The Price of Power

“Was he a gentleman?” I asked with curiosity.

“He was dressed like one, M’sieur. He had on a dark grey Homburg hat and a fashionable dark brown suit.”

“You only saw him on that one occasion?”

“Only that once. When I returned home I told Dmitri, the police-agent, and described him. You don’t anticipate that he is here with any evil purpose, I suppose?” he added quickly.

“I can’t tell, Igor. I don’t know him. But if I were you I would not mention it to her Highness. She’s only a girl, remember, and her nerves have been greatly shaken by that terrible tragedy.”

“Rely upon me. I shall say no word, M’sieur,” he promised.

Then I rose and ascended to the drawing-room, where Natalia was seated alone.

“Miss West will be here in a few minutes,” she said. “Tell me, Uncle Colin, what have you been doing while you’ve been away – eh?”

“I had some business in London, and afterwards went on a flying visit to see my mother down in Cornwall,” I said.

“Ah! How is she? I hope you told her to come and see me. I would be so very delighted if she will come and stay a week or so.”

“I gave her Your Highness’s kind message, and she is writing to thank you. She’ll be most delighted to visit you,” I said.

“Nothing has been discovered regarding Madame de Rosen’s letters, I suppose?” she asked with a sigh, her face suddenly grown grave.

“Hartwig arrives to-night, or to-morrow,” I replied. “We shall then know what has transpired. From his Majesty he received explicit instructions to spare no effort to solve the mystery of the theft.”

“I know. He told me so when he was here three weeks ago. He has made every effort. Of all the police administration I consider Hartwig the most honest and straightforward.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “He is alert always, marvellously astute, and, above all, though he has had such an extraordinary career, he is an Englishman.”

“So I have lately heard,” replied my pretty companion. “I know he will do his best on my behalf, because I feel that I have lost the one piece of evidence which might have restored poor Marya de Rosen and her daughter to liberty.”

“You have lost the letters, it is true,” I said, looking into her splendid eyes. “You have lost them because it was plainly in the interests of General Markoff, the Tzar’s favourite, that they should be lost. Madame de Rosen herself feared lest they should be stolen, and yet a few days later she and Luba were spirited away to the Unknown. Search was, no doubt, made at her house for that incriminating correspondence. It could not be found; but, alas! you let out the secret when sitting out with me at the Court ball. Somebody must have overheard. Your father’s palace was searched very thoroughly, and the packet at last found.”

“The Emperor appeared to be most concerned about it before I left Russia. When I last saw him at Tzarskoie-Selo he seemed very pale, agitated and upset.”

“Yes,” I said. Then, very slowly, for I confess I was much perturbed, knowing how we were at that moment hemmed in by our enemies, I added: “This theft conveyed more to His Majesty than at present appears to your Highness. It is a startling coup of those opposed to the monarchy – the confirmation of a suspicion which the Emperor believed to be his – and his alone.”

“A suspicion!” she exclaimed. “What suspicion? Tell me.”

Next moment Miss West, thin-faced and rather angular, entered the room, and we dropped our confidences. Then, at my invitation, my dainty little hostess went to the piano, and running her white fingers over the keys, commenced to sing in her clear, well-trained contralto “L’Heure Exquise” of Paul Verlaine:

La lune blanche    Luit dans les bois;De chaque branche    Part une voixSous la ramée…    O bien-aimée.

Chapter Ten.

Reveals Two Facts

When I entered my bedroom at the Hotel Métropole it wanted half an hour to midnight. But scarce had I closed the door when a waiter tapped at it and handed me a card.

“Show the gentleman up,” I said in eager anticipation, and a few minutes later there entered a tall, thin, clean-shaven, rather aristocratic-looking man in a dark brown suit – the same person whom old Igor had evidently recognised walking along King’s Road.

“Well, Tack? So you are here with your report – eh?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” was his reply, as I seated myself on the edge of the bed, and he took a chair near the dressing-table and settled himself to talk.

Edward Tack was a man of many adventures. After a good many years at Scotland Yard, where he rose to be the chief of the Extradition Department on account of his knowledge of languages, he had been engaged by the Foreign Office as a member of our Secret Service abroad, mostly in Germany and Russia. During the past two years he had, as a blind to the police, carried on a small insurance agency business in Petersburg; but the information he gathered from time to time and sent to the Embassy was of the greatest assistance to us in our diplomatic dealings with Russia and the Powers.

He never came to the Embassy himself, nor did he ever hold any direct communication with any of the staff. He acted as our eyes and ears, exercising the utmost caution in transmitting to us the knowledge of men and matters which he so cleverly gained. He worked with the greatest secrecy, for though he had lived in Petersburg two whole years, he had never once been suspected by that unscrupulous spy-department controlled by General Markoff.

“I’ve been in Brighton several days,” my visitor said. “The hotel porter told me here that you were away, so I went to the ‘Old Ship!’ and waited for you.”

“Well – what have you discovered?” I inquired, handing him my cigarette-case. “Anything of interest?”

“Nothing very much, I regret to say,” was his reply. “I’ve worked for a whole month, often night and day, but Markoff’s men are wary – very wary birds, sir, as you know.”

“Have you discovered the real perpetrator of that bomb outrage?”

“I believe so. He escaped.”

“No doubt he did.”

“There have been in all over forty persons arrested,” my visitor said. “About two dozen have been immured in Schusselburg, in those cells under the waters of Lake Ladoga. The rest have been sent by administrative process to the mines.”

“And all of them innocent?”

“Every one of them.”

“It’s outrageous!” I cried. “To think that such things can happen every day in a country whose priests teach Christianity.”

“Remove a certain dozen or so of Russia’s statesmen and corrupt officials, put a stop to the exile system, and give every criminal or suspect a fair trial, and the country would become peaceful to-morrow,” declared the secret agent. “I have already reported to the Embassy the actual truth concerning the present unrest.”

“I know. And we have sent it on to Downing Street, together with the names of those who form the camarilla. The Emperor is, alas! merely their catspaw. They are the real rulers of Russia – they rule it by a Reign of Terror.”

“Exactly, sir,” replied the man Tack. “I’ve always contended that. In the present case the outrage is not a mystery to the Secret Police.”

“You think they know all about it – eh?” I asked quickly.

“Well, sir. I will put to you certain facts which I have discovered. About two years ago a certain Danilo Danilovitch, an intelligent shoemaker in Kazan, and a member of the revolutionary group in that city, turned police-spy, and gave evidence of a coup which had been prepared to poison the Emperor at a banquet given there after the military manoeuvres last year. As a result, there were over a hundred arrests, and as reprisal the chief of police of Kazan was a week later shot while riding through one of the principal streets. Next I know of Danilovitch is that he was transferred to Petersburg, where, though in the pay of the police, he was known to the Party of the People’s Will as an ardent and daring reformer, and foremost in his fiery condemnation of the monarchy. He made many inflammatory speeches at the secret revolutionary meetings in various parts of the city, and was hailed as a strong and intrepid leader. Yet frequently the police made raids upon these meeting-places and arrested all found there. After each attempted outrage they seemed to be provided with lists of everyone who had had the slightest connection with the affair, and hence they experienced no difficulty in securing them and packing them off to Siberia. The police were all-ubiquitous, the Emperor was greatly pleased, and General Markoff was given the highest decorations, promotion and an appointment with rich emoluments.

“But one day, about four months ago,” Tack went on, “a remarkable but unreported tragedy occurred. Danilovitch, whose wife had long ago been arrested and died on her way to Siberia, fell in love with a pretty young tailoress named Marie Garine, who was a very active member of the revolutionary party, her father and mother having been sent to the mines of Nerchinsk, though entirely innocent. Hence she naturally hated the Secret Police and all their detestable works. More than once she had remarked to her lover the extraordinary fact that the police were being secretly forewarned of every attempt which he suggested, for Danilovitch had by this time become one of the chief leaders of the subterranean revolution, and instigator of all sorts of desperate plots against the Emperor and members of the Imperial Family. One evening, however, she went to his rooms and found him out. Some old shoes were upon a shelf ready for mending, for he still, as a subterfuge, practised his old trade. Among the shoes was a pair of her own. She took them down, but she mistook another pair for hers, and from one of them there fell to her feet a yellow card – the card of identity issued to members of the Secret Police! She took it up. There was no mistake, for her lover’s photograph was pasted upon it. Her lover was a police-spy!”

“Well, what happened?” I asked, much interested in the facts.

“The girl, in a frenzy of madness and anger, was about to rush out to betray the man to her fellow-conspirators, when Danilovitch suddenly entered. She had, at that moment, his yellow card in her hand. In an instant he knew the truth and realised his own peril. She intended to betray him. It meant her life or his! Not a dozen words passed between the pair, for the man, taking up his shoemaker’s knife, plunged it deliberately into the girl’s heart, snatched the card from her dying grasp, and strode out, locking the door behind him. Then he went straight to the private bureau of General Markoff and told him what he had done. Needless to relate, the police inquiry was a very perfunctory one. It was a love tragedy, they said, and as Danilo Danilovitch was missing, they soon dropped the inquiry. They did not, of course, wish to arrest the assassin, for he was far too useful a person to them.”

“Then you know the fellow?”

“I have met him often. At first I had no idea of his connection with the revolutionists. It is only quite recently through a woman who is in the pay of the Secret Police, and whose son has been treated badly, that I learned the truth. And she also told me one very curious fact. She was present in the crowd when the bomb was thrown at the Grand Duke Nicholas’s carriage, and she declares that Danilo Danilovitch – who has not been seen in Petersburg since the tragic death of Marie Garine – was there also.”

“Then he may have thrown the bomb?” I said, amazed.

“Who knows?”

“But I saw a man with his arm uplifted,” I exclaimed. “He looked respectable, of middle-age, with a grey beard and wore dark clothes.”

“That does not tally with Danilovitch’s description,” he replied. “But, of course, the assassin must have been disguised if he had dared to return to Petersburg.”

“But I suppose his fellow-conspirators still entertain no suspicion that he is a police-spy?”

“None whatever. The poor girl lost her life through her untoward discovery. The police themselves knew the truth, but on action being withdrawn, the fellow was perfectly free to continue his nefarious profession of agent-provocateur, for the great risk of which he had evidently been well paid.”

“But does not Hartwig know all this?” I asked quickly, much surprised.

“Probably not. General Markoff keeps his own secrets well. Hartwig, being head of the criminal police, would not be informed.”

“But he might find out, just as you have found out,” I suggested.

“He might. But my success, sir, was due to the merest chance, remember,” Tack said. “Hartwig’s work lies in the detection of crime, and not in the frustration of political plots. Markoff knows what an astute official he is, and would therefore strive to keep him apart from his catspaw Danilovitch.”

“Then, in your opinion, many of these so-called plots against the Emperor are actually the work of the Kazan shoemaker, who arranges the plot, calls the conspirators together and directs the arrangements.”

“Yes. His brother is a chemist in Moscow and it is he who manufactures picric acid, nitro-glycerine and other explosives for the use of the unfortunate conspirators. Between them, and advised by Markoff, they form a plot, the more desperate the better; and a dozen or so silly enthusiasts, ignorant of their leaders’ true calling, swear solemnly to carry it out. They are secretly provided with the means, and their leader has in some cases actually secured facilities from the very police themselves for the coup to be made. Then, when all is quite ready, the astute Danilovitch hands over to his employer, Markoff, a full list of the names of those who have been cleverly enticed into the plot. At night a sudden raid is made. All who are there, or who are even in the vicinity are arrested, and next morning His Excellency presents his report to the Emperor, with Danilovitch’s list ready for the Imperial signature which consigns those arrested to a living grave on the Arctic wastes, or in the mines of Eastern Siberia.”

“And so progresses holy Russia of to-day – eh, Tack?” I remarked with a sigh.

The secret agent of British diplomacy, shrugging his shoulders and with a grin, said:

“The scoundrels are terrorising the Emperor and the whole Imperial family. The killing of the Grand Duke Nicholas was evidence of that, and you, too, sir, had a very narrow escape.”

“Do you suspect that, if the story of the woman who recognised Danilovitch be true, it was actually he himself who threw the bomb?”

“At present I can offer no opinion,” he answered. “The woman might, of course, have been mistaken, and, again, I doubt whether Danilovitch would dare to show himself so quickly in Petersburg. To do so would be to defy the police in the eyes of his fellow-conspirators, and that might have aroused their suspicion. But, sir,” Tack added, “I feel certain of two facts – absolutely certain.”

“And what are they?” I inquired eagerly, for his information was always reliable.

“Well, the first is that the outrage was committed with the full connivance and knowledge of the police, and secondly, that it was not the Grand Duke whom they sought to kill, but his daughter, the Grand Duchess Natalia, and you yourself!”

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Because it was known that the young lady held letters given her by Madame de Rosen, and intended to hand them over to the Emperor. There was but one way to prevent her,” he went on very slowly, “to kill her! And,” he added, “be very careful yourself in the near future, Mr Trewinnard. Another attempt of an entirely different nature may be made.”

“You mean that Her Highness is still in grave danger – even here – eh?” I exclaimed, looking straight at the clean-shaven man seated before me.

“I mean, sir, that Her Highness may be aware of the contents of these letters handed to her by the lady who is now exiled. If so, then she is a source of constant danger to General Markoff’s interests. And you are fully well aware of the manner in which His Excellency usually treats his enemies. Only by a miracle was your life saved a few weeks ago. Therefore,” he added, “I beg of you, sir, to beware. There may be pitfalls and dangers – even here, in Brighton!”

“Do you only suspect something, Tack,” I demanded very seriously, “or do you actually know?”

He paused for a few seconds, then, his deep-set eyes fixed upon mine, he replied.

“I do not suspect, sir, I know.”

Chapter Eleven.

His Excellency General Markoff

What Tack had told me naturally increased my apprehension. I informed the two agents of Russian police who in turn guarded the house in Brunswick Square.

A whole month went by, bright, delightful autumn days beside the sea, when I often strolled with my charming little companion across the Lawns at Hove, or sat upon the pier at Brighton listening to the band.

Sometimes I would dine with her and Miss West, or at others they would take tea with me in that overheated winter garden of the “Métropole” – where half of the Hebrew portion of the City of London assembles on Sunday afternoons – or they would dine with me in the big restaurant. So frequently was she in and out of the hotel that “Miss Gottorp” soon became known to all the servants, and by sight to most of the visitors on account of the neatness of her mourning and the attractiveness of her pale beauty.

Tack had returned to Petersburg to resume his agency business, and Hartwig’s whereabouts was unknown.

The last-named had been in Brighton three weeks before, but as he had nothing to report he had disappeared as suddenly as he had come. He was ubiquitous – a man of a hundred disguises, and as many subterfuges. He never seemed to sleep, and his journeys backwards and forwards across the face of Europe were amazingly swift and ever-constant.

I was seated at tea with Her Highness and Miss West in the winter garden – that place of palms and bird-cages at the back of the “Métropole” – when a waiter handed me a telegram which I found was from the secretary of the Russian Embassy, at Chesham House, in London, asking me to call there at the earliest possible moment.

What, I wondered, had occurred?

I said nothing to Natalia, but, recollecting that there was an express just after six o’clock which would land me at Victoria at half-past seven, I cut short her visit and duly arrived in London, unaware of the reason why I was so suddenly summoned.

I crossed the big, walled-in courtyard of the Embassy, and entering the great sombre hall, where an agent of Secret Police was idling as usual, the flunkey in green livery showed me along to the secretary’s room, a big, gloomy, smoke-blackened apartment on the ground floor. The huge house was dark, sombre and ponderous, a house of grim, mysterious shadows, where officials and servants flitted up and down the great, wide staircase which led to His Excellency’s room.

“His Excellency left for Paris to-day,” the footman informed me, opening the door of the secretary’s room, and telling me that he would send word at once of my arrival.

It was the usual cold and austere embassy room – differing but little from my own den in Petersburg. Count Kourloff, the secretary, was an old friend of mine. He had been secretary in Rome when I had been stationed there, and I had also known him in Vienna – a clever and intelligent diplomat, but a bureaucrat like all Russians.

The evening was a warm, oppressive one, and the windows being open, admitted the lively strains of a street piano, played somewhere in the vicinity.

Suddenly the door opened, and instead of the Count, whom I had expected, a stout, broad-shouldered, elderly man in black frock-coat and grey trousers entered, and saluted me gaily in French with the words:

“Ah, my dear Trewinnard! How are you, my friend – eh? How are you? And how is Her Imperial Highness – eh?”

I started as I recognised him.

It was none other than Serge Markoff.

“I am very well, General,” I replied coldly. “I am awaiting Count Kourloff.”

“He’s out. It was I who telegraphed to you. I want to have a chat with you now that you have entered the service of Russia, my dear friend. Pray be seated.”

“Pardon me,” I replied, annoyed, “I have not entered the service of Russia, only the private service of her Sovereign, the Emperor.”

“The same thing! The same thing!” he declared fussily, stroking his long, grey moustache, and fixing his cunning steel-blue eyes upon mine.

“I think not,” I said. “But we need not discuss that point.”

“Bien! I suppose Her Highness is perfectly comfortable and happy in her incognito at Brighton – eh? The Emperor was speaking of her to me only the other day.”

“His Majesty receives my report each week,” I said briefly.

“I know,” replied the brutal remorseless man who was responsible for the great injustice and suffering of thousands of innocent ones throughout the Russian Empire. “I know. But I have asked you to London because I wish to speak to you in strictest confidence. I am here, M’sieur Trewinnard, because of a certain discovery we have recently made – the discovery of a very desperate and ingenious plot!”

“Another plot!” I echoed; “here, in London!”

“It is formed in London, but the coup is to be made at Brighton,” he replied slowly and seriously, “a plot against Her Imperial Highness!”

I looked the man straight in the face, and then burst out laughing.

“You certainly do not appear to have any regard for the personal safety of your charge,” he exclaimed angrily. “I have warned you. Therefore, take every precaution.”

I paused for a few seconds, then I said:

“Forgive me for laughing. General Markoff. But it is really too humorous – all this transparency.”

“What transparency?”

“The transparency of your attempt to terrify me,” I said. “I know that the attempt made against the young lady and myself failed – and that His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke was unfortunately killed. But I do not think there will be any second attempt.”

“You don’t think so!” he cried quickly. “Why don’t you think so?”

“For the simple reason that Danilo Danilovitch – the man who is a police-spy and at the same time responsible for plots – is just now a little too well watched.”

The man’s grey face dropped when I uttered the name of his catspaw. My statement, I saw, held him confounded and confused.

“I – I do not understand you,” he managed to exclaim. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you surely know Danilovitch?” I said. “He is your most trusted and useful agent-provocateur. He is at this moment in England. I can take you now to where he is in hiding, if you wish,” I added, with a smile of triumph.

“Danilovitch,” he repeated, as though trying to recall the name.

“Yes,” I said defiantly, standing with my hands in my trousers pockets and leaning against the table placed in the centre of the room. “Danilovitch – the shoemaker of Kazan and murderer of Marie Garine, the poor little tailoress in Petersburg.”

His face dropped. He saw that I was aware of the man’s identity.

“He is now staying with a compatriot in Blurton Road, Lower Clapton,” I went on.

“I don’t see why this person should interest me,” he interrupted.

“But he is a conspirator. General Markoff; and I am giving you some valuable information,” I said, with sarcasm.

“You are not a police officer. What can you know?”

“I know several facts which, when placed before the Revolutionary Committee – as they probably are by this time – will make matters exceedingly unpleasant for Danilo Danilovitch, and also for certain of those who have been employing him,” was my quiet response.

“If this man is a dangerous revolutionist, as you allege, he cannot be arrested while in England,” remarked the General, his thick grey eyebrows contracting slightly, a sign of apprehension. “This country of yours gives asylum to all the most desperate characters, and half the revolutionary plots in Europe are arranged in London.”

“I do not dispute that,” I said. “But I was discussing the highly interesting career of this Danilo Danilovitch. If there is any attempt upon Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia, as you fear, it will be by that individual. General. Therefore I would advise your department to keep close observation upon him. He is lodging at Number 30B, Blurton Road. And,” I added, “if you should require any further particulars concerning him, I daresay I shall be in a position to furnish them.”