Chapter Eleven. His Excellency General Markoff

What Tack had told me naturally increased my apprehension. I informed the two agents of Russian police who in turn guarded the house in Brunswick Square.

A whole month went by, bright, delightful autumn days beside the sea, when I often strolled with my charming little companion across the Lawns at Hove, or sat upon the pier at Brighton listening to the band.

Sometimes I would dine with her and Miss West, or at others they would take tea with me in that overheated winter garden of the “Métropole”—where half of the Hebrew portion of the City of London assembles on Sunday afternoons—or they would dine with me in the big restaurant. So frequently was she in and out of the hotel that “Miss Gottorp” soon became known to all the servants, and by sight to most of the visitors on account of the neatness of her mourning and the attractiveness of her pale beauty.

Tack had returned to Petersburg to resume his agency business, and Hartwig’s whereabouts was unknown.

The last-named had been in Brighton three weeks before, but as he had nothing to report he had disappeared as suddenly as he had come. He was ubiquitous—a man of a hundred disguises, and as many subterfuges. He never seemed to sleep, and his journeys backwards and forwards across the face of Europe were amazingly swift and ever-constant.

I was seated at tea with Her Highness and Miss West in the winter garden—that place of palms and bird-cages at the back of the “Métropole”—when a waiter handed me a telegram which I found was from the secretary of the Russian Embassy, at Chesham House, in London, asking me to call there at the earliest possible moment.

What, I wondered, had occurred?

I said nothing to Natalia, but, recollecting that there was an express just after six o’clock which would land me at Victoria at half-past seven, I cut short her visit and duly arrived in London, unaware of the reason why I was so suddenly summoned.

I crossed the big, walled-in courtyard of the Embassy, and entering the great sombre hall, where an agent of Secret Police was idling as usual, the flunkey in green livery showed me along to the secretary’s room, a big, gloomy, smoke-blackened apartment on the ground floor. The huge house was dark, sombre and ponderous, a house of grim, mysterious shadows, where officials and servants flitted up and down the great, wide staircase which led to His Excellency’s room.

“His Excellency left for Paris to-day,” the footman informed me, opening the door of the secretary’s room, and telling me that he would send word at once of my arrival.

It was the usual cold and austere embassy room—differing but little from my own den in Petersburg. Count Kourloff, the secretary, was an old friend of mine. He had been secretary in Rome when I had been stationed there, and I had also known him in Vienna—a clever and intelligent diplomat, but a bureaucrat like all Russians.

The evening was a warm, oppressive one, and the windows being open, admitted the lively strains of a street piano, played somewhere in the vicinity.

Suddenly the door opened, and instead of the Count, whom I had expected, a stout, broad-shouldered, elderly man in black frock-coat and grey trousers entered, and saluted me gaily in French with the words:

“Ah, my dear Trewinnard! How are you, my friend—eh? How are you? And how is Her Imperial Highness—eh?”

I started as I recognised him.

It was none other than Serge Markoff.

“I am very well, General,” I replied coldly. “I am awaiting Count Kourloff.”

“He’s out. It was I who telegraphed to you. I want to have a chat with you now that you have entered the service of Russia, my dear friend. Pray be seated.”

“Pardon me,” I replied, annoyed, “I have not entered the service of Russia, only the private service of her Sovereign, the Emperor.”

“The same thing! The same thing!” he declared fussily, stroking his long, grey moustache, and fixing his cunning steel-blue eyes upon mine.

“I think not,” I said. “But we need not discuss that point.”

“Bien! I suppose Her Highness is perfectly comfortable and happy in her incognito at Brighton—eh? The Emperor was speaking of her to me only the other day.”

“His Majesty receives my report each week,” I said briefly.

“I know,” replied the brutal remorseless man who was responsible for the great injustice and suffering of thousands of innocent ones throughout the Russian Empire. “I know. But I have asked you to London because I wish to speak to you in strictest confidence. I am here, M’sieur Trewinnard, because of a certain discovery we have recently made—the discovery of a very desperate and ingenious plot!”

“Another plot!” I echoed; “here, in London!”

“It is formed in London, but the coup is to be made at Brighton,” he replied slowly and seriously, “a plot against Her Imperial Highness!”

I looked the man straight in the face, and then burst out laughing.

“You certainly do not appear to have any regard for the personal safety of your charge,” he exclaimed angrily. “I have warned you. Therefore, take every precaution.”

I paused for a few seconds, then I said:

“Forgive me for laughing. General Markoff. But it is really too humorous—all this transparency.”

“What transparency?”

“The transparency of your attempt to terrify me,” I said. “I know that the attempt made against the young lady and myself failed—and that His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke was unfortunately killed. But I do not think there will be any second attempt.”

“You don’t think so!” he cried quickly. “Why don’t you think so?”

“For the simple reason that Danilo Danilovitch—the man who is a police-spy and at the same time responsible for plots—is just now a little too well watched.”

The man’s grey face dropped when I uttered the name of his catspaw. My statement, I saw, held him confounded and confused.

“I—I do not understand you,” he managed to exclaim. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you surely know Danilovitch?” I said. “He is your most trusted and useful agent-provocateur. He is at this moment in England. I can take you now to where he is in hiding, if you wish,” I added, with a smile of triumph.

“Danilovitch,” he repeated, as though trying to recall the name.

“Yes,” I said defiantly, standing with my hands in my trousers pockets and leaning against the table placed in the centre of the room. “Danilovitch—the shoemaker of Kazan and murderer of Marie Garine, the poor little tailoress in Petersburg.”

His face dropped. He saw that I was aware of the man’s identity.

“He is now staying with a compatriot in Blurton Road, Lower Clapton,” I went on.

“I don’t see why this person should interest me,” he interrupted.

“But he is a conspirator. General Markoff; and I am giving you some valuable information,” I said, with sarcasm.

“You are not a police officer. What can you know?”

“I know several facts which, when placed before the Revolutionary Committee—as they probably are by this time—will make matters exceedingly unpleasant for Danilo Danilovitch, and also for certain of those who have been employing him,” was my quiet response.

“If this man is a dangerous revolutionist, as you allege, he cannot be arrested while in England,” remarked the General, his thick grey eyebrows contracting slightly, a sign of apprehension. “This country of yours gives asylum to all the most desperate characters, and half the revolutionary plots in Europe are arranged in London.”

“I do not dispute that,” I said. “But I was discussing the highly interesting career of this Danilo Danilovitch. If there is any attempt upon Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia, as you fear, it will be by that individual. General. Therefore I would advise your department to keep close observation upon him. He is lodging at Number 30B, Blurton Road. And,” I added, “if you should require any further particulars concerning him, I daresay I shall be in a position to furnish them.”

“Why do you suspect him?”

“Because of information which has reached me—information which shows that it was his hand which launched the fatal bomb which killed the Grand Duke Nicholas. His Imperial Highness was actually killed by an agent of Secret Police! When that fact reaches the Emperor’s ears there will, I expect, be searching inquiry.”

“Have you actual proof of this?” he asked in a thick, hoarse voice, his cheeks paler than before.

“Yes. Or at least my informant has. The traitor was recognised among the crowd; he was seen to throw the bomb.”

General Markoff remained silent. He saw himself checkmated. His secret was out. He had intended to raise a false scare of a probable attempt at Brighton in order to terrify me, but, to his amazement, I had shown myself conversant with his methods and aware of the truth concerning the mysterious outrage in which the Grand Duke Nicholas had lost his life.

From his demeanour and the keen cunning look in his steely eyes I gathered that he was all eagerness to know the exact extent of my knowledge concerning Danilo Danilovitch.

Therefore, after some further conversation, I said boldly:

“I expect that, ere this, the Central Committee of the People’s Will has learned the truth regarding their betrayer—this man to whose initiative more than half of the recent plots have been due—and how he was in the habit of furnishing your department with the lists of suspects and those chosen to carry out the outrage. But, of course, General,” I added, with a bitter smile, “you would probably not know of this manufacture of plots by one in the pay of the Police Department.”

“Of course not,” the unscrupulous official assured me. “I surely cannot be held responsible for the action of underlings. I only act upon reports presented to me.”

I smiled again.

“And yet you warn me of an outrage which is to be attempted with your connivance by this fellow Danilovitch—the very man who killed the Grand Duke—eh?”

“With my connivance!” he cried fiercely. “What do you insinuate?”

“I mean this, General Markoff,” I said boldly; “that the yellow card of identity found in Danilovitch’s rooms by the girl to whom he was engaged bore your signature. That card is, I believe, already in the hands of the Revolutionary Committee!”

“I have all their names. I shall telegraph to-night ordering their immediate arrest,” he cried, white with anger.

“But that will not save your agent-provocateur—the assassin of poor Marie Garine—from his fate. The arm of the revolutionist is a very long one, remember.”

“But the arm of the Chief of Secret Police is longer—and stronger,” he declared in a low, hard tone.

“The Emperor, when he learns the truth, will dispense full justice,” I said very quietly. “His eyes will, ere long, be opened to the base frauds practised upon him, and the many false plots which have cost hundreds of innocent persons their lives or their liberty.”

“You speak as though you were censor of the police,” he exclaimed with a quick, angry look.

“I speak, General Markoff, as the friend of Russia and of her Sovereign the Emperor,” I replied. “You warn me of a plot to assassinate the Grand Duchess Natalia. Well, I tell you frankly and openly I don’t believe it. But if it be true, then I, in return, warn you that if any attempt be made by any of your dastardly hirelings, I will myself go to the Emperor and place before him proofs of the interesting career of Danilo Danilovitch. Your Excellency may be all-powerful as Chief of Secret Police,” I added; “but as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow, justice will one day be done in Russia!”

And then I turned upon my heel and passed out of the room, leaving him biting his nether lip in silence at my open defiance.