When I Was Czar

by Arthur W. Marchmont

Then Drexel crept back a short distance, paused, turned and walked up the gravel, with intentionally noisy and heavy steps, to the house door.

It did not require the instincts of a Vidocq to know that some very ugly business was on foot; and while Drexel was getting admitted to the house, I was trying to consider what the thing boded and what I had best do.

In point of fact I did nothing—about the wisest course, as it turned out. To have moved from my hiding-place would only have scared away the two men lying prone by the verandah, and so long as I knew of their presence and they were ignorant of mine, I had the best end of the stick.

I made a pretty cute guess at the meaning of the visit. Drexel had no doubt gone to the villa with the men in the hope of finding me still there, and had learnt by some means of my coming to Brabinsk.

The stroke was aimed at me I felt, and there was less alarm for me in that thought than if it had been directed against Helga. For the time, at any rate, there would be no danger to her, and as I was thus forewarned I could take my own measures.

It is a somewhat skeary thing to have to think out plans to circumvent men who mean to assassinate you, and to realize, as I did, very clearly, how much must hang upon your not making a false step.

As I stood like a statue in the shadows of the trees, I had time to think things out a bit. I had my revolver in my pocket, and I came to the conclusion quite deliberately that if there was any shooting to be done I would let no one get the drop on me, and I would certainly shoot to kill. I had twice in my life had very narrow escapes from death through hesitating in the face of a crisis, and this was not going to be a third time. Some minutes—ten perhaps—lapsed after Drexel was admitted to the house before anything happened, and all the while the men by the house lay as still as death. Although I knew just about where they were, I could not see their dark forms on the ground.

Then Helga entered the room into which I could see, and Drexel followed her. The instant he was inside he shut the door and put his back against it.

Helga seemed perfectly calm and self-possessed, and when he spoke with much gesture, as if excusing himself, she replied with contemptuous indifference, mingled with little shafts of indignation.

The conversation lasted some time, until one of the two men outside lifted his head, so that it came between me and the light from the window, and listened. Then he and his companion, still lying prone, drew themselves cautiously up on to the verandah and lay close to the open window.