I sat up on the floor of the car, wondering what on earth could have happened. The other passengers were shrieking and cursing, panic-stricken, though I guess they were more frightened than hurt, for the car had at least kept the rails. I don’t recollect how I managed to reach the door, but I found myself outside peering through the semi-darkness at an appalling sight.
The whole of the front part of the train was a wreck; the engine lay on its side, belching fire and smoke, and the cars immediately behind it were a heap of wreckage, from which horrible sounds came, screams of mortal fear and pain. Even as I stood, staring, dazed like a drunken man, a flame shot up amid the piled-up mass of splintered wood. The wreckage was already afire, and as I saw that, I dashed forward. Others were as ready as I, and in half a minute we were frantically hauling at the wreckage, and endeavoring to extricate the poor wretches who were writhing and shrieking under it, before the fire should reach them.
A big man worked silently beside me, and together we got out several of the victims, till the flames drove us back, and we stood together, a little away from the scene, breathing hard, and incapable for the moment of any fresh exertion.
I looked at him then for the first time, though I had known all along that he was my courtly friend of the previous morning. His stern face, seen in the sinister light of the blazing wreckage, was ghastly; it was smeared with the blood that oozed from a wound across his forehead, and his blue eyes were aflame with horror and indignation.
He was evidently quite unaware of my presence, and I heard him mutter: “It was meant for me! My God! it was meant for me! And I have survived, while these suffer.”
I do not know what instinct prompted me to look behind at that moment, just in time to see that a man had stolen out from among the pines in our rear, and was in the act of springing on my companion.
“Gardez!” I cried warningly, as I saw the glint of an upraised knife, and flung myself on the fellow. As if my shout had been a signal, more men swarmed out of the forest and surrounded us.
What followed was confused and unreal as a nightmare. My antagonist was a wiry fellow, strong and active as a wild cat; also he had his knife, while I, of course, was unarmed. He got in a nasty slash with his weapon before I could seize and hold his wrist with my left hand. We wrestled in grim silence, till at last I had him down, with my knee on his chest. I shifted my hand from his wrist to his throat and choked the fight out of him, anyhow; then felt for the knife, but he must have flung it from him, and I had no time to search for it among the brushwood.
I sprang up and looked for my companion. He had his back to a tree and was hitting out right and left at the ruffians round him,—like hounds about a stag at bay.
“A moi!” I yelled to those by the train, who were still ignorant of what was happening so close at hand, and rushed to his assistance. I hurled aside one man, who staggered and fell; dashed my fist in the face of a second; he went down too, but at the same moment I reeled under a crashing blow, and fell down—down—into utter darkness.
I woke with a splitting headache to find myself lying in a berth in a sleeping car; the same car in which I had been travelling when the accident—or outrage—occurred; for the windows were smashed and some of the woodwork splintered.
I guessed that there were a good many of the injured on board, for above the rumble of the train, which was jogging along at a steady pace, I could hear the groans of the sufferers.
I put my hand up to my head, and found it swathed in wet bandages, warm to the touch, for the heat in the car was stifling.
A man shuffled along, and seeing that I was awake, went away, returning immediately with a glass of iced tea, which I drank with avidity. I noticed that both his hands were bandaged, and he carried his left arm in a sling.
“What more can I get the barin, now he is recovering?” he asked, in Russian, with sulky deference.
“Where are we going,—to Petersburg?” I asked.
“No. Back to Dunaburg; it will be many hours before the line is restored.”
I was not surprised to hear this, knowing of old the leisurely way in which Russians set about such work.
“My master has left me to look after your excellency,” he continued, in the same curious manner, respectful almost to servility but sullen withal. “What are your orders?”
I guessed now that he belonged to my tall friend.
“I want nothing at present. Who is your master?”
He looked at me suspiciously out of the corners of his eyes.
“Your excellency knows very well; but if not it isn’t my business to say.”
I did not choose to press the point. I could doubtless get the information I wanted elsewhere.
“You are a discreet fellow,” I said with a knowing smile, intended to impress him with the idea that I had been merely testing him by the question. “Well, at least you can tell me if he is hurt?”
“No, praise to God, and to your excellency!” he exclaimed, with more animation than he had yet shown. “It would have gone hard with him if he had been alone! I was searching for him among the wreckage, fool that I was, till I heard your excellency shout; and then I ran—we all ran—and those miscreants fled, all who could. We got five and—” he grinned ferociously—“well, they will do no more harm in this world! But it is not well for the barin to talk much yet; also it is not wise.”
He glanced round cautiously and then leaned over me, and said with his lips close to my ear:
“Your excellency is to remember that you were hurt in the explosion; nothing happened after that. My master bade me warn you! And now I will summon the doctor,” he announced aloud.
A minute later a good-looking, well-dressed man bustled along to my side and addressed me in French.
“Ah, this is better. Simple concussion, that is all; and you will be all right in a day or two, if you will keep quiet. I wish I could say that of all my patients! The good Mishka has been keeping the bandages wet? Yes; he is a faithful fellow, that Mishka; but you will find him surly, hein? That is because Count Solovieff left him behind in attendance on you.”
So that was the name,—Count Solovieff. Where had I heard it before? I remembered instantly.
“You mean the Grand Duke Loris?” I asked deliberately.
His dark eyes twinkled through their glasses.
“Eh bien, it is the same thing. He is travelling incognito, you understand, though he can scarcely expect to pass unrecognized, hein? He is a very headstrong young man, Count Solovieff, and he has some miraculous escapes! But he is brave as a lion; he will never acknowledge that there is danger. Now you will sleep again till we reach Dunaburg. Mishka will be near you if you need him.”
I closed my eyes, though not to sleep. So this superb young soldier, who had interested and attracted me so strangely, was the man whom Anne loved! Well, he was a man to win any woman’s heart; I had to acknowledge that. I could not even feel jealous of him now. Von Eckhardt was right. I must still love her, as one infinitely beyond my reach; as the page loved the queen.
“Is she wronged? To the rescue of her honour
My heart!
Is she poor? What costs it to be styled a donor
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!”
Yes, I must for the future “choose the page’s part,” and, if she should ever have need of me, I would serve her, and take that for my reward!
I fell asleep on that thought, and only woke—feeling fairly fit, despite the dull ache in my head and the throbbing of the flesh wound in my shoulder—when we reached Dunaburg, and the cars were shunted to a siding.
Mishka turned up again, and insisted on valeting me after a fashion, though I told him I could manage perfectly well by myself. I had come out of the affair better than most of the passengers, for my baggage had been in the rear part of the train, and by the time I got to the hotel, close to the station, was already deposited in the rooms that, I found, had been secured for me in advance.
I had just finished the light meal which was all Dr. Nabokof would allow me, when Mishka announced “Count Solovieff,” and the Grand Duke Loris entered.
“Please don’t rise, Mr. Wynn,” he said in English. “I have come to thank you for your timely aid. You are better? That is good. You got a nasty knock on the head just at the end of the fun, which was much too bad! It was a jolly good fight, wasn’t it?”
He laughed like a schoolboy at the recollection; his blue eyes shining with sheer glee, devoid of any trace of the ferocity that usually marks a Russian’s mirth.
“That’s so,” I conceded. “And fairly long odds; two unarmed men against a crowd with knives and bludgeons. Why don’t you carry a revolver, sir?”
“I do, as a rule. Why don’t you?”
“Because I guess it would have been confiscated at the frontier. I’m a civilian, and—I’ve been in Russia before! But if you’d had a six-shooter—”
“There would have been no fight; they would have run the sooner,—all the better for some of them,” he answered, and as he spoke the mirth passed from his face, leaving it stern and sad. “I ought to have had a revolver, of course, but I was pitched out of bed without any warning, as I presume you were. By the way, Mr. Wynn, in the official report no mention is made of our—how do you call it?”
“Scrimmage?” I suggested.
“Ah, that is the word. Our scrimmage. Your name is in the list of those wounded by the explosion of the bomb. It was a bomb, as perhaps you have learned. Believe me, as you are going to Petersburg, and expect to remain there for some time, you will be the safer if no one—beyond myself and the few others on the spot, most of whom can be trusted—knows that you saved my life. Ah, yes, indeed you did that!” he added quickly, as I made a dissentient gesture. “I could not have kept them off another minute. Besides, you saw them first, and warned me; otherwise we should both have been done for at once.”
“Do you know who they were?” I asked.
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“I have my suspicions, and I do not wish others to be involved in my affairs, to suffer through me. Yet it is the others who suffer,” he continued, speaking, as it seemed, more to himself than to me. “For I come through unscathed every time, while they—”
He broke off and sat for a minute or more frowning, and biting his mustache.
A sudden thought struck me. I rose and crossed to the French window which stood open. Outside was a small balcony, gay with red and white flowers. I nipped off a single blossom, closed the window, and returned to where he sat, watching my movements intently.
“I, too, have my suspicions, sir,” I said significantly. “I wonder if they coincide with yours.”
I laid the flower on the table beside him, flattening out the five scarlet petals, and resumed my seat.
I saw instantly that he recognized the symbol, and knew what it meant, doubtless better than I did.
He glanced from it to me, then round the room, crossed to the door, opened it quickly, saw Mishka was standing outside, on guard, and closed it again.
“Now, who are you and what do you know?” he asked quietly. “Speak low; the very walls have ears.”
“I know very little, but I surmise—”
“It is safer to surmise nothing, Mr. Wynn. I only ask what you know!”
“Well, I know that some member of the League, the organization, that this represents,” I pointed to the flower, “murdered an Englishman.”
“Mr. Carson, a journalist. You knew him?” he exclaimed.
“Yes, and I am going to Petersburg as his successor.”
“Then you have great need to act with more caution than—pardon me—you have manifested so far,” he rejoined. “Well, what more?”
“One of the heads of the League, a man named Selinski, who called himself Cassavetti, was murdered in London a week ago.”
That startled him, I saw, though he controlled himself almost instantly.
“Are you sure of that?”
“I found him,” I answered, and thereupon gave him the bare facts.
“And the English police, they have the matter in hand? Whom do they suspect?” he demanded.
“I cannot tell you, though they say they have a clue.”
He paced to the window and stood there for a minute or more with his back towards me. Then he returned and looked down at me.
“I wonder why you have told me this, Mr. Wynn,” he said slowly. “And how you came to connect me with these affairs.”
“I was told that your Highness was also in danger, and I wished to warn you.”
“I thank you. Who was your informant?”
“I am not at liberty to say. But—there is another who is also in danger.”
I paused. My throat felt dry and husky all at once; my heart was thumping against my ribs. I had told myself that I was not jealous of him, but—it was hard to speak of her to him!
He misconstrued my hesitation.
“You may trust me, Mr. Wynn,” he said gravely. “This person, do I know him?”
I stood up, resting my hand on the table for support.
“It is not a man. It is the lady whom some speak of as La Mort,—others as La Vie.”
A dusky flush rose to his face, and his blue eyes flashed ominously. I noticed that a little vein swelled and pulsed in his temple, close by the strip of flesh-colored plaster that covered the wound on his forehead.
But, although he appeared almost equally angry and surprised, he held himself well in hand.
“Truly you seem in possession of much information, Mr. Wynn,” he said slowly. “I must ask you to explain yourself. Do you know this lady?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know she is in danger?”
“Chiefly from my own observation.”
“You know her so well?” he asked incredulously. “Where have you met her?”
“In London.”
The angry gleam vanished from his eyes, and he stood frowning in perplexed thought, resting one of his fine, muscular white hands on the back of a tawdry gilt chair.
“Strange,” he muttered beneath his mustache. “She said nothing. By what name did you know her—other than those pseudonyms you have mentioned?”
“Miss Anne Pendennis.”
“Ah!”
I thought his face cleared.
“And what is this danger that threatens her?”
“I think you may know that better than I do,” I retorted, with a glance at the flower—the red symbol—that made a vivid blot of color like a splash of blood on the white table-cloth.
“That is true; although you appear to know so much. Therefore, why have you spoken of her at all?”
Again I got that queer feeling in my throat.
“Because you love her!” I said bluntly. “And I love her, too. I want you to know that; though I am no more to her than—than the man who waits on her at dinner, or who opens a cab door for her and gets a smile and a coin for his service!”
It was a childish outburst, perhaps, but it moved Loris Solovieff to a queer response.
“I understand,” he said softly in French.
He spoke English admirably, but in emotional moments he lapsed into the language that is more familiar than their mother-tongue to all Russians of his rank.
“It is so with us all. She loves Russia,—our poor Russia, agonizing in the throes of a new birth; while we—we love her, the woman. She will play with us, use us, fool us, even betray us, if by so doing she can serve her country; and we—accept the situation—are content to serve her, to die for her. Is that not so, Monsieur?”
“That is so,” I said, marvelling at the way in which he had epitomized my own ideas, which, it seemed, were his also. Yet Von Eckhardt had asserted that she—Anne Pendennis—loved this man; and it was difficult to think of any woman resisting him.
“Then we are comrades?” he cried, extending his hand, which I gripped cordially. “Though we were half inclined to be jealous of each other, eh? But that is useless! One might as well be jealous of the sea. And we can both serve her, if she will permit so much. For the present she is in a place of comparative safety. I shall not tell you where it is, but at least it is many leagues from Russia; and she has promised to remain there,—but who knows? If the whim seizes her, or if she imagines her presence is needed here, she will return.”
“Yes, I guess she will,” I conceded. (How well he understood her.)
“She is utterly without fear, utterly reckless of danger,” he continued. “If she should be lured back to Russia, as her enemies on both sides will endeavor to lure her, she will be in deadly peril, from which even those who would give their lives for her may not be able to save her.”
“At least you can tell me if her father has joined her?” I asked.
“Her father? No, I cannot tell you that; simply because I do not know. But, as I have said, so long as she remains in the retreat that has been found for her she will be safe. As for this—” he took up the blossom and rubbed it to a morsel of pulp, between his thumb and finger, “you will be wise to conceal your knowledge of it, Mr. Wynn; that is, if you value your life. And now I must leave you. We shall meet again ere long, I trust. I am summoned to Peterhof; and I may be there for some time. If you wish to communicate with me—”
He broke off, and remained silent, in frowning thought, for a few seconds.
“I will ask you this,” he resumed. “If you should have any news of—her—you will send me word, at once, and in secret? Not openly; I am surrounded by spies, as we all are here! Mishka shall remain here, and accompany you to Petersburg. He will show you where and how you can leave a message that will reach me speedily and infallibly. For the present good-bye—and a swift recovery!”
He saluted me, and clanked out of the room. I heard him speaking to Mishka, who had remained on guard outside the door. A minute or two later there was a bustle in the courtyard below, whence, for some time past, had sounded the monotonous clank of a stationary motor car.
I went to the window, walking rather unsteadily, for I felt sick and dizzy after this strange and somewhat exciting interview. Two magnificent cars were in waiting, surrounded by a little crowd of officers in uniform and soldiers on guard. After a brief interval the Grand Duke came out of the hotel and entered the first car, followed by the stout rubicund officer I had seen in attendance on him at Wirballen. A merry little man he seemed, and as he settled himself in his seat he said something which drew a laugh from the Duke. Looking down at his handsome debonnaire face, it was difficult to believe that he was anything more than a light-hearted young aristocrat, with never a care in the world. And yet I guessed then—I know now—that he was merely bluffing an antagonist in a game that he was playing for grim stakes,—nothing less than life and liberty!
Three days later I arrived, at last, in Petersburg, to find letters from England awaiting me,—one from my cousin Mary, to whom I had already written, merely telling her that I missed Anne at Berlin, and asking if she had news of her. There could be no harm in that. Anne had played her part so well that, though Jim had evidently suspected her,—I wondered now how he came to do so, though I’d have to wait a while before I could hope to ask him,—Mary, I was certain, had not the least idea that her stay with them was an episode in a kind of game of hide and seek. To her the visit was but the fulfilment of the promise made when they were school-girls together. And I guessed that Anne would keep up the deception, which was forced upon her in a way, and that she would write to Mary. She would lie to her, directly or indirectly; that was almost inevitable. But she would write, just because she loved Mary, and therefore would not willingly cause her anxiety. I was sure of that in my own mind; and I hungered for news of her; even second-hand news. But she had not written!
“I am so anxious about Anne,” my cousin’s letter ran. “We’ve had no word from her since that post-card from Calais, and I can’t think why! She has no clothes with her, to speak of, for she only took her dressing-bag; and I don’t like to send her things on till I hear from her; besides, I hoped she would come back to us soon! Did you see her at Berlin?”
I put the letter aside; I could not answer it at present. Mary would receive mine from Dunaburg, and would forward me any news that might have reached her in the interval.
And meanwhile I had little to distract my mind. Things were very quiet, stagnant in fact, in Petersburg during those hot days of early summer; even the fashionable cafés in the Nevski Prospekt were practically deserted, doubtless because the heat, that had set in earlier than usual, had driven away such of their gay frequenters as were not detained in the city on duty.
I slept ill during those hot nights, and was usually abroad early. One lovely June morning my matutinal stroll led me,—aimlessly I thought, though who knows what subtle influences may direct our most seemingly purposeless actions, and thereby shape our destiny—along the Ismailskaia Prospekt,—which, nearly a year back, had been the scene of the assassination of De Plehve, the man who for two years had controlled Petersburg with an iron hand.
There were comparatively few people abroad, and they were work-people on their way to business, and vendors setting out their wares on the stalls that line the wide street on either side.
Suddenly a droshky dashed past, at a pace that appeared even swifter than the breakneck rate at which the Russian droshky driver loves to urge his horses along. It was evidently a private one, drawn by three horses abreast, and I glanced at it idly, as it clattered along with the noise of a fire-engine. Just as it was passing me one of the horses slipped on the cobblestones, and came down with a crash.
There was the usual moment of confusion, as the driver objurgated vociferously, after the manner of his class, and a man jumped out of the vehicle and ran to the horse’s head.
I stood still to watch the little incident; there was no need for my assistance, for the clever little beast had already regained his footing.
Then a startling thing occurred.
A woman’s voice rang out in an agonized cry, in which fear and joy were strangely blended.
“Maurice! Maurice Wynn! Help! Save me!”
On the instant the man sprang back into the droshky, and it was off again on its mad career; but in that instant I had caught a glimpse of a white face, the gleam of bright hair; and knew that it was Anne—Anne herself—who had been so near me, and was now being whirled away.
Something white fluttered on the cobblestones at my feet. I stooped and picked it up. Only a handkerchief, a tiny square of embroidered cambric, crumpled and soiled,—her handkerchief, with her initials “A. P.” in the corner!
With the handkerchief in my hand, I started running wildly after the fast disappearing droshky, only to fall plump into the arms of a surly gendarme, a Muscovite giant, who collared me with one hand, while he drew his revolver with the other, and brandished it as if he was minded to bash my face in with the butt end, a playful little habit much in vogue with the Russian police.
“Let me go. I’m all right; I’m an American,” I cried indignantly. “I must follow that droshky!”
It was out of sight by this time, and he grunted contemptuously. But he put up his weapon, and contented himself with hauling me off to the nearest bureau, where, in spite of my protestations, I was searched from head to foot roughly enough, and all the contents of my pockets annexed, as well as the handkerchief. Then I was unceremoniously thrust into a filthy cell, and left there, in a state of rage and humiliation that can be better imagined than described. I seemed to have been there for half a lifetime, though I found afterwards it was only about two hours, when I was fetched out, and brought before the chief of the bureau,—a pompous and truculent individual, with shifty bead-like eyes.
My belongings lay on the desk before him,—with the exception of my loose cash, which I never saw again.
He began to question me arrogantly, but modified his tone when I asserted that I was an American citizen, resident in Petersburg as representative of an English newspaper; and reminded him that, if he dared to detain me, he would have to reckon with both the American and English authorities.
“That is all very well; but you have yet to explain how you came to be breaking the law,” he retorted.
“What law have I broken?” I demanded.
“You were running away.”
“I was not. I was running after a droshky.”
“Why?”
“Because there was a woman in it—a lady—an Englishwoman or American, who called out to me to help her.”
“Who was the woman?”
“How should I know?” I asked blandly. I remembered what Von Eckhardt had told me,—that the police had been on Anne’s track for these three years past. If the peril in which she was now placed was from the revolutionists, as it must be, I could not help her by betraying her to the police.
“You say she was English or American? Why do you say so?”
“Because she called out in English: ‘Help! Save me!’ I heard the words distinctly, and started to run after the droshky. Wouldn’t you have done the same in my place? I guess you’re just the sort of man who’d be first to help beauty in distress!”
This was sarcasm and sheer insolence. I couldn’t help it, he looked such a brutal little beast! But he took it as a compliment, and actually bowed and smirked, twirling his mustache and leering at me like a satyr.
“You have read me aright, Monsieur,” he said quite amiably. “So this lady was beautiful?”
“Well, I can’t say. I didn’t really see her; the droshky drove off the very instant she called out. One of the horses had been down, and I was standing to look at it,” I explained, responding diplomatically to his more friendly mood. I wanted to get clear as soon as possible, for I knew that every moment was precious. “I just saw a hat and some dark hair—”
“Dark, eh? Should you know her again?”
“I guess not. I tell you I didn’t really see her face.”
“How could she know you were an American?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Perhaps she can’t speak any language but English.”
“What is this?” He held up the handkerchief, and sniffed at it. It was faintly perfumed. How well I knew that perfume, sweet and elusive as the scent of flowers on a rainy day.
“A handkerchief. It fell at my feet, and I picked it up before I started to run.”
“It is marked ‘A. P.’ Do you know any one with those initials?”
Those beady eyes of his were fixed on my face, watching my every expression, and I knew that his questions were dictated by some definite purpose.
“Give me time,” I said, affecting to rack my brains in an effort of recollection. “I don’t think,—why, yes—there was Abigail Parkinson, Job Parkinson’s wife,—a most respectable old lady I knew in the States,—the United States of America, you know.”
His eyes glinted ominously, and he brought his fat, bejewelled hand down on the table with a bang.
“You are trifling with me!”
“I’m not!” I assured him, with an excellent assumption of injured innocence. “You asked me if I knew any one with those initials, and I’m telling you.”
“I am not asking you about old women on the other side of the world! Think again! Might not the initials stand for—Anna Petrovna, for instance?”
So he had guessed, after all, who she was!
“Anna what? Oh—Petrovna. Why, yes, of course they stand for that, but it’s a Russian name, isn’t it? And this lady was English, or American!”
He was silent for a minute, fingering the handkerchief, which I longed to snatch from the contamination of his touch.
“A mistake has been made, as I now perceive, Monsieur,” he said smoothly, at last. “I think your release might be accomplished without much difficulty.”
He paused and looked hard at my pocket-book.
“I guess if you’ll hand me that note case it can be accomplished right now,” I suggested cheerfully. I don’t believe there’s a Russian official living, high or low, who is above accepting a bribe, or extorting blackmail; and this one proved no exception to the rule.
I passed him a note worth about eight dollars, and he grasped and shook my hand effusively as he took it.
“Now we are friends, hein?” he exclaimed. “Accept my felicitations at the so happy conclusion of our interview. You understand well that duty must be done, at whatever personal cost and inconvenience. Permit me to restore the rest of your property, Monsieur; this only I must retain.” He thrust the handkerchief into his desk. “Perhaps—who knows—we may discover the fair owner, and restore it to her.”
His civility was even more loathsome to me than his insolence had been, and I wanted to kick him. But I didn’t. I offered him a cigarette, instead, and we parted with mutual bows and smiles.
Once on the street again I walked away in the opposite direction to that I should have taken if I had been sure I would not be followed and watched; but I guessed that, for the present at least, I would be kept under strict surveillance, and doubtless at this moment my footsteps were being dogged.
Therefore I made first for the café where I usually lunched, and, a minute after I had seated myself, a man in uniform strolled in and placed himself at a table just opposite, with his back to me, but his face towards a mirror, in which, as I soon discovered, he was watching my every movement.
“All right, my friend. Forewarned is forearmed; I’ll give you the slip directly,” I thought, and went on with my meal, affecting to be absorbed in a German newspaper, which I asked the waiter to bring me.
In the ordinary course I should have met people I knew, for the café was frequented by most of the foreign journalists in Petersburg, but the hour was early for déjeuner, and the spy and I had the place to ourselves for the present.
I knew that I should communicate the fact that Anne was in Petersburg to the Grand Duke Loris as soon as possible; in the hope that he might know or guess who were her captors, and where they were taking her; but it was imperative that I should exercise the utmost caution.
After we reached Petersburg, and before he left me, Mishka had, as his master had promised, given me instructions as to how I was to send a private message to the Duke in case of necessity. He took me to a house in a mean street near the Ismailskaia Prospekt—not half a mile from the place where I was arrested this morning—of which the ground floor was a poor class café frequented chiefly by workmen and students.
“You will go to the place I shall show you,” he had informed me beforehand, “and call for a glass of tea, just like any one else. Then as you pay for it, you drop a coin,—so. You will pick it up, or the waiter will,—it is all one, that; any one may drop a coin accidentally! Now, if you were just an ordinary customer, nothing more would happen; the waiter would keep near your table for a minute or two, and that is all. But if you are on business you will ask him, ‘Is Nicolai Stefanovitch here to-day?’ Or you may say any name you think of,—a common one is best. He will answer, ‘At what hour should he be here?’ and you say, ‘I do not know when he returns—from his work.’ Or ‘from Wilna,’ or elsewhere; that is unimportant, like the name. But the questions must be put so, and there must be the pause, between the two words ‘returns from’ just for one beat of the clock as it were, or while one blows one’s nose, or lights a cigarette. Then he will know you are one of us, and will go away; and presently one will come and sit at the table, and say, ‘I am so and so,—’ the name you mentioned. He will drink his tea, and you will go out together; and if it is a note you will pass it to him, so that none shall see; or if it is a message, you will tell it him very quietly.”
We rehearsed the shibboleth in my room. I did it right the first time, much to Mishka’s satisfaction; and when we reached the café he let me be spokesman. Within three minutes a cadaverous looking workman in a red blouse lounged up to our table, ordered his glass of tea, nodded to me as if I was an old acquaintance, and muttered the formula.
He and I had gone out together, leaving Mishka in the café,—since in Russia three men walking and conversing together are bound to be eyed suspiciously,—and my new acquaintance remarked:
“There is no message, as I know; this is but a trial, and you have done well. If there should be a letter, a cigarette, with the tobacco hanging a little loose at each end,—” he rolled one as he spoke and made a slovenly job of it,—“is an excellent envelope, and one that we understand.”
We had separated at the end of the street, and Mishka rejoined me later at my hotel. But I had not needed to try the shibboleth since, though I had dropped into the café more than once, and drank my glass of tea,—without dropping a coin. And now the moment had come when I must test the method of communication as speedily as possible.
I paid my bill, strolled out, and in the doorway encountered a man I knew slightly—a young officer—with whom I paused to chat, thereby blocking the doorway temporarily, with the result that I found my friend the spy—as I was now convinced he was—at my elbow. My unexpected halt had pulled him up short.
“Pardon!” I said with the utmost politeness, stepping aside, so he had to pass out, though I guessed he was angry enough at losing my conversation, for I was telling Lieutenant Mirakoff of my arrest,—as a great joke, at which we both laughed uproariously.
“They should have seen that you were a foreigner, and therefore quite mad,—and harmless,” he cried.
“Now, I ought to call you out for that!” I asserted.
“At your service!” he answered, still laughing, as we separated.
The spy was apparently deeply interested in the contents of a shop window near at hand, and I went off briskly in the other direction; but in a minute or two later, when I paused, ostensibly to compare my watch with a clock which I had just passed, I saw, as I glanced back, that he was on my track once more.
This was getting serious, and I adopted a simple expedient to give him the slip for the present. I hailed a droshky and bade the fellow drive to a certain street, not far from that where Mishka’s café was situated. We started off at the usual headlong speed, and presently, as we whirled round a corner, I called on the driver to stop, handed him a fare that must have represented a good week’s earnings, and ordered him to drive on again as fast as he could, and for as long as his horse would hold out.
He grinned, “clucked” to his horse, and was off on the instant, while I turned into a little shop close by, whence I had the satisfaction, less than half a minute after, of seeing a second droshky dash past, in pursuit of the first, with the spy lolling in it. If my Jehu kept faith—there was no telling if he would do that or not, though I had to take the risk—monsieur le mouchard would enjoy a nice drive, at the expense of his government!
In five minutes I was at the café, where I dropped my coin; it rolled to a corner and the waiter picked it up, while I sipped my tea and grumbled at the scarcity of lemon. I asked the prescribed question when he restored the piece; and almost immediately Mishka himself joined me. This was better than I had dared to hope, for I knew I could speak to him freely; in fact I told him everything, including the ruse by which I had eluded my vigilant attendant.
“You must not try that again,” he said, in his sulky fashion. “It has served once, yes; but it will not serve again. When he finds that you have cheated him he will make his report, and then you will have, not one, but several spies to reckon with; that is, if they think it worth while. Still you have done well,—very well. Now you must wait until you hear from my master.” Mishka never mentioned a name if he could avoid doing so.
“But can’t you give me some idea as to where she is likely to be?” I demanded. To wait, and continue to act my part, as if there was no such person as Anne Pendennis in the world and in deadly peril was just about the toughest duty imaginable.
“I can tell you nothing, and you, by yourself, can do nothing,” he retorted stolidly. “If you are wise you will go about your business as if nothing had happened. But be in your rooms by—nine o’clock to-night. It is unlikely that we can send you any word before then.”
Nine o’clock! And it was now barely noon! Nine mortal hours; and within their space what might not happen? But there was no help for it. Mishka had spoken the truth; by myself I could do nothing.
It was hard—hard to be bound like this, with invisible fetters; and to know all the time that the girl I loved was so near and yet so far, needing my aid, while I was powerless to help her,—I, who would so gladly lay down my life for her.
Who was she? What was she? How was her fate linked with that of this great grim land,—a land “agonizing in the throes of a new birth?” If she had but trusted me in the days when we had been together, could I have saved her then? Have spared her the agony my heart told me she was suffering now?
Yes,—yes, I said bitterly to myself. I could have saved her, if she had trusted me; for then she would have loved me; would have been content to share my life. A roving life it would have been, of course, for we were both nomads by choice as well as by chance, and the nomadic habit, once formed, is seldom broken. But how happy we should have been! Our wanderings would never have brought us to Russia, though. Heavens, how I hated—how I still hate it; the greatest and grandest country in the world, viewed under the aspect of sheer land; a territory to which even our own United States of America counts second for extent, for fertility, for natural wealth in wood and oil and minerals. A country that God made a paradise, or at least a vast storehouse for the supply of human necessities and luxuries; but a country of which man has made such a hell, that, in comparison with it, Dante’s “Inferno” reads like a story of childish imaginings.
Yes, Russia was a hell upon earth; and Petersburg was the centre and epitome of it, I said in my soul, as I loitered on one of the bridges that afternoon, and looked on the swift flowing river, on the splendid buildings, gleaming white, as the gilded cupolas and spires of the churches gleamed fire red, under the brilliant sunshine. A fair city outwardly, a whited sepulchre raised over a charnel-house. A city of terror, wherein every man is an Ishmael, knowing—or suspecting—that every other man’s hand is against him.
There was a shadow over the whole land, over the city, over myself, the stranger within its gate; and in that shadow the girl I loved was impenetrably enveloped.
I raised my eyes, and there, fronting me across the water, sternly menacing, were the gray walls of the fortress-prison, named, as if in grim mockery, the fortress of “Peter and Paul.” Peter, who denied his Lord, though he loved Him; Paul, who denied his Lord before he knew and loved Him! Perhaps the name is not so inconsistent, after all. The deeds that are done behind the walls of that fortress-prison by men who call themselves Christians, are the most tremendous denial of Christ that this era has witnessed.
Sick at heart, I turned away, and walked moodily back to my hotel. The proprietor was in the lobby, and the whole staff seemed to be on the spot. They all looked at me as if they thought I might be some recently discovered wild animal, and I wondered why. But as no one spoke to me, I asked the clerk at the bureau for my key.
“I have it not; others—the police—have it,” he stammered.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” I said. “They’re up there now? All right.”
I went up the stairs—there was no elevator—and found a couple of soldiers posted outside my door.
“Well, what are you doing here?” I asked, in good enough Russian. “This is my room, and I’ll thank you to let me pass.”
The one on the right of the door flung it open with a flourish, and motioned me to enter.
As I passed him he said, with a laugh to his fellow, “So—the rat goes into the trap!”
Inside were two officials busily engaged in a systematic search of my effects. Truly the secret police had lost no time!
I had already decided on the attitude I must adopt. It was improbable that they would arrest me openly; that would have involved trouble with the Embassies, but they could, if they chose, conduct me to the frontier or give me twenty-four hours’ notice to quit Russia, as they had to Von Eckhardt, and that was the very last thing I desired just now.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” I said amiably. “You seem to be pretty busy here. Can I give you any assistance?”
I spoke in French, as I didn’t want to air my Russian for their edification, though I had improved a good deal in it.
One of them, who seemed boss, looked up and said brusquely, though not exactly uncivilly: “Ah, Monsieur, you have returned somewhat sooner than we expected. We have a warrant to search your apartment.”
“That’s all right; pray continue, though I give you my word you won’t find anything treasonable. I’m a foreigner, as of course you know; and I haven’t the least wish or intention to mix myself up with Russian affairs.”
“And yet you correspond with the Grand Duke Loris,” he said dryly.
“I don’t!” I answered promptly. “I’ve never written a line to that gentleman in my life, nor he to me.”
“There are other ways of corresponding than by writing,” he retorted. I guessed I had been watched to the café after all, but I maintained an air of innocent unconcern, and, after all, his remark might be merely a “feeler.” I rather think now that it was. One can never be sure how much the Russian Secret Police do, or do not, know; and one of their pet tricks is to bluff people into giving themselves away.
So I ignored his remark, selected a cigarette, and, seeing that he had just finished his—I’ve wondered sometimes if a Russian official sleeps with a cigarette between his lips, for I fear he wouldn’t sleep comfortably without!—handed him the case, with an apology for my remissness. He accepted both the apology and the cigarette, and looked at me hard.
“I said, Monsieur, that there are other ways of corresponding than by writing!” he repeated with emphasis.
“Of course there are,” I assented cheerfully. “But I don’t see what that has to do with me in the present instance. I only know the Grand Duke very slightly. I was hurt in that railway accident last month, and his Highness was good enough to order one of his servants to look after me; and he also called to see me at an hotel in Dunaburg. I thought it very condescending of him. Though I don’t suppose I’d have the chance of meeting him again, as there are no Court festivities now; or if there are, we outsiders aren’t invited to them. Won’t your friend accept one of my cigarettes?”
This was addressed to the other man, who seemed to be doing all the work, and was puzzling over some pencil notes in English which he had picked out of my waste-paper basket. They were the draft of my yesterday’s despatch to the Courier, a perfectly innocuous communication that I had sent openly; it didn’t matter whether it arrived at its destination or not. As I have said, Petersburg was quiet to stagnation just now; though one never knew when the material for some first-class sensational copy might turn up.
“I’ll translate that for you right now, if you like,” I said politely. “Or you can take it away with you!”
I think they were both baffled by my apparent candor and nonchalance; but the man who was bossing the show returned to the charge persistently.
“Ah, that railway accident. Yes. But surely you have made a slight mistake, Monsieur? You incurred your injuries, from which, I perceive, you have so happily recovered.”
He bowed, and I bowed. If I hadn’t known all that lay behind, this exchange of words and courtesy—a kind of fencing, with both of us pretending that the buttons were on the foils—would have tickled me immensely. Even as it was I could appreciate the funny side of it. I was playing a part in a comedy,—a grim comedy, a mere interlude in tragedy,—but still comic.
“You incurred these, I say, not in the accident, but while gallantly defending the Grand Duke from the dastards who assailed him later!”
I worked up a modest blush; or I tried to.
“I see that it is useless to attempt to conceal anything from you, Monsieur; you know too much!” I confessed, laughing. “But I’m a modest man; besides, I didn’t do very much, and his Highness seemed quite capable of taking care of himself.”
I saw a queer glint in his eyes, and I guessed then that the attempt on the life of the Grand Duke had been engineered by the police themselves, and not, as I had first imagined, by the revolutionists.
My antagonist waved his hand with an airy gesture of protestation.
“You underrate your services, Monsieur Wynn! I wonder if you would have devoted them so readily to his Highness if—”
He paused portentously.
“If?” I inquired blandly. “Do have another cigarette!”
“If you had known of his connection with the woman who is known as La Mort?”
That wasn’t precisely what he said. I don’t choose to write the words in any language; but I wanted to knock his yellow teeth down his throat; to choke the life out of him for the vile suggestion his words contained! I dared not look at him; my eyes would have betrayed everything that he was seeking to discover. I looked at the end of the cigarette I was lighting, and wondered how I managed to steady the hand that held the match.
“I really do not understand you!” I asserted blandly.
“Perhaps you may know her as Anna Petrovna?” he suggested.
“Anna Petrovna!” I repeated. “Now, that’s the second time to-day I’ve heard the lady’s name; and I can’t think why you gentlemen should imagine it means anything to me. Who is she, anyhow?”
I looked at him now, fair and square; met and held the gimlet gaze of his eyes with one of calm, interested inquiry. We were fighting a duel, to which a mere physical fight is child’s play; and—I meant to win!
“You do not know?” he asked.
“I do not; though I’d like to. The officer at the bureau this morning—I don’t suppose I need tell you that I was arrested and detained for a time—seemed to think I should know her; but he wouldn’t give me any information. You’ve managed to rouse my curiosity pretty smartly between you!”
“I fear it must remain unsatisfied, Monsieur, so far as I am concerned,” he said suavely. “Well, we will relieve you of our presence. I congratulate you on the admirable order in which you keep your papers.”
His subordinate had risen, with an expressive shrug of his shoulders. I knew their search must be futile, since I had fortunately destroyed Mary Cayley’s letter the day I received it; and there was nothing among my papers referring either directly or indirectly to Anne.
“You’ll want to see this, of course,” I suggested, tendering my passport. He glanced through it perfunctorily, and handed it back with a ceremonious bow. So far as manners went, he certainly was an improvement on the official at the bureau; and of course he already knew that my personal papers were all right.
He gave me a courteous “good evening,” and the other man, who hadn’t uttered a syllable the whole time, saluted me in silence. I heard one of them give an order to the guards outside, and then the heavy tramp of their feet descending the staircase.
I started tidying up; it would help to pass the time until I might expect some message from the Grand Duke. Mishka had said nine o’clock, and it was not yet seven.
Presently there came a knock at my door. I wondered if this might be another police visitation; but it was only one of the hotel servants to say a droshky driver was below, demanding to see me. He produced a dirty scrap of paper with my name and address scrawled on it, which the man had brought. I thought at once of the man who had driven me in the morning, and wondered how on earth he got my name and address. I was sure it must be he when I heard that he declared “the excellency had told him to call for payment.” This was awkward; the fellow must be another police spy, probably doing a bit of blackmailing on his own account. Well, I’d better see him, anyhow. I told the man to bring him up.
“He is a dangerous looking fellow,” he demurred.
“That’s my lookout and not yours,” I said. “If he wants to see me he’s got to come up. I’m certainly not going down to him.”
He went off unwillingly, and a minute or two later returned, showing in my queer visitor, a big burly chap who seemed civil and harmless enough.
I didn’t think at first sight he was the man who drove me, but they all look so much alike in their filthy greatcoats and low-crowned hats. He had a big grizzled beard and a thatch of matted hair, from which his little swinish eyes peered out with a leer. Yes, he looked exactly like any other of his class, but—
As he entered behind the servant, touched his greasy hat, and growled a guttural greeting, he opened his eyes full and looked at me for barely a second, but it was sufficient.
“Oh, it is you, Ivan; why didn’t you send your name up?” I said roughly. “How much is it I owe you? Here, wait a minute; as you are here, you can take a message for me. Wait here while I write it. It’s all right; I know the fellow,” I added to the servant. “You needn’t wait.”
He went out, and for a minute my visitor and I stood silently regarding each other. His disguise was perfect; I should never have penetrated it but for the warning he had flashed from those bright blue eyes, that now, leering and nearly closed, looked dark and pig-like again.
The droshky driver was the Grand Duke Loris himself.