Читать книгу The Price of Power - William Le Queux - Страница 7

“You understand, Trewinnard. There must be no scandal. What I have just revealed to you is in strictest confidence—an inviolable secret—a personal secret of my own.”

“I understand Your Majesty’s commands perfectly.”

“There is already a lot of uncharitable chatter in the Court circle regarding the other matter, I hear. Has anything reached you at the Embassy?”

“Not a whisper, as far as I am aware. Indeed, Your Majesty’s words have greatly surprised me. I did not believe the affair to be so very serious.”

“Serious!” echoed the Emperor Alexander, speaking in English, his dark, deep-set eyes fixed upon me. “I tell you it is all too serious, now that I find myself completely isolated—oh! yes, Trewinnard, isolated—with scarce one single friend. God knows! I have done my best for the nation, but, alas! everyone’s hand is raised against me.” And his firm mouth hardened behind his full, dark beard, and he drew his hand wearily across his broad, white brow.

The room in the Winter Palace in which we sat was cosy and luxuriantly furnished, the two windows looking forth upon a grey, cheerless quadrangle whence came the tramp of soldiers at drill.

Where we sat we could hear the sharp words of command in Russian, and the clang of the rifle-butts striking the stones.

The room was essentially English in its aspect, with its rich china-blue Axminster carpet, and silk upholstery with curtains to match, while the panelling from floor to ceiling was enamelled dead white, against which the fine water-colour drawings of naval scenes stood out in vivid relief. Upon a buhl table was a great silver bowl filled with Marshal Niel roses—for His Majesty was passionately fond of flowers—and beside it, large framed panel photographs of the Tzarina and his children. And yet those dead white walls and the shape of those square windows struck a curious incongruous note, for if the actual truth be told, those walls were of steel, and that private cabinet of the Emperor had been constructed by the Admiralty Department with armour-plates which were bomb-proof.

That apartment in the west angle of the Palace quadrangle was well-known to me, for in it His Majesty had given me private audience many times. That long white door which had been so silently closed upon me by the Cossack sentry when I entered was, I knew, of armour-plate, four inches in thickness, while beside the windows were revolving shutters of chilled steel.

There, at that great littered roll-top writing-table, upon which was the reading-lamp with its shade of salmon-pink silk with the loaded revolver beside it, the Emperor worked, attending to affairs of State. And in his padded chair, leaning back easily as he spoke to me, was His Majesty himself, a broad-shouldered, handsome man just past middle-age, dressed in a suit of navy blue serge. He was a big-faced, big-limbed, big-handed man of colossal physique and marvellous intelligence. Though haunted by the terror of violent death, he was yet an autocrat to the finger-tips, whose bearing was ever that of a sovereign; yet his eyes had a calm, sympathetic, kindly look, and those who knew him intimately were well aware that he was not the monster of oppression which his traducers had made him out to be before the eyes of Europe.

True, with a stroke of that grey quill pen lying there upon his blotting-pad he had sent many a man and woman without trial to their unrecorded doom, either in the frozen wastes of Northern Siberia, to the terrible mines of Nerchinsk, to the horrors of the penal island of Sakhalin, or to those fearful subterranean oubliettes at Schusselburg, whence no prisoner has ever returned. But, as an autocrat, he dealt with his revolutionary enemies as they would deal with him. They conspired to kill him, and he retaliated by consigning them to a lingering death.

On the other hand, I myself knew how constant was his endeavour to ferret out abuses of administration, to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, to give the peasantry education and all the benefits of modern civilisation as we in England know them, and how desperate, alas! were his constant struggles with that unscrupulous camarilla which ever surrounded him, constantly preventing him from learning the truth concerning any particular matter.

Thus, though striving to do his best for his subjects and for his nation, yet, surrounded as he was by a corrupt Ministry and a more corrupt Court, this big, striking man in blue serge was, perhaps, next to the Sultan of Turkey, the best-hated man in all Europe.

My own position was a somewhat singular one. A few months after my appointment to Petersburg from Brussels I had been able to render His Majesty a slight personal service. In fact, I had, when out one evening with two other attachés of the German Embassy, learned by mere accident of a desperate plot which was to be put into execution on the following day. My informant was a dancer at the Opera, who had taken too much champagne at supper. I sought audience of the Emperor early next day, and was fortunately just in time to prevent him from passing a certain spot near the Michailovski Palace, where six men were stationed with bombs of picric acid, ready to hurl. For that service His Majesty had been graciously pleased to take me into his confidence—a confidence which, I hope, I never abused. From me he was always eager to ascertain what was really happening beyond that high wall of untruth which the camarilla had so cleverly built up and preserved, and more than once had he entrusted me with certain secret missions.

I was not in uniform, as that audience was a private one; but as His Majesty, ruler of one hundred and thirty millions of people, passed me his finely-chased golden box full of cigarettes—and we both lit one, as was our habit—his brow clouded, and with a sigh he said:

“To tell the truth, Trewinnard, I am also very anxious indeed concerning the second matter—concerning the little rebel.”

“I know that Your Majesty must be,” I replied. “But, after all, Her Imperial Highness is a girl of exceptional beauty and highest spirits; and even if she indulges in—well, in a little harmless flirtation, she surely may be forgiven.”

“Other girls may be forgiven, but not those of the blood-royal,” he said in mild rebuke. “The Empress is quite as concerned about her as I am. Why, even upon this last journey of ours I found her more than once flirting with Stoyanovitch, my equerry. True, he’s a good-looking young fellow, and of excellent family, yet she ought to know that such a thing is quite unwarrantable; she ought to know that to those of the blood-royal love is, alas! forbidden.”

I was surprised at this. I had no idea that she and Ivan Stoyanovitch had become friends. He had never hinted at it.

“The fact is, Trewinnard,” the Emperor went on, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his lips, “if this continues I shall be reluctantly compelled to banish her to the Caucasus, or somewhere where she will be kept out of mischief.”

“But permit me, Sire, to query whether flirting is really mischief,” I exclaimed with a smile. “Every girl of her age—and she is hardly nineteen—fancies herself in love, mostly with men much older than herself.”

“Our women, Trewinnard, are, alas! not like women of the people,” was the Sovereign’s calm reply, his deep, earnest eyes upon mine. “It is their misfortune that they are not. They can never enjoy the same freedom as those fortunate ones of the middle-class; they seldom are permitted to marry the man they love, and though they may live in palaces and move amid the gay society of Court, yet their ideas are warped from birth, and broken hearts, alas! beat beneath their diamonds.”

“Yes, I suppose what Your Majesty says is, alas! too true. Ladies of the blood-royal are forbidden freedom, love and happiness. And when one of them happens to break the iron bonds of conventionality, then scandal quickly results; the Press overflows with it.”

“In this case scandal would already have resulted had you not acted as promptly as you did,” His Majesty said. “Where is that lad Geoffrey Hamborough now?” asked the autocrat suddenly.

“Living on his father’s estate in Yorkshire,” I replied. “I hope I have been able to put an end to that fatal folly; but with a girl of the Grand Duchess’s type one can never be too certain.”

“Ah! the mischievous little minx!” exclaimed the Emperor with a kindly smile. “I’ve watched, and seen how cunning she is—and how she has cleverly misled even me. Well, she must alter, Trewinnard, she must alter—or she must be sent away to the Caucasus.”

“Where she would have her freedom, and probably flirt more outrageously than ever,” I ventured to remark.

“You seem to regard her as hopeless,” he said, looking sharply into my eyes as he leaned back in his chair.

“Not entirely hopeless, Sire, only as a most interesting character study.”

“I have been speaking to her father this morning, and I have suggested sending her to Paris, or, perhaps, to London; there to live incognito under the guardianship of some responsible middle-aged person, until she can settle down. At present she flirts with every man she meets, and I am greatly concerned about her.”

“Every man is ready to flirt with Her Imperial Highness—first, because of her position, and, secondly, because of her remarkable beauty,” I assured him.

“You think her beautiful—eh, Trewinnard?”

“I merely echo the popular judgment,” I replied. “It is said she is one of the most beautiful girls in all Russia.”

“Ah!” he laughed. “Next we shall have her flirting with you, Trewinnard. You are a bachelor. Do beware of the little dark-eyed witch, I beg of you!”

“No fear of such contretemps, Sire,” I assured him with a smile. “I am double her age, and, moreover, a confirmed bachelor. The Embassy is expensive, and I cannot afford the luxury of a wife—and especially an Imperial Grand Duchess.”

“Who knows—eh, Trewinnard? Who knows?” exclaimed the Sovereign good-naturedly. “But let’s return to the point. Am I to understand that you are ready and willing to execute this secret commission for me? You are well aware how highly I value the confidential services you have already rendered to me. But for you, remember, I should to-day have been a dead man.”

“No, Sire,” I protested. “Please do not speak of that. It was the intervention of Providence for your protection.”

“Ah, yes!” he said in a low, fervent tone, his brows contracting. “I thank God constantly for sparing me for yet another day from the hands of my unscrupulous enemies, so that I may work for the good of the beloved nation over which I am called to rule.”

There, in that room, wherein I had so often listened to his words of wisdom, I sat fully recognising that though an Emperor and an autocrat, he was, above all, a Man.

With all the heavy burden of affairs of State—and not even a road could be made anywhere in the Russian Empire, or a bridge built, or a gas-pipe laid, without his signature—with all the onus of the autocratic Sovereign-power upon his shoulders, and with that constant wariness which he was compelled to exercise against that cunning camarilla of Ministers, yet one of his chief concerns was with that pretty little madcap Natalia, daughter of his brother, the Grand Duke Nicholas.

He wished to suppress her superabundance of high spirits and stamp out her tomboy instincts.

“I am reading your thoughts, Trewinnard,” the Emperor remarked at last, pressing his cigarette-end slowly into the silver ashtray to extinguish it. “My request has placed you in a rather awkward position—eh?”

“What Your Majesty has revealed to me this afternoon has utterly amazed me. I feel bewildered, for I see how dire must be the result if the truth were ever betrayed.”

“It will never be. You are the only person who has suspicion of it besides myself.”

“And I shall never speak—never!” I assured him gravely.

“I know that you are entirely loyal to me. I am Emperor, it is true, but I am, nevertheless, a man of my word, just as you are,” he replied, his intelligent face dark and grave. “Yes. I thought you would realise the seriousness of the present situation, and I know that you alone I can trust. I have not even told the Empress.”

“Why not?”

“For obvious reasons.”

I was silent. I only then realised the motive of his hesitation.

“I admit that Your Majesty’s request has placed me in a somewhat awkward position,” I said at last, bending forward in my chair. “Truth to tell, I—well, I’m hardly hopeful of success, for the mission with which I am entrusted is so extremely difficult, and so—”

“I am fully aware of that,” he interrupted. “Yet I feel confident that you, who have saved my life on one occasion, will not hesitate to undertake this service to the best of your ability. Use the utmost discretion, and you may get at the truth. I do not disguise from you the fact that upon certain contingencies, dependent on the success of your mission, depends the throne of Russia—the dynasty. Do you follow?” And he looked me straight in the face with those big, round brown eyes, an open, straight, honest look, as became a man who was fearless—an Emperor.

“I regret that I do not exactly understand,” I ventured to exclaim, whereat he rose, tall, handsome and muscular, and strode to the window. The band of the Imperial Guard was playing below in the great paved quadrangle, as it always did each day at four o’clock when the Emperor was in residence. For a few seconds he stood peering forth critically at the long lines of soldiers drawn up across the square. Then the man whose word was law turned back to me with a sigh, saying:

“No, Trewinnard, I suppose you do not follow me. It is all a mystery to you, of course,”—and he paused—“as mysterious as the sudden disappearance of Madame de Rosen and her daughter Luba from Petersburg.”

“Disappearance?” I echoed, amazed. “They are still in Petersburg. I dined with them only last night!”

“They are not now in Petersburg,” replied the Emperor very quietly. “They left at nine o’clock this morning on a long journey—to Siberia.”

My heart gave a great bound.

“To Siberia!” I gasped, staring at him. “Are they exiled? Who has done this?”

“I have done it,” was his hard reply. “They are revolutionists—implicated in the attempt that was to be made upon me early this morning as I drove up the Nevski.”

“Markoff has denounced them?”

“He has. See, here is a full list of names of the conspirators,” and he took a slip of paper from his desk.

“And General Markoff told Your Majesty of my friendliness with Madame and her daughter?”

“Certainly.”

“Markoff lied when he denounced them as revolutionists!” I cried angrily. “They were my friends, and I know them very intimately. Let me here declare, Sire, that no subject of Your Majesty was more loyal than those two ladies. Surely the agent-provocateur has been at work again.”

“Unfortunately I am bound to believe the word of the head of my political police,” he said rather briefly.

I knew, alas! how fierce and bitter was the Emperor’s hatred of those who plotted against his life. A single word against man or woman was sufficient to cause them to be arrested and sent to the other side of Asia, never again to return.

“And where have the ladies been sent?” I inquired. The Emperor consulted a slip of paper, and then replied:

“To Parotovsk.”

“The most far-distant and dreaded of all the Arctic penal settlements!” I cried. “It is cruel and unjust! It is death to send a woman there, where it is winter for nine months in the year, and where darkness reigns five months out of the twelve.”

“I regret,” replied the Emperor, with a slight gesture of the hand. “But they were conspirators.”

“With all respect to Your Majesty, I beg to express an entirely different opinion. Markoff has long been Madame de Rosen’s enemy.”

His Majesty made a quick imperious gesture of impatience and said:

“Please do not let us discuss the matter further—at least, until you are in a position to prove your allegation.”

“I will,” I cried. “I know that your Majesty will never allow such injustice to be done to two innocent, delicate ladies.”

“If injustice has really been done, then those responsible shall suffer. Discover the truth, and report to me later,” he said.

“I will do my very utmost,” was my reply.

“And at the same time, Trewinnard, I trust you will endeavour to carry out the confidential mission which I have entrusted to you,” he said. “Recollect that I treat you, not as a foreign diplomat, but as a loyal and true personal friend of myself and my house. Ah!” he sighed again; “Heaven knows, I have but few trustworthy ones about me.”

“I am profoundly honoured by Your Majesty’s confidence,” I assured him, bowing low. “I certainly shall respect it, and act exactly as you desire.”

“The Court dislikes confidence being placed in any foreigner, even though he be an Englishman,” the Emperor said in a changed voice; “therefore, remain discreet always, and disclaim that I have ever treated you other than with the formal courtesy which is expected by all diplomats.”

“I quite understand,” I said.

“You will see Natalia at the Court ball to-night, and you can speak to her diplomatically, if opportunity occurs. But recollect that she must know nothing of what I have said. I believe you know Hartwig, chief of the criminal detective force.”

“Quite well,” was my reply.

“Then I will give him orders. Use him as you wish, but tell him nothing.”

“I shall remain silent.”

“And you are entitled to leave of absence—eh? You can return to England without arousing suspicion?”

“Yes. I have eight weeks due to me.”

“Excellent. I can do nothing more—except to thank you, Trewinnard, to thank you most sincerely for assisting me, and to await word from you. Sign it with ‘Bathildis,’ and I shall know.” And the great burly, bearded man held out his big, strong hand—the iron hand—as sign that my audience was at an end.

I bowed low over it, and next moment the heavy white door of enamelled steel swung open and I backed out of the Imperial presence, the bearer of a secret as strange and grim as it has ever been the lot of any man to lock within his breast.

What the Emperor had revealed to me was undreamed of by that gay, reckless and intriguing circle which comprised the Russian Court—undreamed of by the chancelleries of Europe.

The merest whisper of it would, I knew, stagger the world. And yet he had, in sheer desperation, confided in me a most amazing truth. As I descended that broad, handsome flight of thickly-carpeted marble steps, where flunkeys in brilliant grey and purple livery bowed at every turn, and equerries and officials in smart uniforms came and went, my brain was awhirl at the magnitude of the affair, and the terrible scandal which must result if ever the secret were betrayed—the secret of a throne.

A thought flashed across my mind—the knowledge of my own personal peril. I had enemies—bitter enemies. My heart sank within me as I stepped into the great gilded hall, for I had given a promise which I much feared I would never be permitted to live and fulfil.