The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love
"Who enticed her here? Why you, yourself. Who conspired to throw the
guilt of this attempted murder of the general's wife upon her? You--you,
the man whom they call 'The Strangler of Finland'! But I will avenge the
cruel and abominable affliction you have placed upon her. Her
secret--your secret, Baron Oberg--shall be published to the world. You
are her enemy--and therefore mine!"
"Very well," he growled between his teeth, advancing towards me
threateningly, his fists clenched in his rage. "Recollect, m'sieur, that
you have insulted me. Recollect that I am Governor-General of Finland."
"If you were Czar himself, I should not hesitate to denounce you as the
tyrant and mutilator of a poor defenseless woman."
"And to whom, pray, will you tell this romantic story of yours?" he
laughed hoarsely. "To your prison walls below the lake at Kajana? Yes,
M'sieur Gregg, you will go there, and once within the fortress you shall
never again see the light of day. You threaten me--the Governor-General
of Finland!" he laughed in a strange, high-pitched key as he threw
himself into a chair and scribbled something rapidly upon paper,
appending his signature in his small crabbed handwriting.
"I do not threaten," I said in open defiance, "I shall act."
"And so shall I," he said with an evil grin upon his bony face as he
blotted what he had written and took it up, adding: "In the darkness
and silence of your living tomb, you can tell whatever strange stories
you like concerning me. They are used to idiots where you are going," he
added grimly.
"Oh! And where am I going?"
"Back to Kanaja. This order consigns you to confinement there as a
dangerous political conspirator, as one who has threatened me--it
consigns you to the cells below the lake--for life!"
I laughed aloud, and my hand sought my wallet wherein was that
all-powerful document--the order of the Emperor which gave me, as an
imperial guest, immunity from arrest. I would produce it as my
trump-card.
Next second, however, I held my breath, and I think I must have turned
pale. My pocket was empty! My wallet had been stolen! Entirely and
helplessly I had fallen into the hands of the tyrant of the Czar.
His own personal interest would be to consign me to a living tomb in
that grim fortress of Kajana, the horrors of which were unspeakable. I
had seen enough during my inspection of the Russian prisons as a
journalist to know that there, in strangled Finland, I should not be
treated with the same consideration or humanity as in Petersburg or
Warsaw. The Governor-General consigned me to Kajana as a "political,"
which was synonymous with a sentence of death in those damp, dark
_oubliettes_ beneath the water-dungeons every whit as awful as those of
the Paris Bastile.
We faced each other, and I looked straight into his gray, bony face, and
answered in a tone of defiance:
"You are Governor-General, it is true, but you will, I think, reflect
before you consign me, an Englishman, to prison without trial. I know
full well that the English are hated by Russia, yet I assure you that in
London we entertain no love for your nation or its methods."
"Yes," he laughed, "you are quite right. Russia has no use for an effete
ally such as England is."
"Effete or powerful, my country is still able to present an ultimatum
when diplomacy requires it," I said. "Therefore I have no fear. Send me
to prison, and I tell you that the responsibility rests upon yourself."
And folding my arms I kept my eyes intently upon his, so that he should
not see that I wavered.
"As for the responsibility, I certainly do not fear that, m'sieur," he
said.
"But the exposure that will result--are you prepared to face that?" I
asked. "Perhaps you are not aware that others beside myself--one other,
indeed, who is a diplomatist--is aware of my journey here? If I do not
return, your Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Petersburg will be pressed
for a reason."
"Which they will not give."
"Then if they do not, the truth will be out," I said laughing harshly,
for I saw how determined he had become to hold me prisoner. "Come, call
up your myrmidon and send me to Kajana. It will be the first step
towards your own downfall."
"We shall see," he growled.
"Ah! you surely do not think that I, after ten years' service in the
British diplomatic service, would dare to come to Finland upon this
quest--would dare to face the rotten and corrupt officialdom which
Russia has placed within this country--without first taking some
adequate precaution? No, Baron. Therefore I defy you, and I leave
Helsingfors to-night."
"You will not. You are under arrest."
I laughed heartily and snapped my fingers, saying:
"Before you give me over to your police, first telegraph to your
Minister of Finance, Monsieur de Witte, and inquire of him who and what
I am."
"I don't understand you."
"You have merely to send my name and description to the Minister and ask
for a reply," I said. "He will give you instructions--or, if you so
desire, ask his Majesty yourself."
"And why, pray, does his Majesty concern himself about you?" he asked,
at once puzzled.
"You will learn later, after I am confined in Kajana and your secret is
known in Petersburg."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," I said, "I mean that I have taken all the necessary steps to
be forearmed against you. The day I am incarcerated by your order, the
whole truth will be known. I shall not be the sufferer--but you will."
My words, purposely enigmatical, misled him. He saw the drift of my
argument, and being of course unaware of how much I knew, he was still
in fear of me. My only uncertainty was of the actual fate of poor Elma.
My wallet had been stolen--with a purpose, without a doubt--for the
thief had deprived me of that most important of all documents, the open
sesame to every closed door, the ukase of the Czar.
"You defy me!" he said hoarsely, turning back to the window with the
written order for my imprisonment as a political still in his hand. "But
we shall see."
"You rule Finland," I said in a hard tone, "but you have no power over
Gordon Gregg."
"I have power, and intend to exert it."
"For your own ruin," I remarked with a self-confident smile. "You may
give your torturers orders to kill me--orders that a fatal accident
shall occur within the fortress--but I tell you frankly that my death
will neither erase nor conceal your own offenses. There are others, away
in England, who are aware of them, and who will, in order to avenge my
death, speak the truth. Remember that although Elma Heath has been
deprived of both hearing and of speech, she can still write down the
true facts in black and white. The Czar may be your patron, and you his
favorite, but his Majesty has no tolerance of officials who are guilty
of what you are guilty of. You talk of arresting me!" I added with a
smile. "Why, you ought rather to go on your knees and beg my silence."
He went white with rage at my cutting sarcasm. He literally boiled over,
for he saw that I was quite cool and had no fear of him or of the
terrible punishment to which he intended to consign me. Besides which,
he was filled with wonder regarding the exact amount of information
which Elma had imparted to me.
"There are certain persons," I went on, "to whom it would be of intense
interest to know the true reason why the steam-yacht _Lola_ put into
Leghorn; why I was entertained on board her; why the safe in the
British Consulate was rifled, and why the unfortunate girl, kept a
prisoner on board, was taken on shore just before the hurried sailing of
the vessel. And there are other mysteries which the English police are
trying to solve, namely, the reason Armida Santini and a man disguised
as her husband died in Scotland at the hand of an assassin. But surely I
need say no more. It is surely sufficient to convince you that if the
truth were spoken, the revelations would be distinctly awkward."
"For whom?" he asked, opening his eyes.
"For you. Come, Baron," I said, "can we not yet speak frankly?"
But he was silent for a moment, a fact which was in itself proof that my
pointed argument had caused him to reconsider his intention of sending
me under escort back to that castle of terror.
If my journey there was in order to meet my love, I would not have
cared. It was the ignorance of her whereabouts or of her fate that held
me in such deep, all-consuming anxiety. Each hour that passed increased
my fond and tender affection for her. And yet what irony of
circumstance! She had been cruelly snatched from me at the very moment
that freedom had been ours.
I think it was well that I assumed that air of defiance with the man who
had ground Finland beneath his heel. He was unused to it. No one dared
to go against his will, or to utter taunt or threat to him. He was
paramount, with all the powers of an emperor--the power, indeed, of life
and death. Therefore he was not in the habit of being either thwarted or
criticised, and I could see that my words had aroused within him a
boiling tumult of resentment and of rage. I told him nothing of the loss
of my wallet or of the precious document that it had contained. My
defiance was merely upon principle.
"Arrest me if you like. Denounce me by means of any lie that arises to
your lips, but remember that the truth is known beyond the confines of
the Russian Empire, and for that reason traces will be sought of me and
full explanation demanded. I have taken precaution, Xavier Oberg," I
added, "therefore do your worst. I repeat again that I defy you!"
He paced the big room, his thin claw-like hands still clenched, his
yellow teeth grinding, his dark, deep-set eyes fixed straight before
him. If he had dared, he would have struck me down at his feet. But he
did not dare. I saw too plainly that even though my wallet was gone I
still held the trump-card--that he feared me.
The mention I had made of the Minister of Finance, however, seemed to
cause him considerable hesitation. That high official had the ear of the
Emperor, and if I were a friend there might be inquiries. As I stood
before him leaning against a small buhl table, I watched all the complex
workings of his mind, and tried to read the mysterious motive which had
caused him to consign poor Elma to Kajana.
He was a proud bully, possessing neither pity nor remorse, an average
specimen of the high Russian official, a hide-bound bureaucrat, a slave
to etiquette and possessing a veneer of polish. But beneath it all I saw
that he was a coward in deadly fear of assassination--a coward who
dreaded lest some secret should be revealed. That concealed door in the
paneling with the armed guard lurking behind was sufficiently plain
evidence that he was not the fearless Governor-General that was
popularly supposed. He, "The Strangler of Finland," had crushed the
gallant nation into submission, ruining their commerce, sapping the
country by impressing its youth into the Russian army, forbidding the
use of the Finnish language, and taxing the people until the factories
had been compelled to close down while the peasantry starved. And now,
on the verge of revolt, there had arisen a band of patriots who resented
ruin, and who had already warned his Majesty by letter that if Baron
Oberg were not removed from his post he would die.
These and other thoughts ran through my mind in the silence that
followed our heated argument, for I saw well that he was in actual fear
of me. I had led him to believe that I knew everything, and that his
future was in my hands, while he, on his part, was anxious to hold me
prisoner, and yet dared not do so.
My wallet had probably been stolen by some lurking police-spy, for
Russian agents abound everywhere in Finland, reporting conspiracies that