Readers of that prince of romancers, Poe, will recollect a celebrated story in which he describes the device employed by a man of uncommon shrewdness to conceal a stolen letter from the perquisitions of the police, and the elaborate argument by which the writer proves that the highest art of concealment is to thrust the object to be hidden under the very nose of the searcher.

But that argument is one of the many mystifications in which the weird genius of Poe delighted. It is easy to see, in short, that the theory was invented to suit the story, and not the story to suit the theory. I now had before me the practical problem of concealing a document of surpassing importance, from enemies who were already on my scent, and keeping it concealed during a journey of some thousands of miles.

The ordinary hiding-places of valuable papers, such as the lining of clothes, or a false bottom to a trunk, I dismissed without serious consideration. My luggage would probably be stolen, and I might be drugged long before I reached Dalny.

The problem was all the more difficult for me because I have generally made it a rule to avoid charging myself with written instructions. I am sufficiently well known by reputation to most European sovereigns to be able to dispense with ordinary credentials. But in approaching the Mikado of Japan, a ruler to whom I was personally unknown, it was clearly necessary for me to have something in writing from the Russian Emperor.

All at once an idea flashed on my mind, so simple, and yet so incapable of detection (as it seemed to me), that I almost smiled in the face of the man who was dogging my steps along the street, no doubt under instructions from the War Syndicate.

That afternoon I was closeted with the Emperor of All the Russias in his private cabinet for nearly an hour.

It is not my habit to repeat details of private conversations, when they are not required to illustrate the progress of public events, and therefore I will say merely that the Czar was evidently in earnest in his desire to avoid war, but greatly hampered and bewildered by the difficult representations made to him by, or on behalf of, those to whose interests war was essential.

It was melancholy to see the destinies of half Europe and Asia, and the lives of scores of thousands of brave men, hanging on the will of an irresolute young man, depressed by the consciousness of his own infirmity, and desperately seeking for some stronger mind on which to lean. Had I not been placed by my Polish sentiment in a position of antagonism to the Czardom, perhaps – but it is useless to indulge in these reflections.

One thing in the course of the interview struck me as having great significance for the future. I found that his majesty, who had entertained at one time a strong dislike of the German Emperor, a dislike not untinged with jealousy, had now completely altered his opinion. He spoke to me of Wilhelm II. in terms of highest praise, declared that he was under the greatest obligations to him for useful warnings and advice, said that he believed he had no truer or more zealous friend.

When I drove to the house of M. Petrovitch that evening I carried, carefully sewn between the inner and outer folds of my well-starched shirt-front, where no sound of crackling would excite remark, a sheet of thin note-paper covered in a very small handwriting with the text of the Czar’s letter to the ruler of Japan.

M. Petrovitch was not alone. Around his hospitable board he had gathered some of the highest and proudest personages of the Russian Court, including the Grand Duke Staniolanus, generally believed to be the heart and soul of the War Party. His imperial highness was well-known to be a desperate gambler, up to the neck in debts contracted at the card-table, and bent on recouping himself out of the wealth of Korea and Manchuria.

I was duly presented to this royal personage (whom I had met once before under widely different circumstances) in the character of a Peace Crusader, an emissary of the philanthropists of Great Britain.

At the dinner-table, where I found myself placed on my host’s left hand, while the Grand Duke was on his right, the conversation continued to be in the same strain. That Petrovitch believed me to be an English peace fanatic I did not believe any longer, but I could not tell if any, or how many, of the others were in his confidence.

As soon as the solid part of the feast was disposed of, Petrovitch rose to his feet, and after a bow to the Grand Duke, launched out into a formal speech proposing my health.

He commenced with the usual professions in favor of peace, spoke of the desire felt by all Russians to preserve the friendship of England, eulogized the work done by my friend the editor, and by other less disinterested friends of Russia in London, and wound up by asking all the company to give me a cordial welcome, and to send a message of congratulation and good-will to the British public.

Knowing as I did, that the man was a consummate rogue, who had probably invited me to his house in order to keep me under observation, and possibly to prevent my getting scent of the intrigues pursued by his friend and ally, Princess Y – , I was still at a loss to understand the reason for this performance.

I have learned since that an account of the proceedings, with abstracts from this hypocritical speech, was telegraphed to England, and actually found its way into some of the newspapers under the heading, “Peace Demonstration in St. Petersburg: No Russian Wants War.”

There was one of the guests, however, who made no pretense of listening with pleasure to the smooth speech of M. Petrovitch. This was a dark young man of about thirty, in a naval uniform. He sat scowling while his host spoke, and barely lifted his glass from the table at the conclusion.

A minute or two later I took an opportunity to ask the promoter the name of this ungracious officer.

“That?” my host exclaimed, looking ’round the table, “Oh, that is Captain Vassileffsky, one of our most distinguished sailors. He is a naval aide-de-camp to the Czar.”

I made a note of his name and face, being warned by a presentiment which I could not resist that I should come across him again.

The champagne now began to flow freely, and as it flowed the tongues of many of the company were unloosed by degrees. From the subject of peace the conversation passed rapidly to the possibilities of war, and the Japanese were spoken of in a way that plainly showed me how little those present understood the resolution and resources of the Island Empire.

“The Japanese dare not fire the first shot and, since we will not, there will be no war,” declared my left-hand neighbor.

“The war will be fought in Japan, not in Manchuria,” affirmed the Grand Duke with a condescending air. “It will be a case of the Boers over again. They may give us some trouble, but we shall annex their country.”

M. Petrovitch gave me a glance of alarm.

“Russia does not wish to add to her territory,” he put in; “but we may find it necessary to leave a few troops in Tokio to maintain order, while we pursue our civilizing mission.”

I need not recount the other remarks, equally arrogant.

Abstemious by habit, I had a particular reason for refraining from taking much wine on this night. It was already past nine o’clock, the train for Moscow, which connected there with the Siberian express, started at midnight, and I had to be at the police bureau by eleven at the latest to make the changes necessary for my disguise.

I therefore allowed my glass to remain full, merely touching it with my lips occasionally when my host pressed me to drink. M. Petrovitch did not openly notice my abstinence, but presently I heard him give an order to the butler who waited behind his chair.

The butler turned to the sideboard for a moment, and then came forward bearing a silver tray on which stood a flagon of cut-glass and silver with a number of exquisite little silver cups like egg-shells.

“You will not refuse to taste our Russian national beverage, Mr. Sterling,” the head of the War Syndicate said persuasively, as the butler began filling the tiny cups.

It was a challenge which I could not refuse without rudeness, though it struck me as rather out of place that the vodka should be offered to me before to the imperial guest on my host’s right.

The butler filled two cups, M. Petrovitch taking the second from the tray as I lifted the first to my lips.

“You know our custom,” the financier exclaimed smilingly. “No heeltaps!”

He lifted his own cup with a brave air, and I tossed off the contents of my own without stopping.

As the fiery liquor ran down my throat I was conscious of something in its taste which was unlike the flavor of any vodka I had ever drunk before. But this circumstance aroused no suspicion in my mind. I confess that it never occurred to me that any one could be daring enough to employ so crude and dangerous a device as a drugged draft at a quasi-public banquet, given to an English peace emissary, with a member of the imperial family sitting at the board.

I was undeceived the next moment. Petrovitch, as soon as he saw that my cup had been emptied, sat down his own untasted, and, with a well-acted movement of surprise and regret, turned to the Grand Duke.

“I implore your pardon, sir. I did not ask if you would not honor me by taking the first cup!”

The Grand Duke, whom I readily acquitted of any share in the other’s design, shrugged his shoulders with an indifferent air.

“If you wish your friends to drink vodka, you should not put champagne like this before us,” he said laughing.

Petrovitch said something in reply; he turned and scolded the butler as well, I fancy. But my brain was becoming confused. I had just sufficient command of my faculties left to feign ignorance of the true situation.

“I am feeling a little faint. That pâté” – I contrived to murmur.

And then I heard Captain Vassileffsky cry out in an alarm that was unmistakably genuine – “Look out for the Englishman! He is swooning” – and I knew no more.

CHAPTER VI
DRUGGED AND KIDNAPPED

My first thought, as my senses began to come back to me, was of the train which was due to leave Petersburg for Moscow at midnight.

I clutched at my watch, and drew it forth. The hands marked the time as 9.25. Apparently I had not been unconscious for more than a few seconds.

My second glance assured me that my clothes were not disarranged. My shirt-front, concealing the Czar’s autograph letter, was exactly as when I sat down to the table.

Only after satisfying myself on these two points did I begin to take in the rest of my surroundings.

I was resting on a couch against the wall in the room where we had dined. My host, the head of the Manchuria Syndicate, was standing beside me, watching my recovery with a friendly and relieved expression, as though honestly glad to see me myself again. A servant, holding in his hand a bottle which appeared to contain sal volatile, was looking on from the foot of the bed, in an attitude of sympathetic attention. The other guests had left the room, and the state of the table, covered with half-filled glasses and hastily thrown down napkins, made it evident that they had cleared out of the way to give me a chance to come to.

The cold air blowing over my forehead told me that a window had been opened. A Russian January is not favorable to much ventilation. As a rule the houses of the well-to-do are provided with double windows, which are kept hermetically sealed while the rooms are in use. The fact that the dining-room was still warm was sufficient proof that the window could not have been opened for more than the briefest time.

It was a singular thing that, in spite of these assurances that my swoon had been an affair of moments only, I was seized by an overmastering desire to get away from the house immediately.

I heard M. Petrovitch exclaim —

“Thank Heaven – you are better! I began to be afraid that your seizure was going to last. I must go and reassure my guests. The Grand Duke will be delighted to hear your are recovering. He was most distressed at the attack.”

I sat upright with an effort, and staggered to my feet.

“I am ashamed to have given you so much trouble,” I said. “I can’t remember ever fainting like this before. Please make my excuses to his imperial highness and the rest of the company.”

“But what are you doing?” cried M. Petrovitch in dismay. “You must not attempt to move yet.”

“I shall be better in bed,” I answered in a voice which I purposely strove to render as faint as possible. “If you will excuse me, I will go straight to my hotel.”

The promoter’s brow wrinkled. I saw that he was trying to devise some pretext to detain me, and my anxiety to find myself clear of his house redoubled.

“If you will do me a favor, I should be glad if you would let one of your servants come with me as far as the hotel,” I said. “I am feeling rather giddy and weak.”

The secret chief of the War Party caught eagerly at the suggestion. It was no doubt exactly what he desired.

“Mishka,” he said, turning to the servant, and speaking in Russian, “this gentleman asks you to accompany him to his hotel, as he has not yet recovered. Take great care of him, and do not leave him until he is safe in his own bed.”

The man nodded, giving his master a look which said – I understand what you want me to do.

Thanks to this request on my part, M. Petrovitch raised no further objection to my departure. I stumbled out of the room, pretending to cling to the servant’s arm for support, and let him help me on with my furs, while the porter was summoning a sleigh.

There was a hurried consultation in low tones between my host and the porter. Rather to my surprise the carriage, when it appeared, was a closed one, being a species of brougham on runners instead of wheels. I allowed myself to be carried down the steps like a child, and placed inside; the door was closed, with the windows carefully drawn up, and the jailer – for such he was to all intents and purposes – got on the box.

The sleigh swept out of the courtyard and across the city. Directly it was in the street, I very softly lowered one of the windows and peered out. The streets seemed to me more deserted than usual at such an hour. I was idly wondering whether the imminence of war could account for this when I heard a church clock beginning to strike.

Once – twice – the chimes rang out. And then, as I was preparing to close the window, they went on a third time – a fourth!

I held my breath, and listened with straining ears, as the great notes boomed forth from the distant town across the silent streets and houses.

One – two – three – four – five – six – seven – eight – nine – ten – ELEVEN!

I understood at last. That drugged sleep had lasted an hour and a half, and before I came to myself my watch had been deliberately set back to the minute at which I lost consciousness, in order to prevent me from suspecting that I had been searched, or that there was anything wrong about the affair.

Had I taken time for reflection I should probably have made up my mind to lose the Moscow express. In order to lull the suspicions of the conspirators, by making them believe I was their dupe, I should have let myself be taken to the hotel and put to bed in accordance with the kind instructions of my late host. In that case, no doubt, my watch would have been secretly put right again while I was asleep.

But I could not bear the idea of all my carefully planned arrangements being upset. Above all things, I desired to keep up my prestige with the superintendent of police, Rostoy, who regarded me as an invincible being possessed of almost magical powers. At the moment when the clock was striking I ought to have been walking into his room in the bureau of the Third Section.

Grinding my teeth with vexation, I very gently opened the door of the carriage, which was traveling noiselessly over the snow, and slipped out.

I had taken care to ascertain that no onlooker was near. As soon as the sleigh was ’round the corner of the street I hailed a public conveyance and directed the driver to take me to the police office.

I was only five minutes late in keeping my appointment. Detecting a look of slight surprise on the face of the superintendent, I apologized for keeping him waiting.

“It is my habit to be punctual, even in trifling matters like this,” I remarked carelessly. “But the fact is I have been drugged and kidnapped since I saw you, and it took me five minutes to dispose of the rascals.”

Rostoy stared at me with stupid incredulity.

“You are joking, Monsieur V – , I suppose,” he muttered. “But, however, since you have arrived, there is your disguise. You will find everything in the pockets complete, including a handkerchief marked with the initials of the name you have chosen.”

“Monsieur Rostoy, you are an able man, with whom it is pleasure to do business,” I responded heartily.

The Russian swelled with pride at this compliment. I hastily changed clothes, shifting nothing from my discarded costume except a cigarette case which I had filled with the hotel cigarettes. My inquiry as to the Gregorides brand smoked by M. Petrovitch had not yet been answered.

“Surely you are not going to wear that linen shirt of yours right across Siberia!” exclaimed Rostoy, who never took his eyes off me.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“It is a whim of mine always to wear linen,” I responded. “I am not a rheumatic subject. And, besides, I have no time to lose.”

The superintendent threw a regretful look at the flannel shirt he had provided for me.

As soon as I had finished my preparations I handed a thick bundle of ruble notes to the superintendent.

“As much more when I come back safe,” was all I said.

Rostoy snatched at his pay, his eyes sparkling with greed.

“Good-by and a good journey!” he cried as I strode out.

Once in the street, I had no difficulty in finding a sleigh, this time an open one, to convey me to the railway station. I glanced at my watch, which I had set by the church clock, and calculated that I should have a few minutes to spare.

But I had not allowed for Russian ideas as to time. As the sleigh drew up at the great terminus, and I came in view of the station clock, I saw that it was on the stroke of midnight.

Flinging the driver his fare I rushed toward the barrier.

“Moscow!” I shouted to the railway official in charge.

“The train has just left,” was the crushing reply.

CHAPTER VII
THE RACE FOR SIBERIA

The unnatural strain I had put on my strength, undermined as it had been by the drugged vodka, gave way under this depressing failure, and for an instant I seriously thought of abandoning my effort to catch the Czar’s messenger.

I could leave Colonel Menken to pursue his journey, taking care of himself as best he could, while I followed by a later train. But I had little thought of that, as to adopt such a course would be to abandon the gallant officer to his fate. Whatever the War Syndicate might or might not know or suspect about myself, there could be no doubt that they knew all there was to know about Menken, and that the Colonel would never be allowed to reach Dalny with his despatch, alive.

“Show me the passenger list,” I demanded sternly, determined to use to the full the advantages conferred on me by my uniform.

The station inspector hastened to obey. He took me into the booking office, opened a volume, and there I read the name and destination of every passenger who had left for Moscow that night. It is by such precautions that the Russian police are enabled to control the Russian nation as the warders control the convicts in an English prison.

At the very head of the list I read the name of Colonel Menken, passenger to Dalny, on his imperial majesty’s service.

It was incredible folly thus publicly to proclaim himself as an object of suspicion to the powerful clique engaged in thwarting the policy of their nominal ruler.

I glanced my eye down the list in search of some name likely to be that of an emissary of the Syndicate. It was with something like a shock that I came upon the conspicuous entry —

“The Princess Y – , lady-in-waiting to H. I. M. the Dowager Empress, passenger to Port Arthur, on a visit to her uncle, commanding one of the forts.”

Stamping my foot angrily, in order to impress the railway official, I said —

“Order a pilot engine immediately to take me to Moscow. Tell the driver he is to overtake the express, and enter the Moscow station behind it.”

There was some demur, of course, and some delay. But I wore the livery of the dreaded Third Section, and my words were more powerful than if I had been the young man who wears the Russian crown.

By dint of curses, threats, blows and an occasional ruble note, I got my way. Indeed, I managed things so well that the railway officials did not even ask me for my name. I showed them my official badge; but when they made their report in the morning they would only be able to say that an inspector of the Secret Police had ordered a pilot engine to take him to Moscow in pursuit of the midnight express.

The impression which I was careful to convey, without putting it into words, was that I was on the track of an absconding Nihilist.

Within half an hour of my arrival at the terminus a light but powerful locomotive drew up on the main line of rails, with everything in readiness for an immediate start.

I leaped into the driver’s cab, where I found the driver himself and two stokers hard at work increasing the head of steam, and gave the order to go.

The driver touched the tap, the whistle rang out once, and the wheels began to revolve. Ten seconds later we were beyond the station lights and facing the four hundred miles of frozen plain that lay between us and Moscow.

Every one has heard the story of this famous piece of road. The engineers of the line, accustomed to map out their routes in other countries with reference to the natural obstacles and the convenience of commerce, waited upon the great autocrat, Nicholas I., a very different man from his descendant, and asked him for instructions as to laying out the first railway in the Russian Empire.

The Czar called for a map of his dominions, and then, taking a ruler in his hand, drew a straight line between the old and new capitals.

And so the line has been made, a symbol to all who travel on it of the irresponsible might of the Russian Czardom.

It was not till we were fairly on our way, and the speed had risen to something like fifty miles an hour, that I realized what I had done in entering on this furious race.

I had never traveled on a detached engine before, and the sensation at first was quite unnerving.

Unlike a motor car, in which the hand of the driver has to be perpetually on the steering-gear, and his eye perpetually on the alert, the pilot engine seemed to be flung forward like a missile, guided by its own velocity, and clinging to the endless rails with its wheels as with iron claws. With the rush as of wind, with the roar as of a cataract, with the rocking as of an earthquake, the throbbing thing of iron sprang and fled through the night.

Hour after hour we rushed across the blinding desert of snow, in which nothing showed except the flying disk of light cast by the engine lamps, and the red and white balls of fire that seemed to start, alight, and go out again as we frantically dashed past some wayside station.

As the speed increased the light pilot engine, not steadied by a long train of coaches, almost rose from the rails as it raced along. Over and over again I thanked my stars that there were no curves to be taken, and I blessed the memory of that famous ruler wielded by the hand of Nicholas I. Here and there, at some slight rise in the ground, the engine literally did leave the rails and skim through the air for a few yards, alighting with a jar that brought my teeth together like castanets, and rushing forward again.

I clung to a small brass hand-rail, and strained my eyes through the darkness. I could not have sat down, even had there been a seat provided for me – the pace was too tremendous. I was tired and unwell, and a slight feeling of headache and sickness began to gain on me, engendered by the vibration of the engine, the smell of oil, and the fearful heat of the furnace.

It was some hours since we had started, but it was still pitch dark, with the wintry blackness of a northern night. I leaned and gazed forward with dull eyes, when I was aware of two red sparks that did not grow and rush toward us as I expected.

Were we slackening speed by any chance? I turned to the engine driver, and pointed with my hand.

The grimy toiler nodded. Then making a trumpet of his hands he shouted above the rattle of the wheels —

“The rear-lights of the express!”