'Good heavens! what are you talking about? What are we to do with all the gold vases? How am I to get them away? Why, the Japanese might get them; we must save them.'
'If you want to make certain that the Japanese don't get them, sir, I should throw them into the sea,' was Irman's answer.
Stössel was referring to the gold vases, goblets, spoons, etc., looted from the Pekin Palace which were kept in Arthur. The gold plate had been kept under special arrangements in the quarter-guard of the 12th Regiment, but when this corps left for Manchuria the plate was left behind. On the evening of January 3 a mysterious cart arrived at the quarter-guard, and disappeared in the dark of the night.
Some of the questions put to Stössel later at the Commission of Inquiry, and his replies to them, may help to show how he was occupied at this time. When asked by Major-General Roops why he, contrary to all military regulations, took out of Arthur some thirty-eight cartloads of his own property, he replied:
'I did it with the permission of the Emperor of Japan.'
On being asked why he did not share the fate of the garrison and go into imprisonment, he answered:
'I was ordered not to by Her Imperial Highness the Tsarina.'
He had indeed received a telegram from the Empress in which she had said she would be glad to 'see him in Russia.' The Emperor and Russia did not at that time know what Stössel was!
When he was asked by the Commission why he surrendered Port Arthur on his own responsibility, and did not summon the Council of War to consider the question, he said: