I nodded in the affirmative.
“Ah!” she cried impatiently. “You diplomats are always so full of secrets. Really you must tell me. Uncle Colin.”
“I can’t,” was my brief reply. “I only ask you to refute the untruth.”
“I will – at once. Poor Geoffrey.”
“Have you heard from him lately?” I asked.
“You’re very inquisitive. I have not.”
“I’m very glad of that,” I answered her. “You know how greatly the affair annoyed the Emperor. You were awfully injudicious. It’s a good job that I chanced to meet you both at the station in Moscow.”
“Well,” she laughed, “I was going to England with him, and we had arranged to be married at a registrar’s office in London. Only you stopped us – you nasty old thing!”
“And you ought to be very glad that I recognised you just in the nick of time. Ten minutes later and you would have left Moscow. Think of the scandal – the elopement of a young Imperial Grand Duchess of Russia with an English commoner.”
“Well, and isn’t an English commoner as good, and perhaps better, than one of these uniformed and decorated Russian aristocrats? I am Russian,” she added frankly, “but I have no love for the Muscovite man.”
“It was a foolish escapade,” I declared; “but it’s all over now. The one consolation is that nobody knows the actual truth.”
“Except His Majesty. I told him everything; how I had met Geoffrey in Hampshire when I went to stay with Lady Hexworthy; how we used to meet in secret, and all that,” she said.
“Well now,” I exclaimed, looking straight into her face, “I want to ask you a plain open question. I have a motive in doing so – one which I will explain to you after you have answered me honestly and truthfully. I – ”
“At it again!” cried the pretty madcap. “You’re really not yourself to-night, Uncle Colin. What is the matter with you?”
“Simply I want to know the truth – whether there is still any love between Geoffrey and yourself?”
“Ah! no,” she sighed, pulling a grimace. “It’s all over between us. It broke his heart, poor fellow, but some kind friend, at your Embassy, I think, wrote and told him about Paul Urusoff and – well, he wrote me a hasty letter. Then I replied, a couple of telegrams, and we agreed to be strangers for ever. And so ends the story. Like a novel, isn’t it?” she laughed merrily.
My eyes were fixed upon her. I was wondering if she were really telling me the truth. As the Emperor had most justly said, she was an artful little minx where her love-affairs were concerned.
Colonel Polivanoff, the Grand Chamberlain of the Court, crossed the great palm-garden at that moment, and bowed to my pretty companion.
“But,” she added, turning back to me, “people ought not to say that he’s been foolish enough to do away with himself on my account. It only shows that I must have made some enemies of whom I’m quite unaware.”
“Everyone has enemies,” I answered her. “You are no exception. But, is it really true that Geoffrey is no longer in your thoughts?” I asked her very seriously.
“Truth and honour,” she declared, with equal gravity.
“Then who is the fortunate young man at present – eh?”
“That’s my own secret. Uncle Colin,” she declared, drawing herself up. “I’ll ask you the same question. Who is the lady you are in love with at the present moment?”
“Shall I tell you?”
“Yes. It would be interesting.”
“I’m in love with you.”
“Ah?” she cried, nodding her head and laughing. “I thought as much. You’ve brought me out here to flirt with me. I wonder if you’ll kiss me – eh?” she asked mischievously.
“I will, if you tempt me too much,” I said threateningly. “And then the report you’ve spread about will be the truth.”
She laughed merrily and tapped my hand with her fan.
“I never can get the better of you, dear old uncle,” she declared. “You always have the last word, and you’re such a delightfully old-fashioned person. Now let’s try and be serious.” And she settled herself and, turning to me, added: “Why do you wish to know about Geoffrey Hamborough?”
“For several reasons,” I said. “First, I think Your Highness knows me quite well enough to be aware that I am your very sincere friend.”
“My best friend,” she declared quickly; her manner changed in an instant from merry irresponsibility to deep earnestness. “That night on the railway platform at Moscow you saved me making a silly fool of myself. It was most generous of the Emperor to forgive me. I know how you pleaded for me. He told me so.”
“I am your friend,” I replied. “Now, as to the future. You tell me that you find all the Court etiquette irksome, and that you are antagonistic to this host of young men about you. You are, in brief, sorry that you are back in Russia. Is that so?”
“It is so exactly.”
“And how about Prince Urusoff – eh?”
“I haven’t seen him for fully three months, and I don’t even know where he is. I believe he’s with his regiment, the 21st Dragoons of White Russia, somewhere away in the Urals. I heard that the Emperor sent him there. But he certainly need not have done so. I found him only a foolish young boy.”
Her Imperial Highness was a young lady of very keen intelligence. After several governesses at home, she had been sent to Paris, and afterwards to a college at Eastbourne – where she was known as Miss Natalia Gottorp, the latter being one of the family names of the Imperial Romanoffs – and there she had completed her education. From her childhood she had always had an English governess, Miss West, consequently, with a Russian’s adaptability, she spoke English almost without a trace of accent. Though so full of fun and frolic, and so ready to carry on a violent flirtation, yet she was, on the other hand, very thoughtful and level-headed, with a keen sense of humour, and a nature extremely sympathetic with any person in distress, no matter whom they might be. Hers was a bright, pleasant nature, a smiling face, and ever-twinkling eye full of mischief and merriment.
“Well,” I said, looking into her face, “I’ve been thinking about you a good deal since you’ve been away – and wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“Whether, as you have no love for Russia, you might not like to go back to England?” I said slowly.
“To England!” she cried in delight. “Ah! If I only could! I love England, and especially Eastbourne, with the sea and the promenade, the golf, and the concerts at the Devonshire Park, and all that. Ah! I only wish I could go.”
“But if you went you’d fall in love with some young fellow, and then we should have another scandal at Court,” I said.
“I wouldn’t. Believe me, I wouldn’t, really, Uncle Colin,” she pleaded, looking up into my face with almost childish simplicity.
I shook my head dubiously.
“All I’ve told you is the real truth,” she assured me. “I’ve only amused myself. Every girl likes men to make love to her. Why should I be so bitterly condemned?”
“Because you are not a commoner.”
“That’s just it. But if I went to England and lived again as Miss Natalia Gottorp, nobody would know who I am, and I could have a really splendid time. Here,” she cried, “all the glitter and etiquette of Court life stifle me. I’ve been bored to death on the tour round the Empire, but couldn’t you try and induce the Emperor to let me go back to England? Do, Uncle Colin, there’s a dear. A word from the Emperor, and father would let me go in a moment. I wish poor mother were alive. She would soon let me go, I know.”
“And what would you do in England if you went back?”
“Why, I’d have my old governess, Miss West – the one I had at Strelna – to live with me, and I’d be ever so happy. I’d take a house on the sea-front at Eastbourne, so as to be near the old college, and see the girls. Try what you can do with Uncle Alexander, won’t you? there’s a dear old uncle,” she added, in her most persuasive tones.
“Well,” I said, with some show of reluctance, “if I succeed, you will be responsible to me, remember. No flirtations.”
“I promise,” she said. “Here’s my hand,” and she put her tiny white-gloved hand into mine.
“And if I heard of any affectionate meetings I should put down my foot at once.”
“Yes, that’s agreed,” she exclaimed, with enthusiasm. “At once.”
“And I should, perhaps, want you to help me in England,” I added slowly, looking into her pretty face the while.
“Help you, in what way?” she asked.
“At present, I hardly know. But if I wanted assistance might I count on you?”
“Count on me, Uncle Colin!” she echoed. “Why, of course, you can! Look at my indebtedness to you, and it will be increased if you can secure me permission to go back to England.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll do what I can. But you have told me no untruths to-night, not one – ?” I asked very seriously. “If so, admit it.”
“Not one. I swear I haven’t.”
“Very well,” I said. “Then I’ll do my best.”
“Ah! you are a real dear!” cried the girl enthusiastically. “I almost feel as though I could hug and kiss you!”
“Better not,” I laughed. “There are some people sitting over there, and they would talk – ”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I suppose really one ought to be a bit careful, after all. When will you see the Emperor?”
“Perhaps to-morrow – if he gives me audience.” Then I related to her the story of the attempt in the Nevski on the previous morning, and the intention of assassinating the Emperor as he drove from the Nicholas station to the Palace.
“Ah, yes!” she cried. “It is all too dreadful. For seven weeks we have lived in constant terror of explosions. I could not go through it again for all the world. Those days in that stuffy armoured train were simply awful. His Majesty only undertook the journey in order to defy those who declared that some terrible catastrophe would happen. The Empress knew nothing of the danger until we had started.”
“And yet the only danger lay within half a mile of the Palace on your return,” I said. “There have, I hear, been thirty-three arrested to-day, including my friends Madame de Rosen and Luba. You knew them.”
“Marya de Rosen!” gasped the Grand Duchess, staring at me. “She is not under arrest?”
“Alas! she is already on her way, with her daughter, to Eastern Siberia.”
“But that is impossible. She was no revolutionist. I knew them both very intimately.”
“General Markoff was her enemy,” I said in a whisper. “Ah, yes! I hate that man!” cried Her Highness. “He is a clever liar who has wormed himself completely into the Emperor’s confidence, and now, in order to sustain a reputation as a discoverer of plots, he is compelled to first manufacture them. Hundreds of innocent men and women have been exiled by administrative order during the past twelve months for complicity in conspiracies which have never had any existence save in the wicked imagination of that brutal official. I know it —I can prove it!”
“Hush!” I said. “You may be overheard. You surely do not wish the man to become your enemy. Remember, he is all-powerful here – in Russia.”
“I will speak the truth when the time comes,” she said vehemently. “I will show the Emperor certain papers which have come into my own hands which will prove how His Majesty has been misled, tricked and terrorised by this Markoff, and certain of his bosom friends in the Cabinet.”
“It is really most unwise to speak so loudly,” I declared. “Somebody may overhear.”
“Let them overhear!” cried the girl angrily. “I do not fear Markoff in the least. I will, before long, open the Emperor’s eyes, never fear – and justice shall be done. These poor wretches shall not be sent to the dungeons beneath the lake at Schusselburg, or to the frozen wastes of Yakutsk, in order that Markoff shall remain in power. Ah! he little dreams how much I know!” she laughed harshly.
“It would hardly be wise of you to take any such action. You might fail – and – then – ”
“I cannot fail to establish at least the innocence of Madame de Rosen and of Luba. The reason why they have been sent to Siberia is simple. Into Madame de Rosen’s possession there recently came certain compromising letters concerning General Markoff. He discovered this, and hence her swift exile without trial. But, Uncle Colin,” she added, “those letters are in my possession! Madame de Rosen gave them to me the night before I went south with the Emperor, because she feared they might be stolen by some police-spy. And I have kept them in a place of safety until such convenient time when I can place them before His Majesty. The latter will surely see that justice is done, and then the disgraceful career of this arch-enemy of Russian peace and liberty will be at an end.”
“Hush!” I cried anxiously, for at that moment a tall man, in the bright green uniform of the Lithuanian Hussars, whose face I could not see, passed close by us, with a handsome middle-aged woman upon his arm. “Hush! Do, for heaven’s sake, be careful, I beg of you!” I exclaimed. “Such intention should not even be whispered. These Palace walls have ears, for spies are everywhere!”
Chapter Five.
The Man in Pince-Nez
Next day was Wednesday.
At half-past five in the afternoon I was seated in my room at the Embassy, busy copying out the last of my despatches which were to be sent that week by Foreign Office messenger to London.
The messenger himself, in the person of my friend Captain Hubert Taylor, a thin, long-limbed, dark-haired cosmopolitan, was stretched lazily in my chair smoking a cigarette, impatient for me to finish, so that the white canvas bag could be sealed and he could get away.
The homeward Nord express to Ostend was due to leave at six o’clock; therefore he had not much time to spare.
“Do hurry up, old man,” he urged, glancing at his watch. “If it isn’t important, keep it over until Wednesday week. Despatches are like wine, they improve with keeping.”
“Shut up!” I exclaimed, for I saw I had a good deal yet to copy – the result of an important inquiry regarding affairs south of the Caspian, which was urgently required at Downing Street. Our Consul in Baku had been travelling for three months in order to supply the information.
“Well, if I miss the train I really don’t mind, my dear Colin. I can do quite well with a few days’ rest. I was down in Rome ten days ago; and, besides, I only got here the night before last.”
“I do wish you’d be quiet, Taylor,” I cried. “I can’t write while you chatter.”
So he lit a fresh cigarette and repossessed himself in patience until at last I had finished my work, stuck down the long envelope with the printed address, and placed it with thirty or forty other letters into the canvas bag; this I carefully sealed with wax with the Embassy seal.
“There you are!” I exclaimed at last. “You’ve plenty of time for the train – and to spare.”
“I shouldn’t have had if I hadn’t hurried you up, my dear boy. Everyone seems asleep here. It shows your chief’s away on leave. You should put in a day in Paris. They’re active there. It would be an eye-opener for you.”
“Paris isn’t Petersburg,” I laughed.
“And an attaché isn’t a foreign service messenger,” he declared. “Government pays you fellows to look ornamental, while we messengers have to travel in hot haste and live in those rocking sleeping-cars of the wagon-lits.”
“Horribly hard work to spend one’s days travelling from capital to capital,” I said, well knowing that this remark to a foreign service messenger is as a red rag to a bull.
“Work, my dear fellow. You try it for a month and see,” Taylor snapped.
“Well,” I asked with a laugh, “any particular news in London?” for the messengers are bearers of all the diplomatic gossip from embassy to embassy.
“Oh, well – old Petheridge, in the Treaty Department, is retiring this month, and Jack Scrutton is going to be transferred from Rome to Lima. Some old fool in the Commons has, I hear, got wind of that bit of scandal in Madrid – you know the story, Councillor of Embassy and Spanish Countess – and threatens to put down a question concerning it. I hear there’s a dickens of a row over it. The Chief is furious. Oh! – and I saw your Chief in the St. James’s Club the day I left London. He’d just come from Windsor – been kissing hands, or something. Well,” he added, “I suppose I may as well have some cigarettes before I go, even though you don’t ask me. But they are always pro bono, I know. The Embassy at Petersburg is always noted for its hospitality and its cigarettes!” And he emptied the contents of my cigarette-box into the capacious case he took from his pocket.
“Here you are,” I said, taking from my table another sealed despatch bearing a large blue cross upon it, showing that it was a confidential document in cipher upon affairs of State.
“Oh, hang!” he cried. “I didn’t know you had one of those.”
And then, unbuttoning his waistcoat, he fumbled about his waist, and at last placed it carefully in the narrow pocket of the belt he wore beneath his clothes, buttoning the flap over the pocket.
“Well,” he said at last, putting on his overcoat, “so long, old man. I’ll just have time. I wonder what old Ivanoff, in the restaurant-car, will have for dinner to-night? Borstch, of course, and caviare.”
“You fellows have nothing else to think about but your food,” I laughed.
“Food – yes, it’s railway-food with a vengeance in this God-forgotten country. Lots to drink, but nothing decent to eat.”
And taking the little canvas bag he shook my hand heartily and strode out.
I stood for some time gazing through the open window out upon the sunlit Neva across to the grim fortress on the opposite bank – the prison of many terrible tales.
My thoughts were running, just as they had run all day, upon that strange suspicion which the Emperor had confided to me. It seemed too remarkable, too strange, too amazing to be true.
And again before my vision there arose the faces of those two refined and innocent ladies, Madame de Rosen and her daughter, who had been so suddenly hurried away to a living tomb in that far-off Arctic region. I remembered what the little Grand Duchess had told me, and wondered whether her allegations were really true.
I was wondering if she would permit me to see those incriminating letters which Madame had given to her for safe-keeping, for at all costs I felt that, for the safety of the Emperor and the peace and prosperity of Russia, the country should be rid of General Serge Markoff.
And yet the difficulties were, I knew, insurmountable. His Majesty, hearing of these constant plots being discovered and ever listening to highly-coloured stories of the desperate attempts of revolutionists, naturally believed his personal safety to be due to this man whom he had appointed as head of the police of the Empire. To any word said against Serge Markoff he turned a deaf ear, and put it down to jealousy, or to some ingenious plot to withdraw from his person the constant vigilance which his beloved Markoff had established. More than once I had been bold enough to venture to hint that all those plots might not be genuine ones; but I had quickly understood that such suggestion was regarded by the Emperor as a slur cast upon his favourite official and personal friend.
The more I reflected, the more unwise seemed that sudden outburst of my pretty little companion in the winter garden on the night before. If anyone had overheard her threat, then no doubt it would reach the ears of that man who daily swept so many innocent persons into the prisons and étapes beyond the Urals. I knew, too well, of those lists of names which he placed before the Emperor, and to which he asked the Imperial signature, without even giving His Majesty an opportunity to glance at them.
Truly, those were dark days. Life in Russia at that moment was a most uncertain existence, for anyone incurring the displeasure of General Markoff, or any of his friends, was as quickly and effectively removed as though death’s sword had struck them.
Much perturbed, and not knowing how to act in face of what the Emperor had revealed to me, I was turning from the window back to my writing-table, when one of the English footmen entered with a card.
“Oh, show him up, Green. And bring some cigarettes,” I said.
My visitor was Ivan Hartwig, the famous chief of the Russian Criminal Detective Service – an entirely distinct department from the Secret Police.
A few moments later he was ushered in by Green, and, bowing, took the hand I offered him.
A lean, bony-faced man, of average height, alert, clean-shaven, and aged about forty-five. His hair was slightly streaked with grey, and his eyes, small and shrewd, beamed behind a pair of round gold-rimmed pince-nez. I had never seen him in glasses before, but I only supposed that he had suddenly developed myopia for some specific purpose. As he smiled in greeting me, his narrow jaws widened, displaying an even row of white teeth, while the English he spoke was as perfect as my own. At that moment, in his glasses, his black morning-coat and grey trousers, he looked more like a grave family physician than a police officer whose career was world-famous.
And yet he was a man of striking appearance. His broad white forehead, his deep-set eyes so full of fire and expression, his high, protruding cheek-bones, and his narrowing chin were all characteristics of a man of remarkable power and intelligence. His, indeed, was a face that would arrest attention anywhere; hence the hundred and one disguises which he so constantly adopted.
“I have had private audience of His Majesty this afternoon, Mr Trewinnard,” he said, as he took the chair I offered him. “He has sent me to you. You wish to see me.”
“Yes,” I said. “I need your assistance.”
“So His Majesty has told me, but he explained nothing of the affair. He commanded me to place myself entirely at your disposal,” replied the man, who, in himself, was a man of mystery.
His nationality was obscure to most people, yet we at the Embassy knew that he was in reality a British subject, and that Ivan Hartwig was merely the Russian equivalent of Evan Hardwicke.
I handed him the box of cigarettes which Green had replenished, and took one myself.
As he slowly lit his, I recollected what a strange career he had had. Graduating from Scotland Yard, where on account of his knowledge of German and Russian he had been mainly employed in the arrest of alien criminals in England, he had for several years served under Monsieur Goron, Préfet of Police of Paris, and after being attached to the Tzar on one of his visits to the French capital, had been personally invited by the Emperor to become head of the Criminal Investigation Department of Russia.
He was a quiet-spoken, alert, elusive, but very conscientious man, who had made a study of crime from a psychological standpoint, his many successes being no doubt due to his marvellously minute examination of motives and his methodical reasoning upon the most abstruse clues. There was nothing of the ordinary blunt official detective about him. He was a man of extreme refinement, an omnivorous reader and a diligent student of men. He was a passionate collector of coins, a bachelor, and an amateur player of the violin. I believe that he had never experienced what fear was, and certainly within my own knowledge, he had had a dozen narrow escapes from the vengeance of the Terrorists. Once a bomb was purposely exploded in a room into which he and his men went to arrest two students in Moscow, and not one present escaped death except Hartwig himself.
And as he now sat there before me, so quiet and attentive, blinking at me through those gold-rimmed pince-nez, none would certainly take him for the man whose hairbreadth escapes, constant disguises, exciting adventures and marvellous successes in the tracking of criminals all over Europe had so often amazed the readers of newspapers the world over.
“Well, Mr Hartwig,” I said in a low voice, after I had risen and satisfied myself that Green had closed the door, “the matter is one of strictest confidence – a suspicion which I may at once tell you is the Emperor’s own personal affair. To myself alone he has confided it, and I requested that you might be allowed to assist me in finding a solution of the problem.”
“I’m much gratified,” he said. “As an Englishman, you know, I believe, that I am ever ready to serve an Englishman, especially if I am serving the Emperor at the same time.”
“The inquiry will take us far afield, I expect – first to England.”
