But Golitzine was not at his house. Corsini exchanged a few words with
the Countess, who informed him that her husband was at the Winter
Palace, closeted with the Emperor on important matters. She did not
expect him to return till very late.
Under ordinary circumstances, Nello would have refrained from
intruding himself on the Secretary when engaged with his Imperial
Master, but the information which Ivan had given him was genuine: of
that he felt assured.
Delay might be dangerous. The failure of Zouroff's scheme to entrap
the young director, the knowledge that there must have been treachery
amongst his associates, would render the Prince a very desperate man.
Whatever _coup_ he meditated would be brought off swiftly, before the
other side had time to strike.
He sent up a short note to Golitzine, stating that he had come into
the receipt of most important information, obtained from a most
unexpected quarter.
The Count showed the note to the Emperor, who read it, and said
immediately:
"Have him up at once and let us know what it is. I have always had a
notion that this young fellow would be useful to us. I believe he is
born to be lucky himself and to bring luck to those with whom he is
associated."
So Corsini was shown at once into the august presence.
The autocrat welcomed him most graciously. Any protege of his staunch
old friend and supporter, Salmoros, would have been sure of his good
graces in any case; but he liked the young man personally, for his
modest, but assured bearing. And, moreover, Corsini was free from the
cringing arts of the professional courtier. In his demeanour there was
proper respect, but no servility.
"Welcome back to St. Petersburg, Signor. I hear you have had a trying
time. I have had a full report of the occurrence from the Count and
General Beilski. I hope it will not be long before we give you your
revenge."
"I am in hopes that very shortly I may take a hand in that revenge
myself, your Majesty," answered the young Italian with a low bow.
"Something very extraordinary has happened to-night. I was taking one
of my evening strolls, shadowed by men whom the General has kindly
instructed to look after my safety, when I was accosted by a man whom
I met under strange circumstances, on my first entrance into this
country."
"His name? but perhaps we don't know him," interrupted the Count.
Corsini looked a little troubled. He remembered his promise to the
outlaw. He must secure that free pardon in advance.
"May I first be permitted to retail to your Majesty and your
Excellency the information he gave me?"
"We are in your hands, Signor Corsini," answered the Emperor
graciously, and the Count nodded his head in assent.
Briefly the young man told them what Ivan had communicated to him--the
secret meetings of certain well-known nobles, whose names he imparted,
at the villa of Madame Quero; the attendance in the vestibule of the
deaf servant, Stepan, whom he almost exactly resembled; the suggestion
that he should take Stepan's place and listen to the conversation of
the conspirators, whose chief was Prince Zouroff. He added that the
next meeting would be to-morrow night, or, at latest, the night after.
"It will be to-morrow night, of that we may be certain," said the
Emperor in a decided tone, when the young man had finished. "Zouroff
cannot be very happy at the present moment, after the failure of his
attempt to put the Signor out of the way. He is also pretty certain to
know that General Beilski has visited his sister; that fact will give
him some food for thought. Besides, although these two scoundrels,
whom we have secured, have not confessed yet, at any moment they may
open their mouths to denounce him. If Zouroff has got his plans pretty
well matured, he will strike with as little delay as possible. Do you
agree, Count?"
The Count agreed, and then addressed Corsini.
"And now, Signor, I think it is time you gave us the name of this
mysterious informant. I do not know whether his action is dictated by
loyalty, or the hope of reward. But anyway, he must be rewarded, and
handsomely too."
The Emperor concurred warmly. "Whoever serves us will not find us
niggardly or ungrateful," he said.
"Alas! I have great hesitation in mentioning it to your Excellency,
for my strange friend is by no means an estimable person. Speaking
plainly, he is a malefactor, and has escaped from the mines of
Siberia."
"In other words, the price of this very important information is a
handsome reward and a free pardon. Well," the Count looked towards the
Emperor, "I suppose I have your Majesty's permission to promise both."
"We do not go back on our word," was the autocrat's grave answer. "A
deed like this, performed from whatever motive, purges his offences,
whatever they may be."
And then, reassured, Corsini gave the name. "A big, bearded man, born
on the Prince's estates, known as Ivan the outlaw, nicknamed Ivan the
Cuckoo."
"I know of him by reputation--a desperate fellow, according to his
record," remarked the Count. "And how did you first become acquainted
with him, Signor Corsini? But if you prefer to keep it a secret, I
will not press the question."
Corsini took advantage of Golitzine's generosity. He did not want to
confess that he had helped a notorious criminal to escape from
justice. "I think I would prefer to guard it as a secret, your
Excellency, since you give me permission to do so."
"Yet, if I may venture to relate a little history to you," he added a
moment later, "I think I might be able to convince you that this
wretched man, brutal and degraded as he became, was more sinned
against than sinning." In a few words he told him of the offences of
the Zouroffs, father and son, against the outlaw's family.
The Count made no comment. After a few moments he rose, to intimate
that the interview was at an end.
"With your assistance, Signor--I am, of course, assuming that the
scheme will go through as this unfortunate man has planned--I think
and hope we shall soon get the evidence we want. I fear I cannot give
you any more time now, as his Majesty has still some very important
matters to discuss with me. By the way, I know that General Beilski is
sending for you early to-morrow morning, as he has something of
importance to communicate to you. I shall have an interview with him
also, but in case you see him first, tell him everything you have told
us. He may be able to assist your plans. You will, of course, report
to us as soon as you have discovered anything."
Corsini promised that he would. He had a strong presentiment that his
changing places with the deaf Stepan would be productive of stupendous
events.
On arriving back at his hotel, he found a sealed note from the
General, summoning him to his office at an early hour the following
morning.
"I have not been idle since we last met, Signor," was Beilski's
greeting. "I have no doubt I have got to the bottom of your affair. I
will give you just an outline of how I propose to act."
But here Nello broke in. "Excuse me a moment, your Excellency, but
before you enter into this matter, may I put a question to you? Have
you seen or heard from Count Golitzine between now and last night?"
The General answered in the negative. "It is now only nine o'clock;
there has not been much time. Why do you ask?"
The young man explained. "Late last night I went to see the Count,
whom I found closeted with his Majesty. My reasons for disturbing him
at such a moment were of the greatest urgency. As I left he told me
you would be sending for me, and that if I saw you first I was to tell
you everything that I had told to him and the Emperor."
For the second time he related in full the details of that momentous
interview with Ivan the outlaw.
The General smiled triumphantly when the narrative was concluded. "So
this fellow has been lying hid in St. Petersburg all this time, has
he? Well, I think my spies ought to have hunted him out. Still, as it
turns out, it is better they didn't. Desperado and robber as he has
been, I frankly admit he has fully earned the free pardon which you
were shrewd enough to get for him."
He mused a few moments before he proceeded. "The information you have
given me may materially alter our plans. I cannot decide positively
till I have talked with his Excellency. But I doubt if we shall move
till we get some positive information from you. In the meantime, I
will tell you to what extent I have unravelled the plot against
yourself."
Needless to say that Nello was all attention. He had his own
suspicions, which were very close to the truth, but Beilski was
probably on the track of the truth itself.
"On the afternoon of the day that you were kidnapped, I received a
letter couched in cautious and guarded language to the effect that a
carriage, starting from St. Petersburg somewhere about midnight or
later, would halt at Pavlovsk. There was a plot on hand to deport a
certain person well known in artistic circles. That person would be
found in the carriage when it stopped at the first stage on the road
to Moscow."
Nello shuddered. How well he recalled the incidents of that memorable
evening--the Prince's apparent cordiality, the Princess's almost
officious offer of a carriage to convey him home, the short walk
through the silent streets, the sudden appearance out of the dark of
the four sinister figures, the waking in a room of the little country
inn.
"There was a certain significance in the fact that the writer of that
anonymous letter, evidently a woman, had not told us where the
carriage was to start from. It was evident that while she wished to
protect the victim, she also wanted to shield, so far as she could,
the perpetrators of the outrage."
"It was Madame Quero who wrote that letter?" suggested Nello quickly.
"No, my friend, it was not, although it would be quite correct to say
that she was the cause of that letter being written. Of course, I had
no clue; the note was left by a young woman whom the porter took very
little notice of: he was not at all sure that he would remember her.
That night I was dining with the Count--of course, treating the note
as a genuine one, I had already acted upon it and despatched the
police to Pavlovsk. Just as I was about to leave, a sudden idea
occurred to me to show it to Golitzine and ask him if he could help
me. His Excellency is a very wonderful man. Above all men that I have
met, he possesses, in the highest degree, the qualities of genius and
intuition."
Beilski was not a man who underrated himself, but he was not mean or
petty. In this particular matter he was disposed to give to the Count
all the credit that was his due, even although it compelled him to
play second fiddle.
"With the rapidity of lightning, he jumped at the conclusion that you
were the person threatened. We made sure that you were neither at the
Zouroff Palace, where you had told him you were going to play, nor at
your hotel. Surmise, under such circumstances, became certainty. The
rest you can guess almost yourself."
"All the same, I would like you to tell me, General," said Corsini.
"The letter served its purpose admirably," pursued General Beilski.
"You were rescued and brought back to St. Petersburg. One significant
fact you revealed to us was that La Belle Quero had strongly dissuaded
you from playing at the Palace. Another one, equally significant in
our eyes, was that the Princess Nada had urged you not to walk home
that night. We put two and two together."
"The letter, then, might have been sent by either of the two women?
That, I take it, is your Excellency's meaning?" commented Nello.
"Precisely. I had the two maids brought before me. The singer's I soon
dismissed. She did not correspond in the slightest degree to my
porter's rather hazy recollections of the young woman who had brought
the note. The second shot was more successful."
"The maid of the Princess Nada, of course?"
"Yes, a slim young thing--I forgot to say the other was short and
plump--frightened out of her wits by the sudden turn of events.
Terrified by myself, the forbidding aspect of her surroundings, the
unknown terrors of the law, she made no pretence of a fight. She fell
upon her knees, imploring my clemency."
"So it was the Princess Nada who sent that note with the object of
saving me?" asked Nello. There was a very tender look in his eyes as
he spoke her name.
"I have known the Princess Nada from her childhood," said Beilski,
speaking with some emotion. "Her mother, father, and I were of the
same generation. The Princess Zouroff is a sweet woman--generous,
kind-hearted, charitable; the daughter is the same. The old Prince was
a ruffian in every sense of the word--drunken, dissolute, vicious. The
son is a ruffian also, but he has missed a few of the paternal vices.
He is not a confirmed drunkard, although he takes more than is good
for him, as is well known to his family and his intimates. And he is
only moderately dissolute. He has one superiority over his father: he
has got brains and ambition."
"How did such a fair flower spring from such a contaminated soil?"
asked Corsini wonderingly.
Beilski shrugged his shoulders. "Who can tell? A freak of nature, I
suppose. But remember the mother is pure, and comes from a family
without a taint. Well, to resume. When the maid had stammered forth
her confession, for an instant a horrible suspicion assailed my mind.
We know Zouroff to be a traitor whom we have not yet succeeded in
unmasking. Was his innocent-looking sister involved in his schemes?"
Nello leaned forward in a state of agitation. For an instant, on
hearing that it was the Princess and not La Belle Quero who had sent
that letter, a similar doubt had occurred to him.
"I took the bull by the horns. I sent a message by the maid that I
would call upon her mistress that same day, that she was to inform her
of what she had confessed."
"And you went and interviewed the Princess?" asked Corsini.
"Yes; fortunately I found her alone; her mother was in bed with a
feverish cold. She was nervous and agitated, as was to be expected,
but one moment's glance at her face convinced me that she was no
guilty woman, enmeshed with her own consent in her brother's vile
schemes."
The young man drew a deep breath of relief. He had always held the
highest opinion of her character. There would be some satisfactory
explanation forthcoming of her actions.
A little note of pomposity and self-congratulation crept into
Beilski's voice. "I need hardly tell you that an innocent and
inexperienced girl like this was as wax in my hands. With a woman of
Madame Quero's experience, my task might have been more difficult."
"I can quite believe it," murmured Corsini.
"In five minutes I had the whole truth out of her. Well, perhaps, not
quite the whole truth," admitted the General reluctantly, "for,
woman-like, although she has no love for her brother, she did not want
to give him away, to render certain the punishment which he richly
deserves."
"And her story, your Excellency?" asked the young man eagerly.
"Briefly it was this. Madame Quero called upon her to report
that there was a plot to decoy you and convey you to an unknown
destination--she did not know, or pretended she did not know, your
ultimate fate, neither did she know where the carriage was to start
from; she was only sure that the first stoppage was to be at Pavlovsk.
This of course was Nada's version. It at once occurred to me that
these ladies, if they knew so much, would know a little more. They
were not both of them ignorant, but, of course, one might be. Which
was the ignorant one?"
"The Princess, of course," said Corsini at once. "La Belle Quero knew
where the carriage started from, but did not want to implicate
Zouroff, as it was drawn up so close to his residence. She pretended
ignorance."
The General leaned back in his chair and laughed genially. He was very
pleased with himself, for what he was about to relate was really his
own master-stroke. It owed nothing to the more inventive genius of
Golitzine.
"That is, of course, what would occur to you, what would occur to, I
dare say, ninety-nine persons out of a hundred. I am the hundredth,
and I have had great experience." The General spoke with an air of
profound wisdom. "La Belle Quero had only certain suspicions, fostered
by some random remark dropped by Zouroff in a moment of intense rage
and irritation. As a matter of fact, she knew no details. She did not
know of a carriage at all, and consequently she was ignorant of where
it started from or where it was going to."
"The Princess, then----!" interrupted Nello, in a voice of the most
intense surprise.
"The Princess, then----!" repeated Beilski. "I saw that poor little
Nada's story was lame and halting; of course I guessed the reason why.
I pressed her with the question why, if La Belle Quero, from whom she
got her information, knew where the carriage was going to, she did not
know where it started from. Both her answer and demeanour were too
evasive to deceive me. I could not break her any more on the wheel; I
saw she had had about as much as she could stand. I selected another
victim."
"Madame Quero, of course," cried Corsini.
"Wrong again, my friend; you have not yet quite got the analytical
faculty that makes a great detective. I had the maid before me again,
this time more terrified than before. If I had stretched her on the
rack, she could not have poured it forth more fully."
"And the outcome?" was Corsini's eager question.
"What I had made up my mind was the fact. Zouroff is not the man to
impart the details of his plans to any but his immediate instruments.
He imparted them neither to Quero nor his sister."
He related to Corsini what the reader already knows. The visit of the
singer to the Princess, of her suspicion that a plot was on foot
against the Italian, of her suggestion that Nada should institute some
inquiries in the Zouroff household, of the valet, Peter's, confidence
to Katerina, the Princess's swift deductions from these revelations.
"I have gone farther," concluded the General. "I have interrogated
that scoundrel, Peter, as to what he knows about his master's general
projects, and more especially your abduction. But I have not given
poor little Katerina away, or the young Princess. I have led him to
infer that I was acting on the confession of the two scoundrels we
have got in custody."
"And what attitude did he take?"
"At first, one of stupidity, complicated with sullen defiance. But
towards the end of the interview, I could see that his heart was being
softened. I told him to consider it carefully; full confession and a
full pardon, or--the utmost rigour of the law."
"And he will at once tell Zouroff," suggested Corsini. "That is, if
he is really loyal to the Prince."
Beilski shrugged his shoulders. "He may and he may not. I expect he
will be thinking chiefly of his own skin. On the other hand, ruffians
like the Prince have a remarkable knack of attracting loyalty. At any
rate, it does not matter. In a couple of days I should have laid my
hands on him for this matter alone--I have no doubt they would have
taken you to some lonely place and finished you off--but I shall wait,
if necessary, a little longer for the report of your visit to the
villa. If that is what we expect it to be, we will have done with this
gentleman, once and for all."
"Amen!" cried Corsini, fervently. In spite of his English upbringing,
he had in him the true spirit of Italian revenge. He loved the
Princess Nada, but for her brother, who would have taken his life, he
had no mercy.
He walked home to his hotel, followed at an unobtrusive distance by
his guards. His heart was singing happily within him, as a result of
his interview with the bluff, but genial General.
He was grateful to La Belle Quero for her unselfish interference on
his behalf: she had braved detection, Zouroff's vengeance, on his
account. When his lips were unsealed he would express to the singer
his thanks.
But it was the Princess who had more fully schemed and plotted, set to
work her woman's wit, and ultimately triumphed on his behalf. Was it
due to a kind pure woman's compassion only, or--delicious thought--was
she attracted to him as he was to her? Was it love that had
stimulated her brain, urged her to that desperate measure of the
anonymous note to the Chief of Police?
A letter was handed to him by the hall-porter as he entered the hotel.
He was told that it had been delivered by a shabbily-dressed man, who
would not wait for his return.
It was from Ivan, no longer an outlaw, and ran as follows:
"Come to my lodging with your guards at twelve-thirty
to-night. The meeting is an hour later. I will give you full
instructions. Your Friend."