "I don't think,--why, yes--there was Abigail Parkinson,
Job Parkinson's wife,--a most respectable old lady I knew in the
States,--the United States of America, you know."

His eyes glinted ominously, and he brought his fat, bejewelled hand down
on the table with a bang.

"You are trifling with me!"

"I'm not!" I assured him, with an excellent assumption of injured
innocence. "You asked me if I knew any one with those initials, and I'm
telling you."

"I am not asking you about old women on the other side of the world!
Think again! Might not the initials stand for--Anna Petrovna, for
instance?"

So he had guessed, after all, who she was!

"Anna what? Oh--Petrovna. Why, yes, of course they stand for that, but
it's a Russian name, isn't it? And this lady was English, or American!"

He was silent for a minute, fingering the handkerchief, which I longed
to snatch from the contamination of his touch.

"A mistake has been made, as I now perceive, Monsieur," he said
smoothly, at last. "I think your release might be accomplished without
much difficulty."

He paused and looked hard at my pocket-book.

"I guess if you'll hand me that note case it can be accomplished right
now," I suggested cheerfully. I don't believe there's a Russian official
living, high or low, who is above accepting a bribe, or extorting
blackmail; and this one proved no exception to the rule.

I passed him a note worth about eight dollars, and he grasped and shook
my hand effusively as he took it.

"Now we are friends, _hein_?" he exclaimed. "Accept my felicitations at
the so happy conclusion of our interview. Y