The Red Symbol Part 18

There was a shadow over the whole land, over the city, over myself, the stranger within its gate; and in that shadow the girl I loved was impenetrably enveloped.

I raised my eyes, and there, fronting me across the water, sternly menacing, were the gray walls of the fortress-prison, named, as if in grim mockery, the fortress of "Peter and Paul." Peter, who denied his Lord, though he loved Him; Paul, who denied his Lord before he knew and loved Him! Perhaps the name is not so inconsistent, after all. The deeds that are done behind the walls of that fortress-prison by men who call themselves Christians, are the most tremendous denial of Christ that this era has witnessed.

Sick at heart, I turned away, and walked moodily back to my hotel. The proprietor was in the lobby, and the whole staff seemed to be on the spot. They all looked at me as if they thought I might be some recently discovered wild animal, and I wondered why. But as no one spoke to me, I asked the clerk at the bureau for my key.

"I have it not; others--the police--have it," he stammered.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" I said. "They're up there now? All right."

I went up the stairs--there was no elevator--and found a couple of soldiers posted outside my door.

"Well, what are you doing here?" I asked, in good enough Russian. "This is my room, and I'll thank you to let me pa.s.s."

The one on the right of the door flung it open with a flourish, and motioned me to enter.

As I pa.s.sed him he said, with a laugh to his fellow, "So--the rat goes into the trap!"

CHAPTER XVII

THE DROSHKY DRIVER

Inside were two officials busily engaged in a systematic search of my effects. Truly the secret police had lost no time!

I had already decided on the att.i.tude I must adopt. It was improbable that they would arrest me openly; that would have involved trouble with the Emba.s.sies, but they could, if they chose, conduct me to the frontier or give me twenty-four hours' notice to quit Russia, as they had to Von Eckhardt, and that was the very last thing I desired just now.

"Good evening, gentlemen," I said amiably. "You seem to be pretty busy here. Can I give you any a.s.sistance?"

I spoke in French, as I didn't want to air my Russian for their edification, though I had improved a good deal in it.

One of them, who seemed boss, looked up and said brusquely, though not exactly uncivilly: "Ah, Monsieur, you have returned somewhat sooner than we expected. We have a warrant to search your apartment."

"That's all right; pray continue, though I give you my word you won't find anything treasonable. I'm a foreigner, as of course you know; and I haven't the least wish or intention to mix myself up with Russian affairs."

"And yet you correspond with the Grand Duke Loris," he said dryly.

"I don't!" I answered promptly. "I've never written a line to that gentleman in my life, nor he to me."

"There are other ways of corresponding than by writing," he retorted. I guessed I had been watched to the cafe after all, but I maintained an air of innocent unconcern, and, after all, his remark might be merely a "feeler." I rather think now that it was. One can never be sure how much the Russian Secret Police do, or do not, know; and one of their pet tricks is to bluff people into giving themselves away.

So I ignored his remark, selected a cigarette, and, seeing that he had just finished his--I've wondered sometimes if a Russian official sleeps with a cigarette between his lips, for I fear he wouldn't sleep comfortably without!--handed him the case, with an apology for my remissness. He accepted both the apology and the cigarette, and looked at me hard.

"I said, Monsieur, that there are other ways of corresponding than by writing!" he repeated with emphasis.

"Of course there are," I a.s.sented cheerfully. "But I don't see what that has to do with me in the present instance. I only know the Grand Duke very slightly. I was hurt in that railway accident last month, and his Highness was good enough to order one of his servants to look after me; and he also called to see me at an hotel in Dunaburg. I thought it very condescending of him. Though I don't suppose I'd have the chance of meeting him again, as there are no Court festivities now; or if there are, we outsiders aren't invited to them. Won't your friend accept one of my cigarettes?"

This was addressed to the other man, who seemed to be doing all the work, and was puzzling over some pencil notes in English which he had picked out of my waste-paper basket. They were the draft of my yesterday's despatch to the _Courier_, a perfectly innocuous communication that I had sent openly; it didn't matter whether it arrived at its destination or not. As I have said, Petersburg was quiet to stagnation just now; though one never knew when the material for some first-cla.s.s sensational copy might turn up.

"I'll translate that for you right now, if you like," I said politely.

"Or you can take it away with you!"

I think they were both baffled by my apparent candor and nonchalance; but the man who was bossing the show returned to the charge persistently.

"Ah, that railway accident. Yes. But surely you have made a slight mistake, Monsieur? You incurred your injuries, from which, I perceive, you have so happily recovered."

He bowed, and I bowed. If I hadn't known all that lay behind, this exchange of words and courtesy--a kind of fencing, with both of us pretending that the b.u.t.tons were on the foils--would have tickled me immensely. Even as it was I could appreciate the funny side of it. I was playing a part in a comedy,--a grim comedy, a mere interlude in tragedy,--but still comic.

"You incurred these, I say, not in the accident, but while gallantly defending the Grand Duke from the dastards who a.s.sailed him later!"

I worked up a modest blush; or I tried to.

"I see that it is useless to attempt to conceal anything from you, Monsieur; you know too much!" I confessed, laughing. "But I'm a modest man; besides, I didn't do very much, and his Highness seemed quite capable of taking care of himself."

I saw a queer glint in his eyes, and I guessed then that the attempt on the life of the Grand Duke had been engineered by the police themselves, and not, as I had first imagined, by the revolutionists.

My antagonist waved his hand with an airy gesture of protestation.

"You underrate your services, Monsieur Wynn! I wonder if you would have devoted them so readily to his Highness if--"

He paused portentously.

"If?" I inquired blandly. "Do have another cigarette!"

"If you had known of his connection with the woman who is known as _La Mort_?"

That wasn't precisely what he said. I don't choose to write the words in any language; but I wanted to knock his yellow teeth down his throat; to choke the life out of him for the vile suggestion his words contained! I dared not look at him; my eyes would have betrayed everything that he was seeking to discover. I looked at the end of the cigarette I was lighting, and wondered how I managed to steady the hand that held the match.

"I really do not understand you!" I a.s.serted blandly.

"Perhaps you may know her as Anna Petrovna?" he suggested.

"Anna Petrovna!" I repeated. "Now, that's the second time to-day I've heard the lady's name; and I can't think why you gentlemen should imagine it means anything to me. Who is she, anyhow?"

I looked at him now, fair and square; met and held the gimlet gaze of his eyes with one of calm, interested inquiry. We were fighting a duel, to which a mere physical fight is child's play; and--I meant to win!

"You do not know?" he asked.

"I do not; though I'd like to. The officer at the bureau this morning--I don't suppose I need tell you that I was arrested and detained for a time--seemed to think I should know her; but he wouldn't give me any information. You've managed to rouse my curiosity pretty smartly between you!"

"I fear it must remain unsatisfied, Monsieur, so far as I am concerned,"

he said suavely. "Well, we will relieve you of our presence. I congratulate you on the admirable order in which you keep your papers."

His subordinate had risen, with an expressive shrug of his shoulders. I knew their search must be futile, since I had fortunately destroyed Mary Cayley's letter the day I received it; and there was nothing among my papers referring either directly or indirectly to Anne.

"You'll want to see this, of course," I suggested, tendering my pa.s.sport. He glanced through it perfunctorily, and handed it back with a ceremonious bow. So far as manners went, he certainly was an improvement on the official at the bureau; and of course he already knew that my personal papers were all right.