He resolved to go in search of them. It was a difficult and dangerous undertaking. It meant beginning a search in a vast place, utterly strange to him, to which he had no clew; it meant avoiding any he might meet, deceiving those who noticed him by simulated intoxication--a drunken man, not knowing whither he was going; it meant the risk of being kicked out from intrusive disturbance of flirting couples. And even if at length he find the spot whither the conspirators had retired, it is only too probable that some watch would be kept to warn them of the approach of a suspected person. This watchman he must murder, his pistol at his breast; for where a guard is necessary, a conspiracy lurks behind the portal. Then to force his way in. If the doors be closed, suspicion is well founded. Then is the palace doomed; if need be, razed to the last stone. If the doors stand open, then to enter with the words, "In the name of the Czar, you are my prisoners!" Possible that they may overpower him, but far more likely that they will not. A detected conspiracy is demoralizing; to say, "If I do not return to Araktseieff by to-morrow morning, all who are here to-night will fall into the hands of justice," will be to lame them and bring them to his feet. Moreover, it is his profession. One man dies in one way, one in another. The soldier knows the enemy will fire upon him, yet he goes forward; the sailor knows the sea is treacherous, yet he trusts himself to it. One man bows his head to the executioner's axe, another bares his breast to the dagger. In both it is heroism. And suppose he should find the missing guests round the board of green cloth, instead of round "the green book," staking their money at the prohibited roulette-table? _Eh bien!_ then he would join them, and say nothing to Araktseieff. It would not be a gentleman-like thing to tell upon them. In his search he had, in a measure, an Ariadne clew, like that strewn sand which, according to the fable, served to guide the lost child out of the wood. Zeneida had returned from the opera in her costume as Semiramide, her wealth of reddish golden hair interwoven with real pearls. When Chevalier Galban, on her triumphal return to the palace, had assisted the _diva_ to remove the bashlik from her head, he had, unseen and purposely, severed one of the strings of pearls in her hair. For a time the thick masses of hair might hold them together, but it was unlikely that in moving hither and thither one should not occasionally fall to the ground. He had already picked up one in the palm-grove; she had, therefore, passed through there. The second he found in a corridor; a third betrayed to him the threshold of the apartments into which she had disappeared. Where she is, there must the others be. CHAPTER IX THE BOARD OF GREEN CLOTH AND THE GREEN BOOK