The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

by Dennis Wheatley

  The footfalls grew louder; they halted, and the heavy door grated open. By the dim light of a lantern Roger saw the head-gaoler and another. The senior called to him and he stumbled from his cell. They took him through endless vaulted corridors again, up several flights of stone steps to the blessed daylight once more, and showed him into a room where an oldish man, dressed in a handsome uniform, was seated behind a desk.

  To Roger’s amazement this obviously important person not only offered him a chair, but proceeded to apologise to him for the unpleasant hours that he had passed since his arrival. Apparently, unless special instructions were received to the contrary, all new prisoners were put in one of the lower dungeons for their first night, in order that they might form some impression of what a month of such confinement would be like; and thus be persuaded of the folly of bringing such a penalty upon themselves by attempting to escape.

  The elderly officer introduced himself as Colonel Tschevaridef; then told Roger with bluff heartiness that he was very pleased to see him, would endeavour to make him as comfortable as possible, and hoped that his stay in the fortress would be a long one. So did Roger, providing it was not in the dungeon—as even a lengthy imprisonment seemed better than the short shrift he had been envisaging for himself since four o’clock the previous afternoon—but all the same he thought the greeting a little queer.

  However, it soon emerged that the old soldier was the Governor of the fortress, and he admitted quite frankly that the amount of his income depended on the number and quality of the prisoners in his keeping. He received so much a day for each and the higher their rank the higher the rate he was paid. He was responsible for feeding them out of the money, and the more he got for them the better they fared. Roger, ranking as a Major-General, would be classed as of the second grade, at two roubles a day, and feed almost as well as if he were eating at the Governor’s table. The Colonel concluded this reference to his organisation by remarking that he prided himself on giving all grades of his prisoners better fare than was the case in other fortresses, and that when Roger was released he would be doing both him and any friend of his who might be a prisoner elsewhere a good service by urging them to use such influence as they might have to get themselves transferred to Schlüsselburg.

  The idea of a prison-governor canvassing for captives made Roger smile for the first time in seventeen hours, and he said quickly: ‘I only pray that I may have the opportunity to do so, Sir; but I may be hard put to it to escape being executed on this charge of murder.’

  ‘So you are charged with killing someone, eh?’ the Governor raised a white eyebrow. That is a pity, since it may be the cause of my losing you in a day or two; but otherwise it is no affair of mine. A magistrate will visit your cell to question you on that. In the meantime your treatment will be no different to that of other prisoners of your grade, and I have received no order that you are not to be allowed visitors.’ With a grin which showed several decayed teeth he added; ‘A young man of such handsome parts, as yourself, General, will no doubt know a number of pretty women who will be delighted to solace you during your captivity.’

  Roger grinned amiably back at the old rascal and said: ‘At the moment, Sir, I am more concerned with the question of my defence; and should be deeply grateful if you would send a message to the French Ambassador, asking him to come and see me.’

  The Governor promised to do so, then summoned the warders and told them to take Roger to cell twenty-four. When he reached it he found it to be a spacious room with a heavily-barred window giving a view of the lake. It was furnished with an old, but fairly comfortable-looking bed, an oak chest, a wash-basin and commode, an elbow-chair and two others, and a stout table on which were pens, sand and an inkhorn. The head-warder told him that for payment he could have extra wine, brandy, paper, books and other small luxuries brought in; then he was left to his still far from sanguine reflections.

  But not for long. Five minutes later one of the warders returned to show in a dark hatchet-faced little man in a wig much too big for him, and a lankey fellow carrying a portfolio. They proved to be the magistrate and his clerk; but, when Roger said that he was not prepared to answer any questions until he had seen his Ambassador, they withdrew.

  It now occurred to him that it was many hours since he had eaten, and that he was very hungry; but evidently his gaolers had not been unmindful of the fact that he had not had any breakfast, for soon after the Magistrate’s departure, one of them brought him some cold meat, an apple-turnover and a jug of beer.

  He was still eating when the door opened again, and, to his surprise and delight, Dr. Drenke was shown in. After his first day or two in St. Petersburg Roger had not seen very much of the middle-aged German diplomat, but they sometimes passed one another on the stairs and had remained on a friendly footing. In his misery of the previous night he had not once thought of the Doctor, but now he welcomed him with open arms, as he was the one person to whom he could talk with complete frankness about the Yagerhorn affair, as it was unnecessary to conceal from him the part that Natalia Andreovna had played in it.

  ‘Well, my poor Chevalier,’ said the Doctor, when he was seated. ‘I am much relieved to see that you appear to be in your right mind, for I doubted finding you so. What in the world possessed you to murder Count Yagerhorn in so barbarous a manner, and then throw the unfortunate little Zaria downstairs?’

  Roger gaped at him, then exclaimed: ‘ ’Tis the first I have heard of Zaria’s mishap! As for the other matter I know nothing of what occurred after I left the house at ten o’clock on Tuesday night. I beg you to enlighten me.’

  ‘ ’Tis soon told,’ the Doctor replied gravely. ‘At about half-past ten Ostermann came up from his basement to lock the street-door. At the bottom of the stairs he found Zaria lying in a crumpled heap, unconscious. Later, when she was taken to the hospital it was found that she had broken a leg and that her skull was fractured. Ostermann had seen you off on your fishing-expedition at ten o’clock, so he thought at first that a thief must have stolen into the house, and that Zaria had surprised him. He ran up to your sitting-room, and on seeing that nothing had been taken, hurried up to mine. I was there reading, and some twenty minutes before I had heard the sounds of a quarrel below me in your room; so we assumed that, having forgotten something you had returned for it, and catching Zaria in the act of making free with your property you had exercised your right to knock her senseless. We gave you the credit for not realising how seriously you had injured the poor girl, in fact that you thought she had only fainted; and supposed that being already late in your setting out you had jumped on your horse again and ridden away, believing that the sturdy little peasant would be fully recovered from her lesson by morning.’

  The Doctor paused a moment, then went on: ‘When Ostermann visited your apartment he took only a hurried look round and did not enter the bedroom. The following day he gave the usual notice to the police that you were absent, but they were quite satisfied by his explanation that you had gone fishing on Lake Ladoga, and would be back on Friday. When Friday morning came, since Zaria was in hospital with a broken leg and severe concussion, Ostermann felt that it was for him to tidy up your apartment against your return. On entering your bedroom he found Count Yagerhorn lying gagged and bound upon the bed. When he fetched the police, they said that the Count had died of suffocation.’

  ‘So that was the way of it,’ nodded Roger. Everything was plain to him now except the attack on Zaria; but, perhaps after all, Ostermann’s first theory had been right, and she had been the victim of a thief. She should have been in the bedroom watching Yagerhorn, but if she had heard a noise in the sitting-room she would have come out to see who was there. She might have come upon the thief before he had had time to take anything, and the cries that the Doctor had heard were her efforts to rouse the house; but the thief had overcome her, thrown her down the stairs, and fearing that someone else might come on the scene, hurriedly made his escape. With Zaria suffering from concu
ssion the wretched Count had been left to his fate, and died horribly in consequence.

  ‘I should like to tell you the truth of the matter,’ Roger said after a moment. ‘But only if I may rely on you regarding what I say as in the strictest confidence; for another person is involved in this.’

  ‘You may rely on my discretion, Chevalier,’ the Doctor bowed. ‘And you refer, I take it, to the Baroness Stroganof?’

  Roger gave him a swift glance. ‘Is it generally known that ’twas she who preceded Yagerhorn to my apartment?’

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘Nay, only that a woman of quality who often came to visit you, dined with you there before the Count’s arrival. I guessed that it must be she from knowing of your association with her in the ship that brought us from Sweden, and from having more recently met her once or twice on the stairs.’

  ‘That relieves me mightily. For the sake of her reputation I have been at some pains to conceal her identity; so although Ostermann knows her well by sight I doubt if he knows her name. Her only part in this was giving the Count a rendezvous in my apartment; and that she did at my most earnest solicitation and without previous knowledge of what I meant to do to him. She left before myself and can have had no more idea than I of what befell him later. So you see what a terrible thing it would be if she were charged with me in having assisted at his murder?’

  ‘I do not think there is any great fear of that, Chevalier, unless you deny that it was you who killed him. The police of Petersburg are argus-eyed but very discreet. The odds are that they have known for a long time past about the Baroness’s visits to you; but they will not drag her into this unless compelled to it. She has many powerful relatives, and moreover, the Empress does not like scandals in connection with her ladies, so they will not stir up trouble for themselves unless it proves unavoidable.’

  ‘You mean that if I take full responsibility they will be satisfied with that; but should I protest my innocence they will then be forced to turn their attention to the Baroness in the hope of getting a statement from her that will convict me?’

  ‘Exactly. The present assumption is that the lady who dined with you was an innocent party to the affair. ’Tis thought that the Count was also in love with her and having traced her to your rooms surprised you together. What followed is, therefore, put to your account. But why, in the name of reason, did you choose so barbarous a method of killing the wretched man?’

  I did not.’ Roger assured the Doctor, earnestly. Then he told him the whole story as he knew it.

  When he had done the Doctor shook his head. ‘I willingly accept your word for it, Chevalier, that you had no intention of killing the Count; but that does not affect the fact that you are responsible for his death and will be held to account for it. And even if the Baroness came forward I do not see how anything that she could say would lessen your responsibility.’

  I know it,’ agreed Roger. ‘So I am all the more anxious that her part in the matter should not become public. Would you be good enough to see her for me, and assure her that should she become involved it will be through no word of mine?’

  The Doctor agreed to do so; and to Roger’s further request, that little Zaria should be allowed to lack for nothing; then, with renewed expressions of friendship, he took his departure.

  When he had gone Roger paced restlessly up and down his room. He at least knew now the way in which his plan had miscarried, but that did not lessen the acute danger of his situation. For a time he thought miserably of the terrible death that Yagerhorn had suffered, yet he felt that he was not wholly to blame for that. The Count would be alive and free had it not been for the dastardly attack on poor little Zaria.

  At three o’clock the key of the heavy door grated in the lock. Roger stood up hoping that the Comte de Ségur had arrived to see him, but a woman in black with a heavy hood over her face was shown in. The second they were alone she threw it back and ran to him.

  ‘Natalia Andreovna!’ he exclaimed, as her arms closed round his neck. ‘You should not have come! ’Tis madness to proclaim your association with me in this way.’

  ‘I had to come!’ she cried, bursting into tears. ‘ ’Tis my fault that you are here; but I did not learn the awful result of my impetuous act until this morning.’

  ‘Act?’ He held her firmly from him. ‘What mean you?’

  ‘On Tuesday night I left my rings behind,’ she sobbed. ‘My carriage had carried me but half a mile when I remembered them. As I had ample time I returned to your apartment. I was looking for them in the sitting-room when the bedroom door opened, and out of it came that little baggage that you bought for a hundred roubles on your first arrival in Petersburg.’

  In a flash Roger saw the whole thing. To appease Natalia’s jealousy he had told her that he had got rid of Zaria and that Ostermann was looking after him. On finding the girl in his room again two months later Natalia, had, not unnaturally, believed the worst.

  ‘ ’Twas you, then, who beat her and threw her downstairs!’ he muttered angrily. ‘Did you not have the sense to realise that I had left her there to watch over Yagerhorn and release him in the morning?’

  ‘How should I?’ she wailed. ‘You told me that you were not setting out for your fishing until the morning. As you were nowhere about I thought that you had merely gone down to the privy in the backyard, or to fetch another bottle of wine from the cellar, and would be back at any moment. You had lied to me about that pretty child and I was furious. I thought that finding her on your return with her looks spoiled would teach you a lesson.’

  ‘You broke her leg and devilish near killed her.’

  ‘I care not for that. I love you, Rojé Christorovitch, and was half-mad with jealousy from the thought that you had deceived me; and kept her with you for a full two months without my knowledge.’

  ‘You wrong me by these base suspicions. She was a virgin when I bought her and is one still. I kept her only out of compassion, because she would have been so shamed had I sent her back to her father.’

  Natalia ceased her crying. ‘You do love me then! Oh, St. Nicholas be praised for that! But I could not know that you had already set out and charged her to act gaoler to Erik Yagerhorn. I guessed that only on learning last night how he had been found dead in your room. Then came the news of your arrest this morning. Oh, Rojé Christorovitch, I’ll never forgive myself, and I’ll die of grief if—it …’ Again she burst into a fit of weeping.

  Roger did not love her any more. His passion for her had died utterly; but it was clear that she now loved him madly, and in common decency, he strove to comfort her. For over an hour they talked round and round his plight, but saw no way by which he might evade responsibility for the Count’s death.

  The best line which seemed to offer was for him to admit to have left the Count bound and gagged, but plead that he had died only because the arrangements for his release had miscarried. If the court still judged Roger guilty of murder, Natalia would then use all her personal influence to get the sentence commuted from death to imprisonment. They agreed that if she could be kept out of the affair her hand would be strengthened in that. And, as he did not wish to be placed in a situation where he would have to make love to her again, he persuaded her that it would be wisest to refrain from making further visits to the fortress unless she had definite news to bring him. After a last tearful embrace they summoned the warder, and she departed.

  The French Ambassador did not arrive until seven o’clock, and his visit was a comparatively brief one. The shrewd-eyed young Count was evidently far from pleased that one of his nationals should stand accused of such a brutal crime; but, after having listened to Roger’s story, he became much more sympathetic.

  He said gravely that he did not see how a court could fail to convict, but hoped the sentence might carry a recommendation to mercy. An appeal to the Empress was useless at the moment, as, although at a word she could stop any legal proceedings, there was nothing whatever about the present case which might i
nduce her to do so. However, as the representative of the Court of Versailles he was in a position to draw Her Majesty’s attention to any verdict pronounced on one of his countrymen, and could do so the more easily in this case as the Empress had told Roger on his presentation that if he found himself in any difficulty, he was to apply to her. So, when the time came, he would use his best endeavours to persuade her that death was too harsh a punishment for a crime that had only been in part premeditated.

  Within twenty minutes of the Comte de Ségur’s departure, the thin-faced magistrate and his clerk again appeared. Roger now agreed to make a statement, and after he had done so, answered most of the questions put to him with complete frankness. When he declined to give the name of the lady who had supped with him before Yagerhorn’s arrival the magistrate refrained from pressing him to do so, and even volunteered the opinion that, since Roger had admitted his guilt, it would probably be considered unnecessary to seek out witnesses for the purpose of securing evidence against him.

  When Roger was left to sort out his impression of the day he felt considerably more cheerful than he had twenty-four hours earlier. His immediate circumstances were improved out of all recognition and he now thought it unlikely that he would be called on to pay with his life for Yagerhorn’s death. There was also the immensely comforting thought that nobody appeared to be the least interested in his movements during his absence from St. Petersburg, or be aware that he had stolen Yagerhorn’s laisser-passer; and even Natalia apparently saw no reason to doubt his statement that he had been fishing on Lake Ladoga.

  Two mornings later the Comte de Ségur appeared again. His news was that at the previous night’s Sunday Court the Empress had raised the question of Roger’s affair on her own initiative, and said that she had given orders for proceedings to be temporarily suspended, as she had formed the desire to go into the matter herself.

  It immediately occurred to Roger that Natalia Andreovna had seized upon some suitable opening to get to work on his behalf; but the Ambassador’s next words destroyed this comforting theory.