CHAPTER XXIIA VICE-CZAR DOES HIS DUTY
THIS same evening Prince Berloff dined with the Howards at their hotel. There were a score of noble guests, the highest of the new friends Berloff would bring to Alice, and the dinner was as elaborate as Russia’s capital could provide. In a way this was a farewell function given by her parents in honour of Alice; on the day after the morrow, in the gilded splendour of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, she was to become the Princess Berloff. The prince, in his dress uniform of a colonel of the Czar’s guards, with his breast a-glitter with jewelled orders, looked a bridegroom worth any millionaire’s money; and Alice, flushed with excitement, given a new dignity by the nearness of her ennoblement, looked a bride well worth the payment of any princely name.
Berloff knew what was due to happen, while they sat at table, in the house over in Three Saints’ Court. But the expectation that, even while he ate and chatted, he was being put in direct command of the Howard fortune by Drexel’s death, did not make a ripple upon the surface of his composure. He asked Mr. Howard if any further word hadbeen received from Drexel, and affected satisfaction when told of a second letter giving reassurance that Drexel would be back in time for the marriage.
Beneath that calm front blazed a desire to know if all had gone as planned, but midnight had long passed before he could with propriety quit the company and hurry to his apartment. He found Captain Nadson waiting in his study. The captain told of the arrest of the famed White One, and of the evening’s other successes.
“Yes—very good,” said the prince. “But the foreigner?”
The captain hesitated. “He escaped.”
“Escaped!” The prince stood up, his face suddenly dark. “How?”
As Nadson told him, his thin lips drew back from his white teeth. “Fool—blockhead!” he cried.
“But, Your Excellency, I succeeded in all else—and I have got the girl that shot at you,” protested the abashed officer.
“You failed in the one thing I laid stress upon!” was the cold and fierce retort.
It might have gone hard with Nadson then and there, had not a servant knocked and entered with a card. Berloff glanced at it.
“Wait without—I’ll settle with you later!” he said ominously to the captain. He turned to the servant. “Show him in.”
The big gendarme, thoroughly cowed, went out. The next moment Freeman weakly entered.
The prince stared. And well he might, for there was not a patch of white in Freeman’s face. It was all purple and green, and so swollen that his eyes were but two narrow slits.
“What’s the matter? Who did it?”
“Drexel,” Freeman coolly returned.
“Drexel! When? How? I thought he escaped.”
Freeman calmly sat down and related what has already been told, adding that he had been taken as a political prisoner to police headquarters, where he had been recognized and released. The prince’s lips parted in wrath again. He rose and stood menacingly above the spy.
“This is twice you people have had him in one night, and twice you have let him escape! Such infernal blunderers!”
Freeman stood up and his pulpy, discoloured face looked straight into the pale, high-bred one.
“Prince,” said he slowly, and the narrow slits blazed, “do you think you can talk to me as you do to your Russian officers?”
They gazed at each other for a silent moment. “Pardon me—I lost my temper,” said the prince.
Freeman nodded and sat down.
“That Drexel must have the nerve of the devil!” Berloff continued.
“He has,” was the calm response.
“And I suppose we shall not get another chance at him.”
“Won’t we! I have twice the reason I had before—andI’ll get him, sure! So don’t worry about his escape. Besides, if I have lost you Drexel I have brought you something even more important.”
“More important? What is it?”
“We’ll talk a little business first. I believe that after his children, you are the next heir to Prince Valenko?”
“What are you driving at?”
“I’ll tell you in good time. You are, are you not?”
“You know I am.”
“And I believe you would be quite willing to have these intervening heirs disappear—permanently—provided no blame attached to you?”
The prince’s eyes narrowed, and he tried to read Freeman’s meaning in his face, but that was too blurred a page.
“Suppose I say yes.”
“Suppose, then, I can arrange to put it in your power to remove them safely—hum—how much?”
There was a stealthy silence. “How much do you want?”
“Fifty thousand.”
Again a silence. “Very well.”
“Agreed!” said Freeman, and his slits of eyes glittered. “Then I have the pleasure to tell you that the job is done.”
“Done?”
“Yes, done! Prince, I have made some great discoveries to-night! First, do you know who Borodin is?”
The prince started. “Not the young Prince Valenko?” he cried.
“Yes. And do you know who else he is? No? He is Borski.”
“Borski! The leader of the South Russian revolt?”
“The same!”
“Oh!” slowly breathed the prince, and his eyes glittered back at Freeman’s. “But you forget. There still remains his sister, the Princess Olga.”
“You have been told that a young woman was arrested to-night?”
“Yes.”
“That young woman is the sister.”
This was too much for even Berloff’s self-command. His thin lips fell apart and he stared at Freeman.
“She Princess Olga? You are mistaken. Princess Olga lies dangerously ill at home.”
“Pardon me,” Freeman calmly returned, “Princess Olga lies in a cell in Peter and Paul.”
“You are certain?”
“She told me who she was herself—and told me before Drexel.”
“Drexel knows the princess. You may be right.” He walked the floor in repressed excitement. “Yes—you are right! And her pretended illness is only a trick to hide her absence!”
He came to a pause. “But what charge can be made against her? The jail-breaking plot? Shooting gendarmes?”
“An attempt to assassinate Prince Berloff.”
“What!”
“She is that woman. She confessed it to me.”
“Captain Nadson was not mistaken then! But do many know all this?”
“Only you and I, and two or three revolutionists besides those under arrest.”
“Then between us two it must remain a secret.”
“Of course. But you must act quickly, or the revolutionists may decide to reveal it.”
The prince paced up and down the room in deep concentration, then he took up his telephone. After long waiting he got the number he desired.
“Is this one of the servants?” he asked. “Yes? Will you awaken General Valenko and tell him that Prince Berloff is coming over to see him immediately on a matter of the very gravest importance?”
He hung up the receiver. “Mr. Freeman, I want you and Captain Nadson to come with me to Prince Valenko’s. I shall want your evidence. I think you will know what to say and what not to say.”
Freeman’s slits of eyes gleamed, for he fathomed the prince’s plan. “Clever—devilishly clever!” he commented beneath his breath.
Twenty minutes later Berloff and his two subordinates were admitted to the Valenko palace by a sleepy servant. Berloff was ushered into a room richly furnished as an administrative office. The military governor raised his tall and portlybody from his chair. He wore a dressing-gown of deep crimson, and what with his gray hair, his thick gray beard, his stern dominant face, and his military carriage, he was a rarely imposing figure of a man.
He greeted Berloff with grumbling cordiality. “What fool business is this, that pulls a man out of his bed at this time of the night?”
“So important that I did not feel justified in waiting till morning to refer it to you.”
“Well, sit down, and out with it.”
Both took chairs. “But first,” said Berloff sympathetically, “how is the princess?”
The general’s face softened with concern, and he sighed. Those who said that the harsh old despot loved his daughter put the truth conservatively.
“The doctor tells me she is still in serious danger.”
“Have you seen her yet?”
“No,” returned the general. “He says she must be spared any such excitement.”
“Well, you know all St. Petersburg is praying for the best.”
“I know—I know.” He sighed again. “But what’s the business?”
“Of course you have heard about the arrests made this evening.”
“Of course. It was a tremendous coup—especially the capture of The White One.”
“Some first-rate information has come to me in connection with the arrests.” The prince watchedthe old man’s face closely and subdued his voice to a tone of mere official interest. “First, the young woman who was arrested is the woman who tried to shoot me two weeks ago.”
“The devil you say! How did you learn it?”
“She confessed to Freeman. You know he was intimate with the group. Besides, Captain Nadson recognized her. They are both here to offer their evidence in person. Of course I am merely reporting what they told me.”
“What is she like?” asked the general.
“You know when she attacked me I saw her only in the dusk. She was then dressed as a lady. But that probably was only a disguise. Freeman can tell you about her.”
“But I don’t see why her case could not have waited till morning.”
“Her case is not all. I have learned the identity of Borodin.”
“Well?”
“He is Borski.”
The general’s red figure sprang up. “What! The leader of the South Russian revolt!”
“Yes. The revolutionists confessed it to Freeman.”
The general rang sharply. “Show in the two men who are waiting,” he said to the servant.
A minute later Freeman and the captain entered. The latter, having the least to say, was first examined. He testified to the identity of the arrested girl andwas dismissed. The general then turned to Freeman, and Berloff slipped back in his chair, withdrawing as it were from the affair.
“Now, Mr. Freeman,” the general began, “you declare that this Borodin is in reality Borski?”
“So the revolutionists confided to me.”
“They trusted you?”
“They considered me as one of themselves, Your Excellency.”
“Then of course their statement is beyond question. Did they tell you anything else about him? Who he is—what he has done?”
For an instant Prince Berloff held his breath. But he had no reason, for Freeman did not falter.
“Nothing else, Your Excellency.”
“They told you enough!” the general said grimly. “And now as to the woman. She told you she tried to assassinate Prince Berloff?”
“She said she was the woman wanted for the attack,” was the adroit response.
“And she took part in the plot to free Borski?”
“She was its leader.”
“Its leader! You did not tell me that, Berloff!”
“I was only summarizing what I had been told,” was the quiet reply. “I of course know nothing at first hand and can make no charges. The evidence is all Nadson’s and Freeman’s.”
Berloff was playing his game with his utmost skill. When it came out in time who these two prisoners were, as it must, no blame could attach to him; hehad merely laid the case before the military governor, as in duty bound, and had himself given no evidence and taken no action.
“Who is this woman? What is she like?” the general continued of Freeman.
“She calls herself Sonya Varanova,” was the ready answer. “She is in the early twenties and is rather good-looking. She belongs, by her appearance, to the common classes—is, in fact, a working woman.”
“Yes, that is what all these trouble-makers are—the riff-raff of Russia!” the general wrathfully exclaimed. “Do you know anything else about her?”
“Nothing material to the case, Your Excellency.”
A moment later Freeman was dismissed.
“My business is of course only to discover political criminals,” Berloff began quickly but without the appearance of haste. “It rests wholly with you, as the possessor of absolute power in such cases, to decide what action shall be taken upon the information I lodge with you. But I did feel, when I discovered these things, that here were cases that you would consider should be immediately and rigorously dealt with. The revolutionists are getting bolder every day; this attempted jail-delivery is but a single instance. We have struck consternation into them by the way we foiled that plot. If right on top of that we could deliver them another sudden and severe blow, nothing else would do so much to frighten them into quiet.”
“You are right!” agreed the general. “It has long been my guiding principle that severe action is the only check for revolution.”
“And instant action,” subtly suggested the prince.
“And instant!” repeated the general.
There was little need, however, for the suggestion to this old Vice-Czar, long accustomed to the relentless exercise of autocratic power. He had sent scores to instant death, without giving them trial, without seeing them, upon far slighter charges than those now laid before him. While in command against the South Russian revolt it had been his standing order that any person found with a pistol upon him should be straightway stood against a wall and shot. So now he did not hesitate.
He rang. “Tell my secretary to dress and come here,” he ordered the servant. Then he sat down at his desk, drew out two awesome documents and began to fill in the first. While the general’s head was down the prince did not try to hide his excitement; his eyes glittered, and his breath came tensely between his thin lips.
The general brushed the first aside, completed, and began the second. He paused and looked up.
“What was the woman’s name? Sonya something, was it not?”
“Sonya Varanova, Freeman said,” returned the prince’s even voice.
“Sonya Varanova,” the general repeated as he wrote in the name. A minute later he affixed hissignature and his official seal and laid this warrant with the other.
“On the other cases I shall postpone action,” he said. “As for The White One, it might occasion some criticism even among our own friends to execute so old and crippled a woman.”
“What time have you set?” queried the prince.
“Twenty-six hours from now. Four o’clock Thursday morning.”
Berloff adroitly let it be seen that an idea had occurred to him.
“You have a suggestion?” asked the general.
“I was thinking this would have a more dumbfounding effect if it came without warning—if the revolutionists’ first news was the news that all was over.”
“Yes—yes. And it will show them how crushingly determined is the Government!”
“Then I suggest that you take precaution against your sentence leaking out. That you send along with the warrants an order to the governor of the Fortress that the prisoners are to be allowed to speak to no one, and no one is to speak to them—that is, without your permission.”
“An excellent precaution.” The general took up his pen. As the order was finished his secretary entered, and to him the general gave the orders and the warrants. “Take these immediately over to the governor of Peter and Paul.”
When the secretary had withdrawn, the princearose. His pale face showed none of the exultant triumph that filled his heart.
“Since all is done, I will be going,” he said.
The general’s red figure stood up. “An excellent evening’s work, prince,” he said with satisfaction.
“Excellent,” quietly acquiesced Berloff.
The general pushed the button on his desk and followed Berloff into the darkened hall. “Andrei here will show you out. Good-night.” In the darkness the sleepy servant stumbled and upset a chair. “Be careful there, you Andrei!” he called out sharply. “You’ll disturb the princess!”
And yawning, and moving very lightly, the old general went back to his bed.