Aladdin of London Part 19

"All this is an every-day affair here now," that young man remarked with amazing nonchalance; "since the workmen began to shoot the patrols, the city has had no peace. I see that it interests you very much. You will find it less amusing when you have been in Russia for a month or two.

Now let us dress and dine while we can. Those vultures down below will not leave a bone of the carca.s.s if we don't take care."

He re-entered the sitting-room and thence the two pa.s.sed to their respective dressing-rooms. An obsequious valet offered Alban a cigarette while he made his bath, and served a gla.s.s of an American c.o.c.ktail. The superb luxury of these apartments did not surprise the young English boy as much as they might have done, for he had already stayed one night at an almost equally luxurious hotel in Berlin and so approached them somewhat familiarly; but the impression, oddly conceived and incurable, that he had no right to enjoy such luxuries and was in some way an intruder, remained. No one would have guessed this, the silent valet least of all; but in truth, Alban dressed shyly, afraid of the splendor and the richness; and his feet fell softly upon the thick Persian carpets as though some one would spy him out presently and cry, "Here is the guest who has not the wedding garment." In the dining-room, face to face with the gay Count, some of these odd ideas vanished; so that an observer might have named them material rather than personal.

They dined with open windows, taking a zakuska in the Russian fashion in lieu of hors d'oeuvre, and nibbling at smoked fish, caviar and other pickled mysteries. The Count's ability to drink three or four gla.s.ses of liquor with this prefatory repast astonished Alban not a little--which the young Russian observed and remarked upon.

"I am glad that I was born in the East," he said lightly, "you English have no digestions. When you have them, your climate ruins them. Here in Russia we eat and drink what we please--that is our compensation. We are Tartars, I admit--but when you remember that a Tartar is a person who owns no master, rides like a jockey, and drinks as much as he pleases with impunity, the imputation is not serious. None of you Western people understand the Russian. None of you understand that we are men in a very big sense of the word--men with none of your feminine Western weaknesses--great fighters, splendid lovers, fine drinkers. You preach civilization instead--and we point to your Whitechapel, your Belleville, your Bowery. Just think of it, your upper cla.s.ses, as you yourselves admit, are utterly decadent, alike in brains and in morals; your middle cla.s.ses are smug hypocrites--your lower cla.s.ses starve in filthy dens.

This is what you desire to bring about in Russia under the name of freedom and liberty. Do you wonder that those of us who have travelled will have none of it. Are you surprised that we fight your civilization with the whip--as we are fighting it outside at this moment. If we fail, very well, we shall know how to fail. But do not tell me that it would be a blessing for this country to imitate your inst.i.tutions, for I could not believe you if you did."

He laughed upon it as though disbelieving his own words and, giving Alban no opportunity to reply, fell to talk of that which they must do and of the task immediately before them.

"We are better in this hotel than at the Palace Zamoyski, my kinsman's house," he said, "for here no inquisitive servants will trouble us.

Naturally, you think it a strange thing to be brought to a great city like this and there asked to identify a face. Let me say that I don't think it will be a difficult matter. The Chief of the Police will call upon me in the morning and he will be able to tell us in how many houses it would be possible for the girl Lois Boriskoff to hide. We shall search them and discover her--and then learn what Herr Gessner desires to learn. I confess it amazes me that a man with his extraordinary fortune should have dealt so clumsily with these troublesome people. A thousand pounds paid to them ten years ago might have purchased his security for life. But there's your millionaire all over. He will not pay the money and so he risks not only his fortune but his life. Let me a.s.sure you that he is not mistaken when he declares that there is no time to lose. These people, should they discover that he has been aiding my Government, would follow him to the ends of the earth. They may have already sent an a.s.sa.s.sin after him--it would be in accord with their practice to lose no time, and as you see they are not in a temper to procrastinate. The best thing for us to do is to speak of our business to no one. When we have discovered the girl, we will promise her father's liberty in return for her silence. Herr Gessner must now deal with these people once and for all--generously and finally. I see no other chance for him whatever."

Alban agreed to this, although he had some reservations to make.

"I know the Boriskoffs very well," he said, "and they are kindly people.

We have always considered old Paul a bit of a madman, but a harmless one. Even his own countrymen in London laugh when he talks to them. I am sure he would be incapable of committing such a crime as you suggest; and as for his daughter, Lois, she is quite a little schoolgirl who may know nothing about the matter at all. Mr. Gessner undoubtedly owes Paul a great deal, and I should be pleased to see the poor fellow in better circ.u.mstances. But is it quite fair to keep him in prison just because you are afraid of what his daughter may say?"

"It is our only weapon. If we give him liberty, will he hold his tongue then? By your own admissions a louder talker does not exist. And remember that it may cost Herr Gessner many thousand pounds and many weeks of hard work to secure his liberty at all. Is he likely to undertake this while the daughter is at liberty and harbored among the ruffians of this city? He would be a madman to do so. I, who know the Poles as few of them know themselves, will tell you that they would sooner strike at those whom they call 'traitors in exile' than at their enemies round about us. If the girl has told them what she knows of Herr Gessner and his past, I would not be in his shoes to-night for a million of roubles heaped up upon the table. No, no, we have no time to lose--we owe it to him to act with great dispatch."

Alban did not make any immediate reply. Hopeful as the Count was, the difficulties of tracking little Lois down in such a city at such a time seemed to him well-nigh insuperable. He had seen hundreds of faces like hers as they drove through Warsaw that very afternoon. The monstrous crowd showed him types both of Anna and of Lois, and he wondered no longer at the resemblance he had detected between them when he first saw Richard Gessner's daughter on the balcony of the house in St. James'

Square. None the less, the excitements of the task continued to grow upon him. How would it all end, he asked impulsively. And what if they were too late after all and his friend and patron were to be the victim of old Boriskoff's vengeance? That would be terrible indeed--it would drive him from Lois' friendship forever.

All this was in his mind as the dinner drew toward a conclusion and the solemn waiters served them cigars and coffee. There had been some cessation of the uproar in the streets during the latter moments; but a new outcry arising presently, the Count suggested that they should return to the balcony and see what was happening.

"I would have taken you to the theatre," he said laughingly, "but we shall see something prettier here. They are firing their rifles, it appears. Do not let us miss the play when we can have good seats for nothing. And mind you bring that k.u.mmel, for it is the best in Europe."

They were just lighting the great arc lamps upon the avenue as the two emerged from the dining-room and took up their stations by the railing of the balcony. In the roadway below the spectacle had become superb in its weird drama and excited ferocity. Great crowds pa.s.sed incessantly upon the broad pavements and were as frequently dispersed by the fiery Cossacks who rode headlong as though mad with the l.u.s.t of slaughter.

Holding all who were abroad to be their enemies, these fellows slashed with their brutal whips at every upturned face and had no pity even for the children. Alban saw little lads of ten and twelve years of age carried bleeding from the streets--he beheld gentle women cut and lashed until they fell dying upon the pavement--he heard the death-cry from many a human throat. Just as the exiles had related it, so the drama went, with a white-faced, terror-stricken mob for the people of its scene and these devils upon their little horses for the chief actors.

When the troopers fell (and from time to time a bullet would find its billet and leave a corpse rolling in a saddle) this was but the signal for a new outburst, surpa.s.sing the old in its diabolical ferocity. A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a Carnival of whips cutting deep into soft white flesh and drawing from their victims cries so awful that they might have risen up from h.e.l.l itself.

And in this crowd, among this people perhaps, little Lois Boriskoff must be looked for. Her friends would be the people's friends. Wayward as she was, a true child of the streets, Alban did not believe that she would remain at home this night or consent to forego the excitements of a spectacle so wonderful. Nor in this was he mistaken, for he had been but a very few minutes upon the balcony when he perceived Lois herself looking up to him from the press below and plainly intimating that she had both seen and recognized him.

CHAPTER XXI

THE BOY IN THE BLUE BLOUSE

A sharp exclamation brought the Count to Alban's side.

"Lois is down there," Alban said, "I am sure of it--she waved to me just now. She was walking with a man in a dark blue blouse. I could not have been mistaken."

He was quite excited that he should have discovered her thus, and Sergius Zamoyski did not lag behind him in interest.

"Do you still see her?" he asked--"is she there now?"

"I cannot see her now--the soldiers drove the people back. Perhaps if we went down--"

The Count laughed.

"Even I could not protect you to-night," he exclaimed dryly, "no--whatever is to be done must be done to-morrow. But does not that prove to you what eyes and ears these people have. Here we left London as secretly as a man on a love affair. With the single exception of our friend at Hampstead, not a human being should have known of our departure or our destination. And yet we are not three hours in this place before this girl is outside our hotel, as well aware that we have arrived as we are ourselves. That is what baffles our police. They cannot contend with miracles. They are only human, and I tell you that these people are more than human."

Alban, still peering down into the press in the hope that he might see Lois' face again, confessed that he could offer no explanation whatever.

"They told me the same thing in London," he said, "but I did not believe them. Old Boriskoff used to boast that he knew of things which had happened in Warsaw before the Russian Government. They seem to have spies in every street and every house. If Lois' presence is not a coincidence--"

"My dear fellow, are you also a believer in coincidence--the idle excuse of men who will not reason. Forgive me, but I think very little of coincidence. Just figure the chances against such a meeting as this.

Would it not run into millions--your first visit to Warsaw; n.o.body expecting you; n.o.body knowing your name in the city--and here is the girl waiting under your window before you have changed your clothes. Oh, no, I will have nothing to do with coincidence. These people certainly knew that we had left England--they have been expecting us; they will do their best to baffle us. Yes, and that means that we run some danger. I must think of it--I must see the Chief of the Police to-night. It would be foolish to neglect all reasonable precautions."

Alban looked at him with surprise.

"None of those people will do me an injury," he exclaimed, "and you, Count, why should you fear them?"

The Count lighted a cigarette very deliberately. "There may be reasons," he said--and that was all.

Had he told the whole truth, revealed the secrets of his work during the last three years, Alban would have understood very well what those reasons were. A shrewder agent of the Government, a more discreet zealous official of the secret service, did not exist. His very bonhomie and good-fellowship had hitherto been his surest defence against discovery. Men spoke of him as the great gambler and a fine sportsman.

The Revolutionaries had been persuaded to look upon him as their friend.

Some day they would learn the truth--and then, G.o.d help him. Meanwhile, the work was well enough. He found it even more amusing than making love and a vast deal more exciting than big-game hunting.

"Yes," he repeated anon, "There may be reasons, but it is a little too late to remember them. I am sending over to the Bureau now. If the Chief is there, he will be able to help me. Of course, you will see or hear from this girl again. These people would deliver a letter if you locked yourself up in an iron safe. They will communicate with you in the morning and we must make up our minds what to do. That is why I want advice."

"If you take mine," said Alban quietly, "you will permit me to see her at once. I am the last person in all Warsaw whom Lois Boriskoff will desire to injure."

"Am I to understand, then--but no, it would be impossible. Forgive me even thinking of it. I had really imagined for a moment that you might be her lover."

Alban's face flushed crimson.

"She was my little friend in London--she will be the same in Warsaw, Count."

Count Sergius bowed as though he readily accepted this simple explanation and apologized for his own thoughts. A shrewd man of the world, he did not believe a word of it, however. These two, boy and girl together, had been daily a.s.sociates in the slums of London. They had shared their earnings and their pleasures and pa.s.sed for those who would be man and wife presently. This Richard Gessner had told him when they discussed the affair, and he remembered it to his great satisfaction.

For if Alban were Lois Boriskoff's lover, then might he venture even where the police were afraid to go.

"I will talk it all over with the Chief," the Count exclaimed abruptly; "you have had a long day and are better in bed. Don't stand on any ceremony, but please go directly you feel inclined."

Alban did not demur for he was tired out and that was the truth of it.

In his own room he recalled the question the Count had put to him and wondered that it had so distressed him. Why had his cheeks tingled and the words stumbled upon his lips because he had been called Lois Boriskoff's lover? It used not to be so when they walked Union Street together and all the neighbors regarded the engagement as an accomplished fact. He had never resented such a charge then--what had happened that he should resent it now? Was it the long weeks of temptation he had suffered in Anna Gessner's presence? Had the world of riches so changed him that any mention of the old time could make him ashamed? He knew not what to think--the blood rushed to his cheeks again and his heart beat quickly when he remembered that but for Count Sergius's visit to Hampstead, he might have been Anna's betrothed to-day.

In this he was, as ever, entirely candid with himself, neither condoning his faults nor accusing himself blindly. There had been nothing of the humbler realities of love in his relations with Richard Gessner's daughter; none of the superb spirit of self-sacrifice; none of those fine ideals which his boyhood had desired to set up. He had worshipped her beauty--so much he readily admitted; her presence had ever been potent to quicken his blood and claim the homage of his senses; but of that deeper understanding and mutual sympathy by which love is born she had taught him nothing. Why this should have been so, he could not pretend to say. Her father's riches and the glamour of the great house may have had not a little to do with it. Alban had always seemed to stand apart from all which the new world showed to him. He felt that he had no t.i.tle to a place there, no just claim at all to those very favors his patron thrust upon him so lavishly.

He was as a man escaped from a prison whose bars were of gold--a prison whereof the jailer had been a beautiful and capricious woman. Here in Warsaw he discovered a new world; but one that seemed altogether familiar. All this clamor of the streets, this going to and fro of people, the roar of traffic, the shriek of whistles, the ringing of bells--had he not known them all in London when Lois was his friend and old Paul his neighbor? There had been many Poles by Thrawl Street and the harsh music of their tongue came to him as an old friend. It is true that he was housed luxuriously, in a palace built for millionaires; but he had the notion that he would not long continue there and that a newer and a stranger destiny awaited him. This thought, indeed, he carried to his bedroom and slept upon at last. He would find Lois to-morrow and she would be his messenger.

There had still been excited crowds in the streets when he found his bedroom and a high balcony showed him the last phases of a weird pageant. Though it was then nearly midnight, Cossacks continued to patrol the avenue and the mob to deride them. By here and there, where the arc lamps illuminated the pavement, the white faces and slouching figures of the more obstinate among the Revolutionaries spoke of dogged defiance and an utter indifference to personal safety. Alban could well understand why the people had ventured out, but that they should have taken women and even young children with them astonished him beyond measure. These, certainly, could vindicate no principle when their flesh was cut by the brutal whips and the savage horses rode them down to emphasize the majesty of the Czar. Such sights he had beheld that afternoon and such were being repeated, if the terrible cries which came to his ears from time to time were true harbingers. Alban closed his windows at last for very shame and anger. He tried to shut the city's terrible voice from his ears. He wished to believe that his eyes had deceived him.

This would have been about one o'clock in the morning. When he awoke from a heavy sleep (and youth will sleep whatever the circ.u.mstance) the sun was shining into his rooms and the church-bells called the people to early Ma.s.s. An early riser, long accustomed to be up and out when the clock struck six, he dressed himself at once and determined to see something of Warsaw before the Count was about. This good resolution led him first to the splendid avenue upon which the great hotel was built, and here he walked awhile, rejoicing in his freedom and wondering why he had ever parted with it. Let a man have self-reliance and courage enough and there is no city in all the world which may not become a home to him, no land among whose people he may not find friends, no government whose laws shall trouble him. Alban's old nomadic habits brought these truths to his mind again as he walked briskly down the avenue and filled his lungs with the fresh breezes of that sunny morning. Why should he return to the Count at all? What was Gessner's money to him now? He cared less for it than the stones beneath his feet; he would not have purchased an hour's command of a princely fortune for one of these precious moments.