The Price of Power

“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!

Chapter Fifteen.

A Statement by the Informer

Quick as lightning, Hartwig drew a big Browning revolver and thrust it into the informer’s face, exclaiming firmly:

“Another word and it will be your last!”

The fellow started back, unprepared for such defiance. He made a movement to cross the room, where no doubt he had his own weapon concealed, but the police officer was too quick for him and barred his passage.

“Look here!” he said firmly. “This is a matter to be settled between us, without any interference by your friends here. At word from me they would instantly turn upon you as an enemy. Think! Reflect well – before it is too late!” And he held the revolver steadily a foot from the man’s hard, pale face.

Danilovitch hesitated. He controlled the so-called Terrorist movement with amazing ingenuity, playing three rôles simultaneously. He was “The One,” the mysterious but all-powerful head of the organisation; the ardent worker in the cause known as “the shoemaker of Kazan”; and the base, unscrupulous informer, who manufactured plots, and afterwards consigned to prison all those men and women who became implicated in them.

“If I withdraw my cry of alarm will you promise secrecy?” he asked in a low, cringing tone.

From the landing outside came sounds of footsteps and fierce demands in Russian from those he had summoned to his assistance. Two of us against twenty desperate characters as they were, would, I well knew, stand but a poor chance. If he made any allegation against us, we should be caught like rats in a trap, and killed, as all police-spies are killed when denounced. The arm of the Russian revolution is indeed a long one – longer than that of the Secret Police itself.

“What has happened, Danilo?” demanded a man’s rough voice. “Who are those strangers? Let us in!”

“Speak!” commanded Hartwig. “Reassure them, and let them go away. I have still much to say to you in private.”

His arm with the revolver was upraised, his eyes unwavering. The informer saw determination in his gaze. A further word of alarm, and a bullet would pass through his brain.

For a few seconds he stood in sullen silence.

“All right!” he shouted to them at last. “It is nothing, comrades. I was mistaken. Leave us in peace.”

We heard a murmuring of discontent outside, and then the footsteps commenced to descend the steep uncarpeted stairs. As they did so, Hartwig dropped his weapon, saying:

“Now let us sit down and talk. I have several questions I wish to put to you. If you answer frankly, then I promise that I will not betray you to your comrades.”

“What do you mean by ‘frankly’?”

“I mean that you must tell me the exact truth.”

The man’s face grew dark; his brows contracted; he bit his finger-nails.

“What was the motive of the attempt you made upon the Grand Duke Nicholas and his daughter, and the gentleman here, Mr Trewinnard?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“But you yourself committed the outrage?”

“At the orders of others.”

“Whose orders?”

He did not reply. He was standing against the small, cheap chest of drawers, his drawn face full in the light of the hissing gas-jet.

“Come,” said Hartwig firmly. “I wish to know this.”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Then I will tell you,” the detective said in a hard voice. “It was at the orders of your master, General Markoff – the man who, finding that you were a revolutionist, is using you as his tool for the manufacture of bogus plots against the Emperor.”

Danilovitch shrugged his shoulders, but uttered no word.

“And you went again to Brighton last night at his orders. You – ”

“I went to Brighton, I admit. But not at the General’s orders,” he interrupted quickly.

“Why did you go? Why did you follow Her Imperial Highness and Mr Trewinnard?”

“I followed them because I had an object in so doing.”

“A sinister object?”

“No. There you are mistaken. My object was not a sinister one. It was to watch and endeavour to make clear a certain point which is a mystery to me.”

“A point concerning what?”

“Concerning Her Imperial Highness,” was his reply.

“How does Her Highness concern you?” I asked. “You tried to kill her once. Therefore your intentions must be evil.”

“I deny that,” he protested quickly. “I tell you that I went to Brighton without thought of any evil intent, and without the orders, or even knowledge, of General Markoff.”

“But he is Her Highness’s enemy.”

“Yes, Excellency – and yours also.”

“Tell me all that you know,” I urged, adopting a more conciliatory tone. “It is outrageous that this oppressor of Russia should conspire to kill an innocent member of the Imperial Family.”

“I know nothing of the circumstances. Excellency,” he said, feigning entire ignorance.

“But he gave you orders to throw that bomb,” I said. “What were your exact orders?”

“I am not likely to betray my employer,” he laughed. “If you do not answer these questions, then I shall carry out my threat of exposure,” Hartwig said in a hard, determined voice.

“Well,” said the informer hesitatingly, “my orders were not to throw the bomb unless the Grand Duchess Natalia was in the carriage.”

“Then the plot was to kill her – but unfortunately her father fell the victim of the dastardly outrage!” I cried.

“Yes,” the man replied. “It was to kill her – and you, Excellency.”

“But why?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and exhibited his palms in a gesture of complete ignorance.

“And your present intention is to effect in Brighton what you failed to do in Petersburg – eh?”

“I have no orders, and it certainly is not my intention,” responded the man, whom I remembered at that moment had deliberately killed the girl Garine in order to preserve his secret.

I turned from him in loathing and disgust.

“But you tell me that General Markoff intends that we both shall come to an untimely end,” I said a few moments later.

“He does, Excellency, and the ingenuity of the plot against you both is certainly one which betrays his devilish cunning,” was the fellow’s reply. “I have, I assure you, no love for a man who holds my life in the hollow of his hand, and whose word I am compelled to obey on pain of exposure and death.”

“You mean Markoff,” I exclaimed. “Tell me something of this plot against me – so that I may be on my guard,” I urged.

“I know nothing concerning it. For that very reason I went to Brighton yesterday, to try and discover something,” he said.