Chapter Ten. Reveals Two Facts.

When I entered my bedroom at the Hotel Métropole it wanted half an hour to midnight. But scarce had I closed the door when a waiter tapped at it and handed me a card.

“Show the gentleman up,” I said in eager anticipation, and a few minutes later there entered a tall, thin, clean-shaven, rather aristocratic-looking man in a dark brown suit—the same person whom old Igor had evidently recognised walking along King’s Road.

“Well, Tack? So you are here with your report—eh?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” was his reply, as I seated myself on the edge of the bed, and he took a chair near the dressing-table and settled himself to talk.

Edward Tack was a man of many adventures. After a good many years at Scotland Yard, where he rose to be the chief of the Extradition Department on account of his knowledge of languages, he had been engaged by the Foreign Office as a member of our Secret Service abroad, mostly in Germany and Russia. During the past two years he had, as a blind to the police, carried on a small insurance agency business in Petersburg; but the information he gathered from time to time and sent to the Embassy was of the greatest assistance to us in our diplomatic dealings with Russia and the Powers.

He never came to the Embassy himself, nor did he ever hold any direct communication with any of the staff. He acted as our eyes and ears, exercising the utmost caution in transmitting to us the knowledge of men and matters which he so cleverly gained. He worked with the greatest secrecy, for though he had lived in Petersburg two whole years, he had never once been suspected by that unscrupulous spy-department controlled by General Markoff.

“I’ve been in Brighton several days,” my visitor said. “The hotel porter told me here that you were away, so I went to the ‘Old Ship!’ and waited for you.”

“Well—what have you discovered?” I inquired, handing him my cigarette-case. “Anything of interest?”

“Nothing very much, I regret to say,” was his reply. “I’ve worked for a whole month, often night and day, but Markoff’s men are wary—very wary birds, sir, as you know.”

“Have you discovered the real perpetrator of that bomb outrage?”

“I believe so. He escaped.”

“No doubt he did.”

“There have been in all over forty persons arrested,” my visitor said. “About two dozen have been immured in Schusselburg, in those cells under the waters of Lake Ladoga. The rest have been sent by administrative process to the mines.”

“And all of them innocent?”

“Every one of them.”

“It’s outrageous!” I cried. “To think that such things can happen every day in a country whose priests teach Christianity.”

“Remove a certain dozen or so of Russia’s statesmen and corrupt officials, put a stop to the exile system, and give every criminal or suspect a fair trial, and the country would become peaceful to-morrow,” declared the secret agent. “I have already reported to the Embassy the actual truth concerning the present unrest.”

“I know. And we have sent it on to Downing Street, together with the names of those who form the camarilla. The Emperor is, alas! merely their catspaw. They are the real rulers of Russia—they rule it by a Reign of Terror.”

“Exactly, sir,” replied the man Tack. “I’ve always contended that. In the present case the outrage is not a mystery to the Secret Police.”

“You think they know all about it—eh?” I asked quickly.

“Well, sir. I will put to you certain facts which I have discovered. About two years ago a certain Danilo Danilovitch, an intelligent shoemaker in Kazan, and a member of the revolutionary group in that city, turned police-spy, and gave evidence of a coup which had been prepared to poison the Emperor at a banquet given there after the military manoeuvres last year. As a result, there were over a hundred arrests, and as reprisal the chief of police of Kazan was a week later shot while riding through one of the principal streets. Next I know of Danilovitch is that he was transferred to Petersburg, where, though in the pay of the police, he was known to the Party of the People’s Will as an ardent and daring reformer, and foremost in his fiery condemnation of the monarchy. He made many inflammatory speeches at the secret revolutionary meetings in various parts of the city, and was hailed as a strong and intrepid leader. Yet frequently the police made raids upon these meeting-places and arrested all found there. After each attempted outrage they seemed to be provided with lists of everyone who had had the slightest connection with the affair, and hence they experienced no difficulty in securing them and packing them off to Siberia. The police were all-ubiquitous, the Emperor was greatly pleased, and General Markoff was given the highest decorations, promotion and an appointment with rich emoluments.

“But one day, about four months ago,” Tack went on, “a remarkable but unreported tragedy occurred. Danilovitch, whose wife had long ago been arrested and died on her way to Siberia, fell in love with a pretty young tailoress named Marie Garine, who was a very active member of the revolutionary party, her father and mother having been sent to the mines of Nerchinsk, though entirely innocent. Hence she naturally hated the Secret Police and all their detestable works. More than once she had remarked to her lover the extraordinary fact that the police were being secretly forewarned of every attempt which he suggested, for Danilovitch had by this time become one of the chief leaders of the subterranean revolution, and instigator of all sorts of desperate plots against the Emperor and members of the Imperial Family. One evening, however, she went to his rooms and found him out. Some old shoes were upon a shelf ready for mending, for he still, as a subterfuge, practised his old trade. Among the shoes was a pair of her own. She took them down, but she mistook another pair for hers, and from one of them there fell to her feet a yellow card—the card of identity issued to members of the Secret Police! She took it up. There was no mistake, for her lover’s photograph was pasted upon it. Her lover was a police-spy!”

“Well, what happened?” I asked, much interested in the facts.

“The girl, in a frenzy of madness and anger, was about to rush out to betray the man to her fellow-conspirators, when Danilovitch suddenly entered. She had, at that moment, his yellow card in her hand. In an instant he knew the truth and realised his own peril. She intended to betray him. It meant her life or his! Not a dozen words passed between the pair, for the man, taking up his shoemaker’s knife, plunged it deliberately into the girl’s heart, snatched the card from her dying grasp, and strode out, locking the door behind him. Then he went straight to the private bureau of General Markoff and told him what he had done. Needless to relate, the police inquiry was a very perfunctory one. It was a love tragedy, they said, and as Danilo Danilovitch was missing, they soon dropped the inquiry. They did not, of course, wish to arrest the assassin, for he was far too useful a person to them.”

“Then you know the fellow?”

“I have met him often. At first I had no idea of his connection with the revolutionists. It is only quite recently through a woman who is in the pay of the Secret Police, and whose son has been treated badly, that I learned the truth. And she also told me one very curious fact. She was present in the crowd when the bomb was thrown at the Grand Duke Nicholas’s carriage, and she declares that Danilo Danilovitch—who has not been seen in Petersburg since the tragic death of Marie Garine—was there also.”

“Then he may have thrown the bomb?” I said, amazed.

“Who knows?”

“But I saw a man with his arm uplifted,” I exclaimed. “He looked respectable, of middle-age, with a grey beard and wore dark clothes.”

“That does not tally with Danilovitch’s description,” he replied. “But, of course, the assassin must have been disguised if he had dared to return to Petersburg.”

“But I suppose his fellow-conspirators still entertain no suspicion that he is a police-spy?”

“None whatever. The poor girl lost her life through her untoward discovery. The police themselves knew the truth, but on action being withdrawn, the fellow was perfectly free to continue his nefarious profession of agent-provocateur, for the great risk of which he had evidently been well paid.”

“But does not Hartwig know all this?” I asked quickly, much surprised.

“Probably not. General Markoff keeps his own secrets well. Hartwig, being head of the criminal police, would not be informed.”

“But he might find out, just as you have found out,” I suggested.

“He might. But my success, sir, was due to the merest chance, remember,” Tack said. “Hartwig’s work lies in the detection of crime, and not in the frustration of political plots. Markoff knows what an astute official he is, and would therefore strive to keep him apart from his catspaw Danilovitch.”

“Then, in your opinion, many of these so-called plots against the Emperor are actually the work of the Kazan shoemaker, who arranges the plot, calls the conspirators together and directs the arrangements.”

“Yes. His brother is a chemist in Moscow and it is he who manufactures picric acid, nitro-glycerine and other explosives for the use of the unfortunate conspirators. Between them, and advised by Markoff, they form a plot, the more desperate the better; and a dozen or so silly enthusiasts, ignorant of their leaders’ true calling, swear solemnly to carry it out. They are secretly provided with the means, and their leader has in some cases actually secured facilities from the very police themselves for the coup to be made. Then, when all is quite ready, the astute Danilovitch hands over to his employer, Markoff, a full list of the names of those who have been cleverly enticed into the plot. At night a sudden raid is made. All who are there, or who are even in the vicinity are arrested, and next morning His Excellency presents his report to the Emperor, with Danilovitch’s list ready for the Imperial signature which consigns those arrested to a living grave on the Arctic wastes, or in the mines of Eastern Siberia.”

“And so progresses holy Russia of to-day—eh, Tack?” I remarked with a sigh.

The secret agent of British diplomacy, shrugging his shoulders and with a grin, said:

“The scoundrels are terrorising the Emperor and the whole Imperial family. The killing of the Grand Duke Nicholas was evidence of that, and you, too, sir, had a very narrow escape.”

“Do you suspect that, if the story of the woman who recognised Danilovitch be true, it was actually he himself who threw the bomb?”

“At present I can offer no opinion,” he answered. “The woman might, of course, have been mistaken, and, again, I doubt whether Danilovitch would dare to show himself so quickly in Petersburg. To do so would be to defy the police in the eyes of his fellow-conspirators, and that might have aroused their suspicion. But, sir,” Tack added, “I feel certain of two facts—absolutely certain.”

“And what are they?” I inquired eagerly, for his information was always reliable.

“Well, the first is that the outrage was committed with the full connivance and knowledge of the police, and secondly, that it was not the Grand Duke whom they sought to kill, but his daughter, the Grand Duchess Natalia, and you yourself!”

“Why do you think that?” I asked.

“Because it was known that the young lady held letters given her by Madame de Rosen, and intended to hand them over to the Emperor. There was but one way to prevent her,” he went on very slowly, “to kill her! And,” he added, “be very careful yourself in the near future, Mr Trewinnard. Another attempt of an entirely different nature may be made.”

“You mean that Her Highness is still in grave danger—even here—eh?” I exclaimed, looking straight at the clean-shaven man seated before me.

“I mean, sir, that Her Highness may be aware of the contents of these letters handed to her by the lady who is now exiled. If so, then she is a source of constant danger to General Markoff’s interests. And you are fully well aware of the manner in which His Excellency usually treats his enemies. Only by a miracle was your life saved a few weeks ago. Therefore,” he added, “I beg of you, sir, to beware. There may be pitfalls and dangers—even here, in Brighton!”

“Do you only suspect something, Tack,” I demanded very seriously, “or do you actually know?”

He paused for a few seconds, then, his deep-set eyes fixed upon mine, he replied.

“I do not suspect, sir, I know.”