Kitabı oku: «The Price of Power», sayfa 7
Chapter Thirteen.
The Catspaw
Just as the dusk had deepened into grey on the following evening I alighted from a tram in the Lower Clapton Road, and, accompanied by Hartwig, we turned up a long thoroughfare of uniform houses, called Powerscroft Road, until we reached Blurton Road, where, nearly opposite the Mission House, we found the house of which we were in search.
Hartwig had altered his appearance wonderfully, and looked more like a Devonshire farmer up in London on holiday than the shrewd, astute head of the Sûreté of the Russian Empire. As for myself, I had assumed a very old suit and wore a shabby hat.
The drab, dismal house, which we passed casually in order to inspect, was dingy and forbidding, with curtains that were faded with smoke and dirt, holland blinds once yellow, but the ends of which were now dark and stained, and windows which had not been cleaned for years, while the front door was faded and blistered and some of the tops of the iron railings in front had been broken off. The steps leading to the front door had not been hearthstoned as were those of its neighbour, while in the area were bits of wastepaper, straw, and the flotsam and jetsam of the noisy, overcrowded street.
Unkempt children were romping or playing hopscotch on the pavement, while some were skipping and others playing football in the centre of the road – all pupils of the great County Council Schools in the vicinity.
At both the basement window and that of the room above – the front parlour – were short blinds of dirty muslin, so that to see within while passing was impossible. In that particular it differed in no way from some of its neighbours; for in those parts front parlours are often turned into bedrooms, and a separate family occupies every floor. Only one fact was apparent – that it was the dirtiest and most neglected house in the whole of that working-class road, bordering upon the Hackney Marsh.
To me that district was as unfamiliar as were the wilds of the Sahara. Indeed, to the average Londoner Lower Clapton is a mere legendary district, the existence of which is only recorded by the name written upon tramcars and omnibuses.
Together we strolled to the bottom of Blurton Road, to where Glyn Road crosses it at right angles, and then we stopped to discuss our plans.
“I shall ascend the steps, knock, and ask for Danilovitch,” the great detective said. “The probability is that the door will be unceremoniously slammed in my face. But you will be behind me. I shall place my foot in the door to prevent premature closing, and at first sign of resistance you, being behind me, will help me to force the door, and so enter. At word from me don’t hesitate – use all your might. I intend to give whoever lives there a sudden and sharp surprise.”
“But if they are refugees, they are desperate. What then?”
“I expect they are,” he laughed. “This is no doubt the hornets’ nest. Therefore it behoves us to be wary, and have our wits well about us. You’re not afraid, Mr Trewinnard?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Where you dare go, there I will follow.”
“Good. Let’s make the attempt then,” he said, and together we strolled leisurely back until we came to the flight of unclean front steps, whereupon both of us turned and, ascending, Hartwig gave a sharp postman’s knock at the door.
An old, grey-whiskered, ill-dressed man, palpably a Polish Jew, opened the door, whereupon Hartwig asked in Russian:
“Is our leader Danilo Danilovitch here?”
The man looked from him to me inquiringly.
“Tell him that Ivan Arapoff, from Petersburg, wishes to speak with him.”
“I do not know, Gospodin, whether he is at home,” replied the man with politeness. “But I will see, if you will wait,” and he attempted to close the door in our faces.
Hartwig, however, was prepared for such manoeuvre, for he had placed his foot in the door, so that it could not be closed. The Polish Jew was instantly on the alert and shouted some sharp word of warning, evidently a preconcerted signal, to those within, whereat Hartwig and myself made a sudden combined effort and next second were standing within the narrow evil-smelling little hall.
I saw the dark figures of several men and women against the stairs, and heard whispered words of alarm in Russian. But Hartwig lost no time, for he shouted boldly:
“I wish to see Danilo Danilovitch. Let him come forward. If he does not do so, then it is at his own peril.”
“If you are police officers you cannot touch us here in England!” shouted a young woman with dark, tousled hair, a revolutionist of the female-student type.
“We are here from Petersburg as friends, but you apparently treat us as enemies,” said Hartwig.
“If you are traitors you will, neither of you, leave this house alive,” cried a thick-set man, advancing towards me threateningly. “So you shall see Danilovitch – and he shall decide.”
I heard somebody bolting the front door heavily to prevent our escape, while a voice from somewhere above, in the gloom of the stairs, shouted:
“Comrades, they are police-spies!”
A young, black-haired Jewess of a type seen everywhere in Poland, thin-featured and handsome, with a grey shawl over her shoulders, emerged from a door and peered into my face. There seemed fully fifteen persons in that dingy house, all instantly alarmed at our arrival. Here was, no doubt, the London centre of revolutionary activity directed against the Russian Imperial family and Danilo Danilovitch was in hiding there. It was fortunate, indeed, that the ever-vigilant Tack had succeeded in running him to earth.
I had told Hartwig of the allegation which Tack had made against Danilovitch, that, though in the service of the Secret Police, he had arranged certain attempts against members of the Imperial family, and how he had deliberately killed his sweetheart, Marie Garine. But Hartwig, being chief of the Sûreté, had no connection with the political department, and was, therefore, unaware of any agent of Secret Police known as Danilovitch.
“I remember quite well the case of Marie Garine,” he added. “I thoroughly investigated it and found that she had, no doubt, been killed by her lover. But I put it down to jealousy, and as the culprit had left Russia I closed the inquiry.”
“Then you could arrest him, even now,” I said.
“Not without considerable delay. Besides, in Petersburg they are against applying for extradition in England. The newspapers always hint at the horrors of Siberia in store for the person arrested. And,” he added, “I agree that it is quite useless to unnecessarily wound the susceptibilities of my own countrymen, the English.” It was those words he had spoken as we had come along Blurton Road.
Our position at that moment was not a very pleasant one, surrounded as we were by a crowd of desperate refugees. If any one of them recognised Ivan Hartwig, then I knew full well that we should never leave the house alive. Men who were conspiring to kill His Majesty the Emperor would not hesitate to kill a police officer and an intruder in order to preserve their secret, “Where is my good friend Danilovitch?” demanded Hartwig, in Russian. “Why does he not come forward?”
“He has not been well, and is in bed,” somebody replied. “He is coming in a moment. He lives on the top floor.”
“Well, I’m in a hurry, comrades,” exclaimed the great detective with a show of impatience. “Do not keep me waiting. I am bearer of a message to you all – an important message from our great and beloved Chief, the saviour of Russia, whose real identity is a secret to all, but whom we know as ‘The One’!”
“The One!” echoed two of the men in Russian. “A message from him! What is it? Tell us,” they cried eagerly.
“No. The message from our Chief is to our comrade Danilovitch. He will afterwards inform you,” was Hartwig’s response.
“Who is it there who wants me?” cried an impatient voice in Russian over the banisters.
“I have a message for Danilo Danilovitch,” my friend shouted back.
“Then come upstairs,” he replied. “Come – both of you.”
And we followed a dark figure up to a back room on the second floor – a shabby bed and sitting-room combined.
He struck a match, lit the gas and pulled down the blind. Then as he faced us, a middle-aged man with deeply-furrowed countenance and hair tinged with grey, I at once recognised him – though he no longer wore the small black moustache – as the man I had met on Brighton Pier on the previous night.
“Well,” he asked roughly in Russian, “what do you want with me?”
I was gratified that he had not recognised Ivan Hartwig. For a moment he looked inquiringly at me, and no doubt recognised me as the Grand Duchess’s companion of the previous night.
His hair was unkempt, his neck was thick, and his unshaven face was broad and coarse. He had the heavy features of a Russian of the lower class, yet his prominent, cunning eyes and high, deeply-furrowed forehead betokened great intelligence. Though of the working-class, yet in his eyes there burned a bright magnetic fire, and one could well imagine how by his inflammatory speeches he led that crowd of ignorant aliens into a belief that by killing His Imperial Majesty they could free Russia of the autocratic yoke. Those men and women, specimens of whom were living in that house at Clapton, never sought to aim at the root of the evil which had gripped the Empire, that brutal camarilla who ruled Russia, but in the madness of their blood-lust and ignorance that they were being betrayed by their leader, and their lives made catspaws by the camarilla itself, they plotted and conspired, and were proud to believe themselves martyrs to what they foolishly termed The Cause!
The face of the traitor before us was full of craft and cunning, the countenance of a shrewd and clever man who, it struck me, was haunted hourly by the dread of betrayal and an ignominious end. Even though he might have been a shoemaker, yet from his perfect self-control, and the manner in which he greeted us, I saw that he was no ordinary man. Indeed, few men could have done – would have dared to do – what he had done, if all Tack had related were true. His personal appearance, his unkempt hair, his limp collar and loosely-tied cravat of black and greasy silk, and his rough suit of shabby dark tweed, his whole ensemble, indeed, was that of the political agitator, the revolutionary firebrand.
“I am here, Danilo Danilovitch,” Hartwig said at last very seriously, looking straight at him, “in order to speak to you quite frankly, to put to you several questions.”
The man started, and I saw apprehension by the slight movement in the corners of his mouth.
“For what reason?” he snapped quickly. “I thought you were here with a message from our Chief in Russia?”
“I am here with a message, it is true,” said the renowned chief of the Russian Sûreté. “You had, I think, better lock that door, and also make quite certain that nobody in this house overhears what I am about to say,” he added very slowly and meaningly.
“Why?” inquired the other with some show of defiance.
“If you do not want these comrades of yours to know all your private business, it will be best to lock that door and take care that nobody is listening outside. If they are – well, it will be you, Danilo Danilovitch, who will suffer, not myself,” said Hartwig very coolly, his eyes fixed upon the agent-provocateur. “I urge you to take precautions of secrecy,” he added. “I urge you – for your own sake!”
“For my own sake!” cried the other. “What do you mean?”
Hartwig paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower voice, said:
“I mean this, Danilo Danilovitch. If a single word of what I am about to say is overheard by anyone in this house you will not go forth again alive. We have been threatened by your comrades down below. But upon you yourself will fall the punishment which is meted out by your comrades to all traitors —death!” The man’s face changed in an instant. He stood open-mouthed, staring aghast at Hartwig, haggard-eyed and pale to the lips.
Chapter Fourteen.
Such is the Law
“Now,” Hartwig said, assuming a firm, determined attitude, “I hope you entirely understand me. I am well aware of the despicable double game you are playing, therefore if you refuse me the information I seek I shall go downstairs and tell them how you are employed by His Excellency General Markoff.”
The traitor’s face was ashen grey. He was, I could see, in wonder at the identity of his visitor. Of course he knew me, but apparently my companion was quite unknown to him. It was always one of Hartwig’s greatest precautions to remain unknown to any except perhaps a dozen or so of the detective police immediately under his direction. From the Secret or Political Police he was always careful to hide his identity, knowing well that by so doing he would gain a free hand in his operations in the detection of serious crime. At his own house, a neat, modest little bachelor abode just outside Petersburg, in the Kulikovo quarter, he was known as Herr Otto Schenk, a German teacher of languages, who, possessing a small income, devoted his leisure to his garden and his poultry. None, not even the agents of Secret Police in the Kulikovo district, who reported upon him regularly each month, even suspected that he was the renowned head of the Sûreté.
Standing there presenting such a bucolic appearance, so typically English, and yet speaking Russian perfectly, he caused Danilovitch much curiosity and apprehension.
Suddenly he asked of the spy:
“You were at Brighton last night? With what motive? Tell me.”
The man hesitated a moment and replied:
“I went there to visit a friend – a compatriot.”
“Yes. Quite true,” exclaimed the great police official, leaning against the end of the narrow iron bedstead. “You went to Brighton with an evil purpose. Shall I tell you why? Because you were sent there by your employer General Markoff – sent there as a paid assassin!”
The fellow started.
“What do you mean?” he gasped.
“Just this. That you followed a certain lady who accompanied this gentleman here – followed and watched them for two hours.” And then, fixing his big, expressive eyes upon the man he was interrogating, he added: “You followed them because your intention was to carry out the plot conceived by your master – the plot to kill them both!”
“It’s a lie!” cried the traitor. “There is no plot.”
“Listen,” exclaimed Hartwig, in a low, firm voice. “It is your intention to commit an outrage, and having done so, you will denounce to the police certain persons living in this house. Arrests will follow, if any return to Russia, the General will be congratulated by the Emperor upon his astuteness in laying hands so quickly upon the conspirators, and half-a-dozen innocent persons will be sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, if they dare ever go back to their own country. You see,” he laughed, “that I am fully aware of the remarkably ingenious programme in progress.”
The man’s face was pale as death. He saw that his secret was out.
“And now,” Hartwig went on: “when I tell these people who live below – your comrades and fellow-workers in the revolutionary cause – what will they say – eh? Well, Danilo Danilovitch, I shall, when I’ve finished with you, leave you to their tender mercies. You remember, perhaps, the fate of Boutakoff, the informer at Kieff, how he was attached to a baulk of timber and placed upon a circular saw, how Raspopoff died of slow starvation in the hands of those whom he had betrayed at Moscow, and how Mirski, in Odessa, was horribly tortured and killed by the three brothers of the unfortunate girl he had given into the hands of the police. No,” he laughed, “your friends show neither leniency nor humanity towards those who betray them.”
“But you will not do this!” gasped the man, his eyes dilated by fear, now that he had been brought to bay.
“I have explained my intention,” replied Hartwig slowly and firmly.
“But you will not!” he cried. “I – I implore you to spare me! You appear to know everything.”
“Yes,” was the reply. “I know how, by your perfidious actions, dozens, nay hundreds, of innocent persons have been sent into exile. To the revolutionists throughout the whole of Russia there is one great leader known as ‘The One’ – the leader whose identity is unknown, but whose word is law among a hundred thousand conspirators. You are that man! Your mandates are obeyed to the letter, but you keep your identity profoundly secret. These poor misguided fools who follow you believe that the secrecy as to the identity of their fearless leader whom they only know as ‘The Wonder Worker,’ or generally ‘The One,’ is due to a fear of arrest. Ah! Danilo Danilovitch,” he laughed, “you who lead them so cleverly are a strong man, and a clever man. You hold the fate of all revolutionary Russia in your hand. You form plots, you get your poor, ill-read puppets to carry them out, and afterwards you send them to Siberia in batches of hundreds. A clever game this game of terrorism. But I tell you frankly it is at an end now. What will these comrades of yours say when they are made aware that ‘The One’ – the man believed by so many to be sent providentially to sweep away the dynasty and kill the enemies of freedom – is identical with Danilo Danilovitch, the bootmaker of Kazan and police-spy. Rather a blow to the revolutionary organisation – eh?”
“And a blow for you,” I added, addressing the unkempt-looking fellow for the first time. Though I confess that I did not recognise him as the man who threw the bomb in Petersburg, I added: “It was you who committed the dastardly outrage upon the Grand Duke Nicholas, and for which many innocent persons are now immured in those terrible cells below the water at Schusselburg – you who intend that His Imperial Highness’s daughter and myself shall die!” I cried.
He made no reply. He saw that we were in possession of all the facts concerning his disgraceful past. I could see how intensely agitated he had become, and though he was striving to conceal his fear, yet his thin, sinewy hands were visibly trembling.
“You admit, by your silence, that you were author of that brutal outrage!” exclaimed Hartwig quickly. “In it, my friend here narrowly escaped with his life. Now, answer me this question,” he demanded imperiously. “With what motive did you launch that bomb at the Grand Duke’s carriage?”
“With the same motive that every attempt is made,” was his bold reply.
“You lie!” Hartwig said bluntly. “That plot was not yours. Confess it.”
“No plot is mine. The various revolutionary circles form plots, and I, as the unknown head, approve of them. But,” asked the spy suddenly, “who are you that you should question me thus?”
“I have already given you my name,” he said. “Ivan Arapoff, of Petersburg.”
“Then, Mr Arapoff, I think we may change the topic of conversation,” said the man, suddenly quite calm and collected. I detected that, though an unprincipled scoundrel and without either conscience or remorse, his was yet a strong and impelling personality – a man who, among the enthusiastic students and the younger generation of Russia, which form the bulk of the revolutionists, would no doubt be listened to and obeyed as a leader.
“Good. If you wish me to leave you, I will do so. I will go and have a little chat with your interesting and enlightened friends downstairs,” exclaimed Hartwig with a triumphant laugh. Then, turning to me, he added: “Come, Mr Trewinnard, let’s go.”
“No!” gasped the spy. “No, stop! I – I want to fully understand what your intentions are – now that you know the truth concerning the identity of ‘The One’ and other recent matters.”
“Intentions!” echoed the great detective. “I have none. I have merely forewarned you of what you must expect – the fate of the informer, unless – ”
“Unless what?” he cried.
“Unless you confess the object of the outrage upon the Grand Duke.”
“I tell you I do not know.”
“But the plot was your own. None of your comrades knew of it.”
“It was not my own.”
“You carried it out?”
“And if I admit anything you will hand me over to the police – eh?”
“Surely you know that is impossible in England. You cannot be arrested here for a political crime,” Hartwig said.
“I saw you throw the bomb,” I added. “You were dressed differently, but I now recognise you. Come, admit it.”
“I admit nothing,” he answered sullenly. “You are both of you entirely welcome to your opinions.”
“Forty persons are now in prison for your crime,” I said. “Have you no remorse – no pity?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“But you shall speak,” I cried angrily. “Once I nearly lost my life because of the outrage you committed, and last night you followed me in Brighton with the distinct purpose of killing both Her Highness and myself. But you were frustrated – or perhaps you feared arrest. But I tell you plainly, if ever I catch you in our vicinity again I shall hand you over to the nearest policeman. And at the police-court the truth concerning ‘The One’ will quickly be revealed and seized upon by the halfpenny press.”
“We need not wait for that, Mr Trewinnard,” remarked Hartwig. “We can deal with him this evening – once and for all. When we leave here we shall leave with the knowledge that ‘The One’ no longer exists and the revolutionary party – Terrorists, as they are pleased to call themselves on account of the false bogy which the Secret Police have raised in Russia – will take their own steps towards punishing the man to whom they owe all the great disasters which have befallen their schemes during the past couple of years. Truly, the vengeance of the Terrorist against his betrayer is a terrible vengeance indeed.”
As he spoke the creak of a footstep was heard on the landing outside the locked door.
I raised my finger to command silence, whereupon the man known throughout all revolutionary Russia as “The One” crossed the room swiftly, and unlocking the door, looked out. But he found no one.
Yet I feel certain that someone had been lurking there. That slow creak of the bare boards showed that the pressure of a foot had been released. Yet whoever had been listening had escaped swiftly down the stairs, now dark and unlighted. Danilovitch reentered the bedroom, his face white as a sheet.
“Somebody has overheard!” he gasped in a low, hoarse voice. “They know the truth!”
“Yes,” responded my companion in a hard, distinct tone. “They know the truth because of your own failure to be frank with us. I warned you. But you have not heeded.”
“Your words were overheard,” he whispered. “They no doubt suspected you to be officers of police who had found me here in my hiding-place, and were, therefore, listening. I was a fool!” he cried, throwing his hands above his head. “I was an accursed fool!”
His lips were grey, his dark eyes seemed to be starting from his head.
Well did he know the terrible fate which awaited him as a betrayer and informer.
“Why did you throw that bomb?” I cried. “Why did you last night follow the Grand Duchess Natalia with such evil intent? Tell me,” I urged.
“No!” cried “The One,” springing at me fiercely. “I will tell you nothing – nothing!” he shrieked. “You have betrayed me – you have cast me into the hands of my enemies. But, by Heaven! you shall neither of you leave this place alive,” he shrieked. “My comrades shall deal with you as you justly deserve. I will see that you are not allowed to speak. Neither of you shall utter a single word against me!”
Then with a harsh, triumphant laugh he called loudly for help to those below.
In an instant Hartwig and I both realised that the tables had been suddenly and unexpectedly turned upon us, and that we were now placed in most deadly and imminent peril. The object of the informer was to close our mouths at once, for only by so doing could he save himself from that terrible fate which must assuredly befall him.
It was his own life – or ours!
