monsieur," said the Tsarevitch, "you are here for the purpose of giving me an explanation, how some miscreants succeeded in keeping the heir to the Russian throne under lock and key for fourteen days, before your minions managed to discover my whereabouts and forced them to let me go free?"
"Your Imperial Highness," replied the old official, "is justly wrathful at what must seem to you our unpardonable negligence, but –– "
"You must have known I had mysteriously disappeared the night of the opera ball."
"Count Lavrovski only thought fit to inform His Majesty that your Imperial Highness was confined to your room with a slight indisposition."
"And –– ?"
"And it was not till four days ago that he arrived at Petersburg bearing the terrible news."
"You were told, of course, at once to set all your staff at work?"
"I was given no orders, your Imperial Highness; and no one, not even I, knows what passed between His Majesty and Count Lavrovski; nor was I officially informed of your Imperial Highness' terrible predicament. The day before yesterday I was ordered to take two of my chief officers with me, and with Stepán, your Imperial Highness' valet, to proceed at once to Vienna, and stay at this hotel under some assumed names, always ready to receive your Imperial Highness whenever you arrived."
"This all seems very mysterious; I cannot understand it. Are you, then, not to attempt to trace the daring abductors of my person?"
"We are only, it seems, to thank Heaven that your Imperial Highness has been once more providentially restored to us. That is all the information I have–officially."
"And privately?"
"Oh! mere conjectures."
"I must hear them."
"I will give them to your Imperial Highness for what they are worth. But it is not often that my long experience as chief of his Majesty's police leads my instinct on a wrong track. Before I started for Vienna, I had in my hand his Majesty's letter, granting a free pardon to the gang of Nihilists, headed by one named Dunajewski, who were waiting condemnation for their last attempt against the very life of our august monarch. The letter was accompanied with a free pass for all of them across the frontier, signed by his Majesty's own hand, and to which I was ordered to affix the official seal."
"And these Nihilists?"
"Were set free that very evening, and under safe escort crossed the frontier in the early hours of last night, when they were handed their passports, and left to go whither they chose."
"Even now I do not quite understand."
"An official telegram was sent from Russia announcing this unparalleled liberation of Nihilist convicts to every Viennese paper, who have published the news this morning."
And the Russian chief of police took from his pocket a copy of theFremdenblatt and one or two other papers, and handed them over to the Tsarevitch.
"Then you think that I was taken as hostage?"
The Russian nodded.
"This is mere supposition on my part," he said.
"The right one, I feel sure, and my liberty was to be the price of that of these ruffians."
"That is why, no doubt, your Imperial Highness, the eyes and hands of the Russian police remained tied –– " Then he added between his teeth, "For the present."
"And Lavrovski?"
The old Russian shrugged his shoulders.
"I will not have a hair of old Lavrovski's head touched," said the Tsarevitch impetuously; "he did enough to prevent my running after this mad adventure. He could do no more."
"He should have communicated with us at once," said the chief of the police resentfully; "we might have caught the villains."
"And probably found me a dead man; no, no, my good Krapotkine, he acted for the best; he believed I had gone on a young man's escapade, and wished to save my reputation. Lavrovski is not to blame."
"No doubt your Imperial Highness has every influence to avert the disgrace from Count Lavrovski's head. In the meanwhile I and my men are ready to escort your Imperial Highness back to Petersburg."
"Like a schoolboy who has been playing truant. Well! I shall be glad to leave this city, with its unpleasant associations. We will start homewards to-night." And Nicholas Alexandrovitch, tired and enervated, dismissed the chief of the police with a smile and a bow.
It had been a curious adventure, and he wondered if he would ever hear the true version of it, or if those who had so daringly planned it would ever come under the far-reaching clutches of the police.
That this was extremely unlikely both he himself and the astute Krapotkine were fully aware when, during the rapid journey back to Petersburg, they discussed the possibility of bringing the miscreants to justice.
The Tsarevitch himself had never as much as set eyes yet on any of his abductors; the only one he had ever seen throughout his captivity had been Maria Stefanowna, of whose face he caught but a mere glimpse in thefiaker that eventful night, when she was disguised as the odalisque, and the two or three moujiks, purported to be deaf-mute, who had been his servants and guardians in his imprisonment. That, through a description of them made by the Tsarevitch, some faint clue might be obtained was just possible; but Krapotkine well knew that the chances of tracing a man by mere verbal description are excessively remote. As for the house, or even the locality where so exalted a prisoner had lived and breathed for over two weeks, there was no hope of ever arriving at a conclusion as to its whereabouts. The Tsarevitch was a complete stranger in the city, and could not even have told in which direction it lay. The outside of the house he had never seen, nor anything in it, save the two rooms he had inhabited.
The chief of the police bit his moustache in impotent fury, when he realised how magnificently the whole plot had been carried through, and how, in all probability, the daring conspirators would also escape after the great victory they had gained, in the liberation of Dunajewski and his brother Nihilists.
The same night on which their prisoner was once more restored to liberty, at about the same hour, the members of the brotherhood sat once more together in committee, smoking and chatting gaily. The president, who seemed quite restored to his former urbane self, was talking of Maria Stefanowna, whom he regarded as the saviour of them all. All the older men looked up to her as one who had prevented lifelong remorse from haunting the rest of their lives; and the younger ones as the prophetess of their Utopia, who would lead them to victory through her wise counsels and daring deeds.
There was eager expectancy on all the faces round, and many were the glances that stole towards the clock that seemed to be ticking in a provokingly slow way.
Ah! at last! there was the sound of footsteps outside, and soon the door was opened, and four of the comrades, including Mirkovitch, came in. They were greeted with a unanimous cry of inquiry, "Well?"
"Well!" said Mirkovitch, "the last chapter of our sensational novel is closed. Dunajewski and our comrades are by now on their way to England, and Nicholas Alexandrovitch is discussing with Krapotkine the possibility of bringing us all into the clutches of the Third Section."
Derisive
