The Czar's Spy

An adventure and mystery novel published in 1905. Gordon Gregg, an English writer living near Livorno, Italy, is temporarily standing in for the British consul. He receives the owner of a yacht that has run aground, dines on board and finds there the torn photograph of a young Englishwoman, Elma Heath. The next morning, the consulate safe has been opened and the yacht has vanished. His investigation takes him to London, to Scotland and then to Finland, at that time a province of the Russian Empire, where the young woman seems to be in grave danger. A fast-paced story full of false identities, in which an ordinary man tries to save a stranger.