Part 34 (2/2)

On her return, two hours later, Sophia, with a look that told the watchful Fauchette of her uneasiness, hurried straight up-stairs, toward the door of the little oratory.

She found it locked from the outside, with the key in the door.

It had cost me something to break my pledge to the Princess Y---- that I would give her my new address before leaving her.

But her unfortunate discovery of the portrait I wore around my neck and her plainly-declared intention to hold me a prisoner till she could shake my fidelity, had rendered it necessary for me to meet treachery with treachery.

The secret service, it must always be borne in mind, has its own code of honor, differing on many points from that obtaining in other careers, but perhaps stricter on the whole.

For instance, I can lay my hand on my heart and declare that I have never done either of two things which are done every day by men holding high offices and high places in the world's esteem. I have never taken a secret commission. And I have never taken advantage of my political information to gamble in stocks.

The manner of my escape was simplicity itself.

My a.s.sistant had not come to live with the Princess without making some preparations for the part she was to play, and these included the bringing with her of a bunch of skeleton keys, fully equal to the work of opening any ordinary lock.

As soon as her mistress was safely out of the way, Fauchette came to receive my instructions.

I told her that I did not intend to wait for my jailer's return. We discussed the best way for me to slip out, without obstruction from the servants, and I decided to take advantage of the superst.i.tion of the Russian illiterate cla.s.s, by enacting the part of my own ghost.

The report that I had been buried without any funeral service had already reached the household, and had prepared them for any supernatural manifestation.

Fauchette first brought me a little powdered chalk, with which I smeared my face. I then put on a long flowing cloak and a sombrero hat, part of the wardrobe acc.u.mulated by the Princess in the course of her gaieties.

I slipped a damp sponge into my pocket and directed the girl to lead the way.

She went down-stairs a few yards in front of me, turned into the servants' part of the house and threw open the back door, which led out into a courtyard giving on a street used only by tradesmen's carts. At this hour of the day it was deserted.

I followed cautiously in Fauchette's wake, and got as far as the back door without meeting any interruption.

But at that point, the porter, who must have been roused by an unfamiliar step--though I understand he swore afterward that the pa.s.sage of the ghost had been absolutely noiseless--came out and stood in the doorway.

Without hesitating for an instant I a.s.sumed an erect posture and advanced swiftly toward him with my whitened face well displayed.

The fellow gave vent to a half-articulate call which died down in his throat, and bolted back into his room uttering yell after yell.

Fifteen seconds later I was out in the street, sponging the chalk from my face.

And five minutes after that I was comfortably seated in a hired droshky, on my way to a certain little house in the seafaring quarter of the city, which possessed, among other advantages, that of commanding an exceedingly fine view of the Admiralty Pier.

CHAPTER XXIV

A SECRET EXECUTION

I now come to a part of my chronicle which I plainly foresee must expose me to grave criticism.

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