The Mission of Poubalov

"Lizzie, have you seen Alexander Poubalov this morning?"

The girl half raised her head, choked back the sobs and replied, "Who?" Clara repeated the name distinctly.

"I don't know who he is," answered Lizzie, wearily.

"Do you remember," asked Clara, "the gentleman who called on Mr. Strobel the morning he was to be married?"

"I remember somebody called," said Lizzie, absently, "mother showed him up. I didn't see him. What has he got to do with it?"

Clara felt that she must believe the girl, but she made one further move to discover whether in any way she might be allied with Poubalov.

"Has anybody been to see you this morning?" she asked.

"No," replied Lizzie; "what has this man you mention got to do with it?"

"Everything, I think," said Clara. "It looks as if he had caused Mr. Strobel's disappearance, abducted him in fact, and I know that he followed me to New York."

Lizzie was not keen enough to see that Clara had inferred a possible collusion between herself and Poubalov.

"Then," she said, "Mr. Strobel did not desert you at all!" and the tears welled from her eyes afresh. Clara knew that she would speak further, and after a moment, with her face in her hand, Lizzie moaned: "I am very unhappy, Miss Hilman."

"You must be, Lizzie," returned Clara, caressing her, "and I don't ask you to tell me anything. I am sorry I had to break in on you; but if you understood how I have been more than puzzled by the strange conduct of Mr. Strobel's enemy, you would forgive me."

"Forgive? Why, Miss Hilman, it is my place to ask for forgiveness. I was so brutal when you first came in. Don't you see, I," her voice faltered pitiably but she continued desperately, "I loved Mr. Strobel before he ever met you, I think. He never mentioned love to me, but he was so good and kind that I foolishly thought he was fond of me. I suffered horribly when he told us of his engagement, and I couldn't get over it. I thought of running away many times, but I couldn't bring myself to do so while he was still with us. I thought perhaps I would feel differently after he was gone, but on that morning when he was getting ready for the church, I simply couldn't endure the thought of staying in the house any longer. So I came away. I hadn't made any preparation. I took the first train I could get, and while I was waiting I wrote a note to mother. Did you see it? No? I started to tell her why I went, but I couldn't, and I scratched the words out. I knew one friend in New York, and she got me employment here, where I thought I could work hard and forget. I hadn't heard a word of Mr. Strobel's disappearance until I got mother's letter. Then – then I felt somehow as if it was my revenge, and I think I hated you as much for your suffering as I did because you won his love."

Clara heard this painful confession with an aching heart. Her sympathies were deeply touched by the artlessness with which this unhappy girl had developed bitterness and discontent from her love that it might take a lifetime of toil to soften.

"We both suffer, Lizzie," she said gravely; "I am glad now that I came. Shall I tell your mother anything?"

"No! no! I will write what's necessary. You can say that I am in a good family, and that some day I shall visit her."

Lizzie looked appealingly at Clara as if she would have her remain longer, but no good end was to be accomplished by prolonging the interview, and Clara withdrew.

As she stepped into the waiting carriage, she beckoned to Litizki who stood near the next corner.

"I am going to the hotel," she said, "and as soon as I can I shall take the train for Boston. Will you get in?"

"No, thank you, Miss Hilman," replied Litizki, abashed. "I will return by street-car. If you could let me know what train you intend to take, I should like it."

"There's a train at noon. If I can see my uncle I will take that."

She was driven away, and Litizki, head down, gloomy, more and more impressed with the conviction that Poubalov was not only responsible for Strobel's disappearance, but that he also plotted evil to Clara, slowly left the vicinity. When he was well out of the way, Alexander Poubalov left the window of a room he had hired two hours earlier, directly across the street from the house where Lizzie White lived, and came out upon the sidewalk. After a quick glance up and down the avenue, he went over the way, rang the bell, and asked to see Miss White.

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW LITIZKI SAVED MISS HILMAN

The ladies' entrance to the Travelers' Hotel was upon the same street as the main corridor, almost next door to it. Clara glanced in as the carriage slowly passed the open doors and she saw her uncle at the further end, pacing slowly toward her. Two men were with him whom she did not at the moment recognize, but so anxious was she to have a word with him that when she alighted, instead of going in at the ladies' entrance, she stepped over to the main doorway and stood there to attract his attention as soon as he should come near.

He saw her immediately and quickened his pace. In that instant she saw that one of the other men was Dexter, and that he wheeled abruptly about, turning the third man around with him. Dexter hobbled back toward the clerk's desk and led his companion out of sight into a passage that terminated in the corridor. Clara saw this maneuver but dimly, as her attention was fixed upon her uncle, whose face had the haggard, anxious expression that she had noticed on it several times of late. He was quickly beside her, and attributing his anxiety largely to herself, she smiled bravely and said:

"There was no scandal, uncle, and very little of what you could call a scene."

"You are back sooner than I thought for," he responded with something of an effort. "Did you see anything?"

"Of Poubalov? No."

"I mean Strobel."

"Oh, no! I am convinced that Lizzie knows nothing of him, poor girl!"

"So am I," said Mr. Pembroke with a deep sigh; "I have had no time, of course, to give the matter much thought, but my impression is, and it grows constantly stronger, that you will eventually find Strobel in Boston."

"And do you think I shall find him, uncle?" asked Clara, eager for encouraging words.

"I hope so, my child, I hope so. It does not seem possible that this affair will resolve itself into an unfathomable mystery. There are few such things in real life, you know, and if the worst had happened to Strobel, we would have heard of it."

"It gives me new courage to hear you say so," said Clara looking wistfully at her uncle, "I wanted to speak to you simply to let you know that nothing troublesome has happened, and that it is my intention to return to Boston as soon as possible, though I don't know what I can do after I get there."

"I would rest if I were you, Clara."

"I cannot think of rest now. We will see. Something may happen to give me a fresh start, or I may discover a new clew in something I already know, the significance of which I have overlooked."

"Don't try to do too much; rest if you can," pleaded Mr. Pembroke. "I shall return myself to-night."

"Do you want me to wait and go with you?"

"I wouldn't," exclaimed her uncle, hastily; "you'll find the journey nothing by daylight, and it might be fatiguing at night. You are familiar with it, and don't mind traveling alone for so short a time, do you?"

"Not at all. I merely thought you might want me to wait."

"No, Dexter will have to be with me. I will be with you at home in time for breakfast. You'll take the noon train I suppose? Good-by."

Haste was evident in Mr. Pembroke's manner as well as in his words, and Clara bade him good-by at once. She went to her room for her traveling bag, and when she returned to the carriage Litizki was waiting for her.

"Is it the noon train, Miss Hilman?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered; "won't you ride to the station with me?"

"Do you wish it?" said the little tailor, hesitatingly.

"Of course I do. Come, there may be things we wish to tell each other."

So Litizki sat beside her on the way to the station, and after the carriage started he said:

"Miss Hilman, I shrink from asking questions, and yet I think you will admit that I have more than curiosity about the result of your call on Miss White."

"You have every right to know," she responded; "we talked very frankly after a while, and I came away satisfied that she is not an accomplice of Poubalov's."

Litizki stared out of the window in silence for a time, and finally spoke much as if he were addressing himself:

"When Miss Hilman says she is satisfied, it goes a great way to convince me."

"You are still in doubt, then?" asked Clara.

"I cannot help being so. Poubalov grows upon me until he is ever present in my mind, like a horrid nightmare. At every step we take it is Poubalov. If ever anything is discovered, you discover Poubalov's hand in it. Whenever we make an attempt to gain a point, we are frustrated, and it is Poubalov who stands over and above, in and through all, moving us with his master-hand, and setting up obstacles when we would move of our own will. We are at the mercy of him who knows no mercy, and so long as Poubalov remains – in America, we are without hope, unless he accomplishes his purpose and has no further use for Mr. Strobel."

Litizki spoke with profound melancholy and just that touch of extravagance in language that Clara had noticed the first time she saw him in Mrs. White's.

"I don't wonder," she said, "that you estimate Poubalov's power for evil so greatly, and it would be folly for the friends of Mr. Strobel to underestimate him; and yet, with a woman's imperfect reasoning, I feel that we shall some day outreach him."

"There is nothing imperfect in your reasoning, Miss Hilman," and for once Litizki addressed her directly, his gloomy eyes fixed upon her own; "but you are speaking from the kindness of your heart rather than from the logic of your brain. This is not my first experience with Poubalov. But no matter." He turned away abruptly and again gazed out of the window. "It is nothing short of greatness in you," he continued presently, "in the midst of your sorrow to try to throw a little light into my life. Every kind word and every encouragement from you hurts me almost as much as the oppression and injustice from which I have suffered all my life. Until I knew Mr. Strobel I knew not real kindness. I am yet unused to it, and so it seems sometimes as if you had stabbed me. But there is this difference, Miss Hilman: Whereas constant injustice deadens the heart, kindness quickens it, and I shall yet do something, you may be sure, that will not only be evidence of my sincerity and devotion, but that will actually help you."

"Mr. Litizki," returned Clara, disturbed by his morbid tone rather than by his words, which were but characteristic of his point of view, "you dwell too much upon these things, not only upon what has been evilly done to you, but upon what seems to you as exceptional goodness. Let us not think more about it until the time comes for action. Then we shall be the better prepared to think quickly and effectively. See, here we are at the depot. I will let you get my ticket for me, as you will have to go to the window also, and I will avoid the nuisance of having to wait in the line."

Litizki took her purse without a word, after she had settled with the driver, escorted her to a seat and then went to the ticket window. When he returned he displayed unusual coolness, for him, as he handed her the ticket and said:

"Poubalov will go by the same train as you. He is even now in this room, and he saw me buy the tickets. Of course I pretended not to see him, but he despises me and cares not for all my efforts."

Clara felt no fear at this information, but it nevertheless aroused a sense of discomfort. A presentiment of misfortune she readily dismissed; this fact of being persistently "shadowed" by a man whom she believed to be her enemy she could not dismiss, and she could not shake off the irritation caused by it.

"Suppose," suggested Litizki, "that you pretend to take this train but really wait for the next one."

"No," replied Clara, "I will not be interfered with in my movements by Poubalov. I suppose it is his right to take the train, if he chooses to do so, as well as it is mine. I will go to my car now, please, and if he ventures to intrude upon me I shall know how to relieve myself of his presence."

Litizki's eyes sparkled with exultant satisfaction for just an instant, and then the fire that lit them subsided to a steady glow that would have revealed a fixed and awful purpose had anybody seen it and read it correctly. But he kept his eyes averted as he escorted Clara to the car, thinking of her words, weighing them, repeating them to himself. They sank deep into his brain, where his perceptions of life, disordered by a rankling sense of injustice, distorted them and threw them back to the surface of his thoughts with an interpretation all his own.

"She has the nature of heroes," he said to himself, "and she is capable of it! She is great, grand! How fitting that Alexander Poubalov should meet at last a foe of infinite spirit, intellect as keen as his own, courage unfaltering, and that foe a woman! But she is a woman, and her place is beside my benefactor. She must be saved for him and for herself. She must be spared this demonstration of her right to rank with heroes. I know what she is, and Strobel shall know when, Poubalov out of the way, he gains his freedom. She must be saved, and I must save her. It is my fate!"

Wholly unsuspicious of the raving that was going on in her strange companion's mind, Clara proceeded to the car and took the chair that the porter pointed out to her. For just an instant it occurred to her to ask Litizki to sit with her, but there was nothing Quixotic in her character; she knew that the little tailor would be immeasurably hurt if she should suggest paying his traveling expenses, and, withal, he made her uncomfortable. She thought very kindly of him, but she felt no need of his protection.

"We will meet again in Boston," she said, pleasantly, "and we may yet do some work together."

"Perhaps so," responded Litizki. "I shall be on the train, and if you like I will watch outside till it starts and let you know whether Poubalov gets on board."

"It's hardly necessary," said Clara; "still, if you would rather do so, I have no objection."

Litizki, therefore, loitered on the platform beside the train until just before starting time. Then he went to Clara and told her that Poubalov had taken a seat in the car just behind hers.

"I have no fear," she assured him, "but you may look for me when we get to Boston."

She made this arrangement wholly for his sake, realizing the man's devotion and anxiety to serve her. He bowed gravely and made his way to the platform again, but instead of going to an ordinary coach he climbed the steps to the rear platform of the parlor car in which Poubalov sat.

"Can you give me a seat in this car?" he asked of the conductor as the train started.

"There's just one left," replied the official as he consulted his slips after a curious glance at the inquirer.

Litizki paid for the seat immediately. It was at the very back of the car, against the partition of the smoking room wherein Poubalov was at the time seeking the comfort he found in cigarettes.

The train had been in motion more than an hour when Poubalov appeared. He saw Litizki, and raised his brows slightly, as if in mild surprise. With no other sign of recognition he took his seat, which was in about the middle of the car.

Hours passed slowly while the train rushed on as if madly intent upon checking the flight of time. Poubalov occupied himself with a book. Litizki could not have followed the words on a printed page had he tried to do so. His brain worked over and over the idea that had found its way there days before, and he could not, if he would, have thought of anything else.

"The time matters not," he argued with himself; "as well now as at another, but there must be provocation if possible. If there is no provocation, then proceed without it. It must be done at all hazard. And there must be no failure."

Somewhere between Westerly and Providence the train came to a stop. There was trouble with the engine – what, it matters not. The train could not proceed until the damage had been repaired. A brakeman was sent forward to the next station to telegraph for assistance, and the engineer busied himself in effecting a temporary adjustment of the machinery, so that some progress could be made even though it were slow. Poubalov went forward with many passengers to watch the work, and Litizki followed him. Altogether nearly two hours were lost by the accident, so that it was dark when the train rushed through the suburbs of Boston.

Poubalov then rose and went into the car forward. Litizki went after and saw the spy drop into a chair not far from where Clara sat, her back to the window, her profile clearly in view. There were many vacant seats in the car, some unoccupied at the moment because the passengers, weary with the long journey, were standing up, making early preparations for departure. All the men were at the forward end, waiting their turns at the wash-room.

The train had just rolled past Roxbury crossing, two miles from the terminus, when Poubalov rose again and sauntered forward, sinking negligently into the chair back of Clara which had just been vacated by a lady who was now submitting to the brush of the porter.

Litizki saw Clara start when Poubalov addressed her, and his hand sought his pocket, but he withdrew it empty when he observed that the spy had left his cane leaning against the side of the car near his former seat.

"That will do better," muttered the tailor, and he went to Poubalov's chair, took the cane in his hands, and, all unobserved by any of the preoccupied passengers, released the catch and drew forth the long blade. Concealing it by his side as he took the few remaining steps that lay between him and his victim, he presently raised it high over Poubalov's heart, and with the words, "I will do it for you, Miss Hilman!" brought it down with all his force.

Poubalov fell into the aisle with a loud gasp, and Clara, uttering one scream of terror, bent over him.

Litizki dashed to the rear platform. There was nobody in his way save one or two frightened women. The brakeman had already opened the doors of the vestibuled platform and before any one could lay hands upon him, the little tailor had swung himself off into the darkness.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE KEY TO IVAN'S PRISON

The train was proceeding at such comparatively slow speed that Litizki, though he had jumped blindly and though he fell full length on the ground, was not hurt. Before the rear car had passed he was on his feet and making across the tracks. A fence too high for him to scale barred his progress, and he hurried in the direction of Roxbury, looking for some means of egress from the "yard" through which the railroad ran. He found it at last, a narrow gate in the fence at the end of a short street. The gate was unlocked, and Litizki was soon upon Columbus Avenue.

Until then he had been conscious of no especial emotion, and his course had been taken instinctively rather than with a definite purpose of effecting his escape; but instead of breathing free now that he was where for a time at least he could mingle with the passers unsuspected, a great fear came upon him. Throughout all the long journey he had nursed his awful purpose calmly and steadfastly, never for an instant wavering; now he seemed still to feel the handle of the dagger in his palm, he saw the blade flash as he poised it over Poubalov's heart, and he heard again the loud gasp with which the spy fell under the blow. Litizki trembled. His throat was parched, his skin hot, but dry as the dust on the pavement. He glanced furtively up and down the avenue, as if to see the policeman who would presently arrest him.

Litizki had paused, unable to walk without staggering, when he dropped so completely from heroism to trepidation. He grasped a trolley post for support and was dimly conscious that two or three girls who were passing laughed at him for being helplessly drunk. Half unconsciously he felt in his pocket and drew forth the revolver with which he had intended to kill the spy. Should he not end his misery then and there, and cheat the hangman? He looked down at the tiny barrel, so large in its tragic possibilities, and with the thought that he had but to exercise a steady hand upon himself as he had upon Poubalov in order to plunge into oblivion, he began to recover. The grated cover of a sewer basin was at his feet and he dropped the weapon upon it. It rebounded a very little and then slipped through the grating, out of sight and out of reach. Litizki instantly wondered why he had done that.

"That was unreasonable. The revolver was not evidence," he muttered, and then a wild joy surged in his heart as he reflected that he had accomplished his purpose.

"That was no crime in the light of reason," he argued. "The necessities of the situation demanded it, and though the law will say otherwise, I am content."

He was almost himself again now, and it flashed upon him that his work, after all, was but half done. There was one other step to be taken before his heroic deed could be of service to her whom he worshiped, and to his benefactor whom he idolized. Strobel must be freed, but how? Certainly not by standing there at the curb in plain view, waiting to be arrested. No; whatever be his ultimate fate, he must effect at least a temporary escape.

Once more steadied by a purpose to strive for, Litizki crossed the avenue and walked on in the same general direction until he came to Washington Street. His delay at the curb had been brief as measured by the watch. With every step he took his brain grew clearer. He saw the folly of going to Poubalov's lodging-house in Bulfinch Place for the purpose of releasing Strobel. His conviction that Strobel was confined there had not been shaken by any of the events since his failure to expose Poubalov's secret. News of the murder would undoubtedly be taken to that house before he could get there. The release must be effected by some other hand than his own; but what matter? He had made the release possible. Miss Hilman would ever give him credit for it, and that was enough, as undoubtedly she would tell Strobel how it came to pass.

His plan of operation was fully formed when he reached Washington Street. He boarded the first Chelsea ferry car that came along, and set himself to thinking of it. When the conductor touched his shoulder to remind him of his fare, he started violently as if the avenging hand of law had been laid upon him. There was a recurrence of the dreadful fear that had momentarily possessed him, and again he shook as if with an ague. He felt an almost irresistible impulse to jump from the car and run; and when at last he left it, near the far end of Hanover Street, he had not yet recovered. With great difficulty he dragged his steps through the crowded streets of the North End until he came to the house where Vargovitch lived. As he climbed the stairs, he felt his courage return; and when Vargovitch bade him enter, he was again the somber, depressed figure with which all his acquaintances were familiar.

"Vargovitch," he said directly but with averted eyes, "I leave the country to-morrow, never to return. Do not ask me why. You will know soon enough after I have gone. See, I have so much money," and he emptied the contents of his purse upon the table. "It is enough for the present, perhaps, but I shall some day need more, and I leave behind me accounts and stock, to say nothing of business good will, that are of value. I want you to help me realize upon them."

Vargovitch looked sternly at his friend.

"That mad head of yours," he responded, "has led you at last to difficulty from which there is no exit. I will ask no questions, Litizki, but I will not be concerned in your affair. You should not have come here."

Litizki was sufficiently master of himself to repress the tremor that threatened him.

"Do you desert me, Vargovitch?" he asked, turning his dull eyes apathetically on his comrade.

"I'll accept no responsibility for what you may have done," returned Vargovitch, "I will neither harbor you nor inform upon you."