of
their happy vacation and nothing seemed able to disquiet them under
their fat. Gounsovski has done everybody so many services that no one
really wishes him ill, poor man. Besides, have you noticed, my dear old
friends, that no one ever tries to work harm to chiefs of Secret
Police? One goes after heads of police, prefects of police, ministers,
grand-dukes, and even higher, but the chiefs of Secret Police are never,
never attacked. They can promenade tranquilly in the streets or in the
gardens of Krestowsky or breathe the pure air of the Finland country or
even the country around Paris. They have done so many little favors for
this one and that, here and there, that no one wishes to do them the
least injury. Each person always thinks, too, that others have been less
well served than he. That is the secret of the thing, my friends, that
is the secret. What do you say?"

The others said: "Ah, ah, the good Gounsovski. He knows. He knows.
Certainly, accept his supper. With Annouchka it will be fun."

"Messieurs," asked Rouletabille, who continued to make discoveries in
the audience, "do you know that officer who is seated at the end of a
row down there in the orchestra seats? See, he is getting up."

"He? Why, that is Prince Galitch, who was one of the richest lords of
the North Country. Now he is practically ruined."

"Thanks, gentlemen; certainly it is he. I know him," said Rouletabille,
seating himself and mastering his emotion.

"They say he is a great admirer of Annouchka," hazarded Thaddeus. Then
he walked away from the box.

"The prince has been ruined by women," said Athanase Georgevitch, who
pretended to know the entire chronicle of gallantries in the empire.

"He also has been on good terms with Gounsovski," continued Thaddeus.

"He passes at court, though, for an unreliable. He once made a long
visit to Tolstoi."

"Bah! Gounsovski must have rendered some signal service to that
imprudent prince," concluded Athanase. "But for yourself, Thaddeus, you
haven't said what you did with Gounsovski at Bakou."

(Rouletabille did not lose a word of what was being said around him,
although he never lost sight of the profile hidden in the black mantle
nor of Prince Galitch, his personal enemy,* who reappeared, it seemed
to him, at a very critical moment.)

* as told in "The Lady In Black."

"I was returning from Balakani in a drojki," said Thaddeus
Tchitchnikoff, "and I was drawing near Bakou after having