The Price of Power Part 6

"Well," I said, with some show of reluctance, "if I succeed, you will be responsible to me, remember. No flirtations."

"I promise," she said. "Here's my hand," and she put her tiny white-gloved hand into mine.

"And if I heard of any affectionate meetings I should put down my foot at once."

"Yes, that's agreed," she exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "At once."

"And I should, perhaps, want you to help me in England," I added slowly, looking into her pretty face the while.

"Help you, in what way?" she asked.

"At present, I hardly know. But if I wanted a.s.sistance might I count on you?"

"Count on me, Uncle Colin!" she echoed. "Why, of course, you can! Look at my indebtedness to you, and it will be increased if you can secure me permission to go back to England."

"Well," I said, "I'll do what I can. But you have told me no untruths to-night, not one--?" I asked very seriously. "If so, admit it."

"Not one. I swear I haven't."

"Very well," I said. "Then I'll do my best."

"Ah! you are a real dear!" cried the girl enthusiastically. "I almost feel as though I could hug and kiss you!"

"Better not," I laughed. "There are some people sitting over there, and they would talk--"

"Yes," she said slowly. "I suppose really one ought to be a bit careful, after all. When will you see the Emperor?"

"Perhaps to-morrow--if he gives me audience." Then I related to her the story of the attempt in the Nevski on the previous morning, and the intention of a.s.sa.s.sinating the Emperor as he drove from the Nicholas station to the Palace.

"Ah, yes!" she cried. "It is all too dreadful. For seven weeks we have lived in constant terror of explosions. I could not go through it again for all the world. Those days in that stuffy armoured train were simply awful. His Majesty only undertook the journey in order to defy those who declared that some terrible catastrophe would happen. The Empress knew nothing of the danger until we had started."

"And yet the only danger lay within half a mile of the Palace on your return," I said. "There have, I hear, been thirty-three arrested to-day, including my friends Madame de Rosen and Luba. You knew them."

"Marya de Rosen!" gasped the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, staring at me. "She is not under arrest?"

"Alas! she is already on her way, with her daughter, to Eastern Siberia."

"But that is impossible. She was no revolutionist. I knew them both very intimately."

"General Markoff was her enemy," I said in a whisper. "Ah, yes! I hate that man!" cried Her Highness. "He is a clever liar who has wormed himself completely into the Emperor's confidence, and now, in order to sustain a reputation as a discoverer of plots, he is compelled to first manufacture them. Hundreds of innocent men and women have been exiled by administrative order during the past twelve months for complicity in conspiracies which have never had any existence save in the wicked imagination of that brutal official. I know it--_I can prove it_!"

"Hus.h.!.+" I said. "You may be overheard. You surely do not wish the man to become your enemy. Remember, he is all-powerful here--in Russia."

"I will speak the truth when the time comes," she said vehemently. "I will show the Emperor certain papers which have come into my own hands which will prove how His Majesty has been misled, tricked and terrorised by this Markoff, and certain of his bosom friends in the Cabinet."

"It is really most unwise to speak so loudly," I declared. "Somebody may overhear."

"Let them overhear!" cried the girl angrily. "I do not fear Markoff in the least. I will, before long, open the Emperor's eyes, never fear-- and justice shall be done. These poor wretches shall not be sent to the dungeons beneath the lake at Schusselburg, or to the frozen wastes of Yakutsk, in order that Markoff shall remain in power. Ah! he little dreams how much I know!" she laughed harshly.

"It would hardly be wise of you to take any such action. You might fail--and--then--"

"I cannot fail to establish at least the innocence of Madame de Rosen and of Luba. The reason why they have been sent to Siberia is simple.

Into Madame de Rosen's possession there recently came certain compromising letters concerning General Markoff. He discovered this, and hence her swift exile without trial. But, Uncle Colin," she added, "those letters are in my possession! Madame de Rosen gave them to me the night before I went south with the Emperor, because she feared they might be stolen by some police-spy. And I have kept them in a place of safety until such convenient time when I can place them before His Majesty. The latter will surely see that justice is done, and then the disgraceful career of this arch-enemy of Russian peace and liberty will be at an end."

"Hus.h.!.+" I cried anxiously, for at that moment a tall man, in the bright green uniform of the Lithuanian Hussars, whose face I could not see, pa.s.sed close by us, with a handsome middle-aged woman upon his arm.

"Hus.h.!.+ Do, for heaven's sake, be careful, I beg of you!" I exclaimed.

"Such intention should not even be whispered. These Palace walls have ears, for spies are everywhere!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE MAN IN PINCE-NEZ.

Next day was Wednesday.

At half-past five in the afternoon I was seated in my room at the Emba.s.sy, busy copying out the last of my despatches which were to be sent that week by Foreign Office messenger to London.

The messenger himself, in the person of my friend Captain Hubert Taylor, a thin, long-limbed, dark-haired cosmopolitan, was stretched lazily in my chair smoking a cigarette, impatient for me to finish, so that the white canvas bag could be sealed and he could get away.

The homeward Nord express to Ostend was due to leave at six o'clock; therefore he had not much time to spare.

"Do hurry up, old man," he urged, glancing at his watch. "If it isn't important, keep it over until Wednesday week. Despatches are like wine, they improve with keeping."

"Shut up!" I exclaimed, for I saw I had a good deal yet to copy--the result of an important inquiry regarding affairs south of the Caspian, which was urgently required at Downing Street. Our Consul in Baku had been travelling for three months in order to supply the information.

"Well, if I miss the train I really don't mind, my dear Colin. I can do quite well with a few days' rest. I was down in Rome ten days ago; and, besides, I only got here the night before last."

"I do wish you'd be quiet, Taylor," I cried. "I can't write while you chatter."

So he lit a fresh cigarette and repossessed himself in patience until at last I had finished my work, stuck down the long envelope with the printed address, and placed it with thirty or forty other letters into the canvas bag; this I carefully sealed with wax with the Emba.s.sy seal.

"There you are!" I exclaimed at last. "You've plenty of time for the train--and to spare."

"I shouldn't have had if I hadn't hurried you up, my dear boy. Everyone seems asleep here. It shows your chief's away on leave. You should put in a day in Paris. They're active there. It would be an eye-opener for you."

"Paris isn't Petersburg," I laughed.

"And an attache isn't a foreign service messenger," he declared.

"Government pays you fellows to look ornamental, while we messengers have to travel in hot haste and live in those rocking sleeping-cars of the wagon-lits."

"Horribly hard work to spend one's days travelling from capital to capital," I said, well knowing that this remark to a foreign service messenger is as a red rag to a bull.

"Work, my dear fellow. You try it for a month and see," Taylor snapped.

"Well," I asked with a laugh, "any particular news in London?" for the messengers are bearers of all the diplomatic gossip from emba.s.sy to emba.s.sy.

"Oh, well--old Petheridge, in the Treaty Department, is retiring this month, and Jack Scrutton is going to be transferred from Rome to Lima.

Some old fool in the Commons has, I hear, got wind of that bit of scandal in Madrid--you know the story, Councillor of Emba.s.sy and Spanish Countess--and threatens to put down a question concerning it. I hear there's a d.i.c.kens of a row over it. The Chief is furious. Oh!--and I saw your Chief in the St James's Club the day I left London. He'd just come from Windsor--been kissing hands, or something. Well," he added, "I suppose I may as well have some cigarettes before I go, even though you don't ask me. But they are always _pro bono_, I know. The Emba.s.sy at Petersburg is always noted for its hospitality and its cigarettes!"

And he emptied the contents of my cigarette-box into the capacious case he took from his pocket.