The International Spy

“I must implore your pardon, Madam,” the Princess stammered, in real confusion. “I am aware I ought to have solicited your leave in the first place, but knowing that this gentleman came from – ”

She broke off, fairly unable to meet the questioning gaze of her imperial mistress.

I pretended to come to her relief.

“I have a private message,” I said to the Empress.

“You may leave us, Princess,” the Empress said coldly.

As soon as the door had closed on her, I gave a warning look at the Czaritza.

“That woman, Madam, is the most dangerous agent in the secret service of your Empire.”

I trusted to the little scene I had just contrived to prepare the mind of the Czaritza for this intimation. But she received it as a matter of course.

“Sophia Y – has been all that you say, Monsieur V – . I am well acquainted with her history. The poor thing has been a victim of the most fiendish cruelty on the part of the Minister of Police, for years. At last, unable to bear her position any longer, she appealed to me. She told me her harrowing story, and implored me to receive her, and secure her admission to a convent. I investigated the case thoroughly.”

“Your majesty will pardon me, I am sure, if I say that as a man with some experience of intrigue, I thoroughly distrust that woman’s sincerity. She is intimate with M. Petrovitch, to my knowledge.”

“But M. Petrovitch is also on the side of peace, so I am assured.”

I began to despair.

“You will believe me, or disbelieve me as your majesty pleases. But I am accustomed to work for those who honor me with their entire confidence. If the Princess Y – is to be taken into the secret of my work on your majesty’s behalf, I must respectfully ask to be released.”

As I offered her majesty this alternative in a firm voice, I was inwardly trembling. On the reply hung, perhaps, the fate of two continents.

But the Dowager Empress did not hesitate.

“What you stipulate for shall be done, Monsieur V – . I am too well aware of the value of your services, and the claims you have on the confidence of your employers, to dispute your conditions.”

“The messenger who is starting to-night – does the Princess know who he is?”

“I believe so. It is no secret. The messenger is Colonel Menken.”

“In that case he will never reach Tokio.”

Her majesty could not suppress a look of horror.

“What do you advise?” she demanded tremulously.

“His majesty the Czar must at once write a duplicate of the despatch, unknown to any living soul but your majesty, and that despatch must be placed by you in my hands.”

The Dowager Empress gazed at me for a moment in consternation.

But the soundness of the plan I had proposed quickly made itself manifest to her.

“You are right, Monsieur V – ,” her majesty said approvingly. “I will communicate with the Czar without delay. By what time do you want the despatch?”

“In time to catch the Siberian express to-night, if your majesty pleases. I purpose to travel by the same train as Colonel Menken – it is possible I may be able to avert a tragedy.

“And since your majesty has told me that the Princess Y – is aware of the Colonel’s errand, let me venture to urge you most strongly not to let her out of your sight on any pretense until he is safely on his way.”

I need not go into the details of the further arrangements made with a view to my receiving the duplicate despatch in secrecy.

I came away from the Palace fully realizing the serious nature of my undertaking. I understood now all that had worried me in the proceedings of the Princess. It was clear to me that Lord Bedale, or the personage on whose behalf he instructed me, had wired to the Dowager Empress, notifying her majesty of my coming, and that she had shown the message to her lady-in-waiting.

Blaming myself bitterly for not having impressed the necessity for caution on the Marquis, I at once set about providing myself with a more effectual disguise.

It is a proverb on the lips of every moujik in Petersburg that all Russia obeys the Czar, and the Czar obeys the Tchin. Ever since the bureaucracy deliberately allowed Alexander II. to be assassinated by the Nihilists out of anger at his reforming tendencies, the Russian monarchs have felt more real dread of their own police than of the revolutionists. The Tchin, the universally-pervading body of officials, who run the autocracy to fill their pockets, and indulge their vile propensities at the expense of the governed, is as omnipotent as it is corrupt. Everywhere in that vast Empire the word of the Tchinovink is law – and there is no other law except his word.

Taking the bull by the horns, I went straight to the Central Police Bureau of the capital, and asked to see a certain superintendent named Rostoy.

To this man, with whom I had had some dealings on a previous occasion, and whose character was well understood by me, I explained that I had accepted a mission from a friendly Power to travel along the Siberian Railway and report on its capacity to keep the Army of Manchuria supplied with food and ammunition in the event of war.

He expressed no surprise when I told him it was essential that I should leave Petersburg that night, and accordingly it did not take us long to come to terms.

The service which I required of him was, of course, a fresh passport, with a complete disguise which would enable me to pass anywhere along the railway or in Manchuria without being detected or interfered with by the agents of the Government.

After some discussion we decided that the safest plan would be for me to travel in the character of a Russian police officer charged with the detection of the train thieves and card-sharpers who abound on every great route of travel. I could think of no part which would serve better to enable me to watch over the safety of the Czar’s envoy without exciting suspicion.

I placed in Rostoy’s hands the first instalment of a heavy bribe, and arranged to return an hour before the departure of the Moscow express to carry out my transformation.

It was only as I left his office that I remembered my unlucky engagement to dine that very night with the head of the Manchurian Syndicate.

I perceived that these hospitalities were well devised checks on my movements, and it was with something of a shock that I realized that when I went to dinner that evening with the most active promoter of the war I should be carrying the Czar’s peace despatch in my pocket!

If the enemies of peace had foreseen every step that I was to take in the discharge of my mission, their measures could not have been more skilfully arranged.

And as this reflection occurred to me I turned my head nervously, and remarked a man dressed like a hotel porter lounging carelessly in my track.

CHAPTER V

A DINNER WITH THE ENEMY

Readers of that prince of romancers, Poe, will recollect a celebrated story in which he describes the device employed by a man of uncommon shrewdness to conceal a stolen letter from the perquisitions of the police, and the elaborate argument by which the writer proves that the highest art of concealment is to thrust the object to be hidden under the very nose of the searcher.

But that argument is one of the many mystifications in which the weird genius of Poe delighted. It is easy to see, in short, that the theory was invented to suit the story, and not the story to suit the theory. I now had before me the practical problem of concealing a document of surpassing importance, from enemies who were already on my scent, and keeping it concealed during a journey of some thousands of miles.

The ordinary hiding-places of valuable papers, such as the lining of clothes, or a false bottom to a trunk, I dismissed without serious consideration. My luggage would probably be stolen, and I might be drugged long before I reached Dalny.

The problem was all the more difficult for me because I have generally made it a rule to avoid charging myself with written instructions. I am sufficiently well known by reputation to most European sovereigns to be able to dispense with ordinary credentials. But in approaching the Mikado of Japan, a ruler to whom I was personally unknown, it was clearly necessary for me to have something in writing from the Russian Emperor.

All at once an idea flashed on my mind, so simple, and yet so incapable of detection (as it seemed to me), that I almost smiled in the face of the man who was dogging my steps along the street, no doubt under instructions from the War Syndicate.

That afternoon I was closeted with the Emperor of All the Russias in his private cabinet for nearly an hour.

It is not my habit to repeat details of private conversations, when they are not required to illustrate the progress of public events, and therefore I will say merely that the Czar was evidently in earnest in his desire to avoid war, but greatly hampered and bewildered by the difficult representations made to him by, or on behalf of, those to whose interests war was essential.