The Intriguers

“The letter, then, might have been sent by either of the two women? That, I take it, is your Excellency’s meaning?” commented Nello.

“Precisely. I had the two maids brought before me. The singer’s I soon dismissed. She did not correspond in the slightest degree to my porter’s rather hazy recollections of the young woman who had brought the note. The second shot was more successful.”

“The maid of the Princess Nada, of course?”

“Yes, a slim young thing – I forgot to say the other was short and plump – frightened out of her wits by the sudden turn of events. Terrified by myself, the forbidding aspect of her surroundings, the unknown terrors of the law, she made no pretence of a fight. She fell upon her knees, imploring my clemency.”

“So it was the Princess Nada who sent that note with the object of saving me?” asked Nello. There was a very tender look in his eyes as he spoke her name.

“I have known the Princess Nada from her childhood,” said Beilski, speaking with some emotion. “Her mother, father, and I were of the same generation. The Princess Zouroff is a sweet woman – generous, kind-hearted, charitable; the daughter is the same. The old Prince was a ruffian in every sense of the word – drunken, dissolute, vicious. The son is a ruffian also, but he has missed a few of the paternal vices. He is not a confirmed drunkard, although he takes more than is good for him, as is well known to his family and his intimates. And he is only moderately dissolute. He has one superiority over his father: he has got brains and ambition.”

“How did such a fair flower spring from such a contaminated soil?” asked Corsini wonderingly.

Beilski shrugged his shoulders. “Who can tell? A freak of nature, I suppose. But remember the mother is pure, and comes from a family without a taint. Well, to resume. When the maid had stammered forth her confession, for an instant a horrible suspicion assailed my mind. We know Zouroff to be a traitor whom we have not yet succeeded in unmasking. Was his innocent-looking sister involved in his schemes?”

Nello leaned forward in a state of agitation. For an instant, on hearing that it was the Princess and not La Belle Quéro who had sent that letter, a similar doubt had occurred to him.

“I took the bull by the horns. I sent a message by the maid that I would call upon her mistress that same day, that she was to inform her of what she had confessed.”

“And you went and interviewed the Princess?” asked Corsini.

“Yes; fortunately I found her alone; her mother was in bed with a feverish cold. She was nervous and agitated, as was to be expected, but one moment’s glance at her face convinced me that she was no guilty woman, enmeshed with her own consent in her brother’s vile schemes.”

The young man drew a deep breath of relief. He had always held the highest opinion of her character. There would be some satisfactory explanation forthcoming of her actions.

A little note of pomposity and self-congratulation crept into Beilski’s voice. “I need hardly tell you that an innocent and inexperienced girl like this was as wax in my hands. With a woman of Madame Quéro’s experience, my task might have been more difficult.”

“I can quite believe it,” murmured Corsini.

“In five minutes I had the whole truth out of her. Well, perhaps, not quite the whole truth,” admitted the General reluctantly, “for, woman-like, although she has no love for her brother, she did not want to give him away, to render certain the punishment which he richly deserves.”

“And her story, your Excellency?” asked the young man eagerly.

“Briefly it was this. Madame Quéro called upon her to report that there was a plot to decoy you and convey you to an unknown destination – she did not know, or pretended she did not know, your ultimate fate, neither did she know where the carriage was to start from; she was only sure that the first stoppage was to be at Pavlovsk. This of course was Nada’s version. It at once occurred to me that these ladies, if they knew so much, would know a little more. They were not both of them ignorant, but, of course, one might be. Which was the ignorant one?”

“The Princess, of course,” said Corsini at once. “La Belle Quéro knew where the carriage started from, but did not want to implicate Zouroff, as it was drawn up so close to his residence. She pretended ignorance.”

The General leaned back in his chair and laughed genially. He was very pleased with himself, for what he was about to relate was really his own master-stroke. It owed nothing to the more inventive genius of Golitzine.

“That is, of course, what would occur to you, what would occur to, I dare say, ninety-nine persons out of a hundred. I am the hundredth, and I have had great experience.” The General spoke with an air of profound wisdom. “La Belle Quéro had only certain suspicions, fostered by some random remark dropped by Zouroff in a moment of intense rage and irritation. As a matter of fact, she knew no details. She did not know of a carriage at all, and consequently she was ignorant of where it started from or where it was going to.”

“The Princess, then – !” interrupted Nello, in a voice of the most intense surprise.

“The Princess, then – !” repeated Beilski. “I saw that poor little Nada’s story was lame and halting; of course I guessed the reason why. I pressed her with the question why, if La Belle Quéro, from whom she got her information, knew where the carriage was going to, she did not know where it started from. Both her answer and demeanour were too evasive to deceive me. I could not break her any more on the wheel; I saw she had had about as much as she could stand. I selected another victim.”

“Madame Quéro, of course,” cried Corsini.

“Wrong again, my friend; you have not yet quite got the analytical faculty that makes a great detective. I had the maid before me again, this time more terrified than before. If I had stretched her on the rack, she could not have poured it forth more fully.”

“And the outcome?” was Corsini’s eager question.

“What I had made up my mind was the fact. Zouroff is not the man to impart the details of his plans to any but his immediate instruments. He imparted them neither to Quéro nor his sister.”

He related to Corsini what the reader already knows. The visit of the singer to the Princess, of her suspicion that a plot was on foot against the Italian, of her suggestion that Nada should institute some inquiries in the Zouroff household, of the valet, Peter’s, confidence to Katerina, the Princess’s swift deductions from these revelations.

“I have gone farther,” concluded the General. “I have interrogated that scoundrel, Peter, as to what he knows about his master’s general projects, and more especially your abduction. But I have not given poor little Katerina away, or the young Princess. I have led him to infer that I was acting on the confession of the two scoundrels we have got in custody.”

“And what attitude did he take?”

“At first, one of stupidity, complicated with sullen defiance. But towards the end of the interview, I could see that his heart was being softened. I told him to consider it carefully; full confession and a full pardon, or – the utmost rigour of the law.”

“And he will at once tell Zouroff,” suggested Corsini. “That is, if he is really loyal to the Prince.”

Beilski shrugged his shoulders. “He may and he may not. I expect he will be thinking chiefly of his own skin. On the other hand, ruffians like the Prince have a remarkable knack of attracting loyalty. At any rate, it does not matter. In a couple of days I should have laid my hands on him for this matter alone – I have no doubt they would have taken you to some lonely place and finished you off – but I shall wait, if necessary, a little longer for the report of your visit to the villa. If that is what we expect it to be, we will have done with this gentleman, once and for all.”

“Amen!” cried Corsini, fervently. In spite of his English upbringing, he had in him the true spirit of Italian revenge. He loved the Princess Nada, but for her brother, who would have taken his life, he had no mercy.

He walked home to his hotel, followed at an unobtrusive distance by his guards. His heart was singing happily within him, as a result of his interview with the bluff, but genial General.

He was grateful to La Belle Quéro for her unselfish interference on his behalf: she had braved detection, Zouroff’s vengeance, on his account. When his lips were unsealed he would express to the singer his thanks.

But it was the Princess who had more fully schemed and plotted, set to work her woman’s wit, and ultimately triumphed on his behalf. Was it due to a kind pure woman’s compassion only, or – delicious thought – was she attracted to him as he was to her? Was it love that had stimulated her brain, urged her to that desperate measure of the anonymous note to the Chief of Police?

A letter was handed to him by the hall-porter as he entered the hotel. He was told that it had been delivered by a shabbily-dressed man, who would not wait for his return.

It was from Ivan, no longer an outlaw, and ran as follows:

“Come to my lodging with your guards at twelve-thirty to-night. The meeting is an hour later. I will give you full instructions. Your Friend.”

CHAPTER XX

Peter the valet was a man of criminal instincts, cunning, avaricious, and unscrupulous. Perhaps his sole remaining qualities were his devotion to his master, Zouroff, and his ardent love for the Princess’s maid, Katerina.

His interview with the formidable and awe-inspiring Beilski had shaken him considerably. His faith in Zouroff was great, but in that brief conversation he had begun to realise the sinister power of the police, at which body, the Prince, in his arrogance, was wont to snap his fingers.

He returned home full of thought and much perturbed. He had already determined in his own mind the cause of the failure to remove Corsini. In an unguarded moment, he had revealed to Katerina certain facts about a travelling carriage whose first stoppage was to be at Pavlovsk. Katerina had blabbed all this to somebody.

But, until his interview with Beilski, he had been content to let matters stand where they were. It did not greatly concern him that Corsini had been rescued and was back again in St. Petersburg. His master would never suspect him: he would rather suspect one of the four other men of having given it away, for the sake of the reward that he would claim. So reasoned Peter in his narrow, but cunning brain. Therefore, for many reasons, he did not tax Katerina at once with the betrayal of his misplaced confidence.

Beilski’s threat set his thoughts working vigorously in the direction of self-preservation. He was devoted to the Prince, but he was still more devoted to himself. If he could have saved Zouroff, he would, but that seemed impossible, the Police knew too much. But he could save himself by telling what he knew. It was necessary therefore to earn that free pardon. It was only a matter of hours before he would go to the General and make a full confession.

It hurt him very much that he should crown so many years of fidelity with such a black act, but it seemed a question of sauve qui peut. Loyal as he had been to his master, he knew enough of his character to be sure that the Prince, in a similar emergency, would have thrown him, and a dozen like him, to the wolves in order to purchase a moment’s respite. Why should he pursue a different policy?

Beilski had promised a free pardon, and also not to implicate him in the transaction. Still Zouroff was a man of extraordinary shrewdness, and when he began to work it out in his mind, might quickly focus his suspicions in the right direction.

How to avert Zouroff’s suspicions from himself! That was the question. His narrow, but cunning brain bent itself upon this for some time. At the end of his cogitations, he sought Katerina, and bluntly taxed her with the betrayal of his confidence.

At first, Katerina, with the natural adroitness of her class and sex, protested indignant denial; she vowed that she had forgotten the incident altogether.