Chapter 12
"THE STRANGLER"Where was Elma? What was the cause of her inexplicable
disappearance into the gloomy forest while we had slept?
I returned to the hotel where I had stayed on my arrival, a
comfortable place called the Phoenix, and lunched there alone. Both
Felix, the Finn, and my host, the wood-cutter, had received
their douceurs and left, but to the last-named I
had given instructions to return home at once and report by
telegraph any news of my lost one.
A thousand conflicting thoughts arose within me as I sat in that
crowded salle-à-manger filled with a gobbling
crowd of the commercial men of Abo. I had, I recognized, now to
deal with the most powerful man in that country, and I suffered a
distinct disadvantage by being in ignorance of the reason he held
that swee
