The Secret of the Night
take part in the politics of the matter, but to save his most faithful
servant, who was on the point of becoming the victim of the strangest
family drama ever conceived.”
Madame Matrena, white as a sheet, rose to her feet.
“Ah,” she said simply.
But Rouletabille, whom nothing escaped, saw her hand tremble on the back
of the chair.
He went on, not appearing to have noticed her emotion:
“His Majesty added these exact words: ‘It is I who ask it of you; I and
Madame Trebassof. Go, monsieur, she awaits you.’”
He ceased and waited for Madame Trebassof to speak.
She made up her mind after brief reflection.
“Have you seen Koupriane?”
“The Chief of Police? Yes. The grand-marshal accompanied me back to the
station at Krasnoie-Coelo, and the Chief of Police accompanied me to St.
Petersburg station. One could not have been better received.”
“Monsieur Rouletabille,” said Matrena, who visibly strove to regain her
self-control, “I am not of Koupriane’s opinion and I am not”--here she
lowered her trembling voice--“of the opinion His Majesty holds. It
is better for me to tell you at once, so that you may not
regret intervening in an affair where there are--where there
are--risks--terrible risks to run. No, this is not a family drama. The
family is small, very small: the general, his daughter Natacha (by his
former marriage), and myself. There could not be a family drama among
us three. It is simply about my husband, monsieur, who did his duty as
a soldier in defending the throne of his sovereign, my husband whom they
mean to assassinate! There is nothing else, no other situation, my dear
little guest.”
To hide her distress she started to carve a slice of jellied veal and
carrot.
“You have not eaten, you are hungry. It is dreadful, my dear young man.
See, you must dine with us, and then--you will say adieu. Yes, you will
leave me all alone. I will undertake to save him all alone. Certainly, I
will undertake it.”
A tear fell on the slice she was cutting. Rouletabille, who felt the
brave woman’s emotion affecting him also, braced himself to keep from
showing it.
“I am able to help you a little all the same,” he said. “Monsieur
Koupriane has told me that there is a deep mystery. It is my vocation to
get to the bottom of mysteries.”
“I know what Koupriane thinks,” she said, shaking her head. “But if
I could bring myself to think that for a single day I would rather be
dead.”
The good Matrena Petrovna lifted her beautiful eyes to Rouletabille,
brimming with the tears she held back.
She added quickly:
“But eat now, my dear guest; eat. My dear child, you must forget what
Koupriane has said to you, when you are back in France.”
“I promise you that, madame.”
“It is the Emperor who has caused you this long journey. For me, I
did not wish it. Has he, indeed, so much confidence in you?” she asked
naively, gazing at him fixedly through her tears.
“Madame, I was just about to tell you. I have been active in some
important matters that have been reported to him, and then sometimes
your Emperor is allowed to see the papers. He has heard talk, too (for
everybody talked of them, madame), about the Mystery of the Yellow Room
and the Perfume of the Lady in Black.”
Here Rouletabille watched Madame Trebassof and was much mortified at the
undoubted ignorance that showed in her frank face of either the yellow
room or the black perfume.
“My young friend,” said she, in a voice more and more hesitant, “you
must excuse me, but it is a long time since I have had good eyes for
reading.”
Tears, at last, ran down her cheeks.
Rouletabille could not restrain himself any further. He saw in one flash
all this heroic woman had suffered in her combat day by day with the
death which hovered. He took her little fat hands, whose fingers were
overloaded with rings, tremulously into his own:
“Madame, do not weep. They wish to kill your husband. Well then, we will
be two at least to defend him, I swear to you.”
“Even against the Nihilists!”
“Aye, madame, against all the world. I have eaten all your caviare. I am
your guest. I am your friend.”
As he said this he was so excited, so sincere and so droll that Madame
Trebassof could not help smiling through her tears. She made him sit
down beside her.
“The Chief of Police has talked of you a great deal. He came here
abruptly after the last attack and a mysterious happening that I will
tell you about. He cried, ‘Ah, we need Rouletabille to unravel this!’
The next day he came here again. He had gone to the Court. There,
everybody, it appears, was talking of you. The Emperor wished to know
you. That is why steps were taken through the ambassador at Paris.”
“Yes, yes. And naturally all the world has learned of it. That makes it
so lively. The Nihilists warned me immediately that I would not reach
Russia alive. That, finally, was what decided me on coming. I am
naturally very contrary.”
“And how did you get through the journey?”
“Not badly. I discovered at once in the train a young Slav assigned
to kill me, and I reached an understanding with him. He was a charming
youth, so it was easily arranged.”
Rouletabille was eating away now at strange viands that it would have
been difficult for him to name. Matrena Petrovna laid her fat little
hand on his arm:
“You speak seriously?”
“Very seriously.”
“A small glass of vodka?”
“No alcohol.”
Madame Matrena emptied her little glass at a draught.
“And how did you discover him? How did you know him?”
“First, he wore glasses. All Nihilists wear glasses when traveling. And
then I had a good clew. A minute before the departure from Paris I had a
friend go into the corridor of the sleeping-car, a reporter who would do
anything I said without even wanting to know why. I said, ‘You call out
suddenly and very loud, “Hello, here is Rouletabille.”’ So he called,
‘Hello, here is Rouletabille,’ and all those who were in the corridor
turned and all those who were already in the compartments came out,
excepting the man with the glasses. Then I was sure about him.”
Madame Trebassof looked at Rouletabille, who turned as red as the comb of
a rooster and was rather embarrassed at his fatuity.
“That deserves a rebuff, I know, madame, but from the moment the Emperor
of all the Russias had desired to see me I could not admit that any mere
man with glasses had not the curiosity to see what I looked like. It
was not natural. As soon as the train was off I sat down by this man and
told him who I thought he was. I was right. He removed his glasses and,
looking me straight in the eyes, said he was glad to have a little talk
with me before anything unfortunate happened. A half-hour later the
entente-cordiale was signed. I gave him to understand that I was coming
here simply on business as a reporter and that there was always time to
check me if I should be indiscreet. At the German frontier he left me to
go on, and returned tranquilly to his nitro-glycerine.”
“You are a marked man also, my poor boy.”
“Oh, they have not got us yet.”
Matrena Petrovna coughed. That _us_ overwhelmed her. With what calmness
this boy that she had not known an hour proposed to share the dangers
of a situation that excited general pity but from which the bravest kept
aloof either from prudence or dismay.
“Ah, my friend, a little of this fine smoked Hamburg beef?”
But the young man was already pouring out fresh yellow beer.
“There,” said he. “Now, madame, I am listening. Tell me first about the
earliest attack.”
“Now,” said Matrena, “we must go to dinner.”
Rouletabille looked at her wide-eyed.
“But, madame, what have I just been doing?”
Madame Matrena smiled. All these strangers were alike. Because they
had eaten some hors-d’oeuvres, some zakouskis, they imagined their host
would be satisfied. They did not know how to eat.
“We will go to the dining-room. The general is expecting you. They are
at table.”
“I understand I am supposed to know him.”
“Yes, you have met in Paris. It is entirely natural that in passing
through St. Petersburg you should make him a visit. You know him
very well indeed, so well that he opens his home to you. Ah, yes, my
step-daughter also”--she flushed a little--“Natacha believes that her
father knows you.”
She opened the door of the drawing-room, which they had to cross in
order to reach the dining-room.
From his present position Rouletabille could see all the corners of
the drawing-room, the veranda, the garden and the entrance lodge at the
gate. In the veranda the man in the maroon frock-coat trimmed with false
astrakhan seemed still to be asleep on the sofa; in one of the corners
of the drawing-room another individual, silent and motionless as a
statue, dressed exactly the same, in a maroon frock-coat with false
astrakhan, stood with his hands behind his back seemingly struck with
general paralysis at the sight of a flaring sunset which illumined as
with a torch the golden spires of Saints Peter and Paul. And in the
garden and before the lodge three others dressed in maroon roved
like souls in pain over the lawn or back and forth at the entrance.
Rouletabille motioned to Madame Matrena, stepped back into the
sitting-room and closed the door.
“Police?” he asked.
Matrena Petrovna nodded her head and put her finger to her mouth in a
naive way, as one would caution a child to silence. Rouletabille smiled.
“How many are there?”
“Ten, relieved every six hours.”
“That makes forty unknown men around your house each day.”
“Not unknown,” she replied. “Police.”
“Yet, in spite of them, you have had the affair of the bouquet in the
general’s chamber.”
“No, there were only three then. It is since the affair of the bouquet
that there have been ten.”
“It hardly matters. It is since these ten that you have had...”
“What?” she demanded anxiously.
“You know well--the flooring.”
“Sh-h-h.”
She glanced at the door, watching the policeman statuesque before the
setting sun.
“No one knows that--not even my husband.”
“So M. Koupriane told me. Then it is you who have arranged for these ten
police-agents?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, we will commence now by sending all these police away.”
Matrena Petrovna grasped his hand, astounded.
“Surely you don’t think of doing such a thing as that!”
“Yes. We must know where the blow is coming from. You have four
different groups of people around here--the police, the domestics, your
friends, your family. Get rid of the police first. They must not be
permitted to cross your threshold. They have not been able to protect
you. You have nothing to regret. And if, after they are gone, something
new turns up, we can leave M. Koupriane to conduct the inquiries without
his being preoccupied here at the house.”
“But you do not know the admirable police of Koupriane. These brave men
have given proof of their devotion.”
“Madame, if I were face to face with a Nihilist the first thing I would
ask myself about him would be, ‘Is he one of the police?’ The first
thing I ask in the presence of an agent of your police is, ‘Is he not a
Nihilist?’”
“But they will not wish to go.”
“Do any of them speak French?”
“Yes, their sergeant, who is out there in the salon.”
“Pray call him.”
Madame Trebassof walked into the salon and signaled. The man appeared.
Rouletabille handed him a paper, which the other read.
“You will gather your men together and quit the villa,” ordered
Rouletabille. “You will return to the police Headguarters. Say to M.
Koupriane that I have commanded this and that I require all police
service around the villa to be suspended until further orders.”
The man bowed, appeared not to understand, looked at Madame Trebassof
and said to the young man:
“At your service.”
He went out.