Why the beautiful Madame Demidoff should be feared by her own compatriots, it were difficult for an Englishman or a Frenchman to say; she was always affable, equally so to everyone whom she met in society, and appeared not to take the slightest interest in matters political; true, there had been a rumour a year ago, that at the Austrian frontier one day, an over-zealous custom-house official, in inspecting the luggage of Madame Demidoff, who was going across to Russia, is said to have found some papers, wherein the lady gave a curiously minute account of all the sayings and doings of the Tsar’s subjects residing in Vienna, including one or two intimate conversations between “Monsieur l’ambassadeur” and Madame his wife, that had actually taken place in their own bedroom; but this never got beyond a rumour, and the fact that “Monsieur l’ambassadeur” was shortly afterwards asked to retire from the diplomatic service, may have had nothing to do with that intimate conversation which, after all, he had had with his wife between four walls and one or two doors. Anyhow, his Excellency, the present ambassador, and all his staff, also “Madame l’ambassadrice,” are always particularly amiable with Madame Demidoff, and ask her to all their most select parties—but, the moment she leaves, they sigh a sigh of relief, and when her name is mentioned before his Excellency, he invariably says, “Do not name her to me, it gives me a cold shiver down the back.”
However, all this was rumour, pure and simple; nothing definite had ever been said that might throw suspicion of an ignoble calling on so fair an addition to Viennese smart society, and all uncharitable whispers were invariably suppressed by Madame Demidoff’s numerous friends and admirers. Moreover, she entertained so superbly—her little dinners were worthy of an ode by the court poet, and her balls were counted among the great functions of the season.
One of these charming little dinners she proposed giving to-night to one of her most ardent, most valued friends, his Eminence Cardinal d’Orsay, who never shamed his high ecclesiastical office by avoiding any pretty woman that was willing to help him to while away the tediousness of diplomatic negotiations.
But she meant to leave Petersburg that very evening by the midnight express, for it seemed to her beyond a doubt that some mystery was connected with the Tsarevitch’s chase after the odalisque at the opera ball last night; and this mystery, unless more power were placed in her hands, she knew herself incapable of solving.
She had seen nothing of Eugen during the day, and the evening was drawing on rapidly; she had but little hope of learning any very important facts from him. The plot—if plot there were—once successfully carried through, proved how well all plans must have been laid; time and place were in its favour, and the information gleaned by inquiries outside the opera house, where the crowd at the time of the abduction numbered hundreds of thousands, was sure to be of very meagre character.
But at present she was actually ignorant as to whether the Tsarevitch had, after all, returned to his hotel, and the whole mystery burst as a soap bubble. Then Lavrovski’s attitude would be interesting and important to note.
There was a discreet rap at the door of the boudoir, where she had been waiting for the last half-hour, nervously pacing up and down the room, and at times sitting at her desk and covering sheets of paper with rapid scribbling.
“Ah! it is you, Eugen,” she said, as, in answer to her impatient “Come in,” the moujik’s stolid figure appeared at the door. “Well! have you learnt anything? Tell me as briefly as you can all the important points while I make notes; you must be quick, for I can only spare a few minutes.”
“According to your Excellency’s instructions,” began the Russian, “I went at once to the opera house, where the last of the masks were then departing, and the lights were being put out; I had conversations with most of the attendants and some of the commissionaires who had been stationed there, but no one seems to have taken much notice of the odalisque, the black domino, or the fiaker. They all, however, recollect an elderly gentleman, also in a black domino, making similar inquiries to mine, who seemed very agitated and disappointed when he could learn nothing.”
“Lavrovski, of course! Well?”