The Czar's Spy, William le Queux [reading like a writer txt] 📗

Twilight deepened into night, and the rain fell heavily, yet I still paced the wet flags in patience, my eyes ever seaward for the light of the vessel which I hoped bore my love. My presence there aroused some speculation among the loungers, I think; nevertheless, I waited in deepest anxiety whether, after all, Elma and Hornby had not disembarked at Helsingfors.

Soon after ten o'clock a light shone afar off, and the movement of the police and porters on the quay told me that it was the vessel. Then after a further anxious quarter of an hour it came, amid great shouting and mutual imprecations, slowly alongside the quay, and the passengers at last began to disembark in the pelting rain.

One after another they walked up the gangway, filing into the passport-office and on into the Custom House, people of all sorts and all grades—Swedes, Germans, Finns, and Russians—until suddenly I caught sight of two figures—one a man in a big tweed traveling-coat and a golf-cap, and the other the slight figure of a woman in a long dark cloak and a woolen tam-o'-shanter. The electric rays fell upon them as they came up the wet gangway together, and there once again I saw the sweet face of the silent woman whom I had grown to love with such fervent desperation. The man behind her was the same who had entertained me on board the Lola—the man who was said to be the lover of the fugitive Muriel Leithcourt.

Without betraying my presence I watched them pass through the passport-office and Custom House, and then, overhearing the address which Martin Woodroffe gave the isvoshtchik, I stood aside, wet to the skin, and saw them drive away.

At eleven o'clock on the following day I found myself installed in the Hotel de Paris, a comfortable hostelry in the Little Morskaya, having succeeded in evading the vigilance of the spy who had so cleverly followed me from Abo, and in getting my suit-case round from the Hotel Europe.

I was beneath the same roof as Elma, although she was in ignorance of my presence. Anxious to communicate with her without Woodroffe's knowledge, I was now awaiting my opportunity. He had, it appeared, taken for her a pleasant front room with sitting-room adjoining on the first floor, while he himself occupied a room on the third floor. The apartments he had engaged for her were the most expensive in the hotel, and as far as I could gather from the French waiter whom I judiciously tipped, he appeared to treat her with every consideration and kindness.

"Ah, poor young lady!" the man exclaimed as he stood in my room answering my questions, "What an affliction! She writes down all her orders—for she can utter no word."

"Has the Englishman received any visitors?" I asked.

"One man—a Russian—an official of police, I think."

"If he receives anyone else, let me know," I said. "And I want you to give Mademoiselle a letter from me in secret."

"Bien, m'sieur."

I turned to the little writing-table and scribbled a few hasty lines to my love, announcing my presence, and asking her to grant me an interview in secret as soon as Woodroffe was absent. I also warned her of the search for her instigated by the Baron, and urged her to send me a line in reply.

The note was delivered into her hand, but although I waited in suspense nearly all day she sent no reply. While Woodroffe was in the hotel I dared not show myself lest he should recognize me, therefore I was compelled to sham indisposition and to eat my meals alone in my room.

Both the means by which she had met Martin Woodroffe and the motive were equally an enigma. By that letter she had written to her schoolfellow it was apparent that she had some secret of his, for had she not wished to send him a message of reassurance that she had divulged nothing? This would seem that they were close friends; yet, on the other hand, something seemed to tell me that he was acting falsely, and was really an ally of the Baron's.

Why had he brought her to Petersburg? If he had desired to rescue her he would have taken her in the opposite direction—to Stockholm, where she would be free—whereas he took her, an escaped prisoner, into the very midst of peril. It was true that her passport was in order, yet I remembered that an order had been issued for her transportation to Saghalien, and now once arrested she must be lost to me for ever. This thought filled me with fierce anxiety. She was in Petersburg, that city where police spies swarm, and where every fresh arrival is noted and his antecedents inquired into. No attempt had been made to disguise who she was, therefore before long the police would undoubtedly come and arrest her as the escaped criminal from Kajana.

For several hours I sat at my window watching the life and movement down in the street below, my mind full of wonder and dark forebodings. Was Martin Woodroffe playing her false?

Just after half-past six o'clock the waiter entered, and handing me a note on a salver, said—

"Mademoiselle has, I believe, only this moment been able to write in secret."

I tore it open and read as follows:—

DEAR FRIEND.—I am so surprised. I thought you were still in Abo. Woodroffe has an appointment at eight o'clock on the other side of the city, therefore come to me at 8.15. I must see you, and at once. I am in peril.—ELMA HEATH.

My love was in peril! It was just as I had feared. I thanked Providence that I had been sent to help her and extricate her from that awful fate to which "The Strangler of Finland" had consigned her.

At the hour she named, after the waiter had come to me and announced the Englishman's departure, I descended to her sitting-room and entered without rapping, for if I had rapped she could not, alas! have heard.

The apartment was spacious and comfortable, thickly carpeted, with heavy furniture and gilding. Before the long window were drawn curtains of dark green plush, and on one side was the high stove of white porcelain with shining brass bands, while from her low lounge-chair a slim wan figure sprang up quickly and came forward to greet me, holding out both her hands and smiling happily.

I took her hands in mine and held them tightly in silence for some moments, as I looked earnestly into those wonderfully brilliant eyes of hers. She turned away laughing, a slight flush rising to her cheeks in her confusion. Then she led me to a chair, and motioned me to be seated.

Ours was a silent meeting, but her gestures and the expression of her eyes were surely more eloquent than mere words. I knew well what pleasure that re-encounter caused her—equal pleasure with that it gave to me.

Until that moment I had never really loved. I had admired and flirted with women. What man has not? Indeed, I had admired Muriel Leithcourt. But never until now had I experienced in my heart the real flame of true burning affection. The sweetness of her expression, the tender caress of those soft, tapering hands, the deep mysterious look in those magnificent eyes, and the incomparable grace of all her movements, combined to render her the most perfect woman I had ever met—perfect in all, alas! save speech and hearing, of which, with such dastard wantonness, she had been deprived.

She touched her red lips with the tip of her forefinger, opened her hands, and shrugged her shoulders with a sad gesture of regret. Then turning quickly to some paper on the little table at her side she wrote something with a gold pencil and handed to me. It read—

"Surely Providence has sent you here! Mr. Woodroffe must have followed you from England. He is my enemy. You must take me from here and hide me. They intend to send me into exile. Have you ever been in Petersburg before? Do you know anyone here?"

Then when I had read, she handed me her pencil and below I wrote—

"I will do my best, dear friend. I have been once in Petersburg. But is it not best that we should escape at once from Russia?"

"Impossible at present," she wrote. "We should both be arrested at the frontier. It would be best to go into hiding here in Petersburg. I believed Woodroffe to be my friend, but I have found only this day that he is my enemy. He knew that I was in Kajana, and was in Abo when he learned of my escape. He went with two other men in search of us, and discovered us that night when we sought shelter at the wood-cutter's hut. Without making his presence known he waited outside until you were asleep, and then he came and looked in at my window. At first I was alarmed, but quickly I saw that he was a friend. He told me that the police were in the vicinity and intended to raid the hut, therefore I fled with him, first down to Tammerfors and then to Abo, and on here. At that time I did not see the dastardly trap he had laid in order to get me out of the Baron's clutches and wring from me my secret. If I confess, he intends to give me up to the police, who will send me to the mines."

"Does your secret concern him?" I asked in writing.

"Yes," she wrote in response. "It would be equally in his interests as well as those of Baron Oberg if I were sent to Saghalien and my identity effaced. I am a Russian subject, as I have already told you, therefore with a Ministerial order against me I am in deadliest peril."

"Trust in me," I scribbled quickly. "I will act upon any suggestion you make. Have you any female friend in whom you could trust to hide you until this danger is past?"

"There is one friend—a true friend. Will you take a note to her?" she wrote, to which I instantly nodded in the affirmative.

Then rising, she obtained some ink and pen and wrote a letter, the contents of which she did not show me before she sealed it. I sat watching her beautiful head bent beneath the shaded lamplight, catching her profile and noticing how eminently handsome it was, superb and unblemished in her youthful womanhood.

I watched her write the superscription upon the envelope: "Madame Olga Stassulevitch, modiste, Scredni Prospect, 231, Vasili Ostroff." I knew that the district was on the opposite side of the city, close to the Little Neva.

"Take a drosky at once, see her, and await a reply. In the meantime, I will prepare to be ready when you return," she wrote. "If Olga is not at home, ask to see the Red Priest—in Russian, 'Krasny-pastor.' Return quickly, as I fear Woodroffe may come back. If so, I am lost."

I assured her I would not lose a single instant, and five minutes later I was tearing down the Morskaya in a drosky along the canal and across the Nicholas Bridge to the address upon the envelope.

The house was, I found, somewhat smaller than its neighbors, but not let out in flats as the others. Upon the door was a large brass plate bearing the name, "Olga Stassulevitch: modes." I pressed the electric button, and in answer a tall, clean-shaven Russian servant opened the door.

"Madame is not at home," was his brief reply to my inquiry.

"Then I will see the Red Priest," I said in a lower tone. "I come from Elma Heath." Thereupon, without further word, the man admitted me into the long, dark hall and closed the door with an apology that the gas was not lighted. But striking a match he led me up the broad staircase and into a small, cosy, well-furnished room on the second floor, evidently the sitting-room of some studious person, judging