The Mission of Poubalov

"I do not ask the one, and I know you would not do the other. I shall remain but a short time. Come! will you take my business and dispose of it for me?"

"Money cannot be raised among our people to-night."

"I know it, but you can send me some when you have collected. Let me sit down and write a moment."

Vargovitch silently placed writing materials before him, and Litizki wrote rapidly. When he had done, he handed the paper to his friend. It was a surrender of all his business property to Vargovitch, as complete a bill of sale as he could draw.

"Take it or destroy it," said Litizki; "I go now, and by and by I shall send you my address. If you have accepted the trust I impose upon you, you will send me money; if not – " The tailor shrugged his shoulders and went to the door. "It is the last time you look upon me, Vargovitch," he concluded.

"It is a wild scheme," muttered Vargovitch, looking at the document, "but we will see."

The noise of the door closing aroused him. Litizki had left the room.

On the street Litizki again had to struggle against the fear that his crime excited. All through the long night it came to him at irregular intervals, and he vibrated between an exaltation when he regarded himself as a hero, and abject cowardice when the rustling of a leaf made his very soul shiver. On this occasion, that is, after leaving Vargovitch, he staggered through unfamiliar streets and alleys, hoping that no friend would see him, and at length during a period of self-possession, he crossed the ferry to East Boston. There he took a room in an emigrant's hotel near the Cunard steamship dock. He knew that some boat of this line would depart on the morrow, the regular sailing day, and he had resolved to take passage in it.

In the office of the hotel he found that the boat was the Cephalonia, and that she was scheduled to start at half-past eleven. That was a late hour, and he would be in great peril until then, but there was nothing for it but to take his chances. So he gathered up a lot of writing materials and retired to his room. He spent most of the night in writing to Clara.

"In staying your hand," he began abruptly, without address of any sort, "from exacting from Alexander Poubalov the penalty of his crime against you, the penalty which your hand alone was worthy to exact, I was impelled not by egotism, or sudden emotion. It was my purpose to save you for a happier career than with all your nobility of character you could have achieved had you yourself done the deed. I shall try to escape the punishment that society would inflict upon me for this act of justice, for I find that at this moment I cling to my miserable life as does the dog whose master starves and maltreats him. If I do not escape, it will matter not at all, and I ask no tears from your beautiful eyes. I know your character so well that I shall die content with the gratitude that I know will warm your heart for your unworthy servant.

"The blow that struck away the mighty obstacle to your success and happiness was but the key to the door that is closed upon Ivan Strobel. The happiness of opening that door with my own hands is not to be for me, and I do not deserve it. I am content to show you the way.

"Poubalov's rooms are at 32 Bulfinch Place. He occupies two, possibly three rooms there, and in the sense that he has undoubtedly bought the landlady, the whole house is his. I am convinced that Strobel is confined there, and that that has been his prison house since his abduction last Monday. There will be no bar now to your going to the house and releasing your lover and my benefactor. I will tell you what room he is in, or at all events was in last Thursday night; and that you may thoroughly understand me, I will relate how I came to know this, although in so doing I shall lay bare to you the secrets of my heart and confess to you the weak, good-for-nothing that I am – such as you yourself have found me to be. I hope my action of this evening will redeem me somewhat in your eyes."

Here followed a detailed account of Litizki's attempted rescue of Strobel, and he mitigated none of the mortifying occurrences, freely confessing himself a child in the hands of his adversary.

"The room where Strobel was confined on that night," he continued, "is the little one adjoining Poubalov's main room. It is directly over the hall as you enter, one flight up. I doubt very much whether Poubalov has transferred his prisoner to any other part of the house, for that would have provoked comment and perhaps suspicion among the lodgers. Your happiness, therefore, is now in your own hands, and if I escape I shall never see you again. I could almost wish that I would be taken, for the certainty that you would come to visit me in my cell; but it is my desire to relieve you of everything that might even remind you of sorrow, and I therefore take leave of you in this letter with the hope that you will act upon it without delay, and that no accident will rob you of the reward which your loyalty merits."

He signed his name without any formal concluding phrases, and having addressed, stamped and sealed the envelope, he went out to post it. The dawn was just breaking, and he could see with sufficient clearness all about the street and the freight yard in the vicinity of the hotel. No one, apparently, was stirring save himself. Believing that Clara would get the letter sooner if he took it to a post office instead of a street box, he attempted to find one. He knew there must be a branch office in East Boston somewhere, but he knew not where to look for it. He had come to the corner of Maverick Square when he saw a policeman standing within the shadow of a building. A violent shudder came over him as he suddenly realized that he had taken one step toward the officer with a view to asking the way to the post office! One of his fits of fear attacked him and again he staggered, but if the policeman had any thought of arresting him for drunkenness, he gave no indication of it, and Litizki stumbled on undisturbed.

When he thought he could do so safely, he turned into a doorway to recover. He saw a street letter-box within twenty feet, but as he started toward it, letter in hand, he heard a bell ringing.

"The ferry!" he muttered, and he began to run toward the river. With all his fears the little tailor kept his head faithful to his purpose. It was now in his thoughts that he would cross the river to the mainland and post his letter in the general office on Devonshire Street, whence he knew it would be taken with the least delay to Mr. Pembroke's house. He was conscious of the risk in thus showing himself even in the solitary hours of the early morning, but his courage was returning, and he felt again a hero who would brave all for her to whom he owed fealty.

The gateman at the ferry heard him running down the street and held the boat for him. Litizki sank breathless upon a bench and felt again the triumph of his deed. He reveled in the difficulties he was overcoming and the dangers that beset him.

A car was waiting at the city side of the ferry, and Litizki rode in it as far as Scollay Square. Then he walked to the post office, and remembering that a stamp window was open all night, he found it and added to his letter a "special delivery."

"Now," he muttered, dropping the important missive in the box, "it doesn't matter what happens to me."

He returned on foot by devious ways to the ferry, more than once evading marketmen and other early pedestrians as he felt the recurrence of terror, and at length came again to his hotel. The employees of the house were astir, steerage passengers were beginning to arrive, and Litizki felt a sudden repugnance to the solitude of his chamber. He sat by a window in the office and watched the groups of men and women who gradually gathered at the entrance to the dock, waiting to go on board the Cephalonia or to bid good-by to friends and relatives.

Before very long he heard the strident voice of a newsboy calling his morning wares. He listened for a quotation of startling headlines, expecting that the murder of a passenger in a drawing-room car would be the great news feature of the day. Perhaps this boy had not read his papers carefully. At all events, he shouted nothing whatever concerning the event that had crowned Litizki's life and made him a hero and a coward at once.

After some hesitation the tailor bought a paper, and ran his eyes over the captions of the leading articles. He found no reference to his deed there. He examined the paper, column by column, from first page to last, and not one line set forth so much as a hint of Poubalov's tragic end.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE GHOST OF POUBALOV

Litizki laid the newspaper down and tried to reflect. He had not slept at all since he awoke from a very brief nap in New York the morning before; therefore, he had not dreamed the scene in the drawing-room car. With his own hand he had actually struck Poubalov to the heart, and his victim had fallen with the gasp and shudder of death. This was so, and no newspaper could make it otherwise; but how should it happen that the reporters had missed the episode?

It had happened upon a railroad train; what more probable, then, than that the railroad officials had suppressed the news? He had read many accounts of accidents in which the reporters set forth the reticence of officials and employees.

"They imagine," thought Litizki, "that it is not for their interest to let the public know that so violent a crime, so they would call it, could be committed in one of their high-toned cars, and that, moreover, the murderer could escape."

This thought appeased for a moment the new fear that threatened to unman him for all time, the fear that he had failed! Though he openly and emphatically repudiated all superstitions, and boasted over and again that his life and views were ruled by reason alone, he was yet subject to influences that, if they were not superstitions, were remarkably like them. Among these were his estimate of Poubalov, whose invincibility seemed to surpass human powers and attributes. Litizki was conscious of this tendency to surround the spy with a supernatural atmosphere, and he struggled against it, the result of his struggle invariably being his deeper self-abasement as he recognized Poubalov's immeasurable superiority. Now he felt again this superhuman character of the spy appealing to him, setting his poor brain in a whirl, and blurring his eyes as if a mighty wind had taken up the dust of the street and held it suspended in a dense cloud before him.

"Bah!" exclaimed Litizki, striking his brow angrily, "he cannot" – and he stopped suddenly, conscious that he was speaking aloud. There was nobody in the room but a sleepy clerk, who looked up curiously from his ledger and then bent his head again over his work. Litizki tried to force his thoughts away from the topics that absorbed him. It occurred to him that he had eaten nothing since the morning before, and he went to the hotel restaurant. On the table at which he took a seat was a newspaper left by some previous customer. It was the same journal that had beaten its contemporaries in the first publication of the rumor, that was finally accepted as news, concerning the elopement of Strobel and Lizzie White. Litizki recalled the superior enterprise of this paper, and while waiting for his breakfast, he looked it over. Yes! there it was, and his heart bounded with joy and fear at once. It was not a long story under a half-column head, but the few lines were double-leaded, and paragraphed at every period. A newspaper man would have seen at a glance that the item had come in late, after the forms were made up, and that the editor had "lifted" a story of minor interest to make room for this. "Probable Murder," was the caption, and the statement beneath it was as follows:

"A passenger in one of the drawing-room cars attached to the New York express due at Park Square at six P.M., but some hours late last night, was stabbed just before the train reached the station.

"It is believed that the wound was mortal.

"The assailant took advantage of the excitement and confusion to jump from the train.

"No trace of him has been found.

"The name of the victim is not known at this writing.

"No rumor concerning the tragedy reached this office until long after midnight.

"The police, to whom the railroad officials secretly reported the affair, for reasons best known to themselves, withhold information, but they admit that the assault took place as described above.

"It is believed that the murderer will be arrested this morning.

"An extra edition giving full details of this occurrence will be published at ten o'clock."

Litizki looked cautiously around the room. A policeman in full uniform was eating at a table near the door. For one instant the tailor meditated flight through an open window. Then he pulled himself together and ate his breakfast. "We shall see," he thought, and he hastened, that he might finish ahead of the policeman and pass directly in front of him on the way to the office.

"If he is here to arrest me," reflected Litizki, "he will obey his instructions when he sees me go out. If he lets me alone, it will mean that there is still a chance for me."

The policeman did not stir when Litizki passed him. The tailor paid his bill, and, the dock being open, went to the steamship office and bought a steerage ticket for Liverpool. He was exultant once more, proud of himself as a hero.

"The next edition, and then all the papers," he thought, "will print my name, and everybody will know what I have done. When Strobel is released there will be plenty of thinking people who will applaud me in their hearts, whatever they may say aloud."

Believing that he could sleep now that his mind was relieved of uncertainty, he went down into the men's department of the steerage and crawled into a bunk away forward. A great many passengers were booked for this trip, and a compartment never used except in the event of a crowd had been fitted in the very prow of the ship. Litizki knew that the steward would not assign the bunks there until none were left elsewhere, and he hoped, therefore, to be undisturbed until after the boat had started.

So he lay down upon the coarse mattress and tried to sleep. He closed his eyes only to view again the scene in the drawing-room car. Physical fatigue caused his mind to wander, and he would be conscious that he was dropping into sleep when suddenly his nerves would seem to be on fire with life, and he would start violently and grip the low rail of his bunk as if he were about to fall out. By dint of will power he compelled himself to remain there, although as the time passed he was in momentary expectation of arrest. He began to regret that he had shown himself so freely. Once the steamer was under way he would be able to rest undisturbed by phantasies for ten days. After that, what matter? Those ten days should be passed in full enjoyment of his one successful act.

As the forenoon dragged along the steerage filled with men, and there was a constant hum of voices, and the shuffling of feet as the passengers jostled about in the narrow quarters and stowed their baggage on and under their bunks. Several men came into Litizki's compartment and took possession in turn of the unoccupied places. Some of them remained, scraping acquaintance with one another, and passing about the liquor without copious draughts of which few ocean travelers regard a voyage as properly begun. In the saloon, champagne serves as the exhilarant for a scene that should need no wine to set healthy blood to sparkling; and in the steerage, the whisky flask accomplishes its purpose just as effectively. A fellow-passenger offered his flask to Litizki. He was no drinker, and he accepted the friendly offering more to attract no comment to himself than because he craved a stimulant.

Having mumbled "thanks, friend" and drunk as much as his throat would tolerate of the fiery stuff, he lay down again. A moment or two later he was surprised to find that he felt more composed, distinctly drowsy, in fact. He correctly attributed this to the whisky, and he lay very still in the hope that natural sleep would at last come upon him. This might have been the case, but he was aroused by a rough hand on his foot.

"Come on there, my man; come on," said a commanding voice.

"You want me, then, do you?" responded Litizki, sitting up quickly and bumping his head against the deck.

"Save the ship, man," remarked the voice, jocosely, "and it will be better for your head. That deck's made of iron. Let me see your ticket."

So it was not a policeman. Litizki showed his ticket, and the purser's assistant passed on. It must be approaching the hour of departure. The tailor, fully aroused, wished that his neighbor would offer him more liquor.

"Do you think," he asked, "that I would have time to go ashore and get a bottle of whisky?"

"Yes," was the facetious reply, "but you wouldn't have time to get back. Never mind, partner. Have a drop of this," and again the flask was passed to him.

Litizki did not lie down again immediately after drinking. He sat crouched over with his hands about his knees, wondering if Miss Hilman had received his letter. The men in his compartment were chatting and laughing noisily. The single port-hole admitted so little light that he could not have distinguished the features of any of them except by the closest scrutiny. The steerage steward looked in.

"There's one place here, sir," he said, "that your man can have."

"All right," was the reply, in a wheezy, cracked voice; "take it, Billings."

The tailor started. Was not that the name of the man whom Miss Hilman had mentioned as the driver of Strobel's second carriage? Could it be that he was taking flight, too? or was it a mere coincidence of names?

A young fellow, preceded by an odor of strong drink, and followed by a decrepit old man, edged into the compartment. He carried a black, shiny portmanteau which he threw upon the vacant bunk.

"There!" he growled, "that was heavy. Give me another swig, Mr. Dexter."

"You shall have it, my boy, and welcome," croaked the old man, producing a flask from his pocket; "take a good, long drink. That's it! down with it, he! he! Pleasant voyage to you, Billings, my boy!"

He patted the young fellow on the shoulder; and Billings, supposing that his hand was extended to take the flask, turned his back, and when he had drunk, corked the flask and remarked thickly:

"I'll keep it thish time."

"All right, all right," responded Dexter; "you may have it now. I'm going on deck. It's too close here."

He hobbled away, and Billings staggered after him.

Full of wonder, and almost forgetting his own part in the Strobel matter, Litizki descended from his bunk and went up to the deck also. To his amazement, he found that the Cephalonia was already a hundred yards from the dock. Several conceited little tugs were puffing away at stem and stern, to turn the gigantic ship about. A great crowd of people were on the pier, waving hands and handkerchiefs, and the salutes were frantically returned by the hundreds on board who crowded close to the rail.

Billings had gone to the rail away from the shore, and Dexter stood beside him, still talking with forced jocularity, to which the young man listened with only half comprehension. The most that his fuddled brain could recognize was that he was on board a steamer bound for Europe, a big enough fact in itself to subdue the ordinary mind.

Litizki watched the pair with troubled curiosity. Could this be the same Billings? and could his going away portend any failure for the plan that Litizki had executed at such heroic self-sacrifice? It could not be possible! The guilty driver might well flee from punishment, but neither his presence nor his absence could materially affect the outcome.

Thinking thus, the tailor allowed his eyes to wander from Billings and Dexter, taking in the sights of the ship with indifferent interest. Suddenly he retreated a pace, and grasped a hatchway to prevent himself from sinking prone upon the deck. Were all his railings against superstition and the supernatural but empty words? Had he gone stark mad, or was that the ghost of Poubalov leaning negligently over the rail of the promenade deck and grinning down at him in evident amusement at his consternation?

A long cry of terror seemed to struggle for utterance in Litizki's throat, but it found vent in a pitiable whine that nobody heard above the joyous cheering of the passengers except his frightened self. He could not take his eyes from that awful face, whose every feature seemed to glow with perfect health. How long he stood there, gasping, powerless under the terrible spell, Litizki could not have told, but a complete revulsion of feeling overcame him when the figure on the deck above shrugged its shoulders, sneered, and strode forward out of sight.

Then Litizki knew that he had failed.

Where now was all the exaltation of heroism that had sustained him? Where his devotion to Reason, that false goddess whose dictates had seemed to him infallible? Even in his agony of humiliation the light broke in upon him, and he saw that the guiding spirit of his miserable career had not been abstract, unimpeachable Reason, but a base, weak imitation – the lucubration of a disordered intellect, Litizki's reason.

The unhappy man tried to think, not so much to explain how it had happened that the dagger had not done its work, but how should he act now? There was no withdrawal from the voyage already begun, and he wished least of all to go ashore. Why had he so insanely thrown away his revolver? The breast that had resisted a knife driven by his feeble arm could not withstand the force of a well-directed bullet.

What should he do? Would fate be once more kind, just once more, and some time during the coming ten days, put Poubalov in his way so that he could push the villain overboard?

Whisky mounted to his brain and told him to hope. He crawled up the steps to the forecastle-top whence he could command a view of the promenade deck throughout its entire length. Poubalov was there, idly observing the passing harbor. He hardly stirred until, just after passing Boston Light, the steamer's engines were stopped, and with several others, ladies and gentlemen, he went to the main deck. A tug came alongside, the visitors and the representatives of the Cunard Company crossed the plank, and in another moment the great vessel throbbed again with the revolutions of the screw that, barring accident, would not cease its work until it had propelled the steamer to the other side of the world.

Poubalov stood in front of the wheel-house of the tug and waved his hat to Litizki, and by the side of the spy stood the decrepit old man, Dexter.

CHAPTER XX.

THE LITTLE FRONT ROOM

When Poubalov had fallen to the floor of the car and Clara was bending over him, his dark eyes shone with savage luster as he said:

"I am not hurt, Miss Hilman, but I would I were, if I could thereby gain your sympathy."

"Not hurt!" she repeated aghast at the spectacle he presented, and unable to credit his words. He lay flat on his back, and protruding upward from his closely-buttoned coat was the dagger. It looked as if half the length of the blade had been buried in his body.

The passengers gathered about, horrified and excited, while the man whom they supposed to be dying, sat up in the aisle and deliberately wrenched the blade from his bosom.

"See," he said holding it aloft where nearly everybody could observe it, "the point is badly blunted, and I shall have to grind it down, but there is no blood upon it!"

Then he laughed quietly, sprang to his feet, and with strong arms helped Clara back to her chair. She was horribly shocked by the episode, for Litizki's melancholy meditations rushed back upon her, and she seemed again to hear him promising yet to do something for her that should be of great service. And this was it!

She did not then realize that it was a remark of her own that had inspired his mad brain to action, and it was well that she did not, for it was enough that she should suffer as she did, accusing herself of failing to foresee what would happen if the little tailor were permitted to go on tormenting himself with the mystery, and indulging his immeasurable hatred of Poubalov. How could she have been so selfish, she thought, as to encourage the unfortunate man to devote his life to her purpose, and to arouse such devotion that he was carried by it to the very commission of murder? She shuddered as the word occurred to her, and she looked appealingly at Poubalov, as if to seek from him some further assurance that the miracle had occurred to avert the tragedy that Litizki had planned.