THE NEW CLEW.
Frantic with anxiety and dread, Paul followed a sudden impulse and
jumped to the floor, ran to the door that opened into the hall,
unlocked and opened it and rushed out.
He had a wild idea of bursting in the door of Poubalov's room and
wrestling with him if need be to take away the revolver and prevent
suicide.
He stopped, startled, just outside his door, for Poubalov stood before
him, the light from the chandelier streaming out upon him and showing
him erect, alert, his revolver pointed directly at the watcher.
"What is the matter?" asked Poubalov, coolly.
Paul caught his breath and leaned upon the banister.
"I was going out in a hurry and stumbled against a chair," he stammered.
"Strange time of night to do things in a hurry," remarked Poubalov,
still aiming his weapon at the young man; "do you belong here?"
"Yes; I moved in yesterday."
Poubalov stood a little aside to let the light fall more fully upon
Paul's face.
"Humph!" he said, lowering the revolver; then added, in Russian, "you
are Paul Palovna, intimate friend of Ivan Strobel."
"Yes," admitted Paul, in the same language, "I am, and you are his
deadly enemy.'
"Bah!" exclaimed Poubalov in profound disgust, "you ought to know
better. Come in here--but no! you are in a hurry. Go, then; I will talk
to you another time."
"Better now, Poubalov," returned Paul, significantly, "one of us might
be missing before another opportunity occurred. I am not so much in a
hurry that I cannot listen to you."
"No!" said the spy, decidedly, "go your way, and take this comfort with
you, Palovna, that you have done your friend Strobel a service."
He shrugged his shoulders and withdrew into his room and closed the
door.
Paul went slowly down the stairs and opened the front door just as the
landlady poked her head from her room on the ground floor and inquired
in an agitated whisper, "Whatever was the trouble?"
"It is nothing," said Paul, "I stumbled, and the gentleman in the front
room mistook me for a burglar, I guess. Sorry I disturbed you."
"It's all right," whispered the landlady, "but I guess he must have
scared you some. Your face is as wet as if you'd been out in a rain."
Paul realized then to what a tense degree his nerves had been strained.
Perspiration seemed to be oozing from every pore. His knees felt weak
and his head dizzy, but he kept in mind the part he was playing and
left the house. However certain it was that Poubalov would infer that
Strobel's intimate friend lodged there for the purpose of watching him,
it would never do to openly admit the fact by returning immediately to
his room.
He went to the corner of Bowdoin Street, and back on the other side to
a point directly opposite Poubalov's windows.
As he walked, one deep-toned stroke rang out from a neighboring church
tower.
If that was the hour Poubalov had set for putting a bullet into his
heart, he had let it pass without taking action.
Paul kept his eyes upon the curtained windows behind which the
chandelier light still glowed, and longed to be back at his peephole,
watching the spy. Yet there was nothing that he could do if he were
there. He had seen the one great incident in Poubalov's career come to
its climax upon the awful verge of tragedy; and he felt that as the
spy's life trembled in the balance, the weight had been thrown into the
scale for prolonging it by his impulsive jump from the chair on which
he had been viewing the scene.
Not that Poubalov was hesitating; his was the nerve to pull the trigger
with the precision and steadiness of a marksman when the appointed time
came; but the shock of irrelevant circumstances had been just what was
needed to release the morbid pressure of gloomy contemplation from the
brain, and restore it to its normal activity.
Thus Paul reflected, with his eyes upon the lighted windows. A party of
roysterers swung into the place, singing discordantly. One of them fell
at the corner of Bowdoin Street, and his companions helped him up with
drunken jeers and laughter. Paul had turned his head to watch them,
and when he looked again at the lodging-house across the way, all the
windows were dark. Poubalov had gone to bed.
As faithful as the unfortunate Litizki to his task, Paul sat up all
that night. When drowsiness overcame him, he bathed his face and
head with water, or walked gently about the room. He smoked all the
cigarettes in his possession, for the sake of having something to do,
and when his stock was exhausted, he went to a neighboring "all-night"
restaurant and bought a handful of cigars. He listened through the
hours for any suggestive sound from the front room, but, beyond an
occasional deep breath, he heard nothing.
Poubalov slept well.
It was not until the day, reckoning by the light, was well advanced,
that the spy rose and dressed. While he was still busy with his
toilet, a messenger called and left a note for Paul with word to the
scrub-woman who was already at work, that it was to be delivered at
once. It was from Clara.
"A new clew," she wrote, "and the most promising one thus far, has been
brought to me this evening. I need help in following it to the end.
Owing to my uncle's indisposition, I do not feel like even telling him
about it, much less asking him to give me his time. Can you come? I
know you are doing much, and quite likely taking time that you ought
to devote to work, but I ask some further assistance, nevertheless,
knowing that it is not necessary for me to plead. This is so important
that I believe you can leave Poubalov for a while, no matter what he is
doing. Please come by nine o'clock if you possibly can."
Paul had great faith in Clara, although he had not known with
sufficient detail of her recent work to give her judgment all the
credit that it deserved, and so he found himself in an annoying
quandary. To him it seemed essential to follow Poubalov now that he was
well in view.
He felt, too, some disappointment at being called away without being
able to feel that his night had been spent sleeplessly to some purpose.
It could not be that Clara had discovered anything of great importance
compared to the developments that would probably follow a patient
tracking of Poubalov's footsteps during the day.
Why hadn't she mentioned what her clew was? No, she depended upon him
to obey her implicitly, as if he had no more discretion than Litizki.
If Paul was a bit unreasonable and restive, let it be charged against
his fatigue. Few men can keep an even temper when the nerves are
unstrung and the whole body cries for rest. Poubalov saved him from the
error, if so it was, of disregarding Clara's wishes. It came about in
this way:
Paul climbed to his observation perch, to see how matters stood in the
next room. Poubalov had opened the envelope containing the papers he
had been at work upon during the midnight hour, and was now destroying
them, burning them one sheet at a time over the wash-bowl that he had
set upon the center table.
He was fully dressed, even to the hat on his head, and Paul carefully
replaced the nail which protected his peephole.
He stood by the chair with Clara's letter in his hand, still undecided
what course to take, when there was a knock at his door.
He opened, and Poubalov stood there.
"You can spare the time now, I suppose?" he said inquiringly with a
grim glance at the valentine hanging from the improvised hook.
Paul saw that his ruse was discovered, but he followed the spy into the
front room, his heart beating high with expectation.
"There is never an effect without a cause, young man," remarked
Poubalov, motioning Paul to a chair; "the effect was sufficient for me
last night, and so far as your act deserves it, you have my thanks.
This morning I sought the cause, and of course, I found it. Do not
be disturbed. I have no reproaches to make. You imagined yourself at
war with me, and you took your own methods to win. There is nothing
to complain of in that; but you, as a Russian of intelligence, should
have known that I could not be as hostile as you think to an American
citizen. Bah! it's not worth discussing! You've all lost your heads.
"What I have to say is this: I am on duty for the czar, and having
recovered from my dangerous temptation to be derelict, I shall do what
duty demands, without let or hindrance from anybody. I will tolerate
no interference, no matter whose fair lips give the command. When that
little wretch, Litizki, was in that chair where you are now sitting, I
sought to influence him by threats against himself. I don't take that
method with you, Paul Palovna. If you choose to do so, you can dog
my footsteps from now on, for I presume your American laws will not
protect me in my desire to work undisturbed; but bear in mind that I
have no more love for Ivan Strobel now than I ever had, and if I see
fit to release him, it must be I, Alexander Poubalov, who chooses to do
so of his own free will. Do you understand me?"
"Sufficiently to see that you would frighten me from my course by
threats against the man whom you have in your power, and whom I am
trying to rescue."
"You do well," continued Poubalov; "and if you are in any doubt as
to whether I am in earnest, I advise you to report what I have said,
and what you saw in this room last night, to Miss Hilman. She will
tell you whether I am likely to be gratuitously merciful. Spy upon
me, therefore, if you like. I shall know that you defy me, and you
will have to bear the consequences. Shall we breakfast together, Paul
Palovna?"
Paul ignored the ironical invitation, which was Poubalov's way of
saying that he has said his say, and remarked:
"I also have a suggestion to make."
Poubalov raised his brows in contemptuous surprise that anything could
be added to his statement of the situation.
"You have spoken of American law," said Paul, "and I simply suggest
that the friends of Strobel may to-day resort to law to obtain his
freedom. I don't know how much you may have said to Litizki and Miss
Hilman, but you have made some damaging admissions to me."
"Really! is that all you can think of? It's hardly worth a reply, but
I will suggest in return that what you call my admissions are your own
inferences, nothing more. Ask the nearest police captain, or, better,
go to the public prosecutor with your imaginings. I will tell you that
there isn't a scrap of evidence on which to base my arrest, for that,
of course, is what you aim at. You are more of a child than I thought
you were, with all your petty contrivances for peeping upon a Russian
official. Au revoir, Palovna."
Paul went downstairs in a rage, impressed, as all were whoever came in
contact with this remarkable man, with Poubalov's faculty for gaining
and keeping a masterful control over the situation. The worst of it
was, the spy was probably entirely in the right so far as law was
concerned.
As well arrest himself, Palovna, as this foreigner who had shown his
interest in the Strobel case in eccentric ways, perhaps, but who could
not be charged with criminality, unless possibly by Litizki, and the
tailor had himself made it impossible that he should be of any further
service.
There seemed to be no course open to him but to respect Clara's wishes,
and, accordingly, out to Roxbury he went.
He arrived at Mr. Pembroke's house just before nine o'clock, and found
Clara waiting for him, dressed to go out.
They exchanged information while waiting for Mike to come, Clara
telling about the discovery of Patterson, and Paul giving a guarded
account of Poubalov's contemplated suicide.
He tried to spare Clara the horrors of the scene, but he felt that she
ought to know how deeply in earnest Poubalov was, that she might the
more correctly judge him and estimate the value of his threats.
"It must have been a dreadful moment," she said when he had finished,
"and I am glad that another tragedy has been averted. It is hard to
believe that he will go to extreme measures--but what am I saying? What
has he not done that is cruel, barbarous and wicked? How can I expect
anything but unmixed evil from such a man? I believe it is well that
for a time we can appear to withdraw our observations of him."
Mike was late, but when he did come he came with a coupé.
"Me boss said, miss," he explained, "that if there was to be any
travelin', you was to ride as far an' as long as you liked, with his
compliments."
"Your employer is very kind," said Clara. "This gentleman, Mr. Palovna,
will go with me, and if he asks you to do anything, you needn't
wait for my consent. We will go straight to the place where you left
Patterson. Stop there, and point out the house you think he went into,
but don't drive up to it."
When they were in the coupé, Clara continued to Paul:
"I have no definite plan as to Patterson. That must develop when we
find him. If he can be cajoled, bribed or frightened into telling us
the truth, it must be done. I don't see that we are called upon to make
nice discriminations in our methods."
"Any way is fair in dealing with a criminal," returned Paul. "Humph!"
"What is it?" asked Clara, observing that he began to take a lively
interest in the street through which they were passing.
"It may be only a coincidence," said Paul, "but it just occurred to
me that thus far Mike has taken us over exactly the same course that
Poubalov pursued when I followed him last evening."
"I presume it's not a coincidence," responded Clara, and she thought
of Litizki's passionate words: "If ever anything is discovered, you
discover Poubalov's hand in it."
Step by step the coupé followed Poubalov's line of march, and when it
drew up at last, it was at the very corner where Paul had seen the spy
talking with the stranger.
Mike got down and opened the door, and as he spoke, Clara looked out in
the direction in which he pointed.
"This was where Patterson shook me, miss," he said, "an' I seen him go
along down the street an' cross over just below there an' go into a
house--that one, I think, with the balcony along the front, the one a
gentleman is just comin' out of."
Clara drew back into the coupé hastily. The gentleman coming from the
house in question was Poubalov, and he was walking toward them.