Next day was Wednesday.
At half-past five in the afternoon I was seated in my room at the
Embassy, busy copying out the last of my despatches which were to be
sent that week by Foreign Office messenger to London.
The messenger himself, in the person of my friend Captain Hubert Taylor,
a thin, long-limbed, dark-haired cosmopolitan, was stretched lazily in
my chair smoking a cigarette, impatient for me to finish, so that the
white canvas bag could be sealed and he could get away.
The homeward Nord express to Ostend was due to leave at six o'clock;
therefore he had not much time to spare.
"Do hurry up, old man," he urged, glancing at his watch. "If it isn't
important, keep it over until Wednesday week. Despatches are like wine,
they improve with keeping."
"Shut up!" I exclaimed, for I saw I had a good deal yet to copy--the
result of an important inquiry regarding affairs south of the Caspian,
which was urgently required at Downing Street. Our Consul in Baku had
been travelling for three months in order to supply the information.
"Well, if I miss the train I really don't mind, my dear Colin. I can do
quite well with a few days' rest. I was down in Rome ten days ago; and,
besides, I only got here the night before last."
"I do wish you'd be quiet, Taylor," I cried. "I can't write while you
chatter."
So he lit a fresh cigarette and repossessed himself in patience until at
last I had finished my work, stuck down the long envelope with the
printed address, and placed it with thirty or forty other letters into
the canvas bag; this I carefully sealed with wax with the Embassy seal.
"There you are!" I exclaimed at last. "You've plenty of time for the
train--and to spare."
"I shouldn't have had if I hadn't hurried you up, my dear boy. Everyone
seems asleep here. It shows your chief's away on leave. You should put
in a day in Paris. They're active there. It would be an eye-opener for
you."
"Paris isn't Petersburg," I laughed.
"And an attache isn't a foreign service messenger," he declared.
"Government pays you fellows to look ornamental, while we messengers
have to travel in hot haste and live in those rocking sleeping-cars of
the wagon-lits."
"Horribly hard work to spend one's days travelling from capital to
capital," I said, well knowing that this remark to a foreign service
messenger is as a red rag to a bull.
"Work, my dear fellow. You try it for a month and see," Taylor snapped.
"Well," I asked with a laugh, "any particular news in London?" for the
messengers are bearers of all the diplomatic gossip from embassy to
embassy.
"Oh, well--old Petheridge, in the Treaty Department, is retiring this
month, and Jack Scrutton is going to be transferred from Rome to Lima.
Some old fool in the Commons has, I hear, got wind of that bit of
scandal in Madrid--you know the story, Councillor of Embassy and Spanish
Countess--and threatens to put down a question concerning it. I hear
there's a dickens of a row over it. The Chief is furious. Oh!--and I
saw your Chief in the St James's Club the day I left London. He'd just
come from Windsor--been kissing hands, or something. Well," he added,
"I suppose I may as well have some cigarettes before I go, even though
you don't ask me. But they are always _pro bono_, I know. The Embassy
at Petersburg is always noted for its hospitality and its cigarettes!"
And he emptied the contents of my cigarette-box into the capacious case
he took from his pocket.
"Here you are," I said, taking from my table another sealed despatch
bearing a large blue cross upon it, showing that it was a confidential
document in cipher upon affairs of State.
"Oh, hang!" he cried. "I didn't know you had one of those."
And then, unbuttoning his waistcoat, he fumbled about his waist, and at
last placed it carefully in the narrow pocket of the belt he wore
beneath his clothes, buttoning the flap over the pocket.
"Well," he said at last, putting on his overcoat, "so long, old man.
I'll just have time. I wonder what old Ivanoff, in the restaurant-car,
will have for dinner to-night? Borstch, of course, and caviare."
"You fellows have nothing else to think about but your food," I laughed.
"Food--yes, it's railway-food with a vengeance in this God-forgotten
country. Lots to drink, but nothing decent to eat."
And taking the little canvas bag he shook my hand heartily and strode
out.
I stood for some time gazing through the open window out upon the sunlit
Neva across to the grim fortress on the opposite bank--the prison of
many terrible tales.
My thoughts were running, just as they had run all day, upon that
strange suspicion which the Emperor had confided to me. It seemed too
remarkable, too strange, too amazing to be true.
And again before my vision there arose the faces of those two refined
and innocent ladies, Madame de Rosen and her daughter, who had been so
suddenly hurried away to a living tomb in that far-off Arctic region. I
remembered what the little Grand Duchess had told me, and wondered
whether her allegations were really true.
I was wondering if she would permit me to see those incriminating
letters which Madame had given to her for safe-keeping, for at all costs
I felt that, for the safety of the Emperor and the peace and prosperity
of Russia, the country should be rid of General Serge Markoff.
And yet the difficulties were, I knew, insurmountable. His Majesty,
hearing of these constant plots being discovered and ever listening to
highly-coloured stories of the desperate attempts of revolutionists,
naturally believed his personal safety to be due to this man whom he had
appointed as head of the police of the Empire. To any word said against
Serge Markoff he turned a deaf ear, and put it down to jealousy, or to
some ingenious plot to withdraw from his person the constant vigilance
which his beloved Markoff had established. More than once I had been
bold enough to venture to hint that all those plots might not be genuine
ones; but I had quickly understood that such suggestion was regarded by
the Emperor as a slur cast upon his favourite official and personal
friend.
The more I reflected, the more unwise seemed that sudden outburst of my
pretty little companion in the winter garden on the night before. If
anyone had overheard her threat, then no doubt it would reach the ears
of that man who daily swept so many innocent persons into the prisons
and _etapes_ beyond the Urals. I knew, too well, of those lists of
names which he placed before the Emperor, and to which he asked the
Imperial signature, without even giving His Majesty an opportunity to
glance at them.
Truly, those were dark days. Life in Russia at that moment was a most
uncertain existence, for anyone incurring the displeasure of General
Markoff, or any of his friends, was as quickly and effectively removed
as though death's sword had struck them.
Much perturbed, and not knowing how to act in face of what the Emperor
had revealed to me, I was turning from the window back to my
writing-table, when one of the English footmen entered with a card.
"Oh, show him up, Green. And bring some cigarettes," I said.
My visitor was Ivan Hartwig, the famous chief of the Russian Criminal
Detective Service--an entirely distinct department from the Secret
Police.
A few moments later he was ushered in by Green, and, bowing, took the
hand I offered him.
A lean, bony-faced man, of average height, alert, clean-shaven, and aged
about forty-five. His hair was slightly streaked with grey, and his
eyes, small and shrewd, beamed behind a pair of round gold-rimmed
pince-nez. I had never seen him in glasses before, but I only supposed
that he had suddenly developed myopia for some specific purpose. As he
smiled in greeting me, his narrow jaws widened, displaying an even row
of white teeth, while the English he spoke was as perfect as my own. At
that moment, in his glasses, his black morning-coat and grey trousers,
he looked more like a grave family physician than a police officer whose
career was world-famous.
And yet he was a man of striking appearance. His broad white forehead,
his deep-set eyes so full of fire and expression, his high, protruding
cheek-bones, and his narrowing chin were all characteristics of a man of
remarkable power and intelligence. His, indeed, was a face that would
arrest attention anywhere; hence the hundred and one disguises which he
so constantly adopted.
"I have had private audience of His Majesty this afternoon, Mr
Trewinnard," he said, as he took the chair I offered him. "He has sent
me to you. You wish to see me."
"Yes," I said. "I need your assistance."
"So His Majesty has told me, but he explained nothing of the affair. He
commanded me to place myself entirely at your disposal," replied the
man, who, in himself, was a man of mystery.
His nationality was obscure to most people, yet we at the Embassy knew
that he was in reality a British subject, and that Ivan Hartwig was
merely the Russian equivalent of Evan Hardwicke.
I handed him the box of cigarettes which Green had replenished, and took
one myself.
As he slowly lit his, I recollected what a strange career he had had.
Graduating from Scotland Yard, where on account of his knowledge of
German and Russian he had been mainly employed in the arrest of alien
criminals in England, he had for several years served under Monsieur
Goron, Prefet of Police of Paris, and after being attached to the Tzar
on one of his visits to the French capital, had been personally invited
by the Emperor to become head of the Criminal Investigation Department
of Russia.
He was a quiet-spoken, alert, elusive, but very conscientious man, who
had made a study of crime from a psychological standpoint, his many
successes being no doubt due to his marvellously minute examination of
motives and his methodical reasoning upon the most abstruse clues.
There was nothing of the ordinary blunt official detective about him.
He was a man of extreme refinement, an omnivorous reader and a diligent
student of men. He was a passionate collector of coins, a bachelor, and
an amateur player of the violin. I believe that he had never
experienced what fear was, and certainly within my own knowledge, he had
had a dozen narrow escapes from the vengeance of the Terrorists. Once a
bomb was purposely exploded in a room into which he and his men went to
arrest two students in Moscow, and not one present escaped death except
Hartwig himself.
And as he now sat there before me, so quiet and attentive, blinking at
me through those gold-rimmed pince-nez, none would certainly take him
for the man whose hairbreadth escapes, constant disguises, exciting
adventures and marvellous successes in the tracking of criminals all
over Europe had so often amazed the readers of newspapers the world
over.
"Well, Mr Hartwig," I said in a low voice, after I had risen and
satisfied myself that Green had closed the door, "the matter is one of
strictest confidence--a suspicion which I may at once tell you is the
Emperor's own personal affair. To myself alone he has confided it, and
I requested that you might be allowed to assist me in finding a solution
of the problem."
"I'm much gratified," he said. "As an Englishman, you know, I believe,
that I am ever ready to serve an Englishman, especially if I am serving
the Emperor at the same time."
"The inquiry will take us far afield, I expect--first to England."
"To England!" he exclaimed. "For how long do you anticipate?"
"Who knows?" I asked. "I can only say that it will be a very difficult
and perhaps a long inquiry."
"And how will the department proceed here?"
"Your next in command will be appointed in your place until your return.
The Emperor arranged for this with me yesterday. Therefore, from
to-morrow you will be free to place yourself at my service."
"I quite understand," he said. "And now, perhaps, you will in
confidence explain exactly the situation, and the problem which is
presented," and he settled himself in his chair in an attitude of
attention.
"Ah! that, I regret, is unfortunately impossible. The Emperor has
entrusted the affair to me, and to me alone. I must direct the inquiry,
and you will, I fear, remain in ignorance--at least, for the present."
"In other words, you will direct and I must act blindly--eh?" he said in
a rather dubious voice. "That's hardly satisfactory to me, Mr
Trewinnard, is it?--hardly fair, I mean."
"I openly admit that such an attitude as I am compelled to adopt is not
fair to you, Hartwig. But I feel sure you will respect the Emperor's
confidence, and view the matter in its true light. The matter is a
personal one of His Majesty's, and may not be divulged. He has asked me
to tell you this frankly and plainly, and also that he relies upon you
to assist him."
My words convinced the great detective, and he nodded at last in the
affirmative.
"The problem I alone know," I went on. "His Majesty has compelled me to
swear secrecy. Therefore I am forbidden to tell you. You understand?"
"But I am not forbidden to discover it for myself?" replied the keen,
wary official.
"If you do, I cannot help it," was my reply.
"If I do," he said, "I promise you faithfully, Mr Trewinnard, that His
Majesty's secret, whatever it is, shall never pass my lips."