The Price of Power Part 18

"I shall ascend the steps, knock, and ask for Danilovitch," the great detective said. "The probability is that the door will be unceremoniously slammed in my face. But you will be behind me. I shall place my foot in the door to prevent premature closing, and at first sign of resistance you, being behind me, will help me to force the door, and so enter. At word from me don't hesitate--use all your might. I intend to give whoever lives there a sudden and sharp surprise."

"But if they are refugees, they are desperate. What then?"

"I expect they are," he laughed. "This is no doubt the hornets' nest.

Therefore it behoves us to be wary, and have our wits well about us.

You're not afraid, Mr Trewinnard?"

"Not at all," I said. "Where you dare go, there I will follow."

"Good. Let's make the attempt then," he said, and together we strolled leisurely back until we came to the flight of unclean front steps, whereupon both of us turned and, ascending, Hartwig gave a sharp postman's knock at the door.

An old, grey-whiskered, ill-dressed man, palpably a Polish Jew, opened the door, whereupon Hartwig asked in Russian:

"Is our leader Danilo Danilovitch here?"

The man looked from him to me inquiringly.

"Tell him that Ivan Arapoff, from Petersburg, wishes to speak with him."

"I do not know, Gospodin, whether he is at home," replied the man with politeness. "But I will see, if you will wait," and he attempted to close the door in our faces.

Hartwig, however, was prepared for such manoeuvre, for he had placed his foot in the door, so that it could not be closed. The Polish Jew was instantly on the alert and shouted some sharp word of warning, evidently a preconcerted signal, to those within, whereat Hartwig and myself made a sudden combined effort and next second were standing within the narrow evil-smelling little hall.

I saw the dark figures of several men and women against the stairs, and heard whispered words of alarm in Russian. But Hartwig lost no time, for he shouted boldly:

"I wish to see Danilo Danilovitch. Let him come forward. If he does not do so, then it is at his own peril."

"If you are police officers you cannot touch us here in England!"

shouted a young woman with dark, tousled hair, a revolutionist of the female-student type.

"We are here from Petersburg as friends, but you apparently treat us as enemies," said Hartwig.

"If you are traitors you will, neither of you, leave this house alive,"

cried a thick-set man, advancing towards me threateningly. "So you shall see Danilovitch--and he shall decide."

I heard somebody bolting the front door heavily to prevent our escape, while a voice from somewhere above, in the gloom of the stairs, shouted:

"Comrades, they are police-spies!"

A young, black-haired Jewess of a type seen everywhere in Poland, thin-featured and handsome, with a grey shawl over her shoulders, emerged from a door and peered into my face. There seemed fully fifteen persons in that dingy house, all instantly alarmed at our arrival. Here was, no doubt, the London centre of revolutionary activity directed against the Russian Imperial family and Danilo Danilovitch was in hiding there. It was fortunate, indeed, that the ever-vigilant Tack had succeeded in running him to earth.

I had told Hartwig of the allegation which Tack had made against Danilovitch, that, though in the service of the Secret Police, he had arranged certain attempts against members of the Imperial family, and how he had deliberately killed his sweetheart, Marie Garine. But Hartwig, being chief of the Surete, had no connection with the political department, and was, therefore, unaware of any agent of Secret Police known as Danilovitch.

"I remember quite well the case of Marie Garine," he added. "I thoroughly investigated it and found that she had, no doubt, been killed by her lover. But I put it down to jealousy, and as the culprit had left Russia I closed the inquiry."

"Then you could arrest him, even now," I said.

"Not without considerable delay. Besides, in Petersburg they are against applying for extradition in England. The newspapers always hint at the horrors of Siberia in store for the person arrested. And," he added, "I agree that it is quite useless to unnecessarily wound the susceptibilities of my own countrymen, the English." It was those words he had spoken as we had come along Blurton Road.

Our position at that moment was not a very pleasant one, surrounded as we were by a crowd of desperate refugees. If any one of them recognised Ivan Hartwig, then I knew full well that we should never leave the house alive. Men who were conspiring to kill His Majesty the Emperor would not hesitate to kill a police officer and an intruder in order to preserve their secret, "Where is my good friend Danilovitch?" demanded Hartwig, in Russian. "Why does he not come forward?"

"He has not been well, and is in bed," somebody replied. "He is coming in a moment. He lives on the top floor."

"Well, I'm in a hurry, comrades," exclaimed the great detective with a show of impatience. "Do not keep me waiting. I am bearer of a message to you all--an important message from our great and beloved Chief, the saviour of Russia, whose real ident.i.ty is a secret to all, but whom we know as `The One'!"

"The One!" echoed two of the men in Russian. "A message from him! What is it? Tell us," they cried eagerly.

"No. The message from our Chief is to our comrade Danilovitch. He will afterwards inform you," was Hartwig's response.

"Who is it there who wants me?" cried an impatient voice in Russian over the banisters.

"I have a message for Danilo Danilovitch," my friend shouted back.

"Then come upstairs," he replied. "Come--both of you."

And we followed a dark figure up to a back room on the second floor--a shabby bed and sitting-room combined.

He struck a match, lit the gas and pulled down the blind. Then as he faced us, a middle-aged man with deeply-furrowed countenance and hair tinged with grey, I at once recognised him--though he no longer wore the small black moustache--as the man I had met on Brighton Pier on the previous night.

"Well," he asked roughly in Russian, "what do you want with me?"

I was gratified that he had not recognised Ivan Hartwig. For a moment he looked inquiringly at me, and no doubt recognised me as the Grand d.u.c.h.ess's companion of the previous night.

His hair was unkempt, his neck was thick, and his unshaven face was broad and coa.r.s.e. He had the heavy features of a Russian of the lower cla.s.s, yet his prominent, cunning eyes and high, deeply-furrowed forehead betokened great intelligence. Though of the working-cla.s.s, yet in his eyes there burned a bright magnetic fire, and one could well imagine how by his inflammatory speeches he led that crowd of ignorant aliens into a belief that by killing His Imperial Majesty they could free Russia of the autocratic yoke. Those men and women, specimens of whom were living in that house at Clapton, never sought to aim at the root of the evil which had gripped the Empire, that brutal camarilla who ruled Russia, but in the madness of their blood-l.u.s.t and ignorance that they were being betrayed by their leader, and their lives made catspaws by the camarilla itself, they plotted and conspired, and were proud to believe themselves martyrs to what they foolishly termed The Cause!

The face of the traitor before us was full of craft and cunning, the countenance of a shrewd and clever man who, it struck me, was haunted hourly by the dread of betrayal and an ignominious end. Even though he might have been a shoemaker, yet from his perfect self-control, and the manner in which he greeted us, I saw that he was no ordinary man.

Indeed, few men could have done--would have dared to do--what he had done, if all Tack had related were true. His personal appearance, his unkempt hair, his limp collar and loosely-tied cravat of black and greasy silk, and his rough suit of shabby dark tweed, his whole ensemble, indeed, was that of the political agitator, the revolutionary firebrand.

"I am here, Danilo Danilovitch," Hartwig said at last very seriously, looking straight at him, "in order to speak to you quite frankly, to put to you several questions."

The man started, and I saw apprehension by the slight movement in the corners of his mouth.

"For what reason?" he snapped quickly. "I thought you were here with a message from our Chief in Russia?"

"I am here with a message, it is true," said the renowned chief of the Russian Surete. "You had, I think, better lock that door, and also make quite certain that n.o.body in this house overhears what I am about to say," he added very slowly and meaningly.

"Why?" inquired the other with some show of defiance.

"If you do not want these comrades of yours to know all your private business, it will be best to lock that door and take care that n.o.body is listening outside. If they are--well, it will be you, Danilo Danilovitch, who will suffer, not myself," said Hartwig very coolly, his eyes fixed upon the _agent-provocateur_. "I urge you to take precautions of secrecy," he added. "I urge you--for your own sake!"

"For my own sake!" cried the other. "What do you mean?"

Hartwig paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower voice, said:

"I mean this, Danilo Danilovitch. If a single word of what I am about to say is overheard by anyone in this house you will not go forth again alive. We have been threatened by your comrades down below. But upon you yourself will fall the punishment which is meted out by your comrades to all traitors--_death_!" The man's face changed in an instant. He stood open-mouthed, staring aghast at Hartwig, haggard-eyed and pale to the lips.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.