suspicions were aroused; but his superstition united with his canniness
played the Count s game for him, and he ran with his favouring wind
through fogs and all till he brought up blindfold at Galatz. That the
Count s arrangements were well made, has been proved. Hildesheim cleared
the box, took it off, and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took it--and here
we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water,
moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been
avoided.
Now we come to what the Count must have done after his arrival--_on
land_, at Galatz.
The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could
appear in his own form. Here, we ask why Skinsky was chosen at all to
aid in the work? In my husband s diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing
with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port; and the man s
remark, that the murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general
feeling against his class. The Count wanted isolation.
My surmise is, this: that in London the Count decided to get back to his
castle by water, as the most safe and secret way. He was brought from
the castle by Szgany, and probably they delivered their cargo to Slovaks
who took the boxes to Varna, for there they were shipped for London.
Thus the Count had knowledge of the persons who could arrange this
service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he
came out from his box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to
arranging the carriage of the box up some river. When this was done, and
he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he thought,
by murdering his agent.
I have examined the map and find that the river most suitable for the
Slovaks to have ascended is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in
the typescript that in my trance I heard cows low and water swirling
level with my ears and the creaking of wood. The Count in his box, then,
was on a river in an open boat--propelled probably either by oars or
poles, for the banks are near and it is working against stream. There
would be no such sound if floating down stream.
Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but we may
possibly investigate further. Now of these two, the Pruth is the more
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