“True,” she continued, “he is a prisoner at this moment, in a prison at once luxurious and comfortable. But he is in the power of persons—those whose emissary you see before you—who will be only too glad to give him back his freedom.”
A look of relief crossed the old Russian’s face. He thought he understood it all now. In spite of her sex, her well-cut clothes, and refined appearance this woman was one of a gang of desperadoes, who lived by abducting persons, instead of stealing goods, demanding high ransoms, like wayside brigands. Well! thank God! there was no great harm done, and money in Russia is always plentiful when needed. Count Lavrovski without another word took out his pocket-book, and laying it down on the table said simply—
“Name the price.”
“It is my object, in coming here to-day, to do so,” said the stranger imperturbably; “but I will ask you, Count Lavrovski, to put back that pocket-book—the price of the Tsarevitch’s liberty is not contained therein.”
Lavrovski stared in mute surprise; every minute of this strange interview plunged him into ever-growing mazes of astonishment.
Then, rapidly and to the point, Maria Stefanowna plunged into her subject. She hardly paused to take breath, she had arranged the whole interview so thoroughly in her mind during those long, harrowing hours she had spent pacing up and down her room last night. She explained to the now almost bewildered old courtier the daring plot that had placed the heir to the Russian throne a helpless prisoner in the hands of a few young enthusiasts. She explained to him her own share in the matter, recalled to his mind the mysterious odalisque, and assured him that the august prisoner’s comforts were attended to by herself with the utmost care.
She spoke in clear, well-defined tones, with a briskness that fairly took Count Lavrovski’s breath away. The old Russian listened, horror-struck, to the open allusions or covert threats of his Imperial Highness’s dangerous position. He heard with amazement how so monstrous a thing had been planned and executed on so sacred and august a personage by a gang of young men whose very existence he had been ignorant of, and he realised at once how futile would have been any effort on his part, or M. Furet’s, to fight so many enemies in the dark.
“I think, monsieur, I have now made it clear to you, that the Tsarevitch’s life is entirely in the hands of those who hold him prisoner, and my purpose in coming here to-day is to tell you on what conditions Nicholas Alexandrovitch shall be restored to life and liberty.”
“Conditions, madame? I will hear no conditions,” exclaimed Count Lavrovski, who at last recovered his speech at this outrageous audacity. “Death, swift and sudden, shall overtake you, one and all, and those who have sent you. Thank God, the Russian police are far-seeing, far-reaching enough to reach the son of its beloved Emperor, without having to listen to conditions dictated by such as you.”
He had jumped up full of wrath, and his hand was already on the bell-pull, in order to summon Stepán to guard this villainous emissary of evil tidings, while he himself sent forthwith to Petersburg for the wherewithal to punish this daring crew.