The Copper House A detective story
"Your cousin! Bernard Jenin your cousin! That explains it. Then he must
be...."
"Lona Ivanovna's son." Sonia completed the sentence. Leo's hands
trembled with excitement. He felt that Wallion ought to know this at
once, and he looked round the hall, almost as though he expected the
journalist to be somewhere in it.
"Come!" he exclaimed, "come! You ought to have told me that before. We
must go straight to him."
"To whom?"
"Maurice Wallion."
The girl gave a little cry.
"Is he here?"
"I don't know. But we must find out where he is."
Leo had no plan, no idea of what he was going to do. It did not occur
to him that by acting too precipitately he might spoil everything, he
was only conscious of a frantic desire to do something before it was
too late, and he rushed off, dragging the girl after him.
They ran like two children through the silent house, and Leo began to
call Wallion loudly by name.
"No, no," the girl hushed him; "don't call, they may hear us."
"We must find him! If Bernard Jenin can hide himself, Wallion can do
the same."
"No," said she, "your friend couldn't hide himself here, in the way
that Sergius has done."
Leo felt that she was speaking the truth. She knew, then, where Jenin
was hidden.
"Then it's impossible," he faltered dejectedly; "Wallion can't be here
after all."
"No, he certainly isn't inside the Copper House."
Leo began to wonder whether the journalist had abandoned them to
their fate, and his eyes grew dim, but he shook off the feeling of
hopelessness which was stealing over him, and said quickly:
"He must be somewhere close by."
A few minutes later, they went boldly out by the kitchen door, and took
the path to the garden, their intention being to walk right round the
house, in defiance of their jailers.
Rastakov was fortunately not to be seen, but four or five of the
sentries shouted to them from a distance.
The girl, who was the more level-headed of the two, picked a rose, and
arranged it deliberately in the lapel of her coat.
"Look as unconcerned as you can," she whispered. "They oughtn't to mind
our taking a breath of fresh air: when they calm down, we will continue
our round...."
But at this moment an unforeseen obstacle blocked their way. Rosenthal
came striding towards them from the gardener's cottage, and as soon as
he was within speaking distance, he called out in a threatening voice:
"Hallo, my young cockerel, what are you doing out here?"
Leo grew white with rage, and replied furiously:
"Mind what you're saying!"
Rosenthal closed with him, and gave him a formidable blow with his
fist, on the point of the chin. Leo staggered back, but noticed with
surprise that the blow was not so severe in reality as in appearance.
And, next minute, he could hardly believe his own ears, when Rosenthal
said, almost inaudibly:
"Hit me back, make the hell of a row, it's for your own advantage!"
The man's eyes were on a level with his, and he was aware of an
extraordinarily humorous look in them. But, the next instant, the
gardener was bellowing at the top of his voice:
"I'll teach you! Ha! You'd hit me back, would you! Come on then!"
He aimed another blow at Leo, who parried it mechanically, and in
another moment they were at it, hammer and tongs, making a fearful din,
though not before Rosenthal had whispered again:
"Hit me, shout, and make as much noise as you can! You will soon know
the reason."
A whole crowd of Rastakov's men collected round them, laughing loudly,
and Rastakov himself came hurrying up, looking exceedingly put out.
Leo and Rosenthal were pounding one another to the accompaniment of an
uninterrupted flow of strong language from the latter.
"What's all this?" Rastakov's voice broke in sharply: "Back to your
posts, every one of you! Give it him well, Rosenthal: but you had
better leave enough life in the puppy for him to be able to crawl
indoors again."
The combatants were separated, and Leo, still giddy with astonishment,
stood staring about him for a minute, then turned and reëntered the
house without a word.
Sonia joined him with a radiant face.
"That _was_ clever of you!" she said with boyish enthusiasm: "I wish
you had killed him!"
"Killed him!" stammered the bewildered young man; "Rosenthal--didn't
you hear--he said...."
But he found himself quite unable to explain what had happened: he had
a general impression of having had a fight with a good-natured giant,
who had been pommeling him out of sheer good will. He hurried in to
the brother and sister Bernin, and sat down near them, panting. Lona
Ivanovna, who was still standing by the window, turned to him and said
dryly:
"May I ask the meaning of that comedy, Mr. Grath? I was watching all
the time, and neither of you struck a single blow in earnest."
Leo saw with mortification a change in the expression of Sonia's face.
"Weren't you really fighting?" she asked in a disappointed voice. He
made a poor attempt at a smile.
"Either Rosenthal or I must be mad," he said frankly: "the man told me
to make as much noise as I could."
"Oh-h," said the old lady, slowly: "is _that_ it!" Her bright,
bird-like eyes shone, and she added softly:
"That being the case, I wonder if your friend Mr. Wallion would be so
kind as to come in now...."
"Thanks, with the greatest pleasure," replied the journalist, coming in
from the hall. "Your powers of observation do you credit, Madame."
His entrance seemed as though worked by magic: had he fallen from the
sky? Even the blind man half rose from his chair.
"At last!" said Leo, from the bottom of his heart, as he made for the
journalist and grasped his hand. Wallion looked at him with a smile:
"I hope you haven't quite crippled Rosenthal?" he inquired. "You two
knocked one another about splendidly; everybody crowded up to stare at
you; and I had only to walk straight in here. I hope soon to be able
to present Rosenthal to you, as a useful and trustworthy friend."
"Do you mean to say," said Leo, amazed, "that Rosenthal faked the whole
affair in order that you might get into the Copper House unobserved?"
"Yes, we planned it between us on the spur of the moment. What else
was there for us to do? What did you think _you_ were going to do,
single-handed?"
"Why, of course, we meant to go and find you."
"Me?" said Wallion, gravely. "Couldn't you have waited till I was
ready? Yes, I know, you had made a discovery, which we will talk about
in a minute."
Leo introduced him to the two ladies; Sonia drew back a little after
the first greetings, as though to take stock unobtrusively of the
tall journalist, whose decided manner and piercing glance evidently
impressed her. Lona Ivanovna shook hands heartily with him, and they
seemed to understand one another at once: from that time on, they were
on terms of the warmest esteem.
"I hope you will forgive me for keeping in the background until now,"
said Wallion; "there are plenty of sharp eyes round the Copper House,
and I don't want Rastakov to take alarm too soon. But there need be no
secrets between us henceforward."
He bent down over Andrei Bernin's chair, and took the invalid's hand in
his like a doctor.
"Mr. Andrei Bernin," he continued, "your name has interested me
immensely since this morning; you need not be afraid of me: don't turn
away from me, for I am a friend."
The journalist's keen eyes were very close now to the blue spectacles:
"It is strange that no one but myself has noticed it!"
"What are you talking about?" murmured the blind man, uneasily.
"Of the fact that out of the letters forming the name Andrei Bernin,
one can just as easily make the name of Bernard Jenin."
He patted the invalid's hand, and stood up.
"You need not disguise yourself from me, Mr. Bernard Jenin," he added
in a low tone; "or may I say Sergius?"
The man in the armchair swept off the blue spectacles, and looked up
into Wallion's face:
"Say Sergius!" he replied as quietly.
CHAPTER XIV
_The story of the Bernin family_
The strange scene passed so rapidly, that the fact it conveyed had been
accepted by the three spectators before any of them thought of making a
move.
"Why, the blind man can see!" was Leo's first thought; and before his
still incredulous eyes, the man in the armchair proceeded to divest
himself of his venerable white beard and his poetical white locks,
revealing a face twenty years younger, in which Leo recognized with
something of a shock, the fugitive of the railway carriage and the
avenue, the melancholy young man whose lined face was worn with recent
illness. The blind Bernin was merely a fiction: under that disguise the
hunted Bernard Jenin had been hidden the whole time. The truth dawned
upon Leo as though a blind had been suddenly pulled up.
"Don't take off your wig," said Wallion, "and you had better put on the
blue spectacles again. Your disguise is perfectly wonderful: I can't
understand how you came to have it at hand yesterday evening?"
Lona Ivanovna took up the tale.
"We had better be quite open with our sharp-sighted guest, Sergius.
How long has it taken you to see through our poor little stratagem, Mr.
Wallion?"
"I suspected something of the kind before I got here," explained
Wallion, "otherwise the disappearance of the fugitive would have been
nothing short of miraculous. And then the name helped me: how could you
be so daring as to call yourself Bernard Jenin, which is neither more
nor less than an anagram on Andrei Bernin?"
"That was in case I came to grief," answered the fugitive; "if my
mother saw that name in the papers, she would know that it referred to
me. Years ago, sitting round the table after the lamp was lighted, we
used to amuse ourselves making anagrams on our names. For instance,
Sonia Bernin became Nina Biornsen; I chose my uncle's name, because he
is dead."
"Dead! Is Andrei Bernin dead?"
"Yes, he died at Moscow on the fourteenth of November, 1916."
Maurice Wallion looked inquiringly at Lona Ivanovna, and she replied to
his unspoken question.
"My brother left the Copper House in January, 1916, for a reason which
I will tell you by and by. For the same reason, Sonia and I allowed our
friends to believe that he was still here, but too ill to see anyone.
No one suspected the truth; I made for myself the disguise which
Sergius is wearing now, and on two occasions I purposely allowed Baron
Fayerling's spies to get a glimpse of the sick man, who was believed
to be, but really was not, here."
It did not occur to Wallion to smile at the grotesque idea of the old
lady in a false beard and man's clothes: on the contrary, he found
something touching and pathetic in what she had done; he understood
that she had been driven to it by the direst necessity.
"It was a hard blow for us when my brother died," she continued. "He
died secretly in the country which had rejected him. My son has carried
on his work, and now it is finished: but it has nearly cost him his
life...."
She spoke slowly and composedly, and with a calm dignity which made
Wallion feel that he was standing on holy ground; he fixed his gray
eyes on her with a look of warm admiration.
"Then," he asked, "is your son--here?"
"Sergius is my son," she replied.
Wallion nodded; the discovery did not surprise him, since it had
been one of his theories in the course of his attempts to arrive at
the truth during the last few hours. He understood too, from Leo's
expression, that this was the information which the young man had been
so anxious to convey to him. But he was silent, for he could see that
Lona Ivanovna had more to say. Presently she began again:
"I know you are our friend, Mr. Wallion; we can never forget how you