Part 13 (2/2)
”Nothing very much, I regret to say,” was his reply. ”I've worked for a whole month, often night and day, but Markoff's men are wary--very wary birds, sir, as you know.”
”Have you discovered the real perpetrator of that bomb outrage?”
”I believe so. He escaped.”
”No doubt he did.”
”There have been in all over forty persons arrested,” my visitor said.
”About two dozen have been immured in Schusselburg, in those cells under the waters of Lake Ladoga. The rest have been sent by administrative process to the mines.”
”And all of them innocent?”
”Every one of them.”
”It's outrageous!” I cried. ”To think that such things can happen every day in a country whose priests teach Christianity.”
”Remove a certain dozen or so of Russia's statesmen and corrupt officials, put a stop to the exile system, and give every criminal or suspect a fair trial, and the country would become peaceful to-morrow,”
declared the secret agent. ”I have already reported to the Emba.s.sy the actual truth concerning the present unrest.”
”I know. And we have sent it on to Downing Street, together with the names of those who form the camarilla. The Emperor is, alas! merely their catspaw. They are the real rulers of Russia--they rule it by a Reign of Terror.”
”Exactly, sir,” replied the man Tack. ”I've always contended that. In the present case the outrage is not a mystery to the Secret Police.”
”You think they know all about it--eh?” I asked quickly.
”Well, sir. I will put to you certain facts which I have discovered.
About two years ago a certain Danilo Danilovitch, an intelligent shoemaker in Kazan, and a member of the revolutionary group in that city, turned police-spy, and gave evidence of a _coup_ which had been prepared to poison the Emperor at a banquet given there after the military manoeuvres last year. As a result, there were over a hundred arrests, and as reprisal the chief of police of Kazan was a week later shot while riding through one of the princ.i.p.al streets. Next I know of Danilovitch is that he was transferred to Petersburg, where, though in the pay of the police, he was known to the Party of the People's Will as an ardent and daring reformer, and foremost in his fiery condemnation of the monarchy. He made many inflammatory speeches at the secret revolutionary meetings in various parts of the city, and was hailed as a strong and intrepid leader. Yet frequently the police made raids upon these meeting-places and arrested all found there. After each attempted outrage they seemed to be provided with lists of everyone who had had the slightest connection with the affair, and hence they experienced no difficulty in securing them and packing them off to Siberia. The police were all-ubiquitous, the Emperor was greatly pleased, and General Markoff was given the highest decorations, promotion and an appointment with rich emoluments.
”But one day, about four months ago,” Tack went on, ”a remarkable but unreported tragedy occurred. Danilovitch, whose wife had long ago been arrested and died on her way to Siberia, fell in love with a pretty young tailoress named Marie Garine, who was a very active member of the revolutionary party, her father and mother having been sent to the mines of Nerchinsk, though entirely innocent. Hence she naturally hated the Secret Police and all their detestable works. More than once she had remarked to her lover the extraordinary fact that the police were being secretly forewarned of every attempt which he suggested, for Danilovitch had by this time become one of the chief leaders of the subterranean revolution, and instigator of all sorts of desperate plots against the Emperor and members of the Imperial Family. One evening, however, she went to his rooms and found him out. Some old shoes were upon a shelf ready for mending, for he still, as a subterfuge, practised his old trade. Among the shoes was a pair of her own. She took them down, but she mistook another pair for hers, and from one of them there fell to her feet a yellow card--the card of ident.i.ty issued to members of the Secret Police! She took it up. There was no mistake, for her lover's photograph was pasted upon it. Her lover was a police-spy!”
”Well, what happened?” I asked, much interested in the facts.
”The girl, in a frenzy of madness and anger, was about to rush out to betray the man to her fellow-conspirators, when Danilovitch suddenly entered. She had, at that moment, his yellow card in her hand. In an instant he knew the truth and realised his own peril. She intended to betray him. It meant her life or his! Not a dozen words pa.s.sed between the pair, for the man, taking up his shoemaker's knife, plunged it deliberately into the girl's heart, s.n.a.t.c.hed the card from her dying grasp, and strode out, locking the door behind him. Then he went straight to the private bureau of General Markoff and told him what he had done. Needless to relate, the police inquiry was a very perfunctory one. It was a love tragedy, they said, and as Danilo Danilovitch was missing, they soon dropped the inquiry. They did not, of course, wish to arrest the a.s.sa.s.sin, for he was far too useful a person to them.”
”Then you know the fellow?”
”I have met him often. At first I had no idea of his connection with the revolutionists. It is only quite recently through a woman who is in the pay of the Secret Police, and whose son has been treated badly, that I learned the truth. And she also told me one very curious fact. She was present in the crowd when the bomb was thrown at the Grand Duke Nicholas's carriage, and she declares that Danilo Danilovitch--who has not been seen in Petersburg since the tragic death of Marie Garine--was there also.”
”Then he may have thrown the bomb?” I said, amazed.
”Who knows?”
”But I saw a man with his arm uplifted,” I exclaimed. ”He looked respectable, of middle-age, with a grey beard and wore dark clothes.”
”That does not tally with Danilovitch's description,” he replied. ”But, of course, the a.s.sa.s.sin must have been disguised if he had dared to return to Petersburg.”
”But I suppose his fellow-conspirators still entertain no suspicion that he is a police-spy?”
<script>