By noon the undertaker’s men had arrived with my coffin. The Princess played upon their ignorance of English customs and burial rites to pretend that the work of coffining must be done by women’s hands. In this way she and Fauchette were able to enclose the dummy in its wooden shell, leaving to the men only the task of screwing down the lid.
The burial took place in the English cemetery. I am glad to say that the Princess contrived to avoid the mockery of a religious service by alleging that Mr. Sterling had belonged to a peculiar sect – the Quakers, I fancy – which holds such ceremonies to be worldly and unnecessary.
I may add that I have since visited my grave, which is still to be seen in a corner of the cemetery. It is marked by a stone slab with an inscription in English.
In the afternoon the faithful Fauchette persuaded her mistress to go out for a drive, to soothe her over-strained nerves.
Before quitting the house, the Princess came in to take a last look at me.
She lingered minute after minute, as though with some premonition that our next meeting would be under widely different circumstances.
To herself, I heard her whisper, sighing softly:
“Andreas! O Andreas! If I could sleep, or thou couldst never wake!”
She crept away, and the better to secure me locked both the bedroom doors herself, and carried off the keys.
On her return, two hours later, Sophia, with a look that told the watchful Fauchette of her uneasiness, hurried straight up-stairs, toward the door of the little oratory.
She found it locked from the outside, with the key in the door.
It had cost me something to break my pledge to the Princess Y – that I would give her my new address before leaving her.
But her unfortunate discovery of the portrait I wore around my neck and her plainly-declared intention to hold me a prisoner till she could shake my fidelity, had rendered it necessary for me to meet treachery with treachery.
The secret service, it must always be borne in mind, has its own code of honor, differing on many points from that obtaining in other careers, but perhaps stricter on the whole.
For instance, I can lay my hand on my heart and declare that I have never done either of two things which are done every day by men holding high offices and high places in the world’s esteem. I have never taken a secret commission. And I have never taken advantage of my political information to gamble in stocks.
The manner of my escape was simplicity itself.
My assistant had not come to live with the Princess without making some preparations for the part she was to play, and these included the bringing with her of a bunch of skeleton keys, fully equal to the work of opening any ordinary lock.
As soon as her mistress was safely out of the way, Fauchette came to receive my instructions.
I told her that I did not intend to wait for my jailer’s return. We discussed the best way for me to slip out, without obstruction from the servants, and I decided to take advantage of the superstition of the Russian illiterate class, by enacting the part of my own ghost.
The report that I had been buried without any funeral service had already reached the household, and had prepared them for any supernatural manifestation.
Fauchette first brought me a little powdered chalk, with which I smeared my face. I then put on a long flowing cloak and a sombrero hat, part of the wardrobe accumulated by the Princess in the course of her gaieties.
I slipped a damp sponge into my pocket and directed the girl to lead the way.
She went down-stairs a few yards in front of me, turned into the servants’ part of the house and threw open the back door, which led out into a courtyard giving on a street used only by tradesmen’s carts. At this hour of the day it was deserted.
I followed cautiously in Fauchette’s wake, and got as far as the back door without meeting any interruption.
But at that point, the porter, who must have been roused by an unfamiliar step – though I understand he swore afterward that the passage of the ghost had been absolutely noiseless – came out and stood in the doorway.
Without hesitating for an instant I assumed an erect posture and advanced swiftly toward him with my whitened face well displayed.
The fellow gave vent to a half-articulate call which died down in his throat, and bolted back into his room uttering yell after yell.
Fifteen seconds later I was out in the street, sponging the chalk from my face.
And five minutes after that I was comfortably seated in a hired droshky, on my way to a certain little house in the seafaring quarter of the city, which possessed, among other advantages, that of commanding an exceedingly fine view of the Admiralty Pier.
CHAPTER XXIV
A SECRET EXECUTION
I now come to a part of my chronicle which I plainly foresee must expose me to grave criticism.
To that criticism it is no part of my purpose to attempt any reply.
In the long run, I have found, men’s minds are not much affected by argument and advocacy. Facts tell their own story, and men’s judgments are usually the result of their personal prejudices.
For that reason I shall confine myself to relating facts. I have already told the story of my murder – for such it was in the intent – by Petrovitch. I shall now tell the story of the justice meted out by me on the assassin.
As soon as I was safely lodged in my house on the Alexander Quay, I despatched my assistant, a clever young Frenchman named Breuil, with a message to the promoter of the Manchurian Syndicate – the real moving spirit of that War clique in which even the bellicose grand dukes had only secondary parts.
The wording of the message had been carefully calculated to arouse curiosity, but not apprehension.
“The agent of a foreign Power,” Breuil was instructed to say to this self-styled patriot, “with very large funds at his disposal, desires to see you in strict secrecy.”
The bait took. Petrovitch, naturally concluding that he was to be offered a heavy bribe for some act of treachery to Russia, greedily accepted the invitation.
The infatuated man did not take even the ordinary precaution of asking for guarantees. He consented to accompany Breuil at once, merely asking how far he had to go. This recklessness was the result of his supposed triumphant crime. Believing that I was safely interred in the English cemetery, he thought there was no one left for him to fear.
On the way he did his best to extract some information out of my assistant. But Breuil returned the same answer to all his questions and hints:
“I am under orders not to converse with you, monsieur.”
The doomed man was in good spirits as the droshky put him down at the door of my house.
“Decidedly an out-of-the-way retreat!” he commented gaily. “I should hardly be able to find my way here again without your assistance!”
The silent Breuil merely bowed, as he proceeded to open the street door with a latch key.
Perhaps Petrovitch had been a little more nervous than he allowed to appear. When he noticed that his escort simply closed the door on the latch, without locking or bolting it further, he said in a tone of relief:
“You are not much afraid of being visited by the police, I see.”
Breuil, as silent as ever, led the way into a back parlor, overlooking the Neva, where I was waiting to receive my visitor.
The room was plainly furnished as a study, and I had placed myself in an arm-chair facing the window, so that my back was turned to the door as Petrovitch entered.
I pretended to be writing furiously, as a pretext for not turning my head till the visitor had seated himself.
Breuil said quietly, “M. Petrovitch is here,” and went out of the room.
As the door closed I tossed away my pen and turned around, facing my assassin.
“I am pleased to see you, M. Petrovitch.”
“Monsieur V – !”
I thought he would have lost his senses. His whole countenance changed. He clung to his chair, and his eyes were fixed on me with an expression of panic.
So complete was his collapse that he did not attempt to speak or excuse himself. I saw that he was hardly in a condition to listen to anything I had to say.
“I fear you are unwell, M. Petrovitch. Allow me to offer you a little brandy.”
The wretched man watched me with bewildered looks, as I took a bottle and glasses from a cupboard and helped first him and then myself.
“It is quite wholesome, I assure you.”
As I said the words I raised my own glass to my lips and sipped.
A choking cry escaped from the author of the war. He seized the glass I had set before him and feverishly drained it.
I saw that he was burning to know by what means I had escaped the fate prepared for me. But I had no object in gratifying his curiosity, and mere boasting is not a weakness of mine.
Steadfastly preserving the tone of a business interview between men who understand each other, I went on to say:
“I am here, as you know, in the joint interests of England and Japan.”
My murderer nodded faintly. I could see him making a tremendous effort to control his nerves, and enter into conversation with me on my own terms.
“I think I should be glad of a little more brandy. Thank you! – I am not at all myself.”
I shook my head compassionately.
“You should be careful to avoid too much excitement,” I said. “Any sudden shock is bad for a man with your nerves.”
The promoter gasped. The situation was clearly beyond him.
“You,” I went on in my most matter-of-fact tone, “on the contrary, are acting on behalf of Germany.”
“Who says so!” He was beginning to speak fiercely; but his eye met mine, and the words died on his lips.
“We will say I dreamed it, if you like,” I responded drily. “I have very remarkable dreams sometimes, and learn a great deal from them.
“To confine ourselves to business. I have caused the sailing of this Baltic Fleet to be put off, because – ”
“You – have caused it!”
The interruption burst from him in spite of himself.
I affected to shrug my shoulders with a certain annoyance.
“Your opinion of my powers does not seem to be a very high one, unfortunately,” I remarked with irony. “It would be better if you accepted me as a serious antagonist, believe me.”
Petrovitch lowered his eyes in confusion, as he muttered,
“I apologize, Monsieur V – . I have blundered, as I now perceive.”
“Let us resume. I was about to say that I had prevented the sailing of this fleet, because I feared that its voyage might be marked by some incident likely to bring Great Britain and Russia into collision.”
The financier raised his head and watched me keenly.
“You, yourself, M. Petrovitch, have been active, I believe, in preparing the mind of the Czar and the Russian public for something of the sort. Doubtless you have not done so without very good grounds.”
“My information leads me to think that a flotilla of torpedo boats is being kept ready in the English ports for a night attack on our fleet during its progress through the North Sea.”
I smiled disdainfully.
“That is a false report. I have asked you to call here in the hope that I might find you ready to assist me in discrediting it.”
The Russian continued to watch me out of his narrow eyes.
“And, also,” I added, “to assist me in preventing any attempt to give color to it.”
“I am not sure that I understand you, Monsieur V – .”
“That is quite possible. I will speak more plainly. There are some prophets who take a little trouble to make their prophesies come true. I wish to know whether you and your friends have determined that this particular prophesy shall come true – perhaps to fulfill it yourselves?”
Petrovitch frowned and compressed his lips.
“So that is why you got me here?”
“I wished to see,” I said blandly, “if it was possible for me to offer you terms which might induce you to alter your views altogether – in short, to stop the war.”
The financier looked thunderstruck.
“Monsieur V – , you don’t know what you ask! But you – would a million rubles tempt you to come over, to be neutral, even?”
“I am a member, by adoption, of the imperial family of Japan,” I replied laconically.
Petrovitch was past surprise. If I had informed him that I was the Mikado in disguise, I think he would have taken it as a matter of course.
“This war is worth ten millions to me,” he confessed hoarsely.
I shook my head with resignation.
“The price is too high. We must be enemies, not friends, I perceive.”
The author of the war, who had regained his self-possession, did not blanch at these words.
“I regret it,” he said with a courteous inclination.
“You have reason to.”
He gave me a questioning glance.
“Up to the present I have been on the defensive,” I explained. “I dislike violent measures. But from this moment I shall hold myself at liberty to use them.”
“I am afraid I have gone rather too far,” the promoter hesitated.
“You have drugged me. You have robbed me. You have murdered me.”
“You are alive, however,” he ventured to retort with an impudent smile.
“Unfortunately,” I went on sternly, “in murdering me you exceeded your instructions.”
“How – ”
“I dreamed that I heard you tell your accomplice so,” I put in, without giving him a chance to speak.
He ceased to meet my gaze.
“You are therefore not even a political criminal. You are a common felon. As such I warn you that I shall execute you without notice, and without reprieve.”
The Russian scowled fiercely.
“We will see about that,” he blustered. “I have a loaded revolver in my pocket.”
I waved my hand scornfully.
“Undeceive yourself, George Petrovitch. I am not proposing a duel. I cannot be expected to fight with a condemned murderer. I sentence you to death – and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
“By what right?” he demanded furiously.
“I am accredited by the Emperor of Japan to the Emperor of Russia. This house is Japanese soil. Farewell!”
Petrovitch rose from his chair, wavering between indignation and alarm.
“I shall defend myself!” he exclaimed, edging slowly toward the door.
“You will do better to confess yourself. Is there no prayer that you wish to say?”
The Russian smiled incredulously.
“You seem very confident,” he sneered.
I saw that it was useless to try to rouse him to a sense of his peril. I pointed to the door, and pressed a knob on the wall.
The murderer made two steps from me, laid his fingers on the door-handle – and dropped dead instantly.
CHAPTER XXV
A CHANGE OF IDENTITY
I now approach the crucial portion of my narrative.
The incidents already dealt with, though not without a certain interest, perhaps, for those who value exact information about political events, are comparatively unimportant, and have been given here chiefly in order to inspire confidence in what follows.
At all events, their truth is not likely to be disputed, and I have not thought it necessary, therefore, to insist on every corroborative detail.
But I am now about to enter on what must be considered debatable ground.
I had taken the little house on the Alexander Quay, as the reader will have guessed, as a post of observation from which to watch the proceedings of the Russian Ministry of Marine, more particularly with regard to the fleet under the command of Admiral Rojestvensky.
It is my subsequent observations and discoveries which compel me, greatly to my regret, to give a direct contradiction to the gallant Admiral’s version of what took place in the North Sea on the night of Trafalgar Day, 1904.
It is for that reason that I desire to exercise particular care in this part of my statement.
Such care is the more incumbent on me, inasmuch as I was requested by the British Government to furnish a confidential copy of my evidence in advance, for the use of the members of the international court which sat in Paris to inquire into this most mysterious affair.
The following chapters should be read, therefore, as the sworn depositions of a witness, and not as the carelessly worded account of a journalist or popular historian.
The electrocution of the murderer, Petrovitch, already described, furnished me with a valuable opportunity which I was quick to seize.
I have not extenuated this act, and I will not defend it. I content myself with recording that this man had been the principal instrument in promoting the Russo-Japanese war, and the principal obstacle to peace. In this he was acting as the paid agent of a foreign Power, and was therefore guilty of high treason to his own country. On these grounds my execution of him, although irregular at the time, has since been formally ratified by the highest tribunal of the Russian Empire, the Imperial Council of State.
A justification which I value still more, consists in the fact that the removal of this man proved the turning point in the history of the war.
Within a month of his death I had the satisfaction to be made the medium of an informal overture for peace. The negotiations thus opened have proceeded with great secrecy, but before these lines meet the public eye, I have every hope that the calamitous struggle in Manchuria will have been suspended indefinitely.
To return:
Owing to the secret life led by the deceased man, it was some time before his absence from his usual haunts excited remark.
When it became evident that something must have happened to him, people were still slow to suspect that he had come to a violent end. Many persons believed that he had been ruined by the ill-success of the war, and had gone into hiding from his creditors. Others supposed that he had been secretly arrested.
Some of his fellow-plotters in the Russian capital imagined that he had fled to Germany to escape the penalty of his treason. In Germany, on the other hand, I afterward learned, he was supposed to have been sent to Siberia by order of the Czar.
For weeks the “Disappearance of M. Petrovitch” was the general topic of discussion in the newspapers and in private circles; but no one came near guessing the truth.
There was one person who must have divined from the first what had happened. But she held her tongue.
So far as I could gather from the reports which continued to reach me from Fauchette, the Princess Y – had sunk into a lethargy after my evasion. She seemed to wish only to be left alone to brood, perhaps to mourn.
The only sign she gave was by depositing a wreath on the empty grave in the English cemetery, a wreath which bore the solitary word, “Remembrance.”
In the meanwhile I had gratifying evidence that the loss of the chief conspirator had completely disorganized the schemes of the plotters in the Ministry of Marine.
My first proceeding, after disconnecting the powerful battery which I had installed in my house for the purpose of the execution, was to summon my assistant Breuil.
With his aid, the corpse was stripped and sewn up in a sheet, together with some heavy weights. In the middle of the night it was committed to the waters of the Neva, almost within sight and sound of the fleet.
The papers which we found in his clothes were not numerous or important. But there was one which I thought worth preserving.
It was a passport, made out in the name of the deceased, issued by the Russian Foreign Office, and viséd by the German Ambassador. This passport I still have in my possession.
I now disclosed to my assistant a plan which had been in my own mind for some time, though, true to my principle of never making an unnecessary confidence, I had not previously mentioned it to him.
“I have decided,” I told him, “to assume the personality of Petrovitch.”
Breuil stared at me in consternation. It is only fair to say that he had not been with me very long.
I could see that some objection was trembling on the tip of his tongue. He had learned, however, that I expect my staff not to criticize, but to obey.
“You may speak,” I said indulgently, “if you have anything to say.”
“I was about to remark, sir, that you are not in the least like Petrovitch.”
“Think again,” I said mildly.
He gave me an intelligent look.
“You are much about the same height!” he exclaimed.
“Exactly.”
“But his friends, who see him every day – surely they cannot be deceived? And then his business – his correspondence – but perhaps you are able to feign handwriting?”
I smiled. The good Breuil had passed from one extreme to the other. Instead of doubting me, he was crediting me too much.
I proceeded to explain.
“No, as you very properly suggest, I could not hope to deceive Petrovitch’s friends, nor can I imitate his hand. But remember, that in a few days Petrovitch will have disappeared. What will have become of him, do you suppose?”
Breuil was still puzzled. I had to make my meaning still plainer.
“He will be in concealment – that is to say, in disguise.”
Breuil threw up his hands in a gesture of admiration.
“As the disguised Petrovitch I may manage to pass very well, more particularly as I shall be meeting people who have never seen the real Petrovitch.”
Breuil did not quite understand this last observation.
“I am going,” I exclaimed, “on board the Baltic Fleet.”
“Sir, you are magnificent!”
I frowned down his enthusiasm. Compliments are compliments only when they come from those who pay us, not from those whom we pay.
“Go and procure me the uniform of a superintendent of naval stores. And ascertain for me where Captain Vassileffsky usually passes his evenings.”
Captain Vassileffsky was the naval officer who had been present on the occasion when I was drugged at Petrovitch’s table.
CHAPTER XXVI
TRAPPED
The clock was striking eight as I entered the restaurant of the Two-Headed Eagle, in the seaport of Revel on the Gulf of Finland, about a week after the mysterious disappearance of Petrovitch had become the talk of Petersburg.
Picking out a table at which an officer in the uniform of a Russian naval captain was already seated, I went up to it, and sat down in front of him with the formal bow prescribed by etiquette in the circumstances.
The ships intended to sail to the relief of Port Arthur were lying at this time some at Revel and others at Libau on the Baltic. From time to time their departure was officially announced for a certain date, reviews were held, and one or two preliminary trips had been undertaken.
But each time some unseen obstacle was interposed, and M. Auguste continued to draw his weekly stipend.
Nevertheless it was beginning to be evident that the game of see-saw could not go on forever. Autumn was approaching, the nation was becoming impatient, and the scoffs of the foreign press were severely galling the naval pride of Russia.
I had picked up a certain amount of information in the capital itself, where a great number of the officers were on leave. But I wished to get in direct touch with the one man who, I believed, was most likely to be in the confidence of Petrovitch, and, finding there was no chance of his coming to Petersburg, I had been obliged to make the journey to Revel.
Vassileffsky acknowledged my bow with cordiality, at the same time fixing his dark, wicked eyes on me with a look which I well understood.
I was wearing the uniform which I had ordered my assistant to provide me with, and the Captain had been quick to take note of it.
It may be said that the most valuable part of a naval officer’s income in Russia is derived from the peculation of government stores. To carry on this lucrative system of plunder there is always a good understanding between officials of the Stores Department and the combatant officers.
Captain Vassileffsky now studied my face like a man expecting to receive some proposal of the kind. I, on my side, made it my business to say as little as possible to him till dinner was over.
Then I called for a magnum of champagne, and invited my companion to fill a tumbler.
He did so readily enough, and I gave him the toast,
“To the Emperor who wishes us well!”
Vassileffsky started, and gave me a penetrating look.
He did not venture to put a question to me, however, and contented himself with drinking the toast in silence.
