The Mission of Poubalov

"Now, miss?"

Clara reflected. Other objections aside, it might be the worst possible policy to move prematurely in the matter. It might be a false clew, she knew nothing about the building, and meantime Paul was following Poubalov. Much as she longed for immediate action, it seemed wiser to postpone it until an investigation could be made.

"Would your employer spare you to help me to-morrow forenoon?" she asked.

"I think he would, miss. He told me to do what you said, says he – "

"Tell him, please, that I would like to have you go with me to-morrow as soon after nine o'clock as you can get here. I shall want you to show me the building, and identify the man Patterson."

"That I will, miss, if he's served you any trick."

Poubalov walked very rapidly after he left Mr. Pembroke's. He could have saved himself many steps by taking a street-car, but he evidently preferred energetic action.

Paul, following, took note, as Litizki had done on a similar occasion, of the streets through which he passed, and at last he saw him pause and stand for several minutes at the curb, looking across the road at what seemed to be an old-fashioned hotel. After a time he walked slowly on, and soon thereafter was joined by a man with whom he conversed.

Paul went near enough to see the man's face, but he did not recognize him as anybody he had ever seen before. The conversation finished, Poubalov continued on his way, again walking rapidly, but this time, after coming to Washington Street, he boarded a downtown car. An open car was directly behind it, and Paul found a place on its front seat, thus being enabled to keep the spy in view until he alighted at Scollay Square.

The guilty as well as the innocent must eat, and supper was the next thing to engage Poubalov's attention. Paul improved the opportunity in the same way, but he finished quickly, and waited a long time for the spy to come forth. He had been watching the restaurant entrance from a doorway across the street, and at last he ventured over to see whether possibly his quarry had escaped him. No; there sat Poubalov, at a table not far from the door, his head bent down as if he were thinking profoundly. His supper lay almost untouched before him. Just as Paul looked in, the head waiter touched the customer on the shoulder.

Poubalov looked up with a start, and the head waiter seemed to be apologizing for his intrusion. It was clear that he had supposed the customer to be asleep, or ill. Poubalov paid his check and left the place.

He went to his lodging-house, and when Paul saw that he had lit the gas, he, too, went inside.

He locked the door immediately and applied his eye to the nail hole.

Poubalov sat with folded arms in an old-fashioned rocking chair, gazing abstractedly before him. On the little center table under the chandelier, Paul could just distinguish Clara's photograph.

Paul remained with his eye at the hole until it seemed as if he could stand no longer. In all that time Poubalov had not moved perceptibly.

The watcher got down and looked at his time-piece. It was half-past ten. He then sat with his head against the door that he might hear the slightest sound from the front room.

Just what possessed Paul to be so vigilant on this occasion, when the spy was doing absolutely nothing but cudgel his inscrutable mind, he could not have told in less vague terms than that he didn't want Poubalov to get away from him. If he were to take a nocturnal, or early morning ramble, Paul purposed to be on hand to accompany him.

Something like a half hour passed, and then Paul heard a long, heavy sigh, and the creak of the rocker as Poubalov rose. Quickly mounting his perch, Paul saw him pace back and forth, his hands clinched behind him and his brow set in hard wrinkles. He seemed to be in for a night of it, and as his movement promised to be productive of nothing more than his quiescence, Paul again dismounted and sat down. So monotonously did the march continue that the listener's head began to droop, lulled by the very sound he had set himself to hear, and had it not been for the extreme anxiety with which he had undertaken his task, Paul would have fallen asleep. After twice catching himself nodding, he no longer dared to sit still. So he rose and stepped lightly about the room to start the blood in his drowsy limbs.

The sound of marching ceased. Poubalov had stopped under the chandelier, and when Paul had him in view he was in the act of turning Clara's photograph face down upon the table. He took out the leather pocketbook that had checked the dagger thrust by Litizki's hand, and examined one of the documents in it attentively. It appeared to be of an official character, for there was a big seal upon it, and it was bound with ribbon. Paul could see the holes made by the dagger in passing through the several folds of the paper, or parchment.

Poubalov laid the document upon the table, sat down, and, drawing fresh paper before him, began to write. His pen traversed the sheets with great rapidity, and as Paul could hear the scratching plainly, he again sought relief from his uncomfortable perch.

It was nearly one o'clock when the sound of writing ceased.

Paul saw that Poubalov had removed his coat. What he had written was folded and placed in an envelope upon the table.

The watcher supposed that the spy was about to retire, but there was so evidently something further upon Poubalov's mind, something that he seemed to debate whether it were best done now, or in the morning, that Paul kept his place and watched; and as he strained his eye to take in every movement, instinctively shading his face although he stood in the darkness, he saw Poubalov draw a revolver from his hip-pocket.

Placing the hammer at half-cock, he tilted the barrel forward and pushed the cartridge cylinder about with his thumb and finger.

Every chamber seemed to be as he wished it, and he readjusted the barrel.

Then he walked to the bureau upon which swung a half-length mirror. His back was thus partially turned to the watcher, and Paul could see dimly the reflection of his face looking somberly toward him. He held the revolver in his right hand, the finger on the trigger, the barrel pointed toward the floor.

Paul was in an agony of doubt and apprehension. What should he do?

How long would Poubalov stand there and allow him to reflect?

Would the spy, then, "get away," and by this manner of exit?

With his left hand Poubalov took his watch from his pocket. He glanced at the face of the busy and faithful little machine, and it was only too evident that he had set the limit of his life at some point that the moving hands would presently reach.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE NEW CLEW

Frantic with anxiety and dread, Paul followed a sudden impulse and jumped to the floor, ran to the door that opened into the hall, unlocked and opened it and rushed out.

He had a wild idea of bursting in the door of Poubalov's room and wrestling with him if need be to take away the revolver and prevent suicide.

He stopped, startled, just outside his door, for Poubalov stood before him, the light from the chandelier streaming out upon him and showing him erect, alert, his revolver pointed directly at the watcher.

"What is the matter?" asked Poubalov, coolly.

Paul caught his breath and leaned upon the banister.

"I was going out in a hurry and stumbled against a chair," he stammered.

"Strange time of night to do things in a hurry," remarked Poubalov, still aiming his weapon at the young man; "do you belong here?"

"Yes; I moved in yesterday."

Poubalov stood a little aside to let the light fall more fully upon Paul's face.

"Humph!" he said, lowering the revolver; then added, in Russian, "you are Paul Palovna, intimate friend of Ivan Strobel."

"Yes," admitted Paul, in the same language, "I am, and you are his deadly enemy.'

"Bah!" exclaimed Poubalov in profound disgust, "you ought to know better. Come in here – but no! you are in a hurry. Go, then; I will talk to you another time."

"Better now, Poubalov," returned Paul, significantly, "one of us might be missing before another opportunity occurred. I am not so much in a hurry that I cannot listen to you."

"No!" said the spy, decidedly, "go your way, and take this comfort with you, Palovna, that you have done your friend Strobel a service."

He shrugged his shoulders and withdrew into his room and closed the door.

Paul went slowly down the stairs and opened the front door just as the landlady poked her head from her room on the ground floor and inquired in an agitated whisper, "Whatever was the trouble?"

"It is nothing," said Paul, "I stumbled, and the gentleman in the front room mistook me for a burglar, I guess. Sorry I disturbed you."

"It's all right," whispered the landlady, "but I guess he must have scared you some. Your face is as wet as if you'd been out in a rain."

Paul realized then to what a tense degree his nerves had been strained.

Perspiration seemed to be oozing from every pore. His knees felt weak and his head dizzy, but he kept in mind the part he was playing and left the house. However certain it was that Poubalov would infer that Strobel's intimate friend lodged there for the purpose of watching him, it would never do to openly admit the fact by returning immediately to his room.

He went to the corner of Bowdoin Street, and back on the other side to a point directly opposite Poubalov's windows.

As he walked, one deep-toned stroke rang out from a neighboring church tower.

If that was the hour Poubalov had set for putting a bullet into his heart, he had let it pass without taking action.

Paul kept his eyes upon the curtained windows behind which the chandelier light still glowed, and longed to be back at his peephole, watching the spy. Yet there was nothing that he could do if he were there. He had seen the one great incident in Poubalov's career come to its climax upon the awful verge of tragedy; and he felt that as the spy's life trembled in the balance, the weight had been thrown into the scale for prolonging it by his impulsive jump from the chair on which he had been viewing the scene.

Not that Poubalov was hesitating; his was the nerve to pull the trigger with the precision and steadiness of a marksman when the appointed time came; but the shock of irrelevant circumstances had been just what was needed to release the morbid pressure of gloomy contemplation from the brain, and restore it to its normal activity.

Thus Paul reflected, with his eyes upon the lighted windows. A party of roysterers swung into the place, singing discordantly. One of them fell at the corner of Bowdoin Street, and his companions helped him up with drunken jeers and laughter. Paul had turned his head to watch them, and when he looked again at the lodging-house across the way, all the windows were dark. Poubalov had gone to bed.

As faithful as the unfortunate Litizki to his task, Paul sat up all that night. When drowsiness overcame him, he bathed his face and head with water, or walked gently about the room. He smoked all the cigarettes in his possession, for the sake of having something to do, and when his stock was exhausted, he went to a neighboring "all-night" restaurant and bought a handful of cigars. He listened through the hours for any suggestive sound from the front room, but, beyond an occasional deep breath, he heard nothing.

Poubalov slept well.

It was not until the day, reckoning by the light, was well advanced, that the spy rose and dressed. While he was still busy with his toilet, a messenger called and left a note for Paul with word to the scrub-woman who was already at work, that it was to be delivered at once. It was from Clara.

"A new clew," she wrote, "and the most promising one thus far, has been brought to me this evening. I need help in following it to the end. Owing to my uncle's indisposition, I do not feel like even telling him about it, much less asking him to give me his time. Can you come? I know you are doing much, and quite likely taking time that you ought to devote to work, but I ask some further assistance, nevertheless, knowing that it is not necessary for me to plead. This is so important that I believe you can leave Poubalov for a while, no matter what he is doing. Please come by nine o'clock if you possibly can."

Paul had great faith in Clara, although he had not known with sufficient detail of her recent work to give her judgment all the credit that it deserved, and so he found himself in an annoying quandary. To him it seemed essential to follow Poubalov now that he was well in view.

He felt, too, some disappointment at being called away without being able to feel that his night had been spent sleeplessly to some purpose.

It could not be that Clara had discovered anything of great importance compared to the developments that would probably follow a patient tracking of Poubalov's footsteps during the day.

Why hadn't she mentioned what her clew was? No, she depended upon him to obey her implicitly, as if he had no more discretion than Litizki.

If Paul was a bit unreasonable and restive, let it be charged against his fatigue. Few men can keep an even temper when the nerves are unstrung and the whole body cries for rest. Poubalov saved him from the error, if so it was, of disregarding Clara's wishes. It came about in this way:

Paul climbed to his observation perch, to see how matters stood in the next room. Poubalov had opened the envelope containing the papers he had been at work upon during the midnight hour, and was now destroying them, burning them one sheet at a time over the wash-bowl that he had set upon the center table.

He was fully dressed, even to the hat on his head, and Paul carefully replaced the nail which protected his peephole.

He stood by the chair with Clara's letter in his hand, still undecided what course to take, when there was a knock at his door.

He opened, and Poubalov stood there.

"You can spare the time now, I suppose?" he said inquiringly with a grim glance at the valentine hanging from the improvised hook.

Paul saw that his ruse was discovered, but he followed the spy into the front room, his heart beating high with expectation.

"There is never an effect without a cause, young man," remarked Poubalov, motioning Paul to a chair; "the effect was sufficient for me last night, and so far as your act deserves it, you have my thanks. This morning I sought the cause, and of course, I found it. Do not be disturbed. I have no reproaches to make. You imagined yourself at war with me, and you took your own methods to win. There is nothing to complain of in that; but you, as a Russian of intelligence, should have known that I could not be as hostile as you think to an American citizen. Bah! it's not worth discussing! You've all lost your heads.

"What I have to say is this: I am on duty for the czar, and having recovered from my dangerous temptation to be derelict, I shall do what duty demands, without let or hindrance from anybody. I will tolerate no interference, no matter whose fair lips give the command. When that little wretch, Litizki, was in that chair where you are now sitting, I sought to influence him by threats against himself. I don't take that method with you, Paul Palovna. If you choose to do so, you can dog my footsteps from now on, for I presume your American laws will not protect me in my desire to work undisturbed; but bear in mind that I have no more love for Ivan Strobel now than I ever had, and if I see fit to release him, it must be I, Alexander Poubalov, who chooses to do so of his own free will. Do you understand me?"

"Sufficiently to see that you would frighten me from my course by threats against the man whom you have in your power, and whom I am trying to rescue."

"You do well," continued Poubalov; "and if you are in any doubt as to whether I am in earnest, I advise you to report what I have said, and what you saw in this room last night, to Miss Hilman. She will tell you whether I am likely to be gratuitously merciful. Spy upon me, therefore, if you like. I shall know that you defy me, and you will have to bear the consequences. Shall we breakfast together, Paul Palovna?"

Paul ignored the ironical invitation, which was Poubalov's way of saying that he has said his say, and remarked:

"I also have a suggestion to make."

Poubalov raised his brows in contemptuous surprise that anything could be added to his statement of the situation.

"You have spoken of American law," said Paul, "and I simply suggest that the friends of Strobel may to-day resort to law to obtain his freedom. I don't know how much you may have said to Litizki and Miss Hilman, but you have made some damaging admissions to me."

"Really! is that all you can think of? It's hardly worth a reply, but I will suggest in return that what you call my admissions are your own inferences, nothing more. Ask the nearest police captain, or, better, go to the public prosecutor with your imaginings. I will tell you that there isn't a scrap of evidence on which to base my arrest, for that, of course, is what you aim at. You are more of a child than I thought you were, with all your petty contrivances for peeping upon a Russian official. Au revoir, Palovna."

Paul went downstairs in a rage, impressed, as all were whoever came in contact with this remarkable man, with Poubalov's faculty for gaining and keeping a masterful control over the situation. The worst of it was, the spy was probably entirely in the right so far as law was concerned.

As well arrest himself, Palovna, as this foreigner who had shown his interest in the Strobel case in eccentric ways, perhaps, but who could not be charged with criminality, unless possibly by Litizki, and the tailor had himself made it impossible that he should be of any further service.

There seemed to be no course open to him but to respect Clara's wishes, and, accordingly, out to Roxbury he went.

He arrived at Mr. Pembroke's house just before nine o'clock, and found Clara waiting for him, dressed to go out.

They exchanged information while waiting for Mike to come, Clara telling about the discovery of Patterson, and Paul giving a guarded account of Poubalov's contemplated suicide.

He tried to spare Clara the horrors of the scene, but he felt that she ought to know how deeply in earnest Poubalov was, that she might the more correctly judge him and estimate the value of his threats.

"It must have been a dreadful moment," she said when he had finished, "and I am glad that another tragedy has been averted. It is hard to believe that he will go to extreme measures – but what am I saying? What has he not done that is cruel, barbarous and wicked? How can I expect anything but unmixed evil from such a man? I believe it is well that for a time we can appear to withdraw our observations of him."

Mike was late, but when he did come he came with a coupé.

"Me boss said, miss," he explained, "that if there was to be any travelin', you was to ride as far an' as long as you liked, with his compliments."

"Your employer is very kind," said Clara. "This gentleman, Mr. Palovna, will go with me, and if he asks you to do anything, you needn't wait for my consent. We will go straight to the place where you left Patterson. Stop there, and point out the house you think he went into, but don't drive up to it."

When they were in the coupé, Clara continued to Paul:

"I have no definite plan as to Patterson. That must develop when we find him. If he can be cajoled, bribed or frightened into telling us the truth, it must be done. I don't see that we are called upon to make nice discriminations in our methods."

"Any way is fair in dealing with a criminal," returned Paul. "Humph!"

"What is it?" asked Clara, observing that he began to take a lively interest in the street through which they were passing.

"It may be only a coincidence," said Paul, "but it just occurred to me that thus far Mike has taken us over exactly the same course that Poubalov pursued when I followed him last evening."

"I presume it's not a coincidence," responded Clara, and she thought of Litizki's passionate words: "If ever anything is discovered, you discover Poubalov's hand in it."

Step by step the coupé followed Poubalov's line of march, and when it drew up at last, it was at the very corner where Paul had seen the spy talking with the stranger.

Mike got down and opened the door, and as he spoke, Clara looked out in the direction in which he pointed.

"This was where Patterson shook me, miss," he said, "an' I seen him go along down the street an' cross over just below there an' go into a house – that one, I think, with the balcony along the front, the one a gentleman is just comin' out of."

Clara drew back into the coupé hastily. The gentleman coming from the house in question was Poubalov, and he was walking toward them.

CHAPTER XXV.

A STUBBORN ANTAGONIST

"Stay just where you are, Michael," exclaimed Clara, "and don't let that man see your face."

Mike did as directed, pushing his head and shoulders far into the coupé and whispering:

"It isn't him, is it, miss, who's got anything to do with the case?"

"Yes," she replied in a low tone, while she and Paul kept as far back in the gloom of the carriage as they could; "have you ever seen him before?"

"Yes'm, he was down to the stables the day this gentleman called, askin' would I know the man who did the trick to me wheel."

"It was a ruse," muttered Paul; "he pretended to investigate in the same spirit that I did so as to throw suspicion from himself. If he has anything like the perceptions that we think he has, he will recognize this rig. Isn't it the same, Mike, with which you started to take Mr. Strobel to his wedding?"

"Identical, sir, horse an' all."

Poubalov had passed them during this brief conversation, and as none of them had ventured to look at him, they could not tell whether or not he recognized the turnout.

They could hear his rapid steps as he strode along, and there was certainly no pause to indicate that he had seen anything that surprised or interested him.

"I must know where he goes," said Clara. "Get on the box, Michael, and drive after him without letting him see, if you can help it, that you are following him. Let us know if he enters any house, but do not stop in front of it."

"Yes'm," replied Mike, closing the door.

He turned the vehicle about and drove slowly to the corner.

Poubalov had paused, ostensibly to buy a paper at a news-stand a little way up the street. He glanced back at the approaching vehicle, shrugged his shoulders, and moved on as rapidly as before. Mike reported this to Clara a few minutes later, when he had seen Poubalov board a Scollay Square car.

"He is satisfied that we are following him, then," said Clara, and she felt afraid as she recalled the threats that the spy had uttered to Paul.

Would he proceed promptly to put into execution whatever design he might have for injuring Ivan? Would not the disappointed passion that had led him to all but the commission of suicide now prompt him to murder his prisoner?

Clara sank back and covered her face with her hands, completely unnerved for the moment by the seeming imminence of catastrophe.

"When will the end come!" she moaned.

Mike looked on in honest and surprised distress, and Paul himself, knowing as he did the reasons for her excess of fear, was at his wits' end to suggest comfort.

Clara uncovered her eyes suddenly. They blazed with new determination.

"Michael," she cried, "could you overtake the car he is on?"

"I could try it, miss, but he's got a pretty good start."

"Try it, then. Don't spare the horse for just this once. If you come near to catching up, and he looks around, then drive more slowly, as if you were not able to keep up the pace, and finally stop altogether, let the car get away, and I'll tell you what to do next. Hurry!"

Mike did hurry.

The coupé started with a jolt as he lashed his astonished horse into a gallop.

"What's your plan, Miss Hilman?" asked Paul, who was at a loss to account for this projected maneuver.

"The man wants us to follow him," she replied, turning upon her companion almost fiercely in the intensity of her excitement. "He would lead us away from the scene of his operations, don't you see? Since he has discovered that you have been watching him, he has thought it all over, and he has concluded that it is more than likely that you tracked him to that street, for that was the street, wasn't it? Of course! Then he would naturally expect me to go there. I don't dream that he foresaw meeting us just now, but what I do believe to be the case is, that finding that house insecure for his purpose, he is now planning to remove his prisoner, and happening upon us as he did, he will do what he can to lead us away from it. Don't you see?"