STRANGE EXIT OF POUBALOV.
"I had already shown it to Mr. Bowker," replied Mrs. White, anxiously;
"I thought it might convince him that Lizzie had nothing to do with the
disappearance of Mr. Strobel."
"It didn't convince him," said Clara, bitterly; "but no matter. May I
copy Miss Lizzie's address?"
"Of course. Are you going to write to her?"
"Perhaps so. Have you written yet?"
"I haven't had time, but I shall do so this afternoon. Is there
something you would like to have me say?"
Clara was intent with her thoughts.
"Mrs. White," she said presently, "if you write to-night, could you
omit any reference to Mr. Strobel?"
"Land sakes!" exclaimed the good lady; "whatever should I write about
then? With Lizzie's name in the papers, and everybody believing that
she ran away with Mr. Strobel, what should I say?"
"I suppose it would be hard to ignore it altogether, but couldn't you
omit saying anything of the rumors that have connected their names?"
"Why, I'll try to, Miss Hilman, but Lizzie will have to know about it
some time."
"Certainly, when you write to-morrow you can say what you please about
it. Just for to-day I wish you wouldn't. I'll come down early to-morrow
morning, and perhaps I will be able to tell you a great deal more than
you know now, more than any of us know."
"I do hope you will hear something definite," said Mrs. White, "for
you can't tell how much easier I am to know that Lizzie's settled
somewhere, that she's alive and in a home. If you only knew that Mr.
Strobel was sick in a hospital, now, it would be better, wouldn't it?"
"Nothing is so dreadful as uncertainty," replied Clara; "you'll be very
careful what you write then?"
"As for that, Miss Hilman, I don't see that I need to write at all
to-day. It's only a day more, and if you say it won't make any
difference to you what I say to-morrow, I'll put it off till then if
you like."
"I should be so much obliged! Have you seen Mr. Litizki to-day?"
"No, nor the dark gentleman, either. Mr. Litizki's shop is not far from
here, if you'd like to see him."
Clara inquired the way, and soon after the young ladies set out for the
little tailor's place of business.
Litizki was his own master in business, and he employed two or more
fellow-countrymen as assistants, the number varying with the demands
of his enterprise. On this day there were several men in the shop, but
they were not there as workmen. Most of them had come to talk with
Litizki about the Strobel case. He was not very communicative, but
that was his way. Nevertheless he had some things to say, and for this
reason his acquaintances found that he talked much more freely than
usual.
"I tell you," he insisted, his dull eyes glowing with hate, "Alexander
Poubalov is in Boston. I am not one to be mistaken in that man, and his
presence here means trouble for any, perhaps all of us."
"What could he wish to do against poor Russians, Nicholas Litizki, who
have no intention of revisiting their native country?" asked one of the
group.
"Better ask what has he done?" retorted the tailor. "Here is Ivan
Strobel, more prosperous than we, with more powerful friends, and what
has Poubalov done to him? Would that I knew!"
"As soon as Poubalov appears," remarked another, "Litizki will lay the
very next crime that occurs to his hands."
"Where Poubalov goes," said Litizki, "you will ever find treachery and
oppression. It is not for you, Peter, to make light of Poubalov. You
have felt his hand as well as I."
"Yes," admitted Peter, "but in the Strobel matter you do not forget
what the police have discovered, do you? Well might you suspect the
dirty spy, were it not that one does not go far, it seems, to find the
woman in the case."
"Bah!" sneered Litizki; "do you forget that there are two women in the
case? And have you seen either of them? No. Well, I have seen both. I
have no unkind word for Lizzie White, with whom they say he went away;
but I tell you, friends, Ivan Strobel could not have preferred her to
Miss Hilman." He pronounced the name softly as if it aroused a feeling
akin to reverence. "You should see her," he continued; "she is a very
angel of beauty and goodness. Happy would be the man whose privilege it
was simply to worship her; and as for him whom she would permit to love
her--Bah! talk to me not about the woman in the case until you have
seen Miss Hilman."
His friends listened gravely. They found nothing ludicrous in Litizki's
occasionally extravagant language. When he was stirred to something
like eloquence, it was almost always by a memory of the wrongs he had
suffered, and then no language could have been too imaginative to
express the bitterness with which his sympathetic hearers listened.
"Where did you see her, Litizki?" asked one of them.
"Never mind now," he replied; "I have seen her since Strobel
disappeared. She is bearing up bravely, and scorns the suggestion that
he eloped with Miss White. She is devoting her life to finding him,
and it is my opinion that every poor Russian in Boston ought to do the
same."
He looked furtively from face to face in the group, to observe the
effect of his words. Most of them stared at the floor.
"Strobel was a good man," said one, after a long pause; "but what could
any of us do?"
"Do?" repeated the tailor, and his indignant reply died on his lips
as he remembered with sudden distinctness the fiasco of the previous
night. "We could at least watch Poubalov, and I, for one, intend to
do so. I cannot sit, and cut, and sew, and think, while he is in this
country and my friend is in his power."
"Nicholas Litizki," said one who had not spoken previously, "if I were
in your place, I would let the Strobel case take care of itself."
The tailor glanced at the speaker.
"You speak as if we were still in Russia," he said, "and you had
authority to command me."
"You will do as you please," returned the other; "but if I were in your
place, I should keep quiet."
"Listen then, all of you," exclaimed Litizki, with energy; "I shall not
keep quiet. I shall pursue Poubalov, I shall do everything possible
to effect the rescue of Ivan Strobel, and if I have to sacrifice my
business and everything, and every chance I have in the world, I shall
do it."
The door of the little workshop opened, and Alexander Poubalov stepped
in.
"Good-day, to you, Nicholas Litizki, and friends," he said with easy
familiarity. "When one is in a foreign land, and has need of something,
he will naturally apply to a fellow-countryman, will he not?"
He looked around at the group, as if expecting a general assent. The
men looked darkly at him and were silent. If all had not seen him in
Russia, they knew who he was; and if there had been any doubt, they
would have but needed to glance at Litizki to see that he was facing
his arch-enemy.
The tailor rose from his bench, and his sallow face was deathly pale.
"Alexander Poubalov," he said determinedly, "this is no place for you.
You hear no words of welcome----"
"Gently, Litizki, my friend, gently," interposed the spy; "I call
simply on business. I want clothes. Will you make them for me?"
"Not for all the wealth of the czar!" returned the tailor, fiercely.
"Then we will waste no time discussing material and prices. Good-day
again," and Poubalov walked grandly out.
The group exchanged inquiring glances in silence for a moment, and then
Litizki exclaimed:
"You see, friends! you see! I was not mistaken in the man, and he
is the same here as in Russia--the spy who goes everywhere and does
nothing. I don't need to tell you that he wanted no garments. He
came here for a purpose, and he accomplished it. It is now my turn,
Vargovitch, to utter a warning. Poubalov's eyes are upon you, and if I
were you--Bah!"
Litizki had begun to imitate the serious tone in which his friend had
warned him to let the Strobel case alone, but it seemed superfluous to
suggest a warning to Vargovitch after he had himself seen the spy.
"Yes, I understand," said Vargovitch, "and I simply repeat that you'd
better keep out of the Strobel case."
"Vargovitch," cried Litizki, "you do not talk like a loyal Russian. Is
it you who would stand by and let this spy work his will among us?"
"I have no more love for Poubalov and his work than you have, Litizki,"
replied Vargovitch. "May there not be reasons for my counsel--reasons
that you do not understand?"
Litizki peered at the speaker silently and resumed his work. Vargovitch
left the room and shortly afterward the other visitors dispersed.
"I would do what Vargovitch says, Nicholas Litizki," remarked one of
the tailor's assistants.
Litizki worked away as if he had not heard, and his thoughts were not
pleasant or hopeful. It had seemed to him as if every compatriot of
his in the city would need but the suggestion to unite in an effort to
outwit Poubalov and rescue Strobel. Litizki could not understand it,
and he was disappointed. It was while he was meditating thus that Clara
and Louise called.
The little tailor almost blushed as he left his bench and went to meet
them.
"I should almost say," he began hurriedly, after he had awkwardly
acknowledged their greetings, "that you ought not to come here. Are
you aware that Poubalov may be, probably is, watching your every step?
That man has the eyes of a thousand, and if it were possible to throw
him off the track it would be best to do so. But it is impossible. If
you did not come here, he would find out that you know me, and he would
infer the rest."
"You seem troubled, Mr. Litizki," said Clara, kindly; "have you, too,
given up Mr. Strobel?"
"I? Never! It is because I do not give him up that--well, yes, I am
troubled. Why disguise the fact that Poubalov is a powerful enemy? I am
not a coward, Miss Hilman; my life is not worth enough to me to make
me care for it, but I fear that man's power will be too great for the
friends of Ivan Strobel."
"You have seen him, then?"
"Yes, I--" Litizki averted his eyes and continued: "He has been here,
to-day, not more than half an hour ago."
"I hope, Mr. Litizki," said Clara, "that you will not put yourself in
his power. If you feel that it is dangerous to help in the search for
Mr. Strobel, you must not do it."
"Dangerous? It is too late to think of that, if I cared about it. That
man has possession of Mr. Strobel, and will keep him until he has
accomplished some purpose. Strobel will not yield." Litizki paused and
looked gloomily away. "You see, it is a question of how to circumvent
Poubalov," he added.
"I am afraid, Mr. Litizki, that your loyalty to your friend will bring
misfortune upon you. I should be very sorry for that."
"Ah, Miss Hilman," muttered the tailor, and a sad wistfulness lingered
briefly in his eyes, "you are worthy of my benefactor. I could not say
more."
Clara was deeply touched, and her voice trembled as she said:
"Thank you, Mr. Litizki. I hope to be worthy of your kind thoughts. I
may learn something to-night that will put another light on the case.
Is it too much to ask you to call at my uncle's house some time during
the evening?"
"Not if you lived in Siberia, Miss Hilman. Where is it, and when shall
I come?"
Clara gave him the address and left him, begging him to come early.
When they were on the way home, Louise said:
"I am more and more amazed at your method every day, dear. Have I not
been good to listen, and ask no questions and volunteer no advice?"
"Too good, dear. I should often want advice, and ask it, but that I
fear hurting you by not following it. I must go my own way."
"Of course you must, but I was just leading up to this question: What
in the world do you want of Mr. Litizki this evening?"
"I hardly know myself, dear; but if that 'second driver' calls, I hope
to make Mr. Litizki useful. Will that do?"
It had to, for Clara fell to thinking, and her cousin saw that
questions would be irritating.
Mr. Pembroke sent word from his office that he should not come to
dinner, and he had not arrived when the servant announced a caller, and
handed a card to Clara. It was Poubalov.
"I suppose," said Clara, showing not the least surprise, "that
I'd better see him alone. Will you wait here" (they were in the
dining-room), "in case I should want you?"
Poubalov smiled and his face looked almost attractive as he rose and
bowed when Clara entered the drawing-room. At that instant Clara felt
that but for his self-confessed methods of deceit, she could have
trusted him, and this in spite of the black pictures that Litizki and
Paul Palovna had drawn of him.
"I am delighted, Miss Hilman," he said, "to observe that you endure
your sorrow and your remarkable work so well."
"I am told that nothing escapes you," replied Clara, "and so I suppose
you know all about my search for the driver of Mr. Strobel's second
carriage."
"Miss Clara," said a servant at the hall door, "a man who says his name
is Billings wishes to see you."
"Show him into the library, please," answered Clara, then to
Poubalov--"Will you pardon me? This is the man of whom I was speaking,
and I must see him."
"Pray do," responded the Russian; "my message can well wait until he
has gone."
Clara at once crossed the hall into the library. The minute she was out
of the room Poubalov went to the door and cautiously opened it a little
way. He closed it quickly and reflected. Clara had left the door from
the hall to the library wide open, and the street door would be easily
in view to anybody in the library.
Poubalov went from one to another of the several windows and looked
out. From one at the side of the room he saw a few yards of turf
bounded by a low hedge, and beyond that the park-like grounds
surrounding a large dwelling. This window was partially open.
The spy looked once more toward the hall door. He had given his hat and
stick to the servant, and they had been placed somewhere in the hall.
He shrugged his shoulders, pushed the window further up and stepped out.
A moment later, Louise, who was idly gazing out of the dining-room
window, was considerably startled to see a man, whom in the gathering
dusk she could not recognize, leap over the hedge into the adjoining
grounds, and disappear behind the shrubbery.