But the business of the secret council was over, the cunningly-concealed bomb was removed to a place where it was not likely to be accidentally knocked down, and the remainder of the evening passed in pleasant conversation. I had become fascinated by Sonia’s beauty, and when I found myself sitting alone with her in a corner of the room where we could not be overheard, I whispered into her ear words of love and tenderness. She, on her part, seemed to have no aversion to a mild flirtation, and admitted frankly that she had pleasant recollections of the sunset hour upon the Thames.
“Who is the man condemned to death?” I asked presently.
“What! are you unaware?” she exclaimed in surprise. “Why, the Tzarevitch.”
“The Tzarevitch? And you intend to murder him?”
She shrugged her shoulders, replying, “We have followed him here because he is not so closely guarded as in Petersburg. If we succeed, there will be no heir-apparent, for the Grand Duke George is already dying in the Caucasus, and the days of the autocrat Alexander are numbered. He will die sooner than the world imagines.”
The flippant manner in which she spoke of death appalled me; nevertheless, when I bade her farewell, I was deeply in love with her, and promised to be in the vicinity of the scene of the tragedy on the morrow.
I knew all the details of this desperate plot to kill the Russian heir-apparent—then on a brief visit to London with his fiancée—yet I dared not inform the police, for the terrible vengeance of the Circle was always swift and always fatal. Helpless to avert the calamity, I passed the long day in breathless anxiety, dreading the fatal moment when the blow would be struck. By some strange intuition, I felt that my every action was watched by emissaries of the Nihilists, who feared treachery on my part, for, as a journalist, I was personally acquainted with a number of officers at Scotland Yard. Hour by hour I strove to devise some plan by which I might prevent the foul murder that was about to be perpetrated; but, alas! no solution of the problem presented itself. The plans had been laid with such care and forethought, that undoubtedly the Tzarevitch would fall a victim, and Russia would be plunged into mourning.
At length twilight deepened into night, and as I walked from Charing Cross down the noisy, bustling Strand, the gas lamps were already alight, and the queues were forming outside the theatres. On passing the steps leading to Exeter Hall, I was startled by a hand being laid upon my arm, and found beside me an elderly woman, poorly-clad, wearing a faded and battered bonnet, with a black, threadbare shawl wrapped around her.
“You have not failed, then?” she exclaimed in low tones, that in an instant I recognised.