Although it was obvious that His Majesty was both puzzled and annoyed by his absence, no official explanation of it has been given, and all information on the subject is rigidly withheld.

Our own comes from a personal friend, and, as far as it goes, may be absolutely relied upon." For some reason or other, which, after his recent experiences, he thought it would be as well not to try and fathom for the present, these few paragraphs made a strangely persistent impression on him.

When he got home he gave his evening papers as usual to his daughter, and at dinner the Zastrow mystery was the chief, in fact almost the only, topic of conversation.
"Yes, it certainly is very extraordinary," said Nitocris.

"The papers make mysteries enough out of the disappearance, of the most everyday, insignificant persons, who were probably only running away from their debts or their domestic troubles, but for a real Prince to utterly vanish like this--that certainly looks like a little more than an ordinary mystery.

And I suppose," she went on, after a little interval of silence, "if there really has been foul play--I mean, granted that Prince Charming, as all the Society papers got to call him, has been spirited away for some hidden reason of State or politics and is never intended to see the light of day again, who knows how many secrets may be connected with this affair which might be like matches in a powder magazine?
And--Oh yes--why, Dad, it was this same Prince Zastrow who has been mentioned by most of the best European papers as the only possible Elective Tsar of Russia if the Romanoffs are driven out by the Revolution, and the people go back to the old Constitution.