Chapter Twenty Eight. The Emperor’s Favourite.

For a second the famous chief of Secret Police turned his cunning, steel-blue eyes upon mine and bowed slightly, after making obeisance to His Majesty.

“Why, I believed, Mr Trewinnard, that you were still in Siberia!” he said with a crafty smile. Though my bitterest enemy, he always feigned the greatest friendliness.

“Trewinnard has just revealed a very painful and serious fact, Markoff,” exclaimed the Emperor, in a deep, earnest voice. “Her Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia has disappeared.”

The General gave no sign of surprise.

“It has already been reported to us,” was his calm answer. “I have not reported it, in turn, to Your Majesty, fearing to cause undue alarm. Both here and in England we are instituting every possible inquiry.”

“Another plot,” I remarked, with considerable sarcasm, I fear.

“Probably,” was His Excellency’s reply, as he turned to His Imperial Master, and in that fawning voice of his, added: “Your Majesty may rest assured that if Her Highness be alive she will be found, wherever she may be.”

Hatred—hatred most intense—arose within my heart as I glanced at the sinister face of the favourite before me, the man who had deliberately ordered the commission of that crime which had resulted in the death of the Emperor’s brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas. To his orders had been due that exciting episode in which I had so nearly lost my life in Siberia; at his orders, too, poor Marya de Rosen had been deliberately sent to her grave; and at his orders had been planned the conspiracy against the Grand Duchess which Danilo Danilovitch had intended to carry into execution, and would no doubt have done, had he not been prevented by Hartwig’s boldness.

I longed to turn and denounce him before his Imperial Master. Indeed, hot, angry words were upon my lips, but I suppressed them. No! The time was not yet ripe. Natalia herself had promised to make the revelations, and to her I must leave them.

I must find her—and then.

“Ah!” exclaimed His Majesty, well pleased. “I knew that you would be already informed, Markoff. You know everything. Nothing which affects my family ever escapes you.”

“I hope not, Sire. I trust I may ever be permitted to display my loyalty and gratitude for the confidence which Your Majesty sees fit to repose in me.”

“To your astuteness, Markoff, I have owed my life a score of times,” the Emperor declared. “I have already acknowledged your devoted services. Now make haste and discover the whereabouts of my harebrained little niece, Tattie, for the little witch is utterly incorrigible.”

Markoff, pale and hard-faced, was silent for a moment. Then with a strange expression upon his grey, deceitful countenance he said:

“Perhaps I should inform Your Majesty of one point which to-day was reported to us from England—namely, that it is believed that Her Highness has fled with—well, with a lover—a certain young Englishman.”

“A lover!” roared the Emperor, his face instantly white with anger. “Another lover! Who is he, pray?”

“His name is Richard Drury,” His Excellency replied.

“Then the girl has created an open scandal! The English and French newspapers will get hold of it, and we shall have detailed accounts of the elopement—eh?” he cried excitedly. “This, Markoff, is really too much!” Then turning to me he asked: “What do you know of this young Drury? Tell me, Trewinnard.”

“Very little, Sire, except that he is her friend, and that he is in ignorance of her true station.”

“But are they in love with each other?” he demanded in a hard voice. “Have you neglected my instructions and allowed clandestine meetings—eh?”

“Unfortunately my journey across Siberia prevented my exercising due vigilance,” I faltered. “Yet she gave me her word of honour that she would form no male attachment.”

“Bosh!” he cried angrily, as he crossed the room. “No girl can resist falling in love with a man if he is good-looking and a gentleman—at least, no girl of Tattie’s high spirits and disregard for the convenances. You were a fool, Trewinnard, to accept the girl’s word.”

“I believed in the honour of a lady,” I said in mild reproach, “and especially as the lady was a Romanoff.”

“The Romanoff women are as prone to flirtation as any commoner of the same sex,” he declared hastily. “Markoff knows of more than one scandal which has had to be faced and crushed out during the last five years. But this fellow Drury,” he added impatiently, “who is he?”

In a few brief sentences I told him what I knew concerning him.

“You think they have fallen in love?”

“I am fully convinced of it, Sire.”

“Therefore they may have eloped! Tattie’s disappearance may have no connection with any revolutionary plot—eh?”

“It may not. But upon that point I am quite undecided,” was my reply.

“Let me hear your views, Markoff,” said the Emperor sharply.

“I believe that Her Highness has fallen the victim of a plot,” was his quick reply. “The man Drury may have shared the same fate.”

“Fate!” he echoed. “Do you anticipate, then, that the girl is dead?”

“Alas, Sire! If she has fallen into the hands of the revolutionists, then without doubt she is dead,” was the cunning official’s reply.

Was he revealing to his Imperial Master a fact that he knew? Was he preparing the Emperor for the receipt of bad news?

I glanced at his grey, coarse, sphinx-like countenance, and felt convinced that such was the case. Had she, after all, fallen a victim of his craft and cunning, and were her lips sealed for ever?

I stood there staring at the pair, the Emperor and his all-powerful favourite, like a man in a dream. Suddenly I roused myself with the determination that I would leave no stone unturned to unmask this man and reveal him in his true light to the Sovereign who had trusted him so complacently, and had been so ingeniously blinded and misled by this arch-adventurer, to whose evil machinations the death of so many innocent persons were due.

“Then you are not certain whether, after all, it is an elopement?” asked the Emperor, glancing at him a few moments later. And turning impatiently to me he said in reproach: “I gave her into your hands, Trewinnard. You promised me solemnly to exercise all necessary vigilance in order to prevent a repetition of that affair in Moscow, when the madcap was about to run away to London. Yet you relaxed your vigilance and she has escaped while you have been on your wild-goose chase through Siberia.”

“With greatest respect to your Majesty, I humbly submit that my mission was no wild-goose chase. It concerned a woman’s honour and her liberty,” and I glanced at Markoff’s grey, imperturbable countenance. “But the unfortunate lady was sent to her death—purposely killed by exhaustion and exposure, ere I could reach Yakutsk.”

“She was a dangerous person,” the General snapped, with a smile of sarcasm.

“Yes,” I said in a hard, bitter voice. “She was marked as such upon the list of exiles—and treated as such—treated in a manner that no woman is treated in any other country which calls itself Christian!”

I saw displeasure written upon the Emperor’s face, therefore I apologised for my outburst.

“It ill becomes you, an Englishman, to criticise our penal system, Trewinnard,” the Emperor remarked in quiet rebuke. “And, moreover, we are not discussing it. Madame de Rosen conspired against my life and she is dead. Therefore the question is closed.”

“I believe when Your Majesty comes to ascertain the truth—the actual truth,” I said, glancing meaningly at Markoff, who was then standing before the Sovereign, his hands clasped behind his back, “that you will discover some curious connection between the death of Marya de Rosen in the Yakutsk prison and the disappearance and probable death of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Natalia.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, staring at me in surprise.

“For answer,” I said, “I must, with great respect, direct Your Majesty to His Excellency General Markoff, who is aware of all that concerns the Imperial family. He probably knows the truth regarding the strange disappearance of the young lady, and what connection it has with Madame de Rosen’s untimely end.”

“I really do not understand you,” cried the renowned chief of Secret Police, drawing himself up suddenly. “What do you infer?”

“His Majesty is anxious to learn the truth,” I said, looking straight into those cunning blue eyes of his. “Your Excellency, a loyal and dutiful subject, will, I trust, now make full revelation of what has really happened during the past twelve months, and what secret tie existed between Her Highness and Marya de Rosen.” His face went white as paper. But only for a single second. He always preserved the most marvellous self-control.

“I do not follow your meaning,” he declared. “Madame de Rosen’s death was surely no concern of mine. Many other politicals have died on their way to the Arctic settlements.”

“You speak in enigmas, Trewinnard. Pray be more explicit,” the Emperor urged.

I could see that my words had suddenly aroused his intense curiosity, although well aware of the antagonism in which I held the dreaded oppressor of Holy Russia.

“I regret, Your Majesty, that I cannot be more explicit,” I said. “His Excellency will reveal the truth—a strange truth. If not, I myself will do so. But not, however, to-day. His Excellency must be afforded an opportunity of explaining circumstances of which he is aware. Therefore I humbly beg to withdraw.”

And I crossed to the door and bowed low.

“As you wish, Trewinnard,” answered the Emperor impatiently, as with a wave of the hand he indicated that my audience was at an end.

So as I backed out, bowing a second time, and while Markoff stood there in statuesque silence, his face livid, I added in a clear voice:

“Ask His Excellency for the truth—the disgraceful truth! He alone knows. Let him find Her Imperial Highness—if he can—if he dare!”

Then I opened the door and made my exit, full of wonder at what might occur when the pair were alone.