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REMARKABLE ROGUES
[Illustration: MARIE TARNOWSKA ON TRIAL]
REMARKABLE ROGUES
The Careers of Some Notable Criminals of Europe and America
by
CHARLES KINGSTON
With Eight Illustrations
London: John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd.
New York: John Lane Company, MCMXXI.
Second Edition
Printed in Great Britain at the Devonshire Press, Torquay.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I A RUSSIAN DELILAH 1
II AN INFAMOUS FEMALE POISONER 17
III BELLE STAR, THE GIRL BUSHRANGER 31
IV THE WOMAN WITH THE FATAL EYES 47
V MADAME RACHEL, THE BEAUTY SPECIALIST 63
VI THE MONTE CARLO TRUNK MURDERESS 79
VII MARTHA KUPFER, SWINDLER 95
VIII MADAME GUERIN, MATRIMONIAL AGENT 111
IX THE MURDER OF MADAME HOUET 125
X THE BOOTMAKER'S ROYAL WOOING 135
XI THE BOGUS SIR RICHARD DOUGLAS 147
XII THE ENTERPRISING MRS. CHADWICK 159
XIII THE MILLION DOLLAR RANCH GIRL 169
XIV JAMES GREENACRE 181
XV CATHERINE WILSON 197
XVI PIERRE VOIRBO 213
XVII EMANUEL BARTHÉLEMY 229
XVIII WILLIAM PARSONS 243
XIX ADAM WORTH 259
XX THE SECRET PRINCESS OF POSEN 275
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
MARIE TARNOWSKA ON TRIAL _Frontispiece_
MARIE TARNOWSKA ENTERING THE COURTHOUSE AT VENICE 14
"MADAME RACHEL" 64
MRS. CHADWICK 160
JAMES GREENACRE AND SARAH GALE 182
WILLIAM PARSONS 244
ADAM WORTH 260
PREFACE
That interest in crime and the criminal is universal no one will deny.
In a cruder age it was the custom to organize parties to witness the
public execution of notable scoundrels--Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton)
took Thackeray and, I believe, Dickens, to see Courvoisier's--but
nowadays we are more decorous, although on occasion several thousand
persons can assemble outside a prison and stare at a blank wall during
a private hanging inside. Most of us, however, are content to behold
crime through the eyes of our favourite journal and it is impossible to
complain that the press does not cater fully for us in this respect.
That crime retains its fascination for high and low is proved almost
every time there is a sensational trial at the Central Criminal Court,
for the attendance invariably includes distinguished politicians,
authors, artists and representatives of that nebulous class termed
"Society." It is, however, no longer possible for a special box to
be erected at the Old Bailey to enable members of the Royal Family
to watch a man on trial for his life, and it is now bad form for a
"popular judge" to surround himself with princes and peers and audibly
keep them _au fait_ with the evidence. These things have passed away
and we have "headlines" and contents-bills in their place. We are,
in fact, more respectable if less robust, but sin and sinners will
intrigue us to the end of Time.
James Greenacre, was the subject of more than one pamphlet biography,
but I have preferred to go to the copious reports of his trial for my
material, and I consulted similar sources whenever possible before
writing the chapters dealing with Marie Tarnowska, Mrs. Leroy
Chadwick, Jeanne Daniloff, three of my German criminals and several
others. Greenacre's trial and execution were conducted on typical early
nineteenth century lines, and that loathsome scoundrel was nearly
elevated to the pinnacle of a hero by indiscriminate publicity. The
competition to be present in Court when he was in the dock was so
keen that a pound a head was charged for admission to the gallery on
each day and even at that price the queue was always greater than the
accommodation. After his conviction he was visited in prison by scores
of "noblemen and gentlemen," and while in a contemporary account of the
execution--which I quote--the reporter omits the names of those eminent
persons who attended it, it is significant that the number of private
carriages, according to another journalist, should have exceeded fifty.
I obtained from an American detective who knew Adam Worth many of the
details of that rogue's doings, and it is to an American newspaper of
the late sixties that I am indebted for particulars of Belle Star's
career. Marie Tarnowska told her own story to Madame A. Vivanti
Chartres, who sympathetically transferred the countess's _apologia_ to
paper and published it. As a human document it is very interesting but
it is not convincing, and the very full report of her trial at Venice
published in the press of this country is the only reliable guide to
an understanding of the case. M. Canler, the famous French detective,
first related in narrative form the incidents which lead to the three
arrests of the murderers of Madame Houet, and I consulted the French
and English papers for the history of Pierre Voirbo's crime. "Madame
Rachel" was tried three times and there were several special reports
at the disposal of the author, but she does not seem to have attracted
much notice since her death and an account of her life will be new to
most of my readers.
REMARKABLE ROGUES
CHAPTER I
A RUSSIAN DELILAH
One day in a Russian country-house a girl of sixteen was presented to
three men--a prince, a baron, and a count, and as she greeted them with
youthful enthusiasm and _camaraderie_ she was quite unconscious of the
fact that each of the three had asked her father for her hand.
In the land of the steppes, girls develop quickly, and although Marie
was very young in years she was a fully-matured beauty, tall, with fine
features, a beautiful complexion, a divine voice, and enough charm for
half a dozen ordinary women.
No wonder the men were in love with her--she captured all hearts with
her beautiful face and her musical voice--and when she had to be told
of the proposals her father informed her that she could choose between
the prince and the baron, for he disapproved of the count.
"I should love to be a princess," Marie cried romantically.
Old Count O'Rourke, a typical Russian nobleman, who was descended from
an Irish soldier, was gratified.
"I am happy to hear you say so," he exclaimed, and kissed her.
A year later Marie eloped with the count, the one man of the three she
had been warned against.
It was the beginning of a series of tragedies for the extraordinary
girl, who became an even more extraordinary woman. Her father promptly
closed his doors against her once she was the Countess Tarnowska. Marie
declared that she did not care, adding that her husband was the most
perfect lover in the world and she was the happiest wife that ever
lived. But within six months she had changed her mind.
"God help me!" she murmured to a consoling friend. "I did not know
there could be so much sorrow in the world." For in that short time she
had discovered that Vassili Tarnowska was a libertine and that she was
only one of many women he had professed to love.
From that moment Marie became a different creature. Always
high-spirited and highly-strung, she only required a feeling of
injustice to influence her to take to the path that leads to perdition.
Her husband neglected her, and she could not bear to be alone. Other
men flocked round her and talked lyrically of her exquisite beauty. The
neglected wife eagerly welcomed these compliments. Of course she and
her husband, as members of the Russian aristocracy, had to maintain
outwardly an appearance of perfect amity, but they were rapidly
drifting apart, and tragedy was hovering over them all the time.
What would have happened had Marie found a strong and loving husband
one can only conjecture. That she was born with a "kink" in her
brain is evident. She has since confessed to that, and more than one
specialist has recorded that she inherited disease as well as life from
her parents and that she was not always responsible for her actions.
But it has to be admitted that when she began to carve out a career
for herself independently of her husband and children she permitted no
scruple, no sense of honour, and no decency to interfere with her in
her mad pursuit of pleasure.
The first of her victims was her husband's brother. Peter Tarnowska was
a quiet, intellectual youth with a great reverence for womenfolk. He
admired his sister-in-law, and was under the impression that Vassili
was devoted to her. His amazement was, therefore, all the greater when,
happening to call unexpectedly, he saw Marie with tear-stained eyes
sitting in desolate loneliness. As a result of that interview Peter
Tarnowska knew that he had found his ideal, but, of course, he was too
late. She was another man's, and that man was his brother.
Vassili Tarnowska, who prided himself on his taste, was in the habit of
haunting night restaurants with beauties of questionable antecedents,
and he was presiding at a banquet in a restaurant in Kieff when he was
startled to see his wife enter with a man. She was beautifully dressed,
and she looked so happy that he thought her the loveliest woman there.
The realization made him jealous, and Tarnowska, who did not want his
wife until others showed their appreciation of her beauty and wit, now
came back to her, and at once was the most jealous of husbands.
Had Marie been wise she would have seized the opportunity to atone for
the past and make her future happiness certain. She had two pretty
children, and Tarnowska was evidently determined to do his duty by them
all, but the countess had already gone too far to wish to withdraw.
She had lovers; here a doctor, there an officer of the Imperial Guard;
and there was always a flattering number of candidates for the honour
of escorting her to the theatre or restaurant. She was convinced that
respectability was synonymous with dullness, and, accordingly, when the
count expressed his penitence and desired a reconciliation he was too
late. Marie had no room for him now in her overcrowded heart.
They lived together, of course, and entertained on the lavish scale
which brought so many Russian families to poverty in the pre-revolution
period. Marie was the most popular of hostesses, for she possessed
that happy faculty of making each of her guests feel that the
entertainment was got up solely in his or her honour.
Months of riotous pleasure passed. Vassili Tarnowska's jealousy became
a mania. He suspected every man he saw in his home, and his wife's
flippant and contemptuous answers to his questions exasperated him.
The beauty found it impossible to forgive or forget the fact that the
husband she had once considered the most chivalrous man in all the
world had been the only male to neglect her for other women.
They were at breakfast one morning when Tarnowska was handed a
telegram. Suddenly he leaned across the table and screamed a question
to her.
"What have you been doing to my brother Peter?" he cried.
Marie could not speak.
"Read that," said the count, as he thrust the telegram into her shaking
hand.
"Peter hanged himself last night." She read the message aloud in
a voice that grated on him. "He was a foolish boy," she remarked
indifferently. "I had forgotten his existence."
The tragic fate of Peter Tarnowska was still being talked about when
Alexis Bozevsky became the lover of the countess. He was the type of
man who looks and acts like the hero of a melodrama. He was tall, with
a superb figure, a moustache that seems to have been irresistible, a
_bonhomie_ men and women were hypnotized by, and he was, undoubtedly, a
past master in the art of pleasing romantically-minded ladies.
He penned a couple of letters to Marie, which won her for him, body
and soul. She ran the most terrible risks on his behalf once she was
in love with him, and the woman who was a queen amongst men now gladly
became the slave of this handsome officer of the Imperial Guard.
The story of their love is brief and tragic and very melodramatic. It
is difficult to believe that it all happened so recently as 1907. The
jealous husband, the handsome lover, the cigarette-smoking Russian
countess with the beautiful face and dark eyes--all belong to the
stage; yet the Tarnowskas and Alexis Bozevsky were real personages, and
two of them are living to-day.
For some time Marie's latest conquest was unnoticed by her husband, who
hoped that his brother's suicide would reform her. When he stumbled
upon the truth he simultaneously resolved to kill Bozevsky in a duel.
The first encounter between the jealous husband and the handsome lover
took place in the house of the former. Tarnowska was armed, but he
would not shoot a defenceless foe, and he flung on the table a revolver
for his enemy.
"We will settle it here," he said, with the laugh of a madman.
Bozevsky was terrified by that laugh, and fled from the apartment
to tell Marie what had happened. They agreed on a course of action,
knowing that there was no room in the world for both the count and the
officer, and they felt that they were helpless to avert the approaching
tragedy.
A few days later Count Tarnowska, very pale and very self-possessed,
entered the police station at Kieff.
"I have shot Alexis Bozevsky," he said calmly. "I found him dining with
my wife at the Grand Hotel. I am your prisoner."
The astounded and agitated inspector did not detain him. Tarnowska was
of too high a rank, and, besides, he suspected that the count was not
quite right in his head. But Tarnowska had spoken the truth. Bozevsky
was not dead, but he was dying, and Marie had left her home and had
deserted her children in order to nurse him.
Bozevsky lingered for a few days, and Marie scarcely ever left his
side. She knew that never again would she go back to her husband.
The attack on Bozevsky outside the Grand Hotel precluded that. She
spent hours praying for the recovery of the young officer whom she
passionately loved, and often he would lie with a wan smile on his
strained face whilst she pictured their happy future together. At these
interviews Dr. Stahl, who was attending the wounded man, was always
present. He was pale and weak-looking, obviously the victim of drugs,
and Marie ignored him because she knew that he was in love with her too!
For Stahl had introduced Marie to the mysteries of drug-taking, to
which she was now addicted. This accounts for a lot. At her trial she
was described as a "human vampire," yet at times she had been the most
devoted of mothers and the most generous of friends. But she lacked a
brake to steady her when she began to descend, and she went from one
wickedness to another until the final catastrophe.
When the young officer died Marie Tarnowska's heart died too. She could
never love again, and she never did, but she could pretend to. In her
desolation she rushed off into the country; she travelled and tried to
forget. Her husband and her children were lost to her; she had been
told that she would never be allowed to see them again. The sentence
hardly affected her, for she could not think of anything or anybody now
that the world was very lonely and her life empty.
Hitherto Marie Tarnowska had never known what it was to lack money. She
had spent freely without any thought of the morrow. She had no idea of
the value of money. In the past it had always been there for her to
take. But now that her husband no longer acknowledged her existence
her sources of supply were cut off, and it was the soulless proprietor
of a second-rate hotel who drew her attention to the fact that even
beautiful countesses must pay their way or suffer the humiliations
attendant on poverty.
It was a bitter awakening. Marie Tarnowska became terrified. She could
not earn her living; she must beg or borrow, or kill herself; and she
had no desire to die.
She was walking to a telegraph office to send a message to her father
explaining her position and imploring him to respond, when she heard
her name pronounced by some one behind her. Turning, she recognized
Donat Prilukoff, one of the wealthiest lawyers in Moscow. He had been a
visitor at her house in the days of her glory, and Marie had been aware
that he was in love with her.
Prilukoff was rich! Marie recollected that too! She had disliked him in
the past, but she was poor now and beggars cannot be choosers.
"My dear friend," she murmured, and tears came into her fascinating
eyes.
Prilukoff guessed how her affairs stood, and came to the rescue, but
she could not forget her antipathy to the lawyer. A new passion had
arisen in her, however, a passion for money, and henceforth she meant
never to feel the want of it again, even if she had to pretend to love
Prilukoff.
They became inseparable, the Moscow lawyer and the beautiful
adventuress who had broken so many hearts and her own life.
"What has become of Dr. Stahl?" Marie asked shortly after their reunion.
Prilukoff laughed carelessly.
"He shot himself through the heart the other day," he said, in a
callous tone. "They sent for me, and he died with your name on his
lips, Marie."
She was "Marie" now to the man she had christened "The Scorpion" when
she was rich and at the height of her popularity.
Prilukoff, middle-aged and unromantic-looking, was fiercely in
love with the countess. At all their previous meetings he had been
thrust into the background by the clever, handsome young men who had
worshipped at Marie Tarnowska's shrine, but now he had her to himself.
Every day she accepted money from him. Her creditors having discovered
her address, presented their bills with unveiled threats.
Prilukoff saved the situation each time. He paid out thousands of
pounds, and Marie Tarnowska hated him the more she was indebted to him.
Had he ill-treated her she might have showered kisses on his feet, but
he was recklessly generous, and she despised and hated him. She was
that sort of woman.
It was necessary, of course, that they should move about, for it would
have damaged Prilukoff's reputation as a sound family lawyer whom
elderly ladies could trust with their investments if it was known that
he was supplying a notorious woman with funds.
Marie gladly went to Italy, leaving the lawyer to attend to his
business, but he was with her again within seventy-two hours.
"I cannot bear to let you out of my sight," he said. "The business must
take care of itself."
"But what about money?" asked Marie nervously. It was all she thought
of now. "I owe a thousand pounds to my dressmaker, and----"
Prilukoff produced a roll of notes.
"Don't be afraid," he said, "there is always plenty to be had."
She was completely in Prilukoff's power when she renewed her
acquaintanceship with an old friend, Count Paul Kamarowsky, a colonel
in the Russian Army, and a wealthy man. The count had just lost his
wife, and he was endeavouring to escape from loneliness by wandering
about Europe with his little daughter. Marie, therefore, came into
his life again at a very critical time, and she had no difficulty in
making him fall in love with her. He was ready to be tricked, and with
Prilukoff's help she proceeded to swindle him.
Marie had had no intention of obtaining money from Kamarowsky until
the Moscow lawyer had startled and terrified her by confessing that he
was practically penniless. He had not only spent his means on her, but
he had stolen over forty thousand pounds from his clients in order to
satisfy her extravagant whims. When Marie, regarding him with horror,
suggested that he should return to Moscow, he gripped her by the wrist.
"I've ruined myself for you," he cried hoarsely. "Once I was the most
respected lawyer in Moscow, now I am a common thief, and if I return
I shall be arrested. Marie, you must be mine. I love you. I have
sacrificed everything for you. You must never desert me. If you do----"
She saw the threat in his eyes, but did not hear his words.
Events now followed one another in rapid succession. Prilukoff had
to be careful to keep out of the way of the police, whilst Countess
Tarnowska, who would have given anything to be rid of him, had to see
him every day and discuss ways and means of obtaining supplies of hard
cash.
Prilukoff, who discerned that Kamarowsky was in love with Marie,
conceived a scheme by which they eventually extracted a large sum from
him. Scarcely had the swindle been accomplished than Marie heard that
her husband had divorced her. She was free to marry again, and she had
already pledged her word to the swindling lawyer to take his name, but
Count Paul Kamarowsky, rich, of noble family, and likely to make a
devoted husband, was going to propose to her!
The count did so that very night, and Marie accepted him, extracting a
promise that he would keep their engagement a secret. She was terrified
lest Prilukoff should tell Paul that she was his, and so she played
with the two men, keeping them apart and persuading each that he was
the chosen bridegroom, though well aware that she was in the power of
Prilukoff and that she dare not disobey him.
Marie was not in love. As I have said, her capacity for love had ceased
to exist with the death of Alexis Bozevsky, but she wanted Kamarowsky's
fortune, and she would obtain it only by conspiring with Donat
Prilukoff, the dishonest lawyer, her master.
As though the situation was not sufficiently complicated, a third
lover now came on the scene. This was Nicholas Naumoff, a youngster of
twenty, the only son of the governor of Orel. Nicholas and Kamarowsky
were devoted friends, and when the count introduced him to Marie he
succumbed on the spot to the charmer.
With three lovers, one of whom held her in the hollow of his hand,
Marie Tarnowska had a breathlessly exciting time. In the old days she
would have enjoyed the situation, but now she hungered and thirsted
for gold, and it was of money only that she thought whenever she asked
herself what she should do.
The lawyer from Moscow haunted her. How she wished that he would die
and leave her to marry the rich Count Kamarowsky, the man who could
take her back into society and open the doors now closed to her!
Marriage with Prilukoff would mean the perpetuation of her disgrace,
and she would inevitably sink lower; yet she dare not move without his
permission, and whenever he came to her she had to do his bidding.
It was a cruel trick of Fate's to put her in such a position. Countess
Tarnowska, who had once driven men crazy by her capriciousness, the
beauty who could pick and choose her lovers--and did so--was now at the
beck and call of an ugly lawyer with an ugly record! She shed bitter
tears, and was only comforted when Prilukoff whispered that there was
a way of getting Kamarowsky's fortune and never knowing again the
terrors of poverty.
Meanwhile, Paul Kamarowsky suggested that they should prepare for their
wedding. Marie, who only dreamt of the time when she would be his,
had to plead for a postponement, knowing that if she fixed the date
Prilukoff would do something desperate. But despite her dislike for the
lawyer she complained to him that Kamarowsky had not yet referred to
financial matters.
Prilukoff, confident that Marie could not escape his clutches,
propounded a plan whereby Kamarowsky was to be induced to make his will
in her favour and also insure his life for £25,000 on her behalf. The
trick was simplicity itself.
Prilukoff allowed Marie to dine with Kamarowsky in an hotel at Venice,
where they were all staying, and in the middle of the dinner a waiter
handed the woman a letter. Marie started and went crimson when she
read it, and her companion, insisting on seeing what had disturbed
his fiancée, read the note, which purported to have been written by
a well-known Russian prince offering to settle his fortune on her
and insure his life for £25,000 if only she would return to Russia
and marry him. Prilukoff had, of course, written the letter, and
Marie Tarnowska acted her part so realistically that the next day
Kamarowsky's will and insurance on his life were facts, and she was
heiress to both!
But once Kamarowsky had appointed the Russian beauty the sole inheritor
of his property in the event of his death the conspirators wasted
no time arranging for his murder. They both wanted his money badly.
Marie, realizing that she could never marry him without Prilukoff's
permission--a permission which would never be granted--entered into the
conspiracy with a callousness and an abandon that were inhuman. She was
only twenty-seven, but she could plot in cold blood to take the life
of one who had been and was extremely generous to her.
Of course Marie herself would not do the deed, and Prilukoff, whose
nerve had long since gone, was quite incapable of actually killing
anyone. He could arrange the details and hand the knife or revolver to
the selected assassin, but beyond that he could not go.
However, they were thorough and remorseless plotters. Kamarowsky was in
their way. His death would make Marie a rich woman and Prilukoff a rich
man, because then he could make her marry him. The count, therefore,
must be removed. But who was to kill him? That was a question that was
answered within a few hours by the arrival of Nicholas Naumoff.
The young man found Marie in her hotel at Venice, and there and then it
flashed across her mind that he was the very person to kill Kamarowsky
and at one stroke turn her poverty into riches, for Prilukoff having no
more clients to rob, Kamarowsky must be murdered.
She was too clever, of course, to take him into her confidence,
although Naumoff was so infatuated that he would have obeyed any
command she was pleased to give him. But Marie Tarnowska had a
wholesome fear of the law, and, whilst she was willing to consign her
young friend to a living grave, she had not the slightest desire to
experience the discomforts of a prison herself.
It turned out that Naumoff had called to ask her to marry him. His
proposal inwardly amused Marie, for he was so young and she was so
old--in experience. But she listened gravely to him, and when he had
finished she kissed him on the forehead and whispered in a voice broken
with sobs that she had prayed for this day and now that it had come she
could not, dare not, aspire to happiness because a certain man stood
between them and would prevent their marriage.
The ardent youth naturally demanded to know who it was who was driving
her to madness. She answered under pressure that he was Count Paul
Kamarowsky, Naumoff's dearest friend.
He was so surprised that he tried to persuade Marie that she was
mistaken. Somehow Naumoff had not regarded Kamarowsky as an aspirant
to her hand. He was so old compared with him, and love was, in his
opinion, the prerogative of youth.
"Watch him," said Marie, who had been secretly engaged to the count for
some months, "and you will be convinced that he persecutes me. I have
to be polite to him, but, Nicholas, dear, I should be happy if I never
saw him again."
Naumoff watched as bidden, and of course he saw Kamarowsky wait
attentively on the woman to whom he was engaged. Quite innocent of
the fact that he was giving cause for offence to his young friend,
Kamarowsky seldom went out unaccompanied by Marie; and, when he was not
looking and Nicholas was near her, she would make a little grimace of
disgust to indicate that the count's presence was distasteful to her.
Naumoff, who had again proposed to Marie and been accepted, was nearly
driven out of his mind by jealousy. He had pledged his word of honour
not to reveal his engagement to Kamarowsky, who was also similarly
placed by a promise to the beauty. Only Prilukoff, who remained in the
background, knew the true state of affairs, and he was too worried by
fear of the police to be able to enjoy the comedy.
But that comedy quickly developed into one of the most amazing
tragedies of modern times, for Naumoff, hot-headed and irresponsible
when under the influence of the Russian Delilah, decided to kill the
man Marie described as her persecutor, the lover by whose death she
stood to gain a fortune.
It was in the month of September, 1907, that the decision was come to.
As soon as she heard it Marie found it convenient to take a trip to
Vienna and wait there for the tragedy which would give her Kamarowsky's
large fortune and enable her to collect £25,000 from the insurance
companies. Prilukoff also vanished, having arranged to return to Marie
when she had entered into her inheritance.
So that she might not be suspected of participation in the crime the
woman wrote a letter to the Chief of Police at Venice, warning him
that there was a feud between Nicholas Naumoff and Paul Kamarowsky and
that in all probability they would have recourse to fire-arms. Acting
on this letter the police watched Kamarowsky's apartments, and by a
strange coincidence arrested a man who came from them at the moment
Naumoff fired the shots which aroused the house. The prisoner, however,
was released when it was seen he was not the person they wanted.
When Naumoff, mad with jealousy, called on Paul one morning, the count
warmly welcomed him, though owing to the early hour he had to receive
him in bed. But the moment he saw Naumoff's expression he guessed
something was wrong. Before he could speak, however, the young man drew
his revolver and fired two shots at close range into Kamarowsky's body.
The injured man managed to rise to his feet and ask why his dearest
friend had turned against him. Naumoff babbled out something about
Marie Tarnowska, and the count understood.
"You have been fooled," he muttered, for he was rapidly losing blood.
"Ah, there is some one on the stairs. Quick, I will help you to escape
by the window. Some day you will understand. Nicholas, I--I loved you
as a son. I never thought it would come to this. Quick--this way."
[Illustration: MARIE TARNOWSKA ENTERING THE COURTHOUSE AT VENICE.]
Kamarowsky actually assisted his murderer to escape, but Naumoff did
not evade the police for long, and when he was locked in a cell he knew
that not only had Countess Marie Tarnowska been arrested, but that
Prilukoff, the swindler, was also in custody.
The count was taken at once to a hospital, and a famous surgeon
stitched up his wounds.
"He will live," he said. "No vital part has been touched."
It seemed as though the Tarnowska tragedy was to end in a trial for
attempted murder only, but Fate was relentless, for the chief surgeon
who had pronounced Kamarowsky's life to be safe suddenly went mad in
the hospital ward and ordered the stitches to be removed from the
healing wound. A few hours afterwards Kamarowsky died in agony, and the
last words of his delirium were a message of love for Marie, the woman
who had planned his death and who had tricked his best friend into
committing the crime.
The three accomplices spent over two years in prison before being
arraigned, and the trial was a protracted affair in spite of the
fullest confessions by the prisoners. Sensations were innumerable
during the proceedings and there were many emotional scenes, and on
May 20th, 1910, the Venice jury brought in a verdict of guilty, adding
a rider to the effect that the countess and Naumoff were suffering
from partial mental decay. Prilukoff was sentenced to ten years'
solitary confinement; Marie Tarnowska to eight years' and four months'
imprisonment, and Naumoff to three years and one month, the time
already spent in gaol to be included.
As for Marie Tarnowska, the beauty who had ruined many lives, she
went to her punishment as if in a trance. All her scheming, all her
heartlessness and greed only brought her in the end to a convict's garb
and years of unceasing and humiliating labour. And from the cell she
passed to obscurity.