Part 29 (1/2)

Natacha uttered a cry like a wounded beast and fell at her father's feet. She gathered them within her supplicating arms. She pressed them to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She sobbed from the bottom of her heart. And he, not comprehending, let her lie there, distant, hostile, somber. Then she moaned, distractedly, and wept bitterly, and the dramatic atmosphere in which she thus suddenly enveloped Feodor made it all sound like those cries of an earlier time when the all-powerful, punis.h.i.+ng father appeared in the women's apartments to punish the culpable ones.

”My father! Dear Father! Look at me! Look at me! Have pity on me, and do not require me to speak when I must be silent forever. And believe me! Do not believe these men! Do not believe Matrena Petrovna. And am I not your daughter? Your very own daughter! Your Natacha Feodorovna! I cannot make things dear to you. No, no, by the Holy Virgin Mother of Jesus I cannot explain. By the holy ikons, it is because I must not. By my mother, whom I have not known and whose place you have taken, oh, my father, ask me nothing more! Ask me nothing more! But take me in your arms as you did when I was little; embrace me, dear father; love me. I never have had such need to be loved. Love me! I am miserable. Unfortunate me, who cannot even kill myself before your eyes to prove my innocence and my love. Papa, Papa! What will your arms be for in the days left you to live, if you no longer wish to press me to your heart? Papa! Papa!”

She laid her head on Feodor's knees. Her hair had come down and hung about her in a magnificent disorderly ma.s.s of black.

”Look in my eyes! Look in my eyes! See how they love you, Batouchka! Batouchka! My dear Batouchka!”

Then Feodor wept. His great tears fell upon Natacha's tears. He raised her head and demanded simply in a broken voice:

”You can tell me nothing now? But when will you tell me?”

Natacha lifted her eyes to his, then her look went past him toward heaven, and from her lips came just one word, in a sob:

”Never.”

Matrena Petrovna, Koupriane and the reporter shuddered before the high and terrible thing that happened then. Feodor had taken his daughter's face between his hands. He looked long at those eyes raised toward heaven, the mouth which had just uttered the word ”Never,” then, slowly, his rude lips went to the tortured, quivering lips of the girl. He held her close. She raised her head wildly, triumphantly, and cried, with arm extended toward Matrena Petrovna:

”He believes me! He believes me! And you would have believed me also if you had been my real mother.”

Her head fell back and she dropped unconscious to the floor. Feodor fell to his knees, tending her, deploring her, motioning the others out of the room.

”Go away! All of you, go! All! You, too, Matrena Petrovna. Go away!”

They disappeared, terrified by his savage gesture.

In the little datcha across the river at Krestowsky there was a body. Secret Service agents guarded it while they waited for their chief. Michael Nikolaievitch had come there to die, and the police had reached him just at his last breath. They were behind him as, with the death-rattle in his throat, he pulled himself into his chamber and fell in a heap. Katharina the Bohemian was there. She bent her quick-witted, puzzled head over his death agony. The police swarmed everywhere, ransacking, forcing locks, pulling drawers from the bureau and tables, emptying the cupboards. Their search took in everything, even to ripping the mattresses, and not respecting the rooms of Boris Mourazoff, who was away this night. They searched thoroughly, but they found absolutely nothing they were looking for in Michael's rooms. But they acc.u.mulated a mult.i.tude of publications that belonged to Boris: Western books, essays on political economy, a history of the French Revolution, and verses that a man ought to hang for. They put them all under seal. During the search Michael died in Katharina's arms. She had held him close, after opening his clothes over the chest, doubtless to make his last breaths easier. The unfortunate officer had received a bullet at the back of the head just after he had plunged into the Neva from the rear of the Treba.s.sof datcha and started to swim across. It was a miracle that he had managed to keep going. Doubtless he hoped to die in peace if only he could reach his own house. He apparently had believed he could manage that once he had broken through his human bloodhounds. He did not know he was recognized and his place of retreat therefore known.

Now the police had gone from cellar to garret. Koupriane came from the Treba.s.sof villa and joined them, Rouletabille followed him. The reporter could not stand the sight of that body, that still had a lingering warmth, of the great open eyes that seemed to stare at him, reproaching him for this violent death. He turned away in distaste, and perhaps a little in fright. Koupriane caught the movement.

”Regrets?” he queried.

”Yes,” said Rouletabille. ”A death always must be regretted. None the less, he was a criminal. But I'm sincerely sorry he died before he had been driven to confess, even though we are sure of it.”

”Being in the pay of the Nihilists, you mean? That is still your opinion?” asked Koupriane.

”Yes.”

”You know that nothing has been found here in his rooms. The only compromising papers that have been found belong to Boris Mourazoff.”

”Why do you say that?”

”Oh-nothing.”

Koupriane questioned his men further. They replied categorically. No, nothing had been found that directly incriminated anybody; and suddenly Rouletabille noted that the conversation of the police and their chief had grown more animated. Koupriane had become angry and was violently reproaching them. They excused themselves with vivid gesture and rapid speech.

Koupriane started away. Rouletabille followed him. What had happened?

As he came up behind Koupriane, he asked the question. In a few curt words, still hurrying on, Koupriane told the reporter he had just learned that the police had left the little Bohemian Katharina alone for a moment with the expiring officer. Katharina acted as housekeeper for Michael and Boris. She knew the secrets of them both. The first thing any novice should have known was to keep a constant eye upon her, and now no one knew where she was. She must be searched for and found at once, for she had opened Michael's s.h.i.+rt, and therein probably lay the reason that no papers were found on the corpse when the police searched it. The absence of papers, of a portfolio, was not natural.

The chase commenced in the rosy dawn of the isles. Already blood-like tints were on the horizon. Some of the police cried that they had the trail. They ran under the trees, because it was almost certain she had taken the narrow path leading to the bridge that joins Krestowsky to Kameny-Ostrow. Some indications discovered by the police who swarmed to right and left of the path confirmed this hypothesis. And no carriage in sight! They all ran on, Koupriane among the first. Rouletabille kept at his heels, but he did not pa.s.s him. Suddenly there were cries and calls among the police. One pointed out something below gliding upon the sloping descent. It was little Kathanna. She flew like the wind, but in a distracted course. She had reached Kameny-Ostrow on the west bank. ”Oh, for a carriage, a horse!” clamored Koupriane, who had left his turn-out at Eliaguine. ”The proof is there. It is the final proof of everything that is escaping us!”