The chronicles of Michael Danevitch of the Russian Secret Service

by Dick Donovan

HOW PETER TRESKIN WAS LURED TO DOOM.

THE FIRST ACT—THE PLOT.

The period was the reign of Alexander II. The time, the afternoon of a day in early summer. The place, an office in the huge building in St. Petersburg known as the Palace of the Admiralty, one of the finest and most imposing structures of the kind in the world. Its principal front is more than a quarter of a mile in length, while its wings, which extend to the Neva, are nearly seven hundred feet long. In this palace an enormous number of people are employed, including many women; and here the whole business in connection with the Imperial navy is transacted.

The office referred to was a large room lighted by several long windows. Running the whole length of the room was a flat-topped mahogany desk, on which were spread a number of plans of vessels, tracing-papers, compasses, squares, pencils, and other things of a like kind usually found in the office of a draughtsman. To give the place its official description, it was ‘Department H, Left Wing, Second Floor, Room 12. Imperial Yachts.’

It was under the control of a much-trusted Government servant, one Samuel Snell. That was not a Russian name, but an English one. Snell was an Englishman—a Cockney, for he was born within sound of Bow bells. He had been brought up as an engineer’s designer and draughtsman, and was considered very clever. He left his native country when he was three-and-twenty, and went to Russia, induced thereto by a Russian friend in trade in London, who had taught him to speak the Russian language, and assured him that his talents would find greater appreciation and a better market abroad than at home. Samuel Snell was influenced by this, and went. He was fortunate, through his friend’s influence, in speedily obtaining employment, and having marked ability, he made his way.

In the course of time he obtained naturalization; married a Russian lady, the daughter of a gentleman holding an appointment in the naval construction department; and ultimately, through his father-in-law’s influence, obtained an appointment himself as assistant copyist in the Admiralty Palace. His talents soon made him conspicuous; he was singled out for gradual promotion, until at last he was placed at the supreme head of the department responsible for the building and repairs of the Imperial yachts. It was no sinecure, but an important and responsible position.

In this room, on the day and at the hour in question, two young women were seated. One had soft brown hair, bright blue eyes, a delicate complexion, and regular features. She was the daughter of Snell, and was just twenty years of age. Her name was Catherine. She was unmistakably of an English type, though born in Russia, of a Russian mother, and had never been out of the country in her life. Her companion was as unmistakably Russian; she had dark eyes, black hair, olive complexion, and was slightly older than the other girl. They were both good-looking. The brunette was called Anna Plevski. Her face indicated great strength of character. She had a strong, determined mouth; intelligence beamed from her eyes; her forehead spoke of brain-power.

Their respective positions were as follows: Catherine was a confidential clerk to her father. She had been specially trained for the work, and had held the appointment for over three years. Anna was in another department altogether. She was what was termed ‘an indexer.’

The two girls were friends. They had been to school together. Anna had taken advantage of a little relaxation to slip into Room 12 to have a chat with Catherine, for she knew Mr. Snell was away; he had gone down to Kronstadt on official business. But it wasn’t for the sake of a purposeless chat that Anna went to Room 12. She had a deep and dark design, as was destined to be revealed at a later stage of this strange and tragic drama. Her own department was a long way off, in another part of the huge building, and she was at some trouble to reach her friend’s office by a very circuitous and round-about route, anxious, presumably, that it shouldn’t be generally known that she had gone to Room 12.

‘It’s a beautiful day, Catherine, isn’t it?’ said Anna, after some preliminary greeting. ‘It’s a pity you and I are not rich.’

‘Why?’ asked Catherine, with a simple expression on her pretty face.

‘Surely you don’t need to ask why. If we were not mere drudges, we should be able to taste some of the pleasures of the world—go where we liked, stay as long as we liked, and enjoy ourselves generally, instead of being stewed up here when the sun is shining.’

‘Well, you know, money doesn’t always bring happiness, Anna, my dear,’ answered Catherine.

‘It may not always do so; but as sure as eggs are eggs there can be precious little happiness without it.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Contentment goes a long way,’ Catherine said, with some timidity, for she knew that her friend held very pronounced views, was unusually strong-minded, and had an iron will, to say nothing of an unyielding dogmatism, which occasionally, when stirred up, became objectionable, and at times offensive. In short, Anna had an aggressive spirit, and was disposed to find fault with all constituted authority.

‘Contentment!’ she echoed with a malicious sort of chuckle; ‘how can one be contented with a lot that is hard, toilsome, and irritating? It’s not pleasant to realize every hour of your life that you are only a drudge. I ask myself over and over again why wealth is so unequally distributed. Why should it be in the hands of the few, while the vast majority of mankind are the slaves of those few, and groan and sweat under the yoke of paid labour—for what? merely to keep body and soul together.’

Catherine had heard her friend express similar sentiments before, so that she was not surprised at this bluntness of speech; but as she herself did not consider she had any particular cause to complain, and as the views she held were not altogether in accordance with Anna’s, she ventured to mildly express dissent from Anna’s doctrine. It only seemed, however, to arouse that young woman to a more vigorous display of her feelings, and with a pepperiness that was distinctly characteristic of her, she exclaimed scoffingly:

‘Well, friend Catherine, I can’t help saying that I’ve no patience with anyone who is willing to accept stripes and lashes without a murmur. That’s not my spirit. I’ve got brains, so have you, and yet we are forced to toil long hours every day for bare sustenance, while thousands and tens of thousands of brainless louts are rolling in riches. Ugh! It makes me mad to think of it.’

Catherine smiled prettily as she remarked:

‘You seem to have been stirred up to-day, dear. Something has put you out of temper.’

‘Yes; I am out of temper. I’m dissatisfied. Why, only to-day an order was issued in our department that we are to work two hours extra every day owing to pressure of work; but, as you know, the miserly Government take precious good care they won’t pay us so much as an extra copeck, no matter how long we work. I say it’s shameful!’

‘But what’s the use of fretting about it if we cannot alter it?’ asked Catherine.

‘But I say we can alter it. The working classes of this country are the bone, sinew, and brains of the country; yet they are kept in shackles and ground into the dust.’

‘And yet, after all, Anna, talent is always recognised, and individualism will make its mark.’

‘Great heavens!’ cried Anna, lifting her dark eyebrows in amazement, while she looked at her friend with something like pitying contempt, ‘is it possible that you can cheat yourself into the belief that that is true? You know as well as I do that talent and individualism are not worth a rap without influence to advance them. Kissing goes by favour in this world; and if you’ve no influence you may starve, while some idiot is pitchforked into power and authority. But, there, don’t let us wrangle any more at present. Some day I shall convert you, and bring you round to my views. By the way, I see that our Little Father, the Czar, is to make a yachting cruise round the coast of Finland next month, and that his yacht, the North Star, is to be entirely overhauled and refitted.’

‘Yes, that is so.’

‘It’s a very fine yacht, isn’t it, the North Star?’

‘I should think so. I’ve never seen it, though.’

‘That’s a wonder. I thought your father could have taken you on board any of the Emperor’s yachts.’

‘So he could, I’ve no doubt; though he has never done so.’

‘But you have the plans of the North Star in this department, haven’t you?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘I should like to see them. Would you mind showing them to me? I want to know what this grand vessel is like.’

Catherine hesitated; but failing to see that she would do any harm by complying with her friend’s request, she went to a huge safe, and took therefrom a large roll of cartridge-paper, which she spread out on the desk, and kept it in position by weights at the corners. And then there was revealed to Anna a scale drawing, showing the hull, the sections, the ground-plan, and general design of the Imperial vessel, which was one of several used by his Majesty for pleasure cruises.

This particular one was then in the hands of the Admiralty for refit and overhaul, and was under orders to be at Kronstadt on the 20th of the following month; to receive the royal party, including the Czar, for a trip up the Gulf of Bothnia, and along the coast of Sweden, returning by the coast of Finland.

Anna looked at the plan attentively, critically. Indeed, she studied it; and having an excellent memory, the result of training as an ‘indexer,’ she was enabled to carry the whole of the plan in her mind’s eye.

She would have liked to have made some notes, but did not dare do so, and so she fixed the details in her mind.

‘The Little Father’s apartments seem very spacious,’ Anna remarked carelessly, as though she meant nothing.

‘Oh yes,’ said Catherine; ‘but they are all to be reconstructed, and removed from the after-part of the vessel, where they are now.’

Anna’s dark eyes opened wide, and her ears were all alertness.

‘Indeed! Why?’

‘Well, they are in the extreme stern of the ship now; and as the vessel pitches very much, they are not comfortable.’

‘Then, where are the Czar’s rooms to be placed?’ asked Anna eagerly.

‘A large deckhouse is to be constructed amidships. It will be fitted up like a little palace.’

‘Ah! umph! I understand,’ Anna muttered thoughtfully. ‘Then I suppose that is where the rooms will be?’ and she placed her finger in the centre of the plan.

‘Yes.’

Catherine made a movement to remove the weights from the corners of the paper, when Anna exclaimed:

‘Stop a minute. I just want to look at something. All right. Thanks. It’s most interesting. I wish I were a rich person, that I could have a steam-yacht like that, and go where I liked.’

‘You should marry an emperor; then you would have all you could desire,’ said Catherine with a laugh, as she rolled the draft plan up and restored it to the safe.

‘No; I wouldn’t be an empress if I had the chance,’ Anna replied tartly. ‘Kings, queens, emperors, empresses, and the like, are all tyrants. There should be no crowned heads. I don’t believe in ’em. They are a curse to the world.’

‘Anna, you surprise me!’ said Catherine with a frightened look. ‘I knew you were peculiar, and held remarkable views, but I had no idea you were disloyal.’

‘Hadn’t you, dear?’ answered Anna, with a laugh. ‘Well, well, don’t take me too seriously, you know. I say some queer things sometimes.’

Then, suddenly throwing her arms round her friend’s neck, she kissed her on both cheeks and sped out of the room.

---

The scene changes. In what is known as the St. Petersburg quarter, which is situated on the north side of the Neva, is an old and lofty house, not unlike some of the old buildings in Edinburgh.

The house is let out in tenements, and there is a common stair for the use of all the tenants, who for the most part are working men, artisans, and the like. At the very top of the building, immediately under the tiles, is a long room with a slanting roof. In this room three men are at work, busily at work, though it is the dead of night. They carry on their work by lamplight.

Two are seated at a bench, which is covered with a miscellaneous lot of tools—pliers, small hammers, pincers, files, tiny saws, screw-drivers, chisels of various shapes, punches, etc. There are also sets of mathematical instruments; and before the men are carefully-prepared diagrams and drawings to scale, and to these the men make constant reference.

They are fitting together an ingenious and clever piece of mechanism in a small oblong box, lined with tin, and divided into compartments. It is a sort of clockwork arrangement they are engaged upon, and it is intended that the motive power of this mechanism shall be a noiseless spring, acting on a solid brass, notched wheel. In the rim of this wheel are forty-eight notches. The wheel can be made to revolve slowly or quickly, as may be desired. As the wheel revolves, every time a notch reaches a given point, mathematically determined, a tiny, but powerful, steel lever drops into it, and this causes a steel rod, something like a miniature shaft of a screw-steamer, to advance at right angles with the wheel towards a partition at the end of the box.

When this rod or shaft has been pushed forward a stage, the lever rises again, until the next notch is reached, when the same thing occurs, and the rod gets a little nearer to the partition, in which, immediately facing the point of the rod, is a circular hole corresponding in circumference to the rod itself, so that ultimately the rod must pass through the hole into a recess between the partition and the end of the box.

The object of this will presently be seen. The two men, who are evidently skilled mechanics of a high class, are both young. Neither of them has yet numbered thirty years.

A third man is engaged in a totally different occupation. He is an old man, tall and thin, with a grave, professional face, small, keen eyes, and a high forehead. He is dressed in a long, dark blouse, and wears a black silk skull-cap. He has a square table before him in the centre of the room; on it are retorts, crucibles, phials, mortars, and pestles.

In a retort, beneath which burns a spirit-lamp, he is compounding something from which most obnoxious vapours arise, but immediately above is a skylight, which is open to give egress to the fumes.

The man watches the retort anxiously and nervously, and every few minutes he plunges a small thermometer into the boiling liquid, and then, withdrawing it, reads by the light of an Argand lamp what the figures indicate. At last he suddenly extinguishes the flame of the spirit, utters a sigh of relief, and straightens his aching back. As he does so, one of the two young men turns towards him, and says:

‘Well, Professor, have you finished?’

‘Yes, thank God, I have, and I am glad.’

It seemed like blasphemy that he should have thanked God, having regard to the deadly objects of his work. But the phrase was either uttered carelessly, or he was a fanatic who believed that what he was doing was blessed of Heaven.

Presently there were three light taps on the door. The men paused in their labours and listened. Then the Professor advanced noiselessly to the door, and gave three raps himself.

This was followed from outside by two quick raps, then two deliberate ones. Instantly on receiving this signal the professor turned the key, opened the door, and admitted a man, who wore a large cloak, which, on entering the room, he threw off, and a handsome, striking young man was revealed, with a strongly-marked face, and a well-shaped head covered with dark, curly hair.

It was a face full of intellectuality. The mouth, which was shaded by a carefully-trimmed moustache, was well shaped, but the lower jaw was heavy, and destroyed the general symmetry of the features. His eyes were almost coal-black, restless, and full of fire. They indicated an intense nervous energy.

There was something—it is really difficult to define it—about the man’s whole appearance which suggested the masterful, commanding spirit—the leader of men. And when he spoke, the full, resonant voice, the rich, decisive tones, accentuated and emphasized this something, and proclaimed that he was one to be feared, to be obeyed. Peter Treskin—that was his name—was in every way a remarkable man. And even at the present day there are parts of Russia where he is referred to with sorrow, and spoken of with reverence.

Peter Treskin came of good family. He was intended for the law, and had studied hard and acquired an immense amount of general knowledge. But somehow he had been attracted to a set of malcontents, who were for revolutionizing everything and everybody.

They believed, or fancied they believed, which was much the same thing, that it was their mission to set the world right; to alter this and change that, to pull down thrones and set up their own forms of government, which would be so perfect, so just, so equitable, that every human wrong and every human sorrow would be done away with.

It was the Utopian dream of lotus-eaters; but fools have dreamed it through all time; they will go on dreaming it until time closes, and instead of ending sorrow, they will, as they have ever done, increase it manifold.

However, these men thought differently, and Peter Treskin’s vanity was gratified, his ambition found a channel, his fiery disposition a means of satisfying it; and as he never played second fiddle to anyone, he was raised to a height, from which he commanded.

In other words, he became the head of a vast conspiracy which had for its object the destruction of the rulers who then ruled. In short, Peter, at the head of a mob, so to speak, opposed himself to the constituted forces of law and order.

It is true those forces were not what they might, and perhaps ought to, have been. They were stern, in many ways oppressive, in some respects unjust, and often ungenerous; but Peter Treskin’s methods were not calculated to change them.

It was astonishing, however, how he was enabled to enlist clever and intellectual men of all sorts and conditions under his banner, which, figuratively speaking, was inscribed with one word of ghastly import—Revolution!

‘Well, friends, how does the work go on?’ he asked, as he entered the room, wiped his perspiring forehead with his handkerchief, and then, with a quick, nervous touch, rolled a cigarette and lit it.

‘We’ve nearly finished,’ answered one of the two men. ‘By to-morrow night the machine will be ready.’

‘Good! excellent! bravo!’ said Treskin. ‘And you, Professor?’

‘My part is also nearly completed. It has been a dangerous operation, but will be successful.’

The man who spoke was Professor Smolski, a clever chemist, whose researches and knowledge, if properly applied, might have been of immense benefit to the world, and have earned him a niche in the gallery of worthies. But he had ranged himself on the side of the malcontents, and for the sake of his craze he was willing to sacrifice the prospects of fame, if not fortune, and to run the almost certain risk of a shameful death. Truly human nature is a mystery.

The other two men were brothers—Jews, Isaac and Jacob Eisenmann. They were born in Russia, but their parents had fled from Germany to avoid persecution, though, in flying from the hornets, they had encountered the wasps; that is to say, they had found no peace in Russia. They had been oppressed, persecuted, harried, and their offspring had vowed vengeance. Isaac and Jacob were sworn foes of the Government. They were clever mechanics, and their cleverness was used to build up a destructive instrument of death, contrived with devilish ingenuity and diabolical cunning.

These men represented a large party, which included women as well as men; but Treskin was the head, the leading light, the impelling spirit. His influence, his restless energy, his ambition, his vanity, made him one of the most dangerous men in all Russia. He seemed able by some extraordinary power he possessed of swerving men from the paths of rectitude into the tortuous ways of crime. He led women like lambs to the slaughter; he bent even strong men to his will.

Strangely enough, however, up to the time that he is brought under the reader’s notice, he had managed to escape falling under suspicion. It is difficult to say what this immunity was due to; possibly some superior cunning, some extraordinary cautiousness. But whatever it was, Peter was not wanting in courage, and was quite ready to take his share of risk.

His co-conspirators now proceeded to explain to him the result of their labours and their ingenuity. The empty recess at the end of the mechanical box was to be filled with a novel preparation containing a latent explosive power of immense force. This latent power, however, could only be aroused into activity by the combination of a chemical fluid, and in order to bring this about, the mechanism had been arranged with wonderful precision and cleverness. Professor Smolski had produced the necessary fluid, and the two Jews had, between them, constructed the machinery. At the end of the rod or shaft already described a glass tube, hermetically sealed, would be attached by fitting into a socket. As the rod was advanced by the revolving notched wheel, which could be set to do its work in one hour or forty-eight, the glass tube would ultimately be thrust through the hole in the partition, where, coming in contact with an opposing rigid bar of iron, it would break, and then instantly something like a cataclysm would follow.

This, of course, only describes the machine in rough outline, and that is all that is intended to be done. Those who are curious to learn the details of the strange instrument of death and destruction will find drawings of it preserved in the police archives of St. Petersburg. It was, at the time, the most perfect and certain thing of its kind that man’s devilishness had been able to create. And in some respects it is doubtful if it has been improved upon up to the present day.

Four o’clock was striking when Peter Treskin stole forth from that reeking den of evil designs, and made his way into the sweet, fresh air. Overhead the stars burned with an effulgency only seen in a Northern climate. Peace and silence reigned in the sleeping city. The clear, pellucid waters of the Neva glistened and glinted as they flowed to the sea, emblematic of the Stream of Time, which silently but surely sweeps all men into the great ocean of eternity, and obliterates even their memory.

Man’s life is a little thing indeed when compared with the stupendousness of Time and Eternity. The bright stars shine, the rivers roll for ever; but man is born to-day; to-morrow he is dust and forgotten. No such feeling or sentiment, however, stirred Peter Treskin’s emotion as he hurried along to his lodgings. He was elated, nevertheless, and full of a fierce, wicked joy, for his designs seemed to be going well. He had that night seen the completion, or almost the completion, of an instrument of destruction which was calculated and intended to strike terror into the hearts of tyrants, and he even believed that the hour was at hand when constituted power and authority, as it then existed, would be shattered into the dust, and from its ruins a new order of things would arise, in which he would figure as a supreme ruler.

Fools have dreamed these dreams before, and awakened with the curses of their fellow-men ringing in their ears; and then, having died a shameful death, have been thrust, unhonoured and unwept, into a nameless grave. But Treskin was not disturbed by any gloomy forebodings, and having reached his lodgings, he hurried to bed.

---

The scene shifts once more, and shows us Kronstadt, a busy, thriving seaport, arsenal, and naval and military town, at the head of the Gulf of Finland, exactly thirty-one miles west from St. Petersburg. The town is built on an island, and is so strongly fortified that it is called the ‘Malta of the Baltic.’ The greater portion of the Imperial navy assembles here, and there are armour and appliances, not only for repairing vessels, but building men-of-war. There are three great harbours. Two are used exclusively for the Imperial ships, and the third is a general harbour capable of accommodating seven hundred vessels. In the winter no trade with the outer world is carried on, owing to the ice; but during the summer months the flags of various nationalities may be seen, but by far the largest number of foreign vessels visiting Kronstadt sail under the British flag.

At this place, one summer afternoon, a man and woman arrived, and made their way to a tavern near the entrance to the general harbour. The woman was young, good-looking, very dark, but her features wore a careworn expression, and she seemed to glance about her with a nervous fear, as though she was in dread of something. The man was of middle height; he had an iron-gray beard and iron-gray hair. Judging from his grayness, he was advanced in years; but his step was firm, his eyes, which were very dark, were the eyes of youth—they were restless and full of fire. He carried a leather hand-bag, which he deposited on a chair beside him as he and the woman seated themselves at a table outside of the tavern and ordered refreshment, which was served by the tavern-keeper himself. The stranger got into conversation with the landlord, and asked him many questions.

‘Where is the Little Father’s yacht, the North Star, lying?’ he asked.

‘Out there, moored to that big buoy. You will see she has the Imperial flag flying.’ As he spoke, the landlord pointed to the outside of the harbour, where a large steam-yacht, painted white, was moored. A thin film of smoke was issuing from her funnels, and a little wreath of steam from her steam-pipes. ‘She has been outside into the roadstead this morning to adjust her compasses. I see a bargeload of stores has just gone off to her.’

‘At what hour will the Imperial party arrive to-morrow?’

‘They are timed, I understand, to be here at nine o’clock,’ said the landlord.

‘The Czar is a stickler for punctuality, isn’t he?’ asked the stranger.

‘Yes. I understand he is seldom behind time if he can help it. Well, his Majesty will have a good trip, I hope. The weather promises to be fine. God protect him!’

‘She is a fine yacht, is the North Star, I suppose?’

‘Splendid! Magnificent! I once had the honour of going on board by the courtesy of one of the officers, who gave me an order. But she was laid up then, and partly dismantled. Now would be the time to see her, when she is all ready for the Little Father’s reception. But that is impossible. No one not connected with the vessel would be allowed on board.’

The stranger smiled, as he remarked:

‘I am not connected with the vessel, and yet I am going on board.’

‘You are!’ cried the host in astonishment. ‘Impossible!’

‘By no means impossible. I have official business.’

‘Oh, well, of course, that’s another thing. Well, I envy you.’

When the landlord had gone about his affairs, the girl said to her companion, speaking in low tones:

‘You are a fool to talk about your intentions in that way. You are simply directing attention to yourself.’

‘Tut! hold your tongue! What does it matter? There is nothing to fear from this thick-headed publican.’

‘But you ought to be more careful—you ought indeed,’ urged the girl tearfully. ‘You are far too reckless. Remember the tremendous risks you are running—we are running—for if you sacrifice yourself you sacrifice me too.’

‘Are you beginning to funk?’ asked the man irritably.

‘No. But there is no reason why the risks should be made greater than they are. We have a great task to accomplish, and every possible caution should be exercised.’

‘Well, now what have I done that is wrong?’ demanded the man angrily.

‘You told the landlord you were going on board the yacht. It was foolish to do that. You drew attention to yourself.’

‘Possibly you are right—possibly you are right,’ her companion returned thoughtfully. ‘It was a little bit of vanity on my part, but it slipped out. However, all will be well. Our plans are so well laid it is impossible for them to miscarry.’

‘Nothing is impossible; nothing should be counted upon as certain until it is accomplished,’ the girl said.

‘You are a nice sort of Job’s comforter. Do, for goodness’ sake, keep quiet!’ answered the man snappishly. He was evidently in a highly nervous state, and very irritable. ‘Well, I must go. Be sure, now, that you don’t stir from here until I return.’

‘I understand,’ said the girl. ‘But, remember, the suspense will be awful. Don’t be away from me a minute longer than you can help.’

He promised that he would not. Then, taking up his hand-bag, he embraced his companion and went out. Making his way down to the quay, he hired a boat, and instructed the boatman to row him to the Imperial yacht.

On reaching the vessel, he was challenged by the sentry on duty at the gangway, and he replied that he had come on official business, and had a Government order. Whereupon he was allowed to get on to the lower grating of the steps, where an officer came to him, and he produced a Government document, stamped with the official seal, and setting forth that his name was Ivan Orloff, that he was one of the naval clockmakers, and had been sent down to adjust all the clocks on board the North Star preparatory to the Czar’s arrival. Such an order could not be gainsaid, so he was admitted on board, but an armed sailor was told off to accompany him about the ship, and show him where the various clocks were situated. There were a good many clocks, as every officer had one in his cabin.

The man came at last to the Czar’s suite of apartments in the newly-constructed deckhouse. The sailor paused at the entrance to cross himself before a sacred picture that hung on the bulkhead, but Orloff pushed on, and, passing beneath costly and magnificent curtains, he reached the Czar’s sleeping-cabin, which was a dream of splendour. With quick, hurried movements he took from his bag an oblong box, turned a handle on an index dial, and placed the box beneath the royal bed. He scarcely had time to recover his position, and get to a chest of drawers on which stood a superb clock, when the sailor entered, and said gruffly:

‘You ought to have waited for me.’

‘I’m in a hurry, friend,’ said Orloff. ‘I want to get my work finished and return to St. Petersburg to-night.’

As he lifted the glass shade off the clock, his hands trembled and his face was as white as marble, but the sailor did not notice it.

Half an hour later Orloff had completed his task, and took his departure, and landing once more on the quay, he made his way to the tavern and joined the girl.

‘Have you succeeded?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Yes. But a sailor kept guard over me, and I was afraid the plan would have miscarried; I racked my brains trying to find an excuse for freeing myself from him. But fortune favoured me. He stopped to mumble a prayer before an ikon, and I seized the opportunity to get into the Tsar’s bed-chamber, where I planted the machine. It is set for thirty-three hours, and will go off to-morrow night when the Tsar has retired to his couch.’

The girl looked frightened, and said nervously:

‘Well, let us leave here, and get back without a moment’s delay.’

‘Don’t worry yourself, my child; there is plenty of time. I am going to dine first.’

He ordered dinner for two and half a bottle of vodka beforehand by way of an appetizer, and, having drunk pretty freely, he and the girl strolled out while the dinner was being prepared.

It was a glorious evening. The sun was setting. The heavens were dyed with crimson fire. In the clear atmosphere the masts and rigging of the vessels stood out with a sharpness of definition that was remarkable. There was no wind. The water of the gulf was motionless.

Suddenly there was a tremendous shock as if a great gun had been fired, and in a few moments a cry arose from a hundred throats that something had happened on board the Imperial yacht. The air about her was filled with splinters of wood. Men could be seen running along her decks in a state of great excitement, and she appeared to be heeling over to the starboard side. ‘Her boilers have burst,’ cried the people, as they rushed pell-mell to the quay, while from all parts of the harbour boats were hurriedly making their way to the North Star, as it was thought that she was foundering.

THE SECOND ACT—THE UNRAVELLING OF THE PLOT.

When the explosion on board the Imperial yacht occurred, Orloff and the girl were strolling along one of the quays which commanded a full view of the harbour, and, attracted by the tremendous report, they turned their eyes seaward to behold a dense column of vapourish smoke rising upwards, and wreckage of all kinds filling the air. The girl staggered, and reeled against her companion, and he, clapping his hand suddenly to his forehead, exclaimed:

‘My God! what have I done? The machine has gone off before its time. I must have set the index wrong.’

The excitement both on shore and in the harbour was tremendous, otherwise Orloff and the woman would surely have drawn attention to themselves by the terror and nervousness they displayed.

‘We are lost! we are lost!’ wailed the woman.

At this the man seemed to suddenly recover his self-possession.

‘Peace, fool!’ he muttered savagely between his teeth. ‘We are not lost.’

He glanced round him anxiously for some moments; then, seeing a boat containing a solitary boatman about to put off from the quay, he said hurriedly to his companion, ‘Stop here for a little while; I will return shortly.’

She was so dazed and stupefied that she made no attempt to stop him, and he hurried away, rushed down a flight of stone steps, and hailed the boatman.

After a few words of haggling and bargaining, Orloff sprang into the little craft and the boatman rowed rapidly out towards the North Star.

The girl waited and waited in a fever of anxiety and impatience. She paced the quay—up and down, up and down. To and fro she went. Her face was as white as bleached marble. Her dark flashing eyes bespoke the fear she felt. Her hands opened and shut spasmodically from the extreme nervous tension she felt.

All the light of day faded out of the sky. A blood-red streak did linger in the western sky for a time, but was suddenly extinguished by the black robe of Night. The girl still paced the quay, but Orloff did not return. She heard the gossip of people as they returned to the shore from the harbour, and from this she gathered that the Imperial yacht had been partially destroyed, and many lives had been lost. The prevailing opinion was that the mischief was due to the bursting of a boiler.

Unable longer to endure her misery, the girl went back to the tavern. The landlord came to her, and asked if she had been off to the wreck.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘My husband has gone. It’s an awful business, isn’t it? They say the boiler of the steamer blew up, and that there have been many lives lost.’

‘I heard that half the crew are killed,’ said the landlord. ‘God be praised that the accident occurred before our Little Father arrived! It’s a Providential escape.’

‘Yes,’ answered the girl sullenly.

The landlord asked her if she would have dinner, as it was all ready. She replied that she would wait for her husband. She drank some vodka, however, to steady her nerves, and smoked a cigarette.

Presently she went forth again, and paced the quay, going back to the tavern after a time to learn that Orloff had not returned. It was then a little after nine. And as the last train to St. Petersburg started at half-past nine, she settled the bill at the tavern, and, taking the leather bag with her, hurried to the station and got back to town. She was full of nervous apprehension, and puzzled to account for the strange disappearance of Orloff. Had he deserted her? Had he been apprehended? The suspense was horrible. It almost drove her mad.

---

When the news of the disaster on board the Czar’s yacht reached St. Petersburg, the consternation was tremendous, and a special train filled with Government officials, including Michael Danevitch, started at once for Kronstadt to investigate the affair on the spot.

Several bodies had been recovered and brought on shore. They were laid out in a shed on the quay. The shed was lighted by oil-lamps, and their feeble glimmer revealed a ghastly sight. The bodies were all more or less mutilated. Some were unrecognisable. There were nine altogether, including the chief officer and the chief engineer.

The captain arrived with the Government officials. He had been in town, and was to have travelled down the next day in the Emperor’s suite.

In mustering his ship’s company, he found that twenty-three were missing altogether. Nine of that number were lying in the shed. The rest were being searched for by boats. Several were recovered, but some drifted out with the currents and were seen no more.

Investigations soon proved that the destruction was not due to the bursting of a boiler. The boilers were intact. The cause of the disaster, therefore, was a mystery, until somebody on board, having recovered his presence of mind after the dreadful shock, referred to the visit of the Government clock-winder.

That sounded suspicious. As far as the officials knew, no one had been sent down to wind the clocks. But still, as the fellow had come furnished with Government-stamped credentials, it was probably all right.

Owing, however, to some strange oversight or stupid blunder, nothing could be ascertained then, as no one was at the telegraph-office in St. Petersburg to receive messages, and so the night wore itself out, and many hours’ start was given to Orloff and his co-conspirators.

During this time Danevitch was not idle. He knew, perhaps better than anyone else, how the Emperor was encompassed round about with enemies who sought his destruction, and the wily detective smelt treason in the air.

Although it was night, Kronstadt kept awake, for people were too excited to sleep, and a messenger was despatched to St. Petersburg on an engine, whose driver was ordered to cover the distance in an hour—a fast run for Russia. The messenger was furnished with a description of Orloff—at this time it was not known that a woman had been with him; it will be remembered she did not go on board—and was told to lose not a moment in circulating that description.

Then Danevitch began inquiries on his own account in Kronstadt. From the survivors on board the yacht he ascertained at what time Orloff went on board; an hour and a half before he presented himself a train had arrived from St. Petersburg.

He had probably arrived by that train. The boatman who took him off to the yacht was found. He said the supposed clock-winder carried a black bag with him both going and coming.

After his return to the shore only two trains left for St. Petersburg. By neither of those trains did he travel, so far as could be ascertained.

The sailor who had been told off to accompany Orloff over the vessel was amongst the missing; but it was gathered that when the clock-winder had gone the sailor mentioned to some of his companions that he had been much annoyed by the stranger rushing forward to the Emperor’s bed-chamber, while he (the sailor) was mumbling a prayer before an ikon (sacred picture) which hung at the entrance.

When he got into the room, he noticed that the stranger was pale and flurried, as if he had received a shock. Those who heard the story thought the sailor’s imagination had run away with him, and so no importance or significance was attached to what he said.

The destructive force of the explosion on board the North Star had been tremendous. Not only had the whole of the Czar’s rooms been completely destroyed, but a large section of the ship’s decks and bulwarks had been shattered, and one of her plates started, so that the water came in so fast that the pumps had to be kept going, while preparations were made to tow her into the docks, for her own engines being damaged, they would not work.

Soon after six in the morning, the engine that had been sent to the capital returned and brought some more officials. They stated that, from inquiries made, no one by the name of Orloff had been sent down to regulate the clocks on board the Czar’s yacht.

All the clocks on board the Imperial fleet were kept in order by contract, and no special warrant had been supplied to anybody of the name of Orloff.

This information made it clear that a dastardly conspiracy was at work, and it was easy to surmise that the explosion on board the yacht was premature. The intention evidently was that it should take place after the Czar had embarked; but the cowardly wretches, by some blundering, had allowed their mine to go off too soon, and though many innocent people had been sacrificed, and immense damage done to valuable property, the life of the Emperor had been spared.

It was not long before Danevitch found out that the man calling himself Orloff, and a female companion, had put up at a tavern near the quay, and the landlord gave all the information he could.

He stated that Orloff told him he was going on board the vessel, and started off for that purpose, leaving the woman behind him. He returned later, and ordered dinner, and then he and the woman went off again for a stroll.

After the explosion the woman returned alone, and hurried away by herself, taking the black bag with her, to catch the last train.

This was instructive, but it was also puzzling. It was established that the woman did go up by the last train, but not Orloff. What had become of him?

Danevitch took measures to have every outlet from Kronstadt watched. Then he set off for St. Petersburg. In reasoning the matter out, it was clear to him that several, perhaps many, persons had had a hand in the conspiracy.

The infernal machine carried on board the North Star by the man calling himself Orloff was hardly likely to be the work of one man. Any way, a woman was mixed up in the business.

The official document that Orloff had presented was written on Government paper, and it bore the Government seal. The officer of the North Star who had examined it before admitting the pseudo-clock-regulator, and who was amongst those who escaped without hurt from the explosion, testified to that.

Such being the case, and the order being written on what was known as ‘Admiralty’ paper, it followed that it must have been stolen from the Admiralty office. It struck Danevitch that the thief was probably a female employé in the Admiralty Palace, and that it was she who accompanied Orloff to Kronstadt.

This was a mere surmise, but it seemed feasible, and with Danevitch all theories were worth testing. Whoever it was, in the hurry of leaving the tavern at that town she had left behind her a glove.

It was a black silk-thread glove, ornamented at the back with sprigs worked in white silk. With this glove in his possession, Danevitch proceeded to the Admiralty Palace. But as soon as he arrived he learnt that Miss Catherine Snell had made a statement about Anna Plevski having visited Room 12 and requested to look at the plans of the North Star.

Anna was at once confronted with Danevitch. Asked where she had been the night before, she replied indignantly, ‘At home, of course.’

Did she know a person named Orloff? No, she did not. Why did she go to Catherine Snell and ask her to show her the plans of the North Star? Simply to gratify her curiosity, nothing else. She was next asked if she had worn gloves the day previous. She replied that she had. What sort were they? Kid gloves, she answered. Had she those gloves with her? No; she had left them at home, and had come to the office that morning without gloves.

After a few more inquiries she was allowed to return to her duties, but was kept under strict surveillance, while poor Catherine Snell was suspended for dereliction of duty.

In the meantime Danevitch proceeded to Anna’s lodgings, and a search there brought to light the fellow to the glove left in the tavern at Kronstadt. It had been thrown carelessly by the girl on the top of a chest of drawers. This glove was a damning piece of evidence that Anna had accompanied Orloff to Kronstadt the day before, and that established, it was a logical deduction that she had stolen the stamped paper on which he had written, or caused to be written, the order which had gained him admission on board of the North Star. All this, of course, was plain sailing. Catherine Snell’s statement had made matters easy so far. But there was a good deal more to be learnt, a great deal to be sifted before the truth would be revealed.

When a person in Russia is suspected of crime, the law gives the police tremendous power, and there are few of the formalities to be gone through such as are peculiar to our own country; and in this instance Danevitch was in a position to do almost absolutely whatever he thought fit and proper to do.

The finding of the glove carried conviction to his mind that Anna Plevski was mixed up in this new plot for the destruction of the Emperor. So, without any ceremony, he proceeded to rummage her boxes and drawers for further evidence. The want of keys did not deter him; chisels and hammers answered the same purpose. His search was rewarded with a bundle of letters. These were hastily scanned; they were all, apparently, innocent enough; the majority of them were love letters. A few of these were signed ‘Peter Treskin’; the rest simply bore the initial ‘P.’ There was nothing in any of these letters calculated to cause suspicion, with the exception of the following somewhat obscure passage in a letter written a few days before the explosion:

‘The time is at hand when your faith and love will be put to a great test. The serious business we have in hand is reaching a critical stage, and success depends on our courage, coolness, and determination. You and I must henceforth walk hand-in-hand to that supreme happiness for which we have both toiled. We love each other. We must unite our destinies in a bond that can only be severed by death.’

Having learnt so much, Danevitch once more confronted Anna. She confessed she had a lover named Peter Treskin; they had quarrelled, however, and he had gone away; but she knew not where he had gone to, and she did not care if she never saw him again.

‘Perhaps you will be able to remember things better in a dungeon,’ suggested Danevitch, as he arrested Anna, and handed her over to the care of a gendarme.

She turned deathly white, but otherwise appeared calm and collected, and declared that she was the victim of a gross outrage, for which everyone concerned would be made to suffer.

Danevitch’s next move was to go to Treskin’s lodgings. He found that gentleman had been absent for three days. Here also a search was made for compromising papers. A good many letters from Anna Plevski were brought to light. They all breathed the most ardent love and devotion for the man; and the writer declared that she could not live a day without him, that for his sake she was prepared to peril her soul. But there were other letters—love letters—written to Treskin by a woman who signed herself Lydia Zagarin. This person not only betrayed by her writing that she was desperately, madly in love with Treskin also, but from her statements and expressions it was obvious that he had carried on an intrigue with her, and was as much in love with her as she was with him. She wrote from a place called Werro, in the Baltic provinces. Danevitch took possession of these letters, and continued his search, during which he came across a slip of paper which bore the printed heading, ‘The Technical School of Chemistry, St. Petersburg.’ On it was written this line: ‘Yes, I think I shall succeed.—Smolski.’

Apparently there was not much in this, but what there was was quite enough for Danevitch under the circumstances, and he had Professor Smolski arrested. It was a summary proceeding, but in times of excitement in Russia anyone may be arrested who may possibly turn out to be a guilty person. It is not necessary that there should be a shadow of a shade of evidence of guilt in the first instance; it is enough that there is a possibility of the police being right. But if they are wrong what does it matter? The person is released, and the police are not blamed. Danevitch, however, did not often go wrong in this respect; and in this instance, Smolski being a Professor in the Technical School of Chemistry, there were probabilities that he might be able to afford some valuable information respecting Treskin.

Smolski was one of those extraordinary types of men who, having conceived a certain thing to be right, are willing to risk fame, fortune, life itself, for the sake of their opinions. Smolski was undoubtedly a gentle, high-minded man; nevertheless he believed that the ruler of his country was a tyrant; that his countrymen were little better than slaves, whose social and political rights were ignored; that the ordinary means—such as are familiar to more liberally-governed countries—being useless to direct attention to their wrongs, violent measures were justified, and the removal of the tyrant would be acceptable in God’s sight. Holding these views—and though he was a family man and one respected and honoured—Smolski had allied himself with a band of arch-conspirators, whose head was Peter Treskin. He was calm, dignified, and collected under his arrest, and when he was interrogated, in accordance with Russian law, by a judge of instruction, he frankly admitted that he had been concerned in an attempt to bring about a better form of government; but he steadfastly refused to denounce any of his accomplices. He could die bravely, as became a man, but no one should say he was a traitor.

All this would have been admirable in a nobler cause; as it was, he simply proved that he had allowed his extreme views to blind him to the difference between legitimate constitutional agitation and crime—crime that, whether committed in the name of politics or not, was murder, and an outrage against God’s ordinance. Smolski, in common with most men, neglected the safe rule that letters should be destroyed when they are calculated to compromise one’s honour or betray one’s friends. And thus it came about that when the Professor’s papers were examined, not only were Isaac and Jacob Eisenmann brought into the police net, but many others; and in a diary he had kept there was a record of his experiments with the deadly compound which was destined to blow the monarch of the Empire into eternity, but which, owing to an accident or a blunder, had failed in its object so far as the Czar was concerned, though it had cruelly cut short the lives of many hard-working and worthy men. Under any circumstances, even if the Czar had been involved in the destructive influences of the infernal machine, many others must have perished with him. Such conspirators never hesitate to destroy nine hundred and ninety-nine inoffensive people if they can only reach the thousandth against whom they have a grievance.

Piece by piece the whole story as set forth in the first part of this chronicle was put together, and the plot laid bare; but though many had been brought under the iron grip of the law, the arch-conspirator, to whose ruling spirit and genius the plot was due, was still at large, and no trace of him was at that time forthcoming; but Danevitch did not despair of hunting him down, of bringing him to his doom. And no one whose mind was not distorted could say his life was not forfeited. His whole career had been one of plotting and deceit. His commanding presence and masterful mind had given him such an influence over many of those with whom he came in contact—especially women—that he had proved himself more than ordinarily dangerous, while his reckless and cowardly wickedness in carrying the infernal machine on board the Czar’s yacht, and thereby causing the sudden and cruel death of something like two dozen people, stamped him at once as a being against whom every honest man’s hand should be raised.

In the meantime, while Danevitch was trying to get a clue to Treskin’s whereabouts, his co-conspirators—they might truly be described as his dupes—were tried, found guilty, condemned, and executed. Smolski, the two Eisenmanns, and four others, were ignominiously hanged in the presence of an enormous crowd. Smolski met his end with a perfect resignation, a calm indifference. He firmly believed he was suffering in a good cause. He died with the words ‘Khrista radi’ (For Christ’s sake) upon his lips. He posed as a martyr.

Anna Plevski had been cast for Siberia, but before starting upon the terrible journey, the prospects of which were more appalling than death, she would have to spend many months in a noisome dungeon in the Russian Bastile, Schlusselburgh, in Lake Ladoga.

But a circumstance presently arose which altered her fate. Danevitch had kept his eye on Lydia Zagarin, of Werro. He found she was the daughter of a retired ship-master, who had purchased a little property in the small and pleasantly-situated town of Werro. He was a widower. Lydia was his only daughter. On her father’s death she would succeed to a modest fortune. Treskin had borrowed money from her, and it was probable that he had singled her out from his many female acquaintances as one to whom he would adhere on account of her money. Four months after the fateful day when the Czar’s yacht was partially destroyed and many people were killed, Treskin wrote to this young woman, renewing his protestations of regard for her, and asking her to send him money, and to join him with a view to his marrying her. He gave his address at Point de Galle, Ceylon, where, according to his own account, he had started in business as a merchant. He stated that, though he had taken no active part in the destruction of the North Star, he happened to be in Kronstadt on the night of the crime, and as he knew he was suspected of being mixed up in revolutionary movements, he deemed it advisable to go abroad; and so he had bribed a boatman to convey him to a Swedish schooner which was on the point of leaving the Kronstadt harbour on the night of the explosion, and he bribed the captain of the schooner to convey him to the coast of Sweden. By this means he escaped. From Sweden he travelled to England; from England to Ceylon, where he had a cousin engaged on a coffee plantation.

This letter came into the hands of Danevitch before it reached Lydia. How that was managed need not be stated; but Danevitch now believed he saw his way to capture Treskin. He knew, of course, that, as a political refugee, claiming the protection of the British flag, he could not be taken in the ordinary way. The British flag has over and over again been disgraced by the protection it has afforded to wretches of Treskin’s type, and it was so in this instance. To obtain his extradition was next to impossible. He was a wholesale murderer, but claimed sanctuary in the name of politics, and he found this sanctuary under the British flag.

Danevitch, however, resolved to have him, and resorted to stratagem. He visited Anna Plevski in her dungeon. She knew nothing at this time of the fate of her lover, though she did know that he had not been captured. Danevitch, by skill and artifice, aroused in her that strongest of all female passions—jealousy. He began by telling her that Treskin had deserted her in a cowardly and shameful manner on the night of the crime, and did not care whether she perished or lived. Then he laid before her Lydia Zagarin’s letters to Treskin, which had been seized at Treskin’s lodgings, and he watched the effect on the girl as she read them. Finally he showed her the letter sent from Ceylon.

That was the last straw. Her feelings burst from the restraint she had tried to impose upon them, and she cursed him again and again. She declared solemnly that she was his victim; that she was innocent and loyal until he corrupted her, and indoctrinated her with his revolutionary ideas. He had sworn to be true to her, and used to say they would live and die together. On the night of the crime he had persuaded her to go with him to Kronstadt, because he declared that he could not bear her to be out of his sight. They had arranged that on the morrow they were to quit St. Petersburg, and travel with all speed to Austrian soil. But not only had he basely deceived her, but treacherously deserted her. She was furious, and uttered bitter regrets that she could not hope to be revenged upon him.

In this frame of mind she was left for the time. A week later, however, Danevitch once more visited her. She was still brooding on her wrongs and her hard fate. To suffer Siberia for the sake of a man who had so cruelly deceived her and blighted her young life was doubly hard.

‘Would she be willing, if she had the chance, to bring him to justice?’ Danevitch asked.

Her dark eyes filled with fire, and her pale face flushed, as she exclaimed with passionate gesture that she would do it with a fierce joy in her heart, and laugh at him exultingly as he was led to his doom.

She was told that the chance would be given to her to betray him into the hands of justice. She would be set free on sufferance, and allowed to proceed to Ceylon, and, provided she succeeded in her task and was faithful to the trust reposed in her, she would, on returning to Russia, receive a full pardon, and be supplied with a considerable sum of money to enable her to live abroad if she desired it.

In setting her free, however, in the first instance, the Government intended to retain a hold upon her, and to that end her youngest and favourite brother, who was an invalid, and to whom she was devoted, had been arrested on suspicion of being mixed up with revolutionary movements. If she did not return within a fixed time, the brother would be sent to the Siberian quicksilver-mines. While she was away he would be treated with every kindness, and on her return he would be set at liberty. His fate therefore was in her hands. If she allowed the false lover to prevail over her she would sacrifice her brother. If, on the other hand, she was true to her trust, she would save her brother, gratify her revenge, and be provided for for life.

She was allowed a week in which to make up her mind; but in two days she gave her decision. She would go to Ceylon. She would lure Treskin to his doom. To prepare the way she wrote a letter to dictation. In it she stated that she had been tried and found not guilty. No sooner was she released than she had been visited by a wretch of a woman named Lydia Zagarin, who abused her fearfully for having corresponded with Treskin, whom she claimed. And in her mad passion she had disclosed his whereabouts, but vowed that she hated him, knowing that he had been false to her, and that all he wanted now was her money. Anna, however, had no such thoughts about him. She loved him to distraction, and could not live without him. She intended, therefore, to go to Ceylon; and she had managed to secure some money, which she would take to him. She was perfectly sure, she added, that he loved her, and that they would be very happy together.

This letter was duly despatched, and a fortnight later Anna set out on her strange mission, having first had an interview with her brother, though she was cautioned against telling him or any living soul where she was going to. She found him almost broken-hearted, for he declared he was as innocent of revolutionary ideas as a babe unborn; but he knew that when once a man fell into the hands of the police as a ‘suspect’ he had very little to hope for. Anna endeavoured to cheer him up by saying she would do all that mortal could do to prove his innocence; and as the Government had failed to substantiate their charge against her, she was sure they would not succeed in his case.

---

The scene changes again for the final act, and shows the beautiful island of Ceylon and the wide, sweeping bay of Point de Galle, with its splendid lighthouse, its great barrier reef, and its golden sands. Anna Plevski had landed there from a P. and O. steamer, and had been met by Treskin, who, while he declared he was delighted to see her, showed by his manner he was annoyed.

As a matter of fact, he hoped for Lydia Zagarin, but Anna Plevski had come to him instead. But there was another cause for his annoyance, as Anna soon discovered. He had a native mistress; but in a little time Anna had so far prevailed over him that he put the dusky beauty away. He had commenced in business as a commission agent and coffee merchant; but so far success had not attended his efforts. He had neither the energy, the perseverance, nor the patience necessary if one would succeed in business, so that he very eagerly inquired of Anna what money she had brought. She told him that she had not very much with her, but in a few weeks would receive a remittance. In the meantime there was enough to be going on with. She thus won his confidence. Indeed, he never for a moment suspected her mission. There was nothing whatever to arouse his suspicions. It all seemed perfectly natural and he believed that under the ægis of the British flag he was perfectly safe. So he would have been if Danevitch had not played such a clever move to checkmate him.

A little more than two months passed, during which Treskin knew nothing of the sword that swung above his head. Then Anna complained of illness. She thought Point de Galle did not agree with her; she wanted a change; she had been told that Colombo was a very pretty place; she would like to see it; and as she had received a remittance of thirty pounds they could afford the journey. He must take her there. To this he consented, and they travelled by gharry. It was the first step towards his doom. With the remittance came another letter to Anna giving her secret instructions.

Colombo was duly reached. It was the best season. The days were tranquil and brilliant. The nights were wordless poems. The third night after their arrival Anna expressed a desire to go out in a native boat on the water. The sea was motionless. It was like a sheet of glass. The night was glorious; a soft land-breeze blew, laden with rich scents. The heavens were ablaze with stars, and a dreamy languor seemed to pervade the delicious atmosphere. Accordingly, a native boat and two stalwart rowers were hired, and Treskin and Anna embarked. It was the second step towards his doom.

The boatmen pulled from the land. The calm water and tranquil night made rowing easy, and presently a little bamboo sail was hoisted, which helped the craft along. Treskin lay back in the stern and smoked; Anna sat beside him, and sang softly snatches of plaintive Russian airs.

When about five miles from the shore, they saw a small steamer creeping slowly along. She came close to the boat, and an English voice hailed her and asked if anyone in the boat spoke English.

Treskin answered. The voice then inquired if the occupant of the boat would kindly take some letters on shore. The captain of the steamer did not want to go into the port.

Treskin gladly consented, and he was asked to order his boatmen to pull alongside the steamer, which proved to be a pleasure-yacht.

Without a shadow of suspicion in his mind, Treskin did so, and he was politely invited to step on board, a ladder being lowered for that purpose. He turned to Anna, and asked her if she would go. Of course she would. So she preceded him up the ladder.

As soon as he was on the deck the gangway was closed, and a man in uniform directed him to the little saloon, where some wine and biscuits stood on the table. The engines of the steamer were started, though that did not alarm him; but in a few minutes a stern, determined man entered the cabin. He wore the uniform of a lieutenant of the Russian Navy, and had a sword at his side.

‘Peter Treskin,’ he said in Russian, ‘you have been cleverly lured on board this boat, which is owned by a Russian gentleman, and flies the Russian flag, in order that you may be taken back to Russia to answer for your great crime.’

Treskin’s face turned to an ashen grayness, and, springing to his feet, he rushed to the door, but found his exit barred by armed men. In another instant he was seized, and heavily ironed. He knew then that his fate was sealed, and his heart turned to lead with an awful sense of despair.

Steaming as hard as she could steam, the yacht rounded Point de Galle, and when about fifteen miles due east of Ceylon she suddenly stopped. A Russian gunboat was lying in wait. To this gunboat the prisoner was transferred, but Anna remained on board the yacht.

The gunboat steamed away at once, and shaped her course for Manilla, where she coaled; and that done she proceeded under a full head of steam for the sea of Japan and Vladivostock.

The yacht went in the other direction, making for the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, and after a pleasant and uneventful voyage she sailed by way of the Bosphorus to the Crimea. She made many calls on the way, and at every port she touched at she was supposed to be on a pleasure cruise, and Anna was looked upon as the owner’s wife.

As Anna Plevski entered Russia in the west, her false lover entered it in the far east, and thence under a strong escort he was conducted through the whole length of Siberia to St. Petersburg, a distance of something like five thousand miles.

It is an awful journey at the best of times. In his case the awfulness was enhanced a hundredfold, for he knew that every verst travelled placed him nearer and nearer to his shameful doom.

He was six months on the journey, and when he reached the capital his hair was white, his face haggard and drawn, his eyes sunken. He was an old and withered man, while the terrible strain had affected his mind; but as he had been pitiless to others, so no pity was shown for him. He had brought sorrow, misery, and suffering to many a home. He had made widows and orphans; he had maimed and killed, and he could not expect mercy in a world which he had disgraced.

THE DÉNOUEMENT.

It is a typical Russian winter day. The sun shines from a cloudless sky. The air is thin and transparent, the cold intense; the snow is compacted on the ground until it is of the consistency of iron.

On the great plain outside of St. Petersburg, where the public executions take place, a grim scaffold is erected. It is an exposed platform of rough boards, from which spring two upright posts, topped with a cross-bar, from which depends a rope with a noose.

It is the most primitive arrangement. The scaffold is surrounded with troops, horse and foot. There are nearly two thousand of them; but the scaffold is raised so high that the soldiers do not obscure the view.

The plain is filled with a densely-packed crowd; but on one side a lane is kept open, and up this lane rumbles a springless cart, guarded by horsemen with drawn swords. In the cart, on a bed of straw, crouches a man, bound hand and foot. His face is horrible—ghastly. It wears a stony expression of concentrated fear.

A priest sits with the man, and holds a crucifix before his eyes. But the eyes appear sightless, and to be starting from the head.

The cart reaches the foot of the ladder which leads to the platform. The bound man is dragged out, for he is powerless to move. He is pushed and dragged up the ladder, followed by the priest. As soon as he reaches the platform and sees the noose, he utters a suppressed cry of horror, and shrinks away.

Pitiless hands thrust him forward again, and he is placed on some steps; the noose is adjusted round his neck. No cap is used to hide his awful face. At a given signal the steps are drawn away, and the man swings in the air and is slowly strangled to death. A great cheer rises from the crowd, but it is mingled with groans.

Thus did Peter Treskin meet his doom. He lived like a coward; he died like a coward. He had talents and abilities that, properly directed, would have gained him high position, but he chose the wrong path, and it ended in a dog’s death.

He well deserved his ignominious fate, and yet, even at the present day, there are some who believe he was a martyr. But these people may be classed amongst those who believe not, even though an angel comes down from heaven to teach.

THE CLUE OF THE DEAD HAND
THE STORY OF AN EDINBURGH MYSTERY

CHAPTER I.
NEW YEAR’S EVE: THE MYSTERY BEGINS.

A strange, weird sort of place was Corbie Hall. There was an eeriness about it that was calculated to make one shudder. For years it had been practically a ruin, and tenantless.

Although an old place, it was without any particular history, except a tradition that a favourite of Queen Mary had once lived there, and suddenly disappeared in a mysterious way. He was supposed to have been murdered and buried secretly.

The last tenant was one Robert Crease, a wild roisterer, who had travelled much beyond the seas, scraped money together, purchased the Hall, surrounded himself with a number of boon companions, and turned night into day. Corbie Hall stood just to the north of Blackford Hill, as those who are old enough will remember.

In ‘Rab’ Crease’s time it was a lonely enough place; but he and his brother roisterers were not affected by the solitude, and many were the curious tales told about their orgies.

However, Rab came to grief one night. He had been into the town for some purpose, and, staggering home in a storm of wind and rain with a greater burden of liquor than he could comfortably carry, he missed his way, pitched headlong into a quarry, and broke his neck.

He left the place to a person whom he described as his nephew. But the heir could not be found, nor could his death be proved. Then litigation had ensued, and there had been fierce wrangles; bitterness was engendered, and bad blood made. The place, however, remained empty and lonely year after year, until, as might have been expected, it got an evil reputation. People said it was haunted. They shunned it. The wildest possible stories were told about it. It fell into dilapidation. The winter rains and snows soaked through the roof. The window-frames rotted; the grounds became a wilderness of weeds.

At last the heir was found. His name was Raymond Balfour. He was the only son of Crease’s only sister, who had married a ne’er-do-weel of a fellow, who came from no one knew where, and where he went to no one cared. He treated his wife shamefully.

Her son was born in Edinburgh, and when he was little more than a baby she fled with him and obtained a situation of some kind in Deeside. She managed to give her boy a decent education, and he was sent to Edinburgh to study law.

He seemed, however, to have inherited some of his father’s bad qualities, and fell into disgrace. His mother dying before he was quite out of his teens, he found himself friendless and without resources.

His mother in marrying had alienated herself from her relatives, what few she had; and when she died no one seemed anxious to own kindredship with Raymond, whose conduct and ‘goings on’ were described as ‘outrageous.’ So the young fellow snapped his fingers at everyone, declared his intention of going out into the world to seek his fortune, and disappeared.

After many years of wandering in all parts of the world, and when in mid-life, he returned to Edinburgh, for he declared that, of all the cities he had seen, it was the most beautiful, the most picturesque.

He was a stalwart, sunburnt, handsome fellow, though with a somewhat moody expression and a cold, distant, reserved manner. He had heard by mere chance of his inheritance, and, having legally established his claim, took possession of his property.

Although nobody could learn anything at all of his affairs, it was soon made evident that he had plenty of money. He brought with him from India, or somewhere else, a native servant, who appeared to be devoted to him. This servant was simply known as Chunda.

He was a strange, fragile-looking being, with restless, dreamy eyes, thin, delicate hands, and a hairless, mobile face, that was more like the face of a woman than a man. Yet the strong light of the eyes, and somewhat square chin, spoke of determination and a passionate nature. When he first came he wore his native garb, which was exceedingly picturesque; but in a very short time he donned European clothes, and never walked abroad without a topcoat on, even in what Edinburgh folk considered hot weather.

When it became known that the wanderer had returned, apparently a wealthy man, those who years before had declared his conduct to be ‘outrageous,’ and declined to own him, now showed a disposition to pay the most servile homage.

But he would have none of them. It was his hour of triumph, and he closed his doors against all who came to claim kinship with him.

Very soon it was made manifest that Raymond Balfour was in the way to distinguish himself as his predecessor and kinsman, Crease, had done.

Corbie Hall was turned into a place of revel and riot, and strange, even startling, were the stories that came into currency by the vulgar lips of common rumour. Those whose privilege it was to be the guests at Corbie Hall were not people who, according to Edinburgh ethics, were entitled to be classed amongst the elect, or who were numbered within the pale of so-called ‘respectable society.’ They belonged rather to that outer fringe which was considered to be an ungodly Bohemia.

It was true that in their ranks were certain young men who were supposed to be seriously pursuing their studies in order that they might ultimately qualify for the Church, the Law, and Medicine.

But their chief sin, perhaps, was youth, which, as the years advanced, would be overcome. Nevertheless, the frowns of the ‘superior people’ were directed to them, and they were solemnly warned that Corbie Hall was on the highroad to perdition; that, as it had always been an unlucky place, it would continue to be unlucky; in short, that it was accursed.

Raymond Balfour’s guests were not all of the sterner sex. Ladies occasionally graced his board. One of them was a Maggie Stiven, who rejoiced in being referred to as the best hated woman in Edinburgh.

She was the daughter of a baker carrying on business in the High Street; but Maggie had quarrelled with her parents, and taken herself off to her only brother, who kept a public-house in College Street.

He, too, had quarrelled with his people, so that he not only welcomed Maggie, but was glad of her assistance in his business.

Maggie bore the proud reputation of being the prettiest young woman in Edinburgh. Her age was about three-and-twenty, and it was said she had turned the heads of half the young fellows in the town. She was generally regarded as a heartless coquette, a silly flirt, who had brains for nothing else but dress.

She possessed a will of her own, however, and seemed determined to shape her course and order her life exactly as it pleased her to do.

She used to say that, if ‘the grand folk’ turned up their noses at her, she knew how to turn up her nose at them.

When she found out that a rumour was being bandied from lip to lip, which coupled her name with the name of Raymond Balfour—in short, that he and she were engaged to be married—she was intensely delighted; but, while she did not deny it, she would not admit it. It was only in accordance with human nature that some spiteful things should be said.

‘It’s no for his guid looks nor his moral character that Maggie Stiven’s fastening herself on to the reprobate of Corbie Hall,’ was the sneering comment. ‘It’s his siller she’s thinking of. She’s aye ready to sell her body and soul for siller. Well, when he’s married on to her he’ll sune find that it taks mair than a winsome face tae make happiness. But fules will aye be fules, and he maun gang his ain way.’

It is pretty certain that Maggie was not affected by this sort of tittle-tattle. She knew the power of her ‘winsome face,’ and made the most of it. She knew also that the scathing things that were said about her came from her own sex.

She could twist men round her little finger. They were her slaves. That is where her triumph came in. She could make women mad, and bring men to their knees.

Whether or not there was any truth in the rumour at this time, that she was likely to wed the master of Corbie Hall, there was no doubt at all that she was a frequent visitor there.

Sometimes she went with her brother, who supplied most of the liquor consumed in the Hall—and it was a pretty good source of income to him—and sometimes she went alone.

Scarcely a night passed that Mr. Balfour was without company; and Maggie was often there three or four nights a week. She had even been seen driving about with him in his dogcart.

It seemed, therefore, as if there was some justification for the surmise as to the probable match and the ultimate wedding.

These preliminary particulars about Maggie and the new owner of Corbie Hall will pave the way to the series of extraordinary events that has now to be described.

It was New Year’s Eve. Raymond Balfour had then been in possession of his property for something like nine months, and during that period had made the most of his time.

He had gone the pace, as the saying is; and the old house, after years of mouldiness and decay, echoed the shouts of revelry night after night. There were wild doings there, and sedate people were shocked.

On the New Year’s Eve in question there was a pretty big party in the Hall. During the week following Christmas, large stores of supplies had been sent out from the town in readiness for the great feast that was to usher in the New Year.

Some fifteen guests assembled in the house altogether, including Maggie Stiven and four other ladies, and in order to minister to the wants of this motley crowd, three or four special waiters were engaged to come from Edinburgh.

The day had been an unusually stormy one. A terrific gale had lashed the Firth, and there had been much loss of life and many wrecks. The full force of the storm was felt in Edinburgh, and numerous accidents had occurred through the falling of chimney-cans and pots. Windows were blown in, hoardings swept away, and trees uprooted as if they had been mere saplings.

The wind was accompanied by hail and snow, while the temperature was so low that three or four homeless, starving wretches were found frozen to death.

As darkness set in the wind abated, but snow then began to fall, and in the course of two or three hours roads and railways were blocked, and the streets of the city could only be traversed with the greatest difficulty. Indeed, by seven o’clock all vehicular traffic had ceased, and benighted wayfarers despaired of reaching their homes in safety.

The storm, the darkness, the severity of the weather, the falling snow, did not affect the spirits nor the physical comfort of the guests assembled at Corbie Hall.

To the south of Edinburgh the snow seemed to fall heavier than it did in the city itself. In exposed places it lay in immense drifts, but everywhere it was so deep that the country roads were obliterated, landmarks wiped out, and hedges buried.

In the lonely region of Blackford Hill, Corbie Hall was the only place that gave forth any signs of human life. Light and warmth were there, and the lights streaming from the windows must have shone forth as beacons of hope to anyone in the neighbourhood who might by chance have been battling with the storm and struggling to a place of safety.

But no one was likely to be abroad on such a night; and the guests at the Hall, when they saw the turn the weather had taken, knew that they would be storm-stayed at the Hall until the full light of day returned. But that prospect did not concern them.

They were there to see the old year out and the new one in; and so long as the ‘meal and the malt’ did not fail they would be in no hurry to go.

From all the evidence that was collected, they were a wild party, and did full justice to the stock of eatables and drinkables—especially the drinkables—that were so lavishly supplied by the host.

When twelve o’clock struck there was a scene of wild uproar, and everyone who was sober enough to do so toasted his neighbour. During the whole of the evening Balfour had openly displayed great partiality for Maggie Stiven.

He insisted on her sitting next to him, and he paid her marked attention. When the company staggered to their feet to usher in the new year, Raymond Balfour flung his arms suddenly round her neck, and, kissing her with great warmth, he droned out a stanza of a love-ditty, and then in husky tones exclaimed:

‘Maggie Stiven’s the bonniest lass that ever lived, and I’m going to marry her.’

About half-past one only a few of the roisterers were left at the table. The others had succumbed to the too-seductive influences of the wine and whisky, and had ceased to take any further interest in the proceedings. Suddenly there resounded through the house a shrill, piercing scream. It was a scream that seemed to indicate intense horror and great agony.

Consternation and silence fell upon all who heard it. In a few moments Raymond Balfour rose to his feet and said:

‘Don’t be alarmed. Sit still. I’ll go and see what’s the matter.’

He left the room with unsteady gait, and nobody showed any disposition to follow him. Something like a superstitious awe had taken possession of the revellers, and they conversed with each other subduedly.

Amongst them was a tough, bronzed seafaring man, named Jasper Jarvis. He was captain of the barque Bonnie Scotland, which had arrived at Leith a few weeks before from the Gold Coast with a cargo of palm-oil and ivory.

Jarvis, who seems to have been quite in his sober senses, got up, threw an extra log on the fire, and in order to put heart into his companions, began to troll out a nautical ditty; but it had not the inspiriting effect that he expected, and somebody timidly suggested that he should go in search of the host.

To this he readily assented, but before he could get from his seat, Maggie Stiven jumped up and exclaimed:

‘You people all stay here. I’ll go and look for Raymond.’

Captain Jarvis offered no objection, and no one else interposed, so Maggie hurriedly left the room. From this point the narrative of what followed can best be told in the skipper’s own words.

THE STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN JASPER JARVIS.

When Maggie had gone we were six all told. The four ladies had previously gone to bed. Two out of the six were so muddled that they seemed incapable of understanding anything that was going on.

The other three appeared to be under the spell of fear. They huddled together round the fire, and all became silent.

It is curious that they should have been so affected by the scream; and yet, perhaps, it wasn’t, for somehow or other it didn’t seem natural at all. But the fact is, we had all been so jolly and happy, and the cry broke in upon us so suddenly, that it impressed us more than it would have done otherwise.

And then another thing was, it was difficult to tell whether it was a woman or a man who had screamed. It was too shrill for a man’s cry, and yet it wasn’t like the scream of a woman.

When Maggie Stiven had been gone about ten minutes—it seemed much longer than that to us—Rab Thomson, who was one of three men who sat by the fire, looked at me with white face, and said:

‘Skipper, you go and look after them. I don’t feel easy in my mind. I’ve a sort of feeling something queer has happened.’

On that I rose, saying I would soon find out, and went to the door. As I opened it I heard a sigh, and then a sort of prolonged groan, and I saw, or fancied I saw, a shadowy figure flit up the stair.

The hall was in darkness, save for the light that fell through the doorway as I held the door partly open. I’m ashamed to say it, but when I saw—if I did see it—that ghostly figure glide up the stairs, and heard the sigh and the groan, I shut the door quickly and drew back into the room.

Like most sailor men, I’m not without some belief in signs, omens, wraiths, and those kind of things; though nobody can say, and nobody must say, I’m wanting in pluck.

I’ve been at sea for thirty-two years, and during that time I’ve faced death in a thousand forms, and never had any feeling of fear. But, to be straight, I don’t like anything that’s uncanny. I like to be able to get a grip of things, and to understand them.

When I started back into the room, Rab Thomson rose to his feet and asked me what I’d seen. I told him I had seen a shadowy figure glide up the stairs, and had heard a sigh and a groan.

He laughed, but it wasn’t a real kind of laugh. He was as white as death, and I heard his teeth chatter, and with a sudden movement he went to one of the long windows, pulled aside the heavy curtain, and, pressing his face to the glass, peered out.

I think his intention was to get out of the window and go home; but he saw what an awful night it was. The snow was still falling heavily; it was piled up against the window, and no one but a madman or a fool would have dreamed of going forth in such a storm, for it was all but certain he would have lost his life in the drifts.

Rab let the curtain fall, and, drawing back, filled himself a measure of whisky, and, tossing it off, said to me:

‘Why don’t you go and see what’s the matter, man? Surely, you are no’ frightened?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘but you are.’

And I walked to the door again, flung it open wide, so that the light streamed forth, and as I did so I saw a woman lying huddled up on the mat at the foot of the stairs.

I recognised her at once by the dress, which was a kind of pink silk, with a lot of fluffy lace all round the neck part of it, as Maggie Stiven, and, thinking she had fainted, I rushed forward, lifted her up with ease—for I am a powerful man, and she was a lightly-built little woman—and carried her to a big chair that stood empty near the fire. As I put her in the chair I noticed that her head fell forward on to her bosom with a strange kind of limpness, and her face was of a greenish, chalky kind of hue.

I felt frightened, and called out to the others to rouse up James Macfarlane, who had been studying medicine, but had nearly finished his course, and expected to get his diploma the next session.

Jamie had stowed away too much liquor in his hold in the early part of the evening, and had foundered, so somebody had rolled him up in a rug and put him on a couch, where he had been sleeping for hours. Notwithstanding that fact, it took a long time to waken him.

In the meanwhile I chafed Maggie’s hand, and Rab tried to get brandy down her throat, but it flowed out of her mouth again.

When James Macfarlane realized that something was wrong, he pulled himself together at once, and having felt Maggie’s pulse, he exclaimed with a horrified expression on his face:

‘My God, boys, she’s dead!’

This was only a confirmation of my own fears; nevertheless, the definite assertion by one who was qualified to tell was an awful shock to us.

A little more than a quarter of an hour before, Maggie, radiant with health and spirits, and looking very bonnie—she was one of the prettiest girls I think I’ve ever seen—had run out of the room; and now she was there in the chair, dead.

At Macfarlane’s suggestion we laid her flat on her back on the rug before the fire, and he tried to force a little brandy down her throat, but failed; and as he rose to his feet again, he said sadly:

‘There’s no mistake about it, boys: she’s dead as a herring.’

Our first thought now was of our host. What had become of him? I and Rab, who had recovered from his fright by this time, undertook to go in search of him. We lit the swinging lamp in the hall, and, taking candles with us, went upstairs to his room; but he was not there, and there were no signs of his having been there. Then we went to the room of the black fellow, Chunda.

The door was locked, and we had to shake and hammer it pretty hard before we roused him up. As he opened the door and stood before us in his night-clothes, he looked dazed, as one does when just wakened from sound sleep.

He did not speak English, but I could manage a little Hindustani, having been much in India, and I asked him if he had seen his master lately, and he answered ‘No.’ I told him he must come with me and look for him, as he knew the run of the house better than I did.

He only stopped to slip on some of his clothes and wrap a heavy rug round his shoulders, for he felt the cold very much.

Then we roused up the other three house-servants and the temporary servants, who had retired soon after midnight, and we went from room to room, passage to passage; in fact, we searched the house from top to bottom, but all in vain; not a trace of our friend could we get.

Our next step was to ascertain if he had gone out. But all the doors and windows were fastened. Nevertheless, I undertook to search the grounds, and, having been provided with a horn lantern, we got the big hall door opened; but the snow had drifted against it to such an extent that a great mass of it fell into the hall.

The night was pitch-dark, the air thick with snow. I made some attempt to go forth, but sank up to my waist, and was forced to return.

We then tried the back of the house, where there was a stable-yard. The snow was pretty heavy there, but not so heavy as in the front. Two men slept over the stable. I roused them up, got the keys of the stable, and went in. Balfour kept three horses, and they were in their stalls all right.

The stable-yard gate was barred, and it was very clear no one had been out that way.

I returned to the house, half frozen and very depressed. We then consulted together, and decided that nothing could be done until daylight.

It was an awful ending to our merry meeting, and the mystery of the whole affair weighed upon us like a nightmare.

The ladies of our party, who had gone to bed soon after we had drunk in the New Year, got up and dressed themselves. In the meantime we carried Maggie Stiven’s body into another room, where it was laid out on a table. James Macfarlane’s opinion was that she had died from a sudden shock of fright; and when that was taken in connection with the eldritch scream which had so startled us, and the mysterious disappearance of our host, we felt that there was something uncanny about the whole business.

The rest of the night was wearily passed. The others of our party, having been o’er fu’ when they went to sleep, continued to sleep through it all, and knew nothing of the tragic ending until they awoke in the morning.

With the coming of the morning our spirits revived a little, though we still felt miserable enough. It had almost ceased to snow, but the whole country was buried, and round about the house the drift was piled up until it reached to the lower windows.

As soon as it was broad daylight we made another careful search of the house, but not a sign of Raymond Balfour could we see.

Chunda helped us in our search. He was terribly cut up, and became so ill from grief and the cold that he was obliged to go to bed.

The only reasonable theory that we could find to account for Balfour’s strange disappearance was that, by some means we could not determine, he had managed to leave the house, and had perished in the snow.

As it had continued to snow all night, and at eight o’clock was still falling lightly, all traces were, of course, obliterated.

Every one of the visitors was now anxious to get away, but before anyone went, I drew up a statement which was duly signed. James Macfarlane and I then undertook to report the matter to the police in Edinburgh.

Before any of us could leave, we had to clear the snow away from the door and dig a path out. And even then it was no easy matter to get clear.

We were a sorrowful enough party, as may be imagined, and we all felt that the New Year had commenced badly for us.

The death of Maggie Stiven was a terrible business, and I confess to feeling surprised that she should have died from fright, for she was by no means a nervous girl. Indeed, I think she was as plucky as any woman I have ever known, and I was certain that if fright had really killed her she must have seen something very awful.

With reference to this, nobody, I think, liked to put his thoughts into words, but somehow we seemed to divine that each believed Satan had spirited Raymond Balfour away and frightened poor Maggie to death. Any way, the mystery was beyond our solving, and we were silent and melancholy as we straggled into Edinburgh, where armies of labourers were busy clearing the streets of snow.

It was an awful day. The cold was intense, and overhead the sky was like one vast sheet of lead. Except the labourers, few people were abroad, and those few looked pinched up, draggled, and miserable.

God knows, we were miserable enough ourselves! I know that my heart was like a stone; for I was not so wanting in sense as not to see that trouble was bound to come out of the business, and I fairly shuddered when I thought of poor Balfour’s end, for it seemed impossible to hope that he was still alive.

Look at the matter whichever way I would, it was a mystery which absolutely appalled me, and it had all come about with such awful suddenness that, speaking for myself, I felt stunned.

CHAPTER II.
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS.—THE NARRATIVE CONTINUED BY
PETER BRODIE, OF THE DETECTIVE SERVICE.

I was in Liverpool, engaged on a rather delicate matter, when I received a telegram from the chief of the police in Edinburgh, telling me to return by the next train. I wasn’t at all pleased by this recall, for it was wretched weather, and the prospect of a night journey to the North was far from agreeable.

The date was January 3. During the whole of New Year’s Eve there had been a violent storm, which seems to have been general all over the country. The result was a breakdown of telegraph-wires and serious interruption to traffic.

The telegram sent to me was five hours on the road; and as the ‘next train’ meant the night mail, I had no alternative but to bundle my traps together and start.

When we reached Carlisle a thaw had set in, and on arriving at Edinburgh I thought I had never seen Auld Reekie look so glum and dour. The streets were ankle-deep in slush.

Snow was slipping from the roofs everywhere in avalanches, necessitating considerable wariness on the part of pedestrians.

Horses panted, groaned, and steamed as they toiled with their loads through the filthy snow, and overhead the sky hung like a dun pall.

On reaching the head office, I was at once instructed to proceed to Corbie Hall to investigate a case of murder, and endeavour to trace the whereabouts of one Raymond Balfour, who, according to the statement of a Captain Jasper Jarvis, corroborated by James Macfarlane, medical student at the Edinburgh College, had mysteriously disappeared soon after midnight on January 1. The remarkably sudden and unaccountable death of Maggie Stiven necessitated a legal inquiry, and Dr. Wallace Bruce was sent to examine the body and report on the cause of death.

On removing the clothes, he noticed that the linen that had been next to the chest was slightly blood-stained, and an examination revealed a very small blue puncture, slightly to the left of the sternum, and immediately over the heart.

On probing this puncture with his finger, he felt something hard. He therefore proceeded to open the chest, assisted by a colleague, Dr. James Simpson, the well-known Edinburgh surgeon. To their astonishment, they found the puncture was due to a thrust from a very fine stiletto, which had pierced the heart on the left side. The stiletto had broken off, and four inches of the steel remained in the wound. This, acting as a plug, had prevented outward bleeding to any extent, but there had been extensive internal hæmorrhage. There was nothing else to account for death.

The girl was exceedingly well developed, well nourished, and without any sign or trace of organic disease. As she could not have driven the stiletto into her chest in such a way herself, it was obviously a case of murder.

When I reached Corbie Hall, the country round about was still white with snow, and Blackford Hill was like a miniature Alp, although the thaw was making its influence felt.

The Hall was a curious, rambling sort of place, with every appearance of age. It was a stone building, flanked by a small turreted tower at each end. It stood in about an acre of ground that was partly walled and partly fenced round. Two cast-iron gates of good design, hung on pillars, each surmounted by a carved greyhound, admitted to a carriage-drive that swept in a semicircle to the main entrance.

Passing through the doorway—the door itself was a massive structure—I found myself in a large square, paved hall, and immediately in front a broad flight of oak stairs led up to the first landing, where there was a very fine stained-glass window.

On the left was a long dining-room, which communicated by means of folding doors with another room of almost equal dimensions.

On the opposite side of the passage, and close to the foot of the stairs, was the door of the drawing-room, which was a counterpart almost of the dining-room.

Between the banisters of the stairs and the partition wall of the dining-room, the passage was continued to a door that gave access to a passage communicating with the kitchen and back premises.

The recess underneath the stairs was used for hanging up coats, hats, and other things. From the second landing the stairs struck off at an acute angle, and rose to the second story, where there were at least a dozen rooms, large and small.

Under the guidance of Chunda, the black servant, who seemed very ill and much depressed, I made a thorough inspection of the house. As he could not speak English, we had to communicate in signs, which was rather awkward. In addition to this Indian, Mr. Balfour had kept a cook and a small girl to help her, also a housemaid. Besides these, he employed a groom and a coachman. The coachman lived over the stables at the back with his wife and daughter, a girl of eighteen, and she and her mother both assisted in the house when necessary. The groom had a room to himself above the coach-house.

I questioned each of these servants individually and apart from the others as to whether they had heard the scream alluded to by Captain Jarvis. The three women living in the house said that they heard it, but those who lived over the stables did not. The ones who heard it slept in the right-hand tower. They did not retire until after the New Year had come in. Although the master had given them some hot drink, they were quite sober when they went upstairs.

As they were in the habit of doing every night, they extinguished the hall lamp and a lamp that stood on the bracket at the top of the stairs, thus leaving that part of the house in darkness. They did not attach any importance to the scream, as they thought it was some of the visitors larking, for they had all been very frisky during the evening.

The cook, however—her name was Mary Kenway—opened her door, which commanded in perspective a full view of the corridor leading to the top of the stairs, and she saw, or thought she saw, a shadowy figure standing in this corridor near the top of the stairs. Feeling a bit nervous, she shut the door hurriedly, and said to her fellow-servants, who shared the room with her:

‘One of those fools is playing at ghosts or something. Well, when the wine’s in, the wit’s out.’

She and her companions then got into bed, and some time afterwards were startled by a loud knocking at their door. The cook hurriedly procured a light, and on asking who was there, and being informed it was Captain Jarvis, and that he was searching for the master, who had disappeared, she slipped on her clothes and opened the door.

The temporary servants, of whom there were three, were sleeping in a room above her. They had indulged somewhat too freely, and it was a considerable time before they could be made to understand that something dreadful had happened.

With these details, and the statement of Captain Jarvis, I felt I was in a position to begin my researches.

If Captain Jarvis’s statement was true, and there wasn’t the slightest reason to doubt it, for it was in the main corroborated by Robert Thomson and others, the whole affair was shrouded in considerable mystery. Indeed, I think it was one of the strangest cases I ever had to do with. Maggie Stiven had been foully done to death by some subtle, deft, and treacherous assassin. She had been struck with great force, and the breaking of the weapon showed the fury with which her murderer had done his damnable work.

The skipper’s statement that when he opened the dining-room door he heard a sigh and sort of groan was compatible with the nature of the wound, for though the heart was injured, the fact of the piece of steel remaining in the wound would prevent a sudden emptying of the heart, and she might have lived after being struck five to ten minutes. The shadowy figure which Jarvis said he saw ‘gliding’ up the stairs was no doubt the assassin, although Jarvis—his imagination having been fired—thought it a supernatural appearance.

The cook also spoke of ‘a shadowy figure,’ and thought that some of the guests were ‘playing at ghosts.’ This independent testimony suggested that there was something curious and out of the common about the figure, and I was led to infer that the person who had done the deed was small, light of foot, and agile of movement. When he struck Maggie down he had probably been lurking in the drawing-room, the door of which, as I have already described, was just at the foot of the stairs, or he may have been concealed in the recess under the stairs. Whichever way it was, the girl had not mounted the stairs, and must have been stabbed the moment she reached the mat where the body was found, and before she had time to get her feet on the stairs to go up.

Now came the question, Why was she killed? Her going in search of Raymond Balfour was quite unpremeditated, and the assassin could hardly have known that she was coming out of the room.

Why, then, did he kill her? On the face of it, it seemed to be an unprovoked and brutal crime without any reason. But a little pondering, and a careful weighing of all the pros and cons, led me to the conclusion that the deed was not as purposeless as it seemed. If it was the result of madness, there was certainly method in the madness.

Some people expressed the opinion that Balfour himself had murdered the girl, but that opinion would not hold water.

Firstly, he himself was induced to leave the room by a scream or cry that was described as ‘uncanny.’ Did he arrange for that cry to be uttered in order that he might have an excuse for going out, knowing that the girl would follow him?

Secondly, if he was the slayer, why did he choose to kill the girl in his own house? for very little reflection must have shown him that to escape detection would be an impossibility.

No. It was only too evident that he did not kill Maggie Stiven, and his extraordinary disappearance led me to believe that he also had fallen a victim to the assassin. But if that was so, where was his body? It was, of course, of the highest importance that he should be discovered, dead or alive.

I caused a search to be made of the house from top to bottom. There wasn’t a room missed, not a cupboard overlooked, not a recess but what was scrutinized. Every box or trunk large enough to contain a man’s body was opened without result.

Every hole and corner, every chimney, every likely and unlikely place, was examined, but not a trace, not a sign, of the missing man was brought to light.

His bedroom was the largest and most important room in the house. It was panelled with dark oak panelling. The ceiling was carved wood, and there was a very large carved oak mantelpiece, which was considered a work of art. Two lattice-paned windows were in keeping with the place, which had also been furnished with a view to its character.

A massive four-post bedstead occupied one corner, and near it was an unusually large clothes-press of oak. This press was spacious enough to have held the bodies of three or four men, but Balfour’s body was not there.

From this room a small door gave access to a short, narrow passage, leading to another door at the foot of a stone staircase of about twenty steps, by which the top of the tower at that end of the building was gained. From the roof of the tower a very beautiful view was obtained. I need scarcely say I critically examined the doors, the passage, the stairs, the tower itself.

The locks of both doors were very rusty, and it was evident they had not been opened for some time. In the one at the foot of the tower stairs there was no key, and it was only after considerable search that one was found to fit it. And even then the lock could not be turned until it had been well oiled.

The dust on the stone stairs was the accumulation of months, and bore not the faintest trace of footprints. It was obvious that no one had passed that way for a very long time.

Having thus exhausted the interior of the building, I now proceeded to search outside.

Skipper Jarvis declared that, when he and Bob Thomson went through the house on the night of the tragedy, they looked to every door and window, but all were properly secured, and unless Balfour had squeezed himself through a keyhole or a cranny, he could not have left the building. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that the man must have got out in some way; otherwise, if he were dead, how was it we had failed to find his body in the house? So thorough had been the search that a dead mouse could not have escaped me.

There was still a great deal of snow on the ground, especially in the hollows and ravines; but it was soft and slushy owing to the rise in temperature.

Aided by half a dozen men—mostly gamekeepers—and several dogs, we commenced systematically to examine the grounds, the country round about, the burns, the woods, but all to no purpose. Every inch of Braid Glen was gone over; what is now the Waverley curling pond was dragged; the Jordan and Braid streams examined; all the quarries in the neighbourhood—of which there are many—were looked into; the Braid Hill and all round about the Braid Hill was paced; but the result was the same. Raymond Balfour was not found.

When our failure became known, the excitement increased greatly, especially amongst ignorant and stupid people, who stoutly maintained that the master of Corbie Hall had been spirited away by the Evil One, who had also killed Maggie Stiven. These good folks failed to explain why the Evil One should have stabbed Maggie with a stiletto, and have left more than half the blade in the wound, when he might have deprived her of life so much more easily. I found that even Captain Jarvis was not without some belief in this absurd theory.

‘If there is not something uncanny about the whole business, how is it you have failed to get trace of the man?’ asked Jarvis, with the air of one who felt he was putting a poser which was absolutely unanswerable. ‘You see,’ pursued the skipper, with an insistency of tone that was very amusing—‘you see, we were a bad lot. We’d just come there for an orgie, and the meat and drink that we wasted would have kept many poor wretches from starving on that awful night.’

‘Do you consider that Raymond Balfour was an exceptionally wicked man?’ I asked Jarvis.

‘Well, no,’ he answered seriously; ‘I shouldn’t like to say that. But he was a wild fellow.’

‘What do you mean by wild?’

‘Well, he was a little too fond of liquor and the ladies.’

‘Have you known him long?’

‘Yes, several years. I first met him in Madras. I saw a good deal of him later in Calcutta. He was a very wild boy then, I can tell you.’

‘But still no worse than tens of thousands of other people?’ I suggested.

‘Oh no; I don’t say he was,’ Jarvis answered quickly, and in a way that suggested he was anxious his friend should not be painted too black.

‘Now, I want you to tell me this, Captain Jarvis,’ I said somewhat solemnly, as I wished to impress him with the importance of the question: ‘was there any love-making between Raymond Balfour and Maggie Stiven?’

The skipper did not answer immediately. He seemed to be revolving the matter in his mind. Then, with a thoughtful stroking of his chin, he replied:

‘Balfour was fond of Maggie.’

‘Did he allow that fondness to display itself before others?’

‘When he was a bit gone in his cups he did,’ answered the captain, with obvious reluctance.

‘And was she fond of him?’

‘Yes—I think so’—the same reluctance showing itself.

‘Did she show her partiality?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Maggie wasn’t considered to be very stanch to anyone, was she?’

‘Well, she’d a good many admirers. She was an awful good-looking lass, you see. And lads will always run after a pretty girl.’

‘That scarcely answers my question, captain,’ I said. ‘I want to know if she openly—that is, before others—showed that she liked Balfour better than any other body?’

‘You see, Mr. Brodie, I’m not altogether competent to answer that,’ said the skipper, as though he was anxious to shirk the question.

‘But did she do so on the New Year’s Eve, when you were all so jovial?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did she display her liking?’

‘She sat on his knee several times. She kissed him, and he kissed her.’

‘That was before the company?’

‘It was.’

‘Did he make any remark, or did she? I mean, any remark calculated to engender a belief that this spooning was serious, and not a mere flirtation, the result of a spree?’

‘Well—I—I heard him say two or three times, “Mag, old girl, I’m going to marry you.”’

‘He had been drinking then, I suppose?’

‘He had, a good deal.’

‘And what did she reply?’

‘As near as I mind, she said, “All right, old man. We are just suited to each other, and we’ll make a match of it.”’

‘I must now ask you one or two other questions, captain. There were several men present, were there not?’

‘There were.’

‘They were all young men?’

‘Yes.’

‘And belonged to Edinburgh or its immediate neighbourhood?’

‘They did.’

‘Consequently they were all more or less well acquainted with Maggie?’

‘Yes. I don’t think there was a man there who didn’t ken her. You see, in her way she was a kind of celebrity in Edinburgh. Certain folk said hard things about her, and that made her mad sometimes, so that she took a delight in just showing how she could lead the lads by the nose.’

‘Now, I want you to give me an answer to this question, captain. Is it within your knowledge that out of her many admirers there was one who had been emboldened by her to think that he had the best claim upon her?’

‘I couldn’t say for certain; but it’s likely enough.’

‘Has it occurred to you to ask yourself if that favoured one was among Raymond Balfour’s guests on New Year’s Eve?’

The question seemed to startle Captain Jarvis. He looked at me searchingly and inquiringly, and it was some moments before he spoke, while his expression gave every indication that he fully understood the drift of my inquiry. At last he replied, hesitatingly and cautiously:

‘You see, Mr. Brodie, I wasn’t the keeper of Maggie’s conscience. She didn’t make me her confidant. Nor was I one of her favoured suitors. I’m an old married man, and she preferred young fellows.’

‘You’ve avoided my question now,’ I remarked, a little sharply, as it seemed to me he was prevaricating.

‘I’m trying to think,’ he said, with a preoccupied air. Then, after a pause, he added: ‘I can’t answer you, because I don’t know. What your question suggests is that some chap who was madly jealous of her murdered her.’

‘You are correct in your surmise,’ I answered.

‘Then, all I’ve got to say is this: It was impossible for anyone to have left the room and committed the crime without my being aware of it. I say again, it would have been impossible. She couldn’t have been out of the room two minutes before she was struck. You see, she had even been unable to get up the stair. Her going out was quite unpremeditated; and until she jumped up from her seat, and said she would go and look for Balfour, nobody knew she was going out of the room. No, Mr. Brodie, I’m convinced that no man of that company did the deed.’

I had every reason to think that Captain Jarvis was perfectly right in his conclusions. The logic of his argument was unanswerable. I had already taken means to ascertain some particulars about every person who had been present on the fateful night, including the extra servants; and I saw nothing and heard nothing calculated in any way to justify a suspicion being entertained against any particular individual. Nevertheless, I had them under surveillance.

What I had to deal with was the broad, plain, hard fact that Maggie Stiven had been brutally and suddenly murdered, while Raymond Balfour had disappeared as effectually as if the earth had suddenly opened and swallowed him, leaving not a trace behind. If he went forth from the house after quitting his guests, where had he gone to?

The state of the country, owing to the snow, made it physically impossible that he could have travelled far on that awful night; and had he perished in the snow near the house, his body must have been discovered, so thorough had been our search.

Then, again, assuming that he had got away, there would surely have been some indication of his mode of exit—an unfastened window, an unlocked door. But the most exhaustive inquiry satisfied me there was neither one nor the other.

But if Balfour was not out of the house, he must be in the house; and if he was in the house, it was as a dead man. And where was his body?

It seemed unreasonable to suppose that a human body could be disposed of so quickly and so effectually as to leave not a trace behind.

Then, again, granting that he was murdered, who murdered him, and why was he murdered? Who raised the unearthly cry, and was it raised purposely to draw him from the room in order that he might be immediately struck down?

Such was the problem with which I was confronted, and I freely confess that at this stage I felt absolutely baffled. I saw no clue, and nothing likely to lead me to a clue; but though baffled, I was not beaten. The mystery was profound, and the whole case so strange, so startling, that I was not surprised at ignorant people attributing it to supernatural agency. It had about it all the elements of some wild, weird story of monkish superstition, lifted from the pages of a mediæval romance. It was no romance, however, no legend, but a hard, dry fact of the nineteenth century that had to be accounted for by perfectly human means.

There was one point, however, which made itself clear through the darkness. It was that the author of the deed was a person of such devilish cunning, such brutal ferocity, such crafty ingenuity, that he would occupy a niche all to himself for evermore in the gallery of criminals.

As I have already said, though I was baffled, I was not beaten, and I felt sure I should ultimately succeed in the task set me. I had in my possession the broken blade of the stiletto, and I knew that might prove of value as a clue; and having done all that it was practical to do for the moment, I set to work to define a motive for the crime, and to construct a theory that would aid me in my efforts to solve the problem.

CHAPTER III.
THE DEAD HAND SMITES.

Peter Brodie stood very high in his profession. He had made his mark as a detective, and had solved some very complicated problems. In recalling him from Liverpool, whither he had been sent on important business, the authorities felt that if the Corbie Hall mystery was to be cleared up he was the man to do it. They saw from the first that it was a very difficult case, when all the circumstances were considered, but they were sure that Brodie was the one man likely to tackle it successfully.

It seemed as if the evil reputation of Corbie Hall was never to pass away, and after this new tragedy people recalled how Peter Crease, the drunken owner of it, and uncle of Balfour, had broken his neck in a quarry; how, following that, the gloomy house had fallen into dilapidation, until it was shunned as a haunted place. When the rightful heir turned up, they thought he would put things right; but instead of that he proved himself to be as big a reprobate as his relative had been: and now his mysterious disappearance, and Maggie Stiven’s murder, realized the croakings of the wiseacres, who had said that a curse hung over the house, and that anyone who went to live in the Hall would come to grief.

Of course, the tradition that a favourite of Queen Mary’s who had once lived there mysteriously disappeared, and was never heard of again, was also recalled; and the sages predicted that as that mystery was never cleared up, so would Balfour’s disappearance go down to posterity as an unsolved mystery. Possibly it might have done if Peter Brodie had not brought his intellect to bear upon it.

On the fourth day after his arrival the thaw had been so thorough that the land was quite clear of snow, and a second search was made for Balfour, but it only ended in failure, as the first had done.

Brodie was now convinced that the unfortunate man had never left the house; and yet, having regard to the critical way in which it had been examined from top to bottom, it was difficult to conceive where he could be hidden. Nevertheless, Peter stuck to his guns; for as Balfour had not gone out of the house, he must be in it, and if so, time and patient search might reveal his hiding-place.

With a view to learning as much as possible about Balfour’s habits, Brodie had a long talk with Chunda, Captain Jarvis acting as interpreter. The native stated that he had travelled with his master extensively through India. He had found him rather a peculiar man. He was very secretive, and given to fits of moodiness. Although Chunda was exceedingly fond of him, he did not wish to accompany him to Scotland, but yielded on the master pressing him. Now he bitterly regretted having come, for not only did he feel crushed by his master’s strange disappearance, but the cold and dampness of the climate made him very ill, and he intended to leave immediately for Southampton, so as to get a ship for India, as he yearned to return to his own warm, sunny land. He was dying for the want of sun and warmth.

Asked if his master was much given to flirtations, Chunda, with flashing eyes and an angry expression in his dark face, said that he was, and he had frequently got into trouble through it.

After this interview, Brodie came to the conclusion that the motive of the crime was undoubtedly jealousy. That is to say, someone had been jealous of Balfour, someone who considered Maggie a rival.

If this was correct, the someone must be a woman—no ordinary woman, for no ordinary woman would have been capable of carrying out such a terrible revenge. Besides Maggie Stiven, there had been four other young women in the party.

One was a married woman named MacLauchlan. Her husband kept a grocer’s shop in the High Street, but he and his wife didn’t get on well together. He had no idea, however, that she was in the habit of visiting at Corbie Hall.

Brodie dismissed her from suspicion. He felt sure she didn’t commit the deed. She was rather good-looking, but a mild, lackadaisical, phlegmatic, brainless creature, without the nerve necessary for such a crime.

Another of the ladies was Jean Smith. She was twenty years of age, and Maggie Stiven’s bosom friend, and since the night of the crime had been seriously ill in bed from the shock.

A third was Mary Johnstone. Until New Year’s Eve she had never met Balfour before in her life. She had gone to the Hall in company with her sweetheart, James Macfarlane, the medical student.

The fourth was Kate Thomson, cousin to Rab Thomson. She was a woman about thirty years of age, strong and well knit, but was a good-tempered, genial sort of creature. She, too, was almost a stranger to Balfour, and was engaged to be married to a man named Robert Murchison, who was factor to a Mr. Rennie of Perth.

Brodie was absolutely certain, after studying them all, that not one of these four women had done the deed. Nor was there the slightest reason for harbouring a suspicion against the female servants.

He was, therefore, puzzled, but not disconcerted, and he stuck to his theory that a jealous woman had committed the crime.

That, of course, only made the mystery more mysterious, so to speak. For who was the woman? Where did she come from? How did she get into the house? Where did she go to?

These questions were inevitable if the theory was maintained. It did not seem easy then to answer them.

As Brodie revolved all these things in his mind, he remembered that, though he had subjected the house to a very careful search, he had done little more than look into Chunda’s room, the reason being that the native was ill in bed at the time.

The room adjoined Balfour’s, and at one time was connected by a communicating door, but for some reason or other the door had been nailed up and papered over. While less in size than Balfour’s, it was still a fairly large room, also wainscoted, and with a carved wooden ceiling. It was lighted by one window, which commanded a good view over Blackford Hill.

To this room Brodie went one evening when Chunda happened to be absent from it. It reeked with the faint, sickly odour of some Indian perfume.

On a sideboard stood a small gilt Indian idol, and various Indian knick-knacks were scattered about. As in Balfour’s room, there was a massive carved oak mantelpiece, with a very capacious fireplace; and on each side of the fireplace was a deep recess.

The floor was oak, polished, and dark in colour either by staining or time. The only carpet on it was a square in the centre. A clothes-press stood in a corner. It was the only place in which a man could be concealed. Brodie opened the door, and found nothing but clothes there. The mystery, therefore, was as far from solution as ever, apparently, as now there wasn’t a corner of the house that had not been examined thoroughly and exhaustively.

As Brodie was in the act of leaving the room, his eye was attracted by something glittering on the hearthstone, where the cold, white ashes of a wood-fire still remained. He stooped down and picked from the hearth a scrap, a mere morsel of cloth. It was all burnt round the edges, and was dusty with the ash; but he found on examination that it was a fragment of Indian cloth, into which gold threads had been worked; and it was these gold threads which, in spite of the dust, had reflected the light and attracted his notice.

Taking out his pocket-book, he deposited that scrap of charred cloth carefully between the leaves, then went down on his knees and subjected the ashes to critical examination, with the result that he obtained unmistakable evidence of a considerable amount of cloth having been destroyed by fire. There were patches here and there of white, or rather gray, carbonized, filmy fragments of cobweb-like texture. As everyone knows, cloth burnt in a fire leaves a ghost-like wrack behind, that, unless disturbed, will remain for some time.

Brodie rose and fell into deep thought, and he mentally asked himself why the cloth had been burnt. It was reasonable to presume it was some portion of clothing, and if so, why should anyone have been at the trouble to consume it in the flames unless it was to hide certain evidences of guilt.

‘What would those evidences of guilt be?’ Brodie muttered to himself, as he reflected on the singular discovery he had made. And suddenly it seemed to him—of course, it was purely fancy—that a voice whispered in his ear:

‘Blood! blood!’

Although but fancy, the voice seemed so real to him that he fairly started, and at that instant the door opened and Chunda entered. He seemed greatly surprised to find the detective in the room, and muttered something in Hindustani.

As Brodie did not understand him and could not converse with him, he made no response, but passed out, and, hurrying to Edinburgh, called on Professor Dunbar, the eminent microscopist, and asked that gentleman to place the fragment of cloth found on the hearthstone under a powerful microscope.

The Professor did as requested, and, after a careful examination, he said he could not detect anything suggestive of blood. The cloth was evidently of Indian workmanship, and the bright threads running through it were real gold.

Brodie did not return to Corbie Hall until the following day. By that time Maggie Stiven’s body had been removed by her friends for burial, and he was informed by the servants that Chunda had gone out to attend the funeral. He was rather surprised at that, and still more surprised when he found, on going to Chunda’s room, that the door was locked.

He hurried back to Edinburgh, and was in time to be present at Maggie’s burial in the Greyfriars Churchyard, but he saw nothing of Chunda; the native was not there, and nobody had seen him. Captain Jarvis was amongst the mourners, and when the funeral was over he and Brodie left together.

‘Do you know how long Chunda has been in Balfour’s service?’ the detective asked, as they strolled along.

‘I believe a considerable time, but I don’t know from absolute knowledge. As I have already told you, Balfour was a curious sort of fellow, and particularly close in regard to his own affairs. He was one of those sort of men it is difficult to get to the bottom of. You may try to probe them as much as you like, but nothing comes of it.’

‘You possibly were as familiar with him as anyone,’ suggested Brodie.

‘Yes, I should say I was.’

‘And if he had wanted a confidant, he would probably have chosen you?’

‘I think it is very likely he would. So far as such a man would make a confidant of anyone, he made one of me.’

‘Do you know why he brought Chunda from India with him?’

‘No. What I do know is this: Chunda had been with him for some time, and when Balfour returned to Scotland, he thought he was only going to make a temporary stay here.’

‘Was he fond of Chunda?’

‘I cannot tell you whether he was or was not.’

‘Can you tell me this: Has Chunda been in the habit of always wearing European clothes since he came to Edinburgh?’

‘I don’t know that. You see, I only came into port with my vessel four weeks ago. When I first called at Corbie Hall, the fellow was wearing European clothes.’

‘Did you see much of Chunda on New Year’s Eve?’

‘He came into the room now and again. In fact, I think he was in and out pretty often. Balfour used occasionally to smoke an opium pipe, and Chunda always filled it for him.’

‘How was the native dressed that night?’

‘He had trousers and vest, and wore a sort of fancy Indian jacket.’

‘Was there gold embroidery on it?’

‘I believe there was a sort of gold thread, or something of that kind. But, really, I didn’t take much notice. We were all pretty jolly, and I didn’t look to see how anyone was dressed.’

‘But, still, you have no doubt that Chunda did wear a jacket or robe similar to that you describe?’

‘Oh yes, I’m sure about that part of the business. It was conspicuous enough.’

When Brodie parted from the skipper, he felt that he had struck a trail, although he could not make much of it just then. But it will readily be gathered that he had begun to suspect Chunda of having committed the crime.

It was difficult to understand why Chunda should have burnt his gown or jacket unless it was to destroy traces of guilt. If there was blood on his jacket, and it was the blood of one of the victims, he would know that it might prove a ghastly piece of evidence if detected; and so he had committed it to the flames as the most effectual means of getting rid of it.

Now, assuming this surmise of Brodie’s was correct, it was obvious that it was not Maggie Stiven’s blood, because the nature of the wound that brought about her death was such that there was only very little outward bleeding. But if Balfour, when he went upstairs to ascertain the cause of the scream, was suddenly attacked and stabbed to death by the native, was it not reasonable to suppose that he bled so profusely as to dye the garments of his murderer?

This chain of reasoning threw a new light on the affair, and Brodie, who had made up his mind that he would read the riddle if it could be read, returned once more to Corbie Hall. He learnt that Chunda had been back about half an hour, and had given the other servants to understand that he was ill and half frozen, and was going to bed. Whereupon the detective furnished himself with a lamp, and proceeded to carefully examine the stair carpet and the landings for suggestive stains, but saw nothing that aroused his suspicions. As he could not talk to Chunda, he did not disturb him, but the next morning, quite early, he went down to the Hall again in company with Jarvis.

Chunda told the skipper, in answer to questions put to him, that he had not gone out on the previous day to attend the funeral, as stated, but to make arrangements for taking his departure from the country. He could not endure the climate; it made him very ill. Besides that, he felt that he would go mad if he stayed there, for there wasn’t a soul he could talk to, and his loneliness was terrible. He therefore intended to start on the following day for Southampton, and two days later would sail in a P. and O. steamer for India.

All that he had said seemed very feasible, and that he was ill and did suffer from the cold was evident.

Nevertheless, Brodie’s suspicions were not allayed. It was not easy to allay them when once they were thoroughly aroused; and having reasoned the case out from every possible point of view, he had come to the conclusion that Chunda was in a position to let in light where there was now darkness if he chose to speak. That is to say, he knew something of the crime, though, of course, at this stage there wasn’t a scrap of evidence against the native that would have justified his arrest. Moreover, Brodie found himself confronted with a huge difficulty in the way of making his theory fit in. If Chunda had really murdered Balfour, how had he managed to dispose of the body? That question was certainly a poser, and no reasonable answer could be given to it.

It must not be forgotten that, from the moment of the scream being first heard to the discovery of Maggie Stiven’s body on the mat at the foot of the stairs, not more than half an hour at the outside had elapsed. In that brief space of time Balfour had been so effectually got rid of that there was not a trace of him. It was bewildering to try and understand how that disappearance had been accomplished, unless it was with the aid of some devilish art and unholy magic. But as Brodie had no belief in that kind of thing, he was convinced that, sooner or later, what was then an impenetrable mystery would be explained by perfectly rational, though probably startling, causes. Be that as it might, having got his fangs fixed, to use a figure of speech, he held on with bulldog tenacity, and he was not disposed to exonerate Chunda until he felt convinced that his suspicions were unfounded.

‘Do you know, captain, if there are any balls of any kind in the house?’ he asked abruptly of Jarvis, who looked at him with some astonishment, for the question seemed so irrelevant and out of place.

‘What sort of balls?’ said Jarvis, expressing his surprise by his manner and voice.

‘Oh, any sort—billiard-balls, golf-balls, balls of any kind.’

‘There are plenty of golf-balls. But why do you ask?’

‘I want you to get two or three of the balls,’ said Brodie for answer. ‘Put them into your pocket, ask Chunda to accompany you into the dining-room, and make him sit down in a chair opposite to you. Engage him in conversation for a few minutes; then, suddenly taking the balls from your pocket, tell him to catch them, and pitch them to him. Do you understand me?’

Captain Jarvis stared at the detective as though he could hardly believe the evidence of his ears. Then, as he broke into a laugh, he asked:

‘Do you mean that seriously?’

‘Of course I mean it.’

‘And what’s the object?’

‘Never mind the object. Do what I ask you.’

‘And where will you be?’

‘In the dining-room, too. But take no notice whatever of me.’

‘Well, it’s a daft-like sort of proceeding, any way; but I’ll do it.’

Then, having procured some golf-balls, he addressed himself to Chunda in Hindustani, and in a few moments they went together into the dining-room.

Brodie followed shortly after, and, taking a book from a little shelf that hung on the wall, he threw himself on to a lounge and appeared to be reading.

In a short while Jarvis took the balls from his pocket, and, saying something to Chunda, who sat on a chair by the window, he threw one ball after another at him, and the native held forth his hands to catch them; but, not being in a playful humour, he did not cast the balls back, but very soon got up and went out, looking very much annoyed.

‘Well, what does that tomfoolery mean?’ asked Jarvis.

‘A good deal to me. I’ve learnt a startling fact by it.’

The skipper would have been glad to have had an explanation, for naturally his curiosity was greatly aroused, and he couldn’t conceive what the ball-throwing could possibly have indicated. But Brodie resolutely refused to satisfy him.

‘You have rendered me a service,’ he said. ‘Now, that’s enough for the present. If I succeed in fitting the pieces of this strange puzzle together, you shall know what my motive was. Rest assured I do nothing without a motive. But I am going to exact a further service from you now. I want you to stay here all night, as I myself intend to stay. Chunda talked of leaving to-morrow. He must not leave, and, if necessary, you must find some means of detaining him.’

‘Do you mean to say you suspect Chunda of having committed the crime?’—his amazement growing.

‘Frankly, I do.’

‘Well, all I’ve got to say, Brodie, is this,’ answered the skipper decisively: ‘you are on the wrong tack.’

‘How do you know I am?’

‘I am sure of it.’

‘Give me your reasons for being sure.’

‘Why, I tell you, man,’ exclaimed the skipper warmly, ‘the nigger is as harmless as a kitten, and no more likely to commit a crime of this kind than a new-born baby.’

‘That is simply your opinion, Captain Jarvis.’

‘It is my opinion, and it’s a common-sense one. You are doing the fellow a wrong. I never saw a native servant so attached to Balfour as Chunda was to his master. I tell you, Brodie, you are on the wrong scent.’

‘All right, we shall see,’ he said carelessly.

‘But in the name of common-sense,’ cried Jarvis, who was argumentatively inclined, ‘if there’s any reason in your suspicions, how on earth do you suppose this nigger chap got rid of Balfour? Where has he stowed him, do you think? Do you suppose he swallowed him?’

‘Ah! an answer to that question is not easily framed. Perhaps before many hours have passed I may be able to tell you.’

‘Do you think because he’s black he’s the devil, and has spirited Balfour away?’ pursued the skipper, with a defiant air, for he honestly considered that Chunda was being wronged, and he was ready to champion him.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ answered Brodie, with a smile, ‘because if he had been the devil he wouldn’t have committed such a clumsy crime as this.’

‘Well, clumsy as it is, it’s defied you,’ said Jarvis, by no means satisfied or convinced.

‘For the time being it has. But it won’t continue to do so much longer, unless I’m very much mistaken. But it’s no use continuing the argument. A man is judged by his acts, not by his words. If I am wrong, I must abide by the penalty which attaches to failure. If I am right, I shall take credit for some amount of cleverness. You will stay here to-night, won’t you?’

The skipper scratched his head, and looked as though he wasn’t comfortable.

‘Well, upon my word! I don’t know what to say. I’m not a coward, but I’m blowed if I like the idea of passing another night in this uncanny place.’

‘Why?’ Brodie asked with a smile.

‘I should be afraid of seeing Maggie Stiven’s ghost.’

‘And what if you did? A ghost couldn’t do you any harm.’

‘Perhaps not, but I’d rather not see one.’

‘Nor are you likely to, except as a product of your own heated imagination. However, to cut the matter short, you’ll stay, won’t you? You’ve got your pipe and tobacco, and I’ve no doubt the cook will be able to provide us with some creature comforts. We’ll have another log put on the fire, and make ourselves comfortable; and, if you like, I’ll give you a hand at cribbage.’

The skipper yielded, and the matter was settled.

‘Before we settle down, I want you to entertain Chunda here for half an hour during my absence,’ continued Brodie.

‘You are not going out, are you?’ asked Jarvis quickly, and with some nervousness displaying itself in his manner, indicating evidently that he did not wish to be left alone.

‘Well, no, not out of the house. But you understand, Captain Jarvis, I am doing my best to unravel this mystery; you must let me act in my own way, and take such steps as I think are necessary to the end I have in view. You can aid me, and I want you to aid me; but you can best do that by refraining from questioning, and in doing exactly as I request you to do.’

‘All right,’ said Jarvis. ‘I’ve nothing more to say. You must sail your own ship, whether you come to grief or whether you don’t.’

‘Precisely. Now, I’ll send one of the servants up for Chunda, and you’ll keep him engaged in talk for half an hour, or until I come back into the room. Don’t talk about the crime, and don’t say a word that would lead him to think I suspect him. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘And will carry out my wishes? It is most important that you should.’

‘To the letter.’

The business being thus arranged, Brodie left the room, and ten minutes later Chunda entered it. Brodie was absent nearly three-quarters of an hour before he returned. There was a look of peculiar satisfaction on his face. Chunda was dismissed; and the two men, having, through the cook, secured something in the way of eatables and drinkables, satisfied their wants in that respect, and then engaged in cribbage, and continued their game until a late hour.

At last Jarvis retired. It was arranged he was to sleep in Balfour’s bedroom, but Brodie said he would stow himself on a couch in the dining-room, which was warm and comfortable.

He dozed for three or four hours, and exactly at five rose, and made his way to the stable-yard, where, according to prearrangement, the groom was ready with a horse and trap, and Brodie drove rapidly into Edinburgh. He was back again soon after eight, with two constables in plain clothes, who were for the time confined to the kitchen, until their services might be required.

Jarvis did not rise until after nine. He was a good and sound sleeper, and neither ghosts nor anything else had disturbed him. He was kept in ignorance of Brodie’s journey into Edinburgh.

A few minutes before ten Chunda made his appearance. He was ready to start, and he enlisted the aid of the other servants to bring his luggage down into the hall. Again Brodie requested the skipper to detain the native in conversation, while he himself went upstairs to Chunda’s room, where he shut himself in and locked the door. Then he began to tap with his knuckles the wainscoted walls, going from panel to panel.

When he reached the deep recess near the fireplace, already described, he started, as his taps produced a hollow sound. He tapped again and again, putting his ear to the woodwork. There was no mistake about it. The wall there was hollow. He tried to move the hollow panel, but only after many trials and much examination did he succeed. The panel slid on one side, revealing a dark abyss, from which came a strange, cold, earthy, clammy smell.

He closed the panel, went downstairs, and told the constables the time for action had come. They filed into the dining-room, and Jarvis was asked to tell Chunda that he would be arrested on a charge of having murdered Raymond Balfour and Maggie Stiven.

If it is possible for a black person to turn pale, then Chunda did so. Any way, the announcement was like an electric shock to him. He staggered; then clapped his hands to his face, and moaned and whined.

Brodie went upstairs once more—this time in company with one of the constables. They were provided with lanterns, and when the panel in Chunda’s room was opened again, the light revealed a narrow flight of stone steps descending between the walls; and at the bottom of the steps lay something huddled up. It was unmistakably a human body, the body of Raymond Balfour.

Chunda was at once conveyed to Edinburgh, and other men were sent out from the town to the house. Then the decomposed body was got up. It was Balfour, sure enough. He had been stabbed in the chest, and the heart had been pierced through.

At the bottom of the stone steps there was also found the other portion of the long stiletto.

All this, however, was not proof that Chunda had done the deed. But there was something else that was.

The dead man’s right hand was tightly clenched, and when it was opened by the doctor who was called in to examine the remains, a piece of cloth was released from the death grip. It was a piece of Indian cloth, interwoven with gold threads, and identical with the scrap that Brodie had found in the ashes.

The dead hand afforded the necessary clue; it forged the last link. The dead hand smote the destroyer. It proved beyond doubt that Chunda was the murderer. He had by some means discovered the secret panel. He had inveigled Balfour into the room. There he had stabbed him. In his dying agony the wretched man had clutched at his murderer, and had torn out a piece of the gold-threaded jacket he was wearing. That jacket must have been deeply stained with blood, and Chunda had cast it upon the fire. But murder will out, and the unconsumed fragment gave the sharp-eyed Brodie the FIRST clue. The dead hand itself of the murdered man afforded the LAST.

Chunda was the murderer, or, rather, the murderess; for Chunda was a woman. Brodie had begun to suspect this from a peculiarity of voice, from the formation of her neck and shoulders, and from other signs, and his suspicions were confirmed when he resorted to the ball test.

When the balls were thrown, Chunda did not, as a man would have done, close his knees, but spread them open. A woman invariably does this when she is in a sitting posture and anything is thrown at her lap.

Chunda subsequently proved to be a woman, sure enough, and the murder was the result—as Brodie had also correctly divined—of jealousy.

The wretched creature succeeded in strangling herself before she was brought to trial, and she left behind her a paper written in excellent English, in which she confessed the crime. She declared that she was the wife of Balfour, who had espoused her in India. She represented a very old and high-caste family. Her father was a Rajah, and Balfour had been in his employ. He succeeded in winning her affections, and when he returned to his own country she determined to accompany him. He treated her very badly, and twice he attempted to poison her. His flirtation with Maggie Stiven excited her to madness, but it was, nevertheless, a very cunning madness. She had previously discovered by chance the sliding panel and the secret stairs.

On New Year’s Eve she opened the panel, went to the top of the stairs, and uttered that eerie screech or scream that had so alarmed the company. She felt sure it would bring her husband to her. She told him that she had received a horrible fright in her room; that part of the wall had opened, revealing a dark abyss, from which strange noises issued. As soon as he was in the room she stabbed him with a long Indian stiletto. It then suddenly struck her that, when he didn’t return, it was very likely Maggie Stiven would go in search of him. So she hurried down the stairs and hid underneath them, and as soon as Maggie appeared she sprang upon her and stabbed her with such fury that the blade of the dagger broke.

Although her husband had treated her so badly, she had yielded to his earnest entreaties to conceal her identity and continue to pass as a man. She spoke and wrote English fluently, although he had made her promise not to let this fact be known.

Such was the story she told, and there was no doubt it was substantially correct. She considered that she had managed the crime so well that suspicion would never rest upon her, and, having carried out her deed of awful vengeance, she would be able to return to her own sun-scorched land.

That she would have succeeded in this was likely enough had Peter Brodie not been brought upon the scene. He had worked out the problem line by line, and at last, when it struck him that if Balfour was murdered he must have been murdered in Chunda’s room, he proceeded to examine the floor carefully on the night when he asked Jarvis to keep Chunda in conversation for half an hour. That examination revealed unmistakable traces of blood on the boards. Then it occurred to him that, as the house was an old one, it was more than likely there was some secret closet or recess in which the body had been hidden.

Chunda had evidently been well educated. In a postscript to her confession she said that, out of the great love she bore the man who had so cruelly deceived her, she had, at his suggestion, consented to pass herself off as his servant. He had assured her that it would only be for a short time, and that when he had his affairs settled, and sold his property, he would go back with her to India, and they would live in regal splendour to the end of their days.

That she loved him was pretty certain. That he shamefully deceived her was no less certain; and that love of hers, and that deception, afforded some palliation for her bloodthirsty deed of vengeance.

For some time after the double crime Corbie Hall remained desolate and lonely. It was now looked upon as a doubly-accursed place, and nobody could be found who would take it, so at last it was razed to the ground, and is known no more.

In pulling it down it was discovered that in Balfour’s room was a secret panel corresponding to the one in the next room, and that the stone stairs had at one time led to a subterraneous passage, which had an opening somewhere in Blackford Glen. It had no doubt originally been constructed to afford the inmates of the house means of escape in the stormy times when the building was first reared.

THE END.

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BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] This name is a fictitious one, for obvious reasons, but the incidents related in the story are well authenticated.

[B] This was quite true. The contingency of war was even less remote than the Prince’s words suggested. As a matter of fact, it is now well known that the treaty had been formed between Russia and another country against Turkey, and had Turkey become aware of it, there is little doubt she would have flown at Russia’s throat, with results less disastrous to herself than those which befell her at a later period, when the legions of Russia crossed the Pruth, and commenced that sanguinary struggle which entailed such enormous loss of life, the expenditure of thousands of millions of money, and human agony and suffering beyond the power of words to describe.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.