A VICE-CZAR DOES HIS DUTY
This same evening Prince Berloff dined with the Howards at their hotel.
There were a score of noble guests, the highest of the new friends
Berloff would bring to Alice, and the dinner was as elaborate as
Russia’s capital could provide. In a way this was a farewell function
given by her parents in honour of Alice; on the day after the morrow,
in the gilded splendour of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, she was to become the
Princess Berloff. The prince, in his dress uniform of a colonel of the
Czar’s guards, with his breast a-glitter with jewelled orders, looked
a bridegroom worth any millionaire’s money; and Alice, flushed with
excitement, given a new dignity by the nearness of her ennoblement,
looked a bride well worth the payment of any princely name.
Berloff knew what was due to happen, while they sat at table, in the
house over in Three Saints’ Court. But the expectation that, even while
he ate and chatted, he was being put in direct command of the Howard
fortune by Drexel’s death, did not make a ripple upon the surface
of his composure. He asked Mr. Howard if any further word had been
received from Drexel, and affected satisfaction when told of a second
letter giving reassurance that Drexel would be back in time for the
marriage.
Beneath that calm front blazed a desire to know if all had gone as
planned, but midnight had long passed before he could with propriety
quit the company and hurry to his apartment. He found Captain Nadson
waiting in his study. The captain told of the arrest of the famed White
One, and of the evening’s other successes.
“Yes--very good,” said the prince. “But the foreigner?”
The captain hesitated. “He escaped.”
“Escaped!” The prince stood up, his face suddenly dark. “How?”
As Nadson told him, his thin lips drew back from his white teeth.
“Fool--blockhead!” he cried.
“But, Your Excellency, I succeeded in all else--and I have got the girl
that shot at you,” protested the abashed officer.
“You failed in the one thing I laid stress upon!” was the cold and
fierce retort.
It might have gone hard with Nadson then and there, had not a servant
knocked and entered with a card. Berloff glanced at it.
“Wait without--I’ll settle with you later!” he said ominously to the
captain. He turned to the servant. “Show him in.”
The big gendarme, thoroughly cowed, went out. The next moment Freeman
weakly entered.
The prince stared. And well he might, for there was not a patch of
white in Freeman’s face. It was all purple and green, and so swollen
that his eyes were but two narrow slits.
“What’s the matter? Who did it?”
“Drexel,” Freeman coolly returned.
“Drexel! When? How? I thought he escaped.”
Freeman calmly sat down and related what has already been told, adding
that he had been taken as a political prisoner to police headquarters,
where he had been recognized and released. The prince’s lips parted in
wrath again. He rose and stood menacingly above the spy.
“This is twice you people have had him in one night, and twice you have
let him escape! Such infernal blunderers!”
Freeman stood up and his pulpy, discoloured face looked straight into
the pale, high-bred one.
“Prince,” said he slowly, and the narrow slits blazed, “do you think
you can talk to me as you do to your Russian officers?”
They gazed at each other for a silent moment. “Pardon me--I lost my
temper,” said the prince.
Freeman nodded and sat down.
“That Drexel must have the nerve of the devil!” Berloff continued.
“He has,” was the calm response.
“And I suppose we shall not get another chance at him.”
“Won’t we! I have twice the reason I had before--and I’ll get him,
sure! So don’t worry about his escape. Besides, if I have lost you
Drexel I have brought you something even more important.”
“More important? What is it?”
“We’ll talk a little business first. I believe that after his children,
you are the next heir to Prince Valenko?”
“What are you driving at?”
“I’ll tell you in good time. You are, are you not?”
“You know I am.”
“And I believe you would be quite willing to have these intervening
heirs disappear--permanently--provided no blame attached to you?”
The prince’s eyes narrowed, and he tried to read Freeman’s meaning in
his face, but that was too blurred a page.
“Suppose I say yes.”
“Suppose, then, I can arrange to put it in your power to remove them
safely--hum--how much?”
There was a stealthy silence. “How much do you want?”
“Fifty thousand.”
Again a silence. “Very well.”
“Agreed!” said Freeman, and his slits of eyes glittered. “Then I have
the pleasure to tell you that the job is done.”
“Done?”
“Yes, done! Prince, I have made some great discoveries to-night! First,
do you know who Borodin is?”
The prince started. “Not the young Prince Valenko?” he cried.
“Yes. And do you know who else he is? No? He is Borski.”
“Borski! The leader of the South Russian revolt?”
“The same!”
“Oh!” slowly breathed the prince, and his eyes glittered back at
Freeman’s. “But you forget. There still remains his sister, the
Princess Olga.”
“You have been told that a young woman was arrested to-night?”
“Yes.”
“That young woman is the sister.”
This was too much for even Berloff’s self-command. His thin lips fell
apart and he stared at Freeman.
“She Princess Olga? You are mistaken. Princess Olga lies dangerously
ill at home.”
“Pardon me,” Freeman calmly returned, “Princess Olga lies in a cell in
Peter and Paul.”
“You are certain?”
“She told me who she was herself--and told me before Drexel.”
“Drexel knows the princess. You may be right.” He walked the floor in
repressed excitement. “Yes--you are right! And her pretended illness is
only a trick to hide her absence!”
He came to a pause. “But what charge can be made against her? The
jail-breaking plot? Shooting gendarmes?”
“An attempt to assassinate Prince Berloff.”
“What!”
“She is that woman. She confessed it to me.”
“Captain Nadson was not mistaken then! But do many know all this?”
“Only you and I, and two or three revolutionists besides those under
arrest.”
“Then between us two it must remain a secret.”
“Of course. But you must act quickly, or the revolutionists may decide
to reveal it.”
The prince paced up and down the room in deep concentration, then he
took up his telephone. After long waiting he got the number he desired.
“Is this one of the servants?” he asked. “Yes? Will you awaken General
Valenko and tell him that Prince Berloff is coming over to see him
immediately on a matter of the very gravest importance?”
He hung up the receiver. “Mr. Freeman, I want you and Captain Nadson to
come with me to Prince Valenko’s. I shall want your evidence. I think
you will know what to say and what not to say.”
Freeman’s slits of eyes gleamed, for he fathomed the prince’s plan.
“Clever--devilishly clever!” he commented beneath his breath.
Twenty minutes later Berloff and his two subordinates were admitted
to the Valenko palace by a sleepy servant. Berloff was ushered into
a room richly furnished as an administrative office. The military
governor raised his tall and portly body from his chair. He wore a
dressing-gown of deep crimson, and what with his gray hair, his thick
gray beard, his stern dominant face, and his military carriage, he was
a rarely imposing figure of a man.
He greeted Berloff with grumbling cordiality. “What fool business is
this, that pulls a man out of his bed at this time of the night?”
“So important that I did not feel justified in waiting till morning to
refer it to you.”
“Well, sit down, and out with it.”
Both took chairs. “But first,” said Berloff sympathetically, “how is
the princess?”
The general’s face softened with concern, and he sighed. Those who
said that the harsh old despot loved his daughter put the truth
conservatively.
“The doctor tells me she is still in serious danger.”
“Have you seen her yet?”
“No,” returned the general. “He says she must be spared any such
excitement.”
“Well, you know all St. Petersburg is praying for the best.”
“I know--I know.” He sighed again. “But what’s the business?”
“Of course you have heard about the arrests made this evening.”
“Of course. It was a tremendous coup--especially the capture of The
White One.”
“Some first-rate information has come to me in connection with the
arrests.” The prince watched the old man’s face closely and subdued
his voice to a tone of mere official interest. “First, the young woman
who was arrested is the woman who tried to shoot me two weeks ago.”
“The devil you say! How did you learn it?”
“She confessed to Freeman. You know he was intimate with the group.
Besides, Captain Nadson recognized her. They are both here to offer
their evidence in person. Of course I am merely reporting what they
told me.”
“What is she like?” asked the general.
“You know when she attacked me I saw her only in the dusk. She was then
dressed as a lady. But that probably was only a disguise. Freeman can
tell you about her.”
“But I don’t see why her case could not have waited till morning.”
“Her case is not all. I have learned the identity of Borodin.”
“Well?”
“He is Borski.”
The general’s red figure sprang up. “What! The leader of the South
Russian revolt!”
“Yes. The revolutionists confessed it to Freeman.”
The general rang sharply. “Show in the two men who are waiting,” he
said to the servant.
A minute later Freeman and the captain entered. The latter, having the
least to say, was first examined. He testified to the identity of the
arrested girl and was dismissed. The general then turned to Freeman,
and Berloff slipped back in his chair, withdrawing as it were from the
affair.
“Now, Mr. Freeman,” the general began, “you declare that this Borodin
is in reality Borski?”
“So the revolutionists confided to me.”
“They trusted you?”
“They considered me as one of themselves, Your Excellency.”
“Then of course their statement is beyond question. Did they tell you
anything else about him? Who he is--what he has done?”
For an instant Prince Berloff held his breath. But he had no reason,
for Freeman did not falter.
“Nothing else, Your Excellency.”
“They told you enough!” the general said grimly. “And now as to the
woman. She told you she tried to assassinate Prince Berloff?”
“She said she was the woman wanted for the attack,” was the adroit
response.
“And she took part in the plot to free Borski?”
“She was its leader.”
“Its leader! You did not tell me that, Berloff!”
“I was only summarizing what I had been told,” was the quiet reply.
“I of course know nothing at first hand and can make no charges. The
evidence is all Nadson’s and Freeman’s.”
Berloff was playing his game with his utmost skill. When it came out in
time who these two prisoners were, as it must, no blame could attach to
him; he had merely laid the case before the military governor, as in
duty bound, and had himself given no evidence and taken no action.
“Who is this woman? What is she like?” the general continued of Freeman.
“She calls herself Sonya Varanova,” was the ready answer. “She is in
the early twenties and is rather good-looking. She belongs, by her
appearance, to the common classes--is, in fact, a working woman.”
“Yes, that is what all these trouble-makers are--the riff-raff of
Russia!” the general wrathfully exclaimed. “Do you know anything else
about her?”
“Nothing material to the case, Your Excellency.”
A moment later Freeman was dismissed.
“My business is of course only to discover political criminals,”
Berloff began quickly but without the appearance of haste. “It rests
wholly with you, as the possessor of absolute power in such cases, to
decide what action shall be taken upon the information I lodge with
you. But I did feel, when I discovered these things, that here were
cases that you would consider should be immediately and rigorously
dealt with. The revolutionists are getting bolder every day; this
attempted jail-delivery is but a single instance. We have struck
consternation into them by the way we foiled that plot. If right on top
of that we could deliver them another sudden and severe blow, nothing
else would do so much to frighten them into quiet.”
“You are right!” agreed the general. “It has long been my guiding
principle that severe action is the only check for revolution.”
“And instant action,” subtly suggested the prince.
“And instant!” repeated the general.
There was little need, however, for the suggestion to this old
Vice-Czar, long accustomed to the relentless exercise of autocratic
power. He had sent scores to instant death, without giving them trial,
without seeing them, upon far slighter charges than those now laid
before him. While in command against the South Russian revolt it had
been his standing order that any person found with a pistol upon him
should be straightway stood against a wall and shot. So now he did not
hesitate.
He rang. “Tell my secretary to dress and come here,” he ordered the
servant. Then he sat down at his desk, drew out two awesome documents
and began to fill in the first. While the general’s head was down the
prince did not try to hide his excitement; his eyes glittered, and his
breath came tensely between his thin lips.
The general brushed the first aside, completed, and began the second.
He paused and looked up.
“What was the woman’s name? Sonya something, was it not?”
“Sonya Varanova, Freeman said,” returned the prince’s even voice.
“Sonya Varanova,” the general repeated as he wrote in the name. A
minute later he affixed his signature and his official seal and laid
this warrant with the other.
“On the other cases I shall postpone action,” he said. “As for The
White One, it might occasion some criticism even among our own friends
to execute so old and crippled a woman.”
“What time have you set?” queried the prince.
“Twenty-six hours from now. Four o’clock Thursday morning.”
Berloff adroitly let it be seen that an idea had occurred to him.
“You have a suggestion?” asked the general.
“I was thinking this would have a more dumbfounding effect if it came
without warning--if the revolutionists’ first news was the news that
all was over.”
“Yes--yes. And it will show them how crushingly determined is the
Government!”
“Then I suggest that you take precaution against your sentence leaking
out. That you send along with the warrants an order to the governor of
the Fortress that the prisoners are to be allowed to speak to no one,
and no one is to speak to them--that is, without your permission.”
“An excellent precaution.” The general took up his pen. As the order
was finished his secretary entered, and to him the general gave the
orders and the warrants. “Take these immediately over to the governor
of Peter and Paul.”
When the secretary had withdrawn, the prince arose. His pale face
showed none of the exultant triumph that filled his heart.
“Since all is done, I will be going,” he said.
The general’s red figure stood up. “An excellent evening’s work,
prince,” he said with satisfaction.
“Excellent,” quietly acquiesced Berloff.
The general pushed the button on his desk and followed Berloff into
the darkened hall. “Andrei here will show you out. Good-night.” In
the darkness the sleepy servant stumbled and upset a chair. “Be
careful there, you Andrei!” he called out sharply. “You’ll disturb the
princess!”
And yawning, and moving very lightly, the old general went back to his
bed.