The Ashiel Mystery, Mrs. Charles Bryce [e novels to read online .txt] 📗

you came. To speak plainly, I don't

believe you came for a book."

 

"If you don't believe me, what's the good of my saying anything?" she

retorted. "Oh, how horrid you are to-day, Mark. I don't believe you love

me a bit, any more." And leaning her head against the mantelpiece, she

burst into tears.

 

"You know it isn't that, Julia," he said, looking at her fixedly. "Don't

cry, there's a dear, good girl. You know that I love you. Why, you're the

only thing in the whole world that I really want. But you must tell me

how you came here. Tell me," he repeated, taking her hands from her face,

and forcing her to look at him, "what you want in the library. Tell me,

Julia, I want to know."

 

She seemed to struggle to keep silence, but to be unable to resist his

questioning eyes.

 

"I suppose I must tell you," she murmured; "it's not that I don't want

But they would kill me if they knew. Oh, Mark, I ought not to tell

you, but how can I keep anything secret from my beloved? Swear to me

that you will never repeat it, or try to hinder me in what I have to do?"

 

He bent and kissed her.

 

"Julia," he said, "can't you trust me?"

 

"I do, I do," she cried. "While you love me, I trust you. But if you left

off, what then? That is the nightmare that haunts me. Mark, Mark, what

would become of me if you were to change towards me?"

 

He kissed her again, murmuring reassuring words that did not reach

Juliet's ears. "So tell me now," he ended, "what you were doing here."

 

"Mark," she said nervously, "you know where my childhood was passed?"

 

"In St. Petersburg," he replied wonderingly.

 

"Yes, in Petersburg. And you know how things are there. It is so

different from your England, my England. For I am English really, Mark,

although that thought always seems so strange to me; since during so many

years I believed myself to be a Russian. I am the daughter of English

parents; my father was a very respectable London plumber of the name of

Harsden, whose business went to the bad and who died, leaving my mother

to face ruin and starvation with a family of five small children, of whom

I was the last. When a lady who took an interest in the parish in which

we lived suggested that a friend of hers should adopt one of the

children, my mother was only too thankful to accept the proposal, and I

was the one from whom she chose to be parted. I have never seen her

since, but she is still alive, and I send her money from time to time.

 

"The lady who adopted me was Countess Romaninov, and I believed

myself her child till a day or two before she died, when she told me,

to my lasting regret, the true story of my origin. But I was brought

up a Russian, and I shall never feel myself to be English. Somehow the

soil you live on in your childhood seems to get into your bones, as

you say here. It is true that I speak your language easily, but it was

Russian that my baby lips first learned. My sympathies, my point of

view, my friends, all except yourself, are Russian. And I have one

essentially Russian attribute, I am a member of what you would call a

Nihilist society."

 

Mark interrupted her with an interjection of surprise, but she nodded her

head defiantly, and continued:

 

"All my life, all my private ends and desires must be governed by the

needs of my country. First and foremost I exist that the rule of the

Tyrant may be abolished, and the Slav be free to work out his own

salvation; he shall be saved from the fate that now overwhelms and

crushes him; dragged bodily from under the heel of the oppressor. I am

not the only one. We are many who think as one mind. And the day is not

far distant when our sacrifices shall bear fruit. Ah, Mark, what a great

cause, what a noble purpose, is this of ours! Perhaps I shall be able to

convert you, to fire your cold British blood with my enthusiasm?"

 

She stopped and looked at him inquiringly. But he made no reply, and

after a moment she continued, placing her hand fondly upon his shoulder

as she spoke.

 

"Our plan is to terrify the rulers into submission. We must not shrink

from killing, and killing suddenly and unexpectedly, till they abandon

the wickedness of their ways. They must never know what it is to feel

safe. And we see to it that they do not. Death waits for them at the

street corner, on their travels, at their own doorsteps. They never know

at what moment the bomb may not be thrown, or the pistol fired. It is

sad that explosives are so unreliable. There are many difficulties. You

would not believe the obstacles that we find placed in our path at every

turning. And for those who are suspected there is Siberia, and the

mines. But it is worth it. It is worth anything to feel that one is

working and risking all for one's country, and one's fellow-countrymen.

It is an honour to belong to a band of such noble men and women. But now

and then one is admitted who turns out to be unworthy. Yes, even such a

cause as ours has traitors to contend with. And your uncle, Lord Ashiel,

was one of them."

 

"What," said Mark incredulously, "Uncle Douglas a Nihilist? Nonsense.

It's impossible."

 

"He was, really. For he joined the 'Friends of Man' when he was at the

British Embassy at Petersburg long years ago; and no sooner had he been

initiated than he turned round and denounced the society and all its

works. Worse still, he declared his intention of hindering it from

carrying out its programme. He would have been got rid of there and

then, but as ill-luck would have it he had, by an unheard-of chain of

accidents, become possessed of an important document belonging to the

society. It was, indeed, a list of the principal people on the executive

committee that fell into his hands, and he took the precaution of

sending it to England, with instructions that if anything happened to

him it should be forwarded to the Russian Police, before he made known

his ridiculous objections to our programme. Here, as you will

understand, was a most impossible situation with which there was

apparently no means of coping.

 

"For years that one man hampered and frustrated our entire organization.

He was practically able to dictate his own terms, for he announced his

intention of publishing the list of names if we carried out any important

project, and no device could be contrived to stop his being as good as

his word. The tyrant has walked unscathed except by mere private

enterprise, and the government we could have caused to crumble to the

ground has flourished and continued to work evil as before. We have been

crippled, paralysed in every direction. It was only last year that there

seemed reason to think that Lord Ashiel had removed the document from the

Bank of England where it had for so long been guarded, and there appeared

to be a possibility that he now kept it in his own house. If that were

so, there seemed a good chance of getting hold of it, and how proud I am,

Mark, to think that it was I who was chosen to make the attempt!

 

"I came to England with the best introductions into society, and had no

difficulty in making friends with your aunt and obtaining an invitation

to stay here. Last year I did not succeed in gaining any information.

Your uncle, for some reason, seemed rather to avoid me, and I did not

make any headway towards gaining his confidence. I never could be sure if

he suspected me. This year there was a question of replacing me by some

one else, but it was judged that Lord Ashiel's suspicions would be

certainly awakened by the appearance of another Russian, so, in the hope

that I was not associated in his mind with the people to which he had

behaved so basely, I was ordered to try again.

 

"A member of the society, who occupies a high and responsible position on

the council, accompanied me to the neighbourhood, and from time to time I

report to him and receive his advice and instructions. He stays in

Crianan, so that I have some one within reach to go to for advice. At

least, so I am officially informed, but I know very well he is really

there to keep watch on me, for it is not the habit of the society to

trust its members more than is unavoidable. If it is possible, I go once

a week to Crianan and make my report, but I can't always manage to go,

and then he rows across the loch after dark and I go out and meet him. He

was to come on the night of the murder, and my first thought when I heard

of it was that he might be caught in the shrubberies and mistaken for the

murderer. But it appears that he had already taken alarm, and I am

thankful to say he was able to escape in good time."

 

"So David really did see some one wandering about that night," Mark

commented thoughtfully. "Ah, Julia, if you'd told me all this earlier

everything might have been different. Poor old David need never have been

dragged into it at all."

 

She looked at him a moment, as if puzzled, and then continued her story.

 

"It was thought that I might be able to bring about your uncle's death by

some means that should have all the appearance of an accident, and so

perhaps not involve action on the part of those who hold the

document--that is, if it should prove not to be in his own keeping--for

he had always assured the council that no decisive step would be taken

except as a retort to signs of violence on our part, whether directed

towards himself or others.

 

"I have not been able to find any trace of the list. I thought I had it

one day in London, when I followed Lord Ashiel to a detective's office,

and managed to gain possession of an envelope given him by Lord Ashiel,

but as far as I could make out it contained nothing of any importance. It

was a bitter disappointment. You can imagine the consternation into which

we were thrown by the murder. It seemed certain that his death would be

attributed to our organization, and if anyone held the list for him it

would be published immediately. Four days have passed, however, and my

superior has received a cable saying that so far all is well. It looks

more and more as if the list had been kept here, but I have hunted

everywhere and found nothing. Oh, I have searched without ceasing since

the moment I heard of his death! I came here even on the very night of

the murder, and moved the body with my own hands in order to get at the

bureau drawers. There is a secret way into the room through that old

clock there, which leads into the grounds; I found it long ago, one day

when I was exploring outside in the shrubberies. I have often been here,

and searched, and searched again. Do you know anything of this document,

Mark? If you do, I beg and implore you to give it to me. Otherwise I

cannot answer for your life; and, as for our marriage, that is out of the

question unless I am successful in my undertaking."

 

It may be imagined with what amazement and growing horror Juliet listened

to this avowal. That Julia, the girl with whom she had associated on

terms of easy familiarity which had been near to becoming something like

intimacy in the close contact and companionship of a country-house life,

that this girl, an honoured guest in Lord Ashiel's house, should have

gained her footing there for her own treacherous ends, or at the bidding

of a band of political assassins! Juliet could scarcely believe her ears

as she heard the calm, indifferent tone in which Julia spoke of the

drawbacks to "getting rid" of Lord Ashiel, and of the contemplated

"accident" which was to have befallen him. She would have fled from where

she stood, if mingled fear and curiosity to hear more had not rooted her

to the spot. Her alarm was tempered by the presence of Mark. If this girl

should discover her hiding there and show signs of the violence that

might be expected from