THE ASSASSIN.
WHEN it was too late to prevent the consequences, the Naryshkins
realized the effect of the Czarevna Sophia’s presence at the funeral
of Feodor. Her passionate appeal to the people was in the nature of
a _coup d’état_, and who could measure the results? For days, rumors
had been afloat that the late czar had been poisoned, and the ignorant
populace, always only too ready to credit such accusations, accepted
Sophia’s bold declaration as a confirmation of every story, and the
ugly skeleton of murder stalked out of the imperial closet. The crowd
had surged about the czarevna in a violent manifestation of loyalty
and the unfortunate exit of the Czarina Natalia served to increase
the victory. Peter was then only ten years old, and the czarina was
probably justified in taking the child away from that long and weary
service; but no excuse would be accepted for her in the heat of the
popular displeasure.
When I left the Kremlin that evening, I encountered Dr. von Gaden, and
he walked with me a little way towards my quarters. The doctor was
anxious and disturbed, and we discussed the conduct of the czarevna.
“The Miloslavskys are desperate,” Von Gaden remarked, “and Sophia is
able enough and clever enough to wring success out of their defeat;
they are playing on the disloyalty of the Streltsi.”
“A dangerous move,” I replied. “I heard to-day that the Streltsi had
presented a formal petition for redress and the punishment of their own
officers.”
“Yes,” Von Gaden said, shaking his head thoughtfully, “only one
regiment remains faithful to the young czar.”
“You mean the Sukharef, and I suppose they will tamper even with that.”
“Ay, no doubt,” the physician said; “and yet, when this trouble is
let loose, who can stem the current? It may be more mighty than they
suppose. He who sows the wind must reap the whirlwind!”
“It is a desperate game, and both parties are playing desperately. I
hear that the Chancellor Matveief is coming home.”
“That we have all expected,” replied Von Gaden. “Your friend Ivan
Michaelovitch Miloslavsky is reported ill to-night.”
“Strange,” I remarked; “he seemed in good health to-day.”
“It is but acting,” said the physician, bitterly; “they are all acting
now. Miloslavsky has some end in view which can be best served by
isolation, therefore he is ill.”
“A few days ago the cause of the Czarevitch Ivan was desperate,” I
remarked musingly, “but now the Czar Peter’s hold on the imperial
sceptre seems precarious. There has been shrewd work done in the
interval.”
“And the czarevna’s charge that the Czar Feodor was poisoned will rouse
the very devil among this ignorant rabble, and I was the late czar’s
physician!” Von Gaden shrugged his shoulders. “I must even throw myself
on the mercy of the Czarina Natalia, since the Miloslavskys would
sacrifice my head right cheerfully, if it would promote their cause.”
“I have imagined that Matveief could control these warring factions,” I
said; “it needs a master’s hand and a cool head. Why does he not hasten
to the scene of action?”
Von Gaden smiled. “The ex-chancellor has an affection for his head, and
likes to feel it on his shoulders,” he replied dryly. “His son sends
him information, and I believe he is waiting for this storm to blow
over before he launches his bark upon the sea of popular favor.”
“This tempest will never blow over until it has spent its fury,” I
rejoined.
As I spoke, the doctor touched my arm, and signed to me to look in
front of us. The moon was partially obscured by thin clouds, but there
was light enough for me to see two figures ahead, one skulking in the
rear of the other, and keeping in the shelter of the houses. The first
one walked boldly along in the middle of the road, a large figure
wrapped in a long cloak; the stealthy form was not quite so tall or
broad, but more agile and fleet of foot. It was the peculiar movements
of the latter that had attracted the physician’s notice.
“Watch them,” he said in a low voice; “that fellow behind gains slowly
but surely on the other, who is apparently unconscious of his pursuit.”
“If I ever saw a murderer and his victim, I see them now,” I replied in
as low a tone; “let us give the alarm.”
The doctor shook his head. “Not yet,” he said; “rather follow and see
the upshot of it. There is something familiar to me in the bearing of
the taller man.”
I was conscious, too, of recognizing a certain familiarity of outline.
Slipping into the shadow, we followed in the wake of the pursuer and
pursued. We kept at some distance in the rear, that our footsteps might
not be noticed; and the strange procession continued for some distance
without the stealthy spy showing any signs of a malicious purpose. Our
road lay through a lonely quarter of the town, and we had encountered
no one as yet, so that our interest was centered on the two before us.
The tall man in front was going straight towards the section of the
city occupied by the Streltsi. In a quarter of an hour, we turned into
a deserted lane, narrow and so shadowed by the high walls on either
side, that not even the struggling light of the moon could penetrate
it. It was here that we heard the sudden sound of a struggle in front
of us, and dashed forward to the rescue. I almost stumbled over the two
rolling on the ground, for I could barely discern them in the darkness;
the larger man had evidently been tripped up by a sudden assault from
the rear, and was beneath. I seized the other by the collar, dragging
him off with difficulty, for he seemed determined to finish his
fiendish work. His victim lay for a moment motionless.
“Is he injured?” I asked in French, of Von Gaden, as he knelt beside
him. But as I spoke, the stranger recovered sufficiently to raise
himself.
“I thank you for your promptness, M. de Brousson,” he said. “You were
in the nick of time; the villain’s knife was at my throat.”
It was Peter Lykof. Recovering from my surprise, I asked him if he was
free from injury.
“A trifle scratched and a little shaken,” he said calmly, rising with
the doctor’s help. “It is a shock to a man’s nerves to be suddenly
choked and thrown down. Who is the rascal?”
“We shall need more light to see,” I remarked carelessly, meanwhile
keeping my knee on the fellow’s chest and my pistol at his head. “Have
you a bit of cord there, Dr. von Gaden?” I added. “If we can tie
his hands and disarm him, it will be easy to take him home for safe
keeping.”
In a few moments we had bound his hands with the doctor’s scarf, and
having disarmed him, allowed him to rise. Von Gaden invited Lykof to
come with us, that he might dress his slight wound, and after a little
hesitation, the invitation was accepted, and we returned towards the
doctor’s house, the prisoner walking in advance and covered by my
pistol, which I kept ready cocked.
“Go a step faster than we do,” I said sharply, “and I will shoot you.”
Thus we moved along in a solemn manner towards Von Gaden’s quarters.
Even in the darkness I was sure that I recognized my prisoner’s figure,
and was not surprised to have my supposition verified on entering the
house. It was the Boyar Ramodanofsky’s steward, Polotsky. Von Gaden
looked at him with a grunt of disgust.
“What will you do with him?” I asked.
The physician stood a moment absorbed in thought.
Meanwhile, Lykof remained in the shadow by the door, taking no part in
the discussion, although he would naturally have been the most keenly
interested. After a little hesitation, Von Gaden summoned a servant,
and the two took Polotsky to a small room at the left of the door, and
securing the window, bolted him in and left him to his own reflections.
Then the doctor invited us to enter his study, where the tapers were
burning, and he had appliances at hand to bandage Lykof’s throat.
Entering the room in advance, I was startled by an exclamation from Von
Gaden, and looking around, saw his eyes fastened with astonishment on
the face of Peter Lykof, who was standing before the light, and having
dropped his cloak, was revealed in his close-fitting garments, a large
muscular man, whose white hair contrasted strongly with his bronzed
complexion. Lykof was regarding the Jew with almost a smile on his
stern face, and I saw that the side which had escaped the distortion of
the scar was handsome. Von Gaden shaded his eyes with his hand, gazing
at his visitor in silence until Lykof spoke.
“You recognize me, I see, doctor,” he said; “but it is not necessary
that others should know me also.”
“I understand,” exclaimed Von Gaden, grasping his outstretched hand
warmly. “I should have known you among a thousand, although it is a
long time, and the years have made some changes.”
“Sorry ones, I fear,” replied the stranger, smiling. “But you should
recognize your own handiwork.”
The doctor seemed suddenly to recollect his business, and bustled about.
“Sit down,” he said, “and I will dress that neck of yours, and then we
can have supper.”
“It is but a scratch,” said Lykof, carelessly, as he unfastened his
collar, revealing a gash near the collar-bone which had bled quite
freely.
“A bungling stroke,” remarked Von Gaden, critically; “the villain is a
poor swordsman.”
“Yes, fortunately,” laughed Lykof, “else I should not be alive to thank
M. de Brousson for his timely interference.”
“The fellow must have been dogging your footsteps for some time,” I
said, “for we had followed for quite a distance to see the outcome of
the affair.”
“It may be that he has followed me all day,” Lykof replied. “I have
been so absorbed in my own business that I had no thought of such a
thing; and Michael was not with me. If he had been--” he laughed and
shrugged his shoulders.
“There would have been short work,” I said; “at least, I should judge
so from what I have observed.”
“He told me of his mistaken attack upon you, M. le Vicomte,” Lykof said
with a keen glance, which made my face burn, “and I must apologize for
him. The fellow has been infuriated by this villain Polotsky, and longs
for his blood. I have no doubt that he will murder him in the end, and
it will be no loss to the community.”
“No; that kind of vermin is best removed,” Von Gaden rejoined, as he
adjusted the plaster on Lykof’s wound, and I watched with interest the
man’s wonderful dexterity.
“What will you do with Polotsky now?” I inquired, not a little
curious as to their intentions, for I saw that there was already an
understanding between doctor and patient from which I was excluded.
“Let him go,” replied Lykof, carelessly; “give him enough rope and he
will hang himself.”
“After he has sent a few other people out of the world,” I replied
dryly; and I saw that Von Gaden was surprised at his friend’s
indifference.
“I would not let the villain go if I were you,” he said, looking
earnestly at Lykof, as if endeavoring to fathom his motive.
“This rogue is so insignificant that I do not care about him,”
returned the other, calmly. “I would rather set my snare for a greater
rascal--that we know of.”
“It seems to me a constant menace to your own safety to let yonder
fellow loose,” I remarked. “He is indeed insignificant, but none the
less a mischievous rogue, and one who strikes in the back. I would
rather end the matter with a bullet than let him go at large.”
“It is at least the wiser course to keep him a close prisoner,” Von
Gaden said, with a certain air of deference, however, as if willing
to yield his opinion to Lykof’s,--a manner that was unusual with the
doctor, a man of strong will and quick decision.
But while we were thus discussing the matter, it was already settled.
The prisoner had found a satisfactory solution of the problem. Von
Gaden’s confidential servant came running to the door, much out of
breath and visibly alarmed.
“A word with you, master,” he said in German.
“What is it, fellow?” asked the doctor, sharply, turning on him as if
he suspected his errand.
“The prisoner has escaped, sir,” he stammered, looking thoroughly
frightened at the displeasure gathering in his master’s eye.
“You villain!” exclaimed Von Gaden, angrily. “Could you not watch an
assassin closer?”
The poor man faltered a thousand excuses, overwhelmed with his own
culpability. Lykof did not understand German, but when the situation
was explained to him, he laughed.
“There is no longer any need to discuss the wisdom of retaining this
prisoner,” he said.
Von Gaden questioned his servant, and found that the man’s suspicion
had been aroused by a sudden cessation of all sound in the temporary
prison where Polotsky had been confined; and examining the place
through the keyhole, he had felt the fresh air, and immediately
unbolting the door, found that, in some ingenious way, the prisoner
had unfastened the window and leaped into the street. He went outside
at once, but found no trace of the fugitive. Von Gaden was not only
annoyed, but mortified at what he deemed his own carelessness; but
Lykof tried to set his mind at rest, evidently regarding the escape as
a joke at the expense of the Jew, and he remarked that it would not
be difficult to discover the fugitive, as he was certain to return to
Ramodanofsky’s house. I observed that Lykof seemed rather to relish the
idea of going there in search of him. Von Gaden, on the contrary, liked
the prospect less and less, and blamed himself not a little for the
easy escape of the captive.
“I will not trust to such securities again,” he muttered; “if I had
taken him to my laboratory, I could have kept him fast enough!”