THE BOOK OF
ALL-POWER

BY

EDGAR WALLACE

WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED

LONDON AND MELBOURNE

Made and Printed in Great Britain by
Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, London.

To
HARRY HUGHES-ONSLOW

THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER

CONTENTS

• CHAPTER
• [I.] Introducing Malcolm Hay
• [II.] A Gun-man Refuses Work
• [III.] The Grand Duchess Irene
• [IV.] The Prince who Planned
• [V.] The Raid on the Silver Lion
• [VI.] Prince Serganoff Pays the Price
• [VII.] Kensky of Kieff
• [VIII.] The Grand Duke is Affable
• [IX.] The Hand at the Window
• [X.] Terror in Making
• [XI.] The Commissary with the Crooked Nose
• [XII.] In the Prison of St. Basil
• [XIII.] Cherry Bim Makes a Statement
• [XIV.] In the Holy Village
• [XV.] The Red Bride
• [XVI.] The Book of All-power
• [XVII.] On the Road
• [XVIII.] The Monastery of St. Basil the Leper
• [XIX.] The End of Boolba
• [Chapter the Last]

THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCING MALCOLM HAY

If a man is not eager for adventure at the age of twenty-two, the enticement of romantic possibilities will never come to him.

The chairman of the Ukraine Oil Company looked with a little amusement at the young man who sat on the edge of a chair by the chairman's desk, and noted how the eye of the youth had kindled at every fresh discouragement which the chairman had put forward. Enthusiasm, reflected the elder man, was one of the qualities which were most desirable in the man who was to accept the position which Malcolm Hay was at that moment considering.

"Russia is a strange country," said Mr. Tremayne. "It is one of the mystery places of the world. You hear fellows coming back from China who tell you amazing stories of the idiosyncrasies of the Chink. But I can tell you, from my own personal observations, that the Chinaman is an open book in words of one syllable compared with the average Russian peasant. By the way, you speak Russian, I understand?"

Hay nodded.

"Oh, yes, sir," he said, "I have been talking Russian ever since I was sixteen, and I speak both the dialects."

"Good!" nodded Mr. Tremayne. "Now, all that remains for you to do is to think both dialects. I was in Southern Russia attending to our wells for twenty years. In fact, long before our wells came into being, and I can honestly say that, though I am not by any means an unintelligent man, I know just as little about the Russian to-day as I did when I went there. He's the most elusive creature. You think you know him two days after you have met him. Two days later you find that you have changed all your opinions about him; and by the end of the first year, if you have kept a careful note of your observations and impressions in a diary, you will discover that you have three hundred and sixty-five different views—unless it happens to be a leap year."

"What happens in a leap year?" asked the innocent Hay.

"You have three hundred and sixty-six views," said the solemn Mr. Tremayne.

He struck a bell.

"We shan't want you to leave London for a week or two," he said, "and in the meantime you had better study up our own special literature. We can give you particulars about the country—that part of the country in which the wells are situated—which you will not find in the guidebooks. There are also a few notable personages whom it will be advisable for you to study."

"I know most of them," said the youth with easy confidence. "As a matter of fact, I got the British Consul to send me a local directory and swotted it."

Mr. Tremayne concealed a smile.

"And what did the local directory say about Israel Kensky?" he asked innocently.

"Israel Kensky?" said the puzzled youth. "I don't remember that name."

"It is the only name worth remembering," said the other dryly, "and, by the way, you'll be able to study him in a strange environment, for he is in London at this moment."

A clerk had answered the bell and stood waiting in the doorway.

"Get Mr. Hay those books and pamphlets I spoke to you about," said Tremayne. "And, by the way, when did M. Kensky arrive?"

"To-day," said the clerk.

Tremayne nodded.

"In fact," he said, "London this week will be filled with people whose names are not in your precious directory, and all of whom you should know. The Yaroslavs are paying a sort of state visit."

"The Yaroslavs?" repeated Hay. "Oh, of course——"

"The Grand Duke and his daughter," added Mr. Tremayne.

"Well," smiled the young man, "I'm not likely to meet the Grand Duke or the Grand Duchess. I understand the royal family of Russia is a little exclusive."

"Everything is likely in Russia," said the optimistic Mr. Tremayne. "If you come back in a few years' time and tell me that you've been appointed an admiral in the Russian Navy, or that you've married the Grand Duchess Irene Yaroslav, I shall not for one moment disbelieve you. At the same time, if you come back from Russia without your ears, the same having been cut off by your peasant neighbours to propitiate the ghost of a martyr who died six hundred years ago, I shall not be surprised either. That is the country you're going to—and I envy you."

"I'm a little surprised at myself," admitted Malcolm, "it seems almost incredible. Of course, sir, I have a lot to learn and I'm not placing too much reliance upon my degree."

"Your science degree?" said Tremayne. "It may be useful, but a divinity degree would have been better."

"A divinity degree?"

Tremayne nodded.

"It is religion you want in Russia, and especially local religion. You'll have to do a mighty lot of adapting when you're out there, Hay, and I don't think you could do better than get acquainted with the local saints. You'll find that the birth or death of four or five of them are celebrated every week, and that your workmen will take a day's holiday for each commemoration. If you're not pretty smart, they'll whip in a few saints who have no existence, and you'll get no work done at all—that will do."

He ended the interview with a jerk of his head, and as the young man got to his feet to go, added: "Come back again to-morrow. I think you ought to see Kensky."

"Who is he?" asked Hay courteously. "A local magnate?"

"In a sense he is and in a sense he's not," said the careful Mr. Tremayne. "He's a big man locally, and from a business point of view, I suppose he is a magnate. However, you'll be able to judge for yourself."

Malcolm Hay went out into the teeming streets of London, walking on air. It was his first appointment—he was earning money, and it seemed rather like a high-class dream.

In Maida Vale there are many little side streets, composed of shabby houses covered with discoloured stucco, made all the more desolate and gloomy in appearance by the long and narrow strip of "garden" which runs out to the street. In one of these, devoted to the business of a boarding-house, an old man sat at a portable bench, under the one electric light which the economical landlady had allowed him. The room was furnished in a typically boarding-house style.

But both the worker at the bench, and the woman who sat by the table, her chin on her palms, watching him, seemed unaffected by the poverty of their surroundings. The man was thin and bent of back. As he crouched over the bench, working with the fine tools on what was evidently intended to be the leather cover of a book, his face lay in the shadow, and only the end of his straggling white beard betrayed his age.

Presently he looked up at the woman and revealed himself as a hawk-nosed man of sixty. His face was emaciated and seamed, and his dark eyes shone brightly. His companion was a woman of twenty-four, obviously of the Jewish type, as was the old man; what good looks she possessed were marred by the sneer on her lips.

"If these English people see you at work," she said presently, "they will think you are some poor man, little father."

Israel Kensky did not stop his work.

"What book are you binding?" she asked after awhile. "Is it the Talmud which Levi Leviski gave you?"

The old man did not answer, and a dark frown gathered on the woman's heavy face. You might not guess that they were father and daughter, yet such was the case. But between Sophia Kensky and her father there was neither communion of spirit nor friendship. It was amazing that she should accompany him, as she did, wherever he went, or that he should be content to have her as his companion. The gossips of Kieff had it that neither would trust the other out of sight; and it may be that there was something in this, though a stronger motive might be suspected in so far as Sophia's actions were concerned.

Presently the old man put down his tools, blinked, and pushed back his chair.

"It is a design for a great book," he said, and chuckled hoarsely. "A book with steel covers and wonderful pages." He smiled contemptuously. "The Book of All-Power," he said.

"Little father, there are times when I think you are mad. For how can you know the secrets which are denied to others? And you who write so badly, how can you fill a great book with your writings?"

"The Book of All-Power," repeated the man, and the smile on the woman's face grew broader.

"A wonderful book!" she scoffed, "filled with magic and mystery and spells—do you wonder that we of Kieff suspect you?"

"We of Kieff?" he repeated mockingly, and she nodded.

"We of Kieff," she said.

"So you are with the rabble, Sophia!" He lifted one shoulder in a contemptuous little gesture.

"You are also of the rabble, Israel Kensky," she said. "Do you take your dinner in the Grand Duke's palace?"

He was gathering together the tools on the table, and methodically fitting each graver into a big leather purse.

"The Grand Duke does not stone me in the street, nor set fire to my houses," he said.

"Nor the Grand Duchess," said the girl meaningly, and he looked at her from under his lowered brows.

"The Grand Duchess is beyond the understanding of such as you," he said harshly, and the woman laughed.

"There will come a day when she will be on her knees to me," she said prophetically, and she got up from the table with a heavy yawn. "That I promise myself, and with this promise I put myself to sleep every night."

She went on and she spoke without heat.

"I see her sweeping my floors and eating the bread I throw to her."

Israel Kensky had heard all this before, and did not even smile.

"You are an evil woman, Sophia," he said. "God knows how such a one could be a daughter of mine. What has the Grand Duchess done to you that you should harbour such venom?"

"I hate her because she is," said the woman evenly. "I hate her not for the harm she has done me, but for the proud smile she gives to her slaves. I hate her because she is high and I am low, and because all the time she is marking the difference between us."

"You are a fool," said Israel Kensky as he left the room.

"Perhaps I am," said the woman, his daughter. "Are you going to bed now?"

He turned in the doorway.

"I am going to my room. I shall not come down again," he said.

"Then I will sleep," she yawned prodigiously. "I hate this town."

"Why did you come?" he asked. "I did not want you."

"I came because you did not want me," said Sophia Kensky.

Israel went to his room, closed the door and locked it. He listened and presently he heard the sound of his daughter's door close also and heard the snap of the key as it turned. But it was a double snap, and he knew that the sound was intended for him and that the second click was the unlocking of the door. She had locked and unlocked it in one motion. He waited, sitting in an arm-chair before a small fire, for ten minutes, and then, rising, crossed the room softly and switched out the light. There was a transom above the door, so that anybody in the passage outside could tell whether his light was on or off. Then he resumed his seat, spreading his veined hands to the fire, and listened.

He waited another quarter of an hour before he heard a soft creak and the sound of breathing outside the door. Somebody was standing there listening. The old man kept his eyes fixed on the fire, but his senses were alive to every sound. Again he heard the creaking, this time louder. A jerry-built house in Maida Vale does not offer the best assistance to the furtive business in which Sophia Kensky was engaged. Another creak, this time farther away and repeated at intervals, told him that she was going down the stairs. He walked to the window and gently pulled up the blind, taking his station so that he could command a view of the narrow strip of garden. Presently his vigil was rewarded. He saw her dark figure walk along the flagged pavement, open the gate and disappear into the darkened street.

Israel Kensky went back to his chair, stirred the fire and settled down to a long wait, his lined face grave and anxious.

The woman had turned to the right and had walked swiftly to the end of the street. The name of that street, or its pronunciation, were beyond her. She neither spoke English, nor was she acquainted with the topography of the district in which she found herself. She slowed her pace as she reached the main road and a man came out of the shadows to meet her.

"Is it you, little mother?" he asked in Russian.

"Thank God you're here! Who is this?" asked Sophia breathlessly.

"Boris Yakoff," said the other, "I have been waiting for an hour, and it is very cold."

"I could not get away before," she said as she fell in beside him. "The old man was working with his foolery and it was impossible to get him to go to bed. Once or twice I yawned, but he took no notice."

"Why has he come to London?" asked her companion. "It must be something important to bring him away from his money-bags."

To this the woman made no reply. Presently she asked:

"Do we walk? Is there no droski or little carriage?"

"Have patience, have patience!" grinned the man good humouredly. "Here in London we do things in grand style. We have an auto-car for you. But it was not wise to bring it so close to your house, little mother. The old man——"

"Oh, finish with the old man," she said impatiently; "do not forget that I am with him all the day."

The antipathy between father and daughter was so well known that the man made no apology for discussing the relationship with that frankness which is characteristic of the Russian peasant. Nor did Sophia Kensky resent the questions of a stranger, nor hesitate to unburden herself of her grievances. The "auto-car" proved to be a very common-place taxi-cab, though a vehicle of some luxury to Yakoff.

"They say he practises magic," said that garrulous man, as the taxi got on its way; "also that he bewitches you."

"That is a lie," said the woman indifferently: "he frightens me sometimes, but that is because I have here"—she tapped her forehead—"a memory which is not a memory. I seem to remember something just at the end of a thread, and I reach for it, and lo! it is gone!"

"That is magic," said Yakoff gravely. "Evidently he practises his spells upon you. Tell me, Sophia Kensky, is it true that you Jews use the blood of Christian children for your beastly ceremonies?"

The woman laughed.

"What sort of man are you that you believe such things?" she asked contemptuously. "I thought all the comrades in London were educated?"

Yakoff made a little clicking noise with his mouth to betray his annoyance. And well he might resent this reflection upon his education, for he held a university degree and had translated six revolutionary Russian novels into English and French. This, he explained with some detail, and the girl listened with little interest. She was not surprised that an educated man should believe the fable of human sacrifices, which had gained a certain currency in Russia. Only it seemed to her just a little inexplicable.

The cab turned out of the semi-obscurity of the side street into a brilliantly lighted thoroughfare and bowled down a broad and busy road. A drizzle of rain was falling and blurred the glass; but even had the windows been open, she could not have identified her whereabouts.

"To what place are you taking me?" she asked. "Where is the meeting?"

Yakoff lowered his voice to a husky whisper.

"It is the café of the Silver Lion, in a place called Soho," he said. "Here we meet from day to day and dream of a free Russia. We also play bagatelle." He gave the English name for the latter. "It is a club and a restaurant. To-night it is necessary that you should be here, Sophia Kensky, because of the great happenings which must follow."

She was silent for awhile, then she asked whether it was safe, and he laughed.

"Safe!" he scoffed. "There are no secret police in London. This is a free country, where one may do as one wishes. No, no, Sophia Kensky, be not afraid."

"I am not afraid," she answered, "but tell me, Yakoff, what is this great meeting about?"

"You shall learn, you shall learn, little sister," said Yakoff importantly.

He might have added that he also was to learn, for as yet he was in ignorance.

They drove into a labyrinth of narrow streets and stopped suddenly before a doorway. There was no sign of a restaurant, and Yakoff explained, before he got out of the cab, that this was the back entrance to the Silver Lion, and that most of the brethren who used the club also used this back door.

He dismissed the cab and pressed a bell in the lintel of the door. Presently it was opened and they passed in unchallenged. They were in a small hallway, lighted with a gas-jet. There was a stairway leading to the upper part of the premises, and a narrower stairway, also lighted by gas, at the foot leading to the cellar; and it was down the latter that Yakoff moved, followed by the girl.

They were now in another passage, whitewashed and very orderly. A gas-jet lit this also, and at one end the girl saw a plain, wooden door. To this Yakoff advanced and knocked. A small wicket, set in the panel, was pushed aside, and after a brief scrutiny by the door's custodian, it was opened and the two entered without further parley.

CHAPTER II

A GUN-MAN REFUSES WORK

It was a big underground room, the sort of basement dining-room one finds in certain of the cafés in Soho, and its decorations and furniture were solid and comfortable. There were a dozen men in this innocent-looking saloon when the girl entered. They were standing about talking, or sitting at the tables playing games. The air was blue with tobacco smoke.

Her arrival seemed to be the signal for the beginning of a conference. Four small tables were drawn from the sides and placed together, and in a few seconds she found herself one of a dozen that sat about the board.

The man who seemed to take charge of the proceedings she did not know. He was a Russian—a big, clean-shaven man, quietly and even well-dressed. His hair was flaming red, his nose was crooked. It was this crooked nose which gave her a clue to his identity. She remembered in Kieff, where physical peculiarities could not pass unnoticed, some reference to "twist nose," and racked her brains in an effort to recall who that personage was. That he knew her he very quickly showed.

"Sophia Kensky," he said, "we have sent for you to ask you why your father is in London."

"If you know my father," she replied, "you know also that I, his daughter, do not share his secrets."

The man at the head of the table nodded.

"I know him," he said grimly, "also I know you, Sophia. I have seen you often at the meetings of our society in Kieff."

Again she frowned, trying to recall his name and where she had seen him. It was not at any of the meetings of the secret society—of that she was sure. He seemed to read her thoughts, for he laughed—a deep, thunderous laugh which filled the underground room with sound.

"It is strange that you do not know me," he said, "and yet I have seen you a hundred times, and you have seen me."

A light dawned on her.

"Boolba, the buffet-schek of the Grand Duke!" she gasped.

He nodded, absurdly pleased at the recognition.

"I do not attend the meetings in Kieff, little sister, for reasons which you will understand. But here in London, where I have come in advance of Yaroslav, it is possible. Now, Sophia Kensky, you are a proved friend of our movement?"

She nodded, since the statement was in the way of a question.

"It is known to you, as to us, that your father, Israel Kensky, is a friend of the Grand Duchess."

Boolba, the President, saw the sullen look on her face and drew his own conclusions, even before she explained her antipathy to the young girl who held that exalted position.

"It is a mystery to me, Boolba," she said, "for what interest can this great lady have in an old Jew?"

"The old Jew is rich," said Boolba significantly.

"So also is Irene Yaroslav," said the girl. "It is not for money that she comes."

"It is not for money," agreed the other, "it is for something else. When the Grand Duchess Irene was a child, she was in the streets of Kieff one day in charge of her nurse. It happened that some Caucasian soldiers stationed in the town started a pogrom against the Jews. The soldiers were very drunk; they were darting to and fro in the street on their little horses, and the nurse became frightened and left the child. Your father was in hiding, and the soldiers were searching for him; yet, when he saw the danger of the Grand Duchess, he ran from his hiding-place, snatched her up under the hoofs of the horses, and bore her away into his house."

"I did not know this," said Sophia, listening open-mouthed. Her father had never spoken of the incident, and the curious affection which this high-born lady had for the old usurer of Kieff had ever been a source of wonder to her.

"You know it now," said Boolba. "The Grand Duke has long since forgotten what he owes to Israel Kensky, but the Grand Duchess has not. Therefore, she comes to him with all her troubles—and that, Sophia Kensky, is why we have sent for you."

There was a silence.

"I see," she said at last, "you wish me to spy upon Israel Kensky and tell you all that happens."

"I want to know all that passes between him and the Grand Duchess," said Boolba. "She comes to London to-morrow with her father, and it is certain she will seek out Israel Kensky. Every letter that passes between them must be opened."

"But——" she began.

"There is no 'but,'" roared Boolba. "Hear and obey; it is ordered!"

He turned abruptly to the man on his left.

"You understand, Yaroslav arrives in London to-morrow. It is desirable that he should not go away."

"But, but, Excellency," stammered the man on his left, "here in London!"

Boolba nodded.

"But, Excellency," wailed the man, "in London we are safe; it is the one refuge to which our friends can come. If such a thing should happen, what would be our fate? We could not meet together. We should be hounded down by the police from morning until night; we should be deported—it would be the ruin of the great movement."

"Nevertheless, it is an order," said Boolba doggedly; "this is a matter beyond the cause. It will gain us powerful protectors at the court, and I promise you that, though the commotion will be great, yet it will not last for very long, and you will be left undisturbed."

"But——" began one of the audience, and Boolba silenced him with a gesture.

"I promise that none of you shall come to harm, my little pigeons, and that you shall not be concerned in this matter."

"But who will do it, Excellency?" asked another member.

"That is too important to be decided without a meeting of all the brethren. For my part, I would not carry out such an order unless I received the instructions of our President."

"I promise that none of you shall take a risk," sneered Boolba. "Now speak, Yakoff!"

The man who had accompanied Sophia Kensky smiled importantly at the company, then turned to Sophia.

"Must I say this before Sophia Kensky?" he asked.

"Speak," said Boolba. "We are all brothers and sisters, and none will betray you."

Yakoff cleared his throat.

"When your Excellency wrote to me from Kieff, asking me to find a man, I was in despair," he began—an evidently rehearsed speech, "I tore my hair, I wept——"

"Tell us what you have done," said the impatient Boolba. "For what does it matter, in the name of the saints and the holy martyrs" (everyone at the table, including Boolba, crossed himself) "whether your hair was torn or your head was hammered?"

"It was a difficult task, Excellency," said Yakoff in a more subdued tone, "but Providence helped me. There is a good comrade of ours who is engaged in punishing the bourgeoisie by relieving them of their goods——"

"A thief, yes," said Boolba.

"Through him I learnt that a certain man had arrived in England and was in hiding. This man is a professional assassin."

They looked at him incredulously, all except Boolba, who had heard the story before.

"An assassin?" said one. "Of what nationality?"

"American," said Yakoff, and there was a little titter of laughter.

"It is true," interrupted Boolba. "This man, whom Yakoff has found, is what is known in New York as a gun-man. He belongs to a gang which was hunted down by the police, and our comrade escaped."

"But an American!" persisted one of the unconvinced.

"An American," said Yakoff. "This man is desired by the police on this side, and went in hiding with our other comrade, who recognized him."

"A gun-man," said Boolba thoughtfully, and he used the English word with some awkwardness. "A gun-man. If he would only—is he here?" he demanded, looking up.

Yakoff nodded.

"Does he know——"

"I have told him nothing, Excellency," said Yakoff, rising from the table with alacrity, "except to be here, near the entrance to the club, at this hour. Shall I bring him down?"

Boolba nodded, and three minutes later, into this queer assembly, something of a fish out of water and wholly out of his element, strode Cherry Bim, that redoubtable man.

He was a little, man, stoutly built and meanly dressed. He had a fat, good-humoured face and a slight moustache, and eyes that seemed laughing all the time.

Despite the coldness of the night, he wore no waistcoat, and as a protest against the conventions he had dispensed with a collar. As he stood there, belted about his large waist, a billycock hat on the back of his head, he looked to be anything from a broken-down publican to an out-of-work plumber.

He certainly did not bear the impress of gun-man.

If he was out of his element, he was certainly not out of conceit with himself. He gave a cheery little nod to every face that was turned to him, and stood, his hands thrust through his belt, his legs wide apart, surveying the company with a benevolent smile.

"Good evening, ladies and gents," he said. "Shake hands with Cherry Bim! Bim on my father's side and Cherry by christening—Cherry Bim, named after the angels." And he beamed again.

This little speech, delivered in English, was unintelligible to the majority of those present, including Sophia Kensky, but Yakoff translated it. Solemnly he made a circuit of the company and as solemnly shook hands with every individual, and at last he came to Boolba; and only then did he hesitate for a second.

Perhaps in that meeting there came to him some premonition of the future, some half-revealed, half-blurred picture of prophecy. Perhaps that picture was one of himself, lying in the darkness on the roof of the railway carriage, and an obscene Boolba standing erect in a motor-car on the darkened station, waving his rage, ere the three quick shots rang out.

Cherry Bim confessed afterwards to a curious shivery sensation at his spine. The hesitation was only for a second, and then his hand gripped the big hand of the self-constituted chairman.

"Now, gents and ladies," he said, with a comical little bow towards Sophia, "I understand you're all good sports here, and I'm telling you that I don't want to stay long. I'm down and out, and I'm free to confess it, and any of you ladies and gents who would like to grubstake a stranger in a foreign land, why, here's your chance. I'm open to take on any kind of job that doesn't bring me into conspicuous relationship with the bulls—bulls, ladies and gentlemen, being New York for policemen."

Then Boolba spoke, and he spoke in English, slow but correct.

"Comrade," he said, "do you hate tyrants?"

"If he's a copper," replied Mr. Bim mistakenly. "Why, he's just as popular with me as a hollow tooth at an ice-cream party."

"What does he say?" asked the bewildered Boolba, who could not follow the easy flow of Mr. Bim's conversation, and Yakoff translated to the best of his ability.

And then Boolba, arresting the interruption of the American, explained. It was a long explanation. It dealt with tyranny and oppression and other blessed words dear to the heart of the revolutionary; it concerned millions of men and hundreds of millions of men and women in chains, under iron heels, and the like; and Mr. Bim grew more and more hazy, for he was not used to the parabole, the allegory, or the metaphor. But towards the end of his address, Boolba became more explicit, and, as his emotions were moved, his English a little more broken.

Mr. Bim became grave, for there was no mistaking the task which had been set him.

"Hold hard, mister," he said. "Let's get this thing right. There's a guy you want to croak. Do I get you right?"

Again Mr. Yakoff translated the idioms, for Yakoff had not lived on the edge of New York's underworld without acquiring some knowledge of its language.

Boolba nodded.

"We desire him killed," he said. "He is a tyrant, an oppressor——"

"Hold hard," said Bim. "I want to see this thing plain. You're going to croak this guy, and I'm the man to do it? Do I get you?"

"That is what I desire," said Boolba, and Bim shook his head.

"It can't be done," he said. "I'm over here for a quiet, peaceful life, and anyway, I've got nothing on this fellow. I'm not over here to get my picture in the papers. It's a new land to me—why, if you put me in Piccadilly Circus I shouldn't know which way to turn to get out of it! Anyway, that strong arm stuff is out so far as I'm concerned."

"What does he say?" said Boolba again, and again Yakoff translated.

"I thought you were what you call a gun-man," said Boolba with a curl of his lip. "I did not expect you to be frightened."

"There's gun-men and gun-men," said Cherry Bim, unperturbed by the patent sarcasm. "And then there's me. I never drew a gun on a man in my life that didn't ask for it, or in the way of business. No, sirree. You can't hire Cherry Bim to do a low, vulgar murder."

His tone was uncompromising and definite. Boolba realized that he could not pursue his argument with any profit to himself, and that if he were to bring this unwilling agent to his way of thinking a new line would have to be taken.

"You will not be asked to take a risk for nothing," he said. "I am authorized to pay you twenty thousand roubles, that is, two thousand pounds in your money——"

"Not mine," interrupted Bim. "It's ten thousand dollars you're trying to say. Well, even that doesn't tempt me. It's not my game, anyway," he said, pulling up a chair and sitting down in the most friendly manner. "And don't think you're being original when you offer me this commission. I've had it offered me before in New York City, and I've always turned it down, though I know my way to safety blindfolded. That's all there is to it, gentlemen—and ladies," he added.

"So you refuse?" Neither Boolba's voice nor his manner was pleasant.

"That's about the size of it," said Cherry Bim, rising. "I'm a grafter, I admit it. There ain't hardly anything I wouldn't do from smashing a bank downwards, to turn a dishonest penny. But, gents, I'm short of the necessary nerve, inclination, lack of morals, and general ungodliness, to take on murder in the first, second, or third degree."

"You have courage, my friend," said Boolba significantly. "You do not suppose we should take you into our confidence and let you go away again so easily?"

Mr. Bim's smile became broader.

"Gents, I won't deceive you," he said. "I expected a rough house and prepared for it. Watch me!"

He extended one of his hands in the manner of a conjurer and with the other pulled up the sleeve above the wrist. He turned the hands over, waggling the fingers as though he were giving a performance, and they watched him curiously.

"There's nothing there, is there?" said Cherry Bim, beaming at the company, "and yet there is something there. Look!"

No eyes were sharp enough to follow the quick movement of his hand. None saw it drop or rise again. There was a slur of movement, and then, in the hand which had been empty, was a long-barrelled Colt. Cherry Bim, taking no notice of the sensation he created, tossed the revolver to the ceiling and caught it again.

"Now, gents, I don't know whether you're foolish or only just crazy. Get away from that door, Hector," he said to a long-haired man who stood with folded arms against the closed door. And "Hector," whose name was Nickolo Novoski Yasserdernski in real life, made haste to obey.

"Wait a bit," said the careful gun-man. "That's a key in your waistcoat pocket, I guess." He thrust the barrel of his revolver against the other's side, and the long-haired man doubled up with a gasp. But Cherry Bim meant no mischief. The barrel of the gun clicked against the end of a key, and when Cherry Bim drew his revolver away the key was hanging to it!

"Magnetic," the gun-man kindly explained; "it is a whim of mine."

With no other words he passed through the door and slammed it behind him.

CHAPTER III

THE GRAND DUCHESS IRENE

Israel Kensky was dozing before the fire when the sound of the creaking stair woke him. He walked softly to the door and listened, and presently he heard the steps of his daughter passing along the corridor. He opened the door suddenly and stepped out, and she jumped back with a little cry of alarm. There were moments when she was terribly afraid of her father, and such a moment came to her now.

"Are you not asleep, Israel Kensky?" she faltered.

"I could not sleep," replied the other, in so mild a tone that she took courage. "Come into my room. I wish to speak to you."

He did not ask her where she had been, or to explain why, at three o'clock in the morning, she was dressed for the street, and she felt it necessary to offer some explanation.

"You wonder why I am dressed?" she said.

"I heard a great noise in the street, and went out to see——"

"What does it matter?" said Israel Kensky. "Save your breath, little daughter. Why should you not walk in the street if you desire?"

He switched on the light to augment the red glow which came from the fire.

"Sit down, Sophia," he said, "I have been waiting for you. I heard you go out."

She made no reply. There was fear in her eyes, and all the time she was conscious of many unpleasant interviews with her father—interviews which had taken place in Kieff and in other towns—the details of which she could never recall. And she was filled with a dread of some happening to which she could not give form or description. He saw her shifting in her chair and smiled slowly.

"Get me the little box which is on my dressing-table, Sophia Kensky," he said.

He was seated by the fire, his hands outstretched to the red coal. After a moment's hesitation she got up, went to the dressing-table, and brought back a small box. It was heavy and made of some metal over which a brilliant black enamel had been laid.

"Open the box, Sophia Kensky," said the old man, not turning his head.

She had a dim recollection that she had been asked to do this before, but again could not remember when or in what circumstances. She opened the lid and looked within. On a bed of black velvet was a tiny convex mirror, about the size of a sixpence. She looked at this, and was still looking at it when she walked slowly back to her chair and sat down. It had such a fascination, this little mirror, that she could not tear her eyes away.

"Close your eyes," said Kensky in a monotonous voice, and she obeyed. "You cannot open them," said the old man, and she shook her head and repeated:

"I cannot open them."

"Now you shall tell me, Sophia Kensky, where you went this night."

In halting tones she told him of her meeting with Yakoff, of their walk, of the cab, of the little door in the back street, and the stone stairs that led to the whitewashed passage; and then she gave, as near as she knew, a full account of all that had taken place. Only when she came to describe Bim and to tell of what he said, did she flounder. Bim had spoken in a foreign language, and the translation of Yakoff had conveyed very little to her. But in this part of the narrative the old man was less interested. Again and again he returned to Boolba and the plot.

"What hand will kill the Grand Duke?" he asked, not once but many times, and invariably she answered:

"I do not know."

"On whose behalf does Boolba act?" asked the old man. "Think, Sophia Kensky! Who will give this foreigner twenty thousand roubles?"

"I do not know," she answered again.

Presently a note of distress was evident in her voice, and Israel Kensky rose up and took the box from her hand.

"You will go to bed, Sophia Kensky," he said slowly and deliberately, "and to-morrow morning, when you wake, you shall not remember anything that happened after you came into this house to-night. You shall not remember that I spoke to you or that I asked you to look in the little box. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Israel Kensky," she replied slowly, and walked with weary feet from the room.

Israel Kensky listened and heard her door click, then closed his own, and, sitting at a table, began to write quickly. He was still writing when the grey dawn showed in his windows at six o'clock. He blotted the last letter and addressed an envelope to "The Most Excellent and Illustrious Highness the Grand Duchess Irene Yaroslav" before, without troubling to undress, he sank down upon his bed into a sleep of exhaustion.

* * * * *

Malcolm Hay had an appointment with Mr. Tremayne on the morning that saw Israel Kensky engaged in frantic letter-writing. It was about Kensky that Tremayne spoke.

"He has arrived in London," he said, "and is staying in Colbury Terrace, Maida Vale. I think you had better see him, because, as I told you, he is a local big-wig and may be very useful to you. Our wells, as you know, are about thirty miles outside Kieff, which is the nearest big town, so you may be seeing him pretty often. Also, by the way, he is our agent. If you have any trouble with Government officials you must see Kensky, who can generally put things square."

"I believe his daughter is with him," Mr. Tremayne went on, "but I know very little about her. Yet another neighbour of yours arrives by special train at midday."

"Another neighbour of mine?" repeated Malcolm with a smile. "And who is that?"

"The Grand Duke Yaroslav. I don't suppose you'll have very much to do with him, but he's the King Pippin in your part of the world."

A clerk came in with a typewritten sheet covered with Russian characters.

"Here's your letter of introduction to Kensky. He knows just as much English as you will want him to know."

When Malcolm presented himself at the lodgings, it was to discover that the old Jew had gone out, and had left no message as to the time he would return. Since Malcolm was anxious to meet this important personage, he did not leave his letter, but went into the City to lunch with an old college chum. In the afternoon he decided to make his call, and only remembered, as he was walking up the Strand, that he had intended satisfying his curiosity as to that "other neighbour" of his, the Grand Duke Yaroslav.

There was a little crowd about Charing Cross Station, though it was nearly two hours after midday when the Yaroslavs were due; and he was to discover, on inquiry of a policeman, that the cause of this public curiosity had been the arrival of two royal carriages.

"Some Russian prince or other," said the obliging bobby. "The boat was late, and—here they come!"

Malcolm was standing on the side-walk in the courtyard of Charing Cross Station when the two open landaus drove out through the archway. In the first was a man a little over middle age, wearing a Russian uniform; but Malcolm had no eyes for him—it was for the girl who sat by his side, erect, haughty, almost disdainful, with her splendid beauty, and apparently oblivious to all that was being said to her by the smiling young man who sat on the opposite seat.

As the carriage came abreast and the postilions reined in their mounts before turning into the crowded Strand, the girl turned her head for a second and her eyes seemed to rest on Malcolm.

Instinctively he lifted his hat from his head, but it was not the girl who returned his salutation, but the stiff figure of the elderly man at her side who raised his hand with an automatic gesture. Only for a second, and then she swept out of view, and Malcolm heaved a long, deep sigh.

"Some dame!" said a voice at his side. "Well, I'm glad I saw him, anyway."

Malcolm looked down at the speaker. He was a stout little man, who wore his hard felt hat at a rakish angle. The butt of a fat cigar was clenched between his teeth, and his genial eyes met Malcolm's with an inviting frankness which was irresistible.

"That was his Grand Nibs, wasn't it?" asked the man, and Malcolm smiled.

"That was the Grand Duke, I think," he said.

"And who was the dame?"

"The dame?"

"I mean the lady, the young peacherino—gee! She was wonderful!"

Malcolm shared his enthusiasm but was not prepared to express himself with such vigour.

"That girl," said his companion, speaking with evident sincerity, "is wasted—what a face for a beauty chorus!"

Malcolm laughed. He was not a very approachable man, but there was something about this stranger which broke down all barriers.

"Well, I'm glad I've seen him," said Mr. Cherry Bim again emphatically. "I wonder what he's done."

Malcolm turned to move off, and the little man followed his example.

"What do you mean—what has he done?" asked the amused Malcolm.

"Oh, nothing," said the other airily, "but I just wondered, that's all."

"I'm glad I've seen them too," said Malcolm; "I nearly missed them. I was sitting so long over lunch——"

"You're a lucky man," said Mr. Bim.

"To have seen them?"

"No, to have sat over lunch," said Cherry with an inward groan. "My! I'd like to see what a lunch looks like."

Malcolm looked at the man with a new interest and a new sympathy.

"Broke?" he asked, and the other grinned.

"If I was only broke," he said, "there'd be no trouble. But what's the matter with me is that there ain't any pieces!"

Cherry Bim noticed the hesitation in Malcolm's face and said:

"I hope you're not worrying about hurting my feelings."

"How?" said the startled Malcolm.

"Why," drawled the other, "if it's among your mind that you'd like to slip me two dollars and you're afraid of me throwing it at you, why, you can get that out of your mind straightaway."

Malcolm laughed and handed half a sovereign to the man.

"Go and get something to eat," he said.

"Hold hard," said the other as Malcolm was turning away. "What is your name?"

"Does that matter?" asked the young man with amusement.

"It matters a lot to me," said the other seriously. "I like to pay back anything I borrow."

"Hay is my name—Malcolm Hay. It's no use giving you my address, because I shall be in Russia next week."

"In Russia, eh? That's rum!" Cherry Bim scratched his unshaven chin. "I'm always meeting Russians."

He looked at the young engineer thoughtfully, then, with a little jerk of his head and a "So long!" he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Malcolm looked at his watch. He would try Kensky again, he thought; but again his mission was fruitless. He might have given up his search for this will-o'-the-wisp but for the fact that his new employers seemed to attach considerable importance to his making acquaintance with this notability of Kieff. He could hardly be out after dinner—he would try again.

He had dressed for the solitary meal, thinking that, if his quest again failed, he could spend the evening at a theatre. This time the elderly landlady of the house in which Mr. Kensky lodged informed him that her guest was at home; and a few moments later Malcolm was ushered into the presence of the old man.

Israel Kensky eyed his visitor keenly, taking him in from his carefully tied dress-bow to the tips of his polished boots. It was an approving glance, for Kensky, though he lived in one of the backwaters of civilization; though his attitude to the privileged classes of the world—in which category he placed Malcolm, did that young man but know it—was deferential and even servile; had very definite views as to what was, and was not, appropriate in his superior's attire.

He read through the letter which Malcolm had brought without a word, and then:

"Pray sit down, Mr. Hay," he said in English. "I have been expecting you. I had a letter from Mr. Tremayne."

Malcolm seated himself near the rough bench at which he cast curious eyes. The paraphernalia of Kensky's hobby still lay upon its surface.

"You are wondering what an old Jew does to amuse himself, eh?" chuckled Kensky. "Do you think we in South Russia do nothing but make bombs? If I had not an aptitude for business," he said (he pronounced the word "pizziness," and it was one of the few mispronunciations he made), "I should have been a bookbinder."

"It is beautiful work," said Malcolm, who knew something of the art.

"It takes my mind from things," said Kensky, "and also it helps me—yes, it helps me very much."

Malcolm did not ask him in what manner his craft might assist a millionaire merchant, for in those days he had not heard of the "Book of All-Power."

The conversation which followed travelled through awkward stages and more awkward pauses. Kensky looked a dozen times at the clock, and on the second occasion Malcolm, feeling uncomfortable, rose to go, but was eagerly invited to seat himself again.

"You are going to Russia?"

"Yes."

"It is a strange country if you do not know it. And the Russians are strange people. And to Kieff also! That is most important."

Malcolm did not inquire where the importance lay, and dismissed this as an oblique piece of politeness on the other's part.

"I am afraid I am detaining you, Mr. Kensky. I merely came in to make your acquaintance and shake hands with you," he said, rising, after yet another anxious glance at the clock on the part of his host.

"No, no, no," protested Kensky. "You must forgive me, Mr. Hay, if I seem to be dreaming and I do not entertain you. I am turning over in my mind so many possibilities, so many plans, and I think I have come to the right conclusion. You shall stay, and you shall know. I can rely upon your discretion, can I not?"

"Certainly, but——"

"I know I can!" said the old man, nodding "And you can help me. I am a stranger in London. Tell me, Mr. Hay, do you know the Café of the Silver Lion?"

The other was staggered by the question.

"No, I can't say that I do," he admitted. "I am a comparative stranger in London myself."

"Ah, but you can find it. You know all the reference books, which are so much Greek to me; you could discover it by inquiring of the police—inquiries made very discreetly, you understand, Mr. Hay?"

Malcolm wondered what he was driving at, but the old man changed the subject abruptly.

"To-night you will see a lady here. She is coming to me. Again I ask for your discretion and your silence. Wait!"

He shuffled to the window, pulled aside the blind and looked out.

"She is here," he said in a whisper. "You will stand just there."

He indicated a position which to Malcolm was ludicrously suggestive of his standing in a corner. Further explanations could neither be given nor asked for. The door opened suddenly and a girl came in, closing it behind her. She looked first at Kensky with a smile, and then at the stranger, and the smile faded from her lips. As for Malcolm, he was speechless. There was no doubt at all as to the identity. The straight nose, the glorious eyes, the full, parted lips.

Kensky shuffled across to her, bent down and kissed her hand.

"Highness," he said humbly, "this gentleman is a friend of mine. Trust old Israel Kensky, Highness!"

"I trust you, Israel Kensky," she replied in Russian, and with the sweetest smile that Malcolm had ever seen in a woman.

She bowed slightly to the young man, and for the rest of the interview her eyes and speech were for the Jew. He brought a chair forward for her, dusted it carefully, and she sat down by the table, leaning her chin on her palm, and looking at the old man.

"I could not come before," she said. "It was so difficult to get away."

"Your Highness received my letter?"

She nodded.

"But Israel," her voice almost pleaded, "you do not believe that this thing would happen?"

"Highness, all things are possible," said the old man. "Here in London the cellars and garrets teem with evil men."

"But the police——" she began.

"The police cannot shelter you, Highness, as they do in our Russia."

"I must warn the Grand Duke," she said thoughtfully, "and"—she hesitated, and a shadow passed over her face—"and the Prince. Is it not him they hate?"

Kensky shook his head.

"Lady," he said humbly, "in my letter I told you there was something which could not be put on paper, and that I will tell you now. And if I speak of very high matters, your Highness must forgive an old man."

She nodded, and again her laugh twinkled in her eyes.

"Your father, the Grand Duke Yaroslav," he said, "has one child, who is your Highness."

She nodded.

"The heir to the Grand Dukedom is——" He stopped inquiringly.

"The heir?" she said slowly. "Why, it is Prince Serganoff. He is with us."

Malcolm remembered the olive-faced young man who had sat on the seat of the royal carriage facing the girl; and instinctively he knew that this was Prince Serganoff, though in what relationship he stood to the Grand Ducal pair he had no means of knowing.

"The heir is Prince Serganoff," said the old man slowly, "and his Highness is an ambitious man. Many things can happen in our Russia, little lady. If the Grand Duke were killed——"

"Impossible!" She sprang to her feet. "He would never dare! He would never dare!"

Kensky spread out his expressive hands.

"Who knows?" he said. "Men and women are the slaves of their ambition."

She looked at him intently.

"He would never dare," she said slowly. "No, no, I cannot believe that."

The old man made no reply.

"Where did you learn this, Israel Kensky?" she asked.

"From a good source, Highness," he replied evasively, and she nodded.

"I know you would not tell me this unless there were some foundation," she said. "And your friend?" She looked inquiringly at the silent Hay. "Does he know?"

Israel Kensky shook his head.

"I would wish that the gospodar knew as much as possible, because he will be in Kieff, and who knows what will happen in Kieff? Besides, he knows London."

Malcolm did not attempt to deny the knowledge, partly because, in spite of his protest, he had a fairly useful working knowledge of the metropolis.

"I shall ask the gospodar to discover the meeting-place of the rabble."

"Do you suggest," she demanded, "that Prince Serganoff is behind this conspiracy, that he is the person who inspired this idea of assassination?"

Again the old man spread out his hands.

"The world is a very wicked place," he said.

"And the Prince has many enemies," she added with a bright smile. "You must know that, Israel Kensky. My cousin is Chief of the Political Police in St. Petersburg, and it is certain that people will speak against him."

The old man was eyeing her thoughtfully.

"Your Highness has much wisdom," he said, "and I remember, when you were a little girl, how you used to point out to me the bad men from the good. Tell me, lady, is Prince Serganoff a good man or a bad man? Is he capable or incapable of such a crime?"

She did not answer. In truth she could not answer; for all that Kensky had said, she had thought. She rose to her feet.

"I must go now, Israel Kensky," she said. "My car is waiting for me. I will write to you."

She would have gone alone, but Malcolm Hay, with amazing courage, stepped forward.

"If Your Imperial Highness will accept my escort to your car," he said humbly, "I shall be honoured."

She looked at him in doubt.

"I think I would rather go alone."

"Let the young man go with you, Highness," said Kensky earnestly. "I shall feel safer in my mind."

She nodded, and led the way down the stairs. They turned out of the garden into the street and did not speak a word. Presently the girl said in English:

"You must think we Russian people are barbarians, Mr.——"

"Hay," suggested Malcolm.

"Mr. Hay. That is Scottish, isn't it? Tell me, do you think we are uncivilized?"

"No, Your Highness," stammered Malcolm. "How can I think that?"

They walked on until they came in sight of the tail lights of the car, and then she stopped.

"You must not come any farther," she said. "You can stand here and watch me go. Do you know any more than Israel Kensky told?" she asked, a little anxiously.

"Nothing," he replied in truth.

She offered her hand, and he bent over it.

"Good night, Mr. Hay. Do not forget, I must see you in Kieff."

He watched the red lights of the car disappear and walked quickly back to old Kensky's rooms. Russia and his appointment had a new fascination.

CHAPTER IV

THE PRINCE WHO PLANNED

Few people knew or know how powerful a man Prince Serganoff really was in these bad old days. He waved his hand and thousands of men and women disappeared. He beckoned and he had a thousand sycophantic suppliants.

In the days before he became Chief of the Police to the entourage, he went upon a diplomatic mission to High Macedonia, the dark and sinister state. He was sent by none, but he had a reason, for Dimitrius, his sometime friend, had fled to the capital of the higher Balkan state and Serganoff went down without authority to terrify his sometime confidant into returning for trial. In High Macedonia the exquisite young man was led by sheer curiosity to make certain inquiries into the domestic administration of the country, and learnt things.

He had hardly made himself master of these before he was sent for by the Foreign Minister.

"Highness," said the suave man, stroking his long, brown beard, "how long have you been in the capital?"

"Some four days, Excellency," said the Prince.

"That is ninety-six hours too long," said the minister. "There is a train for the north in forty minutes. You will catch that, and God be with you!"

Prince Serganoff did not argue but went out from the ornate office, and the Minister called a man who was waiting.

"If his Highness does not leave by the four o'clock train, cut his throat and carry the body to one of the common houses of the town—preferably that of the man Domopolo, the Greek, who is a bad character, and well deserving of death."

"Excellency," said the man gravely, and saluted his way out.

They knew Serganoff in High Macedonia and were a little anxious. Had they known him better they would have feared him less. He did not leave by the four o'clock train, but by a special which was across the frontier by four. He sat in a cold sweat till the frontier post was past.

This man was a mass of contradictions. He liked the good things of life. He bought his hosiery in Paris, his shoes in Vienna, his suits and cravats in New York; and it is said of him that he made a special pilgrimage to London—the Mecca of those who love good leather work—for the characteristic attaché cases which were so indispensable to the Chief of Gendarmerie of the Marsh Town.

He carried with him the irrepressible trimness and buoyancy of youth, with his smooth, sallow face, his neat black moustache and his shapeliness of outline. An exquisite of exquisites, he had never felt the draughts of life or experienced its rude buffetings.

His perfectly-appointed flat in the Morskaya had been modelled to his taste and fancy. It was a suite wherein you pressed buttons and comfortable things happened. You opened windows and boiled water, or summoned a valet to your bedside by the gentle pressure you applied to a mother-of-pearl stud set in silver plate which, by some miracle, was always within reach.

He had an entire suite converted to bath-rooms, where his masseur, his manicurist and his barber attended him daily. He had conscripted modern science to his service, he had so cunningly disguised its application, that you might never guess the motive power of the old English clock which ticked in the spacious hall, or realize that the soft light which came from the many branched candelabra which hung from the centre of his drawing-room was due to anything more up to date than the hundred most life-like candles which filled the sockets.

Yet this suave gentleman with his elegant manners and his pretty taste in old china, this genius who was the finest judge in the capital of Pekinese dogs, and had been known to give a thousand-rouble fee to the veterinary surgeon who performed a minor operation on his favourite Borzoi, had another aspect. He who shivered at the first chill winds of winter and wrapped himself in sables whenever he drove abroad after the last days of September, and had sent men and women to the bleakness of Alexandrowski without a qualm; he who had to fortify himself to face an American dentist (his fees for missed appointments would have kept the average middle-class family in comfort for a year), was ruthless in his dealings with the half-crazed men and women who strayed across the frontier which divided conviction from propaganda.

Physical human suffering left him unmoved—he hanged the murderer Palatoff with his own hands. Yet in that operation someone saw him turn very pale and shrink back from his victim. Afterwards the reason was discovered. The condemned man had had the front of his rough shirt fastened with a safety-pin which had worked loose. The point had ripped a little gash in the inexperienced finger of the amateur hangman.

He brought Dr. Von Krauss from Berlin, because von Krauss was an authority upon blood infection and spent a week of intense mental agony until he was pronounced out of danger.

He sat before a long mirror in his bedroom, that gave on Horridge's Hotel, and surveyed himself thoughtfully. He was looking at the only man he trusted, for it was not vanity, but a love of agreeable company that explained the passion for mirrors which was the jest of St. Petersburg.

It was his fourth day in London and a little table near the window was covered with patterns of cloth; he had spent an exciting afternoon with the representative of his tailor. But it was not of sartorial magnificence that he was thinking.

He stretched out his legs comfortably towards his reflection, and smiled.

"Yes," he said, as though answering some secret thought, and he and the reflection nodded to one another as though they had reached a complete understanding.

Presently he pushed the bell and his valet appeared.

"Has the Grand Duke gone?" he asked.

"Yes, Excellency," replied the man.

"And the Grand Duchess?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"Good!" Serganoff nodded.

"Is your Excellency's headache better?" asked the man.

"Much better," replied the Chief of Police. "Go to their Highness's suite, and tell their servant—what is the man's name?"

"Boolba, Excellency," said the valet.

"Yes, that is the fellow. Ask him to come to me. The Grand Duke mentioned a matter which I forgot to tell Boolba."

Boolba made his appearance, a suave domestic, wearing the inconspicuous livery of an English butler rather than the ornate uniform which accompanied his office in Kieff.

"That will do." Serganoff dismissed his valet. "Boolba, come here."

The man approached him and Serganoff lowered his voice.

"You have made a fool of me again, Boolba."

"Excellency," pleaded the man urgently, "I have done all that was possible."

"You have placed my fortune and my life in the hands of an American criminal. If that is your idea of doing all that is possible, I agree with you," said Serganoff. "Be careful, Boolba! The arm of the Bureau is a very long one, and greater men than you have disappeared from their homes."

"Illustrious Excellency," said the agitated man, "I swear to you I did all that you requested. There were many reasons why I should not entrust this matter to the men of the secret society."

"I should like to hear a few," said Serganoff, cleaning his nails delicately.

"Excellency, the Grand Duke stands well with the society. He had never oppressed them, and he is the only popular member of the Imperial House with our—their society."

"Our society, eh?" said Serganoff, noticing the slip. "Go on."

"Besides, Excellency," said Boolba, "it was necessary not only to kill the Grand Duke, but to shoot down his assassin. Our plan was to get this American to shoot him in the park, where he walks in the morning, and then for one of the society to shoot the American. That was a good plan, because it meant that the man who could talk would talk no more, and that the comrade who shot down the murderer would stand well with the Government."

Serganoff nodded.

"And your plan has failed," he said, "failed miserably at the outset. You dog!"

He leapt to his feet, his eyes blazing, and Boolba stepped back.

"Highness, wait, wait!" he cried. "I have something else in my mind! I could have helped Highness better if I had known more. But I could only guess. I had to grope in the dark all the time."

"Do you imagine I am going to take you into my confidence?" asked Serganoff. "What manner of fool am I? Tell me what you have guessed. You may sit down; nobody will come in, and if they do you can be buttoning my boots."

Boolba wiped his damp face with a handkerchief and leaned nearer to the man.

"If the Grand Duke dies, a certain illustrious person succeeds to his estates," he said, "but not to his title."

Serganoff looked at him sharply. The man had put into words the one difficulty which had occupied the mind of the Chief of Police for months.

"Well?" he said.

"The title is in the gift of the Czar," said Boolba. "He alone can create a Grand Duke who succeeds but is not in the direct line. Therefore, the killing of Yaroslav would bring little but the property to the illustrious person. Only if His Imperial Majesty decided upon a worthier holder, or if the Grand Duke fell under a cloud at Court, could it pass to the illustrious person."

"That I know," said Serganoff. "Well?"

"Well, Highness, would it not be better if the Grand Duke were disgraced, if he were brought to St. Petersburg to answer certain charges which the illustrious person formulated? After, the Grand Duke might die—that is a simple matter. Russia would think that he had been put to death by the Court party as a matter of policy. Yaroslav is not in favour at the Court," he added significantly; but Serganoff shook his head.

"He is not sufficiently out of favour yet," he said. "Go on, man, you have something in your mind."

Boolba edged closer.

"Suppose the Grand Duke or the Grand Duchess were involved in some conspiracy against the Imperial House?" he said, speaking rapidly. "Suppose, on evidence which could not be disputed, such as the evidence of the London police, it was proved that either the Grand Duke or his daughter was in league with an anarchist society, or was attending their meetings—does your Excellency see?"

"I see," said Serganoff, "but they do not attend meetings."

Boolba hesitated.

"Yet," he said, speaking slowly, "I would guarantee that I could bring the Grand Duchess Irene to such a meeting, and that I could arrange for the place to be raided whilst she was there."

Serganoff put down his orange stick and eyed the other keenly.

"You have brains, Boolba," he said. "Some day I shall bring you to St. Petersburg and place you on my staff—if you do not know too much."

He paced the apartment, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Suppose you get in touch with this American again, bring him to the meeting, unless he's afraid to come, and then boldly suggest to him that he goes to St. Petersburg to make an attempt upon the life of the Czar himself."

"He would reject it," said Boolba, shaking his head.

"What if he did—that doesn't matter," said Serganoff impatiently. "It is sufficient that the suggestion is made. Suppose this man is amongst these infamous fellows when the London police raid and arrest them, and he makes a statement that he was approached to destroy the Imperial life, and the Grand Duchess Irene is arrested at the same time?"

Boolba's eyes brightened.

"That is a wonderful idea, Highness," he said admiringly.

Serganoff continued his pacing, and presently stopped.

"I will arrange the police raid," he said. "I am in communication with Scotland Yard, and it will be better if I am present when the raid is conducted. It is necessary that I should identify myself with this chapter," he said, "but how will you induce the Grand Duchess to come?"

"Leave that to me, Highness," replied the man, and gave some details of his scheme.

CHAPTER V

THE RAID ON THE SILVER LION

Sophia Kensky was a loyal and faithful adherent to the cause she had espoused, and her report, written in the weird caligraphy of Russia, greatly interested the butler of the Grand Duke Yaroslav. From that report he learned of the visit which the Grand Duchess Irene had paid; learned, too, that she had been escorted to her car by an Englishman, whose name the woman did not know; and was to discover later that the said "Englishman" had been sent out by Israel Kensky on a special mission. That mission was to discover the Silver Lion, a no very difficult task. In point of fact, it was discoverable in a London telephone directory, because the upper part of the premises were used legitimately enough in the proprietor's business as restaurateur.

Malcolm Hay had lunch at the place and saw nothing suspicious in its character. Most of the clientèle were obviously foreign, and not a few were Russian. Pretending to lose his way, he wandered through the service door, and there made the important discovery that the kitchen was on the top floor, and also that meals were being served somewhere in the basement. This he saw during the few minutes he was allowed to make observations, because there was a service lift which was sent down to the unseen clients below.

He apologized for his intrusion and went out. Officially there was no basement-room, nor, from the restaurant itself, any sign of stairs which led down to an underground chamber. He made a further reconnaissance, and found the back door which Sophia Kensky had described in her hypnotic sleep, and the location of which the old man had endeavoured to convey to his agent.

Malcolm Hay was gifted with many of the qualities which make up the equipment of a good detective. In addition, he had the education and training of an engineer. That the underground room existed, he knew by certain structural evidence, and waited about in the street until he saw three men come out and the door close behind them. After awhile, another two emerged. There was nothing sinister or romantic about the existence of a basement dining-room, or even of a basement club-room.

The character of this club was probably well known to the police, he thought, and pursued his inquiries to Marlborough Street police station. There he found, as he had expected, that the club was registered and known as "The Foreign Friends of Freedom Club." The officer who supplied him with the information told him that the premises were visited at frequent intervals by a representative of the police, and that nothing of an irregular character had been reported.

"Have you any complaints to make?" asked the official.

"None whatever," smiled Hay. "Only I am writing an article on the foreign clubs of London, and I want to be sure of my facts."

It was the first and most plausible lie that occurred to him, and it answered his purpose. He returned to Kensky with his information, and the old man producing a map of London, he marked the spot with a red cross. All this time Malcolm Hay was busy making preparations for departure. He would have been glad to stay on, so that his leaving London would coincide with the departure of the Grand Duchess, but his sleeper had already been booked, and he had to make a call en route at Vienna.

It was on the occasion of this visit with details of the location and character of the club, that he first saw Sophia Kensky. He thought her pretty in a bold, heavy way, and she regarded him with insolent indifference. It was one of the few occasions in his life that he spoke with her.

"The gospodar is going to Kieff, Sophia Kensky," introduced the old man.

"What will you do in Kieff, Excellency?" asked the woman indolently.

"I shall not be in Kieff," smiled Hay, "except on rare occasions. I am taking charge of some oil-wells about twenty versts outside of the town."

"It is a terrible life, living in the country," she said, and he was inclined to agree.

This and a few trite sentiments about Russian weather and Russian seasons were the only words he ever exchanged with her in his life. Years later, when he stood, hardly daring to breathe, in the cupboard of a commissary's office, and heard her wild denunciation of the man who had sent her to death, he was to recall this first and only meeting.

Israel Kensky dismissed his daughter without ceremony, and it was then that Malcolm Hay told him the result of his investigations. The old man sat for a long time stroking his beard.

"Two more days they stay in this town," he said, half to himself, "and that is the dangerous time."

He looked up sharply at Hay.

"You are clever, and you are English," he said. "Would you not help an old man to save this young life from misery and sorrow?"

Malcolm Hay looked at him in astonishment.

"To save whom?" he asked.

"The Grand Duchess," replied Kensky moodily. "It is for her I fear, more than for her father."

Malcolm Hay was on the point of blurting out the very vital truth that there was nothing in the wide world he would not do to save that wonderful being from the slightest ache or pain, but thought it best to dissemble the craziest of infatuations that ever a penniless and obscure engineer felt for a daughter of the Imperial House of Russia. Instead he murmured some conventional expression of his willingness.

"It is in this club that the danger lies," said Kensky. "I know these societies, Mr. Hay, and I fear them most when they look most innocent."

"Could you not get the police to watch?" asked Malcolm.

Had he lived in Russia, or had he had the experience which was his in the following twelve months, he would not have asked so absurd a question.

"No, no," said Kensky, "this is not a matter for the police. It is a matter for those who love her."

"What can I do?" asked Malcolm hastily.

He had a horrible feeling that his secret had been surprised, for he was of the age when love is fearless of everything except ridicule.

"You could watch the club," said Kensky. "I myself would go, but I am too old, and this English weather makes me sick."

"You mean actually watch it?" said Malcolm in surprise. "Why, I'll do that like a shot!"

"Note who goes in and who come out," said Kensky. "Be on hand at all times, in case you are called upon for help. You will see my daughter there," he said, after a pause, and a faint smile curved his pale lips. "Yes, Sophia Kensky is a great conspirator!"

"Whom do you expect me to see?" asked the other bluntly.

Kensky got up from his chair and went to a leather bag which stood on the sideboard. This he unlocked, and from a mass of papers took a photograph. He brought it back to the young man.

"Why," said Malcolm in surprise, "that is the man Serganoff, the Prince fellow!"

Kensky nodded slowly.

"That is Serganoff," he said. "Here is another picture of him, but not of his face."

It was, in fact, a snapshot photograph showing the back of the Police Chief; and it might have been, thought Malcolm, of a tailor's dummy, with its wasp waist and its perfectly creased trousers.

"Particularly I wish to know whether he will visit the club in the next two days," said the old man. "It is important that you should look for him."

"Anybody else?"

Kensky hesitated.

"I hope not," he said. "I hope not!"

Malcolm Hay went back to his hotel, feeling a new zest in life. His experience of the past few days had been incredible. He, an unknown student, had found himself suddenly plunged into the heart of an anarchist plot, and on nodding terms with royal highnesses! He laughed softly as he sat on the edge of his bed and reviewed all the circumstances, but did not laugh when the thought occurred to him that the danger which might be threatening this girl was very real.

That side of the adventure sobered him. He had sense enough to see that it was the unalienable right of youth to believe in fairies and to love beautiful princesses, and that such passions were entitled to disturb the rest and obscure the judgment of their victims for days and even for weeks. But he had an unpleasant conviction that he was looking at the Grand Duchess from an angle which was outside his experience of fairy stories.

That night when he went on his way to take up his "police duty" in the little street behind the Silver Lion, he saw two mounted policemen trotting briskly down the Strand followed by a closed carriage, and in the light of the electric standard he caught a glimpse of a face which set his heart beating faster. He cursed himself for his folly, swore so vigorously and so violently at his own stupidity, that he did not realize he was talking aloud, until the open-mouthed indignation of an elderly lady brought him to a sense of decorum.

She was going to the theatre, of course, he thought, and wondered what theatre would be graced by her presence. He half regretted his promise to Israel Kensky, which prevented him discovering the house of entertainment and securing a box or a stall from whence he could feast his eyes upon her face.

His vigil was painfully monotonous. It was the most uninteresting job he had ever undertaken. Most of the habitués of the club had evidently come at an early hour, for he saw nobody come in and nobody go out until nearly eleven o'clock. It began to rain a fine, thin drizzle, which penetrated every crevice, which insinuated itself down his neck, though his collar was upturned; and then, on top of this, came a gusty easterly wind, which chilled him to the marrow. Keeping in the shadow of the houses opposite, he maintained, however, a careful scrutiny, thereby earning the suspicion of a policeman, who passed him twice on his beat before he stopped to ask if he were looking for somebody.

As midnight chimed from a neighbouring church the door of the club opened and its members came out. Malcolm crossed the road and walked down to meet them, since they all seemed to be coming in the same direction.

There were about twenty men, and they were speaking in Russian or Yiddish, but the subjects of their discourse were of the most innocent character. He saw nobody he knew, or had ever seen before. Israel Kensky had expected that the St. Petersburg Chief of Police would be present; that expectation was not realized. Then he heard the door bolted and chained, and went home, after the most unprofitable evening he had ever spent.

How much better it would have been to sit in the warm theatre, with, perhaps, a clear view of the girl, watching her every movement, seeing her smile, noting her little tricks of manner or gesture.

In the end he laughed himself into a sane condition of mind, ate a hearty supper, and went to bed to dream that Serganoff was pursuing him with a hammer in his hand, and that the Grand Duchess was sitting in a box wildly applauding the efforts of her homicidal relative.

The next afternoon Malcolm Hay was packing, with the remainder of his belongings, a few articles he had purchased in London. Amongst these was a small and serviceable Colt revolver, and he stood balancing this in the palm of his hand, uncertain as to whether it would not be better to retain his weapon until after his present adventure. Twice he put it into his portmanteau and twice took it out again, and finally, blushing at the act, he slipped the weapon into his hip-pocket.

He felt theatrical and cheap in doing so. He told himself that he was investing a very common-place measure of precaution taken by old Israel Kensky, who was probably in the secret police, to protect his protégée, with an importance and a romance which it did not deserve. He went down to his post that night, feeling horribly self-conscious. This time he kept on the same side of the street as that on which the club was situated.

His watch was rewarded by events of greater interest than had occurred on the previous night. He had not been on duty half an hour before two men walked rapidly from the end of the street and passed him so closely that he could not make any mistake as to the identity of one. Had he not been able to recognize him, his voice would have instantly betrayed his identity, for, as they passed, the shorter of the two was talking.

"I'm one of those guys who don't believe in starving to death in a delicatessen store——"

Malcolm looked after the pair in amazement. It was the little man whom he had befriended in the courtyard at Charing Cross station. Other people drifted through the door in ones and twos, and then a man came walking smartly across the street, betraying the soldier at every stride. Malcolm turned and strolled in his direction.

There was no mistaking him either, though he was muffled up to the chin. With his tight-waisted greatcoat, a glimpse of an olive face with two piercing dark eyes, which flashed an inquiring glance as they passed—there was no excuse for error. It was Colonel Prince Serganoff beyond a doubt.

A quarter of an hour later came the real shock of the evening. A girl was almost on top of him before he saw her, for she was wearing shoes which made no sound. He had only time to turn so that she did not see his face, before she too entered the door and passed in. The Grand Duchess! And Serganoff! And the American adventurer!

What had these three in common, he wondered. And now he recalled the warning of the old man. Perhaps the girl was in danger—the thought brought him to the door, with his hand raised and touching the bell-push before he realized his folly. There was nothing to do but wait.

Five minutes passed and ten minutes, and then Malcolm Hay became conscious of the fact that something unusual was happening in the street. It was more thickly populated. Half a dozen men had appeared at either end of the street and were moving slowly towards him, as though——

And then in a flash he realized just what was happening. It was a police raid. In his student days he had seen such a raid upon a gambling house, and he recognized all the signs. He first thought of the girl—she must not be involved in this. He raced toward the door, but somebody had ran quicker, and his hand was on the bell-push when he was swung violently backwards, and an authoritative voice said:

"Take that man, sergeant."

A hand gripped his shoulder and somebody peered in his face.

"Why, he's English," he said in surprise.

"Yes, yes," gasped Malcolm. "I'm sorry to interfere, but there is a lady in there, in whom I'm rather interested—you're raiding this club, aren't you?"

"That's about the size of it," said a man in civilian clothes; and then, suspiciously, "Who are you?"

Malcolm explained his status and calling.

"Take my advice and get away. Don't be mixed up in this business," said the officer. "You can release him, sergeant. What's the time?"

A clock struck at that moment, and the officer in charge of the raid pressed the bell.

"If you've a lady friend involved in this, perhaps you'd like to stand by," he said. "She may want you to bail her out," he added good-humouredly.

CHAPTER VI

PRINCE SERGANOFF PAYS THE PRICE

Mr. Cherry Bim, a citizen of the world, and an adventurer at large, was an optimist to his finger-tips. He also held certain races in profound contempt, not because he knew the countries, but because he had met representatives of those nations in America, and judged by their characteristics.

So that the man called Yakoff, whose task it was to inveigle Mr. Bim again to the premises of the Friends of Freedom Club, found to his astonishment that Mr. Bim required very little inveigling. The truth was, of course, that the gun-man had a supreme contempt for all Russians, whom he had classified mistakenly as "Lithanians" and "Pollaks." To the fervent promise made by Mr. Yakoff that no harm would come to him, Cherry Bim had replied briefly but unprintably.

"Of course, there'll be no harm come to me," he said scornfully. "You don't think I worry about what that bunch will do? No, sir! But I'm powerfully disinclined to associate myself with people out of my class. It doesn't do a man any good to be seen round with Pollaks and Letts."

Yakoff earnestly implored him to come and give the benefit of his experience to the assembly, and had promised him substantial payment. This latter argument was one which Cherry Bim could understand and appreciate. He accepted on the spot, and came down to the stuffy little underground room, expecting no more than to be asked to deliver a lecture on the gentle art of assassination. Not that he knew very much about it, because Cherry, with three or four men to his credit, had shot them in fair fight; but a hundred pounds was a lot of money, and he badly needed just enough to shake the mud of England from his shoes and seek a land more prolific in possibilities.

The first thing he noticed on arrival was that Boolba, the man who had interrogated him before, was not present. In his place sat a smaller man, with a straggly black beard and a white face, who was addressed as "Nicholas."

The second curious circumstance which struck him was that he was received also in an ominous silence.

The black-bearded man, who spoke in perfect English, indicated a chair to the left of him.

"Sit down, comrade," he said. "We have asked you to come because we have another proposition to make to you."

"If it's a croaking proposition, you needn't go any farther," said Cherry, "and I won't trouble you with my presence, gents, and——" he looked in vain for the woman he had seen before, and added, that he might round off his sentence gracefully—"fellow murderers."

"Mr. Bim," said Nicholas in his curious singsong tone, "does it not make your blood boil to see tyranny in high places——"

"Now, can that stuff!" said Cherry Bim. "Nothing makes my blood boil, or would make my blood boil, except sitting on a stove, I guess. Tyranny don't mean any more in my young life than Hennessy, and tyrants more than hydrants. I guess I was brought up in a land of freedom and glory, where the only tyrant you ever meet is a traffic cop. If this is another croaking job, why, gents, I won't trouble you any longer."

He half-rose, but Nicholas pushed him down.

"Not even if it was the Czar?" he said calmly.

Cherry Bim gaped at him.

"The Czar?" he said, with a queer little grimace to emphasize his disbelief in the evidence of his hearing. "What are you getting at?"

"Would you shoot the Czar for two thousand pounds?" asked Nicholas.

Cherry Bim pushed his hat to the back of his head and got up, shaking off the protesting arm.

"I'm through," he said, "and that's all there is to it."

It was at that moment that Serganoff came through the door and Cherry Bim remained where he stood, surprised to silence, for the face of the newcomer was covered from chin to forehead by a black silk mask.

The door was shut behind him; he walked slowly to the table and dropped into a broken chair, Cherry's eyes never leaving his face.

"For fifteen years," said the gun-man, speaking slowly, "I've been a crook, but never once have I seen a guy got up like that villain in a movie picture. Say, mister, let's have a look at your face."

Cherry Bim was not the only person perturbed by the arrival of a masked stranger. Only three men in the room were in the secret of the newcomer's identity, and suspicious and scowling faces were turned upon him.

"You will excuse me," said the mask, "but there are many reasons why you should not see me or know me again."

"And there's a mighty lot of reasons why you shouldn't know me again," said Cherry, "yet I've obliged you with a close-up of my distinguished features."

"You have heard the proposition," said the man. "What do you think of it?"

"I think it's a fool proposition," replied Cherry contemptuously. "I've told these lads before that I am not falling for the Lucretia Borgia stuff, and I'm telling you the same."

The masked man chuckled.

"Well, don't let us quarrel," he said. "Nicholas, give him the money we promised."

Nicholas put his hand in his pocket and brought out a roll of notes, which he tossed to the man on his left, and Cherry Bim, to whom tainted money was as acceptable as tainted pheasant to the epicure, pocketed it with a smack of his lips.

"Now, if there's anything I can do for you boys," he said, "here's your chance to make use of me. Though I say it myself, there ain't a man in New York with my experience, tact and finesse. Show me a job that can be done single-handed, with a dividend at the end of it, and I'll show you a man who can take it on. In the meantime," said he affably, "the drinks are on me. Call the waiter, and order the best in the house."

Serganoff held up his hand.

"Wait," he said; "was that the door?"

Nicholas nodded, and the whole room stood in silence and watched the door slowly open. There was a gasp of astonishment, of genuine surprise, for Irene Yaroslav was well known to them, and it was Irene Yaroslav who stood with her back to the door. She wore a long black cloak of sable and by her coiffure it was evident that she was wearing an evening toilette beneath the cloak.

"Where is Israel Kensky?" she asked.

She did not immediately see the man in the masked face, for he sat under a light and his broad-brimmed hat threw his face into shadow.

Nobody answered her, and she asked again:

"Where is Israel Kensky?"

"He is not here," said Serganoff coolly, as she took two paces and stopped dead, clasping her hands before her.

"What does this mean?" she asked. "What are you doing here, Ser——"

"Stop!" His voice was almost a shout, and yet there was a shake in it.

Serganoff realized the danger of his own position, if amongst these men were some who had cause to hate him.

"Do not mention my name, Irene."

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "And where is Israel Kensky?"

"He has not come," Serganoff's voice was uneven and his hands shook.

She turned to go, but he was before her and stood with his back to the entrance.

"You will wait," he said.

"What insolence is this?" she demanded haughtily. "I had a letter from Israel Kensky telling me to come here under his protection and I should learn the truth of the plot against my father."

Serganoff had recovered something of his self-possession and laughed softly.

"It was I who sent you that letter, Irene. I sent it because I particularly desired you here at this moment."

"You shall pay for this," she said, and tried to force her way past him, but his strong hands gripped her and pushed her back.

She turned with a flaming face upon the men.

"Are you men," she asked, "that you allow this villain, who betrayed my father and will betray you, to treat a woman so."

She spoke in Russian, and nobody moved. Then a voice said:

"Speak English, miss."

She turned and glanced gratefully at the stout little man with his grotesque Derby hat and his good-humoured smile.

"I have been brought here by a trick," she said breathlessly, "by this man"—she pointed to Serganoff. "Will you help me leave? You're English, aren't you?"

"American, miss," said Cherry Bim. "And as for helping you, why, bless you, you can class me as your own little bodyguard."

"Stop!" cried Serganoff hoarsely, and instinctively, at the sight of the levelled revolver. Cherry's hands went up. "You'll keep out of this and do not interfere," said Serganoff. "You'll have all the trouble you want before this evening is through. Irene, come here."

At one side of the room was a narrow doorway, which most of the members believed led to a cupboard, but which a few knew was a safety bolt in case of trouble. The Prince had recognized the door by its description, and had edged his way towards it, taking the key from his pocket.

He gripped the girl by the waist, inserted the key and flung open the door. She struggled to escape, but the hand that held the key also held the revolver, and never once did it point anywhere but at Cherry Bim's anatomy.

"Help!" cried the girl. "This man is Serganoff, the Chief of Police at Petrograd——"

There was a crash, and the sound of hurrying footsteps. A voice from the outer hall screamed, "The police!"

At that moment Serganoff dragged the girl through the doorway and slammed it behind him. They were in a small cellar, almost entirely filled with barrels, with only a narrow alley-way left to reach a farther door. He dragged her through this apartment, up a short flight of stairs. They were on the level of the restaurant, and the girl could hear the clatter of plates as he pushed her up another stairway and into a room. By its furniture she guessed it was a private dining-room. The blinds were drawn and she had no means of knowing whether the apartment overlooked the front or the back of the premises.

He stopped long enough to lock the door and then he turned to her, slipping off his mask.

"I thought you would recognize me," he said coolly.

"What does this outrage mean?" asked the girl with heaving bosom. "You shall pay for this, colonel."

"There will be a lot of payment to be made before this matter is through," he said calmly. "Calm yourself, Irene. I have saved you from a great disgrace. Are you aware that, at the moment I brought you from that room, the English police were raiding it?"

"I should not have been in the room but for you," she said, "my father——"

"It is about your father I want to speak," he said. "Irene, I am the sole heir to your father's estate. Beyond the property which is settled on you, you have nothing. My affection for you is known and approved at Court."

"Your affection!" she laughed bitterly. "I'd as soon have the affection of a wolf!"

"You could not have a more complete wolf than I," he said meaningly. "Do you know what has happened to-night? An anarchist club in London has been raided, and the Grand Duchess Irene Yaroslav has been found in the company of men whose object is to destroy the monarchy."

She realized with a sickening sense of disaster all that it meant. She knew as well as he in what bad odour her father stood at Court, and guessed the steps which would be taken if this matter became public.

"I was brought here by a trick," she said steadily. "A letter came to me, as I thought, from Israel Kensky——"

"It was from me," he interrupted.

"And you planned the raid, of course?"

He nodded.

"I planned the raid in the most promising circumstances," he said. "The gentleman who offered to be your good knight is a well-known New York gun-man. He is wanted by the police, who probably have him in their custody at this moment. He was brought here to-night, and an offer was made to him, an offer of a large sum of money, on condition that he would destroy the Czar."

She gasped.

"You see, my little Irene, that when this gun-man's evidence is taken in court, matters will look very bad for the Yaroslav family."

"What do you propose?" she asked.

"There are two alternatives," he said. "The first is that I should arrest you and hand you over to the police. The second is that you should undertake most solemnly to marry me, in which case I will take you away from here."

She was silent.

"Is there a third possibility?" she asked, and he shook his head.

"My dear," he said familiarly as he flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve. "I think you will take the easier way. None of these scum will betray you, thinking that you are one of themselves—as I happen to know, some of the best families in Russia are associated with plotters of this type. As for the American, who might be inclined to talk, in a few weeks he will be on his way to New York to serve a life sentence. I have been looking up his record, and particularly drew the attention of the English police to the fact that he would be here to-night."

Cherry Bim, creeping up the stairs in his stockinged feet—he had marked and shot the fuse-box to pieces before the police came in, and had burst his way through the door in the wall—heard the sound of voices in the little room and stopped to listen. It was not a thick door, and he could hear Serganoff's voice very clearly. He stooped down to the key-hole. Serganoff had not taken the key out, and it was an old-fashioned key, the end of which projected an eighth of an inch on the other side of the door. Cherry Bim felt in his pocket and produced a pair of peculiarly shaped nippers, and gripped the end of the key, turning it gently. Then he slipped his handy gun from his pocket and waited.

"Now, Irene," said Serganoff's voice. "You must decide. In a few minutes the police will be up here, for they are instructed to make a complete search of the house. I can either explain that you are here to witness the raid, or that I have followed you up and arrested you. Which is it to be?"

Still she did not answer. Serganoff had laid his revolver on the table and this she was manœuvring to reach. He divined her intention before she sprang forward, and, gripping her by the waist, threw her back.

"That will be more useful to me than to you," he said.

"Sure thing it will!" said a voice behind him.

He turned as swift as a cat and fired. The horrified girl heard only one shot, so quickly did one report follow another. She saw Cherry Bim raise his hand and wipe the blood from his cheek, saw the splinter of wood where the bullet had struck behind him; then Serganoff groaned and sprawled forward over the table. She dared not look at him, but followed Bim's beckoning finger.

"Down the stairs and out of that door, miss," he said, "or the bulls will have you."

She did not ask him who the "bulls" were; she could guess. She flew down the stairs, with trembling hands unfastened the lock and stepped into the street. It was empty, save for two men, and one of these came forward to meet her with outstretched hands.

"Thank God you're safe!" he said. "You weren't there, were you?"

Malcolm Hay was incoherent. The detective who was with him could but smile a little, for the girl had come out of the door which, according to his instructions, led only to the private dining-room.

"Take me away," she whispered.

He put his arm about her trembling figure, and led her along the street. All the time he was in terror lest the police should call her back, and desire him to identify her; but nothing happened and they gained Shaftesbury Avenue and a blessed taxicab.

"To Israel Kensky," she said. "I can't go home like this."

He stretched out of the window and gave fresh instructions.

"I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Hay," she faltered and then covered her face with her hands. "Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful!"

"What happened?" he asked.

She shook her head. Then suddenly:

"No, no, I must go home. Will you tell the cabman? There is a chance that I may get into my suite without Boolba seeing. Will you go on to Israel Kensky after you have left me, and tell him what has happened?"

He nodded, and again gave the change of instructions.

They reached the hotel at a period when most of the guests were either lingering over their dinner or had gone to the theatre.

"I hate leaving you like this," he said; "how do I know that you will get in without detection?"

She smiled in spite of her distress.

"You're an inventor, aren't you, Mr. Hay?" she laughed. "But I am afraid even you could not invent a story which would convince my father if he knew I had been to that horrible place." Presently she said: "My room overlooks the street. If I get in without detection I will come to the window and wave a handkerchief."

He waited in a fit of apprehension, until presently he saw a light leap up to three windows, and her figure appeared. There was a flutter of a white handkerchief, and the blinds were drawn. Malcolm Hay drove to Maida Vale, feeling that the age of romance was not wholly dead.

To his surprise Kensky had had the news before he reached there.

"Is she safe? Is she safe?" asked the old man tremulously. "Now, thank Jehovah for his manifold blessings and mercies! I feared something was wrong. Her Highness wrote to me this afternoon, and I did not get the letter," said Israel. "They waylaid the messenger, and wrote and told her to go to the Silver Lion—the devils!"

His hand was shaking as he took up the poker to stir the fire.

"He, at any rate, will trouble none of us again," he said with malignant satisfaction.

"He? Who?"

"Serganoff," said the old man. "He was dead when the police found him!"

"And the American?" asked Hay.

"Only Russians were arrested," said Israel Kensky. "I do not think I shall see him again."

In this he was wrong, though six years were to pass before they met: the mystic, Israel Kensky, Cherry Bim the modern knight-errant, and Malcolm Hay.

CHAPTER VII

KENSKY OF KIEFF

Malcolm Hay drew rein half a verst from the Church of St. Andrea. Though his shaggy little horse showed no signs of distress, Malcolm kicked his feet free from the stirrups and descended, for his journey had been a long one, the day was poisonously hot and the steppe across which he had ridden, for all its golden beauty, its wealth of blue cornflour and yellow genista, had been wearisome. Overhead the sky was an unbroken bowl of blue and at its zenith rode a brazen merciless sun.

He took a leather cigar-case from his pocket, extracted a long black cheroot and lit it; then, leaving his horse to its own devices, he mounted the bank by the side of the road, from whence he could look across the valley of the Dneiper. That majestic river lay beneath him and to the right.

Before him, at the foot of the long, steep and winding road, lay the quarter which is called Podol.

For the rest his horizon was filled with a jumble of buildings, magnificent or squalid; the half-revealed roofs on the wooded slopes of the four hills, and the ragged fringe of belfry and glittering cupola which made up the picture of Kieff.

The month was June and the year of grace 1914, and Malcolm Hay, chief engineer of the Ukraine-American Oil Corporation, had no other thought in his mind, as he looked upon the undoubted beauty of Kieff, than that it would be a very pleasant place to leave. He climbed the broken stone wall and stood, his hands thrust deeply into his breeches pockets, watching the scene. It was one of those innumerable holy days which the Russian peasant celebrated with such zest. Rather it was the second of three consecutive feast days and, as Malcolm knew, there was small chance of any work being done on the field until his labourers had taken their fill of holiness, and had slept off the colossal drunk which inevitably followed this pious exercise.

A young peasant, wearing a sheepskin coat despite the stifling heat of the day, walked quickly up the hill leading a laden donkey. The man stopped when he was abreast of Malcolm, took a cigarette from the inside of his coat and lit it.

"God save you, dudushka," he said cheerfully.

Malcolm was so used to being addressed as "little grandfather," and that for all his obvious youth, that he saw nothing funny in the address.

"God save you, my little man," he replied.

The new-comer was a broad-faced, pleasant-looking fellow with a ready grin, and black eyebrows that met above his nose. Malcolm Hay knew the type, but to-day being for idleness, he did not dread the man's loquacity as he would had it been a working day.

"My name is Gleb," introduced the man: "I come from the village of Potchkoi where my father has seven cows and a bull."

"God give him prosperity and many calves," said Malcolm mechanically.

"Tell me, gospodar, do you ride into our holy city to-day?"

"Surely," said Malcolm.

"Then you will do well to avoid the Street of Black Mud," said Gleb.

Malcolm waited.

"I speak wisely because of my name," said the man with calm assurance; "possibly your excellence has wondered why I should bear the same name as the great saint who lies yonder," he pointed to one of the towering belfries shimmering with gold that rose above the shoulder of a distant hill. "I am Gleb, the son of Gleb, and it is said that we go back a thousand years to the Holy Ones. Also, it was prophesied by a wise woman," said the peasant, puffing out a cloud of smoke and crossing himself at the same time, "that I should go the way of holiness and that after my death my body should be incorruptible."

"All this is very interesting, little brother," said Malcolm with a smile, "but first you must tell me why I should not go into the Street of Black Mud."

The man laughed softly.

"Because of Israel Kensky," he said significantly.

You could not live within a hundred miles of Kieff and not know of Israel Kensky. Malcolm realized with a start that he had not met the old man since he left him in London.

"In what way has Israel Kensky offended?" asked Malcolm, understanding the menace in the man's tone.

Gleb, squatting in the dust, brushed his sheepskin delicately with the tips of his fingers.

"Little father," he said, "all men know Israel Kensky is a Jew and that he practises secret devil-rites, using the blood of Christian children. This is the way of Jews, as your lordship knows. Also he was seen on the plains to shoot pigeons, which is a terrible offence, for to shoot a pigeon is to kill the Holy Ghost."

Malcolm knew that the greater offence had not yet been stated and waited.

"To-day I think they will kill him if the Grand Duke does not send his soldiers to hold the people in check—or the Grand Duchess, his lovely daughter who has spoken for him before, does not speak again."

"But why should they kill Kensky?" asked Malcolm.

It was not the first time that Israel Kensky had been the subject of hostile demonstrations. The young engineer had heard these stories of horrible rites practised at the expense of Christian children, and had heard them so often that he was hardened to the repetition.

The grin had left the man's face and there was a fanatical light in the solemn eyes when he replied:

"Gospodar, it is known that this man has a book which is called 'The Book of All-Power!'"

Malcolm nodded.

"So the foolish say," he said.

"It has been seen," said the other; "his own daughter, Sophia Kensky, who has been baptised in the faith of Our Blessed Lord, has told the Archbishop of this book. She, herself, has seen it."

"But why should you kill a man because he has a book?" demanded Malcolm, knowing well what the answer would be.

"Why should we kill him! A thousand reasons, gospodar," cried the man passionately; "he who has this book understands the black magic of Kensky and the Jews! By the mysteries in this book he is able to torment his enemies and bring sorrow to the Christians who oppose him. Did not the man Ivan Nickolovitch throw a stone at him, and did not Ivan drop dead the next day on his way to mass, aye and turn black before they carried him to the hospital? And did not Mishka Yakov, who spat at him, suffer almost immediately from a great swelling of the throat so that she is not able to speak or swallow to this very day without pain?"

Malcolm jumped down from the wall and laughed, and it was a helpless little laugh, the laugh of one who, for four long years, had fought against the superstitions of the Russian peasantry. He had seen the work of his hands brought to naught, and a boring abandoned just short of the oil because a cross-eyed man, attracted by curiosity, had come and looked at the work. He had seen his wells go up in smoke for some imaginary act of witchcraft on the part of his foreman, and, though he laughed, he was in no sense amused.

"Go with God, little brother," he said; "some day you will have more sense and know that men do not practise witchcraft."

"Perhaps I am wiser than you," said Gleb, getting up and whistling for his donkey, who had strayed up the side lane.

Before Malcolm could reply there was a clatter of hoofs and two riders came galloping round the bend of the road making for the town. The first of these was a girl, and the man who followed behind was evidently the servant of an exalted house, for he wore a livery of green and gold.

Gleb's ass had come cantering down at his master's whistle and now stood broadside-on in the middle of the road, blocking the way. The girl pulled up her horse with a jerk and, half-turning her head to her attendant, she called. The man rode forward.

"Get your donkey out of the way, fool," he boomed in a deep-chested roar.

He was a big man, broad-shouldered and stout. Like most Russian domestic servants, his face was clean-shaven, but Malcolm, watching the scene idly, observed only this about him—that he had a crooked nose and that his hair was a fiery red.

"Gently, gently." It was the girl who spoke and she addressed her restive horse in English.

As for Gleb, the peasant, he stood, his hands clasped before him, his head humbly hung, incapable of movement, and with a laugh Malcolm jumped down from the bank, seized the donkey by his bridle and drew him somewhat reluctantly to the side of the road. The girl's horse had been curveting and prancing nervously, so that it brought her to within a few paces of Malcolm, and he looked up, wondering what rich man's daughter was this who spoke in English to her horse ... only once before had he seen her in the light of day.

The face was not pale, yet the colour that was in her cheeks so delicately toned with the ivory-white of forehead and neck that she looked pale. The eyes, set wide apart, were so deep a grey that in contrast with the creamy pallor of brow they appeared black.

A firm, red mouth he noticed; thin pencilling of eyebrows, a tangle of dark brown hair; but neither sight of her nor sound of her tired drawling voice, gave her such permanence in his mind as the indefinite sense of womanliness that clothed her like an aurora.

He responded wonderfully to some mysterious call she made upon the man in him. He felt that his senses played no part in shaping his view. If he had met her in the dark, and had neither seen nor heard; if she had been a bare-legged peasant girl on her way to the fields; if he had met her anywhere, anyhow—she would have been divine.

She, for her part, saw a tall young man, mahogany faced, leanly made, in old shooting-jacket and battered Stetson hat. She saw a good forehead and an unruly mop of hair, and beneath two eyes, now awe-stricken by her femininity (this she might have guessed) rather than by her exalted rank. They were eyes with a capacity for much laughter, she thought, and wished Russian men had eyes like those.

"My horse is afraid of your donkey, I think," she smiled.

"It isn't my donkey," he stammered, and she laughed again frankly at his embarrassment.

And then the unexpected happened. With a frightened neigh her horse leapt sideways toward him. He sprang back to avoid the horse's hoofs and heard her little exclamation of dismay. In the fraction of a second he realized she was falling and held out his arms to catch her. For a moment she lay on his breast, her soft cheek against his, the overpowering fragrance of her presence taking his breath away. Then she gently disengaged herself and stepped back. There was colour in her face now and something which might have been mischief, or annoyance, or sheer amusement, in her eyes.

"Thank you," she said.

Her tone was even and did not encourage further advances on his part.

"I lost my balance. Will you hold my horse's head?"

She was back in the saddle and turning, with a proud little inclination of her head, was picking a way down the steep hill before he realized what had happened. He gazed after her, hoping at least that feminine curiosity would induce her to turn and look back, but in this he was disappointed.

The peasant, Gleb, still stood by the side of the road, his hands clasped, his head bent as though in a trance.

"Wake up, little monkey," said Malcolm testily. "Why did you not hold the horse for the lady whilst I helped her to mount?"

"Dudushka, it is forbidden, Zaprestcheno," said the man huskily. "She is Kaziomne! The property of the Czar!"

"The Czar!" gasped Malcolm.

He had lived long enough in Russia to have imbibed some of the awe and reverence for that personage.

"Little master," said the man, "it was her Magnificence, the Grand Duchess Irene Yaroslav."

"The Grand——!" Malcolm gasped. The reality of his dreams and he had not recognized her!

Long after the peasant had departed he stood on the spot where he had held her, like a man in a trance, and he was very thoughtful when he picked up the reins of his horse and swung himself into the saddle.

Kieff is built upon many hills and it has the beauty and distinction of possessing steeper roads than any other city in Europe. He was on his way to the Grand Hotel, and this necessitated his passing through Podol, crossing the Hill of the Cliff, and descending into the valley beyond.

Considering it was a feast day the streets were strangely deserted. He met a few old men and women in festal garb and supposed that the majority of the people were at the shrines in which Kieff abounds. He passed through the poorer Jewish quarter, and did not remember the peasant's warning not to go into the Street of Black Mud until he had turned into that thoroughfare.

Long before he had reached the street he heard the roar of the crowd, and knew that some kind of trouble was brewing. The street was filled with knots of men and women, and their faces by common attraction, were turned in one direction. The focal point was a densely packed crowd which swayed toward the gateway of a tall, grim-looking house, which he recognized as the home of the millionaire, Kensky.

The roar intensified to a continuous shriek of malignant hate. He saw sticks and fists brandished and heard above the scream of frenzied women the deep-throated "Kill! Death to the Jew!" which was not unfamiliar to one who knew Kieff in moments of religious excitement. It was no business of his, and he drew his horse to the side of the street and watched, wondering what part the black-bearded Russian priests, who were in force and who seemed to form the centre of each knot of idlers, were playing in this act of persecution.

On the outskirts of the crowd he observed a green and gold coat, and, its wearer turning his head, he recognized him as the swarthy menial who had ridden behind the Grand Duchess. He was as violent and as energetic as the most lawless, and seemed engaged in pushing men into the crowd and dragging forward hesitant bystanders to swell the throng which was pressing about the iron gates of the building.

And then Malcolm saw something which brought his heart to his mouth, a white hand raised from above the bobbing black heads, a hand raised in appeal or command. Instinctively he knew its owner and spurred his horse into the throng, sending the people flying in all directions. There was a small clear space immediately before the door which enabled him to see the two chief actors in the drama long before he was within hailing distance.

The space was caused by a dead horse, as he afterwards discovered, but, for the moment, his eyes were fixed on the girl who stood with her back to the grille, shielding with her frail body a little old man, white-bearded and bent, who crouched behind her outstretched arms, his pale face streaming with blood. A broken key in the grille told the story of his foiled attempt to escape. Grimy hands clutched at Malcolm's knees as he drove through the press, a stone whistled past his ear and shrill voices uttered imprecations at the daring foreigner, but he swerved to left and right and made a way until the sight of the dead horse brought his frightened mount to a quivering standstill.

He leapt from the saddle and sprang to the girl's side, and to his amazement his appearance seemed to strike consternation into her heart.

"Why did you come? Get away as quickly as you can," she breathed. "Oh, you were mad to come here!"

"But—but you?" he said.

"They will not hurt me," she said rapidly. "It is the old man they want. Can you smash the lock and get him inside?"

"Give us the book, Jew," yelled a deep voice above the babel of sound. "Give us the book and you shall live! Lady! Magnificence! Make the old man give us the book!"

Malcolm took a flying kick at the gate and the lock yielded. He half lifted, half carried the old man and pushed inside, where another locked door confronted them.

"Have you a key?" demanded Malcolm hurriedly. "Quick!"

The old man felt in his pocket with trembling fingers and in doing so he crept behind his guardian. Malcolm now turned and faced the crowd.

"Come in, for God's sake," he called to the girl, but she shook her head.

"They will not hurt me," she said over her shoulder; "it is you!"

At that moment Malcolm felt something heavy slipped into the loose pocket of his jacket and a quivering voice, harsh with fear, whispered in his ear:

"Keep it, gospodar. To-morrow I will come for it at the Grand Hotel at the middle hour!"

The crowd was now surging forward and the girl was being pressed back into the little lobby by their weight. Suddenly the door opened with a crack and the old man slipped through.

"Come, come," he cried.

Malcolm leapt forward, clasped the girl about the waist and swung her behind him.

The shrieks of the crowd broke and a new note crept into the pandemonium of sound, a note of fear. From outside came a clatter of hoofs on the cobbled roadway. There was a flash of red and white pennons, the glitter of steel lances and a glimpse of bottle-green coats as half a sotnia of Cossacks swept the street clear.

They looked at one another, the girl and the man, oblivious to the appeal of hand and voice which the old man in the doorway was offering.

"I think you are very brave," said the girl, "or else very foolish. You do not know our Kieff people."

"I know them very well," he said grimly.

"It was equally foolish of me to interfere," she said quickly, "and I ought not to blame you. They killed my horse."

She pointed to the dead horse lying before the doorway.

"Where was your servant?" he asked, but she made no reply. He repeated the question, thinking she had not heard and being at some loss for any other topic of conversation.

"Let us go out," she said, ignoring the query, "we are safe now."

He was following her when he remembered the packet in his pocket and turned to the old man.

"Here is your——"

"No, no, no, keep it," whispered Israel Kensky. "They may come again to-night! My daughter told them that I was carrying it. May she roast!"

"What is it?" asked Malcolm curiously.

The old man's lips parted in a toothless smile.

"It is the 'Book of All-Power!'"

He blinked up at Malcolm, peering into his face expectantly. "They all desire it, gospodar, from the Grand Duke in his beautiful palace to the moujik in his cellar—they all desire my lovely book! I trust you with it for one night, gospodar, because you are English. Ah, well, you are not Russian. Guard it closely, for it holds the secret of tears and of happiness. You shall learn how to make men and women your slaves and how to turn people into Jews, and how to make men and women adore you, ai, ai! There are recipes for beauty in my book which make plain women lovely and old men young!"

Malcolm could only stare.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GRAND DUKE IS AFFABLE

The girl's voice called, and Malcolm left old Kensky without a word and went to her side. "Will you walk with me to my father's palace?" she said. "I do not think it is safe for you to be alone."

A semi-circle of mounted Cossacks surrounded them now, and the unfaithful Boolba (such was the servant's name, he learnt) was standing with an impassive face holding his horse's head.

"One of the soldiers will take your horse," she said. "Boolba, you will follow us."

Her voice was stern and she looked the man straight in the eyes, but he did not flinch.

"Prikazeno, Highness, it is ordered," he said simply.

She turned and walked the way she had come, turning into the big square followed by a small escort of Cossacks.

They walked in silence for some time, and it was the girl who first spoke.

"What do you think of Russia, Mr. Hay?" she asked.

He jerked his head round at her in surprise.

"You didn't know me on the hill," she laughed, "but I knew you! And there are not so many foreigners in the Kieff region that you should be unknown to the Grand Duke," she said, "and besides, you were at the reception which my father gave a year ago."

"I did not see your Highness there," said Malcolm. "I came especially——" he stopped short in confusion.

"That was probably because I was not visible," she replied dryly. "I have been to Cambridge for a year to finish my education."

"That is why your English is so good," he smiled.

"It's much better than your Russian," she said calmly. "You ought not to have said 'ukhoditzay' to people—you only say that to beggars, and I think they were rather annoyed with you."

"I should imagine they were," he laughed; "but won't you tell me what happened to your servant? I thought I saw him on the outskirts of the crowd and the impression I formed was——" he hesitated.

"I shouldn't form impressions if I were you," she said hurriedly. "Here in Russia one ought not to puzzle one's head over such things. When you meet the inexplicable, accept it as such and inquire no further."

She was silent again, and when she spoke she was more serious.

"The Russian people always impress me as a great sea of lava, boiling and spluttering and rolling slowly between frail banks which we have built for them," said the girl.

"I often wonder whether those banks will ever break," said Malcolm quietly; "if they do——"

"Yes?"

"They will burn up Russia," said Malcolm.

"So I think," said the girl. "Father believes that the war——" she stopped short.

"The war?"

Malcolm had heard rumours so often of the inevitable war which would be fought to establish the hegemony of the Slav over Eastern Europe that the scepticism in his tone was pardonable. She looked at him sharply.

"You do not think there will be war?"

"One has heard so often," he began.

"I know, I know," she said, a little impatiently, and changed the subject.

They talked about the people, the lovable character of the peasants, the extraordinary depth of their religious faiths, their amazing superstitions, and suddenly Malcolm remembered the book in his pocket, and was about to speak of it, but stopped himself, feeling that, by so speaking, he was betraying the confidence of the old man who had entrusted his treasure to a stranger's care.

"What is this story of the book of Kensky?"

"'The Book of All-Power'?"

She did not smile as he had expected her to.

"Old Israel Kensky is a curious man," she said guardedly. "The people credit him with all sorts of powers which of course he does not possess. They believe he is a wizard, that he can bend people to his will. They say the most terrible things about the religious ceremonies over which he presides."

They were mounting the hill behind which lay the fashionable quarter of Kieff with its great stone palaces, its wonderful cherry gardens and broad avenues.

"I like old Kensky," she went on; "he sometimes comes to the palace to bring new silks—he is the greatest merchant in Little Russia. He even tells me his troubles—he has a terrible daughter: you have heard about her?"

"I thought she was rather good," said Malcolm humorously. "Isn't she a Christian?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders. Evidently her Grand Ducal Highness had no great opinion of Sophia Kensky's conversion.

The Grand Ducal palace was built in the Byzantine style and presented, from the broad carriage drive that led from the road, a confusion of roofs, windows and bastions, as though the designer had left the working out of his plan to fifty different architects, and each architect had interpreted the scheme of construction in his own way.

The Grand Duke was standing in the portico as they went through the gate, and came down the steps to meet them. He was a mild-looking man of medium height and wore pince-nez. Malcolm remembered that on the one occasion he had met his Highness he had been disappointed in his lack of personal grandeur.

"My child, my child!" said the Duke, coming to the girl with outstretched arms. "What a terrible misfortune! How came you to be mixed up in this matter? The commandant has just telephoned to me. I have called for his resignation. By St. Inokeste, I will not have the rabble breathing upon you! And this is the good gentleman who came to your rescue?"

He surveyed Malcolm with his cold blue eyes, but both glance and intonation lacked the cordiality which his words implied.

"I thank you. I am indeed grateful to you. You understand they would not have harmed the Grand Duchess, but this you could not know. As for the Jew——"

He became suddenly thoughtful. He had the air of a man wholly preoccupied in his secret thoughts and who now emerged from his shell under the greatest protest. To Malcolm it seemed that he resented even the necessity for communicating his thoughts to his own daughter.

"I am happy to have been of service to your Grand Ducal Highness," said Malcolm correctly.

"Yes, yes, yes," interrupted the Grand Duke nervously, "but you will stay and breakfast with me? Come, I insist, Mr.—er—er——"

"Mr. Hay, father," said the girl.

The conversation throughout was carried on in English, which was not remarkable, remembering that that was the family language of the Court.

"Yes, yes, yes, Mr. Hay, you must stay to breakfast. You have been very good, very noble, I am sure. Irene, you must persuade this gentleman." He held out his hand jerkily and Malcolm took it with a bow.

Then without another word or even so much as a glance at his daughter, the Grand Duke turned and hurried back into the palace, leaving Malcolm very astonished and a little uncomfortable.

The girl saw his embarrassment.

"My father does not seem to be very hospitable," she smiled, and once more he saw that little gleam of mischief in her eyes, "but I will give you a warmer invitation."

He spread out his hands in mock dismay and looked down at his untidy clothes.

"Your Highness is very generous," he said, "but how can I come to the Grand Duke's table like this?"

"You will not see the Grand Duke," she laughed; "father gives these invitations but never accepts them himself! He breakfasts in his own room, so if you can endure me alone——" she challenged.

He said nothing but looked much, and her eyes fell before his. All the time he was conscious that red-haired Boolba stood stiffly behind him, a spectator, yet, as Malcolm felt, a participant in this small affair of the breakfast invitation. She followed Malcolm's look and beckoned the man forward. He had already surrendered the horses to an orderly.

"Take the lord to a guest-room," she said in Russian, "and send a valet to attend to him."

"It is ordered," said the man, and with a nod, the girl turned and walked into the house, followed at a more leisurely pace by Malcolm and the man with the crooked nose.

Boolba led the way up a broad flight of stairs, carpeted with thick red pile, along a corridor pierced at intervals with great windows, to another corridor leading off and through a door which, from its dimensions, suggested the entrance to a throne-room, into a suite gorgeously furnished and resplendent with silver electroliers. It consisted of a saloon leading into a bedroom, which was furnished in the same exquisite taste. A further door led to a marble-tiled bathroom.

"Such luxury!" murmured Malcolm.

"Has the gospodar any orders?"

It was the solemn Boolba who spoke. Malcolm looked at him.

"Tell me this, Boolba," he said, falling into the familiar style of address which experience had taught him was the correct line to follow when dealing with Russian servants, "how came it that your mistress was alone before the house of Israel Kensky, the Jew, and you were on the outskirts of the crowd urging them on?"

If the man felt any perturbation at the bluntness of the question he did not show it.

"Kensky is a Jew," he said coolly; "on the night of the Pentecost he takes the blood of new-born Christian babies and sprinkles his money so that it may be increased in the coming year. This Sophia Kensky, his own daughter, has told me."

Malcolm shrugged his shoulders.

"You are no ignorant moujik, Boolba," he said contemptuously, "you have travelled with his Highness all over the world." (This was a shot at a venture, but apparently was not without justification.) "How can you, an educated man of the people, believe such rubbish?"

"He has a book, gospodar," said Boolba, "and we people who desire power would have that book, for it teaches men how they may command the souls of others, so that when they lift their little fingers, those who hate them best shall obey them."

Malcolm looked at him in astonishment.

"Do you believe this?"

For the first time a smile crossed the face of the man with the crooked nose. It was not a pleasant smile to see, for there was cunning in it and a measureless capacity for cruelty.

"Who knows all the miracles and wonders of the world?" he said. "My lord knows there is a devil, and has he not his angels on earth? It is best to be sure of these things, and we cannot be certain—until we have seen the book which the Jew gave to your lordship."

He paused a little before uttering the last sentence which gave his assertion a special significance. Malcolm eyed him narrowly.

"The Jew did not give me any book, Boolba," he said.

"I thought your lordship——"

"You thought wrongly," said Malcolm shortly.

Boolba bowed and withdrew.

The situation was not a particularly pleasant one. Malcolm had in his possession a book which men were willing to commit murder to obtain, and he was not at all anxious that his name should be associated with the practice of witchcraft.

It was all ridiculous and absurd, of course, but then in Russia nothing was so absurd that it could be lightly dismissed from consideration. He walked to the door and turned the key, then took from his pocket the thing which Israel Kensky had slipped in. It was a thick, stoutly bound volume secured by two brass locks. The binding was of yellow calf, and it bore the following inscription in Russian stamped in gold lettering:

"THE BOOK OF ALL-POWER."

"Herein is the magic of power and the words and symbols which unlock the sealed hearts of men and turn their proud wills to water."

On the bottom left-hand corner of the cover was an inscription in Hebrew, which Malcolm could not read, but which he guessed stood for the birth-name of Israel Kensky. He turned the book over in his hand, and, curiosity overcoming him, he tried to force his thumb-nail into the marbled edge of the leaves that he might secure a glimpse of its contents. But the book was too tightly bound, and after another careful examination, he pulled off his coat and started to make himself presentable for breakfast.

The little meal was wholly delightful. Besides Malcolm and the girl there were present a faded Russian lady, whom he guessed was her official chaperon, and a sour-visaged Russian priest who ceremoniously blessed the food and was apparently the Grand Duke's household chaplain. He did not speak throughout the meal, and seemed to be in a condition of rapt contemplation.

But for all Malcolm knew there might have been a hundred people present—he had eyes and ears only for the girl. She had changed to a dark blue costume beneath which was a plain white silk blouse cut deeply at the neck.

He was struck by the fact that she wore no jewels, and he found himself rejoicing at the absence of rings in general and of one ring in particular.

Of course, it was all lunacy, sheer clotted madness, as he told himself, but this was a day to riot in illusions, for undreamt-of things had happened, and who could swear that the days of fairies had passed? To meet a dream-Irene on his way to Kieff was unlikely, to rescue her from an infuriated mob (for though they insisted that she was in no danger he was no less insistent that he rescued her, since this illusion was the keystone to all others), to be sitting at lunch with such a vision of youthful loveliness—all these things were sufficiently outside the range of probabilities to encourage the development of his dream in a comfortable direction.

"To-night," thought he, "I shall be eating a prosaic dinner at the Grand Hotel, and the Grand Duchess Irene Yaroslav will be a remote personage whom I shall only see in the picture papers, or possibly over the heads of a crowd on her way to the railway station."

And so he was outrageously familiar. He ceased to "Highness" her, laughed at her jokes and in turn provoked her to merriment. The meal came to an end too soon for him, but not too soon for the nodding dowager nor the silent, contemplating priest, who had worn through his period of saintly abstraction and had grown most humanly impatient.

The girl looked at her watch.

"Good gracious," she said, "it is four o'clock and I have promised to go to tennis." (Malcolm loathed tennis from that hour.)

He took his leave of her with a return to something of the old ceremonial.

"Your Grand Ducal Highness has been most gracious," he said, but she arrested his eloquence with a little grimace.

"Please, remember, Mr. Hay, that I shall be a Grand Ducal Highness for quite a long time, so do not spoil a very pleasant afternoon by being over-punctilious."

He laughed.

"Then I will call you——"

He came to a dead end, and the moment was embarrassing for both, though why a Grand Ducal Highness should be embarrassed by a young engineer she alone might explain.

Happily there arrived most unexpectedly the Grand Duke himself, and if his appearance was amazing, as it was to judge by the girl's face, his geniality was sensational.

He crossed the hall and gripped the young man's hand.

"You're not going, Mr. Hay?" he asked. "Come, come, I have been a very bad host, but I do not intend to let you go so soon! I have much that I want to talk to you about. You are the engineer in charge of the Ukraine Oil Field, is it not so? Excellent! Now, I have oil on my estate in the Urals but it has never been developed...."

He took the young man by the arm and led him through the big doors to the garden, giving him no chance to complete or decently postpone his farewell to the girl, who watched with undisguised amazement this staggering affability on the part of her parent.

CHAPTER IX

THE HAND AT THE WINDOW

An hour later she came from tennis, to find her father obviously bored almost to the point of tears, yet making an heroic attempt to appear interested in Malcolm's enthusiastic dissertation of the future of the oil industry. The Grand Duke rose gladly on her appearance, and handed him over.

"I have persuaded Mr. Hay to dine with us to-night, and I have sent to the hotel for his baggage. He is most entertaining, my little love, most entertaining. Persuade him to talk to you about—er—oil and things," and he hurriedly withdrew.

The girl sat down on the seat he had vacated.

"You're a most amazing person, Mr. Hay," she smiled.

"So I have been told," said Malcolm, as he filled a glass with tea from the samovar.

"You have also a good opinion of yourself, it seems," she said calmly.

"Why do you think I am amazing, anyway?" said he recklessly, returning to the relationships they had established at luncheon.

"Because you have enchanted my father," she said.

She was not smiling now, and a troubled little frown gathered on her brow.

"Please tell me your magic."

"Perhaps it is the book," he said jestingly.

"The book!" she looked up sharply. "What book?"

And then, as a light dawned on her, she rose to her feet.

"You have—you have Israel Kensky's book?" she whispered in horror.

He nodded.

"Here with you?"

"Yes, here," he slapped his pocket.

She sat down slowly and reached out her hand, and he thought it shook.

"I do not know who was the madder—Israel Kensky to give it to you or you to take it," she said. "This is the only house in Kieff where your life is safe, and even here——" She stopped and shook her head. "Of course, you're safe here," she smiled, "but I wish the book were somewhere else."

She made no further reference either to the amazing volume or to her father, and that night, when he came down to dinner, feeling more on level terms with royalty (though his dress-suit was four years old and his patent shoes, good enough for such mild society functions as came his way, looked horribly cracked and shabby), he dismissed the matter from his mind. The dinner party was a large one. There were two bishops, innumerable popes, several bejewelled women, an officer or two and the inevitable duenna. He was introduced to them all, but remembered only Colonel Malinkoff, a quiet man whom he was to meet again.

To his amazement he found that he had been seated in the place of honour, to the right of the Grand Duke, but he derived very little satisfaction from that distinction, since the girl was at the other end of the table.

She looked worried and her conversation, so far as he could hear, consisted of "yes" and "no" and conventional expressions of agreement with the views of her companions.

But the duke was loquacious, and at an early stage of the dinner the conversation turned on the riot of the morning. There was nothing remarkable in the conversation till suddenly the Grand Duke, without preliminary, remarked in a matter-of-fact tone:

"The danger is that Kensky may very well use his evil powers against the welfare of Holy Church."

There was a murmur of agreement from the black-bearded popes, and Malcolm opened his eyes in astonishment.

"But surely your Highness does not believe that this man has any supernatural gift."

The Grand Duke stared at him through his glasses.

"Of course," he said, "if there are miracles of the Church why should there not be performed miracles by the Powers of Darkness? Here in Kieff," he went on, "we have no reason to doubt that miracles are performed every day. Who doubts that worship at the shrine of St. Barbara in the Church of St. Michael of the Golden Head protects us against lightning?"

"That is undoubtedly the fact, your Imperial Highness," said a stout pope, speaking with his mouth full. "I have seen houses with lightning conductors struck repeatedly, and I have never known any place to be touched by lightning if the master of the house was under the protection of St. Barbara."

"And beneath the Church of Exaltation," the Grand Duke went on, "more miracles have been performed than elsewhere in the world."

He peered round the table for contradiction.

"It was here that the Two Brothers are buried and it was their prayer that they should sleep together in the same grave. One died before the other, and when the second had passed away and they carried his body to the tomb, did not the body of the first brother arise to make room? And is there not a column in the catacomb to which, if a madman is bound, he recovers his reason? And are there not skulls which exude wonderful oils which cure men of the most terrible diseases, even though they are on the point of death?"

Malcolm drew a long breath. He could understand the superstitious reverence of the peasant for these relics and miracles, but these were educated men. One of them stood near to the throne and was versed in the intricacies of European diplomacy. These were no peasants steeped in ignorance, but intellectuals. He pinched himself to make sure that he was awake as the discussion grew and men swopped miracles in much the same spirit of emulation as store-loafers swop lies. But the conversation came back to him, led thereto by the Grand Duke, and once more it centred on that infernal book. The volume in question was not six inches from the Grand Duke, for Malcolm had stuffed it into his tail pocket before he came down to dinner, and this fact added a certain piquancy to the conversation.

"I do not doubt, your Highness," said a stout bishop, who picked his teeth throughout the dinner, "that Kensky's book is identical with a certain volume on devil worship which the blessed Saint Basil publicly denounced and damned. It was a book especially inspired by Satan, and contained exact rules, whereby he who practised the magic could bind in earthly and immortal obedience the soul of anybody he chose, thus destroying in this life their chance of happiness and in the life to come their souls' salvation."

All within reach of the bishop's voice crossed themselves three times.

"It would have been well," mused the Grand Duke, "if the people had succeeded this morning."

He shot a glance at Malcolm, a glance full of suspicious inquiry, but the young man showed no sign either of resentment or agreement. But he was glad when the dinner ended and the chance came to snatch a few words with the girl. The guests were departing early, and kummel and coffee was already being served on a large silver salver by the buffetschek, whom Malcolm recognized as the ubiquitous Boolba.

"I shall not see you again," said the girl in a low voice. "I am going to my room. But I want you to promise me something, Mr. Hay."

"The promise is made before you ask," said he.

"I want you to leave as early as you possibly can to-morrow morning for your mine, and if I send you word I want you to leave Russia without delay."

"But this is very astonishing."

She faced him squarely, her hands behind her back.

"Mr. Hay," she said, and her low voice was vibrant with feeling, "you have entangled yourself in an adventure which cannot possibly end well for you. Whatever happens, you cannot come out with credit and safety, and I would rather you came out with credit."

"I don't understand you," he said.

"I will make it plainer," said she. "Unless something happens in the next month or two which will point the minds of the people to other directions, you will be suspect. The fact that you have the book is known."

"I know," he said.

"By whom?" she asked quickly.

"By Boolba, your servant."

She raised her hand to her lips, as if to suppress a cry. It was an odd little trick of hers which he had noticed before.

"Boolba," she repeated. "Of course! That explains!"

At that moment the Grand Duke called him. The guests had dwindled away to half a dozen.

"Your coffee, Mr. Hay, and some of our wonderful Russian kummel. You will not find its like in any other part of the world."

Malcolm drank the coffee, gulped down the fiery liqueur, and replaced the glass on the tray. He did not see the girl again, and half an hour later he went up to his room, locked the door and undressed himself slowly, declining the assistance which had been offered to him by the trained valet.

From the open window came the heavy perfume of heliotrope, but it was neither the garden scent nor the moderate quantity of wine he had taken, nor the languid beauty of the night, which produced this delicious sensation of weariness. He undressed and got into his pyjamas, then sat at the end of his bed, his head between his hands.

He had sat for a long time like this, before he realized the strangeness of his attitude and getting on to his feet, found himself swaying.

"Doped," he said, and sat down again.

There was little of his brain that was awake, but that little he worked hard. He had been drugged. It was either in the kummel or in the coffee. Nothing but dope would make him feel as he was feeling now. He fell into bed and pulled the clothes about him. He wanted to keep awake to fight off the effects of the stuff and, by an absurd perversion of reasoning, he argued that he was in a more favourable position to carry out his plan if he made himself comfortable in bed, than if he followed any other course.

The drug worked slowly and erratically. He had moments of complete unconsciousness with intervals which, if they were not free from the effect of the agent, were at least lucid. One such interval must have come after he had been in bed for about an hour, for he found himself wide awake and lay listening to the thumping of his heart, which seemed to shake the bed.

The room was bathed in a soft green light, for it was a night of full moon. He could see dimly the furniture and the subdued gleam of silver wall-sconce, that caught the ghostly light and gave it a more mysterious value. He tried to rise but could not. To roll his head from side to side seemed the limitation of conscious effort.

And whilst he looked, the door opened noiselessly and closed again. Somebody had come into the room, and that somebody passed softly across the foot of the bed, and stood revealed against the window. Had he been capable of speech he would have cried out.

It was the girl!

He saw her plainly in a moment. She wore a wrapper over her nightdress, and carried a small electric lamp in her hand. She went to the chair where he had thrown his clothes and made a search. He saw her take something out and put it under her wrap, then she went back the way she came, pausing for the space of a second at the foot of his bed.

She stood there undecidedly, and presently she came up to the side of the bed and bent down over him. His eyes were half closed; he had neither the power of opening or shutting them, but he could see clearly the white hand that rested on the bed and the book that it held, and the polished table by the bedside reflecting the moonlight back to her face so that she seemed something as intangible and as shadowy as the night itself.

A little smile played upon her pale face, and every whispered word she uttered was clear and distinct.

"Good-bye, poor Mr. Hay," she said softly.

She shook her head as though in pity; then, stopping swiftly, she kissed him on the cheek and passed quickly to the half-open door by which she had entered. She was nearing the door when she stopped dead and shrank back toward the bed. Another electric lamp gleamed unexpectedly. He saw the white of her nightdress show as a dazzling strip of light where the beam caught it. Then the unknown intruder touched on the light, and they stood revealed, the girl tall, imperious, a look of scorn on her beautiful face, and the stout menial with the crooked nose.

Boolba wore an old dressing-gown girdled about with a soiled rainbow sash. His feet were bare, and in his two hands laying from palm to palm was a long thin knife.

At the sight of the girl he fell back, a grotesque sprawling movement which was not without its comicality. A look of blank bewilderment creased his big face.

"You—you, Highness!" he croaked. "The Jew, where is he?"

She was silent. Malcolm saw the quick rise and fall of her bosom, saw the book clutched closer to her side beneath the filmy silken gown.

Boolba looked from the girl to Malcolm, from Malcolm to the heavy curtains at either side of the open window—curtains which the drugged man had not drawn.

"He has left his quarters, Highness," Boolba spoke eagerly; "he was seen to enter the grounds of the palace—where is he?"

He took a step toward her.

"Stand back—you slave!" she breathed, but with a bound he was upon her. There was a brief struggle, and the book was wrenched from her hand.

Malcolm saw all this, but lay as one dead. He was conscious but paralysed by the potion, and could only watch the girl in the grip of the obese monster and feel his heart going like a steam hammer.

Boolba stood gloating over his prize, fondling the book in his big, coarse hands. Malcolm wondered why the girl did not scream—yet how could she? She was in his room in the middle of the night, she, a daughter of emperors.

The man tried to wrench open the locks which held the covers, but failed. Suddenly he looked up, and glared across at the girl.

He said nothing, but the suspicion in that scowl was emphasized when he moved to the wall near the window and the light of a bracket lamp.

Again he examined the book and for the first time spoke:

"Oh, Highness, was it you who sent for Israel Kensky that the book should be restored——"

So far he got when an arm came from behind the curtain—a hand blue-veined, and it held a yellow handkerchief.

The girl saw it, and her hand went to her mouth.

Then the handkerchief struck full across Boolba's face, covering it from forehead to the mouth.

For a moment the man was paralysed, then he pulled the handkerchief away and clawed at the clay-like substance which adhered to his face.

"Mother of God!"

He screamed the words and, dropping the book, stumbled forward, rubbing at his face, shrieking with pain.

The girl ran swiftly through the open door, for feet were now pattering along the corridors and the flicker of lights showed through the doorway. Boolba was rolling on the ground in agony when the servants crowded in, followed by the Grand Duke—and he alone was fully dressed.