A RESURRECTION AND A GHOST
It was soon evident that the Princess Y---- had taken her new maid
into her confidence to a certain extent.
She must have rung for Fauchette without my hearing anything, for
presently the door opened again, and I heard my assistant's voice.
As the result of a hurried consultation between the two women, in
which Fauchette played to perfection the part of a devoted maid who
is only desirous to anticipate the wishes of her mistress, it was
decided to wheel the sofa on which I lay into the oratory, and to
bring the wax dummy into the Princess's bedroom, to lie in state till
the next day.
The arrangement did not take long to carry out.
Partly from what I was able to overhear, and partly from the report
afterward furnished to me by Fauchette, I am able to relate
succinctly what took place.
To begin with, I was left in the oratory, while the counterfeit
corpse was duly arranged in the adjoining room.
Unable to lock me in the smaller apartment, Sophia declared her
intention of locking both the outer doors of the bedroom, one of
which gave on a corridor, while the other, as the reader is aware,
opened into the boudoir where the previous scene had taken place.
The Princess retained one of these keys herself, entrusting the other
to the maid, of course with the strictest injunctions as to its use.
To keep up appearances before the household, the Princess arranged to
pass the next few nights in another room on the same floor, which
usually served as a guest chamber.
It was explained to the servants that the death which had occurred
had upset the nerves of their mistress, and rendered her own suite of
rooms distasteful to her for the present.
Fauchette, who thus became my jailer, brought me a supply of cold
food and wine during the night. I had part of this provision under
the altar of the oratory, to serve me during the following day.
My cataleptic condition was supposed to endure for nearly twenty-four
hours. The enforced seclusion was intensely irritating to a man of my
temperament; but I could not evade it without revealing to Sophia
that I had heard her confession, and thereby inflicting a deadly
wound on a woman who loved me.
Meanwhile the arrangements for my funeral had been pressed on.
Already a telegram had appeared in the London papers announcing the
sudden and unexpected death from heart-failure of the well-known
English philanthropist, Mr. Melchisedak Sterling. One or two of the
journals commented on the fact of Mr. Sterling's death having taken
place while he was on a mission of peace to the Russian capital, and
expressed a hope that his death would have a chastening effect on the
War Party in Petersburg.
My friend, the editor of the Peace Review, very generously sent a
wreath, which arrived too late for the funeral but was laid on my
grave.
Unfortunately these newspaper announcements were taken seriously by
my exalted employers, as well as by the enemies whom I wished to
deceive, but this could not be helped.
By noon the undertaker's men had arrived with my coffin. The Princess
played upon their ignorance of English customs and burial rites to
pretend that the work of coffining must be done by women's hands. In
this way she and Fauchette were able to enclose the dummy in its
wooden shell, leaving to the men only the task of screwing down the
lid.
The burial took place in the English cemetery. I am glad to say that
the Princess contrived to avoid the mockery of a religious service by
alleging that Mr. Sterling had belonged to a peculiar sect--the
Quakers, I fancy--which holds such ceremonies to be worldly and
unnecessary.
I may add that I have since visited my grave, which is still to be
seen in a corner of the cemetery. It is marked by a stone slab with
an inscription in English.
In the afternoon the faithful Fauchette persuaded her mistress to go
out for a drive, to soothe her over-strained nerves.
Before quitting the house, the Princess came in to take a last look
at me.
She lingered minute after minute, as though with some premonition
that our next meeting would be under widely different circumstances.
To herself, I heard her whisper, sighing softly:
"Andreas! O Andreas! If I could sleep, or thou couldst never wake!"
She crept away, and the better to secure me locked both the bedroom
doors herself, and carried off the keys.
On her return, two hours later, Sophia, with a look that told the
watchful Fauchette of her uneasiness, hurried straight up-stairs,
toward the door of the little oratory.
She found it locked from the outside, with the key in the door.
It had cost me something to break my pledge to the Princess Y----
that I would give her my new address before leaving her.
But her unfortunate discovery of the portrait I wore around my neck
and her plainly-declared intention to hold me a prisoner till she
could shake my fidelity, had rendered it necessary for me to meet
treachery with treachery.
The secret service, it must always be borne in mind, has its own code
of honor, differing on many points from that obtaining in other
careers, but perhaps stricter on the whole.
For instance, I can lay my hand on my heart and declare that I have
never done either of two things which are done every day by men
holding high offices and high places in the world's esteem. I have
never taken a secret commission. And I have never taken advantage of
my political information to gamble in stocks.
The manner of my escape was simplicity itself.
My assistant had not come to live with the Princess without making
some preparations for the part she was to play, and these included
the bringing with her of a bunch of skeleton keys, fully equal to the
work of opening any ordinary lock.
As soon as her mistress was safely out of the way, Fauchette came to
receive my instructions.
I told her that I did not intend to wait for my jailer's return. We
discussed the best way for me to slip out, without obstruction from
the servants, and I decided to take advantage of the superstition of
the Russian illiterate class, by enacting the part of my own ghost.
The report that I had been buried without any funeral service had
already reached the household, and had prepared them for any
supernatural manifestation.
Fauchette first brought me a little powdered chalk, with which I
smeared my face. I then put on a long flowing cloak and a sombrero
hat, part of the wardrobe accumulated by the Princess in the course
of her gaieties.
I slipped a damp sponge into my pocket and directed the girl to lead
the way.
She went down-stairs a few yards in front of me, turned into the
servants' part of the house and threw open the back door, which led
out into a courtyard giving on a street used only by tradesmen's
carts. At this hour of the day it was deserted.
I followed cautiously in Fauchette's wake, and got as far as the back
door without meeting any interruption.
But at that point, the porter, who must have been roused by an
unfamiliar step--though I understand he swore afterward that the
passage of the ghost had been absolutely noiseless--came out and
stood in the doorway.
Without hesitating for an instant I assumed an erect posture and
advanced swiftly toward him with my whitened face well displayed.
The fellow gave vent to a half-articulate call which died down in his
throat, and bolted back into his room uttering yell after yell.
Fifteen seconds later I was out in the street, sponging the chalk
from my face.
And five minutes after that I was comfortably seated in a hired
droshky, on my way to a certain little house in the seafaring quarter
of the city, which possessed, among other advantages, that of
commanding an exceedingly fine view of the Admiralty Pier.