CHAPTER IX.THE JUDAS-KISS.
Bah! How I detest tuberoses! Their odour is gruesome. There is death in their breath.
How overpowering the scent is! How it clings to the nostrils and stirs the memory!
Shall I never be able to forget? Shall I never succeed in drawing the veil? Tuberoses and—
Phew! Where did that whiff of chloroform come from? Is it my imagination playing me tricks, or is that man at my side a surgeon, fresh from some murderous horrible operation? They are all alike, those doctors, licensed to butcher.
Tuberoses and chloroform! Chloroform and tuberoses! Faugh! they go well together. The grim spectre breathes the one and wears the other.
I suppose it is remorse. How horrible remorse is! Bearing you down, gripping you by the throat and strangling you until your brain whirls, your senses are dulled, and you see all over again the scenes you desire most to forget.
It is a couple of years since, yet how fearfully vivid it all is!
That pallid face, whiter than the white pillow; the closed eyes, the ashen-brown hair!
By Heaven! I see it all before me even now. A hideous reality. Thedénouementof a terrible drama in our struggle for freedom.
Mine was a delicate mission. My readers will probably remember that about two years ago a new Russian literary and social star appeared in the London firmament, in the person of Madame Vera Kovalski. Her sudden appearance in English society, and her ostentatious parade of wealth aroused our suspicions that she was an agent of the Russian Government, a surmise which was quickly confirmed, for one morning we saw in certain London daily newspapers a long letter signed by her in defence of Russian bureaucracy, and eulogising the humane Tzar for his paternal interest in the millions who called him “father.”
From that day she was the object of vigilant watchfulness. Communications with the various Circles in Russia elicited nothing regarding her past, until one day the Executive received a letter from the Kiev centre, informing us that the woman who called herself Kovalski was the young wife of Colonel Paul Krivenko, chief of police of that town. Her husband, with his grey-coated myrmidons, had for a long time past endeavoured to stamp out the revolutionary movement among the students at the University, but althoughdozens of innocent persons had been arrested and sent without trial to Verkhni Udinsk and Yakoutsk, he had, up to the present, been unable to discover any members of the Circle proper.
His wife had earned an unenviable reputation by giving information which led to the arrest of a dozen unfortunate students, who were brought before the special court at Petersburg. Evidently fearing to return to Kiev, she had afterwards mysteriously disappeared.
The portrait—taken from a lady’s newspaper—which we had sent, had been identified, and the communication warned us that she was in England for the purpose of espionage.
Such were the circumstances in which I was entrusted with the discovery of her object in visiting London, and the extent of her knowledge of our movements. Matters were again ripe for a further attempt to overthrow the Imperial power, and the Executive had in preparation an elaborate and desperate plot which seemed likely to be as successful as that which—unfortunately for Russia—removed Alexander II.; providing the astute members of the “Third Section” could be baffled and led upon a wrong scent. It was highly desirable that we should know what Madame Vera was really doing, and with whom she was in communication in Russia; therefore it devolved upon me to watch her.
At frequent intervals signed articles and letters from her pen were appearing in the press indefence of the Imperial Autocrat, and endeavouring to prove, by relating personal narratives, that the prison horrors of Siberia as revealed by George Kennan and other travellers existed merely in the imagination. She even went so far as to assert that “the condition of the much-talked-of forwarding prison at Tomsk would do credit to any London hospital.”
This paid defender of Russian tyranny was but one of a number, each of whom has flourished in London society for a season or so and disappeared as mysteriously as they came. Some have succeeded in performing the secret services for which they were sent out from Petersburg, while upon others has fallen a relentless vengeance.
In order that my connection with the revolutionist colony in Oakleigh Gardens should not be discovered, I never visited them there. We had another place of meeting when I desired a conference. Indeed, I had found it necessary to remove my quarters from Shaftesbury Avenue to Dane’s Inn, that queer grimy abode of bachelors situate off Wych Street—the oldest and quaintest thoroughfare in London—under the shadow of the Law Courts. There, in chambers, I led the rollicking life of a Bohemian of independent means, had artists, authors, and actors, for my friends, and was known to them as Pierre Delorme. Speaking French fluently, I had no difficulty in disguising my nationality, and assuming therôleof a subject of the French Republic.
The Rectory of the sleepy little Northamptonshire village of Kingsthorpe was a spacious old Jacobean house, hidden by ivy, with red, lichen-covered roofs, tall chimneys, and diamond-paned, mullioned windows. Standing back from the broad, white highway, a large, old-fashioned, flower-garden lay in front, while at the rear an orchard and well-kept lawn sloped down to the picturesque river Nene. The Reverend George Farrar, the rector, was a rubicund, happy-looking man, a true type of the port-drinking, fox-hunting British parson, and with his wife and two handsome daughters, was popular with all throughout his rural parish, from the Earl at the Hall down to the most humble and impecunious cottager. Though he hunted with the Fitzwilliam Pack, and could handle a cue with dexterity acquired by long practice, nevertheless there was no cant about him, and he was both pious and charitable.
It was at Kingsthorpe that Madame Kovalski was visiting during August, she having met the Farrars frequently in London and dispensed to them the hospitality of her house in Lexham Gardens, Kensington. By dint of a little artful manœuvring and the exertions of a mutual friend, I also had contrived to make the acquaintance of the warm-hearted old rector, and had responded to his cordial invitation to spend a fortnight at “Sleepy Hollow,” as he called it.
There were several other guests, but my attention was devoted to Madame Vera, with whomI very soon became on terms of pleasant friendship.
We were idling away one hot afternoon together in a punt up a romantic and picturesque backwater of the Nene. Behind us the ground rose, covered thickly with beeches and hawthorn. A small weir, with a few eel baskets of brown osier, closed in the creek. The water was still, and around us masses of white water-lily studded the surface with silver stars. Beneath the deep emerald leaves, perch and dace darted from time to time, or lazily sucked in some drowning moth or wandering fly.
The atmosphere was stifling in the sun, yet beneath the protecting willow to which I had chained the punt there was a pleasant soothing breeze that kept the gnats away and made the afternoon quite enjoyable.
Vera looked ravishing. I had no idea that the woman upon whom I had to keep observation was so young and beautiful. Her broad white hat, set back on her shapely head, threw out her copper hair and deep-blue eyes. The olive silk that clung round her firm shoulders and waist outlined the broad curve of her limbs and fell in soft draperies about her little feet. The lace sleeves through which her white arms showed were a pretty idea, but far too tempting for a bachelor. I had found her not averse to flirtation, otherwise I should not have spoken as I did.
“Vera, you are a pretty woman!” I said; “yours are the longest eye-lashes, I think, I ever saw! Your complexion is simply faultless, while the crisp little curls of brown around your forehead take a copper hue in the warm sun I have never yet seen out of Titian.”
“Why do you flatter me so?” she asked, laughing and puckering up her rosy lips.
She was lolling upon the cushions at the end of the punt, having flung down her novel heedlessly.
“I suppose I may be permitted to admire you,” I said, smiling. “Parisians are connoisseurs of beauty. You do not want to read? Then talk to me. Shall I tell you your voice is as sweet as a carillon of silvery chimes? That your presence is as graceful and bewitching as the vision of an houri? Well, I won’t be idiotic, but as sensible as a man can be when he has for companion the most charming woman in England.”
“How ridiculously you talk!” she exclaimed, with a merry mischievous smile. “Remember, I’ve been married two years—and my husband—I——”
“You are not devoted to him, Vera.”
“How—how did you know?” she asked, starting. “Who told you?”
“No one. But why deny it?”
“I do not deny it. Indeed, I have tried to be good to him, Pierre, but he is almost double my age; so cold, so careless, and I hear so manyawful stories of his dissipated habits that it is quite impossible to love him. We are, therefore, best apart.”
“Poor Vera! I fear your life is not a happy one if we knew all.”
“Ah, no, alas!” she sighed. “I’ll tell you something of it and you can judge, Pierre. Indeed, I am lonely and wretched.”
She did not speak for some minutes; but her head changed its position from the cushion where it lay, and by some aberration of mind rested itself lightly upon my shoulder. There was really no harm. She did not know it.
There was such a sweet odour of stephanotis wafted across my senses that I looked at the copper halo on my arm and wondered if it was not some rare orchid or tropical moss that had fallen there. She had turned her head away, and her hand was playing with the water-lily leaves waving gently in the stream.
Her skin was like alabaster. Little curls formed arabesques over the nape of her neck; and her ear, pink and transparent, tempted me to whisper into it words of passionate love. There is no situation in the human drama so interesting as atête-à-têtewith a pretty woman; and when that woman is married, with a grievance against her husband, thetête-à-têteis all the more attractive.
She told me a sad story, how she had been forced to marry Colonel Kovalski, but she did not mention that his real name was Krivenko, or thathe was an officer of Imperial Police. She merely told me that he held an important official position, and that, having discovered his unfaithfulness, she had left him and come to England, where she had no enemies to gloat over her unhappiness.
A tear stole down her cheek as she related her narrative, and a sob escaped her.
“Do not think of it, Vera,” I said, endeavouring to console her. “Think of the charming afternoon. Look at that gorgeous butterfly that hovers over the stream; look at its wings, now brown, now purple, with its orange tips and blue eyes, staring like Psyche at her discovered Cupid.”
“Ah, yes,” she replied, with a heavy sigh; “but you, a Frenchman, cannot understand one’s social position in Russia.”
“Tell me,” I exclaimed with sudden interest; “I have heard and read so much of Nihilism that my curiosity has been aroused, and I’m always eager to improve my knowledge.”
“Nihilism!” she repeated in surprise. “Why do you ask me about it? How can I know anything about conspirators?”
“But every Russian has a knowledge of the Terrorists.”
“Yes, they are everywhere,” she admitted. “And, indeed, I don’t wonder. Wrong a man, deny him all redress, exile him if he complains, gag him if he cries out, strike him in the face if he struggles, and at last he will stab and throwbombs. In the light of facts recently brought to light, Terrorism ceases to be an unnatural or inexplicable phenomenon. Our Government manufactures murderers.”
“Are you, then, in favour of the Revolutionists?” I asked, greatly surprised at this expression of opinion in such direct contrast to the views set forth in her various articles.
“A Russian never dares to publicly express his or her political convictions. As for me—well, I have ceased to trouble my head about them. In a sense, I am an exile.”
What an admirable actress she was; yet how charming! I had not been thinking of her as an accomplished spy, but as a woman who yearned for sympathy and affection. As the sun declined, the river grew more tranquil, and the cawing of the rooks, as they went to bed, told that day was drawing to a close.
She offered me a cigarette from her case, and taking one herself, lit them both with the air of an inveterate smoker. What could be more delicious? A balmy breeze, full of the odour of meadow-sweet, a bewitching woman by one’s side, with nothing absolutely to do but admire her eyes and lips, while she discoursed with logical clearness upon the struggle of the Russian people against the iron rule of the Great White Tzar.
“I’ve heard of your articles,” I said, after she had been describing incidents in connection with the expulsion of the Jews from Odessa.
“Ah, I write sometimes,” she replied. “It is a pleasant and profitable amusement; yet one does not always express one’s real political opinions when writing for the press.” And she laughed lightly. “Had you lived in Russia you would recognise the extreme danger of commenting adversely upon the Government or criticising its administrative exile system.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the clock of Kingsthorpe Church striking six. Half-past was the dinner hour at the Rectory, therefore I unloosened the moorings, and, taking up the pole, pushed the punt lazily homeward, chatting to my fair freight, expressing the enjoyment her companionship afforded me, and amusing her with tittle-tattle until we stepped ashore on the Rectory lawn.
But before we had left our secluded little backwater I had kissed her, and in return received a fierce and fond caress.
I had imprinted a Judas-kiss upon her lips!
Next morning at breakfast I was sitting beside her. We had just finished the meal when the servant entered with letters. Beside her plate the maid placed two missives, one a tiny note with a superscription in a feminine hand; but the appearance of the other was a revelation to me. It lay for a moment unheeded, and by a quick, sidelong glance I saw that the large, square envelope bore the official frank stamp and double-headed eagle of the Ministry of theInterior at Petersburg. When she noticed it she hurriedly folded it in half and thrust it into her pocket without examining its contents.
That evening, when we joined the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner, I noticed she was not with them. Leaving the room, I inquired of one of the maids, and learnt that the fair diplomat, wearing her cloak and hat, had been seen to cross the lawn in the direction of the river’s bank.
Some influence impelled me to follow. The summer’s night was still and starlight; scarcely a leaf stirred, and the quiet was only broken by the distant rushing of the weir. Passing out by a gate at the side of the lawn, I walked along a by-path that ran through the meadows by the water’s edge. Large alders grew beside the stream, and in their shadow I advanced noiselessly over the grass.
Suddenly I heard voices, and halted to listen. I recognised hers! She was speaking in Russian.
“Tell me. What’s to be done?” she was asking.
“Act as before,” replied a man’s voice in the same language. “You received your instructions from the Ministry to-day.”
“They might have spared themselves the trouble, for I have already completed my investigations.”
“You have!” cried the man. “What is the plot? Explain it to me.”
“I have not yet made out my report,” she replied coldly. “Besides, I am in the employ of the Ministry, not in yours.”
“Ah! my dear Madame, pardon me if I have given offence. It was out of sheer curiosity that I asked.”
“Curiosity of a kind that would ruin me, eh? You would sell the secret to General Gresser, and claim the reward; but I am as wary as yourself, m’sieur.”
“I beg Madame’s pardon—she speaks too harshly. Indeed, your secret would be quite safe——”
“As safe as when, by your devilish ingenuity, you learnt of the conspiracy I had unearthed in Paris, and telegraphed it in detail to Petersburg as the result of your own vigilance. On that occasion who was rewarded?—who was decorated by the Emperor? Why, you! As for me, I——”
“But you are my wife. What does it matter?”
“Wife—bah!” she replied, in intense disgust. “We have parted, and you have no claim whatever upon me. By what right, pray, have you followed me here? Cannot I carry out this hateful work without your detestable companionship?”
“But I assist you,” he urged. “Besides, I—I sometimes think, Vera, that we might accomplish much better work if we combined our efforts.”
“With you—never,” she replied angrily. “It is true that I married you, but we have never lived together—and never shall.”
“Do you forget that I once saved you from death?”
“Was not that a husband’s duty?” she asked, adding, “I cannot stay longer; my hostess will miss me.”
“But you shall remain and hear my proposal. I intend that you shall return to Russia, and live with me.”
“Indeed? Then I may at once tell you, Paul Krivenko, that I hate you; that I would rather die than be your cat’s-paw,” and she laughed scornfully.
“You!—you speak like that to me!” he cried in rage. “I—I’ll kill you!”
“Bah! do your worst,” she exclaimed defiantly.
“Not another word,” he hissed, adding a foul oath. “You’ll explain the whole of this conspiracy you have discovered, or—or I’ll wring your white neck, and fling you into the river here. Now, you have your choice.”
There were sounds of a scuffle, and I heard Vera cry hoarsely, “Let me go! You hurt my throat—you coward! Help, for God’s sake!”
Creeping from my hiding-place, I peered round the clump of hawthorns, and in the faint light beheld Madame struggling with her husband. He was about fifty years of age, foppishly dressed, and wore his moustache waxed. I could discern that his eyes were unusually close together, his features were small, except his mouth, which was wide, his lips thin, the effect being vulpine. By repute I knew Colonel Krivenko as one of the most cunning bloodhounds connected withthe “Third Section.” He was a master of his craft, and, characteristic of the mercenary spy all over the world, he was true to nobody, not even to his employers, not even to his hatreds, for he had accepted service both for and against the Nihilists, both for and against his Imperial Master, the Tzar.
I saw he was bending over his young wife. He had clutched her by the throat, and was forcing her upon her knees, at the same time uttering terrible imprecations, and demanding to be informed of the result of her secret investigations.
Just as I had turned, intending to retreat to my place of concealment, having gained knowledge that would put the Executive on its guard, I heard Krivenko give vent to a fierce guttural oath.
Then a woman’s shrill cry rang out in the still air, followed by a great splash.
Returning quickly, I looked cautiously behind the bush, but neither the man nor woman were there. Upon the surface of the water were great eddying rings, momentarily growing larger, plainly showing that the dark stream had closed over some heavy body. I gazed for a few moments at the circling rings, not knowing how to act. Nothing appeared on the surface, and the waters gradually resumed their tranquillity.
Then I searched the bank, behind trees and bushes, and in every nook, but could discover no one.
Shuddering, I retraced my steps to the Rectory, and joined the ladies in the drawing-room.
Days passed, but Vera Kovalski did not return. Her mysterious disappearance caused a great sensation in Kingsthorpe and the neighbourhood. Although telegrams were despatched in all directions, no tidings could be gleaned of her. The strange affair cast a gloom over the usually merry household, for every one appeared to have forebodings that some unknown catastrophe had occurred, and the guests, feeling the solemnity irksome, departed, an example I quickly followed.
Before I left the Rectory, however, I examined the whole of Madame’s belongings, in the hope of finding something which might serve as a clue to the discovery of the “conspiracy” about which she had spoken. But the search was futile.
On returning to London I informed the Executive of the occurrence, a council was held, at which it was decided that every agency possessed by our Party should be requisitioned, in order to discover whether either Colonel Krivenko or his wife were really still alive. For the success of our plot—which was a bold venture, involving the partial destruction of the Castle of Schlusselburg and the release of the political prisoners confined there—it was of supreme importance that we should know if Madame Kovalski still lived, and if so, the extent of her knowledge.
Descriptions and photographs, circulated amongour members, both in England and on the Continent, failed to elicit any clue.
With Dmitri Irteneff as companion, I was ever vigilant in the London streets for many weeks, hoping to meet her, while Grinevitch continually kept Madame’s house in Lexham Gardens, Kensington, under observation. We have such a perfect method of tracing those who incur our displeasure that, when once the order is issued by the Executive, escape is hopeless.
Colonel Krivenko’s body had already been found floating in the Nene near Peterborough, and having satisfied ourselves that his wife had not returned to her friends in London, we directed our attention to other quarters, and continued our search through many weeks.
A heavy, thick mist was blowing on the gale which swept fiercely in gusts down the English Channel. The yellow light of the November afternoon had already begun to dwindle. No sun had shone on the dreary Sussex coast that day. The tide was out, and the wide, wet sands stretched from the cliffs to the selvage of white foam that flickered in the grey light far off, where the waves broke in hissing spray.
In this tempestuous afternoon Irteneff and I were walking along the top of the cliffs between Eastbourne and Beachy Head. Suddenly, as we rounded a point, we saw below a single human being on the level foreshore. At first it was merely a speck, traversing the sand along themargin of the wind-whitened sea. We waited for its approach, and as it drew nearer Dmitri took a small binocular from his pocket. Having focused it upon the moving object, he quickly handed it to me, exclaiming briefly—
“At last! We have found her!”
I looked eagerly, and saw the form of a woman walking with her head bent against the roaring wind. I recognised the figure and gait as that of Vera Kovalski!
As she moved along towards Eastbourne, we retraced our steps, and followed her to the Queen’s Hotel, where Irteneff, on inquiry, found she had been staying for nearly a month under the name of Mrs. Axford, and also that on several occasions gentlemen had called upon her.
Two hours later I had transferred my abode from the Cavendish to the Queen’s, and having duly installed myself in a room in the same corridor as Madame, I resolved to act promptly.
I did not go down to dinner, but waited till she returned. I heard her close her door; then placing a small phial in my vest pocket, and taking a clean handkerchief from my bag, stole along the corridor and entered her sitting-room without knocking.
She had flung herself upon a couch, but started up on my entrance.
“Ah, my dear Madame,” I commenced, as I closed the door behind me. “So I have found you at last!”
“Found me!” she cried in alarm, springing to her feet. “What do you mean by entering my room in this manner? I know who you are—that your real name is Anton Prèhznev, and that you are a Nihilist. I’ll ring for the servants!”
And she made a dash forward. I was compelled to act without hesitation.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said, determinedly. As I uttered the words I took out the tiny phial and emptied the contents upon the handkerchief, which a moment later I held firmly over her nose and mouth.
In a few seconds, and with only a long sigh, she fell back into my arms, an inert and helpless burden.
Placing her upon the couch, I entered her bedroom and searched her trunk and dressing-case. In the latter I discovered some letters from the Ministry of the Interior and some photographs, all of which I crushed into my pockets. While doing so, a thought crossed my mind that she would probably conceal about her person the more important documents.
When I re-entered the sitting-room she was lying just as I had left her. I placed my hand in the bodice of her gown, and as I did so a spray of tuberoses fell to the floor. Feeling crisp paper inside her bodice, I drew it forth. It was an envelope, the contents of which I immediately examined.
I discovered that it was the report for which I had been searching. Breathless with excitement,I read it through from beginning to end. Our plot was completely exposed! Moreover, it gave names and descriptions of the Executive and prominent members resident in London, myself included.
When I had devoured the contents, I placed it carefully in my pocket, afterwards turning to cast a farewell glance at her. With alarm I noticed that in the few minutes during which I had been reading an ashen pallor had overspread her countenance. I laid my hand softly upon her breast.
The heart had ceased to beat! Then the terrible truth dawned upon me. I had administered an overdose! Vera Kovalski was dead, and I had murdered her!
For a moment my senses reeled, so overcome was I by the mingled odours of chloroform and tuberoses. But I managed to recover myself and creep noiselessly out.
Is there any wonder why I have never since been able to endure the combined sickly scents of chloroform and tuberoses.
I can smell them now! Faugh!