By Right of Sword Part 23

Just before ten o'clock a messenger came with a request for me to go at once to the chief Police Bureau. I started in the full conviction that for some cause Tueski had changed his mind and meant to arrest me. I was of course helpless: and could do no more than scribble a hasty line to Olga telling her of my appointment, asking her not to wait for me, and bidding her good-bye. But I did not send it. The police agent said with great politeness he would prefer my not doing anything then: I could send the note equally well from the Bureau. I knew what that meant, and yielded.

The moment I arrived at the office I could see that some event of altogether unusual importance and gravity had occurred. The air was laden with the suggestion of excitement. There was an absence of that orderly, business-like routine always characteristic of Russian public offices. The police agents were present in exceptionally large numbers; hurrying through the corridors, thronging the rooms, and standing in groups engaged in animated discussion.

I was kept waiting some time, perhaps half an hour, before a word was spoken to me by anyone in authority; and then I was ushered into the presence of a man I did not know.

"I am sorry to trouble you, Lieutenant Petrovitch, but there are one or two questions you can answer--and I need not say that as a Russian officer, bearing the Emperor's commission, we shall look to you to reply very fully."

I bowed. It was a fit preface to a conversation which should end as such things generally did. But at any rate I should learn what they intended to do with me. Before he spoke again I asked that the letter I had written to Olga might be sent; but he put the question aside, with a curt reply that it could wait until the Emperor's business was finished; and again I bowed in acquiescence. I could do nothing.

"Please to tell me exactly what pa.s.sed between you and M. Tueski yesterday," he said. "And particularly how you obtained the permits for yourself and sister. I invite you to be particularly frank."

The question startled me. I couldn't understand it.

"Your question surprises me," I replied, to gain a little time to think. "M. Tueski himself knows, and can surely tell you everything."

"I ask my questions in the name of the Emperor, sir," returned my examiner, sternly.

"M. Tueski had done me the honour of trying to have me murdered, and I went to see him to demand the reason. He did not deny it. I persuaded him in the end to abandon his private malice and prevailed upon him to give me the permits for myself and my sister to leave Russia for a while. When he had given them to me I left him."

"Where are they?"

"Here is one. The other is with my sister, who leaves Moscow at midday."

"You may stop her attempting to leave. It will be useless. What else pa.s.sed?" And he then plunged into a close cross-examination of me, the real object of which I could not guess, unless it meant that Tueski had in some way got into a mess for letting me have the permits. I answered all the questions as fully as possible, taking care only to avoid mentioning Paula Tueski's name in connection with the compact with her husband.

To my surprise I seemed to satisfy the man for the time. When he had about turned me inside out, he sat for some minutes looking over my answers and comparing them with some of his notes: after which he remained thinking closely.

"What did you do after leaving M. Tueski?"

"I went straight to my rooms to my sister and Madame Tueski; together we drove Madame Tueski to her house; I then went home with my sister, remained there about an hour, or perhaps less; and went home and to bed."

"You have told me all you know, Lieutenant?"

"You can ask M. Tueski," I returned.

He fixed his eyes steadily on me while I could have counted twenty, and then said slowly and with deep emphasis:--

"M. Tueski is dead."

"Dead!" I repeated in the profoundest surprise.

"Murdered. Found this morning in the lower part of his own house with a dagger thrust through his heart."

"Murdered?" I could scarcely believe my ears.

"Yes. 'For Freedom's sake'," said the man with a curl of the lip. "At least, so a message on the dagger said. Now you can understand the significance of my questions."

I understood it all well enough: far better than the man himself even imagined; and I was completely beaten as to what the inner meaning of this most terrible event could be.

One of my first reflections was that if any of the suspicions of my Nihilism, which the dead man entertained, were chronicled anywhere, my arrest and that of Olga would certainly follow; and we should both be doomed.

"I can scarcely realise it," I said. "It is horrible!"

"So these wretches will find," returned my interlocutor. "These carrion! But now, in view of this--and I have told you because of the candid manner in which you have answered my questions--is there anything you noticed in your visit yesterday to help us."

Clearly, he did not suspect me; and no records had been found yet.

"No. The place seemed alive with inmates--like a rabbit warren.

Enough to have held it against a regiment. Good G.o.d, what villains!" I cried in horror. Mine was genuine feeling enough, for some of the terrible effects to myself were fast crowding into my thoughts. I recalled my encounter with my Nihilist comrade on the very threshold of the house.

"Of course, those permits will be withdrawn now, Lieutenant," said the official as he dismissed me. But his manner was much less severe and curt than at the outset. "As a matter of fact they ought never to have been granted, though I cannot explain why just now. But under the circ.u.mstances you will probably feel personally unwilling to leave Russia at such a juncture."

"I should feel myself a traitor," said I, grandiloquently; and in fact I did feel very much like one as I left him, rejoicing that I still breathed the fresh air of heaven instead of the foetid atmosphere of a gaol.

One thing was certain now--neither Olga nor I could hope to escape yet.

Any attempt would be fatal. The murder of such a man would mean that the lurid search light of suspicion would fall in all directions, on the guilty and guiltless alike. The liberty certainly, and probably the life, of every suspected Nihilist in Moscow at the moment were at stake: and the slightest trip or false step on our part would amount to a direct invitation to ruin.

As I walked back sadly and thoughtfully to my rooms, I had abundant proofs of the terrible effects of the a.s.sa.s.sination.% The police agents were everywhere, watching, raiding, arresting; and in my short walk I met more than one gloomy party of them, each with its one or two prisoners in their midst, hurrying on foot or in hired carriages to the police stations.

It is not my business, however, to describe here the scenes that followed the most daring, most secret, most thrilling, and save one, most terrible a.s.sa.s.sination that ever convulsed Russia. The murder of the Czar stirred the surface of the world more, because it had more of the pageantry of crime about it; but the death of the Chief of the Secret Police caused a much deeper sense of insecurity, and spread a far greater dread of the secret power of Nihilism.

Who had done it? To me it was an inscrutable mystery; unless it had been the man I had seen near the house. But what I had to consider was not whose hand had driven the dagger home, but rather what the effects would be to me and to her for whose safety I now felt more fears and concern than I had felt for myself in all my life.

One incident in the interview I had just had impressed me greatly: the reference which the official had dropped as to the power behind Tueski in dealing with me. My questioner had seemed to know about it that morning: and all this perplexed me.

As soon as I reached my rooms I had to hurry off to the barracks in response to an urgent summons; and I joined readily in the excited conversation of my comrades about this latest Nihilist stroke. The news was only beginning to leak out, and it a.s.sumed the wildest shapes; nor did I feel at liberty to reduce the rumours to facts.

Before the morning's work was over orders came that the troops were to be paraded for duty in the streets: and we were told off for patrol work in different parts of the city to protect the railway stations, and other public buildings. All that day we were kept on duty; and as other troops came pouring in from other centres the whole place seemed under arms like a beleaguered town.

All day and all night the raids and surprise visits by the police were in progress, and hundreds, if not thousands of men and women must have been arrested, until the gaols were crowded to suffocation point, and every spot where prisoners could be packed was crammed and choked with suspects.

The cries and curses of men and the shrieks of women made the air stifling.

We were not relieved until late at night, having been all day without food; and even then we were kept in the barracks in readiness for any disturbance.

The next day's programme was much the same; and I fretted at not being able to either see or send to Olga. Knowing of her brother's Nihilism she would surely think I had been arrested; while I on my side was afraid for her.

In the afternoon of the third day we got leave from duty and from barracks for a few hours; and I went straight off to Olga. Meanwhile not a hint had been obtained as to the ident.i.ty of the a.s.sa.s.sin.

I found Olga white and wan and ill on my account; and when we met I was on my side almost too moved for speech. At first I could do no more than glance into her eyes as we clasped each the other's hand.

"You are looking frightfully ill, Olga," I said at length.

She returned my look without a word and then her brow contracted, she breathed deeply as if in pain, and turning away wrung her hands with a gesture of despair.

"What is the matter? What has happened to you? There must be something..." I stopped, or rather the sight of the white face all drawn and quivering with pain stopped me.

"Oh, it is too horrible, too awful! G.o.d have mercy on us! G.o.d have mercy on us!"