He rode straight home, and, finding that the house was shut and locked, sought the compradore at his cottage at the rear of the compound behind. Learning from him further details of the arrest, he at once set off for the military head-quarters near the railway-station. He knew several of the Russian officers, but those to whom he spoke had heard nothing of the singular occurrence. One of them offered to make enquiries. He returned by and by with the information that the order for Mr. Brown's arrest had been given by General Bekovitch. This was not cheering, for General Bekovitch, as Jack knew, was an officer who under a surface polish and refinement was thoroughly unscrupulous, and one indeed whose enmity Mr. Brown had incurred by his uncompromising attitude towards the official methods of corruption. Some time before this, when Bekovitch was a colonel, he had transferred to the Pole, Sowinski, a contract which had been placed in Mr. Brown's hands. The latter protested, and Bekovitch's superior disallowed his action and gave him metaphorically a rap on the knuckles. The colonel was deeply chagrined, both at the reprimand and at the loss of the secret commission arranged with Sowinski. He was now promoted major-general; his superior was gone; and Jack could hardly doubt that he had seized the opportunity to pay off his grudge against the English merchant. Jack shrank somewhat from a meeting with the general, but his indignation outweighed every other feeling, and, plucking up his courage, he made his way to the luxurious railway-carriage which served Bekovitch for quarters.
He had to wait some time before he gained admittance to the general's presence. When at last he was invited to enter, he found Bekovitch lolling on a divan smoking a cigarette, a champagne bottle at his elbow. He was a tall fair man, inclining to stoutness, with a long moustache and carefully-trimmed beard, and looked in his white uniform a very dignified representative of the military bureaucracy.
Jack's residence as a boy in Vladivostok had given him a good colloquial knowledge of Russian, so that he had no difficulty in addressing the general in his own language.
"I have recently heard, sir, of my father's arrest," he said, "and I have come to ask if you will be good enough to tell me where he is and what he is charged with."
"You are Mr. Brown's son? How do you do?" said the general suavely. "I am sorry for you. It is a bad business altogether. I should be quite justified in refusing to give you information, but I am, of course, willing to stretch a point in a case like this—father and son, you know. Well, I regret to say that I had to arrest your father for giving military information to the Japanese."
"But, sir, that is ridiculous. My father never did such a thing. He has had no connection, not even a business one, with the Japanese; he doesn't like them. Besides, he would never think of doing anything underhand. No one who knows him could even imagine it."
If Bekovitch felt the personal application, he did not show it.
"Very creditable, very creditable indeed. A loyal son; excellent. I should be the last to undeceive you; therefore we will say no more about it. Let me offer you a cigarette."
"No, thank you, sir. Really the matter cannot end thus. What evidence have you against my father?"
The general shrugged.