THE JUDAS-KISS.
Bah! How I detest tuberoses! Their odour is gruesome. There is death in
their breath.
How overpowering the scent is! How it clings to the nostrils and stirs
the memory!
Shall I never be able to forget? Shall I never succeed in drawing the
veil? Tuberoses and—
Phew! Where did that whiff of chloroform come from? Is it my imagination
playing me tricks, or is that man at my side a surgeon, fresh from some
murderous horrible operation? They are all alike, those doctors, licensed
to butcher.
Tuberoses and chloroform! Chloroform and tuberoses! Faugh! they go well
together. The grim spectre breathes the one and wears the other.
I suppose it is remorse. How horrible remorse is! Bearing you down,
gripping you by the throat and strangling you until your brain whirls,
your senses are dulled, and you see all over again the scenes you desire
most to forget.
It is a couple of years since, yet how fearfully vivid it all is!
That pallid face, whiter than the white pillow; the closed eyes, the
ashen-brown hair!
By Heaven! I see it all before me even now. A hideous reality. The
_dénouement_ of a terrible drama in our struggle for freedom.
Mine was a delicate mission. My readers will probably remember that
about two years ago a new Russian literary and social star appeared in
the London firmament, in the person of Madame Vera Kovalski. Her sudden
appearance in English society, and her ostentatious parade of wealth
aroused our suspicions that she was an agent of the Russian Government,
a surmise which was quickly confirmed, for one morning we saw in certain
London daily newspapers a long letter signed by her in defence of Russian
bureaucracy, and eulogising the humane Tzar for his paternal interest in
the millions who called him “father.”
From that day she was the object of vigilant watchfulness. Communications
with the various Circles in Russia elicited nothing regarding her past,
until one day the Executive received a letter from the Kiev centre,
informing us that the woman who called herself Kovalski was the young
wife of Colonel Paul Krivenko, chief of police of that town. Her husband,
with his grey-coated myrmidons, had for a long time past endeavoured
to stamp out the revolutionary movement among the students at the
University, but although dozens of innocent persons had been arrested
and sent without trial to Verkhni Udinsk and Yakoutsk, he had, up to the
present, been unable to discover any members of the Circle proper.
His wife had earned an unenviable reputation by giving information which
led to the arrest of a dozen unfortunate students, who were brought
before the special court at Petersburg. Evidently fearing to return to
Kiev, she had afterwards mysteriously disappeared.
The portrait—taken from a lady’s newspaper—which we had sent, had been
identified, and the communication warned us that she was in England for
the purpose of espionage.
Such were the circumstances in which I was entrusted with the discovery
of her object in visiting London, and the extent of her knowledge of our
movements. Matters were again ripe for a further attempt to overthrow
the Imperial power, and the Executive had in preparation an elaborate
and desperate plot which seemed likely to be as successful as that
which—unfortunately for Russia—removed Alexander II.; providing the
astute members of the “Third Section” could be baffled and led upon a
wrong scent. It was highly desirable that we should know what Madame
Vera was really doing, and with whom she was in communication in Russia;
therefore it devolved upon me to watch her.
At frequent intervals signed articles and letters from her pen were
appearing in the press in defence of the Imperial Autocrat, and
endeavouring to prove, by relating personal narratives, that the prison
horrors of Siberia as revealed by George Kennan and other travellers
existed merely in the imagination. She even went so far as to assert that
“the condition of the much-talked-of forwarding prison at Tomsk would do
credit to any London hospital.”
This paid defender of Russian tyranny was but one of a number, each of
whom has flourished in London society for a season or so and disappeared
as mysteriously as they came. Some have succeeded in performing the
secret services for which they were sent out from Petersburg, while upon
others has fallen a relentless vengeance.
In order that my connection with the revolutionist colony in Oakleigh
Gardens should not be discovered, I never visited them there. We had
another place of meeting when I desired a conference. Indeed, I had found
it necessary to remove my quarters from Shaftesbury Avenue to Dane’s
Inn, that queer grimy abode of bachelors situate off Wych Street—the
oldest and quaintest thoroughfare in London—under the shadow of the Law
Courts. There, in chambers, I led the rollicking life of a Bohemian of
independent means, had artists, authors, and actors, for my friends, and
was known to them as Pierre Delorme. Speaking French fluently, I had no
difficulty in disguising my nationality, and assuming the _rôle_ of a
subject of the French Republic.
The Rectory of the sleepy little Northamptonshire village of
Kingsthorpe was a spacious old Jacobean house, hidden by ivy, with
red, lichen-covered roofs, tall chimneys, and diamond-paned, mullioned
windows. Standing back from the broad, white highway, a large,
old-fashioned, flower-garden lay in front, while at the rear an orchard
and well-kept lawn sloped down to the picturesque river Nene. The
Reverend George Farrar, the rector, was a rubicund, happy-looking man,
a true type of the port-drinking, fox-hunting British parson, and with
his wife and two handsome daughters, was popular with all throughout
his rural parish, from the Earl at the Hall down to the most humble and
impecunious cottager. Though he hunted with the Fitzwilliam Pack, and
could handle a cue with dexterity acquired by long practice, nevertheless
there was no cant about him, and he was both pious and charitable.
It was at Kingsthorpe that Madame Kovalski was visiting during August,
she having met the Farrars frequently in London and dispensed to them
the hospitality of her house in Lexham Gardens, Kensington. By dint of a
little artful manœuvring and the exertions of a mutual friend, I also had
contrived to make the acquaintance of the warm-hearted old rector, and
had responded to his cordial invitation to spend a fortnight at “Sleepy
Hollow,” as he called it.
There were several other guests, but my attention was devoted to Madame
Vera, with whom I very soon became on terms of pleasant friendship.
We were idling away one hot afternoon together in a punt up a romantic
and picturesque backwater of the Nene. Behind us the ground rose, covered
thickly with beeches and hawthorn. A small weir, with a few eel baskets
of brown osier, closed in the creek. The water was still, and around us
masses of white water-lily studded the surface with silver stars. Beneath
the deep emerald leaves, perch and dace darted from time to time, or
lazily sucked in some drowning moth or wandering fly.
The atmosphere was stifling in the sun, yet beneath the protecting willow
to which I had chained the punt there was a pleasant soothing breeze that
kept the gnats away and made the afternoon quite enjoyable.
Vera looked ravishing. I had no idea that the woman upon whom I had to
keep observation was so young and beautiful. Her broad white hat, set
back on her shapely head, threw out her copper hair and deep-blue eyes.
The olive silk that clung round her firm shoulders and waist outlined
the broad curve of her limbs and fell in soft draperies about her little
feet. The lace sleeves through which her white arms showed were a pretty
idea, but far too tempting for a bachelor. I had found her not averse to
flirtation, otherwise I should not have spoken as I did.
“Vera, you are a pretty woman!” I said; “yours are the longest
eye-lashes, I think, I ever saw! Your complexion is simply faultless,
while the crisp little curls of brown around your forehead take a copper
hue in the warm sun I have never yet seen out of Titian.”
“Why do you flatter me so?” she asked, laughing and puckering up her rosy
lips.
She was lolling upon the cushions at the end of the punt, having flung
down her novel heedlessly.
“I suppose I may be permitted to admire you,” I said, smiling. “Parisians
are connoisseurs of beauty. You do not want to read? Then talk to me.
Shall I tell you your voice is as sweet as a carillon of silvery chimes?
That your presence is as graceful and bewitching as the vision of an
houri? Well, I won’t be idiotic, but as sensible as a man can be when he
has for companion the most charming woman in England.”
“How ridiculously you talk!” she exclaimed, with a merry mischievous
smile. “Remember, I’ve been married two years—and my husband—I——”
“You are not devoted to him, Vera.”
“How—how did you know?” she asked, starting. “Who told you?”
“No one. But why deny it?”
“I do not deny it. Indeed, I have tried to be good to him, Pierre, but he
is almost double my age; so cold, so careless, and I hear so many awful
stories of his dissipated habits that it is quite impossible to love him.
We are, therefore, best apart.”
“Poor Vera! I fear your life is not a happy one if we knew all.”
“Ah, no, alas!” she sighed. “I’ll tell you something of it and you can
judge, Pierre. Indeed, I am lonely and wretched.”
She did not speak for some minutes; but her head changed its position
from the cushion where it lay, and by some aberration of mind rested
itself lightly upon my shoulder. There was really no harm. She did not
know it.
There was such a sweet odour of stephanotis wafted across my senses that
I looked at the copper halo on my arm and wondered if it was not some
rare orchid or tropical moss that had fallen there. She had turned her
head away, and her hand was playing with the water-lily leaves waving
gently in the stream.
Her skin was like alabaster. Little curls formed arabesques over the
nape of her neck; and her ear, pink and transparent, tempted me to
whisper into it words of passionate love. There is no situation in the
human drama so interesting as a _tête-à-tête_ with a pretty woman; and
when that woman is married, with a grievance against her husband, the
_tête-à-tête_ is all the more attractive.
She told me a sad story, how she had been forced to marry Colonel
Kovalski, but she did not mention that his real name was Krivenko, or
that he was an officer of Imperial Police. She merely told me that he
held an important official position, and that, having discovered his
unfaithfulness, she had left him and come to England, where she had no
enemies to gloat over her unhappiness.
A tear stole down her cheek as she related her narrative, and a sob
escaped her.
“Do not think of it, Vera,” I said, endeavouring to console her. “Think
of the charming afternoon. Look at that gorgeous butterfly that hovers
over the stream; look at its wings, now brown, now purple, with its
orange tips and blue eyes, staring like Psyche at her discovered Cupid.”
“Ah, yes,” she replied, with a heavy sigh; “but you, a Frenchman, cannot
understand one’s social position in Russia.”
“Tell me,” I exclaimed with sudden interest; “I have heard and read so
much of Nihilism that my curiosity has been aroused, and I’m always eager
to improve my knowledge.”
“Nihilism!” she repeated in surprise. “Why do you ask me about it? How
can I know anything about conspirators?”
“But every Russian has a knowledge of the Terrorists.”
“Yes, they are everywhere,” she admitted. “And, indeed, I don’t wonder.
Wrong a man, deny him all redress, exile him if he complains, gag him if
he cries out, strike him in the face if he struggles, and at last he will
stab and throw bombs. In the light of facts recently brought to light,
Terrorism ceases to be an unnatural or inexplicable phenomenon. Our
Government manufactures murderers.”
“Are you, then, in favour of the Revolutionists?” I asked, greatly
surprised at this expression of opinion in such direct contrast to the
views set forth in her various articles.
“A Russian never dares to publicly express his or her political
convictions. As for me—well, I have ceased to trouble my head about them.
In a sense, I am an exile.”
What an admirable actress she was; yet how charming! I had not been
thinking of her as an accomplished spy, but as a woman who yearned
for sympathy and affection. As the sun declined, the river grew more
tranquil, and the cawing of the rooks, as they went to bed, told that day
was drawing to a close.
She offered me a cigarette from her case, and taking one herself,
lit them both with the air of an inveterate smoker. What could be
more delicious? A balmy breeze, full of the odour of meadow-sweet, a
bewitching woman by one’s side, with nothing absolutely to do but admire
her eyes and lips, while she discoursed with logical clearness upon the
struggle of the Russian people against the iron rule of the Great White
Tzar.
“I’ve heard of your articles,” I said, after she had been describing
incidents in connection with the expulsion of the Jews from Odessa.
“Ah, I write sometimes,” she replied. “It is a pleasant and profitable
amusement; yet one does not always express one’s real political opinions
when writing for the press.” And she laughed lightly. “Had you lived in
Russia you would recognise the extreme danger of commenting adversely
upon the Government or criticising its administrative exile system.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the clock of Kingsthorpe Church
striking six. Half-past was the dinner hour at the Rectory, therefore I
unloosened the moorings, and, taking up the pole, pushed the punt lazily
homeward, chatting to my fair freight, expressing the enjoyment her
companionship afforded me, and amusing her with tittle-tattle until we
stepped ashore on the Rectory lawn.
But before we had left our secluded little backwater I had kissed her,
and in return received a fierce and fond caress.
I had imprinted a Judas-kiss upon her lips!
Next morning at breakfast I was sitting beside her. We had just finished
the meal when the servant entered with letters. Beside her plate the maid
placed two missives, one a tiny note with a superscription in a feminine
hand; but the appearance of the other was a revelation to me. It lay
for a moment unheeded, and by a quick, sidelong glance I saw that the
large, square envelope bore the official frank stamp and double-headed
eagle of the Ministry of the Interior at Petersburg. When she noticed
it she hurriedly folded it in half and thrust it into her pocket without
examining its contents.
That evening, when we joined the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner,
I noticed she was not with them. Leaving the room, I inquired of one of
the maids, and learnt that the fair diplomat, wearing her cloak and hat,
had been seen to cross the lawn in the direction of the river’s bank.
Some influence impelled me to follow. The summer’s night was still and
starlight; scarcely a leaf stirred, and the quiet was only broken by
the distant rushing of the weir. Passing out by a gate at the side of
the lawn, I walked along a by-path that ran through the meadows by the
water’s edge. Large alders grew beside the stream, and in their shadow I
advanced noiselessly over the grass.
Suddenly I heard voices, and halted to listen. I recognised hers! She was
speaking in Russian.
“Tell me. What’s to be done?” she was asking.
“Act as before,” replied a man’s voice in the same language. “You
received your instructions from the Ministry to-day.”
“They might have spared themselves the trouble, for I have already
completed my investigations.”
“You have!” cried the man. “What is the plot? Explain it to me.”
“I have not yet made out my report,” she replied coldly. “Besides, I am
in the employ of the Ministry, not in yours.”
“Ah! my dear Madame, pardon me if I have given offence. It was out of
sheer curiosity that I asked.”
“Curiosity of a kind that would ruin me, eh? You would sell the secret
to General Gresser, and claim the reward; but I am as wary as yourself,
m’sieur.”
“I beg Madame’s pardon—she speaks too harshly. Indeed, your secret would
be quite safe——”
“As safe as when, by your devilish ingenuity, you learnt of the
conspiracy I had unearthed in Paris, and telegraphed it in detail to
Petersburg as the result of your own vigilance. On that occasion who was
rewarded?—who was decorated by the Emperor? Why, you! As for me, I——”
“But you are my wife. What does it matter?”
“Wife—bah!” she replied, in intense disgust. “We have parted, and you
have no claim whatever upon me. By what right, pray, have you followed
me here? Cannot I carry out this hateful work without your detestable
companionship?”
“But I assist you,” he urged. “Besides, I—I sometimes think, Vera, that
we might accomplish much better work if we combined our efforts.”
“With you—never,” she replied angrily. “It is true that I married you,
but we have never lived together—and never shall.”
“Do you forget that I once saved you from death?”
“Was not that a husband’s duty?” she asked, adding, “I cannot stay
longer; my hostess will miss me.”
“But you shall remain and hear my proposal. I intend that you shall
return to Russia, and live with me.”
“Indeed? Then I may at once tell you, Paul Krivenko, that I hate you;
that I would rather die than be your cat’s-paw,” and she laughed
scornfully.
“You!—you speak like that to me!” he cried in rage. “I—I’ll kill you!”
“Bah! do your worst,” she exclaimed defiantly.
“Not another word,” he hissed, adding a foul oath. “You’ll explain the
whole of this conspiracy you have discovered, or—or I’ll wring your white
neck, and fling you into the river here. Now, you have your choice.”
There were sounds of a scuffle, and I heard Vera cry hoarsely, “Let me
go! You hurt my throat—you coward! Help, for God’s sake!”
Creeping from my hiding-place, I peered round the clump of hawthorns,
and in the faint light beheld Madame struggling with her husband. He
was about fifty years of age, foppishly dressed, and wore his moustache
waxed. I could discern that his eyes were unusually close together, his
features were small, except his mouth, which was wide, his lips thin, the
effect being vulpine. By repute I knew Colonel Krivenko as one of the
most cunning bloodhounds connected with the “Third Section.” He was a
master of his craft, and, characteristic of the mercenary spy all over
the world, he was true to nobody, not even to his employers, not even
to his hatreds, for he had accepted service both for and against the
Nihilists, both for and against his Imperial Master, the Tzar.
I saw he was bending over his young wife. He had clutched her by the
throat, and was forcing her upon her knees, at the same time uttering
terrible imprecations, and demanding to be informed of the result of her
secret investigations.
Just as I had turned, intending to retreat to my place of concealment,
having gained knowledge that would put the Executive on its guard, I
heard Krivenko give vent to a fierce guttural oath.
Then a woman’s shrill cry rang out in the still air, followed by a great
splash.
Returning quickly, I looked cautiously behind the bush, but neither
the man nor woman were there. Upon the surface of the water were great
eddying rings, momentarily growing larger, plainly showing that the dark
stream had closed over some heavy body. I gazed for a few moments at the
circling rings, not knowing how to act. Nothing appeared on the surface,
and the waters gradually resumed their tranquillity.
Then I searched the bank, behind trees and bushes, and in every nook, but
could discover no one.
Shuddering, I retraced my steps to the Rectory, and joined the ladies in
the drawing-room.
Days passed, but Vera Kovalski did not return. Her mysterious
disappearance caused a great sensation in Kingsthorpe and the
neighbourhood. Although telegrams were despatched in all directions, no
tidings could be gleaned of her. The strange affair cast a gloom over
the usually merry household, for every one appeared to have forebodings
that some unknown catastrophe had occurred, and the guests, feeling the
solemnity irksome, departed, an example I quickly followed.
Before I left the Rectory, however, I examined the whole of Madame’s
belongings, in the hope of finding something which might serve as a clue
to the discovery of the “conspiracy” about which she had spoken. But the
search was futile.
On returning to London I informed the Executive of the occurrence, a
council was held, at which it was decided that every agency possessed by
our Party should be requisitioned, in order to discover whether either
Colonel Krivenko or his wife were really still alive. For the success of
our plot—which was a bold venture, involving the partial destruction of
the Castle of Schlusselburg and the release of the political prisoners
confined there—it was of supreme importance that we should know if Madame
Kovalski still lived, and if so, the extent of her knowledge.
Descriptions and photographs, circulated among our members, both in
England and on the Continent, failed to elicit any clue.
With Dmitri Irteneff as companion, I was ever vigilant in the London
streets for many weeks, hoping to meet her, while Grinevitch continually
kept Madame’s house in Lexham Gardens, Kensington, under observation. We
have such a perfect method of tracing those who incur our displeasure
that, when once the order is issued by the Executive, escape is hopeless.
Colonel Krivenko’s body had already been found floating in the Nene
near Peterborough, and having satisfied ourselves that his wife had not
returned to her friends in London, we directed our attention to other
quarters, and continued our search through many weeks.
A heavy, thick mist was blowing on the gale which swept fiercely in gusts
down the English Channel. The yellow light of the November afternoon had
already begun to dwindle. No sun had shone on the dreary Sussex coast
that day. The tide was out, and the wide, wet sands stretched from the
cliffs to the selvage of white foam that flickered in the grey light far
off, where the waves broke in hissing spray.
In this tempestuous afternoon Irteneff and I were walking along the top
of the cliffs between Eastbourne and Beachy Head. Suddenly, as we rounded
a point, we saw below a single human being on the level foreshore. At
first it was merely a speck, traversing the sand along the margin of
the wind-whitened sea. We waited for its approach, and as it drew nearer
Dmitri took a small binocular from his pocket. Having focused it upon the
moving object, he quickly handed it to me, exclaiming briefly—
“At last! We have found her!”
I looked eagerly, and saw the form of a woman walking with her head bent
against the roaring wind. I recognised the figure and gait as that of
Vera Kovalski!
As she moved along towards Eastbourne, we retraced our steps, and
followed her to the Queen’s Hotel, where Irteneff, on inquiry, found she
had been staying for nearly a month under the name of Mrs. Axford, and
also that on several occasions gentlemen had called upon her.
Two hours later I had transferred my abode from the Cavendish to the
Queen’s, and having duly installed myself in a room in the same corridor
as Madame, I resolved to act promptly.
I did not go down to dinner, but waited till she returned. I heard her
close her door; then placing a small phial in my vest pocket, and taking
a clean handkerchief from my bag, stole along the corridor and entered
her sitting-room without knocking.
She had flung herself upon a couch, but started up on my entrance.
“Ah, my dear Madame,” I commenced, as I closed the door behind me. “So I
have found you at last!”
“Found me!” she cried in alarm, springing to her feet. “What do you mean
by entering my room in this manner? I know who you are—that your real
name is Anton Prèhznev, and that you are a Nihilist. I’ll ring for the
servants!”
And she made a dash forward. I was compelled to act without hesitation.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” I said, determinedly. As I uttered
the words I took out the tiny phial and emptied the contents upon the
handkerchief, which a moment later I held firmly over her nose and mouth.
In a few seconds, and with only a long sigh, she fell back into my arms,
an inert and helpless burden.
Placing her upon the couch, I entered her bedroom and searched her trunk
and dressing-case. In the latter I discovered some letters from the
Ministry of the Interior and some photographs, all of which I crushed
into my pockets. While doing so, a thought crossed my mind that she would
probably conceal about her person the more important documents.
When I re-entered the sitting-room she was lying just as I had left her.
I placed my hand in the bodice of her gown, and as I did so a spray of
tuberoses fell to the floor. Feeling crisp paper inside her bodice, I
drew it forth. It was an envelope, the contents of which I immediately
examined.
I discovered that it was the report for which I had been searching.
Breathless with excitement, I read it through from beginning to end. Our
plot was completely exposed! Moreover, it gave names and descriptions of
the Executive and prominent members resident in London, myself included.
When I had devoured the contents, I placed it carefully in my pocket,
afterwards turning to cast a farewell glance at her. With alarm I noticed
that in the few minutes during which I had been reading an ashen pallor
had overspread her countenance. I laid my hand softly upon her breast.
The heart had ceased to beat! Then the terrible truth dawned upon me. I
had administered an overdose! Vera Kovalski was dead, and I had murdered
her!
For a moment my senses reeled, so overcome was I by the mingled odours
of chloroform and tuberoses. But I managed to recover myself and creep
noiselessly out.
Is there any wonder why I have never since been able to endure the
combined sickly scents of chloroform and tuberoses.
I can smell them now! Faugh!