As soon as we were safe in my private room at the hotel, with a bottle of vodka and a box of cigars in front of us, I opened the discussion with my habitual directness.

“I need not tell you, M. Auguste, that I have not invited you here to discuss questions of psychology. I am a politician, and it matters nothing to me whether I am dealing with a ghost or a man, provided I can make myself understood.”

M. Auguste bowed.

“For instance, it is quite clear that the interesting revelations we have had to-night would not have been made without your good will. It is to be presumed, therefore, that if I can convince you that it is better to turn the Emperor’s mind in another direction, you will refuse to make yourself the medium of further communications of that precise character.”

M. Auguste gave me an intelligent glance.

“I am as you have just said, a medium,” he replied with significant emphasis. “As such, I need not tell you, I have no personal interest in the communications which are made through me.”

I nodded, and took out my pocket-book, from which I extracted a hundred ruble-note (about $75).

“I promised to show you something interesting,” I remarked, as I laid it on the table.

M. Auguste turned his head, and his lip curled slightly.

“I am afraid my sight is not very good,” he said negligently. “Is not that object rather small?”

“It is merely a specimen,” I responded, counting out nine others, and laying them beside the first.

“Ah, now I fancy I can see what you are showing me,” he admitted.

“There is a history attached to these notes,” I explained. “They represent the amount of a bet which I have just won.”

“Really! That is most interesting.”

“I now have another bet of similar nature pending, which I hope also to be able to win.”

“I am tempted to wish you success,” put in the medium encouragingly.

“The chances of success are so great that if you were a betting man I should be inclined to ask you to make a joint affair of it,” I said.

“My dear M. V – , I am not a bigot. I have no objection to a wager provided the stakes are made worth my while.”

“I think they should be. Well, I will tell you plainly, I stand to win this amount if the Baltic Fleet does not sail for another month.”

M. Auguste smiled pleasantly.

“I congratulate you,” he said. “From what I have heard the repairs will take at least that time.”

“But that is not all. This bet of mine is continuous. I win a similar stake for every month which passes without the fleet having left harbor.”

M. Auguste gazed at me steadily before speaking.

“If your bet were renewable weekly instead of monthly, you might become quite a rich man.”

I saw that I was dealing with a cormorant. I made a hasty mental calculation. Half of one thousand rubles was about $375 a week, and the information I had led me to believe that Port Arthur was capable of holding out for another six months at least. To delay the sailing of the Baltic Fleet till then would cost roughly $10,000 – say 15,000 rubles.

I decided that neither England nor Japan would grudge the price.

“I think your suggestion is a good one,” I answered M. Auguste. “In that case, should you be willing to share the bet?”

“I should be willing to undertake it entirely,” was the response.

The scoundrel wanted $20,000!

Had I been dealing with an honest man I should have let him have the money. But he had raised his terms so artfully that I felt sure that if I yielded this he would at once make some fresh demand.

I therefore shook my head, and began picking up the notes on the table.

“That would not suit me at all,” I said decidedly. “I do not wish to be left out altogether.”

M. Auguste watched me with growing uneasiness as I restored the notes one by one to my pocket-book.

“Look here!” he said abruptly, as the last note disappeared. “Tell me plainly what you expect me to do.”

“I expect you to have a communication from your friend Madame Blavatsky, or any other spirit you may prefer – Peter the Great would be most effective, I should think – every time the Baltic Fleet is ready to start, warning ‘Mr. Nicholas’ not to let it sail.”

M. Auguste appeared to turn this proposal over in his mind.

“And is that all?” he asked.

“I shall expect you to keep perfect secrecy about the arrangement. I have a friend at Potsdam, and I shall be pretty sure to hear if you try to give me away.”

“Potsdam!” M. Auguste seemed genuinely surprised, and even disconcerted.

“Do you mean to say that you didn’t know you were carrying out the instructions of Wilhelm II.?” I demanded, scarcely less surprised.

It was difficult to believe that the vexation showed by the medium was feigned.

“Of course! I see it now!” burst from him. “I wondered what she meant by all that stuff about Germany. And I – a Frenchman!”

It is extraordinary what unexpected scruples will display themselves in the most unprincipled knaves. Low as they may descend, there seems always to be some one point on which they are as sensitive as a Bayard.

M. Auguste, of all men in the world, was a French patriot! It turned out that he was a fanatical Nationalist and anti-Semite. He had howled in anti-Dreyfusite mobs, and flung stones at the windows of Masonic temples in Paris.

I was delighted with this discovery, which gave me a stronger hold on him than any bribe could.

But I had noted the feminine pronoun in his exclamation recorded above. I did not think it referred to the revealing spirit.

“You have been deceived by the woman who has given you your instructions,” I remarked to him, when his excitement had subsided a little. “I fancy I can guess her name.”

“Yes. It is the Princess Y – ,” he confessed.

Bewildering personality! Again, as I heard her name connected with an intrigue of the basest kind, a criminal conspiracy to influence the ruler of Russia by feigned revelations from the spirits of the dead, I recalled the sight I had last had of her, kneeling in her oratory, scourging herself before – my portrait!

There was no longer any fear that M. Auguste would prove obdurate on the question of terms. He pocketed his first five hundred rubles, and departed, vowing that the Baltic fleet should never get farther than Libau, if it was in the power of spirits to prevent it.

Desirous to relieve Lord Bedale’s mind as far as possible I despatched the following wire to him the next morning:

Sailing of Baltic Fleet postponed indefinitely. No danger for the present. Watch Germany.

I sent a fuller account of the situation to a son of Mr. Katahashi, who was in England, nominally attached to the staff of the Imperial Bank, but really on business of a confidential character which it would be indiscreet on my part to indicate.

I may say that I particularly cautioned the young Japanese to avoid any action calculated to give the least color to the German legends about warships being secretly manufactured in British yards to the order of the Mikado’s Government.

Every reader who has followed the course of the war with any attention will recollect the history of the fleet thus detained by my contrivance.

Week after week, and month after month, the Baltic Fleet was declared to be on the point of departure. Time after time the Czar went on board to review it in person, and speak words of encouragement to the officers and crew. And every time, after everything had been pronounced ready, some mysterious obstacle arose at the last moment to detain the fleet in Russian waters.

Journalists, naval experts, politicians and other ill-informed persons invented or repeated all sorts of explanations to account for the series of delays.

Only in the very innermost circles of the Russian Court it was whispered that the guardian spirit of the great Peter, the founder of Russia’s naval power, had repeatedly come to warn his descendant of disasters in store for the fleet, should it be permitted to sail.

M. Auguste was earning his reward.

CHAPTER XXI
MY FUNERAL

The extreme privacy with which I had managed my negotiation with M. Auguste completely baffled the plotters who were relying on the voyage of the Baltic Fleet to furnish a casus belli between Russia and Great Britain.

They realized, of course, that some powerful hand was interfering with their designs, and they were sufficiently intelligent to guess that that hand must be mine.

But they were far from suspecting the method of my operations. They firmly believed that M. Auguste was still carrying out their instructions, and sowing distrust of England in the mind of Nicholas II. Indeed, on one occasion he informed me that the Princess Y – had sent for him and ordered him not to frighten the Czar to such an extent as to make him afraid to let the fleet proceed to sea.

Unable to detect and countermine me, it was natural that they should become impatient for my removal.

Accordingly, I was not surprised to receive an urgent message from Sophia, late one evening, requesting me to come to her without delay.

By this time our friendship, if such it could be called, had become so intimate that I visited her nearly every day on one pretext or another.

Her greeting, as soon as I had obeyed the summons, showed me that a fresh development had taken place in the situation.

“Andreas, the hour has come!”

“The hour?”

“For your removal. Petrovitch has been here. He suspects something. He has rebuked me severely for the delay.”

“Did you tell him I was not an easy man to kill?”

“I told him anything and everything. He would not listen. He says they have lost confidence in me. He was brutal. He said – ”

“Well, what did he say?”

“He said – ” she spoke slowly and shamefacedly – “that he perceived it took a man to kill a man.”

I smiled grimly.

“History tells us differently. But what then?”

“To-morrow I shall no longer be able to answer for your life.”

“You think some one else will be appointed to dispose of me?”

“I am sure that some one else has been appointed already. Most likely it is Petrovitch himself.”

“Well, I shall look out for him.” I did not think it necessary to tell Sophia that I had been expecting something of this kind, and had made certain preparations.

“It will be useless, Andreas. You do not know the man with whom you have to deal.”

“The ignorance may be mutual,” I observed drily.

The Princess became violently agitated.

“You must let me save you,” she exclaimed clasping her hands.

“In what way?”

“You must let me kill you here, to-night.

“Don’t you understand?” she pursued breathlessly. “It is absolutely necessary for your safety, perhaps for the safety of both of us, that they should think I have carried out my instructions. You must appear to die. Then they will no longer concern themselves about you, and you will be able to assume some other personality without being suspected.”

The scheme appealed to me strongly, all the more that it seemed as though it could be made to fit in very well with my own plans.

“You are a clever woman, Sophia,” I said cautiously. “How do you purpose to carry out your scheme? They will want to see my corpse, I suppose.”

She drew out the little key I have already described.

“Come this way.”

I followed her through the bedroom as before to the door of the locked oratory.

She opened the door and admitted me.

By the light of the wax candles I saw what was surely one of the strangest sights ever presented to mortal eyes.

It was myself, lying in state!

On a high bier draped in white and black cloth, I lay, or, rather, my counterpart presentment in wax lay, wrapped and shrouded like a dead body, a branch of palm in the closed hands, and a small Russian coin resting on the lips, in accordance with a quaint custom which formerly prevailed in many lands.

In spite of my habitual self-command I was unable to repress a cold shiver at this truly appalling spectacle.

“Your stage management is perfect,” I observed after a pause. “But will they be satisfied with a look only?”

“I do not think so. It will be necessary for you to put on the appearance of death for a short time, till I have satisfied them. Afterward I can conceal you in here, while this – ” she pointed to the ghastly figure – “is buried under your name.”

“Let us get back to the other room, before we talk about it,” I urged. “This is not altogether a pleasant sight.”

As we passed out of the oratory I stealthily took note of the fastening of the door. The lock was on the outside only; in other words, if I permitted myself to be immured in the cell-like chamber, I should be a prisoner at the mercy of my charming friend.

“And now, by what means do you purpose that I shall assume the appearance of death?” I inquired as soon as we had returned to the boudoir.

The Princess opened a small cabinet, and produced a tiny stoppered bottle.

“By swallowing this medicine,” she answered. “I have had it specially prepared from a recipe given me ten years ago at a time when I thought of resorting to the same contrivance to escape from my taskmaster.”

I took the bottle in my hand, and examined it carefully. It bore no label, and the contents appeared perfectly colorless.

“In five minutes after you have swallowed the contents of the bottle,” Sophia explained, “you will begin to turn cold, at first in the feet and hands. As the cold mounts to the brain you will gradually lose consciousness, and become rigid. You will look as pale as if you were actually dead, and your heart will cease to beat.”

“And how long will this stupor last?”

“About twenty-four hours, more or less, according to your constitution.”

I looked carefully and steadily into her eyes. She flushed and trembled violently, but did not quail.

“What does it taste like?” I asked.

“It is a little bitter.”

“I will take it in water, then.”

“You can take it in wine, if you like. I have some here.”

She moved to a small cupboard in the wall.

“I shall tell them that I gave it to you in wine, in any case,” she added.

“I prefer water, thank you. May I fetch some from the next room?”

“I will fetch it,” she said hastily, going to the bedroom.

On an ebony stand beside me there was a large china bowl containing a flowering plant in its pot. In a second I had removed the stopper, emptied the bottle into the space between the flower-pot and the outer bowl, and put the stopper back again.

“Tell me,” I said to the Princess as she hurried back with a carafe and tumbler, “have you thought how I am to get away from this house without exciting attention?”

“It will be easy for me to procure you a dozen disguises. I am always going to masked balls. But are you in such a hurry to leave me?”

“I shall find the air of your oratory rather confined, I am afraid.”

She hung her head in evident chagrin.

“But where will you go?” she demanded.

“Oh, that is all arranged. I have taken a small house and furnished it, in another name.”

“Where?” she asked breathlessly.

“Perhaps I had better not tell you till this excitement is over. I must not burden you with too many of my secrets.”

Sophia’s eyes filled with tears.

“You distrust me still!” she cried. “But, after all, what does it matter? I have only to ask Petrovitch.”

“That will be quite unnecessary as well as useless. I pledge myself to tell you before I leave this place, and I have not favored M. Petrovitch with my new address.”

She smiled scornfully.

“And do you believe that you have succeeded in taking a house in Petersburg without his knowledge? You do not know him, I tell you again. He has had you watched every hour of the day while you have been here.”

“Please credit me with a little resource, as well as your friend,” I answered with some slight irritation. “I have no doubt the spies of M. Petrovitch have watched me pretty closely, but they have not been able to watch every person who has come in and out of the hotel. Two of my most capable assistants have been in Petersburg for the last month – since the day you hinted that my life was not quite safe, in fact.”

The woman before me looked completely overwhelmed.

“One of them,” I proceeded with cutting severity, “has taken the house I speak of. The other is watching over my personal safety at this moment.”

The Princess fairly gave way. Sinking on the couch behind her, she exclaimed in a faint voice:

“You are a demon, not a man!”

It was the finest compliment she could have paid me.

“And now,” I said carelessly, “to carry out your admirable little idea.”

The unhappy woman put up her hands, and turned away her head in sheer terror.

I splashed some water into the tumbler, and then trickled in a small quantity afterward, to imitate the sound of adding the poison. This done I respectfully handed the bottle to my companion.

“To our next meeting!” I called out lightly, as I lifted the tumbler to my lips and drained it.

It was the Princess who swooned.

Although I had not foreseen this weakness on her part I took advantage of it to draw the tiny key of the oratory from her bosom, and hide it in my mouth.

I then touched the bell twice, the signal for the Princess’s maid to appear.

“Fauchette,” I said, when she entered – for this was the assistant I had alluded to as watching over my personal safety – “Madame has just given me the contents of that stoppered bottle. Do you know anything about them?”

Fauchette had made good use of her time since obtaining her situation. These things are so easily managed that I am almost ashamed to explain that a bribe to the former maid had brought about a convenient illness, and the recommendation of Fauchette as a temporary substitute.

“Yes, Monsieur,” she said quietly. “I filled the bottle with water this afternoon, in case of accident. I have preserved the previous contents, in case you should care to have them analyzed.”

“You have done well, very well, my girl.”

Fauchette blushed with pleasure. I do not often say so much to my staff.

“Madame does not know that I had just emptied the bottle into that china bowl,” I added carelessly.

“It is useless to try to serve Monsieur; he does everything himself,” murmured the poor girl, mortified.

“Nonsense, Fauchette, I have just praised you. It is always possible that I may overlook something.”

Fauchette shook her head with an incredulous air.

I have found it good policy to maintain this character for infallibility with my staff. It is true, perhaps, that I do not very often blunder.

“And now,” I went on, “it is time for the poison to take effect! As soon as I am dead, you will awake Madame.”

I lay down on another couch, and composed myself in a rigid attitude with my eyes closed. I did not believe, of course, that it would be possible to deceive a close observer, but I trusted to the wild emotions of the Princess to blind her to any signs of life.

I heard Fauchette dart on her mistress with a well-acted scream, and sprinkle her face and neck with cold water.

Sophia seemed to revive quickly.

“Andreas!” I heard her gasp. “Where? What has become of him?”

“M. Sterling has also fainted,” the maid replied with assumed innocence.

“Ha!”

It was more like a shriek than a sob. I heard a hasty rustling of skirts, and then Sophia seemed to be kneeling beside me, and feeling for the beat of my heart.

“Go, Fauchette! Send Gregory instantly to M. Petrovitch to inform him that M. Sterling has been taken ill in my house, and that I fear he is dead.”

The Princess began loosening my necktie.

Had Fauchette been present I should have been able to point to this as a proof that I was not incapable of an occasional oversight.

As a matter of fact, I had not anticipated this very natural action on Sophia’s part. Yet it should have been evident that, were it only to keep up appearances before any one who might come to view my supposed corpse, she would be bound to free my neck.

And I was wearing the locket which contained the portrait of my promised bride!

I lay, really rigid with apprehension, while Sophia’s caressing fingers tenderly removed the necktie, and began unfastening my collar and shirt.

Suddenly I heard an ejaculation – at first striking the note of surprise and curiosity merely, but deepening to fear.

In a moment the locket was lifted from my chest, and forced open with a metallic click.

“Ah! – Ah!”

She let the open locket drop from her fingers on my bare throat.

Instantly it was clutched up again. I could picture the frenzied gaze of jealousy and hate in those burning eyes of deepest violet; I could actually feel the passionate breathing from between the clenched teeth of whitest ivory.

“Miserable child!” she hissed, the hand that held the locket trembling so that I could feel it against my neck. “So you have robbed me of him!”

She paused, and then added, forcing out each word with a passion of distilled hate —

“But you shall never have him! He shall be mine! Mine! Mine, in the grave!”