CHAPTER XIIIBETWEEN THREE FIRES
AT SIGHT of her, Captain Nadson fell back and stared.
“Prince Berloff!” he ejaculated.
But Berloff, surprised at her appearance, did not heed him. “Why, Olga,” he said, “I thought you were indisposed, and lying down.”
Sonya, cool, haughty, ignored the captain as a thing below her notice. “So I was,” she replied; “but I felt a little better and a few minutes ago I wandered in there to look at your genealogical library. Here’s a volume that I find has some new things about the Valenkos in the time of Ivan the Terrible.”
“Don’t you think it would be well for you to eat something?” inquired the prince.
“Perhaps I shall,” she said languidly.
“Boris will get you anything you wish. You will excuse us. Come, captain.”
He started toward the door. Sonya was putting out her hand, but it was Nadson who stopped him.
“A moment, prince. I want to speak to the lady.”
The captain’s bearded face was a-quiver with excitement. Sonya turned her eyes upon himnow for the first time—a cool, inquiring look, half amazed at his temerity in daring to address her. Behind the door, all Drexel’s being stood at pause.
“What does the gentleman wish to say?” Sonya asked stiffly.
Triumph glittered in the officer’s eye. “I believe I have seen madame before,” he said.
“Very likely. Many persons have.”
“And recently. Only a week ago.”
“Ah!—then monsieur has just come from abroad.”
“I saw you in St. Petersburg.”
“Indeed! This is very remarkable.”
“Why?”
“Because only three days ago I returned from abroad after an absence of five months.”
This effrontery was too much for the police official. “It’s not true!” he blurted out.
Her face darkened. “What!” she cried.
“Captain—you forget yourself!” cut in the sharp voice of Berloff.
“I do not understand the insolence of this underling of yours, prince,” she said majestically. “I do not care what he thinks or believes. I have nothing more to say to him. If you desire to set him right, you may.”
“Captain,” said the prince severely, “I myself met her when she arrived.”
“You!”
Triumph glittered in the officer’s eyeTriumph glittered in the officer’s eye. “I believe I have seen madame before,” he said
Triumph glittered in the officer’s eye. “I believe I have seen madame before,” he said
Triumph glittered in the officer’s eye. “I believe I have seen madame before,” he said
“And from August until three days ago the princess——”
“The princess!” ejaculated the captain.
“Yes. My cousin—the Princess Valenko.”
“The daughter of the military governor?”
“The same,” said the prince.
The stupid amazement on the face of the big officer was a sight to see. This was quickly followed by the sense of the danger to him of his heinous blunder.
“I believe the captain said he had something to say to me,” Sonya remarked with an awful hauteur that completed the man’s discomfiture. “What is it?”
“Nothing—a mistake—I beg pardon,” stammered the captain.
“You are sure you have nothing to say?”
“Nothing, princess—nothing—I assure you. I ask a thousand pardons. Nothing.”
“In that case,” said Berloff, “we shall go on into the study. Come on, captain.”
They started again toward the door. Drexel crouched with tense muscles, determined to make the best struggle that was in him.
But Sonya quietly slipped her hand through Berloff’s arm. “Won’t you take me in to the dining-room? It will be very stupid eating in that great room alone.”
“With pleasure,” said the prince. “Captain, please wait for me here.”
“Certainly, certainly!” said the officer.
“Then come, Olga.”
The captain, with one hand on the back of the leather chair in which he was going to be comfortable for the next half-hour, bowed low to them.
“I trust the captain will not take his mistake too much to heart,” said Sonya, her manner relenting somewhat. “Perhaps he, too, would like something to eat after his drive from the station?”
“No, no—don’t think of me, princess,” protested the humbled officer. “I am not hungry—not in the least.”
Sonya unbent a little more. “Then a glass of tea?”
“No—really—thank you——”
Sonya unbent still more—was the least bit gracious. “Come—let me give you a glass of tea just to show that I bear no ill will.”
The captain flushed, gratified. “Well, just a glass of tea.”
“Come, then”—and Sonya led the two men out.
Drexel waited a minute, then slipped into the library. Already he had made one decision. If he remained in the house, Captain Nadson would be sure to see him. The captain might think himself mistaken regarding Sonya’s identity, if nothing new came to reawaken suspicion; but to see the exact likeness of both his fugitives in the house—the finest bluffing in the world would not avail to save them.
He must fly the house, and fly the house at once.
But to leave that instant meant to abandon what would likely be the only chance to learn the whereabouts of Borodin—to abandon his precious, newly made, uncemented friendship with Sonya. So he made a second decision. Sonya would keep the prince and Captain Nadson beside her for several minutes. It was a great risk, but he would go on with the search.
He hurried back to the files, first closing the shutters and turning on the light, and went with feverish rapidity through the documents, his ears strained for the faintest approaching step. Paper after paper he skimmed. His heart pounded as if it would burst open his breast.
Suddenly he gave a start. He heard a light footfall, a soft swish-swish—Sonya slipping back, he guessed. But when he peeped into the other room it was the countess he saw. She took down a book and settled herself in a chair; evidently she had come in here for a few minutes’ relief from the crowd.
Drexel hesitated a moment—then went back to his work, and again the records of arrests, of exile, of nefarious plots, flew beneath his nervous hands, his eyes looking only for the name of Borodin. Noiselessly files came out, their pages were turned, then slipped back, while his strained fear counted the seconds.
“Ah, Mr. Drexel!” said a low voice behind him.
He whirled about. “Countess Baronova!” he breathed.
She lightly crossed to him. “You are trying to find out about Borodin?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Then you were in earnest in what you said this morning—about being with us?”
“Yes.”
“I am proud—proud! To have won you to us—and so quickly!” she said softly, glowing upon him. And this marvellously clever actress told in her manner that the great infatuation for her which had led him to this action was returned.
He did not disillusion her; to have done so would have taken time and would have exposed Sonya. “I must hurry,” he said, turning to his work. “I may be interrupted any second.”
“And I will help you!” The next moment she, too, was fluttering through the records—and again she felt that peculiar tang of excitement, an excitement not quite like any she had experienced before in all her professional career.
She wondered if he had discovered what office the prince held. “Is there anything,” she asked, “that makes you think Prince Berloff especially may possess the evidence we seek?”
He remembered Sonya’s statement that their knowledge of Berloff’s position was a close secret.
“He seems intimate with the Government, as I told you,” he replied.
Several minutes passed. The two worked swiftly,in silence. Finally Drexel straightened up with a low cry of triumph.
“You have it?” asked the countess.
“Yes—at last!”
“Where is he?”
“In the Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul! In St. Petersburg!”
He swiftly put back the files. Perhaps he had already remained too long.
“Countess,” he whispered, “I am going to leave the house immediately.”
“I was just going to suggest it,” she returned. “It would be dangerous for you here. The prince has a violent temper; if he found out he might stop at nothing. And I shall go with you.”
“Go with me?”
“I have led you into this. Do you think I shall desert you?”
“But countess——”
“Don’t protest. Besides, I can help you.” Her brain had worked as rapidly as her hands, and she had a plan in readiness. “I had this same idea for finding out about Borodin before I came here. So I prepared for my escape. I have bribed one of the servants. He is to have a horse and sleigh ready at a moment’s notice.”
“No, no, countess. I can’t let you run into this danger!”
“Not when I am the cause of the danger?”
“No, no, I cannot! But I must go.”
He started across the room. She followed him.
“But how will you escape?”
“I’ll say that I’ve been suddenly called away, and ask for a sleigh to the station,” he said as they entered the library. “I’ll be far away before they——”
He broke off. The countess gave a counterfeit cry of dismay. Before them stood the figure of Prince Berloff. The pale mask of cultured gentlemanliness was down, and all his relentless cruelty glared at Drexel in a scowl of dark, malignant passion.
“What were you doing in my papers?” his voice grated out.
Perhaps the prince had seen nothing, was merely suspicious. “What papers?” Drexel asked, with an effort at surprise.
“You cannot pretend innocence! I came in here a minute ago—heard whispers—looked in and saw you in my private papers.”
Drexel, feeling there remained for him but the slenderest chance, did not see wherein that chance would be bettered by a mild demeanour. Besides, the mere sight of the man set his soul afire with wrath and hatred.
“Well, suppose I was? What then?” he coolly demanded.
“What were you looking for? What did you find out?”
Drexel shrugged his shoulders.
“Speak out! What were you looking for?”
“I do not choose to tell,” returned Drexel calmly.
“You do not choose to tell—eh?” repeated the prince. “I think you do!” And he drew a pistol and pointed it at Drexel’s breast.
The countess saw that the prince’s rage sprang from his fear—his ever-present fear—that Drexel had discovered him to be the chief of the hated secret police. Also, she saw the danger of the prince ruining her new-made scheme. She threw herself between the two.
“Don’t, don’t, prince!” she cried. “It was all my doing!”
He turned upon her fiercely. “Your doing?”
She put all the double meaning into her words that she dared.
“I led him into it! The blame is all mine! He merely did what I——”
“Stop, countess!” Drexel interposed. He looked at the prince with the flaming recklessness of a mastering hate. “The blame is not hers, Prince Berloff. It is all mine. So whatever you do, you must do to me alone. I might as well tell you, though, in order to save your time, that I am not in the least afraid of that pistol.”
The prince was silent a moment, during which he held the pistol to Drexel’s breast and glared into his defiant eyes. “Not afraid? Why?”
“Because you dare not shoot.”
“You think not?”
“I know not.”
Berloff again was silent for a moment. “Why do I not dare shoot?”
“Because you want to marry my cousin.”
“Well?”
“Well, if you were to shoot me down, no matter under what circumstances, my cousin would never marry you.”
“Do you think the loss of your cousin will hold me back?”
“No, my dear prince. But the loss of my cousin’s millions will.”
The prince did not answer.
As he gazed at the prince, Drexel flamed with the desire to hurl defiance, contempt, into that gleaming, passion-worked face: to tell him that he knew him for a man-hunter with the blood of rare-souled thousands upon his hands, and that he was going to disclose his perfidious business to his cousin Alice, and proclaim it broadcast to the world. He was almost overmastered by the impulse, let come what might, to grapple that false throat and hold it till life was gone.
But there was the promise of silence that he had made to Sonya. His first consideration had to be her safety, and her safety depended upon his own. He thought of Captain Nadson; the captain might enter at any moment, and bring about the undoing of them both. For Sonya’s sake he must make some desperate effort to escape.
He sought to get out of the room by virtue ofmere audacity. “And so, prince, since you are afraid to use that weapon, you will have to think of something else,” he said. “And that you may think the better, I shall leave you to yourself.”
He pushed the pistol to one side and stepped toward the door.
The fear that his secret was out dominated the prince. “Stop, or I shoot!” he cried.
At the same instant, drawing nearer in the corridor, sounded the deep voice of Captain Nadson.