Stolen Souls Part 11

"Very well," I replied. "I'll tell you to go in a few minutes."

Then, after joining the driver and post-house keepers in another gla.s.s of vodka, I said to her--

"Ivan, you can go. I shall require you no longer."

Gathering up her coat, hat and gloves, she bowed, and, wishing the men "Good-night," went to her room.

After smoking for another hour, I also sought my dirty little den. In the heart of Siberia one must expect to rough it, therefore I took my revolver from my belt, placed it under my pillow, and, after removing some of my clothes, strapped my fur rug around my neck, and, stretching myself upon the hard pallet, soon dropped off to sleep.

Next morning, when I had dressed, I knocked several times at Prascovie's door, but received no reply. Subsequently I pushed it open and entered, discovering, to my surprise, that the room was empty.

Notwithstanding my limited knowledge of Russian, I managed to make the men understand that my servant was missing, and they searched the premises, but without avail. They examined the road outside, but, as it had been snowing heavily during the night, no footprints were visible.

Prascovie had mysteriously disappeared!

While I remained in charge of the post-house, the three men mounted the horses and rode out in different directions, thinking it possible that she had strayed away upon the steppe and become lost in a snowdrift.

Towards evening, however, they returned, after a long and futile search.

Anxious to solve the mystery, and reluctant to leave without her, I remained there several days. As the nearest dwelling was twenty miles distant, and her overcoat and hat still remained in her room, her disappearance was all the more puzzling. I examined her box, but found nothing in it except articles of male wearing apparel; so after a week of anxious waiting, I became convinced that to remain there longer was useless.

With heavy heart, and sorely puzzled over the mystery, I continued my lonely journey towards the mines of Yeniseisk. Having inspected them, I journeyed south, alone and dejected, and investigated the great prisons at Krasnoiarsk and Irkutsk, afterwards returning through Omsk and Tobolsk, and thence to the Urals and civilisation.

I missed her companionship very much, and long before my journey ended, I had grown dull, morose, and melancholy.

After an absence of six months, I again returned to London. When I arrived home, fatigued and hungry, and before I had time to cast off my worn-out travelling suit, the servant girl handed me a small packet which she said had arrived by registered post a week before.

It had a Russian stamp upon it, and bore the postmark of Kiakhta, a small town south of Irkutsk, on the border of Mongolia.

Breaking open the seals, I found a small box, from which I took a thick gold ring, set with a magnificent diamond.

Attached to it was a small piece of paper which bore, in a man's handwriting, the following words:--

"_The husband of Prascovie Souvaroff, who owes to you the safe return of his beloved wife, sends this little gift as a slight recognition of the kindness she received at your hands_."

There was neither, name, address, nor date; nothing to show who was the anonymous husband.

The mystery was solved in a most unexpected manner.

Some months after the results of my investigations had been published, I chanced one night to attend the banquet of the a.s.sociation of Foreign Consuls held in the Whitehall Rooms of the Hotel Metropole. As usual, a number of the _corps diplomatique_ were present, and among them Serge Velitchko, one of the _attaches_ of the Russian Emba.s.sy, an old friend of mine, whom I had not seen since my return.

"I congratulate you on your lucky escape, old fellow," he exclaimed, after we had exchanged cordial greetings.

"Escape? What do you mean?" I inquired.

"Ah, it's all very well," he replied, laughing, as we strolled together into an ante-room that was unoccupied. "Prascovie was very fascinating, wasn't she?"

"How did you know?" I asked in amazement, for I imagined no one was aware that she had been my companion.

"Oh, we knew all about it, never fear," he said, with a smile. "By Jove! it was quite a romance, travelling all that distance with a pretty companion, and then losing her on the Yeniseisk Steppe. It was lucky for you, however, that she left you in time, otherwise you would, in all probability, have been working underground at Kara, or some other place equally delightful, by this time."

"Explain yourself," I urged impatiently. "You're talking in enigmas."

"Listen, and I'll let you into the secret," said my friend, casting himself lazily into a chair. "The man you knew as Souvaroff was, until about six years ago, wealthy and popular at our Court at Petersburg; but he was suspected of political intrigue, and sentenced to lifelong exile and hard labour in Siberia. After his banishment, Prascovie, who was then living at Moscow, was detected by the police distributing some revolutionary pamphlets, for which she also was sent to Siberia. At the prison at Irkutsk father and daughter met. While there, Prince Pavlovitch Kostomaroff, the governor of the Yeniseisk province, who had previously known and admired _la belle_ Souvaroff in Petersburg society, discovered her, and offered her marriage. This she accepted, and they were married privately, because, had it become known that the Prince had wedded a political exile, he would have fallen into disfavour with the Tzar. The Prince not being governor of the province in which his wife was imprisoned, a difficulty presented itself how he should obtain her release. Even Ivan Kobita, controller of the prison, was ignorant of the secret union, but it so happened that he also became enamoured of his fair captive. At length, in return for her promise to marry him, he allowed her and her father comparative freedom. As might be expected, they were not long in taking advantage of this, for within a fortnight, aided by the Prince, and provided with a pa.s.sport obtained by him, they managed to escape and come to England."

"And what of Kobita?"

"He quickly discovered the ruse, and ascertained that the Prince had connived at their escape. Our Secret Police tracked the fugitives to their hiding-place in London. Still unaware that she was the Prince's wife, Kobita obtained leave of absence and came to England. Before his arrival, however, he wrote, urging her to marry him, declaring that if she refused, he would expose the Prince as aiding and abetting dangerous Nihilists. Prascovie, who clearly saw that if the truth reached the Tzar, her husband would be disgraced and deprived of liberty, was at her wits' ends. She was in desperation when, two years ago, Kobita arrived in London--"

"Was that on the night I called upon them?"

"Yes. It was on receipt of the letter from Kobita that Souvaroff sent for you and requested you to put the obituary notice in the papers, in order that when the Siberian official came to claim his daughter's hand, he could convince him of her death. But this plan was not carried out quickly enough. Kobita arrived on the night of your visit, and was received by Prascovie's father, who stated that she had gone to call upon a friend in the vicinity, and offered to send his servant to direct him to the house in question. To this Prascovie's admirer had no objection, and, shaking Souvaroff warmly by the hand, wished him _au revoir_, and started off, accompanied by the servant, in search of the imaginary neighbour. The hand-shaking proved fatal, for he had not walked far before he fell dead. The whole thing had been carefully planned, and the trusty servant, who had been instructed how to act, extracted everything from the dead man's pockets that would lead to identification. Hence his burial in a nameless grave."

"Do you a.s.sert that he was murdered?"

"Yes. We were in possession of all these facts, but refrained from causing Souvaroff's arrest, because it was not a wise policy to expose to the London public that Russia had established a bureau of secret police in their midst. Prascovie and her father hid for some months, and we lost sight of them until she called upon you, and accompanied you in disguise to Siberia. Once or twice you very narrowly escaped being apprehended; indeed, on one occasion orders were telegraphed to Tomsk for the arrest of your companion and yourself, because the declaration on your pa.s.sport regarding `Ivan Ivanovitch' was known to be false. By the intervention of a high official, however, the order was countermanded, and you were allowed to pa.s.s."

"What has become of Prascovie's father?" I asked in astonishment.

"Surely he was not Kobita's murderer, for the man died of heart disease."

"You are mistaken. He died of Obeah poison. Souvaroff, who was once a consul in Hayti, knew of the secret poison which the natives extract from the gecko lizard, and which cannot be detected. So deadly is it, that one drop is sufficient to produce a fatal result, and the manner in which he administered it was somewhat novel. He prepared to receive his enemy by allowing the nail of the forefinger of his right hand to grow long, afterwards thinning it to a point as fine as a needle. Upon this point he placed the poison, and kept a glove on until Kobita's arrival.

Then, in wishing him adieu, he p.r.i.c.ked the skin of his victim while shaking hands with him, producing an effect similar to syncope."

"Where is Souvaroff now?"

"Dead. He returned to Petersburg as soon as his daughter had left with you, but was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in the Fortress. While there, he wrote a confession of the murder, and afterwards committed suicide."

"And will they arrest Prascovie?"

"No. She lives in another province to that in which she was imprisoned.

No one there knows that she is an escaped convict, and as the Prince was once attached to this Emba.s.sy, we are not likely to divulge."

He chaffed me a little, laughed heartily in his good-natured way, and soon afterwards we rejoined the guests.

I have heard nothing since of my unconventional travelling companion. A short time ago, however, I received an anonymous present of furs, and I shrewdly suspect whence it came. The Prince's ring, which is the admiration and envy of many of my friends, still glitters on my finger, and I regard it as a souvenir of the most happy and romantic journey of my life.

CHAPTER FIVE.

SANTINA.

"From the Contessa, signore."

A tall liveried servant handed me a coroneted missive, and, bowing stiffly, withdrew. Taking the letter mechanically, I sat puffing at my cigarette and dreaming.

The sultry day was over, and the full moon was shining down clear and cool. Genoa had drawn breath again; its streets and piazzas had grown alive with the stir of manifold movement; the broad Via Roma, with its fine shops and garish _cafes_, echoed with increasing confusion of voices and jest and laughter and song; while the flower-sellers were everywhere, and the newsboys in strident tones cried the _Secolo_ and the _Gazzetta_. My small and rather shabby room was on the top floor of a great old palazzo in the Via Balbi. The jalousies, wide-open, admitted little gusts of fresh air that blew up from the sea, while the ceaseless babel of tongues, the clip-clap of horses' hoofs, and the indescribable odour of garlic, fried oil, and the cheap cigars characteristic of an Italian street, was borne in upon me.

Two candles in the sconces of a small Venetian mirror shed their light over the pedestal, upon which was a statue almost finished. It was a representation of a lovely woman in carnival dress, that I had chiselled in marble.