Chapter Fifteen. A Statement by the Informer.

Quick as lightning, Hartwig drew a big Browning revolver and thrust it into the informer’s face, exclaiming firmly:

“Another word and it will be your last!”

The fellow started back, unprepared for such defiance. He made a movement to cross the room, where no doubt he had his own weapon concealed, but the police officer was too quick for him and barred his passage.

“Look here!” he said firmly. “This is a matter to be settled between us, without any interference by your friends here. At word from me they would instantly turn upon you as an enemy. Think! Reflect well—before it is too late!” And he held the revolver steadily a foot from the man’s hard, pale face.

Danilovitch hesitated. He controlled the so-called Terrorist movement with amazing ingenuity, playing three rôles simultaneously. He was “The One,” the mysterious but all-powerful head of the organisation; the ardent worker in the cause known as “the shoemaker of Kazan”; and the base, unscrupulous informer, who manufactured plots, and afterwards consigned to prison all those men and women who became implicated in them.

“If I withdraw my cry of alarm will you promise secrecy?” he asked in a low, cringing tone.

From the landing outside came sounds of footsteps and fierce demands in Russian from those he had summoned to his assistance. Two of us against twenty desperate characters as they were, would, I well knew, stand but a poor chance. If he made any allegation against us, we should be caught like rats in a trap, and killed, as all police-spies are killed when denounced. The arm of the Russian revolution is indeed a long one—longer than that of the Secret Police itself.

“What has happened, Danilo?” demanded a man’s rough voice. “Who are those strangers? Let us in!”

“Speak!” commanded Hartwig. “Reassure them, and let them go away. I have still much to say to you in private.”

His arm with the revolver was upraised, his eyes unwavering. The informer saw determination in his gaze. A further word of alarm, and a bullet would pass through his brain.

For a few seconds he stood in sullen silence.

“All right!” he shouted to them at last. “It is nothing, comrades. I was mistaken. Leave us in peace.”

We heard a murmuring of discontent outside, and then the footsteps commenced to descend the steep uncarpeted stairs. As they did so, Hartwig dropped his weapon, saying:

“Now let us sit down and talk. I have several questions I wish to put to you. If you answer frankly, then I promise that I will not betray you to your comrades.”

“What do you mean by ‘frankly’?”

“I mean that you must tell me the exact truth.”

The man’s face grew dark; his brows contracted; he bit his finger-nails.

“What was the motive of the attempt you made upon the Grand Duke Nicholas and his daughter, and the gentleman here, Mr Trewinnard?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“But you yourself committed the outrage?”

“At the orders of others.”

“Whose orders?”

He did not reply. He was standing against the small, cheap chest of drawers, his drawn face full in the light of the hissing gas-jet.

“Come,” said Hartwig firmly. “I wish to know this.”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Then I will tell you,” the detective said in a hard voice. “It was at the orders of your master, General Markoff—the man who, finding that you were a revolutionist, is using you as his tool for the manufacture of bogus plots against the Emperor.”

Danilovitch shrugged his shoulders, but uttered no word.

“And you went again to Brighton last night at his orders. You—”

“I went to Brighton, I admit. But not at the General’s orders,” he interrupted quickly.

“Why did you go? Why did you follow Her Imperial Highness and Mr Trewinnard?”

“I followed them because I had an object in so doing.”

“A sinister object?”

“No. There you are mistaken. My object was not a sinister one. It was to watch and endeavour to make clear a certain point which is a mystery to me.”

“A point concerning what?”

“Concerning Her Imperial Highness,” was his reply.

“How does Her Highness concern you?” I asked. “You tried to kill her once. Therefore your intentions must be evil.”

“I deny that,” he protested quickly. “I tell you that I went to Brighton without thought of any evil intent, and without the orders, or even knowledge, of General Markoff.”

“But he is Her Highness’s enemy.”

“Yes, Excellency—and yours also.”

“Tell me all that you know,” I urged, adopting a more conciliatory tone. “It is outrageous that this oppressor of Russia should conspire to kill an innocent member of the Imperial Family.”

“I know nothing of the circumstances. Excellency,” he said, feigning entire ignorance.

“But he gave you orders to throw that bomb,” I said. “What were your exact orders?”

“I am not likely to betray my employer,” he laughed. “If you do not answer these questions, then I shall carry out my threat of exposure,” Hartwig said in a hard, determined voice.

“Well,” said the informer hesitatingly, “my orders were not to throw the bomb unless the Grand Duchess Natalia was in the carriage.”

“Then the plot was to kill her—but unfortunately her father fell the victim of the dastardly outrage!” I cried.

“Yes,” the man replied. “It was to kill her—and you, Excellency.”

“But why?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and exhibited his palms in a gesture of complete ignorance.

“And your present intention is to effect in Brighton what you failed to do in Petersburg—eh?”

“I have no orders, and it certainly is not my intention,” responded the man, whom I remembered at that moment had deliberately killed the girl Garine in order to preserve his secret.

I turned from him in loathing and disgust.

“But you tell me that General Markoff intends that we both shall come to an untimely end,” I said a few moments later.

“He does, Excellency, and the ingenuity of the plot against you both is certainly one which betrays his devilish cunning,” was the fellow’s reply. “I have, I assure you, no love for a man who holds my life in the hollow of his hand, and whose word I am compelled to obey on pain of exposure and death.”

“You mean Markoff,” I exclaimed. “Tell me something of this plot against me—so that I may be on my guard,” I urged.

“I know nothing concerning it. For that very reason I went to Brighton yesterday, to try and discover something,” he said.

“And what did you discover?”

“A very remarkable fact. At present it is only suspicion. I have yet to substantiate it.”

“Cannot you tell me your suspicion?”

“Not until I have had an opportunity of proving it,” was his quiet reply. “But I assure you that the observation I kept upon Her Imperial Highness and yourself was with no evil intent.”

I smiled incredulously. It was hard indeed to believe a man of his subtle and unscrupulous character. All that Tack had told me crowded through my brain. As the catspaw of Markoff, it was not likely that he would tell me the truth.

Hartwig was leaning easily against the wooden mantelshelf, watching us keenly. Of a sudden an idea occurred to me, and addressing the informer, I said:

“I believe you are acquainted with my friend Madame de Rosen and her daughter. Tell me what you know concerning them.”

“They were arrested and exiled to Siberia for the attempt in the Nevski on the return of the Emperor from the south,” he said promptly.

Hartwig interrupted, saying gravely:

“And that attempt, Danilo Danilovitch, was conceived by you—conceived in order to strike terror into the Emperor’s heart. You formed the plot and handed over the list of the conspirators to your employer, Markoff—you, the person known to the Party of the People’s Will as ‘The One.’”

“I knew of the plot,” he admitted. “And though I gave certain names to the police, I certainly did not include the names of Madame de Rosen or of Mademoiselle.”

“Why was she arrested?”

He was silent for a few moments.

“Because her presence in Petersburg was dangerous to the General,” he said at last sullenly.

“You know this—eh? You are certain of it—you have evidence, I mean?” asked Hartwig.

“You ask me for the truth,” the informer said, “and I tell you. I was extremely sorry for Madame and the young lady, for I knew them when I carried on my trade as bootmaker. An hour after their arrest, at about four o’clock in the morning, the General ordered me to go and search their house for certain letters which he described to me—letters which he was extremely anxious to obtain. I went alone, as he did not wish to alarm the neighbourhood by a domiciliary visit of the police. I searched the house for nearly nine hours, but failed to discover them. While still engaged in the investigation I was recalled to the house where it is my habit to meet the General in secret, when he told me that by a false promise of release he had extracted from Madame a statement that the letters were no longer in her possession, and that Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia held them in safe-keeping. Madame, perfectly innocent as she was of any connection with the conspirators, expected to be released after telling the truth; but the General said that he had only laughed in her face and ordered her and her daughter to be sent off with the next convoy of prisoners—who were leaving for Siberia that same night. By this time the ladies are, I expect, already in the great forwarding-prison at Tomsk.”

“And the letters?” I demanded, my blood boiling at hearing his story.

“I was ordered to search for them.” Danilovitch replied. “The General gave me instructions how to enter the palace of the Grand Duke Nicholas and there to investigate the apartments of the Grand Duchess Natalia. I refused at first, knowing that if I were detected as an intruder I should be shot at sight by the sentries. But he insisted,” the man added. “He told me that if I persisted in my refusal he would expose me as a spy. So I was compelled to make the attempt, well knowing that discovery meant certain death. The sentries have orders to shoot any intruder in the Grand Ducal palace. On four occasions I went there at imminent risk, and on the fourth I was successful. I found the letters concealed in a room which had once been used as Her Highness’s nursery.”

“And what did you do with them?”

“I met the General at our usual meeting-place and handed them to him. He was at first delighted. But a moment later, finding that the seal of the envelope in which were the letters had been broken, he charged me with reading them. I denied it, and—”

“Then you did not read them? You do not know what they contained, or who they were from?”

“They were from General Markoff himself. I looked at the signatures, but, alas! I had no time to read them. I drove straight to the meeting-place, where the General was awaiting me.”

“They were from the General!” I echoed. “To whom?”

“They bore his signature—one a long letter, closely written,” was the informer’s reply. “Seeing that the seal had been broken, the General flew into a sudden rage and declared that the Grand Duchess Natalia had learned what they contained. The words he used to me were: ‘The girl must be silenced—silenced at once, Danilovitch. And you must silence her. She knows the truth!’”

“Well?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, his mouth drawn and hard, “under compulsion and more threats of exposure, I launched the bomb, which, alas! killed her father, while the young lady escaped unhurt.”

“Then he still intends that Her Highness shall die? His warning the other day was no idle attempt to terrorise me?”

“No, Excellency. Take every precaution. The General means mischief, for he is in hourly fear lest Her Highness should expose certain facts contained in those fateful letters which have already cost two ladies their liberty and a Grand Duke and several Cossacks their lives.”

“Is this the actual truth?” asked Hartwig in a changed voice, looking the informer full in the face.

“Yes,” he answered solemnly. “I have told you the truth; therefore I believe your solemn word that you will make no exposure to the Party.”

“If you will disassociate yourself from these dastardly actions,” he said.

“Ah!” sighed the other in despair, “that is impossible. The General holds me always to the compact I made with him. But I beg of you to be warned,” he added. “Her Highness is daily in gravest peril!”