When I entered my bedroom at the Hotel Metropole it wanted half an hour
to midnight. But scarce had I closed the door when a waiter tapped at
it and handed me a card.
"Show the gentleman up," I said in eager anticipation, and a few
minutes later there entered a tall, thin, clean-shaven, rather
aristocratic-looking man in a dark brown suit--the same person whom old
Igor had evidently recognised walking along King's Road.
"Well, Tack? So you are here with your report--eh?" I asked.
"Yes, sir," was his reply, as I seated myself on the edge of the bed,
and he took a chair near the dressing-table and settled himself to talk.
Edward Tack was a man of many adventures. After a good many years at
Scotland Yard, where he rose to be the chief of the Extradition
Department on account of his knowledge of languages, he had been engaged
by the Foreign Office as a member of our Secret Service abroad, mostly
in Germany and Russia. During the past two years he had, as a blind to
the police, carried on a small insurance agency business in Petersburg;
but the information he gathered from time to time and sent to the
Embassy was of the greatest assistance to us in our diplomatic dealings
with Russia and the Powers.
He never came to the Embassy himself, nor did he ever hold any direct
communication with any of the staff. He acted as our eyes and ears,
exercising the utmost caution in transmitting to us the knowledge of men
and matters which he so cleverly gained. He worked with the greatest
secrecy, for though he had lived in Petersburg two whole years, he had
never once been suspected by that unscrupulous spy-department controlled
by General Markoff.
"I've been in Brighton several days," my visitor said. "The hotel
porter told me here that you were away, so I went to the `Old Ship!' and
waited for you."
"Well--what have you discovered?" I inquired, handing him my
cigarette-case. "Anything of interest?"
"Nothing very much, I regret to say," was his reply. "I've worked for a
whole month, often night and day, but Markoff's men are wary--very wary
birds, sir, as you know."
"Have you discovered the real perpetrator of that bomb outrage?"
"I believe so. He escaped."
"No doubt he did."
"There have been in all over forty persons arrested," my visitor said.
"About two dozen have been immured in Schusselburg, in those cells under
the waters of Lake Ladoga. The rest have been sent by administrative
process to the mines."
"And all of them innocent?"
"Every one of them."
"It's outrageous!" I cried. "To think that such things can happen
every day in a country whose priests teach Christianity."
"Remove a certain dozen or so of Russia's statesmen and corrupt
officials, put a stop to the exile system, and give every criminal or
suspect a fair trial, and the country would become peaceful to-morrow,"
declared the secret agent. "I have already reported to the Embassy the
actual truth concerning the present unrest."
"I know. And we have sent it on to Downing Street, together with the
names of those who form the camarilla. The Emperor is, alas! merely
their catspaw. They are the real rulers of Russia--they rule it by a
Reign of Terror."
"Exactly, sir," replied the man Tack. "I've always contended that. In
the present case the outrage is not a mystery to the Secret Police."
"You think they know all about it--eh?" I asked quickly.
"Well, sir. I will put to you certain facts which I have discovered.
About two years ago a certain Danilo Danilovitch, an intelligent
shoemaker in Kazan, and a member of the revolutionary group in that
city, turned police-spy, and gave evidence of a _coup_ which had been
prepared to poison the Emperor at a banquet given there after the
military manoeuvres last year. As a result, there were over a hundred
arrests, and as reprisal the chief of police of Kazan was a week later
shot while riding through one of the principal streets. Next I know of
Danilovitch is that he was transferred to Petersburg, where, though in
the pay of the police, he was known to the Party of the People's Will as
an ardent and daring reformer, and foremost in his fiery condemnation of
the monarchy. He made many inflammatory speeches at the secret
revolutionary meetings in various parts of the city, and was hailed as a
strong and intrepid leader. Yet frequently the police made raids upon
these meeting-places and arrested all found there. After each attempted
outrage they seemed to be provided with lists of everyone who had had
the slightest connection with the affair, and hence they experienced no
difficulty in securing them and packing them off to Siberia. The police
were all-ubiquitous, the Emperor was greatly pleased, and General
Markoff was given the highest decorations, promotion and an appointment
with rich emoluments.
"But one day, about four months ago," Tack went on, "a remarkable but
unreported tragedy occurred. Danilovitch, whose wife had long ago been
arrested and died on her way to Siberia, fell in love with a pretty
young tailoress named Marie Garine, who was a very active member of the
revolutionary party, her father and mother having been sent to the mines
of Nerchinsk, though entirely innocent. Hence she naturally hated the
Secret Police and all their detestable works. More than once she had
remarked to her lover the extraordinary fact that the police were being
secretly forewarned of every attempt which he suggested, for Danilovitch
had by this time become one of the chief leaders of the subterranean
revolution, and instigator of all sorts of desperate plots against the
Emperor and members of the Imperial Family. One evening, however, she
went to his rooms and found him out. Some old shoes were upon a shelf
ready for mending, for he still, as a subterfuge, practised his old
trade. Among the shoes was a pair of her own. She took them down, but
she mistook another pair for hers, and from one of them there fell to
her feet a yellow card--the card of identity issued to members of the
Secret Police! She took it up. There was no mistake, for her lover's
photograph was pasted upon it. Her lover was a police-spy!"
"Well, what happened?" I asked, much interested in the facts.
"The girl, in a frenzy of madness and anger, was about to rush out to
betray the man to her fellow-conspirators, when Danilovitch suddenly
entered. She had, at that moment, his yellow card in her hand. In an
instant he knew the truth and realised his own peril. She intended to
betray him. It meant her life or his! Not a dozen words passed between
the pair, for the man, taking up his shoemaker's knife, plunged it
deliberately into the girl's heart, snatched the card from her dying
grasp, and strode out, locking the door behind him. Then he went
straight to the private bureau of General Markoff and told him what he
had done. Needless to relate, the police inquiry was a very perfunctory
one. It was a love tragedy, they said, and as Danilo Danilovitch was
missing, they soon dropped the inquiry. They did not, of course, wish
to arrest the assassin, for he was far too useful a person to them."
"Then you know the fellow?"
"I have met him often. At first I had no idea of his connection with
the revolutionists. It is only quite recently through a woman who is in
the pay of the Secret Police, and whose son has been treated badly, that
I learned the truth. And she also told me one very curious fact. She
was present in the crowd when the bomb was thrown at the Grand Duke
Nicholas's carriage, and she declares that Danilo Danilovitch--who has
not been seen in Petersburg since the tragic death of Marie Garine--was
there also."
"Then he may have thrown the bomb?" I said, amazed.
"Who knows?"
"But I saw a man with his arm uplifted," I exclaimed. "He looked
respectable, of middle-age, with a grey beard and wore dark clothes."
"That does not tally with Danilovitch's description," he replied. "But,
of course, the assassin must have been disguised if he had dared to
return to Petersburg."
"But I suppose his fellow-conspirators still entertain no suspicion that
he is a police-spy?"
"None whatever. The poor girl lost her life through her untoward
discovery. The police themselves knew the truth, but on action being
withdrawn, the fellow was perfectly free to continue his nefarious
profession of _agent-provocateur_, for the great risk of which he had
evidently been well paid."
"But does not Hartwig know all this?" I asked quickly, much surprised.
"Probably not. General Markoff keeps his own secrets well. Hartwig,
being head of the criminal police, would not be informed."
"But he might find out, just as you have found out," I suggested.
"He might. But my success, sir, was due to the merest chance,
remember," Tack said. "Hartwig's work lies in the detection of crime,
and not in the frustration of political plots. Markoff knows what an
astute official he is, and would therefore strive to keep him apart from
his catspaw Danilovitch."
"Then, in your opinion, many of these so-called plots against the
Emperor are actually the work of the Kazan shoemaker, who arranges the
plot, calls the conspirators together and directs the arrangements."
"Yes. His brother is a chemist in Moscow and it is he who manufactures
picric acid, nitro-glycerine and other explosives for the use of the
unfortunate conspirators. Between them, and advised by Markoff, they
form a plot, the more desperate the better; and a dozen or so silly
enthusiasts, ignorant of their leaders' true calling, swear solemnly to
carry it out. They are secretly provided with the means, and their
leader has in some cases actually secured facilities from the very
police themselves for the _coup_ to be made. Then, when all is quite
ready, the astute Danilovitch hands over to his employer, Markoff, a
full list of the names of those who have been cleverly enticed into the
plot. At night a sudden raid is made. All who are there, or who are
even in the vicinity are arrested, and next morning His Excellency
presents his report to the Emperor, with Danilovitch's list ready for
the Imperial signature which consigns those arrested to a living grave
on the Arctic wastes, or in the mines of Eastern Siberia."
"And so progresses holy Russia of to-day--eh, Tack?" I remarked with a
sigh.
The secret agent of British diplomacy, shrugging his shoulders and with
a grin, said:
"The scoundrels are terrorising the Emperor and the whole Imperial
family. The killing of the Grand Duke Nicholas was evidence of that,
and you, too, sir, had a very narrow escape."
"Do you suspect that, if the story of the woman who recognised
Danilovitch be true, it was actually he himself who threw the bomb?"
"At present I can offer no opinion," he answered. "The woman might, of
course, have been mistaken, and, again, I doubt whether Danilovitch
would dare to show himself so quickly in Petersburg. To do so would be
to defy the police in the eyes of his fellow-conspirators, and that
might have aroused their suspicion. But, sir," Tack added, "I feel
certain of two facts--absolutely certain."
"And what are they?" I inquired eagerly, for his information was always
reliable.
"Well, the first is that the outrage was committed with the full
connivance and knowledge of the police, and secondly, that it was not
the Grand Duke whom they sought to kill, but his daughter, the Grand
Duchess Natalia, and you yourself!"
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
"Because it was known that the young lady held letters given her by
Madame de Rosen, and intended to hand them over to the Emperor. There
was but one way to prevent her," he went on very slowly, "to kill her!
And," he added, "be very careful yourself in the near future, Mr
Trewinnard. Another attempt of an entirely different nature may be
made."
"You mean that Her Highness is still in grave danger--even here--eh?" I
exclaimed, looking straight at the clean-shaven man seated before me.
"I mean, sir, that Her Highness may be aware of the contents of these
letters handed to her by the lady who is now exiled. If so, then she is
a source of constant danger to General Markoff's interests. And you are
fully well aware of the manner in which His Excellency usually treats
his enemies. Only by a miracle was your life saved a few weeks ago.
Therefore," he added, "I beg of you, sir, to beware. There may be
pitfalls and dangers--even here, in Brighton!"
"Do you only suspect something, Tack," I demanded very seriously, "or do
you actually know?"
He paused for a few seconds, then, his deep-set eyes fixed upon mine, he
replied.
"I do not suspect, sir, I _know_."