The International Spy Part 22

"I do not doubt that you mean it genuinely," I hastened to respond.

"There is, of course, the possibility that you yourself have been deceived."

"Ah!"

She looked up at me in what I could not think was other than real surprise.

"You think so?" she cried eagerly. The next moment her head drooped again. "No, no. I have known them too long. They have never trifled with me before. Believe me, Monsieur, when they told me that you were to be murdered they were not joking with me."

"But they might have meant to use you for the purpose of terrifying me."

She stared at me in unaffected astonishment.

"Terrify--_you_!" She p.r.o.nounced the words with an emphasis not altogether unflattering. "You are better known in Russia than you imagine, M. V----."

I pa.s.sed over the remark.

"Still they must have foreseen the possibility that you would shrink from such a task; that your womanly instincts would prove too much for you. At least they have never required such work of you before?"

Against my will the last words became a question. I was anxious to be a.s.sured that the hands of the Princess were free from the stain of blood.

"Never! They dared not! They _could_ not!" she cried indignantly.

"You do not know my history. Perhaps you do not care to know it?"

Whatever I knew or suspected, I could make only one answer to such an appeal. Indeed, I was desirous to understand the meaning of one word which the Princess Y---- had just used.

"Listen," she said, speaking with an energy and dignity which I could not but respect, "while I tell you what I am. I am a condemned murderess!"

"Impossible!"

"Impossible in any other country, I grant you, but very possible in Russia. You have heard, I suppose, everybody has heard, of the deaths of my husband and his children. The first two deaths were natural, I swear it. I, at all events, had no more to do with them than if they had occurred in the planet Saturn. Prince Y---- committed suicide.

And he did so because of me; I do not deny it. But it was not because he suspected me of any hand in the deaths of his children. It was because he knew I hated him!

"The story is almost too terrible to be told. That old man had bought me. He bought me from my father, who was head over ears in debt, and on the brink of ruin. I was sold--the only portion of his property that remained to be sold. And from the first hour of the purchase I hated, oh, how I loathed and hated that old man!"

There was a wild note in her voice that hinted at unutterable things.

"And he," she continued with a shiver, "he loved me, loved me with a pa.s.sion that was like madness. He could hardly bear me out of his sight.

"I killed him, yes, morally, I have no doubt I killed him. He lavished everything on me, jewels, wealth, all the forms of luxury.

He made a will leaving me the whole of his great fortune. But I could not endure him, and that killed him. I think," she hesitated and lowered her voice to a whisper, "I think he killed himself to please me."

Hardened as I am, I felt a thrill of horror. The Princess was right; the story was too terrible to be told.

"Then the police came on the scene. From the first they knew well enough that I was innocent. But they were determined to make me guilty. The head of the secret service at that time was Baron Kratz.

He had had his eye on me for some time. The Czar, believing in my guilt, had ordered him not to spare me, and that fatal order gave him a free hand.

"How he managed it all, I hardly know. The servants were bullied or bribed into giving false evidence against me. But one part of their evidence was true enough; even I could not deny that I had hated Prince Y----, and that his death came as a welcome relief.

"There was a secret trial, and I was condemned. They read out my sentence. And then, when it was all over, Kratz came to me, and offered me life and liberty in return for my services as an agent of the Third Section."

"And to save your life you consented. Well, I do not judge you," I said.

The Princess glanced at me with a strange smile.

"To save my life! I see you do not yet know our Holy Russia. Shall I tell you what my sentence was?"

"Was it not death, then?"

"Yes, death--by the knout!"

"My G.o.d!"

I gazed at her stupified. Her whole beauty seemed to be focussed in one pa.s.sionate protest. Knouted to death! I saw the form before me stripped, and lashed to the triangles, while the knotted thong, wielded by the hangman's hands, buried itself in the soft flesh.

I no longer disbelieved. I no longer even doubted. The very horror of the story had the strength of truth.

For some time neither of us spoke.

"But now, surely, you have made up your mind to break lose from this thraldom?" I demanded. "And, if so, and you will trust me, I will undertake to save you."

"You forget, do you not, that you yourself are not free? You surely do not mean that you would lay aside your work for my sake?"

It was a question which disconcerted me in more ways than one. In a secret service agent, suspicion becomes second nature. I caught myself asking whether all that had gone before was not merely intended to lead up to this one question, and I cursed myself for the doubt.

"My duty to my present employer comes first, of course," I admitted.

"But as soon as I am free again----"

"If you are still alive," she put in significantly.

"Ah! You mean?"

"I mean that when they find out that I am not to be depended on, they will not have far to look for others."

"It is strange that they should have chosen you in the first place,"

I said thoughtfully. "You said they _could_ not ask you."

"They did not offer me this mission. I volunteered."

"You volunteered!"

She shook herself impatiently.

"Surely you understand? I heard them deciding on your death. And so I undertook the task."

"Because?"

"Because I wished to save you. I had great difficulty. At first they were inclined to refuse me--to suspect my motives. I had to convince them that I hated you for having outwitted me. And I persuaded them that none of their ordinary instruments were capable of dealing with you."