The International Spy Part 20

"Colonel Menken killed!" I could not forbear exclaiming.

"Yes. Did you not hear of it? A j.a.panese spy succeeded in a.s.sa.s.sinating him, and stealing the despatch, just before Mukden. A lady-in-waiting attached to the Dowager Czaritza happened to be on the train, and brought me the whole story."

I shook my head gravely.

"I fear your majesty has been misinformed. Colonel Menken committed suicide. I saw him put the pistol to his head and shoot himself. His last words were a message to your majesty."

The Czar raised his hand to his head with a despairing gesture.

"Will these contradictions never end!" he exclaimed. "Really, sir, I hope you have made a mistake. Whom _can_ I trust!"

I drew myself up.

"I have no desire to press my version on you, sire," I said coldly.

"It is sufficient that the Colonel was robbed, and that he is dead.

Perhaps Princess Y---- has also given you an account of my own adventures?"

Nicholas II. looked at me distrustfully.

"Let us leave the name of the Princess on one side," he said in a tone of rebuke. "I have every reason to feel satisfied with her loyalty and zeal."

I bowed, and remained silent.

"You failed to get through, I suppose," the Czar continued, after waiting in vain for me to speak.

"I beg pardon, sire, I safely delivered to the Emperor of j.a.pan your majesty's autograph on the cigarette paper. I was robbed of the more formal letter in the house of M. Petrovitch, before starting."

Nicholas frowned.

"Petrovitch again! Another of the few men whom I know to be my real friends." He fidgeted impatiently.

"Well, what did the Mikado say?"

I had intended to soften the reply of the j.a.panese Emperor, but now, being irritated, I gave it bluntly:

"His majesty professed to disbelieve in your power to control your people. He declared that he could not treat a letter from you seriously unless you were able to send it openly, without your messengers being robbed or murdered on the way across your own dominions."

The young Emperor flushed darkly.

"Insolent barbarian!" he cried hotly. "The next letter I send him shall be delivered by the commander of my army on the soil of j.a.pan."

I was secretly pleased by this flash of spirit, which raised my respect for the Russian monarch.

A recollection seemed to strike him.

"I hear that you were blown up in attempting to bring some coal into Port Arthur," he said in a more friendly tone. "I thank you, Monsieur V----."

I bowed low.

"Some of my admirals seem to have been caught napping," Nicholas II.

added. "I have here a very serious report about Admiral Stark at Vladivostok."

"You surprise me, sire," I observed incautiously. "Out in Manchuria I heard the Admiral praised on all hands for his carefulness and good conduct."

"Carefulness! It is possible to be too careful," the Czar complained.

"Admiral Stark is too much afraid of responsibility. We have information that the English are taking all kinds of contraband into the j.a.panese ports, and he does nothing to stop them, for fear of committing some breach of international law."

I began to see what was coming. The Emperor, who seemed anxious to justify himself, proceeded:

"The rights of neutrals have never been regarded by the British navy, when they were at war. However, I have not been satisfied with taking the opinion of our own jurists. I have here an opinion from Professor Heldenberg of Berlin, who of course represents a neutral Power, and he says distinctly that we are ent.i.tled to declare anything we please contraband, and to seize English ships--I mean, ships of neutrals--anywhere, even in the English Channel itself, and sink them if it is inconvenient to bring them into a Russian port."

The insidious character of this advice was so glaring that I wondered how the unfortunate young monarch could be deceived by it.

But I saw that comment would be useless just then. I must seek some other means of opening his eyes to the pitfalls which were being prepared for him.

I came from the Palace with a heavy heart. The next day, Petersburg was startled by the publication of a ukase recalling Vice-Admiral Stark and Rear-Admiral Molas, his second in command, from the Pacific.

Immediately on hearing this news I sent a telegram in cipher to Lord Bedale. For obvious reasons I never take copies of my secret correspondence, but to the best of my recollection the wire ran as follows:

Germany instigating Russian Navy to raid your shipping on the pretext of contraband. Object to provoke reprisals leading to war.

As the reader is aware, this warning succeeded in defeating the Kaiser's main design, the British Government steadily refusing to be provoked.

Unfortunately this att.i.tude of theirs played into German hands in another way, as English shippers were practically obliged to refuse goods for the Far East, and this important and lucrative trade pa.s.sed to Hamburg, to the serious injury of the British ports.

But before this development had been reached, I found myself on the track of a far more deadly and dangerous intrigue, one which is destined to live in history as the most audacious plot ever devised by one great Power against another with which it proposed to be on terms of perfect friendship.

CHAPTER XVI

A STRANGE CONFESSION

I had last seen the strange, beautiful, wicked woman known as the Princess Y---- bending in a pa.s.sion of hysterical remorse over the body of the man she had driven to death, on the snow-clad train outside Mukden.

I have had some experience of women, and especially of the cla.s.s which mixes in the secret politics of the European Courts. But Sophia Y---- was an enigma to me. There was nothing about her which suggested the adventuress. And there was much which tended to support the story which had won the belief of her august mistress--that she was an involuntary agent, who had been victimized by an unscrupulous minister of police, by means of a false charge, and who genuinely loathed the tasks she was too feeble to refuse.

I had not been back in Petersburg very long when one afternoon the hotel waiter came to tell me that a lady desired to see me privately.

The lady, he added, declined to give her name, but declared that she was well known to me.

I had come back to the hotel, I should mention, in the character of Mr. Sterling, the self-appointed agent of the fraternity of British peace-makers. It was necessary for me to have some excuse for residing in Petersburg during the war, and under this convenient shelter I could from time to time prepare more effectual disguises.

I was not altogether surprised when my mysterious visitor raised her veil and disclosed the features of the Princess herself.

But I was both surprised and shocked by the frightened, grief-stricken look on the face of this woman whom I had come to dread as my most formidable opponent in the Russian Court.