to report that at
Helsingfors, if you so desire, but I should suggest that you say nothing
unless absolutely obliged--you understand?"

The manner in which Boranski spoke apparently decided my captor, for
after a moment's hesitation he said, saluting:

"If that is really your wish, then I will obey." And he left.

"Excellency!" exclaimed the Chief of Police, rising quickly and walking
towards me as soon as the door was closed, and we were alone, "you have
had a very narrow escape--very. I did my best to assist you. I succeeded
in bribing the water-guards at Kajana in order that you might secure the
lady's release. But it seems that just at the very moment when you were
about to get away one of the guards turned informer and roused the
governor of the castle, with the result that you all three nearly lost
your lives. The whole matter has been reported to me officially, and,"
he added with a grim smile, "my men are now searching everywhere for
you."

"But why is Baron Oberg so extremely anxious to recapture Miss Heath?" I
asked earnestly.

"I have no idea," was his reply. "The secret orders from Helsingfors to
me are to arrest her at all hazards--alive or dead."

"Which means that the Baron would not regret if she was dead," I
remarked, in response to which he nodded in the affirmative.

I told him of the faithful services of Felix, the Finlander, whereupon
he said simply:

"I told you that you might trust him implicitly."

"But now that you have shown yourself my friend," I said, "you will
assist Miss Heath to escape this man, who desires to hold her prisoner
in that awful place. They are driving her mad."

"I will do my best," he answered, but shaking his head dubiously. "But
you must recollect that Baron Oberg is Governor-General of Finland,
with all the powers of the Czar himself."

"And if Elma Heath again falls into his unscrupulous hands, she will
die," I declared.

"Ah!" he sighed, looking me straight in the face, "I fear that what you
say is only too true. She evidently holds some secret which he fears she
will reveal. He wishes to rearrest her in order--well--" he added in a
low tone, "in order to close her lips. It would not be the first time
that persons have been silenced in secret at Kajana. Many fatal
accidents take place in that fortress, you know."

CHAPTER XII

"THE STRANGLER"

Where was Elma? What was the cause of her inexplicable disappearance
into the gloomy forest while we