“As soon as you have thrown it, fly for your life,” urged Sonia. Then we remained silent in watchful readiness.
Suddenly, almost before we were aware of it, one of the Marlborough House carriages dashed round the corner past us, and drew up before the small door at the rear of the Lyceum. It was an exciting moment. Without hesitation I took out the deadly missile, and none too soon, indeed, for a second later the Tzarevitch’s carriage followed, and just as it passed, I hurled it with all my force against the wheels. Turning, I dashed away across to the opposite side of the Strand, and was there overtaken, a few seconds later, by Sonia and Karamasoff.
“It has not exploded!” they panted, in one breath.
“No,” I said. “How do you account for it?”
“The tube of acid has not broken,” Karamasoff said. “I predicted failure when I saw it. But let us go. Sooner or later a horse will kick it, or a wheel will pass over it, and then—pouf!”
“Farewell,” I said, and we hurriedly separated, each going in a different direction, both of my companions momentarily expecting to hear a terrific report.
But they were disappointed, for a quarter of an hour later I dropped Nikiforovitch’s bomb into the Thames from Waterloo Bridge, and next day an urchin was rewarded with a shilling for bringing to my chambers a copy of Lamb’s works. It was sadly soiled and damaged, but bore on its fly-leaf my name and address. He said he had found it in the gutter in Burleigh Street!
Events have occurred rapidly since that memorable evening. The Tzarevitch, unaware of how near he was to a swift and terrible death, is now Nicholas II of Russia; while the pretty Sonia Ostroff, still in ignorance of how her plot was thwarted, is at the present moment toiling in the gloomy depths of the Savenski mine in Eastern Siberia.