_The story of the Bernin family_
The strange scene passed so rapidly, that the fact it conveyed had been
accepted by the three spectators before any of them thought of making a
move.
"Why, the blind man can see!" was Leo's first thought; and before his
still incredulous eyes, the man in the armchair proceeded to divest
himself of his venerable white beard and his poetical white locks,
revealing a face twenty years younger, in which Leo recognized with
something of a shock, the fugitive of the railway carriage and the
avenue, the melancholy young man whose lined face was worn with recent
illness. The blind Bernin was merely a fiction: under that disguise the
hunted Bernard Jenin had been hidden the whole time. The truth dawned
upon Leo as though a blind had been suddenly pulled up.
"Don't take off your wig," said Wallion, "and you had better put on the
blue spectacles again. Your disguise is perfectly wonderful: I can't
understand how you came to have it at hand yesterday evening?"
Lona Ivanovna took up the tale.
"We had better be quite open with our sharp-sighted guest, Sergius.
How long has it taken you to see through our poor little stratagem, Mr.
Wallion?"
"I suspected something of the kind before I got here," explained
Wallion, "otherwise the disappearance of the fugitive would have been
nothing short of miraculous. And then the name helped me: how could you
be so daring as to call yourself Bernard Jenin, which is neither more
nor less than an anagram on Andrei Bernin?"
"That was in case I came to grief," answered the fugitive; "if my
mother saw that name in the papers, she would know that it referred to
me. Years ago, sitting round the table after the lamp was lighted, we
used to amuse ourselves making anagrams on our names. For instance,
Sonia Bernin became Nina Biornsen; I chose my uncle's name, because he
is dead."
"Dead! Is Andrei Bernin dead?"
"Yes, he died at Moscow on the fourteenth of November, 1916."
Maurice Wallion looked inquiringly at Lona Ivanovna, and she replied to
his unspoken question.
"My brother left the Copper House in January, 1916, for a reason which
I will tell you by and by. For the same reason, Sonia and I allowed our
friends to believe that he was still here, but too ill to see anyone.
No one suspected the truth; I made for myself the disguise which
Sergius is wearing now, and on two occasions I purposely allowed Baron
Fayerling's spies to get a glimpse of the sick man, who was believed
to be, but really was not, here."
It did not occur to Wallion to smile at the grotesque idea of the old
lady in a false beard and man's clothes: on the contrary, he found
something touching and pathetic in what she had done; he understood
that she had been driven to it by the direst necessity.
"It was a hard blow for us when my brother died," she continued. "He
died secretly in the country which had rejected him. My son has carried
on his work, and now it is finished: but it has nearly cost him his
life...."
She spoke slowly and composedly, and with a calm dignity which made
Wallion feel that he was standing on holy ground; he fixed his gray
eyes on her with a look of warm admiration.
"Then," he asked, "is your son--here?"
"Sergius is my son," she replied.
Wallion nodded; the discovery did not surprise him, since it had
been one of his theories in the course of his attempts to arrive at
the truth during the last few hours. He understood too, from Leo's
expression, that this was the information which the young man had been
so anxious to convey to him. But he was silent, for he could see that
Lona Ivanovna had more to say. Presently she began again:
"I know you are our friend, Mr. Wallion; we can never forget how you
saved Sergius yesterday, and to-day we have waited and hoped for you
hour after hour. You must think it very strange that we should be in
the Copper House, apparently at the beck and call of such creatures as
Baron Fayerling and his companions; but you may find the explanation
even more surprising. If you really are willing to help us, I will be
perfectly frank with you, and tell you the whole story."
She spoke with a perceptible effort to keep to the point and to repress
any display of emotion, which she would have considered a sign of
weakness, but in spite of the quiet words, it was apparent that she was
deeply moved. Sergius leaned forward and stroked her hand, and Wallion
got up, shut the door into the hall, and said:
"Miss Sonia, as you are nearest, will you kindly look out, and tell me
if you see anyone outside the window; I think it wisest not to show my
face yet."
The girl complied; there was nobody outside: everything was quiet. Even
the great barrier of dark thunder-clouds seemed motionless. Wallion
looked round him once more with those keen eyes of his that nothing
escaped; he missed something, and it struck him that the Austrian's
calm, intelligent face would just have made their circle complete. But
for the present, that was impossible.
Lona Ivanovna had seated herself beside her son, and waited for the
journalist to follow her example. He understood her look, and readily
obeyed it, saying with a smile:
"I am sure that between us we shall find a way out of all our
difficulties: at any rate, I promise to do my best. I shall be
delighted to hear your story, to begin with."
Lona Ivanovna took up her work-basket, which had been hanging neglected
on her arm, remarking:
"I can think better when I am working," and as her crochet-needle
flashed in and out of the stitches, she began her tale.
"Our father was a magistrate at Saratov. It was his wish that my
brother should obtain a commission in the army, but as both our
parents died early, we were left, whilst still quite young, to fend
for ourselves. We had a little money, but not much, because my father,
who had been sufficiently original not to make a fortune by means of
bribery and corruption, had left nothing but debts behind him.
"We became students at Moscow, and you would scarcely believe how
cleverly we and our companions managed to live upon nothing! It was
a long time ago, in the days of Russia's slavery, and we youngsters
hated the oppressors. You know what a struggle we made; and in the free
countries around us the comfortable middle-classes sat still and called
us anarchists! We were revolutionaries, and I, Lona Ivanovna, have
risked my own life in active propaganda-work. My brother was weaker,
and he served the cause with his pen, whilst I did so with words and
deeds. We formed a little group of devoted enthusiasts, and there was
one man who constituted himself a leader among us, constantly urging
us on to fresh exertions. He became my husband, and Sergius is our son.
The name of that man was Marcus Tassler."
"Marcus Tassler!" exclaimed Leo involuntarily, and with intense
astonishment. Lona Ivanovna looked at him steadily, and he dropped his
eyes and added confusedly:
"Forgive my interruption, but somehow that man's name surprised me more
than anything else."
Wallion moved impatiently.
"Please go on," he murmured.
"Yes, I married Marcus Tassler," she went on calmly. "He was at that
time a Russian subject, and we were just of an age. Perhaps he was not
so worthless then: I don't know; we change with time. Several years
passed; not all 'red,' but very often 'black' ones. I was imprisoned
for the cause of liberty in Peter-Paul fortress. Then came 1905, that
year of bloodshed and of barricades, with days of ardent enthusiasm,
and of bitter disappointment; when the soldiers mutinied at Sevastopol,
Poland was declared to be in a state of siege, and barricades were
set up in the streets of Moscow. Can you imagine the horrors we went
through? Spies and traitors were to be found, even amongst us....
One night our house was surrounded by Cossacks. My brother was
there, Marcus Tassler, myself, and Sergius, who was then a boy of
fourteen...."
"Fourteen!" echoed her son, "and I remember it all vividly: the wild
faces, the whips cracking, the shooting--I remember it all."
"We were driven to prison like animals to the slaughter," she
continued, "and we expected nothing else but death, for we were guilty
of taking part in the December risings in Moscow. Then the examinations
began: we were called in one by one. A fortnight later, a miracle
happened! We were set at liberty, with no verdict, no conditions,
no supervision. We returned to our comrades, and a terrible and
inconceivable experience awaited us: they cast us out, accusing us of
having purchased our freedom by treachery. We denied it indignantly.
They reckoned up the names of all who had been shot, all who had
been sent to Siberia--we were the only ones who had been set free.
It was useless to protest, to ask for explanations, we were caught
in a net, and they shrank from us as though we were pariahs.... We
were even subjected to attacks from bombs, and it was due to one of
these that Andrei lost his sight. That ended it. We were obliged to
leave Russia, to escape from the vengeance of our former comrades.
For private reasons, into which I need not enter now, I obtained a
legal separation from Marcus Tassler;--perhaps I unconsciously saw
through him already--Sergius remained with me, and as exiles we sought
sanctuary in Sweden. I haven't mentioned my brother's marriage; during
a visit to Sweden in 1898, he had met and married Helena Flycht, a
young half-Finnish, half-Swedish girl, who followed him to Russia.
She died when Sonia was born, and the child was brought up by her
mother's parents in Finland. Well, when Andrei, Sergius and I settled
in Sweden, my brother sent for Sonia, and we were quite a little family
party again. But the circle was soon broken. As Sergius grew up, the
'liberty-fever' developed in him, and he returned to Russia under an
assumed name to take part in the work; for several years we heard no
more of him."
"For a very good reason," interposed Sergius: "I was in prison the
greater part of the time!"
"Then the World War began," Lona Ivanovna went on: "my brother made one
attempt to offer his services to the revolutionaries. They answered us:
'Unless you can prove that you did not betray us in 1905, we will have
nothing to do with you: we have forgotten nothing!' Prove it! How could
we hope to do so now, if we had not succeeded at the time? We felt that
we were excommunicated forever. Then Tassler reappeared. I had not
heard a word of him for nine years, but now, in the spring of 1915, he
came back. He undertook to prove our innocence of the accusation of
treachery, upon one condition, that we in our turn, should help him.
Bit by bit, he told us of a man called Gabriel Ortiz, who was planning
a gigantic attempt to organize the Russian efforts for freedom. It
sounded genuine, we should, at all events, be once more working for
the cause of liberty, and that decided us. In the summer of 1915, we
settled down here at the Copper House ... Andrei, Sonia and I."
"Did Marcus Tassler really initiate you into Ortiz' plan?" asked
Wallion, thoughtfully.
"Yes, into part of it, at any rate: that is to say, Baron Fayerling
did. Part of the business was carried on here: smuggling arms,
dispatching propagandist literature, and so forth. But we soon noticed
that our part in it was a very small one; we were simply used as
decoys, and all they wanted was Andrei's name on the contract and on
their papers. Just at first we were satisfied, but we soon began to
feel suspicious: it was too late for us to withdraw, and we found that
we were practically prisoners here. We had no means of discovering what
was really going on, but we had no intention of allowing ourselves to
be involved in some fresh deed of treachery. It was then that we began
to realize that Marcus Tassler was a dangerous character. We decided
to obtain our own proofs, and we planned everything with the greatest
precaution. In the spring of 1916, Andrei left the Copper House
secretly, and traveled to Russia with a passport which I had managed to
procure, and together with two revolutionaries who had still continued
our friends. Meantime, Sonia and I gave out that my brother was lying
ill in the Copper House, and no one suspected that he was far away!
Besides, the baron and Tassler left us more and more to ourselves; it
was enough for their purposes to have us here as figureheads. You can
understand how anxious I was, when you think that Andrei was blind,
and what a journey he had undertaken, and for what an object. I had a
presentiment--but perhaps you don't believe in presentiments?"
"Yes," answered Wallion, "I certainly believe in them; a presentiment
is often a subconscious conclusion, and may have a definite value."
"In January of this year, I received indirect information that my
brother was dead. He had died quite suddenly of heart disease, unknown
and alone in an infirmary at Moscow. Those were sad days for Sonia and
me."
She stopped, for her voice was quivering suspiciously, and sat gazing
before her, with her grimmest and most unapproachable expression; but
Sonia understood, and nestled up more closely to her.
"The night is darkest before the dawn," began the old lady again.
"Sergius sent us a letter, bidding us be of good courage; he had
arrived too late to see his uncle alive, but had taken possession
of his papers, and seen to the funeral. He wrote that he had made
important discoveries...."
"Let me go on from there," said Sergius, turning towards the
journalist. "I was staying in Moscow under the name of Dr. Zero.
The March Revolution had changed everything, and my revolutionary
friends were triumphant. I suspected that their rejoicings were rather
premature, for I saw beneath the surface very definite symptoms of
reactionary currents; I found proofs of the existence of a conspiracy,
and Prince Tarraschin's death set me wondering.... Finally, after a
series of researches, I heard of Tarraschin's memorandum, its contents,
and the struggle that was being secretly carried on for its possession;
in the long run, I also discovered its whereabouts: then I acted." He
thought for a little while.
"You must remember that my motive all along has been the vindication of
my own and my family's honor, also that I knew nothing of Ortiz, or of
what was going on here; and lastly, that I dared not approach the new
Russian government under my own name, as Kerensky had been one of those
who had driven out Andrei and his belongings, branded as traitors. All
this you must bear in mind.
"Well, I took Tarraschin's memorandum, not from its rightful owners,
but from thieves. Of course, I know now, that it was from one of
Ortiz's spies that I took it. But what was I to do with it? I had found
my relatives' new address amongst my uncle's papers, and I determined
to travel home and ask my mother's advice. On the way back, I fell in
with B.22 and was very nearly caught in a trap...."
"I suppose your plan was to come here, and by the aid of the document,
open negotiaions with Kerensky?" asked Wallion.
"Yes, it was the only way I could think of to regain the esteem of the
revolutionaries."
"Doesn't it look a little bit like--bribery?"
Sergius Tassler was silent, and the journalist changed his tactics.
"Ah, well, of course you were justified in taking such a step. We know
what happened afterwards, so...."
"Let me say one thing," said Sergius. "It is not fair to call it a
bribe. I am prepared to surrender the paper unconditionally, but, by
giving it up at the right moment, I want to add weight to the proofs
I obtained in Moscow; I allude to the proofs of our innocence of the
accusation brought against us in 1905."
"Really! You found them, then?"
"Yes, after the Revolution the police-archives became at last
accessible, and there I found the name of the traitor; then everything
became clear to me: my own father had played the part of Judas!"
"Marcus Tassler?"
"Yes, he was an infamous spy, and only allowed himself to be arrested
for the sake of appearances, to escape any reprisals. He was, I
suppose, driven by his uneasy conscience to bring about our liberation.
But through him, hundreds of brave young students had gone to their
death, or to Siberia; and that was my father ... mine...."
Lona Ivanovna checked him....
"That's enough, my boy, don't let us talk of the man any more. You can
understand now, Mr. Wallion, how, after Sergius' return yesterday,
Tassler's double-dealing became perfectly clear to me. In 1905 he had
made us accomplices in an act of treachery: what was his intention
now? Why were we in the Copper House? It was evidently not enough
for him that he had us outlawed twelve years ago; once again he must
drag us down to destruction! Ever since the March Revolution, this
year, I guessed that something was wrong, for Ortiz' activities did
not diminish, although Russia was now freed. It was, therefore, not
revolution, but something else that he was working for. The history of
Tarraschin's memorandum revealed the truth in a flash. From the moment
that Sergius told me about it, I became the enemy of Ortiz, and above
all, of Tassler who had dared to lie to me."
"Tell me," said the journalist, "what exactly happened yesterday when
your son arrived?"
"It all passed like a hurried dream. Suddenly, without any warning, he
was here, with Rastakov at his heels. I had barely a second to decide
what to do, and I did it. I sent him up with Sonia to Andrei's room, to
disguise himself as my brother, whom Rastakov was quite prepared to see
in the course of his investigations; I remained in the hall, and when I
heard Rastakov coming, I fired a shot, to mystify him, and gain time: a
shot always entails explanation and discussion, doesn't it?"
"So that's the true story of Bernard Jenin's disappearance?" said
Wallion, amused.
"Yes, Bernard Jenin will never be found now!"
Wallion got up, walked up and down for a minute, and stopped before
Sergius, sitting quiet and aloof, in his apparent blindness.
"And what about Tarraschin's memorandum?" he asked.
"It is hidden in a place where Rastakov would never dream of looking
for it," answered Sergius; "in fact, it is actually in my hand at the
present moment: look here, I will show it you."
All eyes were turned, as by common consent, on Sergius' right hand, in
which he was holding his stick. With a quick wrench, he unscrewed the
ivory handle, and they saw that the stick was hollow; without looking
into it, he handed it to the journalist.
"Will you be so kind?" said he; "the most important document in Europe
will be found inside, rolled up like a cigarette! Don't stand on
ceremony, please."
The journalist stretched out his hand, then drew it suddenly back; a
curious expression came into his eyes, and he thrust his hands into his
pockets.
"You are joking, surely, sir!"
"I? Certainly not. What do you mean?"
"There is nothing in the stick!"
Sergius Tassler grew pale, and stared, as though petrified, into the
hollow tube. Lona Ivanovna bent forward, and as the stick fell with a
thud on the floor, she said:
"Are you perfectly sure you put the paper in there yesterday?"
"Yes," he replied with a stupefied air; "I can't understand.... Sonia
saw it...."
The young girl sprang forward like a little fury:
"I saw you put the paper in the stick! Nobody else saw it, nobody knows
about it. Where is the document?" Her tone was almost an accusation,
but Sergius made no reply. His mother continued her work with
undisturbed equanimity, only remarking:
"You see, Mr. Wallion, that Tarraschin's memorandum is still capable of
providing us with a sensation."
"So it seems. I am sorry, for I should have liked to have your only
weapon in my hands."
"Our only weapon!" she echoed.
"Yes, without it, one doesn't know what may happen."
"Could Rastakov have taken it?" suggested Leo.
"Impossible," returned Sergius. "He hasn't even set eyes upon
the stick, and the baron said openly that their search had been
unsuccessful; it is a complete mystery to me...."
"Did you keep watch last night?" asked Wallion.
"Yes, all night, in turns."
"And you noticed nothing unusual?"
"Nothing whatsoever."
"Had you disturbed the contents of the stick since yesterday?"
"No, and I have never let it out of my sight."
The journalist examined it cursorily, screwed on the handle, and
restored it to its owner.
"Well, there you are!" said he. "You may console yourself with the
reflection that Ortiz would certainly never have suspected the
existence of such a highly-original hiding-place."
"Console myself? Do you attach so little importance to the
disappearance of the paper?" exclaimed the mortified and astonished
Sergius.
"No, not that, but I have an idea that it has not gone beyond recall.
The person who took it...."
"But who can it be? Who?"
"That remains to be seen. May I be allowed to examine Andrei Bernin's
bedroom with you?"
"Most willingly."
Sergius and Lona Ivanovna followed him upstairs, but they all three
returned very soon. Leo and Sonia, who were left sitting silent and
downcast, saw an expression in the journalist's face which they could
not quite fathom; it seemed almost as though he was quietly pleased
about something which nobody else had observed.
"Have you found out anything?" Leo asked, in a low tone.
"No," replied Wallion, abstractedly; "nothing that I didn't already
know."
After a minute he left the room.
* * * * *
An oppressive silence lay heavy and stifling over the Copper House.
Premature darkness had set in; the massive thunder clouds seemed to
settle slowly down upon the woods and the lonely house, till they shut
out the last rays of fading daylight.
Leo found the journalist at a window on the second floor, gazing out to
sea. His whole bearing was tense with expectation, and his gray eyes
dark and fixed. Leo wondered what he saw there, and placed himself
silently beside him. From this place they had an uninterrupted view of
the little bay, which lay gleaming inside its sheltering island.
Two men were busy with something spread out on the deck of the lighter;
it appeared to be part of some apparatus; Wallion watched them intently.
"What is it?" whispered Leo.
His friend did not reply.
Suddenly a cone of bluish light darted up into the dusk as a result of
the exertions of the two distant figures, and continued to burn with
a steady and far-reaching beam. The ray of light shifted hither and
thither, till it remained stationary between the islands and the right
shore of the bay, pointing towards the open sea.
"The light!" murmured Wallion. "Ortiz is at hand!"
_Part III--Gabriel Ortiz_