It was a small, ruinous chapel, the windows of which had been roughly boarded up; and, so far as I could see by the dim light cast by two oil lanterns hung on the walls, all those assembled inside were men,—about fifty in number I guessed, for the place was by no means crowded. There was a clear space at the further end, round the raised piece where the altar had once stood, and where four men were seated on a bench of some sort. I could not distinguish their faces, for they all wore their hats, and the lamplight was so dim that it only served to make the darkness visible. The atmosphere was steamy, too, for we were a drenched and draggled lot.
There was no excitement at present; one of the four men on the dais was speaking in a level monotonous voice; but, as I cautiously edged my way towards the front, I felt that this silent, sinister crowd was in deadly earnest, as was the man who was addressing it. He was speaking in Russian, and I could not make out quite all he said.
I gathered that some resolution was about to be passed, for just as I got sufficiently forward to peer round and convince myself that Anne was not there, each man present, except myself and two others, held up his right hand. I followed suit instantly, judgingthat to be wisest, and one of the other two—he was standing close beside me—put his up, after a momentary hesitation that I think was unnoticed save by myself. I took a sidelong glance at him. He was an elderly, distinguished looking man, with a short gray beard cut to a point, and an upturned gray mustache. He was listening intently, but, though I couldn’t see his face distinctly, I got the impression that he also was a stranger, and that he understood even less than I did what was going on.
The president spoke again.
“Are there any here who are against the election of Constantine”—I could not catch the other name, which was a long Polish one, I think—“to the place on the council, vacant since the murder of our comrade, Vladimir Selinski?”
Selinski! Cassavetti! He little guessed as he spoke that the man who found Cassavetti’s body was now within five paces of him!
Not a hand was raised, and the man who had not voted stepped on to the dais, in obedience to a gesture from the president, and took his seat in silence.
A hoarse murmur of approval went round; but that was all. The grim quietude of these men was more fearful than any amount of noise could have been, and, as the president raised his hand slightly, a dead silence fell.
“Remains now only that we do justice on the murderess of Selinski, the traitress who has betrayed our secrets, has frustrated many of our plans, has warned more than one of those whom we have justly doomed to death—her lover among them—with the result that they have escaped, for the present. We would not condemn her unheard, but so far she is obdurate; shedefies us, endeavors once more to trick us. If she were other than she is, or rather than she has been, she would have been removed long since, when suspicion first fell upon her; but there are many of us who love her still, who would not believe her guilty without the evidence of their own eyes and ears; and therefore we have brought her here that she may speak for herself, defend herself if that is possible. It will rest with you to acquit or condemn her!”
He spoke quite quietly, but the cool, deliberate malignity of his tone was horrible; and somehow I knew that the majority of those present shared his animosity against the prisoner, although he had spoken of “many of us who love her.”
The man beside me touched my arm, and spoke to me in French.
“Do you understand him?”
“Yes, do you?”
“No.”
There was no time for more, for, at a signal from the president, a door at the side near the dais was opened, and a woman was led in by two men, each holding her by an arm. They released her, and she stepped back a pace, and stood against the wall, her hands pressed against it on either side, bracing herself like a royal creature at bay.
It was Anne herself, and for a moment I stood, unable to move, scarcely able to breathe. There was something almost unearthly about her beauty and courage. The feeble lamplight seemed to strengthen, and to concentrate itself on her face,—colorless save for the vivid red lips,—on her eyes, wide and brilliant with indignation, on the bright hair that shone like aqueenly crown. Wrath, and scorn, and defiance were expressed by the beautiful face, the tense figure; but never a trace of fear.
They were all looking at her, as I was, in silence,—a curious hush that lasted but a few seconds, but in which I could hear the beating of my own heart; it sounded as loud as a sledge hammer.
The spell was broken by a cry from the man with the pointed beard next me who sprang forward towards her, shouting in English: “Anne! Anne! It is I, your father!”
I was only just less quick; we reached her almost together, and faced about, shielding her with our bodies, and covering those nearest us with our revolvers.
“Father! Maurice!” I heard her sob. “Oh, I knew, I knew you would come!”
“What is this devilry?” shouted Anthony Pendennis in French. “How comes my daughter here? She is a British subject, and you—you shall pay dearly—”
He got no further. Our action had been so swift, so unexpected, that the whole crowd stood still, as if paralyzed by sheer astonishment, for a few breathless seconds.
“Spies! Traitors! Kill them all!” shouted the president, springing forward, revolver in hand.
Those words were his last, for he threw up his arms and fell as my first shot got him. The rest came at us all together, like a mob of furious wild beasts. They were all armed, some with revolvers, others with the horrible little bludgeons they call “killers,”—a short heavy bar of lead set on a strong copper spring, no bigger than an ordinary round office ruler, but more deadly at close quarters than a revolver.
I flung up my left hand, tore down the lamp that hung just above us, and hurled it among them. It was extinguished as it fell, and that gave us a small advantage, for the other lamp was at the far end, and its faint light did not reach us, but only served to dimly show us our antagonists. I felt Anne sink down to the floor behind me, though whether a shot had reached her or she had fainted I did not know.
When I had emptied my revolver I dropped it, grabbed a “killer” from the hand of a fellow I had shot pointblank, and laid about me with that. I suppose Pendennis did the same. As Loris had warned me, when it came to shooting, there was no time for reloading; but the “killer” was all right. I wonder he hadn’t given me one!
We were holding our own well, in spite of the tremendous odds, and after a while—though whether it was five minutes or fifty I couldn’t say—they gave back a bit. There was quite a heap of dead and wounded round about us; but I don’t think Anne’s father was hurt as yet, and I felt no pain, though my left arm hung limp and useless, numbed by a blow from a “killer” that had missed my head; and something warm was dripping down my right wrist.
“What now?” I heard Pendennis say, in that brief lull in the pandemonium.
“God knows. We can’t get to the door; we must fight it out here; they’re coming on again. On guard!”
We swung up our weapons, but before the rush could reach us, there was a crash close at hand; the door through which Anne and her guards had entered the chapel was thrown open, and a big man dashed in,—Lorishimself, still in his disguise. So he had reached us at last!
He must have grasped the situation at a glance, for he shouted: “Back; back for your lives! By the other door. We are betrayed; the soldiers are here. They are coming this way. Save yourselves!”
They were a craven crew,—bold enough when arrayed in their numbers against two men and one helpless girl, but terror-stricken at these fresh tidings.
That was my opinion of them at the time, but perhaps it was unjust. Every man who attended that meeting had done so at the deliberate risk of his life and liberty. Most of them had undoubtedly tramped the whole way to the rendezvous, through the storm and swelter of the summer night, and they were fatigued and unstrung. Also, the Russian—and especially the revolutionary Russian—is a queer psychological amalgam. Ordinarily as callous and stoical as a Chinaman in the infliction or endurance of death or torture, he is yet a bundle of high-strung nerves, and at any moment his cool cynicism is liable to give place to sheer hysteria.
Therefore at the warning shout, panic seized them, and they fled, helter-skelter, through the main door. In less than a minute the place was clear of all but ourselves and the dead and wounded on the floor.
Loris slammed the door, barred it, and strode back to us. Pendennis was kneeling beside Anne, calling her by her name, and I leaned against the wall, staring stupidly down at them. I was faint and dizzyall at once, incapable for the moment of either speech or action.
“Well done, my friend!” the Duke exclaimed. “You thought I had failed you, eh? Come, we must get out of this quickly. They will return when they find it is a ruse. Is she hurt?”
He pushed Pendennis aside unceremoniously, and lifted Anne in his arms, as easily as if she had been a child.
I think she must have been regaining consciousness, for I heard him say rapidly and tenderly:
“Courage,petite, thou shalt soon be safe.”
“Who are you?” demanded Pendennis, peering at him in perplexity. His disguise was palpable and incongruous enough, now that he was speaking in his natural voice.
“Her friend, as I presume you are; therefore follow if you would save her and yourself. There is no time for talk!”
With Anne in his arms he made for the door by which he had entered, and Pendennis rushed after him. Anne’s arms were round his neck; she was clinging to him, and her head lay on his shoulder. I saw the gleam of her bright hair as they passed through the doorway,—the last I was to see of Anne Pendennis for many a long day.
I staggered forward, trying to beat back the horrible faintness that was overwhelming me, and to follow them, stumbled over a corpse, and fell headlong. An agonizing pain shot through me, beginning at my left arm, and I knew now that it was broken. The pain dispelled the faintness for the time being, but I made no attempt to rise. Impossibleto follow them now, or even if not impossible, I could be of no service; I should only hamper their flight. Better stay here and die.
I think I prayed that I might die soon; I know I prayed that they might yet reach safety. Where had Anne’s father sprung from? How could he have known of her capture, of this meeting in the heart of the woods? How had he made his way here?
Why, he must himself belong to this infernal society, as she did; that was it, of course. What an abominable din this was in my head,—worse to bear than the pain of my wounds. In my head? No, the noise was outside—shrieks and shouts, and the crackle of rifles. I dragged myself to a sitting posture and listened. The Duke had said that his tale of the soldiers was a mere ruse, but certainly there was a fight going on outside. Were the soldiers there, and had Loris unwittingly spoken the truth,—or had he himself betrayed the revolutionists as a last resource? Unanswerable questions, all of them; so why worry about them? But they kept whirling round maddeningly in my half delirious brain, while the din still raged without, though it seemed to be abating.
The remaining lamp had flickered out, but sufficient light came now through the gaps in the broken roof to enable me to see about me. The place was like a shambles round the spot where we had taken our stand; there were five or six bodies, besides the president, whom I had shot at first. It was his corpse I had stumbled over, so he had his revenge in a way.
I found myself wondering idly how long it would be before they would search the chapel, and if itwould be worth while to try and get out by the door through which Loris had come and gone; but, though I made a feeble effort to get on my feet, it was no good. I was as weak as an infant. I discovered then that I was soaked with blood from bullet wounds in my right arm and in my side, though I felt no pain from them at the time; all the pain was concentrated in my broken left arm.
There came a battering at the barred door, to which my back was turned, and a moment afterwards the other door swung open, and an officer sprang in, sword in hand, followed by a couple of soldiers with fixed bayonets.
He stopped short, with an exclamation of astonishment, at the sight of the dead man, and I laughed aloud, and called:
“Hello, Mirakoff!”
It was queer; I recognized him, I heard myself laugh and speak, in a strange detached fashion, as if I was some one else, having no connection with the battered individual half sitting, half lying on the blood-stained floor.
“Who is it?” he asked, staying his men with a gesture, and staring down at me with a puzzled frown.
“Maurice Wynn.”
“Monsieur Wynn!Ma foi!What the devil are you doing here?”
“Curiosity,” I said. “And I guess I’ve paid for it!”
I suppose I must have fainted then, for the next thing I knew I was sitting with my back to a tree, while a soldier beside me, leaning on his rifle, exchangedribald pleasantries with some of his comrades who, assisted by several stolid-facedmoujiks, were busily engaged in filling in and stamping down a huge and hastily dug grave.
At a little distance, three officers, one of them Mirakoff, were talking together, and beside them, thrown on an outspread coat, was a heap of oddments, chiefly papers, revolvers, and “killers.” As I looked a soldier gathered these up into a bundle, and hoisted it on his shoulder. A watch and chain fell out, and he picked them up, and pocketed them.
I heard a hoarse word of command on the right, and saw a number of prisoners—the remnant of the revolutionists, each with a soldier beside him—file into the wood. They all looked miserable enough, poor wretches. Some were wounded, scarcely able to stand, and their guards urged them forward by prodding them with their bayonets.
I wondered why I wasn’t among them, and guessed if they tried to make me march that way, I’d just stay still and let them prod the life out of me!
I still felt dazed and queer, and my broken left arm hurt me badly. It hung helpless at my side, but my right arm had been roughly bandaged and put in a sling, and I could feel a wad over the other wound, held in place by a scarf of some kind. My mouth and throat were parched with a burning thirst that was even worse than the pain in my arm.
The group of officers dispersed, and Mirakoff crossed over to me.
“Well, you are recovering?” he asked curtly.
I moved my lips, but no sound would come, so I just looked up at him.
He saw how it was with me, and ordered the soldier to fetch water. He was a decent youngster, that Mirakoff, too good for a Russian; he must have had some foreign blood in him.
“This is a serious matter,” he said, while the man was gone. “Lucky I chanced on you, or you’d have been finished off at once, and shoved in there with the rest”—he jerked his head towards the new-made grave. “I’ve done the best I could for you. You’ll be carried through the wood, and sent in a cart to Petersburg, instead of having to run by the stirrup, as the others who can stand must do. But you’d have to go to prison. What on earth induced you to come here?”
The man came back with the water, and I drank greedily, and found my voice, though the words came slowly and clumsily.
“Curiosity, as I told you.”
“Curiosity to see ‘La Mort,’ you mean?”
“No; though I’ve got pretty close to death,” I said, making a feeble pun. (We were, of course, speaking in French.)
“I don’t mean death; I mean a woman who is called ‘La Mort.’ Her name’s Anna Petrovna. She was to have been there. Did you see her? Was she there?”
I forgot my pain for the instant, in the relief that his words conveyed. Surely he would not have put that question to me if she was already a prisoner. Loris must have got away with her, and, for the present, at least, she was safe.
“
There was a woman,” I confessed. “And that’s how I came to be chipped about. They were going to murder her.”
“To murder her!” he exclaimed. “Why, she’s one of them; the cleverest and most dangerous of the lot! Said to be a wonderfully pretty girl, too. Did you see her?”
“Only for a moment; there wasn’t much light. From what I could make out they accused her of treachery, and led her in; she stood with her back against the wall,—she looked quite a girl, with reddish hair. Then the row began. There were only two or three took her part, and I joined in; one can’t stand by and see a helpless girl shot or stabbed by a lot of cowardly brutes.”
I had found an air of apparent candor serve me before, and guessed it might do so again.
“Well, what then?”
“That’s all I remember clearly; we had a lively time for a few minutes, and then some one shouted that the soldiers were coming; and the next I knew I was sitting on the floor, wondering what had happened. I’d been there quite a while when you found me.”
“It is marvellous how she always escapes,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Still, we’ve gota good haul this time. Now, how did you get here? Some one must have told you, guided you?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
“You mean you won’t?”
“Well, put it that way if you like.”
“Don’t be a fool, Wynn; I am asking you for your own sake. If you don’t tell me, you’ll be made to tell later. You haven’t the least idea what you’ve let yourself in for, man! Come, did not Count Solovieff—you know well who I mean—bring you here?”
“No. I came alone.”
“At least he knew you were coming?”
“He may have done. I can’t say.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Have it your own way. You will regret your obstinacy later; remember, I have warned you.”
“Thanks,—it’s good of you, Mirakoff; but I’ve told you all I mean to tell any one.”
He paused, biting his mustache, and frowning down at me.
“Fetch more water,” he said abruptly to the soldier, who had heard all that passed, and might or might not understand; the Russians are a polyglot people.
“I have done what I could,” Mirakoff continued hurriedly in the brief interval while we were alone. “You had two passports. I took the false one,—it is yonder; they will think it belongs to one of the dead men. Your own is still in your pocket; the police will take it when you get to prison; at least it will show your identity, and may make things easier.”
“Thanks, again,” I said earnestly. “And if you could contrive to send word to the American or English Embassy, or both.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Give him the water,” he added, as the soldier again returned.
He watched as I drank, then turned on his heel and left me, without another word. He had, as I knew, already compromised his dignity sufficiently by conversing with me at all.
But he had cheered me immensely. I was sure now that those three—Anne, her father, and Loris—had got clear away, doubtless to the house Mishka had mentioned, where horses would be waiting for them; and by this time they might be far from the danger zone. Therefore I felt able to face what lay in store for myself, however bad it might be. It was bad enough, even at the beginning; though, as Mirakoff had said, it would have been worse but for his intervention. A few minutes after he left me, I was hoisted into a kind of improvised carrying chair, borne by a couple of big soldiers, who went along the narrow track at a jog-trot, and amused themselves by bumping me against every tree trunk that was conveniently near. They had been ordered to carry me, and they did so; but I think I’d have suffered less if I had marched with the others, even counting in the bayonet prods!
We reached the road at last, where horses were waiting, and a wagon, containing several wounded prisoners. I was thrown in on top of them, and we started off at a lumbering gallop, the guard of soldiers increasing in numbers as those who had followed on foot through the wood mounted and overtookus. I saw Mirakoff pass and ride on ahead; he did not even glance in my direction. More than once we had to stop to pick up a dead or dying man, one of the batch of prisoners who had been forced to “run by the stirrup,” with their hands tied behind them, and a strap passed round their waist, attaching them to the stirrup of the horse, which its rider urges to full speed,—that is part of the fun. It is a very active man who can maintain the pace, though it is marvellous what some can accomplish under the sharp incentives of fear and pain. He who stumbles is jerked loose and left by the wayside where he fell; as were those whom we found, and who were tossed into the wagon with as much unconcern as scavengers toss refuse into their carts.
It was during one of these brief halts I saw something that discounted the tidings I had heard from Mirakoff.
I was the least hurt of any of the wretched occupants of the wagon, and I had managed to drag myself to the far end and to sit there, in the off-side corner, my knees hunched up to my chin. My arms were helpless, so I could do nothing to assist my unfortunate companions, and could only crouch there, with my teeth set, enduring the pain that racked me, with as much fortitude as I could muster.
There was a clatter and jingle on the road behind us, and an instant later a droshky passed, at a comparatively slow pace,—the one horse seemed almost spent,—preceded and followed by a small escort of cavalry.
For the moment I forgot the torture I was enduring, as I recognized, with dismay, the Grand DukeLoris as one of the two occupants of the little carriage,—a bizarre, disreputable-looking figure, for he still wore the filthy clothes and the dirty face of “Ivan,” the droshky man, though the false beard and wig were gone. Yet, in spite of his attire and the remains of his disguise, he looked every inch a prince. His blue eyes were wide and serene, and he held a cigarette between two begrimed fingers. Beside him was a spick and span officer, sitting well back in his corner and looking distinctly uncomfortable; while the easy grace of the Duke’s attitude would have suited a state-carriage rather than this shabby little vehicle; though it suited that, too.
He glanced at the cart, and our eyes met. I saw a flash of recognition in his, but next instant the droshky, with its escort, had passed, and we were lumbering on again.
He also was a prisoner, then! But what of Anne and her father? Had they escaped? Surely, if they had been taken, he would not have sat there smoking so unconcernedly! But who could tell? I, at least, knew him for a consummate actor.
Well, conjecture was futile; and I was soon in a state of fever, consequent on pain and loss of blood, that rendered conjecture, or coherent thought of any kind impossible.
I don’t even recollect arriving at the prison,—that same grim fortress of Peter and Paul which I had mused on as I looked at it across the river such a short time back, reckoned by hours, an eternity reckoned by sensations! What followed was like a ghastly nightmare; worse, for it was one from which there was no awaking, no escape. Ofteneven now I start awake, in a sweat of fear, having dreamed that I was back again in that inferno, racked with agony, faint with hunger, parched with thirst. For the Russian Government allows its political prisoners twelve ounces of black bread a day, and there’s never enough water to slake the burning thirst of the victims, or there wasn’t in those awful summer days, which, I have been told, are yet a degree more endurable than the iron cold of winter.
Small wonder that of the hundreds of thousands of prisoners who are flung into Russian jails only a small percentage are ever brought to trial, and executed or deported to Siberia. The great majority are never heard of again; they are dead to the outside world when the great gates clang behind them, and soon they perish from pain and hunger and privation. It is well for them if they are delicate folk, whose misery is quickly ended; it is the strong who suffer most in the instinctive struggle for life.
Whether I was ever interrogated I don’t know to this day, nor exactly how long I was in the horrible place; I guess it was about a fortnight, but it was a considerable time, even after I left it, before I was able even to attempt to piece things out in my mind.
I was lying on my bunk,—barely conscious, though no longer delirious,—when one of the armed warders came and shook me by the shoulder, roughly bidding me get up and follow him. I tried to obey, but I was as weak as a rat, and he just put his arm round me and hauled me along, easily enough,for he was a muscular giant, and I was something like a skeleton.
I didn’t feel the faintest interest in his proceedings, for I was almost past taking interest in anything; but I remembered later that we went along some flagged passages, and up stone stairs, passing more than one lot of sentries. He hustled me into a room and planked me down on a bench with my back to the wall, where I sat, blinking stupidly for a minute. Then, with an effort, I pulled myself together a bit, and was able to see that there were several men in the room, two of them in plain clothes, and the face of one of them seemed vaguely familiar.
“Is this your man, Monsieur?” I heard one of the Russians say; and the man at whom I was staring answered gravely: “I don’t know; if he is, you have managed to alter him almost out of knowledge.”
I knew by his accent that he was an Englishman, and a moment later I knew who he was, as he came close up to me and said sharply: “Maurice Wynn?”
“Yes, I’m Wynn,” I managed to say. “How are you, Inspector Freeman?”
Somehow at the moment it did not seem in the least wonderful that he should be here in Petersburg, and in search of me. I didn’t even feel astonished at his next words.
“Maurice Wynn, I have a warrant for your arrest on the charge of murdering Vladimir Selinski,—alias Cassavetti.”
The next I knew I was in bed, in a cool, darkened room, with a man seated in an easy-chair near at hand, smoking a cigarette, and reading what looked remarkably like an English newspaper.
I lay and looked at him lazily, for a few minutes. I hadn’t the least idea as to where I was, or how I came there; I didn’t feel any curiosity on the point. The blissful consciousness of cleanliness and comfort was quite sufficient for me at present. My broken arm had been set and put in rude splints while I was in the prison, by one of my fellow sufferers, I expect, and was now scientifically cased in plaster of Paris; the bullet wounds in my right arm and side were properly dressed and strapped, and felt pretty comfortable till I tried to shift my position a little, when I realized they were there.
At the slight movement the man in the chair laid down his paper and came up to the bed.
“Hello, Mr. Wynn; feel a bit more like yourself, eh?” he asked bluffly, in English.
“Why, yes, I feel just about ‘O. K.,’ thanks,” I responded, and laughed inanely. My voice sounded funny—thin and squeaky—and it jumped from one note to another. I hadn’t the least control over it. “Say, where am I, and who are you? I guess you’ve done me a good turn!”
“Humph, I suppose we have. Good Lord, think of an Englishman—you’re an American, but it’s all the same in this case—being treated like that by these Russian swine! You’re still in St. Petersburg; we’ve got to patch you up a bit before we can take you back to good old England.”
Now why should he, or any one else, be “taking me back to England?” I puzzled over it in silence before I put the question.
“Never you mind about that now,” he said with brusque kindliness. “All you’ve got to think about is getting strong again.”
But already I began to remember, and past events came jumping before my mind like cinematograph pictures.
“You fetched me out of prison,—you and Inspector Freeman,” I said slowly.
“Look here, don’t you worry,” he began.
“Yes, I must—I want to get things clear; wait a bit. He said something. I know; he came to arrest me for murder,—the murder of Cassavetti.”
“Just so; and a jolly good thing for you he did! But, as you’ve remembered that much, I must warn you that I’m a detective in charge of you, and anything you say will be used against you.”
More cinematograph pictures,—Cassavetti as I saw him, lying behind the door, his eyes open, staring; myself on the steps below Westminster Bridge, calling to Anne, as she sat in the boat. Anne! No more pictures, but a jiggery of red and black splashes, and then a darkness, through which I passed somehow into a pleasant place,—a garden whereroses bloomed and a fountain plashed, and Anne was beside me; I held her hand in mine.
Now she was gone, she had vanished mysteriously. What was that man saying? “The Fraulein has not been here at all!” Why, she was here a moment ago; what a fool that waiter was! A waiter? No, he was a droshky driver; I knew it, though I could not see him. There were other voices speaking now,—men’s voices,—subdued but distinct; and as I listened I came back from the land of dreams—or delirium—to that of reality.
“Yes, he’s been pretty bad, sir. He came to himself quite nicely, and began to talk. No, I didn’t tell him anything, as you said I wasn’t to, but he remembered by himself, and then I had to warn him, and he went right off again.”
“You’re an ass, Harris,” said another voice. “What did you want to speak to him at all for?”
I opened my eyes at that, and saw Freeman and the other man looking down at me.
“He isn’t an ass; he’s a real good sort,” I announced. “And I didn’t murder Cassavetti, though I’d have murdered half a dozen Cassavettis to get out of that hell upon earth yonder!”
I shut my eyes again, settled myself luxuriously against my pillows, and went,—back to Anne and the rose-garden.
I suppose I began to pull round from that time, and in a few days I was able to get up. I almost forgot that I was still in custody, and even when I remembered the fact, it didn’t trouble me in the least. After what I had endured in the Russian prison, it was impossible, at present, anyhow, to considerDetective-Inspector Freeman and his subordinate, Harris, as anything less than the best of good fellows and good nurses. True, they never left me to myself for an instant; one or other of them was always in close attendance on me; but there was nothing of espionage in that attendance. They merely safe-guarded me, and, at the same time, helped me back to life, as if I had been their comrade rather than their prisoner. Freeman, in due course, gave me his formal warning that “anything I said with respect to the crime with which I was charged would be used against me;” but in all other respects both he and Harris acted punctiliously on the principle held by only two civilized nations in the world,—England and the United States of America,—that “a man is regarded as innocent in the eyes of the law until he has been tried and found guilty.”
“Well, how goes it to-day?” Freeman asked, as he relieved his lieutenant one morning. “You look a sight better than you did. D’you think you can stand the journey? We don’t want you to die on our handsen route, you know!”
“We’ll start to-day if you like; I’m fit enough,” I answered. “Let’s get back and get it over. It’s a preposterous charge, you know; but—”
“We needn’t discuss that, Mr. Wynn,” he interrupted hastily.
“All right; we won’t. Though I fancy I shouldn’t have been alive at this time if you hadn’t taken it into your heads to hunt me down as the murderer of a man who wasn’t even a naturalized Englishman. You came just in the nick of time, Mr. Freeman.”
“Well, yes, I think we did that,” he conceded. “You were the most deplorable object I’ve ever seen in the course of my experience,—and that’s fairly long and varied. I’d like to know how you got into their clutches; though you needn’t say if it has any connection with—”
“Why, certainly. It’s nothing to do with Cassavetti, or Selinski, or whatever his name was,” I said.
“I got wind of a Nihilist meeting in the woods, went there out of curiosity; and the soldiers turned up. There was a free fight; they got the best of it, took me prisoner with the others, and that’s all. But how did you trace me? How long had you been in Petersburg?”
“Only a couple of days. Found you had disappeared and the Embassies were raising Cain. It seemed likely you’d been murdered, as Carson was. The police declared they were making every effort to trace you, without success; and I doubt if they would have produced you, even in response to the extradition warrant, but that some one mysteriously telephoned information to the American Embassy that you were in prison—in the fortress—and even gave your number; though he would not give his own name or say where he was speaking from.”
Who was it, I wondered,—Loris or Mirakoff? It must have been one or the other. He had saved my life, anyhow.
“So acting on that, we simply went and demanded you; and good heavens, what a sight you were! I thought you’d die in the droshky that we brought you here in. I couldn’t help telling the officer whohanded you over that I couldn’t congratulate him on his prison system; and he grinned and said:
“‘Ah, I have heard that you English treat your prisoners as honored guests. We prefer our own methods.’”
We started for England the next night, second class, and travelled right through, as I stood the journey better than any of us expected. After we crossed the frontier, I doubt if any of our fellow travellers, or any one else, for the matter of that, had the least suspicion that I was a prisoner being taken back to stand my trial on the gravest of all charges, and not merely an invalid, assiduously tended by my two companions. I didn’t even realize the fact myself at the time,—or at least I only realized it now and then.
“Well, Mr. Wynn, you’ve looked your last on Russia, and jolly glad I should be if I were you,” Freeman remarked cheerfully when we were in the train again, on the way to Konigsberg.
“Looked my last,—what do you mean?” Even as I spoke I remembered why he was in charge of me, and laughed.
“Oh, I suppose you think you’re going to hang me on this preposterous murder charge.”
He was upset that I should imagine him guilty of such a breach of what he called professional etiquette, as, it seemed, any reference to my present position would have been.
“I meant that, if you wanted to go back, you wouldn’t be allowed to. They’ve fired you out,and won’t have you again at any price,” he explained stiffly.
“Oh, won’t they? I guess they will if I want to go. Look here, Freeman, I bet you twenty dollars, say five pounds English, that I’ll be back in Russia within six months from this date,—that is, if I think fit,—and that they’ll admit me all right. You’d have to trust me, for I can’t deposit the stakes at present; I will when we get back to England. Is it a deal?”
His answer was enigmatic, and I took it as complimentary.
“Well, you are a cough-drop!” he exclaimed. “No, I can’t take the bet,—’twouldn’t be professional; though I’d like to know, without prejudice, as the lawyers say, why on earth you should want to go back. I should have thought you’d had quite enough of it.”
I could not tell him the real reason,—that, if I lived, I should never rest till I had at least learned the fate of Anne Pendennis.
“There’s a fascination about it,” I explained. “They’re back in the middle ages there; and you never know what’s going to happen next, to yourself or any one else.”
“Well, I’m—blessed! You’d go back just for that!”
“Why, certainly,” I assented.
There were several things I’d have liked to ask him, but I did not choose to; for I guessed he would not have answered me. One was whether he had traced the old Russian whose coming had been the beginning of all the trouble, so far as I was concerned,anyway; and how he knew that a woman—a red-haired woman as he had said—had been in Cassavetti’s rooms the night he was murdered.
If that woman were Anne—as in my heart I knew she must have been, though I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge it—he must have discovered further evidence that cleared her, or he would certainly have been prosecuting a search for her, instead of arresting me.
However, I hoped to get some light on the mystery either when my case came before the magistrate, or between then and the trial, supposing I was committed for trial.
It was when we were nearing Dover, about three o’clock on a heavenly summer morning, that I began to understand my position. We were all on deck,—I lying at full length on a bench, with plenty of cushions about me, and a rug over me.
“Well, we’re nearly in,” Freeman remarked cheerfully. “Another five minutes will do it. Feel pretty fit?”
“Splendid,” I answered, swinging my feet off the bench, and sitting up.
“That’s all right. Here, take Harris’s arm—so. I sha’n’t worry about your left arm; this will do the trick.”
“This” meant that a handcuff was snapped round my right wrist, and its fellow, connected with it by a chain, round Harris’s left.
I shivered involuntarily at the touch of the steel, at the sensation of being a prisoner in reality,—fettered!
“I say, that isn’t necessary,” I remonstrated,rather unsteadily. “You must know that I shall make no attempt to escape.”
“Yes, I know that, but we must do things decently and in order,” he answered soothingly, as one would speak to a fractious child. “That’s quite comfortable, isn’t it? You’d have had to lean on one of us anyhow, being an invalid. There, the rug over your shoulder—so; not a soul will notice it, and we’d go ashore last; we’ve a compartment reserved on the train, of course.”
I dare say he was right, and that none of the many passengers noticed anything amiss; but I felt as if every one must be staring at me,—a handcuffed felon. The “bracelet” didn’t hurt me at all, like those that had been forced on my swollen wrists in the Russian prison, and that had added considerably to the tortures I endured; but somehow it seemed morally harder to bear,—as a slight but deliberate insult from one who has been a friend hurts more than any amount of injury inflicted by an avowed enemy.
They were both as kind and considerate as ever during the last stage of our journey. From Dover to Charing Cross, Harris, I know, sat in a most cramped and uncomfortable position all the way, so that I should rest as easily as possible; but in some subtle manner our relationship had changed. I had, of course, been their prisoner all along, but the fact only came home to me now.
From Charing Cross we went in a cab to the prison, through the sunny streets, so quiet at this early hour.
“Cheer up,” counselled Freeman, as I shook handswith him and Harris, from whom I was now, of course, unshackled. “You’ll come before the magistrate to-morrow or next day; depends on what the doctor says. He’ll see you directly. You’ll want to communicate with your friends at once, of course, and start arranging about your defence. I can send a wire, or telephone to any one on my way home if you like.”
He really was an astonishing good sort, though he had been implacable on the handcuff question.
I thanked him, and gave him Jim Cayley’s name and address and telephone number.
“All right; I’ll let Mr. Cayley know as soon as possible,” he said, jotting the details in his note-book. “What about Lord Southbourne?”
“I’ll send word to him later.”
I felt distinctly guilty with respect to Southbourne. I ought, of course, to have communicated with him—or rather have got Freeman to do so—as soon as I began to pull round; but somehow I’d put off the unpleasant duty. I had disobeyed his express instructions, as poor Carson had done; and the disobedience had brought its own punishment to me, as to Carson, though in a different way; but Southbourne would account that as nothing. He would probably ignore me; or if he did not do that, his interest would be strictly impersonal,—limited to the amount of effective copy I could turn out as a result of my experiences.
Therefore I was considerably surprised when, some hours afterwards, instead of Jim Cayley, whom I was expecting every moment, Lord Southbourne himself was brought up to the cell,—one of those keptfor prisoners on remand, a small bare room, but comfortable enough, and representing the acme of luxury in comparison with the crowded den in which I had been thrown in Petersburg.
Lord Southbourne’s heavy, clean-shaven face was impassive as ever, and he greeted me with a casual nod.
“Hello, Wynn, you’ve been in the wars, eh? I’ve seen Freeman. He says you were just about at the last gasp when he got hold of you, and is pluming himself no end on having brought you through so well.”
“So he ought!” I conceded cordially. “He’s a jolly good sort, and it would have been all up with me in another few hours. Though how on earth he could fix on me as Cassavetti’s murderer, I can’t imagine. It’s a fool business, anyhow.”
“H’m—yes, I suppose so,” drawled Southbourne, in that exasperatingly deliberate way of his. “But I think you must blame—or thank—me for that!”
“
You! What had you to do with it?” I ejaculated.
“Well, Freeman was hunting on a cold scent; yearning to arrest some one, as they always do in a murder case. He’d thought of you, of course. Considering that you were on the spot at the time, I wonder he didn’t arrest you right off; but he had formed his own theory, as detectives always do, and in nine cases out of ten they’re utterly wrong!”
“Do you know what the theory was?” I asked.
“Yes. He believed that the murder was committed by a woman; simply because a woman must have helped to ransack the rooms during Cassavetti’s absence.”
“How did he know that?”
“How did you know it?” he counter-queried.
“Because he told me at the time that a woman had been in the rooms, but he wouldn’t say any more, except that she was red-haired, or fair-haired, and well dressed. I wondered how he knew that, but he wouldn’t tell me.”
“He has never told me,” Southbourne said complacently. “Though I guessed it, all the same, and he couldn’t deny it, when I asked him. She dropped hairpins about, or a hairpin rather,—women always do when they’re agitated,—an expensive gilt hairpin.That’s how he knew she was certainly fair-haired, and probably well dressed.”
I remembered how, more than once, I had picked up and restored to Anne a hairpin that had fallen from her glorious hair. Jim and Mary Cayley had often chaffed her about the way she shed her hairpins around.
“What sort of hairpins?” I asked.
“A curved thing. He showed it me when I bowled him out about them. I know the sort. My wife wears them,—patent things, warranted not to fall out, so they always do. They cost half a crown a packet in that quality.”
I knew the sort, too, and knew also that my former suspicion was now a certainty. Anne had been to Cassavetti’s rooms that night; though nothing would ever induce me to believe she was his murderess.
“Well, I fail to see how that clue could have led him to me,” I said, forcing a laugh. I didn’t mean to let Southbourne, or any one else, guess that I knew who that hairpin had belonged to.
“It didn’t; it led him nowhere; though I believe he spent several days going round the West End hairdressers’ shops. There’s only one of them, a shop in the Haymarket, keeps that particular kind of hairpin, and they snubbed him; they weren’t going to give away their clients’ names. And there was nothing in the rooms to give him a clue. All Cassavetti’s private papers had been carried off, as you know. Then there was the old Russian you told about at the inquest. He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth; for nothing has been seenor heard of him. So, as I said, Freeman was on a cold scent, and thought of you again. He came to me, ostensibly on other business. I’d just got the wire from Petersburg—Nolan ofThe Thunderersent it—saying you’d walked out of your hotel three nights before, and hadn’t been seen or heard of since. It struck me that the quickest way to trace you, if you were still above ground, was to set Freeman on your track straight away. So I told him at once of your disappearance; and he started cross-questioning me, with the result,—well—he went off eventually with the fixed idea that you were more implicated in the murder than had appeared possible at the time, and that your disappearance was in some way connected with it. Wait a bit,—let me finish! The next I heard was that he was off to St. Petersburg with an extradition warrant; and, from what he told me just now, he was just in time. Yes, it was the quickest way; they’d never have released you on any other consideration!”
“No, I guess they wouldn’t,” I responded. “You’ve certainly done me a good turn, Lord Southbourne,—saved my life, in fact. But what about this murder charge? Is it a farce, or what? You don’t believe I murdered the man, do you?”
“I? Good heavens, no! If I had I shouldn’t have troubled to set Freeman on you,” he answered languidly. I’ve met some baffling individuals, but never one more baffling than Southbourne.
“As far as we are concerned it is a farce,—though he doesn’t think it one. He imagines he’s got a case after his own heart. To snatch a man out of the jaws of death, nurse him back to life, andhand him over to be hanged; that’s his idea of a neat piece of business. But it will be all right, of course. I doubt if you’ll even be sent for trial; but if you are, no jury would convict you. Anyhow, I’ve sent for Sir George Lucas,—he ought to be here directly,—and I’ve given himcarte blanche, at my expense, of course; so if a defence is needed you’d have the best that’s to be got.”
I began to stammer my thanks and protestations. I should never have dreamed of engaging the famous lawyer, who, if the matter did not prove as insignificant as Southbourne seemed to anticipate, and I had to stand my trial, would, in his turn, secure an equally famous K. C.,—a luxury far beyond my own means.
But Southbourne checked me at the outset.
“That’s all right,” he said in his lazy way. “I can’t afford to lose a good man,—when there’s a chance of saving him. I hadn’t the chance with Carson; he was a good man, too, though he was a fool,—as you are! But, after all, it’s the fools who rush in where angels fear to tread; therefore they’re a lot more valuable in modern journalism than any angel could be, when they survive their folly, as you have so far! and now I want to know just what you were up to from the time you left your hotel till you were handed over by the Russian authorities; that is, if you feel equal to it. If not, another time will do, of course.”
I told him just as much—or as little—as I had already told Freeman. He watched me intently all the time from under his heavy lids, and nodded as I came to the end of my brief recital.
“You’ll be able to do a good series; even if you’re committed for trial you’ll have plenty of time, for the case can’t come on till September. ‘The Red Terror in Russia’ will do for the title; we’ll publish it in August, and you must pile it on thick about the prison. It’s always a bit difficult to rake up sufficient horrors to satisfy the public in the holidays; what gluttons they are! But, look here, didn’t I tell you not to meddle with this sort of thing?”
I had been expecting this all along, and was ready for it now.
“You did. But, as you’ve just said, ‘Fools rush in,’ etcetera. And I’m quite willing to acknowledge that there’s a lot more of fool than angel in me.”
“You’re not fool enough to disobey orders without some strong motive,” he retorted. “So now,—why did you go to that meeting?”
I was determined not to tell him. Anne might be dead, or in a Russian prison, which was worse than death; at any rate nearly two thousand miles of sea and land separated us, and I was powerless to aid her,—as powerless as I had been while I lay in the prison of Peter and Paul. But there was one thing I could still do; I could guard her name, her fame. It would have been a desecration to mention her to this man Southbourne. True, he had proved himself my good and generous friend; but I knew him for a man of sordid mind, a man devoid of ideals, a man who judged everything by one standard,—the amount of effective “copy” it would produce. He would regard her career, even the little of it thatwas known to me, as “excellent material” for a sensational serial, which he would commission one of his hacks to write. No, neither he nor any one else should ever learn aught of her from me; her name should never, if I could help it, be touched and smirched by “the world’s coarse thumb and finger.”
So I answered his question with a repetition of my first statement.
“I got wind of the meeting, and thought I’d see what it was like.”
“Although I had expressly warned you not to do anything of the kind?”
“Well, yes; but still you usually give one a free hand.”
“I didn’t this time. Was the woman at the meeting?”
“What woman?” I asked.
“The woman whose portrait I showed you,—the portrait Von Eckhardt found in Carson’s pocket. Why didn’t you tell me at the time that you knew her?”
“Simply because I don’t know her,” I answered, bracing up boldly for the lie.
“And yet she sat next to Cassavetti at the Savage Club dinner, an hour or two before he was murdered; and you talked to her rather confidentially,—under the portico.”
I tried bluff once more, though it doesn’t come easily to me. I looked him straight in the face and said deliberately:
“I don’t quite understand you, Lord Southbourne. That lady at the Hotel Cecil was Miss Anne Pendennis,a friend of my cousin, Mrs. Cayley. Do you know her?”
“Well—no.”
“Then who on earth made you think she was the original of that portrait?”
“Cayley the dramatist; he’s your cousin’s husband, isn’t he? I showed the portrait to him, and he recognized it at once.”
This was rather a facer, and I felt angry with Jim!
“Oh, Jim!” I said carelessly. “He’s almost as blind as a mole, and he’s no judge of likenesses. Why he always declares that Gertie Millar’s the living image of Edna May, and he can’t tell a portrait of one from the other without looking at the name (this was quite true, and we had often chipped Jim about it). There was a superficial likeness of course; I saw it myself at the time.”
“You didn’t mention it.”
“Why, no, I didn’t think it necessary.”
“And the initials?”
“A mere coincidence. They stand for Anna Petrovna. Von Eckhardt told me that. I saw him in Berlin. She’s a well-known Nihilist, and the police are after her in Russia. So you see, if you or any others are imagining there’s any connection between her and Miss Pendennis, you’re quite wrong.”
“H’m,” he said enigmatically, and I was immensely relieved that a warder opened the door at that moment and showed in Sir George Lucas.
“Oh, here you are, Lucas,” said Southbourne, rising and shaking hands with him. “This is your client, Mr. Wynn. I’ll be off now. See you againbefore long, but I’ll give you a bit of advice, with Sir George’s permission. Never prevaricate to your lawyer; tell him everything right out. That’s all.”
“Thanks; I guess that’s excellent advice, and I’ll take it,” I said.
Idid take Lord Southbourne’s advice, partly; for in giving Sir George Lucas a minute account of my movements on the night of the murder, I did not prevaricate, but I made two reservations, neither of which, so far as I could see, affected my own case in the least.
I made no mention of the conversation I had with the old Russian in my own flat; or of the incident of the boat. If I kept silence on those two points, I argued to myself, it was improbable that Anne’s name would be dragged into the matter. For whatever those meddling idiots, Southbourne or Jim Cayley (I’d have it out with Jim as soon as I saw him!), might suspect, they at least did not know for a certainty of her identity as Anna Petrovna, of her presence in Cassavetti’s rooms that night, or of her expedition on the river.
Sir George cross-examined me closely as to my relation with Cassavetti; we always spoke of him by that name, rather than by his own, which was so much less familiar; and on that point I could, of course, answer him frankly enough. Our acquaintanceship had been of the most casual kind; he had been to my rooms several times, but had never invited me to his. I had only been in them thrice; the first time when I unlocked the door with the pass-key with which the old Russian had tried to unlock my door,and then I hadn’t really gone inside, only looked round, and called; and the other occasions were when I broke open the door and found him murdered, and returned in company with the police.
“You saw nothing suspicious that first time?” he asked. “You are sure there was no one in the rooms then?”
“Well, I can’t be certain. I only just looked in; and then ran down again; I was in a desperate hurry, for I was late, as it was; I thought the whole thing a horrible bore, but I couldn’t leave the old man fainting on the stairs. Cassavetti certainly wasn’t in his rooms then, anyhow, and I shouldn’t think any one else was; for he told me afterwards, at dinner, that he came in before seven. He must have just missed the old man.”
“What became of the key?”
“I gave it back to the old man.”
“Although you thought it strange that such a person should be in possession of it?”
“Well, it wasn’t my affair, was it?” I remonstrated. “I didn’t give him the key in the first instance.”
“Now will you tell me, Mr. Wynn, why, when you left Lord Southbourne, you did not go straight home? That’s a point that may prove important.”
“I didn’t feel inclined to turn in just then, so I went for a stroll.”
“In the rain?”
“It wasn’t raining then; it was a lovely night for a little while, till the second storm came on, and my hat blew off.”
“And when you got in you heard no sound fromMr. Cassavetti’s rooms? They’re just over yours, aren’t they? Nothing at all, either during the night or next morning?”
“Nothing. I was out all the morning, and when I came in I fetched up the housekeeper to help me pack. It was he who remarked how quiet the place was. Besides, the poor chap had evidently been killed as soon as he got home.”
“Just so, but the rooms might have been ransacked after and not before the murder,” Sir George said dryly. “Though I don’t think that’s probable. Well, Mr. Wynn, you’ve told me everything?”
“Everything,” I answered promptly.
“Then we shall see what the other side have to say at the preliminary hearing.”
He chatted for a few minutes about my recent adventures in Russia; and then, to my relief, took himself off. I felt just about dead beat!
In the course of the day I got a wire from Jim Cayley, handed in at Morwen, a little place in Cornwall.
“Returning to town at once; be with you to-morrow.”
He turned up early next morning.
“Good heavens, Maurice, what’s all this about?” he demanded. “We’ve been wondering why we didn’t hear from you; and now—why, man, you’re an utter wreck!”
“No, I’m not. I’m getting round all right now,” I assured him. “I got into a bit of a scrimmage, and then into prison. They very nearly did for me there; but I guess I’ve as many lives as a cat.”
“But this murder charge? It’s in the papers this morning; look here.”
He held out a copy ofThe Courier, pointing to a column headed:
“The Westminster Murder.arrest of a well-known journalist,”
and further down I saw among the cross-headings:
“Romantic Circumstances.”
“Half a minute; let’s have a look,” I exclaimed, snatching the paper, fearing lest under that particular cross-heading there might be some allusion to Anne, or the portrait. But there was not; the “romantic circumstances” were merely those under which the arrest was effected. Whoever had written it,—Southbourne himself probably,—had laid it on pretty thick about the special correspondents ofThe Courierobtaining “at the risk of their lives the exclusive information on which the public had learned to rely,” and a lot more rot of that kind, together with a highly complimentaryprécisof my career, and a hint that before long a full account of my thrilling experiences would be published exclusively inThe Courier. Southbourne never lost a chance of advertisement.
The article ended with the announcement: “Sir George Lucas has undertaken the defence, and Mr. Wynn is, of course, prepared with a full answer to the charge.”
“Well, that seems all right, doesn’t it?” I asked coolly.
“All right?” spluttered Jim, who was more upset than I’d ever seen him. “You seem to regard being run in for murder as an everyday occurrence!”
“Well, it’s preferable to being in prison in Russia! If Freeman hadn’t taken it into his thick head to fix on me, I should have been dead and gone to glory by this time. Look here, Jim, there’s nothing to worry about, really. I asked Freeman to wire or ’phone to you yesterday when we arrived, thinking, of course, you’d be at Chelsea; then Southbourne turned up, and was awfully good. He’s arranged for my defence, so there’s nothing more to be done at present. The case will come before the magistrate to-morrow; so far as I’m concerned I’d rather it had come on to-day. I don’t suppose for an instant they’d send me for trial. The police can’t have anything but the flimsiest circumstantial evidence against me. I guess I needn’t assure you that I didn’t murder the man!”
He looked at me queerly through his glasses; and I experienced a faint, but distinctly uncomfortable, thrill. Could it be possible that he, who knew me so well, could imagine for a moment that I was guilty?
“No, I don’t believe you did it, my boy,” he said slowly. “But I do believe you know a lot more about it than you owned up to at the time. Have you forgotten that Sunday night—the last time I saw you? Because if you have, I haven’t! I taxed you then with knowing—or suspecting—that Anne Pendennis was mixed up with the affair in some way or other. It was your own manner that roused my suspicions then, as well as her flight; for it was flight, as we both know now. If I had done my duty I should have set the police on her; but I didn’t, chiefly for Mary’s sake,—she’s fretting herself tofiddle-strings about the jade already, and it would half kill her if she knew what the girl really was.”
“Stop,” I said, very quietly. “If you were any other man, I would call you a liar, Jim Cayley. But you’re Mary’s husband and my old friend, so I’ll only say you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do,” he persisted. “It is you who don’t or pretend you don’t. I’ve learned something even since you’ve been away. I told you I believed both she and her father were mixed up with political intrigues; I spoke then on mere suspicion. But I was right. She belongs to the same secret society that Cassavetti was connected with; there was an understanding between them that night, though it’s quite possible they hadn’t met each other before. Do you remember she gave him a red geranium? That’s their precious symbol.”
“Did you say all this to Southbourne when he showed you the portrait that was found on Carson?” I interrupted.
“What, you know about the portrait, too?”
“Yes; he showed it me that same night, when I went to him after the dinner. It’s not Anne Pendennis at all.”
“But it is, man; I recognized it the moment I saw it, before he told me anything about it.”
“You recognized it!” I echoed scornfully. “We all know you can never recognize a portrait unless you see the name underneath. There was a kind of likeness. I saw it myself; but it wasn’t Anne’s portrait! Now just you tell me, right now, what you said to Southbourne. Any of this nonsense about her and Cassavetti and the red symbol?”