Читать книгу When I Was Czar - Arthur W. Marchmont - Страница 4

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“YOU mean seriously that I am to impersonate His Majesty?”

“For this purpose, M. Denver, that is my serious meaning.”

“Well, it’s a most extraordinary proposition.”

“The occasion itself is quite an extraordinary one, of course. But I repeat, you will be doing His Majesty and his Ministers a service of extreme importance. I have asked you, of course, as I said before, only because I understand you deem yourself under a deep obligation to my master.”

“You heard us speaking to-night of the incident. I owe him probably my life, and certainly an escape from serious injuries. We Americans don’t go back on a call, and I admit it’s up to him to call now. But this is such an odd thing.”

“Think it over. It is a national characteristic of your countrymen to be prompt. Shall I return, say, in an hour?”

“Wait a minute, Prince,” I said as he rose, and pushing my chair back I took a few turns up and down the room.

We were in the apartments which had been assigned to me in the Palace, and the Prince had interrupted me as I was planning out my projected journey to Khiva. It was nearly midnight, and my maps and papers lay open on the table.

“I am quite at your disposal, M. Denver,” he replied courteously as he resumed his chair and watched me.

“Let me see that I’ve got the hang of the thing right,” I said after a while. “You say this man, Boreski, is really dangerous; but I thought you had a quick method of dealing with dangerous men in Russia.”

“It is not a case for ordinary methods, M. Denver, or I should not have come to you. I wish to deal with you with complete frankness, and have spoken unreservedly as to a personal friend of my master.”

“We shan’t pull very far together if you don’t.”

“To be candid, I am not sure what the man’s secret object is—presuming, that is, he has one. We know little of him beyond the fact that he is an adventurer and a musician of exceptional brilliance, and that the Duchess Stephanie has conceived a great—I suppose, I should say—fondness for him. She declares she will marry him—in defiance of the Emperor’s prohibition: a marriage of the kind being outside the pale of possibility, of course, owing to her relationship to the Imperial Family.”

“You think he’s after her money?”

“What other conclusion can one draw? The Duchess is twenty years older than he; she is the reverse of prepossessing in appearance; and he is young, handsome and certainly clever. Apart from other reasons the marriage would be a tragedy.”

“And then there are these papers?”

“And then there are these papers, as you say. She is entirely dominated by him, and there is no doubt she acted at his instigation and—well, purloined them and carried them to him.”

“He is certainly a daring fellow.”

“A daring scoundrel, unquestionably,” assented the Prince, accenting the “scoundrel.”

“But knowing this, why not have arrested him?”

“I thought I had made that clear. I tried it, but he met me too cleverly. Indeed, I believe he actually angled for the arrest.”

“Angled for it. How do you mean?”

“That he might get face to face with me and let me realize how far he could go, and would if pressed. It was then he told me of these papers, and that he had placed them in reliable hands to be given, if he were detained, to those who must of course never see them. Never, at any cost.”

I smiled at the frank avowal.

“They are very awkward, then?”

“They might mean even war with the Powers chiefly concerned. They are extremely confidential documents. You understand, of course, M. Denver, that in diplomacy, any more than in poker, we cannot always lay the cards on the table.”

“It was a fine bluff.”

“Too dangerous for me to see him,” returned the Prince with a smile, falling readily into the language of the pool room. “And the worst of it was he knew it and claimed the jack pot.”

“He’s a smart man. And his terms are?”

“Preposterous, absolutely; monstrous. The Imperial consent to his marriage; a special dowry of a million roubles; a patent of nobility; and a private interview with His Majesty. It was then I thought of you, His Majesty having told me you were coming here, and that you bore so striking a resemblance to him. I arranged the scene at the station this evening to test that.”

“And you wish me to go to this interview, fool the man, and get the papers?”

“Precisely. Counting upon your obligation to the Emperor, I have indeed fixed the interview for to-morrow.”

“The deuce you have. Isn’t that rather sharp work?”

“The matter does not admit of delay; but it is of course open to you to decline.”

“In which case?”

“I have not yet considered any alternative.”

His coolness staggered me. But he was keen enough to see that I rather enjoyed the prospect of the adventure.

“Now as to the risks?” I asked after a pause.

“I cannot even pretend to gauge them, M. Denver. I don’t think they should be considerable; but there is naturally the chance that the deception would be discovered. I don’t think it is probable. Those who are constantly with His Majesty would know you in a moment of course; but these people only see my master on public occasions, and, as you have had evidence, are quite ready to be deceived.”

“But the risk is there.”

“Unquestionably,” he assented. “The incident with the lady in the train which you described is, however, very promising. Still, as you say, the risk is there, and it is enough to make any ordinary man unwilling to run it.”

“You flatter me, Prince.”

“No, I try to judge you. An ordinary man would not be eager to rush off to Khiva. Besides, you are an American.”

The appeal to my vanity was put astutely.

“If I were discovered I should have to get out the best way I could?”

“There might be some little trouble, but I don’t think it would be really serious—to a man of resource, that is. You would be quite authorized to put the blame on me.”

“And if the deception were not discovered?”

“It would be a short interview, and you would at the worst have to postpone your departure for one day.”

“You don’t anticipate any treachery? No assassination business, for instance?”

“Boreski has too much at stake. He would lose everything—including his worthless life, of course. About the strongest guarantee for your safety that you could have.”

He put the amazing proposal bluntly and argued the case with as much coolness as if it had been little more than a simple conventional matter of almost everyday routine.

“You would naturally like to think it over,” he said, after I had paced the room a while in thought.

“You have told me everything?”

“Yes, I think so, except, perhaps, that, of course, I don’t for a moment believe Boreski made the proposition seriously.”

“Yet it’s an odd sort of joke, isn’t it?”

“I don’t mean that. I mean that no man in his senses would believe the Emperor would consent to his conditions for the interview—that my master should go to it absolutely unattended, that the place should be determined by Boreski and known to him alone, and that my master should meet a lady at the railway station, get into a strange carriage with her and be taken wherever they pleased to take him. Even in democratic countries monarchs don’t act like that.”

“Then what do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

“That he intended to have his terms rejected in order that he might use the rejection to raise them. When I agreed—I only did so with you in my thoughts—I saw that his surprise amounted almost to embarrassment.”

“There’s this woman in it then, beside the Duchess Stephanie? Who is she?”

“I haven’t an idea—some accomplice no doubt.”

“Since the conditions are, as you say, so ridiculous, may he not be suspicious when we agree to them?”

“It is very possible. But on the other hand he knows that my master is as anxious as I am about those papers.”

“And he may think the Emperor would take the risk. I see. Well, I guess I’ll do it, Prince, but I should like to think it over.”

Prince Kalkov rose at once.

“Naturally. I need only say, monsieur, that you will be doing His Majesty and Russia a service which we shall not forget. Shall I have your decision in the morning?”

“To-night, if you’ll come back, say, in a couple of hours. You won’t find me asleep after all you’ve said.”

He smiled pleasantly, and as he went to the door, said—

“You are just the man I would have chosen for such a task, M. Denver.”

“That remains to be seen,” I replied; “but there’s just one more question, by the by. Which are the countries concerned in those papers?”

He paused and gave me a sharp swift look, which broke to a smile.

“Not the United States, monsieur, but European Powers.”

“That’s the assurance I wished,” said I, and then he went.

I had virtually made up my mind before the Prince left the room, and save for one consideration I should have consented right away. But I could not quite size up the Prince himself.

I was almost British in my distrust of certain classes of Russian officials. I had lived in Petersburg for some years as a boy, and my father, who was at the Embassy, had inculcated this prejudice.

I could never resist the feeling that they had some subtle undercurrent motive which made for duplicity; and I could not now shake myself free from the belief in regard to Prince Kalkov.

I had no tangible reason for it. He stood high in the confidence of the Czar; he had gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to me; he had treated me apparently with signal frankness; and had admitted the possible risks and complications of the very tangled business.

I had another slight qualm. My sympathies were rather with than against the man Boreski. I was not a Russian aristocrat; and from my American point of view I was disposed to admire the pluck of a man who was fighting single-handed against the powerful Russian Court, and giving that autocratic body a real bad time. His methods were not nice, but his adroit use of them was so smart that I could not help enjoying them. Whereas, if it came to a mere question of ethics, I couldn’t see that, taking into account the shady episode of the secret papers, either side had much pull over the other.

What really decided me was my old obligation to the Czar. My inclinations were all on the side of going in for the thing; and probably I gave more weight to that consideration than it deserved. But anyway I convinced myself that I could wipe out the old debt by doing what was asked of me, and when the Prince came back, I met him with the statement that if the details of the thing could be fixed, I was his man.

He was manifestly delighted.

“I cannot tell you what pleasure your decision gives me. We shall now circumvent him completely. This is Boreski,” and he handed me a photograph.

The man was certainly handsome and distinguished-looking. Dark as a raven, with large, deep-set, thoughtful eyes under straight brows, a broad ample forehead, straight nose, very shapely mouth with curved mobile lips, and a narrowing chin.

“A handsome fellow, and that’s the truth,” I said.

“So the Duchess thinks,” he returned drily, handing me her portrait.

“You said she was twenty years his senior. This is a young woman.”

“It was taken last year: a Court photograph,” and he smiled. “She’s all but fifty.”

“Love at fifty may be a very serious passion, Prince. Have you no scruples about blighting it? She might take it badly and pine away.”

“She might do much worse, monsieur, and marry that rascal.”

“Her fortune is her own, I presume?”

“She would forfeit much of it if she married without the Emperor’s consent. Boreski knows that well enough, and trades on it. I do not think we shall find him a really strong man. He has the whip hand of us for the moment through those stolen documents; but when we once get those, we shall be able to frighten him, I am convinced.”

“Ought I not to know the nature of the documents?”

“I have been expecting that question. Do you press it?”

“Not if it embarrasses you to answer. But how shall I know them when they are given up to me?”

“They are very confidential,” he said, his face wrinkling in perplexed thought. He paused, and then with a sigh added, very slowly, the words seeming to be wrung from him almost: “I suppose there is no other way. They affect Germany and Austria. They include a secret treaty with Austria and a number of plans of fortresses, and the army mobilization schemes, etc., of our neighbours.”

“I can understand your anxiety, Prince,” I said drily.

“They must be recovered, M. Denver, at any cost or sacrifice,” he answered with intense earnestness.

“I will do my best,” I replied, and then we turned to discuss the details of the project. He told me his arrangements, the chief of which was his scheme to secure my safety.

“I shall take exactly the same precautions as if you were His Majesty himself,” he said. “The carriage in which you travel will be followed; its description will be telephoned everywhere, so that it may be instantly recognized by our agents who to-morrow night will be stationed at the corner of every street of the capital. Within a minute of your entering the house, wherever it is, a large force will commence to converge upon it; and if there is any delay or treachery the place will be carried by force.”

“Isn’t that a breach of faith with Boreski?”

“Of course I gave him an official pledge the carriage should not be followed.”

“Official? Rather a nice distinction, isn’t it?”

He laughed. “One has to do these things officially.”

“You mean you have to give a pledge and—break it.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “We are dealing with a scoundrel.”

“Does that justify unclean methods?”

“Unclean?” He caught at the word angrily.

“I said unclean. Please understand me. I am neither a courtier nor a diplomat, but just a plain American citizen; and when we Americans pledge our word we keep it, whether it be given to an honest man or a rogue. This pledge of yours must be kept, Prince Kalkov.”

He grew excited for the first time, and gesticulated vehemently as he answered.

“It is impossible, impossible!” he cried. “You cannot appreciate the importance of those papers, M. Denver. Hitherto we have been unable to learn their whereabouts, but we know that to-morrow night they will be in the house to which Boreski will drive you; that is why this appointment is to be kept. And when we once know where they are, not this Boreski nor ten thousand Boreskis shall prevent my recovering them.”

This cast a somewhat fresh light on the thing, and annoyed me.

“Then you must get some one else to keep the appointment, Prince Kalkov,” I answered.

“But your promise,” he cried, angry and embarrassed.

“My promise was to play the part of the Emperor in the matter, and I’ll either be obeyed as Emperor or we’ll call it off, and I’ll remain plain Harper C. Denver. You can choose, right now.”

He sat gnawing his moustache in perplexity, and wanted to expostulate and argue the point.

“But——”

“There are no buts in this. You can call it off or on—but on my terms. You can choose.”

This was just what he did not wish to do, however.

“Your own safety——” he began again.

“You can leave that to me,” I cut in. “Is it to be on or off?” And I looked him fair and square in the eyes.

He gave a deep-drawn sigh, twisted his moustache ends, made as if to expostulate, but stopped on meeting my looks, and then with a shrug of the shoulders gave way.

“It’s an enormous responsibility, but if you insist I must yield.”

“Good; then we’ll be off to bed and leave the rest until to-morrow.”

He rose and gave me his hand.

“Good-night, M. Denver. You are a strong man,” he said.

“Good-night, Prince. We’ll talk about strength when the job’s finished. I’ll do my best, as I said.”

He paused by the door and turned.

“After all the whole thing is only tricking Boreski. I wish you’d let me do it my way.”

“It’s only a trick, of course; but the cards are on the table so far as the personation is concerned. I can’t give in to the rest.”

“As your Majesty pleases,” he returned with a slow smile as he left the room.