“I fear that I must be the Englishman whom this mysterious person has followed in such hot haste for nearly six thousand miles.”
“So it seems. But why?” asked the chief of police. “I can see no reason why that escaped criminal should follow you with such sinister intent. You don’t know him?”
“Not in the least. I have never even heard his name before.”
“He was well supplied with money, it seems,” remarked my host. “This wallet found upon him contains over ten thousand roubles in notes, together with a credit upon the branch of the National Bank in Yakutsk for a further thirty thousand.” And he showed me a well-worn leather pocket-book, evidently of German manufacture.
Both Petrakoff and myself knew only too well that this daring criminal had been released from that cold citadel in the Nevi and given money, promised a free pardon in all probability, if he followed me and at all hazards prevented me from obtaining an interview with the poor, innocent, suffering woman whose dastardly enemy had marked her “dangerous.”
I was about to tell the while scandalous truth, but on second thought I saw that no good could be served. Therefore I held my tongue, and allowed the officials—for the starosti of the village had now arrived—regard the affair as a complete mystery.
I had narrowly escaped death, the doctor had declared, and my friend, the chief of police of Olekminsk, kept the unfortunate yamshick under arrest while he reported the extraordinary affair to Yakutsk. He also confiscated the money found upon the man who had made that daring attack upon me.
I could see he was secretly delighted that the criminal had been killed. What, I wondered, would have happened to him if I, a guest of His Imperial Majesty, had lost my life beneath his roof?
The same thought apparently crossed his mind, for in those white winter days I was compelled to remain his guest, being unfit for travel on account of my wound, he many times referred to the narrow escape I had had.
Petrakoff, on his part, related to us some astounding stories of the man, who hid been known to the coining and note-forging fraternity as Müller, alias Passhin, the man who had at least three murders to his record.