"Being Chapters from the Secret History of the Imperial Court of Russia" (continued 4)

One tall, thin-faced man, whose hair was prematurely grey, begged me to send a message back to his wife in Tver. He spoke French well, and told me his name was Epatchieff, and that he had been a doctor in practice in the town of Tver, between Moscow and Petersburg.

“I am entirely ignorant of the reason I was arrested, m’sieur,” he declared, hitching his ragged coat about him. “I have not committed any crime, or even belonged to any secret society. Perhaps the only offence was my marrying the woman I loved. Who knows?” and the sad-eyed man, whose life held more of sorrow in it than most men, went on to say:

“I had been attending the little daughter of the local chief of the police for a week, but she had recovered so far that I did not consider a further visit was necessary. One morning, six months ago, I was surprised to receive a visit from the police officer’s Cossack, who demanded my presence at once at the house of his master, as the child had been seized with another attack. I told him I would go after breakfast as the matter was serious. But the Cossack insisted that I should go at once, so I agreed and went forth. Outside, the Cossack told me that I must first go to the police office, and, of course, I went wonderingly, never dreaming for a moment that anything was wrong. So I was ushered into the office, where the chief of police told me that I was a prisoner. ‘A body of exiles are ready to start for Siberia,’ said the heartless brute, ‘and you will go with them.’ I laughed—it was a good joke, but the chief of police assured me that it was a solemn fact. I was completely dumbfounded. I begged for a delay in my transportation. Why was I deprived of my liberty? Who was my accuser? What was the accusation? But I got no answer save ‘administrative order.’

“I begged to be allowed to revisit my house under guard, to procure necessary articles of clothing—to say farewell to my young wife. But the scoundrel denied me everything. I waited in anguish, but they placed me in solitary confinement to await the departure of the convoy, and in six hours I was on my way here—to this living tomb!”

Of course the poor fellow was half crazed. What would become of his young wife—what would she think of him? A thousand thoughts and suspicions racked his mind, and he had already lived through an age of torture, as his whitening head plainly showed.

At my suggestion he wrote a letter to his wife informing her of his fate, and using my authority as guest of His Imperial Majesty I took it, and, in due course, posted it back to Russia.

Not until three years afterwards did I learn the tragic sequel. The poor young lady received my letter, and as quickly as she could set out to join him in his exile. With womanly wit she managed to apprise him of her coming and a light broke in upon his grief. He had been sent to Irkutsk, and daily, hourly he looked and longed for her. Yet just as he knew she must arrive, he was suddenly sent far away to the most northerly Arctic settlement of Sredne Kolimsk.

The poor young lady, filled with sweet sympathy and expectation, hoping to find him in Irkutsk, arrived there a fortnight too late. Imagine her anguish when, having travelled over four thousand miles of the worst country on the fact; of the world, she learned the cruel news. Still three thousand miles distant! But she set out to find him. Alas! however, it was too much for her. She lost her reason, raved for a little while under restraint and died at the roadside.

Is it any wonder that there were in Russia real revolutionists, revolting not against their Tzar, but against the inhuman system of the camarilla?

Petrakoff and I spent a sleepless night in that rat-eaten post-house where the food was bad, and our beds consisted only of a wooden bench. We had as companions half a dozen drivers, who had come with a big tea-caravan from China, ragged, unwashed, uncouth fellows in evil-smelling furs.

Indeed the air was so thick and intolerable that at two o’clock in the morning I took my sleeping-bag outside and lay in the sled, in preference to staying in that vermin-infested hut.

Next morning, the twenty-second of January, I signed the postmaster’s book as soon as it grew light, and with three fresh horses approved of by Vasilli, we were away, leaving the Great Post Road and striking north along the Lena.

From that moment we entered an uninhabited country, the snowy dreariness of which was indescribable, and as day succeeded day and we pushed further north the climate became more rigorous, until it was no unusual thing to have great icicles hanging from one’s moustache.

One day, a week after leaving Tulunovsk, we passed through an entirely deserted village of low-built huts. I asked Vasilli the reason that no one lived there.

“This is a bad place, Excellency,” was the fellow’s reply. “All the people died of smallpox six months ago.”

And so we went on and on, and ever onward. Sometimes we would travel the whole twenty-four hours rather than rest in those horrible post-houses, and on such journeys we often covered one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty versts, changing horses every twenty to thirty versts.

We covered seven hundred and fifty miles to Dubrovsk in sixteen days, and here, at the post-house, we met a party of Cossacks coming south after taking a convoy of prisoners to Olekminsk—half-way between Dubrovsk and Yakutsk—and handing them over to the guard sent south to meet them.

While taking our evening tea I chatted with the Cossack captain, a big, muscular giant in knee-boots who sat with his legs outstretched on the dirty floor, leaning his back against the high brick stove.

I was making inquiries regarding the prisoners he had recently brought up, whereupon he said:

“They were a batch of politicals from Tomsk. Poor devils, they’ve been sent to Parotovsk—and there’s smallpox there. I suppose General Tschernaieff has sent them there on purpose that they shall become infected and die. Politicals are often sent into an infected settlement.”

“To Parotovsk!” I gasped, for it suddenly occurred to me that the woman of whom I was in search might be of that party!

And then I breathlessly inquired if Madame de Rosen, Political Number 14956, had been with them.

“She and her daughter were ill, and were allowed a sled,” I added.

“There were two ladies, Excellency, mother and daughter. One was about forty, and the other about eighteen. They came from Petersburg, and were, I believe, well connected and moved in the best society.”

“You do not know their names?” I asked anxiously.

“Unfortunately, no,” was his reply. “Only the numbers. I believe the lady’s number was that which you mentioned. She was registered, however, as a dangerous person.”

“No doubt the same!” I cried. “How is she?”

“When they left Olekminsk she was very weak and ill,” he replied. “Indeed, I recollect remarking to my lieutenant that I feared she would never reach Yakutsk.”

“How far are they ahead of us?” I inquired eagerly. The bearded man reflected for some minutes, making mental calculations. “They left Olekminsk a fortnight ago, therefore by this they should be nearing Yakutsk.”

“And how long will it take me to reach Yakutsk?” I asked.

He again made a calculation and at last replied:

“By travelling hard, Excellency, you should reach Yakutsk, I think, in twenty-five to twenty-seven days. It would be impossible before, I fear, owing to the heavy snowdrifts and the bad state of the roads.”

“Twenty-seven days!” I echoed. “And before I can reach there the ladies will already be inmates of that infected settlement of Parotovsk—the place to which they have been sent to sicken and die!”

“She was marked as ‘dangerous,’ Excellency. She would therefore be sent north at once, without a doubt. Persons marked as ‘dangerous’ are never permitted to remain in Yakutsk.”

Could I reach her in time? Could I save her?

Chapter Twenty Two.

In the Night.

From that day and through twenty-two other dark, weary days of the black frosts of mid-winter, we travelled onward, ever onward. Sometimes we crossed the limitless snow-covered tundra, sometimes we went down into the deep valley of the frozen Lena river, changing horses every thirty versts and signing the post-horse keeper’s greasy road-book.

At every stage I produced my Imperial permit, and at almost every station the ignorant peasant who kept it fell upon his knees in deep obeisance to the guest of the great Tzar.

We were now, however, off the main road, for this highway to the far-off Arctic settlements, used almost solely by the convict convoys, ran for a thousand miles through a practically uninhabited country, the only sign of civilisation being the never-ending telegraph-line which we followed, and the lonely post-stations half-buried in the snow.

Ah! those long, anxious days of icy blasts and whirling snow blizzards. My companion and I, wrapped to our eyes in furs, sat side by side often dozing for hours, our ears tired of that irritating jingle of the sled-bells, our limbs cramped and benumbed, and often ravenously hungry, for the rough fare at the post-house was very frequently uneatable.

For six dark days we met not a single soul upon the road, save a party of Cossacks coming south. But from them I could obtain no news of the last batch of “politicals” who had travelled north, and whom we were following in such hot haste.

Again I telegraphed to Hartwig in Brighton, telling him of my whereabouts, and obtaining a reply from him that Her Highness was still well and sent me her best wishes.

That in itself was reassuring.

Hard travel and bad food told, I think, upon both of us. Petrakoff dearly wished himself back in his beloved Petersburg again. Yet our one-eyed half-Tartar driver seemed quite unconscious of either cold or fatigue. The strain of driving so continuously—sometimes for twenty hours out of the twenty-four—must have been terrible. But he was ever imperious in his dealings at post-stations, ever loud in his commands to the cringing owners of those log-built huts to bring out their best trio of horses, ever yelling to the fur-clad grooms not to keep His Excellency waiting on pain of terrible punishment.

Thus through those short, dark winter days, and often through the long, steely nights, ever following those countless telegraph-poles, we went on—ever onward—until we found ourselves in a small wretched little place of log-built houses called Olekminsk. Upon my travelling map, as indeed upon every map of Siberia, it is represented in capitals as an important place. So I expected to find at least a town—perhaps even a hotel. Instead, I discovered it to be a mere wretched hamlet, with a post-house, and a wood-built prison for the reception of “politicals.”

We arrived at midnight. In the common room of the post-house, around which earth and snow had been banked to keep out the cold, was a high brick stove, and around the walls benches whereon a dozen wayfarers like ourselves were wrapped in their evil-smelling furs, and sleeping. The odour as I entered the place was foetid; the dirt indescribable. One shaggy peasant, in heavy top-boots and fur coat, had imbibed too much vodka, and had become hilarious, whereat one of the sleepers, suddenly awakened, threw a top-boot at him across the room, narrowly missing my head.

The post-house keeper, as soon as he saw my permit, sent a man to the local chief of police, a stout, middle-aged man, who appeared on the scene in his hastily-donned uniform and who invited me to his house close by. There I questioned him regarding the political prisoners, “Numbers 14956 and 14957.”

Having read my permits—at which he was visibly impressed when he saw the signature of the Emperor himself—he hastened to obtain his register. Presently he said:

“The two ladies you mention have passed through this prison, Excellency. I see a note that both are dangerous ‘politicals,’ and that the elder lady was rather weak. Judging from the time when they left, they are, I should say, already in Yakutsk—or even beyond.”

“From what is she suffering?” I asked eagerly.

“Ah! Excellency, I cannot tell that,” was his reply. “All I know is that the captain of Cossacks who came down from Yakutsk to meet the convoy considered that being a dangerous political, she was sufficiently well to walk with the others. So she has gone on foot the remainder of the journey. She arrived her in a sled.”

“On foot!” I echoed. “But she is ill—dying, I was told.”

The chief of police shrugged his shoulders and said with a sigh:

“I fear. Excellency, that the lady was somewhat unfortunate. That particular captain is not a very humane person—particularly where a dangerous prisoner is concerned.”

“Then to be marked as ‘dangerous’ means that the prisoner is to be treated with brutality—eh?” I cried. “Is that Russian justice?”

“We do not administer justice here in Siberia, Excellency,” was the man’s quiet reply. “They do that in Petersburg.”

“But surely it is a scandal to put a sick woman on the road and compel her to walk four hundred miles in this weather,” I cried angrily.

“Alas! That is not my affair,” replied the man. “I am merely chief of police of this district and governor of the étape. The captain of Cossacks has entire charge of the prisoners on their journey.”

What he had told me maddened me. In all that I heard I could plainly detect the sinister hand of General Markoff.

Indeed, when I carefully questioned this official, I felt convinced that the captain in question had received instructions direct from Petersburg regarding Madame de Rosen. The chief of police admitted to me that to the papers concerning the prisoners there had been attached a special memorandum from Petersburg concerning Madame and her daughter.

I smoked a cigarette with him and drank a cup of tea—China tea served with lemon. Then I was shown to a rather poorly-furnished but clean bedroom on the ground floor, where I turned in.

But no sleep came to my eyes. Such hard travelling through all those weeks had shattered my nerves.

While the bright northern moon streamed in through the uncurtained window, I lay on my back, pondering. I reflected upon all the past, the terrible fate of Madame and her daughter, the strange secret she evidently held, and the peril of the Emperor himself, so helpless in the hands of that circle of unscrupulous sycophants, and, further, of my little madcap friend, so prone to flirtation, the irrepressible Grand Duchess Natalia.

I reviewed all the exciting events of those many months which had elapsed since the last Court ball of the season at Petersburg—events which I have attempted to set down in the foregoing pages—and I was held in fear that my long journey might be in vain—that ere I could catch up with the poor wretched woman who, though ill, had been compelled to perform that last and most arduous stage of the journey through the snow, she would, alas! be no longer alive. The vengeance of her enemy Markoff would have fallen upon her.

A sense of indescribable oppression, combined with the hot closeness of the room, stifled me. For hours I lay awake, the moonlight falling full upon my head. At last, however, I must have dropped off to sleep, fagged out after twenty hours of those jingling bells and hissing of the sled-runners over the frozen snow.

A sense of coldness awakened me, and opening my eyes I saw, to my surprise, though the room was practically in darkness with only the reflected light of the snow, that the small treble window stood open. It had certainly been tightly closed when I had entered there.

I raised my eyes to peer into the darkness for the atmosphere, which when I had gone to sleep was stifling on account of the iron stove, was now at zero. Suddenly I caught sight of a dark figure moving noiselessly near where I lay. A thief had entered by the window! He seemed to be searching the pockets of my coat, which I had flung carelessly upon a chair. Surely he was a daring thief to thus enter the house of the chief of police! But in Siberia there are many escaped convicts roaming about the woods. They are called “cuckoos,” on account of their increase in the spring and their return to the prisons when starved out in winter.

A “cuckoo” is always a criminal and always desperate. He must have money and food, and he dare not go near a village, as there is a price on his head. Therefore, he will not hesitate to murder a lonely traveller if by so doing he thinks he can secure a passport which will permit him to leave Siberia and re-enter European Russia, back to freedom. Some Siberian roads are in summer infested with such gentry, but winter always drives them back to the towns, and consequently into prison again. Only a very few manage to survive the rigours of the black frosts of the Siberian winter.

Rather more amused than alarmed, I lay watching the dark figure engaged in rifling my pockets. I was contemplating the best method by which to secure him and hand him over to the mercies of my host. A sudden thought struck me. Unfortunately, being guest in the house of the chief of police I had left my revolver in the sled. I never slept at a post-house without it. But that night I was unarmed.

Those moments of watching seemed hours. The man, whoever he was, was tall and slim, though of course I could not see his face. I held my breath. He was securing my papers and my money! Yet he did it all so very leisurely that I could not help admiring his pluck and confounded coolness.

I hesitated a few seconds and then at last I summoned courage to act. I resolved to suddenly spring up and throw myself upon him, so that he would be prevented from jumping out of the window with my property.

But while I was thus making up my mind how to act, the mysterious man suddenly left the chair where my coat had been lying, and turning, came straight towards me, advancing slowly on tip-toe. Apparently he was not desirous of rousing me.

Once again I waited my opportunity to spring upon him, for he fortunately was not yet aware that I was awake and watching him.

I held my breath, lying perfectly motionless, for, advancing to me, he bent over as though to make absolutely certain that I slept. I tried to distinguish his face, but in the shadow that was impossible.

I could hear my own heart beating.

He seemed to be peering down at me, as though in curiosity, and I was wondering what could be his intentions, now that he had secured both my money and my papers.

Suddenly ere I could anticipate his intention, his hand was uplifted, and falling, struck me a heavy blow in the side of the neck just beneath the left jaw.

Instantly I felt a sharp burning pain and a sensation as of the running of warm liquid over my shoulders.

Then I knew that the fluid was blood!

I had been stabbed in the side of the throat!

I shrieked, and tried to spring fiercely upon my assailant, but he was too quick for me.

My eager hand grasped his arm, but he wrenched himself free, and next instant had vaulted lightly through the open window and had disappeared.

And as for myself, I gave vent to a loud shriek for help, and then sank inertly back, next second losing consciousness.

The man had escaped with all my precious permits, signed by the Emperor, as well as my money!

My long journey was now most certainly a futile one. Without those Imperial permits I was utterly helpless. I should not, indeed, be allowed to speak with Madame de Rosen, even though I succeeded in finding her alive.

My loss was irreparable, for it had put an end to my self-imposed mission.

Such were the thoughts which ran through my overstrung brain at the moment when the blackness of insensibility fell upon me, blotting out both knowledge of the present and apprehension of the future.

Chapter Twenty Three.

Identification!

When again I opened my eyes it was to find a lamp being held close to my face, and a man who apparently possessed a knowledge of surgery—a political exile from Moscow, who had been a doctor, I afterwards discovered—was carefully bathing my wound.

Beside him stood two Cossacks and the chief of police himself. All were greatly agitated that an attack should have been made upon a man who was guest to His Imperial Majesty, their Master.

To my host’s question I described in a few words what had occurred, and bewailed the loss of my papers and my money.

“They are not lost,” he replied. “Fortunately the sentry outside heard your scream, and seeing the intruder emerge from the window and run, he raised his rifle and shot him.”

“Killed him?” I asked.

“Of course. He was an utter stranger in Olekminsk. Presently we shall discover who and what he is. Here are your papers,” he added, handing back the precious documents to me. “For the present the man’s body lies outside. Afterwards you shall see if you recognise him. From his passport his name would appear to be Gabrillo Passhin. Do you know anyone of that name?”

“Nobody,” I replied, my brain awhirl with the crowded events of the past half-hour.

I suppose it was another half-hour before the doctor, a grey-bearded, prematurely-aged man, finished bandaging my wound and strapping my left arm across my chest. Then, assisted by my host, I rose and went forth, led by men with lanterns, to where, in the snow, as he had fallen beneath the sentry’s bullet, lay the would-be assassin.

They held their lanterns against the white, dead lace, but I did not recognise him. He seemed to be about thirty-five, with thin, irregular features and shaven chin. He was respectably dressed, while his hands were soft, betraying no evidence of manual labour. The features were perfectly calm, for death had been instantaneous, the bullet striking at the back of the skull.

Near where he lay a small pool of blood showed dark against the snow.

While we were examining the body, Petrakoff, whom I had sent for from the post-house, arrived in hot haste, and became filled with alarm when he saw my neck and arm enveloped in bandages.

In a few words I told him what had occurred, and then advancing, he bent and looked upon my assailant’s face. He remained bent there for quite a couple of minutes. Then, straightening himself, he asked:

“Does his passport give his name as Ivan Müller—or Gabrillo Passhin?”

“You know him!” I gasped. “Who is he?”

“Well,” he replied, “I happen to have rather good reason to know him. In Odessa he was chief of a desperate gang of bank-note forgers, who, after eluding us for two years, were at last arrested—six of them in Moscow. The seventh, who called himself Müller, escaped to Germany. A year ago he was bold enough to return to Petersburg, where I recognised him one day close to the Nicholas station and followed him to the house where he lodged. I entered there alone, very foolishly perhaps, whereupon he drew a revolver and fired point-blank at me. The bullet struck me in the right shoulder, but assistance was forthcoming, and he was arrested. His sentence about eleven months ago was confinement in the Fortress of Peter and Paul for fifteen years. So he must have escaped. Ah! he was one of the most daring, astute and desperate criminals in all Russia. At his trial he spat at the judge, and contemptuously declared that his friends would not allow him to be confined for very long.”

“It seems that they have not,” I remarked thoughtfully. “The fact of his having dared to break into the house of the chief of police shows in itself the character of the man,” Petrakoff exclaimed. “I myself had a most narrow escape when I arrested him. But what was he doing here—in Siberia?”

“He may have been exiled here and escaped,” remarked the chief of police, as we were returning to the bureau at the side of the house.

“I hardly think that, Excellency,” interrupted a Cossack sergeant, who had just returned from the post-station, where he had been making inquiries. “We have just arrested a yamshick, who arrived with the assassin an hour after midnight. Here he is.”

A moment later a big, red-faced, shaggy, vodka-drinking driver in ragged furs was brought into the bureau between two Cossacks, and at once interrogated by the chief of police.

First he was taken out to view the body still lying in the snow; then brought back into the police office, a bare, wooden room, lit by a single petroleum lamp, and bearing on its walls posters of numbers of official regulations, each headed by the big black double eagle.

“Now,” asked the chief of police, assuming an air of great severity, “where do you come from?”

“Krasnoyarsk, Excellency,” answered the man gruffly.

“What do you know of the individual you have just seen dead—eh?”

“All I know of him, Excellency, is that he contracted with me to drive him to Yakutsk.”

“Why? Was he quite alone?”

“Yes, Excellency. He made me hurry, driving night and day sometimes, for he was overtaking a friend.”

“What friend?”

“Ah! I do not know. Only at each stancia, or povarnia, he inquired if an Englishman had passed. Therefore I concluded that it was an Englishman he was following.”

Petrakoff, hearing the man’s words, looked meaningly towards me.

“He was alone, you say?” I inquired. “Had he any friends in Krasnoyarsk, do you know?”

“None that I know of. He had journeyed all the way from Petersburg, and he paid me well, because he was travelling so rapidly. We heard of the Englishman at a number of stancias, and have gradually overtaken him, until we found, on arrival here, that the friend he sought had only come in an hour before us. I heard the post-house keeper tell him so.”

“Then he was following this mysterious Englishman—eh?” asked the chief of police, who had seated himself at his table with some officiousness before commencing the inquiry.

“No doubt he was, Excellency. One day he told me that if he did not overtake the Englishman on his way to Yakutsk, he would remain and wait for his return.”

Then I took a couple of steps forward to the official’s table and said:

“I fear that I must be the Englishman whom this mysterious person has followed in such hot haste for nearly six thousand miles.”

“So it seems. But why?” asked the chief of police. “I can see no reason why that escaped criminal should follow you with such sinister intent. You don’t know him?”

“Not in the least. I have never even heard his name before.”

“He was well supplied with money, it seems,” remarked my host. “This wallet found upon him contains over ten thousand roubles in notes, together with a credit upon the branch of the National Bank in Yakutsk for a further thirty thousand.” And he showed me a well-worn leather pocket-book, evidently of German manufacture.

Both Petrakoff and myself knew only too well that this daring criminal had been released from that cold citadel in the Nevi and given money, promised a free pardon in all probability, if he followed me and at all hazards prevented me from obtaining an interview with the poor, innocent, suffering woman whose dastardly enemy had marked her “dangerous.”

I was about to tell the while scandalous truth, but on second thought I saw that no good could be served. Therefore I held my tongue, and allowed the officials—for the starosti of the village had now arrived—regard the affair as a complete mystery.

I had narrowly escaped death, the doctor had declared, and my friend, the chief of police of Olekminsk, kept the unfortunate yamshick under arrest while he reported the extraordinary affair to Yakutsk. He also confiscated the money found upon the man who had made that daring attack upon me.

I could see he was secretly delighted that the criminal had been killed. What, I wondered, would have happened to him if I, a guest of His Imperial Majesty, had lost my life beneath his roof?

The same thought apparently crossed his mind, for in those white winter days I was compelled to remain his guest, being unfit for travel on account of my wound, he many times referred to the narrow escape I had had.

Petrakoff, on his part, related to us some astounding stories of the man, who hid been known to the coining and note-forging fraternity as Müller, alias Passhin, the man who had at least three murders to his record.

And this man was Markoff’s hireling! What, I wondered, was the actual price placed upon my head?

For a whole week—seven weary days—I was compelled to remain there in Olekminsk. I wanted to push forward, but the exiled doctor would not allow it.

There was a small and wretched colony of political exiles in the village, and I visited them. Fancy a poet and littérateur, one of those rare Russian souls whose wonder-working effusions must ultimately enlighten and enfranchise the people—a Turgenieff—immured for life in that snowy desert. Yet in Olekminsk there was such a one. He lived in a wretched one-roomed, log-built cabin within a stone’s-throw of the house wherein I so nearly lost my life—a tall, alert, deep-eyed man, whom even the savagery of his surroundings could not dispirit or cool the ardour of his wonderful genius. From his prolific pen flowed a ceaseless stream of learning and of light; he wrote and wrote, and in this writing forgot his wrongs and sorrows. The authorities—the local officials who wield such autocratic authority in those parts—were overjoyed to see him in this mood. They fostered his rich whim, they encouraged him to write his books, the manuscripts of which they seized and sold in Petersburg and Berlin, Paris and London.

Yet he lived in a smoky, wooden hovel, banked up by snow, and wrote his books upon a rough wooden bench, which was polished at the spot over which his forearm travelled with his pen.

No exile, I found, was allowed to carry on any business, teach in a school, till the soil, labour at a trade, practise a profession, or engage in any work otherwise than through a master. If I wanted any service, an exile would sometimes come and offer to perform it, but I would have to pay his master, upon whose bounty he must depend for remuneration.

The doctor, named Kasharofski who bandaged me was not a revolutionist, or at all intemperate in his political view’s. He was one of the thousands of Markoff’s victims sacrificed in order that the Chief of Secret Police should remain in favour with the Emperor. Therefore he was not in favour with many of his fellow-exiles, who held pronounced revolutionary views. He was on pleasant visiting terms with the chief of police, and I often went to his wretched, carpetless hut, around which were sleeping bunks, and spent many an hour with him listening to the cruel, inhuman wrong from which he had suffered at the hands of that marvellously alert organisation, the Secret Police.

One grey, snowy afternoon, while I sat with him in his bare wooden hut, one room with benches around for beds, and he smoked a cigar I had given him, he burst forth angrily against the exile system, declaring: “The whole government is a monstrous mistake. Russia has been striding in vain to populate Siberia for a thousand years, but she will never succeed so long as she continues in her present policy of converting the land into a vast penitentiary wherein the prisoners are prevented from making an honest livelihood, and so driven, if criminals, to a further commission of crime. Beyond doubt there are rogues of the very worst type in Russia and Siberia, but certainly it is plain that their mode of punishment will never tend to elevate or reform them; further, it is utterly impossible that Siberia, under its present system of government, should ever be populated or improved, as have been the penal colonies of the French and English.”

His words were, alas! too true. What I had seen of Siberia and its exile system—those terrible prisons where men and women were herded together and infected with typhoid and smallpox; those wretched hovels of the political settlement, and those chained gangs of despairing prisoners on the roads—had indeed filled me with horror. The condition of those exiles, both socially and morally, was utterly appalling.

The day after my conversation with Doctor Kasharofski, after a week of irritating delay, in which every moment I feared that I was losing valuable time, I set forth again upon my last stage, the journey of four hundred miles of snow-covered tundra and forests of cheerless silver birch to Yakutsk.

Did Madame de Rosen still live, or had Markoff taken good care that, even though I escaped the assassin’s knife, I should never meet her again in the flesh?

Ay, that was the one important question. And my heart beat quickly as, bidding farewell to my hospitable friend, the chief of police, our three shaggy horses plunged jingling away into the snow.

Chapter Twenty Four.

The Journey’s End.

The farther north we pushed, the worse became the roads, and snow fell daily. Only by following the line of telegraph and the verst-posts could we find the road, which sometimes ran along the Lena valley, and at others crossed high hills or penetrated deep, gloomy forests of dwarfed leafless trees.

After three days we approached a high mountain range, where absolute silence reigned and the snowfall was constant and heavy. The trees were so overburdened with the white weight softly and quietly heaped upon them, that many had broken down completely and obstructed the wild road through the forest. Vasilli had furnished us with hatchets for this purpose, and we were often compelled to stop and hack and drag the fallen trees from our path.

When at last we had gained the top of the mountain pass, we at once felt a complete change in the atmosphere. Whereas to the south everything was as calm as the quiet of death, in front of us a gale was already blowing, and instead of trees bowed down and breaking with their burden of snow, to the northward of the mountain range not a single flake appeared on the shrubbery or woodland.

We had passed from the world of silence to the wild, bleak regions of the Arctic blizzard. All that day we toiled through deep snow, the mountain road rugged beyond description and the tearing wind icy and howling. It blew as though it would never calm. And the distance between the two lonely post-houses was one hundred and twenty-four English miles. Not a vestige of a habitation between. All was a great lone land.

The frost was intense, and icicles hung from Vasilli’s beard and from our own moustaches—a black deadly cold, rendered the more biting by the wind straight from the Polar ice-pack.

I looked up upon that awful snow-covered road and shuddered. Luba and her mother had actually traversed it on foot. Because they had been marked as “dangerous” the Cossack captain had exposed them to that terrible suffering, hoping that they would thereby die before reaching Yakutsk—in which case he would, no doubt, receive a word of commendation from the Governor.

We were now fast approaching the dreaded Arctic penal settlements, of which the town of Yakutsk was the centre, distant over four thousand miles from the Russian frontier, every inch of which we had traversed by road.

Hour by hour, day by day, onward we went, with those irritating bells ever jingling in our ears. Petrakoff slept, his head sunk wearily upon his breast, but my mind was much too agitated for sleep. I had, by good fortune, escaped the assassin who had followed me hot-foot across Asia, and now I must soon overtake the unfortunate woman from whose lips I would seek permission for Her Highness to speak.

Pakrovskoe, a mere handful of huts, came in sight one day just as the grey light faded. It was the last village before our goal—Yakutsk. We changed horses and ate some dried fish and rye bread, washed down by a cup of weak tea. Then, after half an hour’s rest, again we went forward into the grey gloom of the snow, where on our left at the edge of the plain showed the pale yellow streak of the winter afterglow.

Through that long, interminable night we toiled on and ever on in deep snowdrifts. Vasilli ever and anon uttering curses in his beard, for the horses we had obtained at Pakrovskoe were terrible screws.

At length, however, just as the first grey of dawn appeared on the horizon our driver pointed with his whip, crying excitedly:

“Yakutsk! Excellency! Yakutsk! God be thanked for a safe journey!”

At first I could see nothing, but presently, straining my eyes straight before me, I discerned at the far edge of the snow-covered plain several low towers with bulgy spires, and a long line of house roofs silhouetted against the faint horizon.

Petrakoff gazed forth sleepily, and then with a low, half-conscious grunt lapsed again into inert slumber.

But no longer could I close my eyes. I drew my furs more closely round me, and sat with eyes fixed upon my longed-for goal.

Would success crown my efforts, or had, alas! poor Marya de Rosen succumbed to the brutal treatment meted out to her by the Cossack captain.

After three eager, breathless hours, which seemed weeks to me, we at last drove into the long wide thoroughfare which is the principal street of that northerly town—a road lined by small, square wooden houses, with sloping roofs, each surrounded by its little stockade. The town seemed practically deserted, a dreary, dismal, silent place, of which half the inhabitants were exiles or the free children of exiles. The remainder were, as I afterwards discovered, free Russians—merchants who had emigrated there for the advantage of trade, together with a host of Government officials—Cossack, civil, police, revenue, church, etc.

Without much difficulty we found the Guestnitsa Hotel, a wretched place, verminous and dirty, like every other hotel in all Siberia was before the enlightening days of the great railroad. Here I established myself, and sent Petrakoff with a note to the Governor-General, asking for audience without delay.

Scarcely had I washed, shaved and made myself a trifle presentable—though I fear my unshorn hair presented a somewhat shaggy appearance—when the agent of police returned with a note from His Excellency General Vorontzoff, Governor-General of the province, expressing his regret that owing to being compelled to make a military inspection during that day he was unable to receive me until five o’clock in the evening.

Thus was I compelled to await His Excellency’s pleasure.

The fame of Alexander Vorontzoff was well-known in Petersburg. He was a hard, hide-bound bureaucrat, without a spark of pity or of human feeling. And for that reason the camarilla surrounding His Majesty the Emperor had managed to obtain his appointment as Governor-General of Yakutsk. He was the catspaw of that half-dozen astute Ministers who terrorised the Emperor and his Court, and by so doing feathered their own nests. “Politicals” committed by Markoff to his tender mercies were shown little consideration, for was not his appointment as Governor-General mainly on account of his brutal treatment of offenders during his term of office at Tomsk?

Hartwig, had, more than once, mentioned this man as the most cruel, inhuman official in all Siberia. Therefore, being forewarned, I was ready to meet him on his own ground.

Many a man, and many a delicate woman, transported there from Russia, although quite as innocent of revolutionary ideas as my friend Madame de Rosen, had lived but a few short days on their arrival at the prison at Yakutsk, horrible tales of which had even filtered through back to Petersburg and Moscow.

One fact well-known was that, two years before, when smallpox had broken out at the prison, this brutal official caused a whole batch of prisoners to be placed in a room where a dozen other prisoners were lying in the last stages of that fatal disease, with the result that over two hundred exiles became infected, and of them one hundred and eighty died without receiving the least medical attention.

Such an action stood to his credit in the bureau of the Ministry of the Interior at Petersburg! He had saved the Empire the keep of a hundred and eighty prisoners—mostly the victims of Markoff and the camarilla!

When at five o’clock I was ushered into a big, gloomy room, lit by a hundred candles in brass sconces, a vulgar, thick-set man in tight-fitting, dark green uniform, his breast glittering with decorations, rose to greet me in a thick, deep voice. I judged him to be nearly sixty, with grey, steely eyes, a bloated face, short-cropped grey beard, and very square shoulders.

He apologised for his absence during the day, and after handing me a cigarette invited me to a chair covered with red plush, himself taking one opposite to me.

“I have been already notified of your coming,” he said, speaking through his beard. “They sent me word from Petersburg that you were travelling to Yakutsk. I am very delighted to receive you as guest of my Imperial Master. In what way can I be of service to you?”

I treated him with considerable hauteur, as became one bearing the order of the Tzar.

From my pocket I produced the Imperial instructions to all Governors of the Asiatic provinces to do my bidding. As soon as he saw it his manner changed and he became most humble and submissive.

“I must again apologise for not receiving you—for not calling upon you instantly on your arrival, Mr Trewinnard. But, truth to tell, I had for the moment forgotten that you were the guest of His Imperial Majesty. I had quite overlooked the telegram sent to me months ago,” he said; and then he read the other permits I produced. “I hope you have had a safe journey, and not too uncomfortable,” he went on. “I travelled once from Moscow in winter, and I must confess I, although a Russian, found it uncommonly cold.”

I gave him to understand that I had not travelled over six thousand miles merely to talk of climatic conditions.

But he strode with swagger across the big, well-furnished room, his gay decorations glittering in the candle-light. The treble windows were closed with thick, dark green curtains pulled across them. The armchairs and sofa were leather-covered, and at the farther end of the room was a big, littered writing-table set near the high stove of glazed brick.

He was a bachelor, with the reputation of being a hard drinker and a confirmed gambler. And under the iron hand of this unsympathetic and brutal official ten thousand political exiles, scattered all over the Arctic province, led an existence to which, in many cases, death would have been far preferable.

Upon the dark green walls of that sombre room—a room in which many a wretched “political” had pleaded in vain—was a single picture, a portrait of the Emperor, one of those printed by the thousand and distributed to every Government office throughout the great Empire. His Excellency General Vorontzoff, as representative of the Emperor, lived in considerable state with a large military staff, and Cossack sentries posted at all the doors. He was as unapproachable as the Tzar himself, probably knowing how hated he was among those unfortunates over whom he held the power of life and death. For the ordinary man to obtain audience of him was wellnigh impossible.

The explicit order in His Majesty’s own handwriting altered things considerably in my case, and I saw that he was greatly puzzled as to who I really could be, and why his Master had been so solicitous regarding my welfare.

“I have travelled from Petersburg, Your Excellency, in order to have private interviews with two political prisoners who have recently arrived here,” I explained at last.

He frowned slightly at mention of the word “political.”

“I understand,” he said. “They are friends of yours—eh?”

“Yes,” I replied. “And I wish to have interviews with the ladies with as little delay as possible.”

“Ladies—eh?” he asked, raising his grey eyebrows. “Who are they?”

“Their name is de Rosen,” I said, “but their exile numbers are 14956 and 14957.”

He bent to his writing-table, near which he was at that moment standing, and scribbled down the numbers. “They arrived recently, you say?”

“Yes. And I may tell you in confidence that a grave injustice has been done in exiling them. His Majesty is about to institute full and searching inquiries into the circumstances.”

His bloated face fell. He grew a trifle paler, and regarded me with some concern.

“I suppose they arrived with the last convoy?” he said reflectively. “We will quickly see.”

And he rang a bell, in answer to which a smart young Cossack officer appeared, saluting.

To him he handed the slip of paper with the numbers, saying in that hard, imperious voice of his:

“Report at once to me the whereabouts of these two prisoners. They arrived recently, and I am awaiting information.”

The officer again saluted and withdrew. Scarcely had he closed the door when another officer, wearing his heavy greatcoat flecked with snow, entered and, saluting, handed the Governor a paper, saying:

“The prisoners for Kolimsk are ready to start, Excellency.”

“How many?”

“Two hundred and seven—one hundred and twenty-six men, and eighty-one women. Your Excellency.”

Sredne Kolimsk! That was the most northerly and most dreaded settlement in all the Arctic, still distant nearly one thousand miles—the living tomb of so many of Markoff’s victims.

“Are they outside?” asked the Governor. To which the officer in charge replied in the affirmative.

“May I see them?” I asked. Whereupon my request was readily granted.

But before we went outside General Vorontzoff took the list from the Captain’s hand and scrawled his signature—the signature which sent two hundred and seven men and women to the coldest region in the world—that frozen bourne whence none ever returned.

Outside in the dark snowy night the wretched gang, in rough, grey, snow-covered clothes, were assembled, a dismal gathering of the most hopeless and dejected wretches in the world, all of them educated, and the majority being members of the professional classes. Yet all had, by that single stroke of the Governor’s pen, been consigned to a terrible fate, existence in the filthy yaurtas or huts of the half-civilised Yakuts—an unwashed race who live in the same stable as their cows, and whose habits are incredibly disgusting.

That huddled, shivering crowd had already trudged over four thousand miles on foot and survived, though how many had died on the way would never be told. They stood there like driven cattle, inert, silent and broken. Hardly a word was spoken, save by the mounted Cossack guards, who smoked or joked, several of them having been drinking vodka freely before leaving.

The Governor, standing at my side, glanced around them, mere shadows on the snow. Then he exclaimed with a low laugh, as though amused:

“Even this fate is too good for such vermin! Let’s go inside.”

I followed him in without a word. My heart bled for those poor unfortunate creatures, who at that moment, at a loud word of command from the Cossack captain, moved away into the bleak and stormy night.

In the cosy warmth of his own room General Vorontzoff threw himself into a deep armchair and declared that I must leave the “Guestnitsa” and become his guest, an invitation which I had no inclination to accept. He offered me champagne, which I was compelled out of courtesy to drink, and we sat smoking until presently the young Cossack officer reappeared, bearing a bundle of official papers.

“Well, where are they?” inquired the Governor quickly. “How slow you are!” he added emphatically.

“The two prisoners in question are still here in Yakutsk,” was the officer’s reply. “They have not yet been sent on to Parotovsk.”

“Then I must go to them at once,” I cried in eagerness, starting up quickly from my chair. “I must speak with them without delay. I demand to do so—in the Tzar’s name.”

The officer bent and whispered some low words into His Excellency’s ear; whereupon the Governor, turning to me with a strange expression upon his coarse countenance, said in a quiet voice:

“I much regret, Mr Trewinnard, but I fear that is impossible—quite impossible!”

Chapter Twenty Five.

Luba Makes a Statement.

“Impossible!” I echoed, staring at the all-powerful official. “Why?”

He shrugged his shoulders, slowly flicked the ash from his cigarette and glanced at the paper which the officer had handed to him.

I saw that beneath the candle-light his heavy features had changed. The diamond upon his finger flashed evilly.

“My pen and writing-pad,” he said, addressing his aide-de-camp.

The latter went to the writing-table and handed what he required.

His Excellency rapidly scribbled a few words, then tearing off the sheet of paper handed it to me, saying:

“As you so particularly wish to see them, I suppose your request must be granted. Here is an order to the prison governor.”

I took it with a word of thanks, and without delay put on my heavy fur shuba and accompanied the aide-de-camp out into the darkness. He carried a big, old-fashioned lantern to guide my footsteps, though the walk through the steadily-falling snow was not a long one.

Presently we came to a series of long, wood-built houses, windowless save for some small apertures high near the roof, standing behind a high stockade before which Cossack sentries, huddled in their greatcoats, were pacing, white, snowy figures in the gloom.

My guide uttered some password, which brought two sentries at the door to the salute, and then the great gates opened and we entered a big, open space which we crossed to the bureau, a large, low room, lit by a single evil-smelling petroleum lamp. Here I met a narrow-jawed, deep-eyed man in uniform—the prison governor, to whom I presented my permit.

He called a Cossack gaoler, a big, fur-clad man with a jingling bunch of keys at his waist, and I followed him out across the courtyard to one of the long wooden sheds, the door of which he with difficulty unlocked, unbolted, and threw open.

A hot, stifling breath of crowded humanity met me upon the threshold, a foetid odour of dirt, for the place was unventilated, and then by the single lamp high in the roof I saw that along each side of the shed were inclined plank benches crowded by sleeping or reclining women still in their prison clothes, huddled side by side with their heads against the wall, their feet to the narrow gangway.

“Prisoners!” shouted the gaoler in Russian. “Attention! Where is one four nine five seven?”

There was a silence as I stood upon the threshold.

“Come,” cried the man petulantly. “I want her here.”

A weak, thin voice, low and trembling, responded, and from the gloom slowly emerged a female figure in thick, ill-fitting clothes of grey cloth, unkempt and ragged.

“Move quickly,” snapped the gaoler. “Here is someone to see you!”

“To see me!” repeated the weak voice slowly. Next moment, the light of the lantern revealed my face, I suppose, for she dashed forward, crying in English: “Why—you, Mr Trewinnard! Ah! save me! Oh! save me! I beg of you.”

And she clung to me, trembling with fear.

It was the girl Luba de Rosen! Alas! so altered was she, so pale, haggard and prematurely-aged that I scarcely recognised her. Her appearance was dejected, ragged, horrible! Her fair hair that used to be so much admired was now tangled over her eyes, and her fine figure hidden by her rough, ill-fitting prison gown, which was old, dirty and tattered. I stared at her, speechless in horror.

She was only nineteen. In that smart set in which her mother moved her beauty had been much admired. Madame de Rosen was the widow of a wealthy Jew banker, and on account of her late husband’s loans to certain high officials to cover their gambling debts, all doors had been open to her. I recollected when I had last seen Luba, the night before her arrest. She had worn a pretty, Paris-made gown of carnation chiffon, and was waltzing with a good-looking young officer of the Kazan Dragoons. Alas! what a different picture she now presented.

“Luba!” I said quietly in English, taking her hand as she clung to me. “Come outside. I am here to speak with you. I want to talk with you alone.”

The gaoler, who had had his orders from the Governor, relocked and bolted the door, and taking his lantern, withdrew a respectable distance while I stood with Luba under the wooden wall of the prison wherein she had been confined.

“I have followed you here,” I said, opening my capacious fur coat and throwing it around the poor shivering girl. “I only arrived to-night. Where is your mother? I must see her at once.”

She was silent. In the darkness I saw that her white face was downcast.

I felt her sobbing as I held her, weak and tearful, in my arms. She seemed, poor girl, too overcome at meeting me to be able to speak. She tried to articulate some words, but they became choked by stifled sobs.

“Your mother has been very ill, I hear, Luba,” I said. “Is she better?”

But the girl only drew a long sigh and slowly shook her head.

“I—I can’t tell you—Mr Trewinnard!” she managed to exclaim. “It is all too terrible—horrible! My poor mother! Poor darling! She—she died this morning!”

“Dead!” I gasped. My heart sank within me. The iron entered my soul.

“Yes. Alas!” responded the unfortunate girl. “And I am left alone—all alone in this awful place! Ah! Mr Trewinnard, you do not know—you can never dream how much we have suffered since we left Petersburg. I would have preferred death a thousand times to this. And my poor mother. She is dead—at last she now has peace. The Cossacks cannot beat her with their whips any more.”

“Where did she die?” I asked blankly.

“In here—in this prison, upon the bench beside where I slept. Ah!” she cried, “I feel now as though I shall go mad. I lived only for her take—to wait upon her and try to alleviate her sufferings. Now that she has been taken from me I have no other object for which to live in this dreary waste of ice and snow. In a week I shall be sent on to Parotovsk with the others. But I hope before reaching there that God will be merciful and allow me to die.”

“No, no!” I exclaimed, my hand placed tenderly upon the poor girl’s shoulder. “Banish such thoughts. You may be released yet. I am here, striving towards that end.”

But she only shook her head again very mournfully. Nobody is released from Siberia.

As we stood together, my heavy coat wrapped about her in order to protect her a little from the piercing blast, she told me how, under the fatigue and exposure of the journey, her mother had fallen so ill that she one day dropped exhausted by the roadside. One Cossack officer, finding her unconscious, suggested that she should be left there to die, as fully half a dozen other delicate women had been left. But another officer of the convoy, a trifle more humane, had her placed in a tarantass, and by that means she had travelled as far as Tulunovsk. But the officer in charge there had compelled her to again walk, and over that last thousand miles of snow she had dragged wearily until, ill and worn out, she had arrived in Yakutsk.

From the moment of her arrival she had scarcely spoken. So weak was she, that she could only lie upon the bare wooden bench, and was ever begging to be allowed to die. And only that morning had she peacefully passed away. I had arrived twelve hours too late!

She had carried her secret to her grave!

I heard the terrible story from the girl’s lips in silence. My long weary journey had been all in vain.

From the beginning to the end of poor Madame’s illness no medical man had seen her. From what she had suffered no one knew, and certainly nobody cared a jot. She was, in the eyes of the law, a “dangerous political” who had died on the journey to the distant settlement to which she had been banished. And how many others, alas! had succumbed to the rigours of that awful journey!

I walked with Luba back to the Governor’s bureau, and in obedience to my demand he gave me a room—a bare place with a brick stove, before which the poor sad-eyed girl sat with me.

I saw that the death of her mother had utterly crushed her spirit. Transferred from the gaiety and luxury of Petersburg, her pretty home and her merry circle of friends, away to that wilderness of snow, with brutal Cossacks as guards—men who beat exhausted women with whips as one lashes a dog—her brain was at last becoming affected. At certain moments she seemed very curious in her manner. Her deep blue eyes had an unusual intense expression in them—a look which I certainly did not like. That keen glittering glance was, I knew, precursory to madness.

Though unkempt and ragged, wearing an old pair of men’s high boots and a dirty red handkerchief tied about her head, her beauty was still remarkable. Her pretty mouth was perhaps harder, and it tightened at the corners as she related the tragic story of their arrest and their subsequent journey. Yet her eyes were splendid, and her cheeks were still dimpled they had been when I had so often sat at tea with her in her mother’s great salon in Petersburg, a room decorated in white, with rose-du-Barri furniture.

In tenderness I hold her hand as she told me of the brutal treatment both she and her fellow-prisoners had received at the hands of the Cossacks.

“Never mind, Luba,” I said with a smile, endeavouring to cheer her, “every cloud has its silver lining. Your poor mother is dead, and nobody regrets it more than myself. I travelled in haste from England in order to see her—in order to advise her to reveal to me a certain secret which she possessed.”

“A secret!” said the girl, looking straight into my face. “A secret of what?”

“Well,” I said slowly, “first, Luba, let me explain that as you well know, I am an old friend of your dear mother.”

“I know that, of course,” she said. “Poor mother has frequently spoken of you during her journey. She often used to wonder what you would think when you heard of our arrest.”

“I knew you were both the innocent victims of General Markoff,” I said quickly.

“Ah! then you knew that!” she cried. “How did you know?”

“Because I was well aware that Markoff was your mother’s bitterest enemy,” I answered.

“He was. But why? Do you know that, Mr Trewinnard? Can you give me any explanation? It has always been a most complete mystery to me. Mother always refused to tell me anything.”

I paused. I had hoped that she would know something, or at least that she might give me some hint which would serve as a clue by which to elucidate the mystery of those incriminating letters, now, alas! destroyed.

“Has your mother told you nothing?” I asked, looking earnestly straight in her face.

“Nothing.”

“Immediately before her arrest she gave to Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia certain letters, asking her to keep them in safety. Are you aware of that?”

“Mother told me so,” the girl replied. “She also believed that the letters in question must have fallen into General Markoff’s hands.”

“Why?”

“I do not know. She often said so.”

“She believed that the arrest and exile of you both was due to the knowledge of what those letters contained—eh?” I asked.

“I think so.”

“But tell me, Luba,” I asked very earnestly, “did your mother ever reveal to you the nature of those letters? I am here to discover this—because—well, to tell the truth, because your friend the Grand Duchess Natasha is in deadly peril.”

“In peril, why? Where is she?”

In a few brief words I told her of Natalia’s incognita at Brighton, and of the attempt that had been made to assassinate us both, in order to suppress any knowledge of the letters that either of us might have gained.

“Our own sad case is on a par with yours,” she declared thoughtfully at last. “Poor mother was, I think, aware of some secret of General Markoff’s. Perhaps it was believed that she had told me. At any rate, we were both arrested and sent here, where we should never have any opportunity of using our information.”

“You have no idea of its nature, Luba,” I asked in a low voice, still deeply in earnest. “I mean you have no suspicion of the actual nature of the contents of those letters which your mother gave into Natalia’s care?”

The girl was silent for some time, her eyes downcast in thought.

At last she replied:

“It would be untrue to say that I entertain no suspicion. But, alas! I have no corroboration. My belief is only based upon what my dear mother so often used to repeat to me.”

“And what was that?” I asked.

“That she had held the life of Russia’s oppressor, General Markoff, in her hand. That she could have crushed and ruined him as he so justly deserved; but that for motives of humanity she had warned him of repeating his dastardly actions, and had long hesitated to bring him to ruin and to death.”

“Ah! the brute. He knew that,” I cried. “He craftily awaited his opportunity, then he dealt her a cowardly blow, by arresting her and sending her here, where even in life or in death her lips would be closed for ever.”

Chapter Twenty Six.

Not in the Newspapers.

Twelve weeks had elapsed—cold, weary weeks of constant sledging over those bleak, snow-bound plains, westward, back to civilisation.

On the twenty-seventh of April—I have, alas! cause to remember the date—at six o’clock in the evening, I alighted from the train at Brighton, and Hartwig came eagerly forward to greet me.

I had journeyed incessantly, avoiding Petersburg and coming by Warsaw and Berlin to the Hook of Holland, and that morning had apprised him of my arrival in England; but, I fear, as I emerged from the train my appearance must have been somewhat travel-worn. True, I had bought some ready-made clothes in Berlin—a new overcoat and a new hat. But I was horribly conscious that they were ill-fitting, as is every man who wears a “ready-to-wear garment”—as the tailors call it.

Yes, I was utterly fagged out after that long and fruitless errand, and a I glanced at Hartwig I detected in an instant that something unusual had occurred.

“What’s the matter?” I asked quickly. “What has happened?”

“Ah! that I unfortunately do not exactly know, Mr Trewinnard,” was his reply in a tone quite unusual to him.

“But what has occurred?”

“Disaster,” he answered in a low, hoarse voice. “Her Highness has mysteriously disappeared!”

“Disappeared!” I gasped, halting and staring at him. “How? With whom?”

“How can we tell?” he asked, with a gesture of despair.

“Explain,” I urged. “Tell me quickly. How did it happen?”

Together we walked slowly out of the station-yard down in the direction of King’s Road, when he said:

“Well, the facts are briefly these. Last Monday—that is five days ago—Her Highness and Miss West had been over to Eastbourne by train to see an old schoolfellow of the Grand Duchess’s, a certain Miss Finlay—with whom I have since had an interview. They lunched at Mrs Finlay’s house—one of those new ones on the road to Beachy Head—and left, together with Miss Finlay, to walk back to the station at half-past seven o’clock. Her Highness would not drive, but preferred to walk along the Promenade and up Terminus Road. When close to the station, Dmitri—who accompanied them—says that Her Highness stopped suddenly before a fancy needlework shop, while the other two went on. The Grand Duchess, before entering the shop, motioned to Dmitri to walk along to the station, for his surveillance, as you know, always irritated her. Dmitri, therefore, strolled on—and—well, that was the last seen of her Highness!”

“Impossible!” I gasped.

“I have made every effort to trace her, but without avail,” declared Hartwig in despair. “It appears that she purchased some coloured silks for embroidery, paid for them, and then went out quite calmly. The girl who served her recollects her customer being met upon the threshold by a man who raised his hat in greeting and spoke to her. But she could not see his face, nor could she, in the dusk, discern whether he were young or old. The young lady seemed to be pleased to meet him, and, very curiously, it struck her at the time that that meeting had been prearranged.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because she says that the young lady, while making her purchase, glanced anxiously at her gold wristlet-watch once or twice.”

“She had a train to catch, remember.”

“Yes. I put that point before the girl, but she remains unshaken in her conviction that Her Highness met the man there by appointment. In any case,” he added, “we have been unable to discover any trace of her since.”

I was silent for a moment.

“But, surely, Hartwig, this is a most extraordinary affair!” I cried. “She may have been decoyed into the hands of Danilovitch!”

“That is, alas! what I very much fear,” the police official admitted. “This I believe to be some deeply-laid plot of Markoff’s to secure her silence. You have been across Siberia, and arrived too late, yet Her Highness is still in possession of the secret. She is the only living menace to Markoff. Is it not natural, therefore, that he should take steps to seal her lips?”

“We must discover her, Hartwig—we must find her, either alive or dead,” I said resolutely.

This news staggered me, fagged and worn out as I was. I had been compelled to leave Luba in the hands of the Governor-General, who had promised, because I was the guest of His Majesty, that he would do all in his power to render her lot less irksome. Indeed, she had been transferred to one of the rooms in the prison hospital in Yakutsk, and was under a wardress, instead of being guarded by those brutal, uncouth Cossacks.

But this sudden disappearance of Natalia just at the very moment when her presence was of greatest importance held me utterly bewildered. All my efforts had been in vain!

Should I telegraph the alarming news to the Emperor?

Hartwig explained to me how diligently he had searched, and at once I realised the expert method with which he was dealing with the remarkable affair, and the wide scope of his inquiry. No man in Europe was more fitted to institute such a search. He had, in confidence, invoked the aid of New Scotland Yard, and being known by the heads of the Criminal Investigation Department, they had allowed him to direct the inquiry.

“At present,” he said, “the papers are fortunately in entire ignorance of the matter. I have been very careful that nothing shall leak out, for the story would, of course, be a grand one for the sensational Press. The public, however, does not know whose identity is hidden beneath the name of Gottorp, and no reporter dreams that a Russian Grand Duchess has been living incognita in Brunswick Square,” he added with a smile. “The Criminal Investigation Department have agreed with me that it would be unwise for a single word to leak out regarding the disappearance. Of course they incline to the theory of a secret lover—but—”

“You suspect young Drury—eh?” I interrupted quickly.

“I hardly know what theory to form,” he said with a puzzled air: “while the shopgirl in Eastbourne describes the appearance of the man’s back as exactly similar to that of Mr Drury, yet I cannot believe that he would willingly play us such a trick. I know him quite well, and I believe him to be a very honest, upright, straightforward young fellow.”

“He knows nothing of Her Highness’s real identity?” I asked anxiously, as we still strolled down towards the sea.

“Has no suspicion whatever of it. He believes Miss Gottorp to be the daughter of a Berlin brewer who died and left her a fortune. No,” he went on, “I detect in this affair one of Markoff’s clever plots. She probably believed that she was to meet young Drury, and adopted that ruse to pause and speak with him—but—!”

“But what?” I asked, turning and looking into his grave face, revealed by the light of a shop window.

“Well—she was led into a trap,” he said. “Decoyed away into one of the side streets, perhaps—and then—well, who knows what might have happened?”

“You have searched Eastbourne, I suppose?”

“The Criminal Investigation Department are doing so,” he said. “I am making a perfectly independent inquiry.”

“You have reported nothing yet to Petersburg—eh?”

“Not a word. What can I say? I have asked Miss West to refrain from uttering a syllable—also the Finlays have promised entire secrecy.”

“There is a motive in her disappearance, Hartwig,” I said. “What is it?”

“Ah! That’s just it, Mr Trewinnard,” he replied. “Her Highness had no motive whatever to disappear. Mr Drury was always welcome at Brunswick Square, for Miss West entirely approved of him. Besides, his presence had prevented other flirtations. Therefore there was no reason that there should have been any clandestine meeting in Eastbourne.”

“Then the only other suggestion is that of treachery.”

“Exactly. And that is the correct one—depend upon it.”

“If she has fallen into Markoff’s hands then she may be already dead!” I gasped, staring at him. “If so, the secret will remain a secret for ever!”

For a moment the great detective remained silent. Then slowly he said:

“To tell the truth, that is exactly what I fear. Yes, I will try and suppress the horrible apprehension. It is too terrible.”

“Danilovitch is unscrupulous,” I said, “and he hates us.”

“No doubt he does. He fears us, yet—” and he paused. “Yet a most curious point is the fact that Her Highness deliberately remained behind and sent Dmitri on, in order to be allowed opportunity to escape his vigilance.”

“All cleverly planned by her enemies,” I declared. “She was misled, and fell into some very cunningly-baited trap, without a doubt. Do you believe she is still in Eastbourne?”

“No.”

“Neither do I,” was my assertion. “She went to London, no doubt, for there she would be easily concealed—if death has not already overtaken her—as it has overtaken poor Madame de Rosen.”

“I trust not,” he said very thoughtfully. Then he added: “I have been thinking whether we might not again approach Danilovitch?”

“He is our enemy and hers. He will give us no satisfaction,” I said. “Certainly, whatever plot suggested by Markoff arose in his fertile brain. And his plots usually have the same result—the death of the victim. It may be so in this case,” I added reflectively; “but I sincerely trust not.”

Hartwig drew a long breath. His face clouded.

“Remember,” he said, “it is to Markoff’s advantage—indeed to him her death means the suppression of some disgraceful truth. If she lives—then his fall is imminent. I have foreseen this all along, hence my constant precaution, which, alas! was relaxed last Monday, because I had to go to London to consult the Ambassador. They evidently were aware of that.”

I explained the failure of my errand, whereat he drew a long breath and said:

“It almost seems, Mr Trewinnard, that our enemies have secured the advantage of us, after all. I really feel they have.”

“You fear that the trap into which Her Highness has fallen is a fatal one—eh?” I asked, glancing at him quickly.

“What can I reply?” he said in a low tone. “Every inquiry I can devise is in progress. All the ports are watched, and observation is kept night and day upon the house in Lower Clapton from a house opposite, which Matthews, of New Scotland Yard, has taken for the purpose. Her Highness has not been there—up to now. Markoff is in Petersburg.”

The great detective—the man whose cleverness in the detection of crime was perhaps unequalled in Europe—drew a long, thoughtful face as he halted with me beneath a street-lamp.

People hurried past us, ignorant of the momentous question we were discussing.

“Where is Drury?” I asked suddenly.

“Ah! That is yet another point,” answered Hartwig. “He, too, is missing—he has disappeared!”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

At Tzarskoie-Selo.

Just before eleven o’clock that night, accompanied by Hartwig, I called at Richard Drury’s cosy artistic flat in Albemarle Street, and in answer to my questions his valet, a tall, thin-faced young man, informed me that his master was not at home.

“I understand that you have had no news of him since last Monday?” I said. “The fact is, this gentleman is a detective, and we are endeavouring to elucidate the mystery of Mr Drury’s disappearance.”

The valet recognised Hartwig as having called before, and invited us into the small bachelor sitting-room, over the mantelpiece of which were many photographs of its owner’s friends—the majority being of the opposite sex.

“Well, sir, it’s a complete mystery,” the man replied. “My master slept here on Sunday night, and left for the country on Monday afternoon. He had a directors’ meeting at Westminster on Tuesday, and told me that he should be back at midday. But he has never returned. That’s all. They sent round from the office to know if he was in town, and of course I told them that he had not come back.”

“Have there been any callers lately?” I asked. “Has a lady been here?”

“Only one lady ever calls, sir—a foreign lady named Gottorp.”

“And has she been here lately?” I inquired quickly. “She called on the Friday, and they went out together to lunch at Jules’s. She often calls. She’s a very nice young lady, sir.”

“She hasn’t called since Monday?” I asked.

“No, sir. A stranger—a foreigner—called on Tuesday afternoon and inquired for Mr Drury.”

“A foreigner!” I exclaimed. “Who was he? Describe him.”

“Oh! he was a dark, middle-aged man, dressed in a shabby brown suit. He wanted to see Mr Drury very particularly.”

Hartwig and I exchanged glances. Was the caller an agent of Secret Police.

“What did he say when you told him of your master’s absence?”

“He seemed rather puzzled, and went away expressing his intention of calling again.”

“He was a stranger?”

“I’d never seen him before, sir.”

“And this Miss Gottorp—is your master very attached to her?”

“He worships her, as the sayin’ is, sir,” replied the man frankly. “She lives down at Brighton, and he spends half his time there on her account.”

“You say your master left London for the country on Monday afternoon. What was his destination?”

“Ah, I don’t know. I only know he drove to Victoria, but whether he left by the South Eastern or the South Coast line is a mystery.”

I had already formed a theory that Drury had travelled down to Eastbourne and had met his well-beloved outside the shop in Terminus Road. Afterwards both had disappeared! My amazement was mingled with annoyance and chagrin. Natalia had, alas! too little regard for the convenances. She had acted foolishly, with that recklessness which had always characterised her and had already scandalised the Imperial Family. Now it had resulted in her becoming victim of some dastardly plot, the exact nature of which was not yet apparent.

For half an hour we both questioned Drury’s valet, but could learn little of further interest. Therefore we left, and strolled along Piccadilly as far as St. James’s Club, where, until a late hour, we sat discussing the sensational affair.

Was it an elopement, or had they both fallen victims of some cleverly-conceived trap in which we detected the sinister hand of His Excellency General Serge Markoff?

Next day I returned to Brighton and closely questioned Miss West, the maid Davey, and the puzzled Dmitri. I saw the manager of the hotel where Drury was in the habit of staying, and, discovering that Drury’s friend, Doctor Ingram, lived in Gower Street, I resumed to London and that same night succeeded in running him to earth.

He was perfectly frank.

“Dick has disappeared as suddenly as if the earth has swallowed him,” he declared. “I can’t make it out, especially as he told me he had a most important directors’ meeting last Tuesday, and that he must travel up to Greenock on Thursday to be present at the launch of a new cruiser which his firm is building for the Admiralty. He certainly would have kept those two appointments had he been free to do so.”

“You knew Miss Gottorp, I believe?” I asked of the quiet-mannered, studious young man in gold-rimmed glasses.

“Quite well. Dick’s man told me yesterday that the young lady has also disappeared,” he said. “It is really most extraordinary. I can’t make it out. Dick is not the kind of man to elope, you know. He’s too straightforward and honourable. Besides, he was always made most welcome at Brunswick Square—though, between ourselves, the young lady though inexpressibly charming, was always a very great mystery to me. I went with Dick twice to her house, and on each occasion saw men, foreigners they seemed, lurking about the hall. They eyed one suspiciously, and I did not like to visit her on that account.”

I pretended ignorance, but could see that he held Natalia in some suspicion. Indeed, he half hinted that for aught they knew, the pretty young lady might be some clever foreign adventuress.

At that I laughed heartily. What would he think if I spoke the truth?

Next day I put into the personal columns of several of the London newspapers an advertisement which read:

“Gottorp.—Have returned: very anxious; write club—Uncle Colin.”

Then for four days I waited for a reply, visiting the club a dozen times each day, but all in vain.

I called at Chesham House one afternoon and had a chat with His Excellency the Russian Ambassador. He was unaware of Her Imperial Highness’s disappearance, and I did not inform him. I wanted to know what knowledge he possessed, and whether Markoff was still in Petersburg. I discovered that he knew nothing, and that at that moment the Chief of Secret Police was with the Emperor at the military manoeuvres in progress on that great plain which stretches from the town of Ivanovo across to the western bank of the broad Volga.

Hartwig was ever active, night and day, but no trace could we find of the missing couple. Drury’s friends, on their part, were making inquiry in every direction, but all to no avail. The pair had entirely disappeared.

The house of the conspirators in Lower Clapton was being watched night and day, but as far as it could be observed there was little or no activity in that quarter. Danilovitch was still living there in retirement, going out only after dark, and though he was always shadowed it could not be found that he ever called at any other place than a little shop kept by a Russian cigarette-maker in Dean Street, Soho, and a small eight-roomed villa in North Finchley, where lived a compatriot named Felix Sasonoff, the London correspondent of one of the Petersburg daily newspapers.

Our warning had, it seemed, had its effect. Much as we desired to approach the mysterious head of the so-called Revolutionary Organisation—the man known as “The One,” but whose identity was veiled in mystery—we dared not do so, knowing that he was our bitterest enemy.

One morning, in despair at obtaining no trace of the missing pair, I resolved to travel to Petersburg and there make inquiry. I realised that I must inform the Emperor, even at risk of his displeasure, for, after all, I had been compelled by my journey to Siberia to relax my vigilance, though I had left the little madcap under Hartwig’s protection.

What if they had actually eloped! Alas! I knew too well the light manner in which Natalia regarded the conventions of old-fashioned Mother Grundy. Indeed, it had often seemed her delight to commit breaches of the Imperial etiquette and to cause horror in her family.

Yet surely she would never commit such an unpardonable offence as to elope with Richard Drury!

Again, was she already dead? That was, I confess, my greatest fear, knowing well the desperate cunning of Serge Markoff, and all that her decease meant to him.

So, with sudden resolve, I took the Nord Express once more back across Europe, and four days later found myself again in my old room at the Embassy, where Stoyanovitch brought me a command to audience from the Emperor.

How can I adequately describe the interview, which took place in a spacious room in the Palace of Tzarskoie-Selo.

“So your friend Madame de Rosen was unfortunately dead before you reached Yakutsk,” remarked His Majesty gravely, standing near the window in a brilliant uniform covered with glittering decorations, for he had just returned from an official function. “I heard of it,” he added. “The Governor-General Vorontzoff reported to me by telegraph. Indeed, Trewinnard, I had frequent reports of your progress. I am sorry you undertook such a journey all in vain.”

“I beg of Your Majesty’s clemency towards the dead woman’s daughter Luba,” I asked.

But he only made a gesture of impatience, saying:

“I have already demanded a report on the whole case. Until that comes, I regret I cannot act. Vorontzoff will see that the girl is not sent farther north, and no doubt she will be well treated.”

In a few brief words I described some of the scenes I had witnessed on the Great Post Road, but the Emperor only sighed heavily and replied:

“I regret it, I tell you. But how can I control the loyal Cossacks sent to escort those who have made attempts upon my life? I admit most freely that the exile system is wrong, cruel—perhaps inhuman. Yet how can it be altered?”

“If Your Majesty makes searching inquiry, he will find some terrible injustices committed in the name of the law.”

“In confidence, I tell you, I am having secret inquiry made in certain quarters,” he replied. “And, Trewinnard, I wish you, if you will, to make out for me a full and confidential report on your journey, and I will then have all your allegations investigated.”

I thanked him. Though an autocrat, he was yet a humane and just ruler—when he was allowed to exercise justice, which, unfortunately, was but seldom.

“My journey had a tragic sequel in Yakutsk, Sire,” I said presently, “and upon my return to England I was met with still another misfortune—a misfortune upon which I desire to consult Your Imperial Majesty.”

“What?” he asked, opening his eyes widely. “A further misfortune?”

“I regret to be compelled to report that her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia has disappeared,” I said in a low voice.

His dark, heavy brows narrowed, his cheeks went pale, and his lips compressed.

“Disappeared!” he gasped. “What do you mean? Describe this latest escapade of hers—for I suppose it is some ridiculous freak or other?”

“I fear not, Sire,” was my reply. Then, having described to him the facts as I have related them here to you, my reader, omitting, of course, all reference to Richard Drury, I added: “What I fear is that Her Highness has fallen victim to some revolutionary plot.”

“Why? What motive can the revolutionary party have in making an attempt upon her—a mere giddy girl?”

“The fame motive which incited the attempt in Petersburg, in which her lamented father lost his life,” was my quiet reply.

His Majesty touched a bell, and in answer Stoyanovitch appeared upon the threshold and saluted.

“If General Markoff is still here I desire to see him immediately.”

The Captain saluted, backed out and withdrew.

I held my breath. This was, indeed, a misfortune. I had no wish that Markoff should know of the inquiries I was instituting.

“May I venture to make a request of Your Majesty?” I asked in a low, uncertain voice.

“What is it?” he asked with quick irritation.

“That General Markoff shall be allowed to remain in ignorance of Her Highness’s disappearance?”

“Why?” asked the Emperor, looking across at me in surprise.

“Because—well, because, for certain reasons, I believe secrecy at present to be the best course,” I replied somewhat lamely.

“Nonsense!” was his abrupt response. “Natalia is missing. You suspect that she has fallen victim to some conspiracy. Therefore Markoff must know, and our Secret Police must investigate. Markoff knows of every plot as soon as it is conceived. His organisation is marvellous. He will probably know something. Fortunately, he had only just left me on your arrival.”

His Excellency probably left the Emperor’s presence because he did not wish to meet me face to face.

Again I tried to impress upon His Majesty that, as Hartwig had commenced an investigation in England, the matter might be left to him. But he only replied:

“Hartwig is head of the criminal police. He therefore has little, if any, knowledge of the revolutionaries. No, Trewinnard. This is essentially a matter for Markoff.”

I bit my lips, for next second the white-enamelled steel door of that bomb-proof room in which we were standing was thrown open, and a chamberlain announced:

“His Excellency General Serge Markoff!”

Chapter Twenty Eight.

The Emperor’s Favourite.

For a second the famous chief of Secret Police turned his cunning, steel-blue eyes upon mine and bowed slightly, after making obeisance to His Majesty.

“Why, I believed, Mr Trewinnard, that you were still in Siberia!” he said with a crafty smile. Though my bitterest enemy, he always feigned the greatest friendliness.

“Trewinnard has just revealed a very painful and serious fact, Markoff,” exclaimed the Emperor, in a deep, earnest voice. “Her Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia has disappeared.”

The General gave no sign of surprise.

“It has already been reported to us,” was his calm answer. “I have not reported it, in turn, to Your Majesty, fearing to cause undue alarm. Both here and in England we are instituting every possible inquiry.”

“Another plot,” I remarked, with considerable sarcasm, I fear.

“Probably,” was His Excellency’s reply, as he turned to His Imperial Master, and in that fawning voice of his, added: “Your Majesty may rest assured that if Her Highness be alive she will be found, wherever she may be.”

Hatred—hatred most intense—arose within my heart as I glanced at the sinister face of the favourite before me, the man who had deliberately ordered the commission of that crime which had resulted in the death of the Emperor’s brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas. To his orders had been due that exciting episode in which I had so nearly lost my life in Siberia; at his orders, too, poor Marya de Rosen had been deliberately sent to her grave; and at his orders had been planned the conspiracy against the Grand Duchess which Danilo Danilovitch had intended to carry into execution, and would no doubt have done, had he not been prevented by Hartwig’s boldness.

I longed to turn and denounce him before his Imperial Master. Indeed, hot, angry words were upon my lips, but I suppressed them. No! The time was not yet ripe. Natalia herself had promised to make the revelations, and to her I must leave them.

I must find her—and then.

“Ah!” exclaimed His Majesty, well pleased. “I knew that you would be already informed, Markoff. You know everything. Nothing which affects my family ever escapes you.”

“I hope not, Sire. I trust I may ever be permitted to display my loyalty and gratitude for the confidence which Your Majesty sees fit to repose in me.”

“To your astuteness, Markoff, I have owed my life a score of times,” the Emperor declared. “I have already acknowledged your devoted services. Now make haste and discover the whereabouts of my harebrained little niece, Tattie, for the little witch is utterly incorrigible.”

Markoff, pale and hard-faced, was silent for a moment. Then with a strange expression upon his grey, deceitful countenance he said:

“Perhaps I should inform Your Majesty of one point which to-day was reported to us from England—namely, that it is believed that Her Highness has fled with—well, with a lover—a certain young Englishman.”

“A lover!” roared the Emperor, his face instantly white with anger. “Another lover! Who is he, pray?”

“His name is Richard Drury,” His Excellency replied.

“Then the girl has created an open scandal! The English and French newspapers will get hold of it, and we shall have detailed accounts of the elopement—eh?” he cried excitedly. “This, Markoff, is really too much!” Then turning to me he asked: “What do you know of this young Drury? Tell me, Trewinnard.”

“Very little, Sire, except that he is her friend, and that he is in ignorance of her true station.”

“But are they in love with each other?” he demanded in a hard voice. “Have you neglected my instructions and allowed clandestine meetings—eh?”

“Unfortunately my journey across Siberia prevented my exercising due vigilance,” I faltered. “Yet she gave me her word of honour that she would form no male attachment.”

“Bosh!” he cried angrily, as he crossed the room. “No girl can resist falling in love with a man if he is good-looking and a gentleman—at least, no girl of Tattie’s high spirits and disregard for the convenances. You were a fool, Trewinnard, to accept the girl’s word.”

“I believed in the honour of a lady,” I said in mild reproach, “and especially as the lady was a Romanoff.”

“The Romanoff women are as prone to flirtation as any commoner of the same sex,” he declared hastily. “Markoff knows of more than one scandal which has had to be faced and crushed out during the last five years. But this fellow Drury,” he added impatiently, “who is he?”

In a few brief sentences I told him what I knew concerning him.

“You think they have fallen in love?”

“I am fully convinced of it, Sire.”

“Therefore they may have eloped! Tattie’s disappearance may have no connection with any revolutionary plot—eh?”

“It may not. But upon that point I am quite undecided,” was my reply.

“Let me hear your views, Markoff,” said the Emperor sharply.

“I believe that Her Highness has fallen the victim of a plot,” was his quick reply. “The man Drury may have shared the same fate.”

“Fate!” he echoed. “Do you anticipate, then, that the girl is dead?”

“Alas, Sire! If she has fallen into the hands of the revolutionists, then without doubt she is dead,” was the cunning official’s reply.

Was he revealing to his Imperial Master a fact that he knew? Was he preparing the Emperor for the receipt of bad news?

I glanced at his grey, coarse, sphinx-like countenance, and felt convinced that such was the case. Had she, after all, fallen a victim of his craft and cunning, and were her lips sealed for ever?

I stood there staring at the pair, the Emperor and his all-powerful favourite, like a man in a dream. Suddenly I roused myself with the determination that I would leave no stone unturned to unmask this man and reveal him in his true light to the Sovereign who had trusted him so complacently, and had been so ingeniously blinded and misled by this arch-adventurer, to whose evil machinations the death of so many innocent persons were due.

“Then you are not certain whether, after all, it is an elopement?” asked the Emperor, glancing at him a few moments later. And turning impatiently to me he said in reproach: “I gave her into your hands, Trewinnard. You promised me solemnly to exercise all necessary vigilance in order to prevent a repetition of that affair in Moscow, when the madcap was about to run away to London. Yet you relaxed your vigilance and she has escaped while you have been on your wild-goose chase through Siberia.”

“With greatest respect to your Majesty, I humbly submit that my mission was no wild-goose chase. It concerned a woman’s honour and her liberty,” and I glanced at Markoff’s grey, imperturbable countenance. “But the unfortunate lady was sent to her death—purposely killed by exhaustion and exposure, ere I could reach Yakutsk.”

“She was a dangerous person,” the General snapped, with a smile of sarcasm.

“Yes,” I said in a hard, bitter voice. “She was marked as such upon the list of exiles—and treated as such—treated in a manner that no woman is treated in any other country which calls itself Christian!”

I saw displeasure written upon the Emperor’s face, therefore I apologised for my outburst.

“It ill becomes you, an Englishman, to criticise our penal system, Trewinnard,” the Emperor remarked in quiet rebuke. “And, moreover, we are not discussing it. Madame de Rosen conspired against my life and she is dead. Therefore the question is closed.”

“I believe when Your Majesty comes to ascertain the truth—the actual truth,” I said, glancing meaningly at Markoff, who was then standing before the Sovereign, his hands clasped behind his back, “that you will discover some curious connection between the death of Marya de Rosen in the Yakutsk prison and the disappearance and probable death of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, staring at me in surprise.

“For answer,” I said, “I must, with great respect, direct Your Majesty to His Excellency General Markoff, who is aware of all that concerns the Imperial family. He probably knows the truth regarding the strange disappearance of the young lady, and what connection it has with Madame de Rosen’s untimely end.”

“I really do not understand you,” cried the renowned chief of Secret Police, drawing himself up suddenly. “What do you infer?”