“And now, M. le Comte,” she said, as she released his hand, “I will say good night and thank you.”
“You will leave me now? Ah, no! Let us go within this hotel of yours. Let us have the supper of which I spoke——”
He talked on more in the same strain, and presently she assented reluctantly.
“I have a reception room, M. le Comte,” she told him. “In that you may stay for a while if you wish. I do not care for the public dining room, nor do I care for food.”
Mobrikoff, delighted at his supposed victory, followed her, and after the servant had gone ahead to light the rooms, she motioned him to the elevator, which raised them to the third floor. Down the uncarpeted hall she led him to where the attendant stood, holding the door of her apartments open. The count bowed for her to pass in, and when she had done so followed her.
He did not waste time. The man was plainly attracted by the girl, and he brought all his previous knowledge of women to bear upon her. But he would have failed even had she not known of him what she did, for Adelaide Hardesty had her own ideas of mankind, and the use of flattery did not come in as part of the character of her ideal man. But she had been an actress too long to fail in any part once she entered into the spirit of it.
She had placed various liqueurs on the table soon after her entrance, and he had done full justice to all of them. She had waited to see him a trifle influenced by the intoxicants before bringing out the chef-d’oeuvre.
“You have heard of the American drink—the cocktail?” she asked, her deep eyes turned full upon him and her red lips curving in a smile which she intended to appear tender. “That is the drink which surpasses them all.”
“Of that I have heard,” he responded. “And I will never rest until I have drunk it, for is it not the national drink of Mlle. Adelaide’s own land?”
She smiled at his lofty words, a natural smile this, for, now that she had hardened herself to what she was about to do, the Russian’s extravagance was humorous to her American mind. “You need not wait long for the cocktail, M. le Comte,” she said. “I myself will make one for you.”
He was almost maudlin now and murmured something about Hebe and the nectar of Olympus. She took the vermuth, the whisky, the bitters and the lemon, making the drinks on a little tabouret with her back turned to him. Then she placed the ice within the frail-stemmed glasses and poured in the decoction. In one of them she dropped something which she had been holding in the palm of her hand, and quickly broke the tiny tablet to pieces with the spoon, stirring it vigorously. Then she placed both glasses on a tiny tray, with the one over which she had expended so much trouble on the Russian’s side.
“Will you drink?” she asked, gayly.
He reached out his hand and took the glass. She raised hers and they clinked them together.
“To mademoiselle’s eyes!” he cried.
He drank it down with every appearance of enjoyment and then threw the glass over his shoulder. It alighted on the hearth and broke into tiny fragments. “A fitting end for a glass which has served its purpose,” she thought.
And now came the hardest part of all, for the drink mounting to the Russian’s head aroused all his hitherto suppressed boldness, and in the manner of his race he made love to the American girl. At first a mere pressing of the hand to his lips, with the accompanying declarations of affection. She had purposely seated herself upon a tiny chair in order that he might not come nearer.
He was determined that he would take the girl into his arms. His feet were unsteady now and his head whirled. Out of the mist that enveloped him, he could see only her eyes shining in the light of the shaded lamp. He rose to his feet, trying to fight down his weakness.
“I love you,” he muttered. “I love you.”
He moved forward, still holding her hand. She rose. The latent beast in his eyes terrified her. He stretched out his arms as though to envelop her within them. But at that moment a great desire for rest overmastered him. He forgot the shining eyes.
“I—I——” he began. Then his legs became weak at the knee, and he toppled forward, gripping the table. But his muscles were inert, and his head slipped along the polished surface, and, with a crash of bottles and glasses, the form of the chief of engineers flattened itself on the floor.
She stood erect, pale and afraid. Then her eyes turned to the senseless body of the man. There was no sound in the room save his heavy breathing.
She looked at her watch. It was rapidly nearing the hour of twelve. She sat down, supporting her head with her hands, among the broken remains of bottles and glassware, the trickling liqueurs dripping on her gown. She knew it, but she hardly cared.
Out of the distance the toll of the second Tsar Kolokol, the great bell of the Kremlin, rumbled out the strokes of midnight. Then came a gentle knock on the door. She arose and admitted Lemaire.
“Successful, of course?”
“Of course,” she responded, wearily. “He lies there.”
“Then I must ask you to go into your room, Adelaide,” said Lemaire. The girl obeyed him, leaving him alone with the man. Lemaire lifted the frame of the senseless Russian in his arms and deposited him on the divan.
“It is lucky for me that I am the average height of a man,” soliloquized Lemaire. “Quite lucky, indeed.”
It was but a matter of a few moments before the gorgeous uniform had been stripped from the person of M. Mobrikoff. His despoiler opened a bag which he carried, and which contained a suit of coarse brown serge. In this he arrayed the drugged officer, gathering up Mobrikoff’s uniform and placing it in the bag from which he had taken the brown clothes.
“Now, Adelaide,” he called.
The girl re-entered. “Where is that long wardrobe trunk of yours?” he inquired.
The girl threw back the hangings at the end of the room and disclosed one of those monstrosities which are the trial of the baggage-smasher—a theatrical wardrobe trunk and property box. In length it approximated six feet and in height about three. She unlocked it. It was empty.
“The drug will hold good for about six hours. During that time he will be safe, but after that——We had better bind him now, Adelaide.”
He took some stout manila rope from the same bag he had before utilized, and the feet and hands of Count Mobrikoff were securely bound. A gag was placed in the Russian’s mouth and bound tightly about his head. Lemaire picked up the trussed body and placed it within the trunk.
“You have bored the air holes?” he inquired.
“There are four on each side and ten in the top. He isn’t in any danger of asphyxiation,” was her reply.
Lemaire straightened out the knees of the captive.
“All that is necessary now is to throw in enough clothes to keep him from bumping from side to side,” he said. “I should advise you to lock the trunk to-night, for he will be sensible in the morning.”
Then he turned to go, but she caught him by the arm.
“Haven’t you a word of praise?” she asked, brokenly.
He regarded her with much intentness. “Too much praise, Adelaide, to put it into words. I know how distasteful it is to you. You are a brave little girl!” He patted her shoulder in his old way. “But remember what this man has done. He deserves more than a cramping of his limbs for several days.”
She tried to be calm. “Will you be successful?” she asked tremulously.
“There is no reason why I should not be,” he answered. “I rely on you to carry out your part, you know. And I know you will. Good night, little girl.”
When she had closed the door she stared long and blankly at the entrance through which he had passed. Then she rocked herself to and fro, murmuring and whispering to herself: “A good tool for his ends—a good tool.”
She threw the required clothes into the trunk, closed
and locked it. “After all,” she sighed, “it’s better to be a tool for him than——” She did not finish her sentence.
CHAPTER III
WITHIN THE PRISON HOUSE
A little after twelve word had been taken to the driver of the droshky of Count Mobrikoff that the Count would remain at the hotel for the night, but that the droshky was to be waiting for him the next morning at nine o’clock, when he would visit the fort of St. Basil. This message was sent from the room of M. Theophile Lemaire.
Within that same apartment several changes took place between midnight and morning, and had there been an observer near by, he might have sworn that three men occupied the same room. For into the room and to bed went M. Theophile Lemaire, a Frenchman with a slightly bald pate, a small waxed mustache and heavy eyebrows. When the rays of morning sunlight disclosed the sleeper there was no sign of M. Theophile Lemaire. The snowy counterpane covered the form of a man with light brown hair, clean-shaven, and evidently of Anglo-Saxon origin. When he awoke and stood erect in his pajamas, it would not have been hard for anyone who knew him to recognize Mr. Yorke Norroy.
But Yorke Norroy existed only during the time that he took his bath and shaved. Nine o’clock saw him standing in the lobby of the Hotel d’Angleterre an officer of his imperial Russian majesty’s army, whose hair was coal-black and whose mouth was shaded by an enormous military mustache turned upward in German style; his eyebrows were heavy and his military cap was pulled down to shade his eyes. Evidently, M. le Comte Mobrikoff had contracted a severe cold, for he spoke hoarsely and his neck was swathed with a white silk kerchief. The collar of his greatcoat was turned upward to protect his throat.
He lighted a cigarette and inquired in a husky tone if his droshky awaited him. On being informed it did, he went out of the hotel lobby and into the street where his driver assisted him into the vehicle. In the same hoarse tone, he directed him to drive to the fort of St. Basil.
Through the streets of the Kitai-Gorod and over the frozen snow the droshky sped, its owner smoking cigarette after cigarette and gazing out on the passing crowd. Many peasants and moujiks doffed their caps and he saluted them gravely, while occupants of other vehicles called to him as they sped by.
Through the Kitai-Gorod, into the Beloi-Gorod, and finally into the Zemlianai, the droshky of Mobrikoff went. The last, being the Chinese city, was naturally dirtier than either the European or the Tartar quarters, and the vehicle went more slowly on account of the slippery streets.
When the Iverskaya Chasnovnia was reached, the driver reined in his horses and doffed his hat to the sacred icon within the Iberian Chapel, and Norroy, sitting behind him, perforce did the same. After this act of devotion, the horses, started again by a swift cut from the driver’s whip, dashed through the Resurrection Gate of the Chinese wall and out beyond the city, where, a few versts away, the fort of St. Basil frowned ominously on the waters of the Moskowa.
It required but little time to make the journey now, and they were soon halted by the Siberian sentinel who stood beside the first gate of St. Basil.
“It is the great colonel, Count Mobrikoff,” the driver informed him, in the queer argot of the Baltic provinces—half Slav, half Teutonic.
Instantly the soldier’s carbine was raised in salute. The iron gates swung open ponderously, and the droshky rolled over the stones of the courtyard of the outer fort, through an embrasure, and, after several more halts and salutes, stopped in the central courtyard.
The sergeant who was in charge of the guards of the inner court evidently recognized the occupant of the droshky to be the chief of engineers, for he clicked his heels together sharply and saluted.
The false Mobrikoff saluted the sergeant in return, alighted and walked past the line of guards, following the non-commissioned officer.
“You wish to see M. le Colonel Mebristiwsky, colonel?” the sergeant had asked.
“Yes,” replied the supposed colonel, shortly. He still spoke in the hoarse tone which indicated that his cold affected his throat muscles to the extent of preventing him from speaking plainly.
He followed the sergeant through a succession of passages, and waited while he knocked on the door of the room which held the illustrious presence of M. le Colonel Mebristiwsky, governor of the fort of St. Basil.
The door was opened by an orderly and Norroy passed into the room.
The man with grizzled hair who sat at the desk in the middle of the room arose on Norroy’s entrance and bade him the usual good-morning.
“I have a cold, M. Mebristiwsky,” he replied, in answer to the request that he remove his cloak. “I fear it is getting close to my lungs.”
Norroy’s Russian was without a flaw, but he found little occasion to use it on this mission, for Mebristiwsky conversed with him in French, as is usual between gentlemen in Russia, their own language being reserved more for the purpose of speaking to inferiors. After several inquiries regarding some matters of which Norroy knew nothing, but which he managed to answer in a discreet manner which aroused no suspicion, the secret agent asked concerning the American prisoner.
“He is violent, as usual,” answered the governor. “He swears at anyone who enters his cell, and curses the Little Father in terms which would shock even a hardened roue like yourself.”
“I wish to see him again,” said Norroy, cutting the governor’s peroration short. The governor, frowning, rang for the orderly.
“Take the Colonel Mobrikoff to the cell of the American.”
Norroy followed the orderly, seemingly into the bowels of the earth. A lantern was necessary to show the way, and they plunged into dank, evil-smelling corridors where the lanterns of other soldiers, keeping guard, bobbed up and down like will-o’-the-wisps in the darkness. Finally the orderly asked a question of one of the guards, and a huge key was fitted into a lock, a bolt shot and an iron door swung open.
“Here is the lantern, Colonel Mobrikoff,” said the orderly, with respect. “Do you wish me to remain?”
Norroy replied in the negative, and then addressed the guard: “Close the door, fellow. I have something to say to the prisoner in private. Close the door and bolt it.”
The guard saluted and murmured acquiescence. Whereupon the iron door clanged to again, and the bolt was shot. Norroy lifted the lantern, and its light fell upon a mass of straw and a man lying with his back to the door, who was apparently unconcerned at his entrance.
“M’sieur Gaylord,” he said, in French.
The prisoner snarled: “Is that you, you frog-eyed coyote?” in English; then, remembering that Mobrikoff did not understand that tongue, translated it into French—“Frog-eyed son of a—a—a—loup-garou,” he finished, desperately. The insult seemed ineffective in the tongue of the Gaul, and he racked his brain for a fitting addition.
Yorke Norroy wasted little time. He walked over to the recumbent man, who was now glaring at him, and said in very low tones, and in English: “Don’t be surprised; don’t cry out, and don’t make any sort of a noise. I am not Mobrikoff.”
The man stared at him in the light of the lantern, and Norroy had a chance to see the hollow eyes, the sunken cheeks and the wasted hands.
“Not Mobrikoff?” he gasped. “Not Mobrikoff? You are not——”
Norroy seated himself on the rude stool by the side of the straw. “I received your message, Mr. Gaylord. I have come to get you out of this. Now, please don’t ask any questions, but do exactly as I tell you.”
Omitting the preliminaries, Norroy told him of the capture of Mobrikoff, and the way in which he had gained entrance to St. Basil. The listener’s eyes glowed in admiration, and the weary, haggard look faded from them.
“We must waste no time,” said Norroy. “Take off those clothes of yours as I take off mine.” He spoke in a whisper and immediately proceeded to disrobe. He continued to speak while in the pr
ocess, and by the time they had exchanged garments the whole scheme was perfectly plain to Gaylord.
Norroy whisked off the false mustache and wig and placed them on Gaylord’s face. Then from an inner pocket, he took out a make-up box, such as is carried by those of the theatrical profession, and by the dim light of the lantern proceeded to make Gaylord’s face a passable imitation of the Russian’s whose uniform he now wore.
“Speak hoarsely, as though you have a cold, and do not answer any questions unless forced to do so—your Russian is execrable and your French is worse. It will not be necessary for you to return to the governor’s room. Simply follow the orderly out of this dungeon to the upper floors and then tell him to lead you to your droshky. Salute each soldier who salutes you. When you enter the droshky simply say Hotel d’Angleterre, and the driver will take you there. Dismiss him when you reach the hotel, and send up one of Mobrikoff’s cards to Miss Moray. She knows who you are, and she will assist you and accompany you. The grand express leaves for Konigsberg at noon. She has reserved berths in the wagonlit for you and for herself. Here is your passport, which I secured from the United States minister before leaving Paris. It reads for Mr. John Moray, actor. You are supposed to be Miss Moray’s brother. When you arrive in Konigsberg, you will both go to the Hotel Zu Hohenloe. There will be a third person in the party, but he is provided with a comfortable sleeping apartment in a trunk.”
Gaylord suddenly burst into hysterical laughter as he thought of his arch-enemy cramped within the confines of a narrow box and forced to endure a railway journey in such quarters. Norroy placed his hand over Gaylord’s mouth.
“Don’t make an ass of yourself,” he said, roughly. “The rest of the scheme Miss Moray will explain to you. See that you carry out her instructions, for my life may depend on it. You understand?”
“But how will you escape?” demanded the inventor. “I feel like a cad, leaving you in this hole. God! if you knew——”
The Big Book of Espionage Page 105