The Secret of the Night Part 20

Rouletabille chuckled.

"Yes, yes, yes," grumbled the Chief of Police. "Someone always laughs when his name is mentioned."

Koupriane had turned red. He rose, opened the door, gave a long direction in Russian, and returned to his chair.

"Now," said he, "go ahead and tell me all the details of the poison and the grapes the marshal of the court brought. I'm listening."

Rouletabille told him very briefly and without drawing any deductions all that we already know. He ended his account as a man dressed in a maroon coat with false astrakhan was introduced. It was the same man Rouletabille had met in General Treba.s.sof's drawing-room and who spoke French. Two gendarmes were behind him. The door had been closed. Koupriane turned toward the man in the coat.

"Touman," he said, "I want to talk to you. You are a traitor, and I have proof. You can confess to me, and I will give you a thousand roubles and you can take yourself off to be hanged somewhere else."

The man's eyes shrank, but he recovered himself quickly. He replied in Russian.

"Speak French. I order it," commanded Koupriane.

"I answer, Your Excellency," said Touman firmly, "that I don't know what Your Excellency means."

"I mean that you have helped a man get into the Treba.s.sof villa by night when you were on guard under the window of the little sitting-room. You see that there is no use deceiving us any longer. I play with you frankly, good play, good money. The name of that man, and you have a thousand roubles."

"I am ready to swear on the ikon of..."

"Don't perjure yourself."

"I have always loyally served..."

"The name of that man."

"I still don't know yet what Your Excellency means."

"Oh, you understand me," replied Koupriane, who visibly held in an anger that threatened to break forth any moment. "A man got into the house while you were watching..."

"I never saw anything. After all, it is possible. There were some very dark nights. I went back and forth."

"You are not a fool. The name of that man."

"I a.s.sure you, Excellency..."

"Strip him."

"What are you going to do?" cried Rouletabille.

But already the two guards had thrown themselves on Touman and had drawn off his coat and s.h.i.+rt. The man was bare to the waist.

"What are you going to do? What are you going to do?"

"Leave them alone," said Koupriane, roughly pus.h.i.+ng Rouletabille back.

Seizing a whip which hung at the waist of the guards he struck Touman a blow across the shoulders that drew blood. Touman, mad with the outrage and the pain, shouted, "Yes, it is true! I brag of it!"

Koupriane did not restrain his rage. He showered the unhappy man with blows, having thrown Rouletabille to the end of the room when he tried to interfere. And while he proceeded with the punishment the Chief of Police hurled at the agent who had betrayed him an accompaniment of fearful threats, promising him that before he was hanged he should rot in the bottom-most dungeon of Peter and Paul, in the slimy pits lying under the Neva. Touman, between the two guards who held him, and who sometimes received blows on the rebound that were not intended for them, never uttered a complaint. Outside the invectives of Koupriane there was heard only the swish of the cords and the cries of Rouletabille, who continued to protest that it was abominable, and called the Chief of Police a savage. Finally the savage stopped. Gouts of blood had spattered all about.

"Monsieur," said Rouletabille, who supported himself against the wall. "I shall complain to the Tsar."

"You are right," Koupriane replied, "but I feel relieved now. You can't imagine the harm this man can have done to us in the weeks he has been here."

Touman, across whose shoulders they had thrown his coat and who lay now across a chair, found strength to look up and say:

"It is true. You can't do me as much harm as I have done you, whether you think so or not. All the harm that can be done me by you and yours is already accomplished. My name is not Touman, but Matiev. Listen. I had a son that was the light of my eyes. Neither my son nor I had ever been concerned with politics. I was employed in Moscow. My son was a student. During the Red Week we went out, my son and I, to see a little of what was happening over in the Presnia quarter. They said everybody had been killed over there! We pa.s.sed before the Presnia gate. Soldiers called to us to stop because they wished to search us. We opened our coats. The soldiers saw my son's student waistcoat and set up a cry. They unb.u.t.toned the vest, drew a note-book out of his pocket and they found a workman's song in it that had been published in the Signal. The soldiers didn't know how to read. They believed the paper was a proclamation, and they arrested my son. I demanded to be arrested with him. They pushed me away. I ran to the governor's house. Treba.s.sof had me thrust away from his door with blows from the b.u.t.t-ends of his Cossacks' guns. And, as I persisted, they kept me locked up all that night and the morning of the next day. At noon I was set free. I demanded my son and they replied they didn't know what I was talking about. But a soldier that I recognized as having arrested my son the evening before pointed out a van that was pa.s.sing, covered with a tarpaulin and surrounded by Cossacks. 'Your son is there,' he said; 'they are taking him to the graves.' Mad with despair, I ran after the van. It went to the outskirts of Golountrine cemetery. There I saw in the white snow a huge grave, wide, deep. I shall see it to my last minute. Two vans had already stopped near the hole. Each van held thirteen corpses. The vans were dumped into the trench and the soldiers commenced to sort the bodies into rows of six. I watched for my son. At last I recognized him in a body that half hung over the edge of the trench. Horrors of suffering were stamped in the expression of his face. I threw myself beside him. I said that I was his father. They let me embrace him a last time and count his wounds. He had fourteen. Someone had stolen the gold chain that had hung about his neck and held the picture of his mother, who died the year before. I whispered into his ear, I swore to avenge him. Forty-eight hours later I had placed myself at the disposition of the Revolutionary Committee. A week had not pa.s.sed before Touman, whom, it seems, I resemble and who was one of the Secret Service agents in Kiew, was a.s.sa.s.sinated in the train that was taking him to St. Petersburg. The a.s.sa.s.sination was kept a secret. I received all his papers and I took his place with you. I was doomed beforehand and I asked nothing better, so long as I might last until after the execution of Treba.s.sof. Ah, how I longed to kill him with my own hands! But another had already been a.s.signed the duty and my role was to help him. And do you suppose I am going to tell you the name of that other? Never! And if you discover that other, as you have discovered me, another will come, and another, and another, until Treba.s.sof has paid for his crimes. That is all I have to say to you, Koupriane. As for you, my little fellow," added he, turning to Rouletabille, "I wouldn't give much for your bones. Neither of you will last long. That is my consolation."

Koupriane had not interrupted the man. He looked at him in silence, sadly.

"You know, my poor man, you will be hanged now?" he said.

"No," growled Rouletabille. "Monsieur Koupriane, I'll bet you my purse that he will not be hanged."

"And why not?" demanded the Chief of rolice, while, upon a sign from him, they took away the false Touman.

"Because it is I who denounced him."

"What a reason! And what would you like me to do?"

"Guard him for me; for me alone, do you understand?"

"In exchange for what?"

"In exchange for the life of General Treba.s.sof, if I must put it that way."

"Eh? The life of General Treba.s.sof! You speak as if it belonged to you, as if you could dispose of it."

Rouletabille laid his hand on Koupriane's arm.

"Perhaps that's so," said he.

"Would you like me to tell you one thing, Monsieur Rouletabille? It is that General Treba.s.sof's life, after what has just escaped the lips of this Touman, who is not Touman, isn't worth any more than-than yours if you remain here. Since you are disposed not to do anything more in this affair, take the train, monsieur, take the train, and go."

Rouletabille walked back and forth, very much worked up; then suddenly he stopped short.

"Impossible," he said. "It is impossible. I cannot; I am not able to go yet."

"Why?"

"Good G.o.d, Monsieur Koupriane, because I have to interview the President of the Duma yet, and complete my little inquiry into the politics of the cadets."

"Oh, indeed!"

Koupriane looked at him with a sour grin.

"What are you going to do with that man?" demanded Rouletabille.