A Statement by the Informer.
Quick as lightning, Hartwig drew a big Browning revolver and thrust it into the informer’s face, exclaiming firmly:
“Another word and it will be your last!”
The fellow started back, unprepared for such defiance. He made a movement to cross the room, where no doubt he had his own weapon concealed, but the police officer was too quick for him and barred his passage.
“Look here!” he said firmly. “This is a matter to be settled between us, without any interference by your friends here. At word from me they would instantly turn upon you as an enemy. Think! Reflect well—before it is too late!” And he held the revolver steadily a foot from the man’s hard, pale face.
Danilovitch hesitated. He controlled the so-called Terrorist movement with amazing ingenuity, playing three rôles simultaneously. He was “The One,” the mysterious but all-powerful head of the organisation; the ardent worker in the cause known as “the shoemaker of Kazan”; and the base, unscrupulous informer, who manufactured plots, and afterwards consigned to prison all those men and women who became implicated in them.
“If I withdraw my cry of alarm will you promise secrecy?” he asked in a low, cringing tone.
From the landing outside came sounds of footsteps and fierce demands in Russian from those he had summoned to his assistance. Two of us against twenty desperate characters as they were, would, I well knew, stand but a poor chance. If he made any allegation against us, we should be caught like rats in a trap, and killed, as all police-spies are killed when denounced. The arm of the Russian revolution is indeed a long one—longer than that of the Secret Police itself.
“What has happened, Danilo?” demanded a man’s rough voice. “Who are those strangers? Let us in!”
“Speak!” commanded Hartwig. “Reassure them, and let them go away. I have still much to say to you in private.”