Beside the table, with blanched face upturned to the green-tinted light of the reading-lamp, lay the corpse of my brother-in-law, while from a wound in his neck the blood had oozed, forming a great dark pool upon the carpet.
It was evident that he had fallen in a sitting posture in the chair when the fatal blow had been dealt; then the body had rolled over on to the floor, for in the position it had been discovered it still remained.
The crime was a most remarkable one. George Travers had retired to do some writing shortly before eight o’clock, leaving his father and his wife together in the drawing-room, and expressing a wish not to be disturbed.
At ten, old Mr Travers, who was about to return home, entered the room for the purpose of bidding his son good-night, when, to his dismay, he found him stabbed to the heart, the body rigid and cold. The window communicating with the garden stood open, the small safe had been ransacked, the drawers in the writing-table searched, and there was every evidence that the crime was the deliberate work of an assassin who had been undisturbed.
No sound had been heard by the servants, for the murderer must have struck down the defenceless man at one blow.
Entrance had been gained from the lawn, as the detectives found muddy footprints upon the grass and on the carpet, prints which they carefully sketched and measured, at length arriving at the conclusion that they were those of a woman.
They appeared to be the marks of thin-soled French shoes, with high heels slightly worn over.
Beyond this there was an entire absence of anything that could lead to the identification of the murderer, and though they searched long and diligently over the lawn and shrubbery beyond, their efforts were unrewarded.
It was dawn when I returned home, and having occasion to enter the kitchen, I noticed that on a chair a pair of woman’s shoes had been placed.
They were Mabel’s. Scarcely knowing why I did so, I took them up and glanced at them. They were very muddy, and, strangely enough, some blades of grass were embedded in the mud. Then terrible thoughts occurred to me.
I recollected Mabel’s long absence, and remembered that one does not get grass on one’s shoes in Kensington.
The shoes were of French make, stamped with the name of “Pinet.” They were thin-soled, and the high Louis XV heels were slightly worn on one side.
Breathlessly I took them to the window, and, in the grey light, examined them scrupulously. They coincided exactly with the pair the detectives were searching for, the wearer of which they declared was the person who stabbed George Travers to the heart!
The dried clay and the blades of grass were positive proof that Mabel had walked somewhere besides on London pavements.
Could she really have murdered her brother? A terrible suspicion entered my soul, although I strove to resist it, endeavouring to bring myself to believe that such a thought was absolutely absurd; but at length, fearing detection, I found a brush and removed the mud with my own hands.
Then I walked through the flat and entered the room where Mabel was soundly sleeping. At the foot of the bed something white had fallen. Picking it up, I discovered it was a handkerchief.
A second later it fell from my nerveless grasp. It had dark, stiff patches upon it – the ugly stains of blood!
The one thought that took possession of me was of Mabel’s guilt. Yet she gave me no cause for further suspicion, except, indeed, that she eagerly read all the details as “written up” in those evening papers that revel in sensation.
George was buried, his house was sold, and his widow went with her children to live at Alversthorpe Hall, old Mr Travers’ place in Cumberland.
Mabel appeared quite as inconsolable as the bereaved wife.
“Do you believe the police will ever find the murderer?” she asked me one evening, when we were sitting alone.
“I really can’t tell, dear,” I replied, noticing how haggard and serious was her face as she gazed fixedly into the fire.
“Have – have they discovered anything?” she inquired hesitatingly.
“Yes,” I answered. “They found the marks of a woman’s shoes upon the lawn.”
She started visibly and held her breath.
“Ah!” she gasped; “I – I thought they would. I knew it – I knew – ”
Then, sighing, she drew her hand quickly across her brow, and, rising, left me abruptly.
About two months afterwards, Mabel and I went down to Alversthorpe on a visit, and as we sat at dinner on the evening of our arrival, Fraulein Steinbock, the new German governess, entered to speak with her mistress.
For a moment she stood behind the widow’s chair, glancing furtively at me. It was very remarkable. Although her features bore not the slightest resemblance to any I had ever seen before, they seemed somehow familiar. It was not the expression of tenderness and purity of soul that entranced me, but there was something strange about the forehead. The dark hair in front had accidentally been parted, disclosing what appeared to be a portion of a dark ugly scar!
Chancing to glance at Mabel, I was amazed to notice that she had dropped her knife and fork, and was sitting pale and haggard, with her eyes fixed upon the wall opposite.
Her lips were moving slightly, but no sound came from them.
When, on the following morning, I was chatting with the widow alone, I carelessly inquired about the new governess.
“She was called away suddenly last night. Her brother is dying,” she said.
“Called away!” I echoed. “Where has she gone?”
“To London. I do hope she won’t be long away, for I really can’t do without her. She is so kind and attentive to the children.”
“Do you know her brother’s address?”
She shook her head. Then I asked for some particulars about her, but discovered that nothing was known of her past. She was an excellent governess – that was all.
Twelve months later. One evening I had been busy writing in my own little den, and had left Mabel in the drawing-room reading a novel. It was almost ten o’clock when I rose from my table, and, having turned out my lamp, I went along the passage to join my wife.
Pushing open the door, I saw she had fallen asleep in her little wicker chair.
But she was not alone.
The tall, statuesque form of a woman in a light dress stood over her. The profile of the mysterious visitor was turned towards me. The face wore the same demoniacal expression, it had the same dark, flashing eyes, the same white teeth, that I had seen on that terrible day before Plevna!
As she bent over my sleeping wife, one hand rested on the chair, while the other grasped a gleaming knife, which she held uplifted, ready to strike.
For a moment I stood rooted to the spot; then, next second, I dashed towards her, just in time to arrest a blow that must otherwise have proved fatal.
She turned on me ferociously, and fought like a wild animal, scratching and biting me viciously. Our struggle for the weapon was desperate, for she seemed possessed of superhuman strength. At last, however, I proved victor, and, wrenching the knife from her bony fingers, flung it across the room.
Meanwhile Mabel awoke, and, springing to her feet, recognised the unwelcome guest.
“See!” she cried, terrified. “Her face! It is the face of the man I met on the night George was murdered!”
So distorted were the woman’s features by passion and hatred, that it was very difficult to recognise her as Fraulein Steinbock, the governess.
In a frenzy of madness she flew across to Mabel, but I rushed between them, and by sheer brute force threw her back upon an ottoman, where I held her until assistance arrived. I was compelled to clutch her by the throat, and as I forced her head back, the thick hair fell aside from her brow, disclosing a deep, distinct mark upon the white flesh – a bluish-grey ring in the centre of her forehead.
Screaming hysterically, she shouted terrible imprecations in some language I was unable to understand; and eventually, after a doctor had seen her, I allowed the police to take her to the station, where she was charged as a lunatic.
It was many months before I succeeded in gleaning the remarkable facts relating to her past. It appears that her real name was Dàrya Goltsef, and she was the daughter of a Cossack soldier, born at Darbend, on the Caspian Sea. With her family she led a nomadic life, wandering through Georgia and Armenia, and often accompanying the Cossacks on their incursions and depredations over the frontier into Persia.
It was while on one of these expeditions that she was guilty of a terrible crime. One night, wandering alone in one of the wild mountain passes near Tabreez, she discovered a lonely hut, and, entering, found three children belonging to the Iraks, a wandering tribe of robbers that infest that region.
She was seized with a terrible mania, and in a semi-unconscious state, and without premeditation, she took up a knife and stabbed all three. Some men belonging to the tribe, however, detected her, and at first it was resolved to torture her and end her life; but on account of her youth – for she was then only fifteen – it was decided to place on her forehead an indelible mark, to brand her as a murderess.
It is the custom of the Iraks to brand those guilty of murder; therefore, an iron ring was made red hot, and its impression burned deeply into the flesh.
During the three years that followed, Dàrya was perfectly sane, but it appeared that my friend, Captain Alexandrovitch, while quartered at Deli Musa, in Transcaucasia, killed, in a duel, a man named Peschkoff, who was her lover. The sudden grief at losing the man she loved caused a second calenture of the brain, and, war being declared against Turkey just at that time, she joined the Red Cross Sisters, and went to the front to aid the wounded. I have since remembered that one evening, while before Plevna, I was passing through the camp hospital with Alexandrovitch, when he related to me his little escapade, explaining with happy, careless jest how recklessly he had flirted, and how foolishly jealous Peschkoff had been.
He told me that it was an Englishman who had been travelling for pleasure to Teheran, but whose name he did not remember, that had really been the cause of the quarrel, and laughed heartily, with a Russian’s pride of swordsmanship, as he narrated how evenly matched Peschkoff and he had been.
That just cost my friend his life, for Dàrya must have overheard.
Then the desire for revenge, the mad, insatiable craving for blood that had remained dormant, was again aroused; and, under the weird circumstances already described, she disguised herself as a man, and, entering our tent, murdered Alexandrovitch.
On further investigation, I discovered that the unknown English traveller was none other than George Travers, for in one of the sketchbooks he had carried during his tour in the East, I found a well-executed pencil portrait of the Cossack maiden.
Dàrya’s motive in coming to England was, without doubt, one of revenge, prompted by the terrible aberration from which she was suffering.
Mabel, who had refrained from saying anything regarding the murder of her brother, fearing lest her story should appear absurd, now made an explanation. On the night of the tragedy, she was on her way to the house at Chiswick, and, when near the gates, a well-dressed young man had accosted her, explaining that he was an old friend of George’s recently returned from abroad, and wished to speak with him privately without his wife’s knowledge. He concluded by asking her whether, as a favour, she would show him the way to enter her brother’s room without going in at the front door. The story told by the young man seemed quite plausible, and she led him up to the French windows of the study.
Then she left the stranger, and crossed the lawn to go round to the front door, but at that moment the clock of Chiswick church chimed, and, finding the hour so late, she suddenly resolved to return home.
Later, when she heard of the tragedy, she was horrified to discover that she had actually aided the assassin, but resolved to preserve silence lest suspicion might attach itself to her.
She now identified the distorted features of the madwoman as those of the young man, and when I questioned her with regard to the bloodstained handkerchief, she explained how, in groping about the shrubbery in the dark, she had torn her hand severely on some thorns.
The cloud of suspicion that had rested so long upon Mabel is now removed, and we are again happy.
The carefully-devised plots and the devilish cunning that characterised all the murderess’s movements appeared most extraordinary; nevertheless, in cases such as hers, they are not unheard of. Dàrya is now in Brookwood Asylum, hopelessly insane, for she is still suffering from that most terrible form of madness, – acute homicidal mania, – and is known to the attendants as “The Woman with a Blemish.”
Chapter Seven.
The Sylph of the Terror
“Ah! you in England, here, are always débonnaire, while we in Charleroi are always triste, always.”
The dark-eyed, handsome girl sighed, lying lazily back among the cushions of the boat, allowing the rudder-lines to hang so loosely that our course became somewhat erratic. I had been spending one of the hot afternoons of last July gossiping and drinking tea on the riverside lawn of a friend’s house at Datchet, and now at sunset had taken for a row this pretty Belgian whom my hostess had introduced as Cécile Demage.
“Is this your first visit to London?” I asked, noticing she spoke English fluently, but with a pleasing accent.
“Oh no,” she replied, laughing. “I have been here already two times. I like your country so very much.”
“And you come here for pleasure – just for a little holiday?”
“Yes,” she answered, lifting her long lashes for an instant. “Of course I travel for – for pleasure always.”
Fixing my eyes upon her steadily, I remained silent, pulling long, slow strokes. The evening was calm and delightful, but the blood-red after-glow no longer reflected on the placid Thames, for already the purple haze was gathering.
“You know many Belgians in London, I suppose?” I said at last.
“Oh dear, no!” she answered, with a rippling laugh, toying with one of her gloves that lay on the cushion beside her. “True, I know some of the people at our Legation; but I come abroad to visit the English, not the Belgians.”
“And you have never visited West Hill, Sydenham, mademoiselle?” I asked, resting upon the oars suddenly, and looking straight into her dark, wide-open eyes.
She started, but next second recovered her self-possession.
“No, not to my knowledge.”
“And have you never met Fedor Nikiforovitch; has he never addressed you by your proper name, Sonia Ostroff?”
The colour left her face instantly, as she started up with a look of abject terror in her eyes.
“M’sieur is of the Secret Police!” she gasped hoarsely, clenching her hands. “Dieu! Then I am betrayed!”
“No,” I answered calmly. “I am aware that mademoiselle is an active member of the Narodnaya Volya, but, I, too, am a friend of the Cause;” and I added a word which signifies indivisibility, and is the recognised password of the Circle of desperate Russian revolutionists to which she belonged. It gave her confidence, and she sank back upon the cushions, questioning me how I had recognised her.
“I heard you were masquerading in London,” I said; “and among other members of the Circle who are here at the present moment are young Paul Tchartkoff, Sergius Karamasoff, and Ivan Petrovitch.”
“But – but who are you, m’sieur, that you should know so much about the Narodnaya Volya? When we were introduced, I failed to catch your name distinctly.”
“My name is Andrew Verney, and I am an English journalist.”
“Andrew Verney! Ah! of course I have heard of you many times! You were the English newspaper correspondent who, while living at Warsaw, became one of Us, and wrote articles to your journal advocating the emancipation of our country and the inviolability of the individual and of his rights as a man. You assisted us in bringing our case vividly before the English people, and in raising money to carry on the propaganda. But, alas! the iron hand of the Minister of the Interior fell upon you.”
“Yes,” I said, laughing; “I was expelled with a cancelled passport, and an intimation from the Press Bureau at Petersburg that whatever I wrote in future would not be allowed to enter Russia.”
Our boat was drifting, so I bent again to the oars, and rowed back to the lawn of our hostess.
The beautiful girl, who, lolling back upon the saddlebags, commenced to chatter in French about mutual friends in Warsaw, in Moscow, and in Petersburg, was none other than Sonia Ostroff, known to every Nihilist in and out of Russia as “The Sylph of the Terror.” Her slim figure, her childish face, her delicate complexion and charming dimples made her appear little more than a girl; yet I well knew how her bold, daring schemes had caused the Tzar Alexander to tremble. The daughter of a wealthy widow moving in the best society in Petersburg, she had become imbued with convictions that had induced her to join the Nihilists. From that moment she had become one of their most active members, and on the death of her mother, devoted all the money she inherited to the Cause. Many were the remarkable stories I had heard of the manner in which she had arranged attempts upon the lives of the Tzar and his Ministers; how, on one occasion, with extraordinary courage, she had taken the life of a police spy with her own hand; and how cleverly she had always managed to elude the vigilance of the ubiquitous agents of the Third Section of the Ministry of the Interior. Yet, as she laughed lightly, and pulled the rudder-line sharply, bringing us up to the steps before our hostess’s house, few would have suspected Cécile Demage, the chic, flippant daughter of a Belgian mine-owner, to be the same person as Sonia Ostroff, the renowned “Sylph of the Terror,” who spent greater part of her time in hiding from the police in the underground cellar of a presumably disused house near the Ekaterinski in Petersburg.
Half an hour later we were sitting opposite each other at dinner, where she shone brilliantly as a conversationalist. Several persons were present who had met her in society in Brussels; but none suspected the truth – I alone held her secret.
When later that night we bade each other farewell at Waterloo Station, she managed to whisper, “I shall be at Fedor’s on Thursday night at nine. Meet me there. Do not fail.”
“Very well,” I replied; and, allowing her well-gloved hand to rest in mine for a moment, she bade me au revoir, entered a cab, and was driven away.
As I walked into Fedor Nikiforovitch’s handsomely-furnished drawing-room at Sydenham to keep my appointment, my host rose to greet me. He was tall, thin and slightly bent by age. In Warsaw I had known him as an active revolutionist, and, indeed, the men who were with him – Tchartkoff, Petrovitch, and Karamasoff – were a trio of daring fellows, who, alone and unaided, had committed many startling outrages. Several others were in the room, and among them I noticed two ladies, Mascha Karelin and Vera Irteneff, whom I had frequently met at secret meetings of the Circle at Warsaw.
“Sonia told me you were coming,” Fedor said gayly. “This is the final council. The attempt will be made to-morrow,” he added in a whisper.
“The attempt? What do you mean?” I asked.
“It will all be explained in due course,” he said, turning away to greet another member who at that moment arrived.
In a few moments, Sonia, in a striking evening toilet, and wearing a magnificent diamond necklet, entered smiling, being greeted enthusiastically on every hand. We exchanged a few words, then, when every one was seated in silent expectancy, “The Sylph of the Terror” took up a position on the tiger’s skin stretched before the hearth. The door having been closed, and precautions taken so that there should be no eavesdroppers at the windows that overlooked the flower-garden at the rear, in clear, distinct tones she addressed the assemblage in Russian as “Fellow-councillors of the Narodnaya Volya.” She referred to the manifesto of the Narodnoe Pravo, and said, “Autocracy, after receiving its most vivid expression and impersonation in the reign of the present Tzar, has with irrefutable clearness proved its impotence to create such an order of things as should secure our country the fullest and most regular developments of all her spiritual and material forces.” Then, with a fire of enthusiasm burning in her dark, flashing eyes, she referred to the thousands of political prisoners, many of them their own relatives and friends, who had been banished without trial to Siberia, to rot in the dreaded silver mines of Nerchinsk, or die of fever in the filthy étapes of the Great Post Road.
“Desperate cases require desperate remedies,” she continued, glancing around her small audience. “Hundreds of our innocent comrades are at this moment being arrested in Warsaw, and hurried off to the Trans-Baikál without trial, merely because Gourko desires to curry favour with his Imperial master.”
“Shame!” they cried, with one accord.
“He must die,” ejaculated Fedor.
“Shall we allow our brothers and our sisters to be snatched from us without raising a hand to save them?” she asked excitedly. “No. Long enough have we been idle. To-morrow, here, in London, we shall strike such a blow for the liberty of Russia that the world will be convulsed.”
“All is ready, sister,” Fedor observed. “The arrangements for escape are perfect. By midnight to-morrow we shall have separated, and not even the bloodhounds of the Third Section will be able to trace us.”
“Then let us see the shell,” she said. Walking over to a bookcase, he touched a spring, and part of one of the rows of books flew open, disclosing a secret cupboard behind. The backs of the books were imitations, concealing a spacious niche, from which the Nihilist drew forth a thick volume about seven inches long by five wide, bound in black cloth. It was an imitation of a popular edition of Charles Lamb’s works.
The bomb was in the form of a book!
Sonia, into whose delicate hands he gave it, examined it critically, with a grim smile of satisfaction, then placed it carefully upon a little Moorish coffee-stool at her side.
“It is excellently made, excites no suspicion, and reflects the greatest credit upon you, Fedor. You are indeed a genius!” she said, laughing. Then, seriously, she asked, “Is every one present prepared to sacrifice his or her life in this attempt?”
“We are,” they answered, with one accord.
“I think, then, that we are all agreed both as to the necessity of this action, as well as to the manner the coup shall be accomplished. In order that each one’s memory shall be refreshed, I will briefly repeat the arrangements. To-morrow night, punctually at eight o’clock, the man condemned to die will visit the Lyceum Theatre, entering by the private door in Burleigh Street. The person using the shell must stand at the Strand corner of that street, and the blow must be delivered just as the carriage turns from the Strand, so that in the crowd in the latter thoroughfare escape may be easy. It must be distinctly remembered, however, that the personage to be ‘removed’ will occupy the second carriage – not the first.”
“Will he be alone?” asked the dark-bearded ruffianly fellow I knew as Sergius Karamasoff.
“Yes. We have taken due precautions. Come, let us decide who shall deliver the blow.” And while Fedor wrote a word on a piece of paper, and folding it, placed it with eleven other similar pieces in a Dresden bowl, Sonia Ostroff continued to discuss where they should next meet after the coup. At last it was arranged, upon her suggestion, that they should all assemble at the house of Karamasoff in Warsaw at 9 p.m. on the 21st, thus allowing a fortnight in which to get back to Poland.
The scraps of paper were shuffled, and everyone drew, including myself, for I had taken the oath to the revolutionary section of the Narodnaya Volya, and, being present, was therefore compelled to share the risk. Judge my joy, however, on opening mine and finding it a blank! The person to whom the dangerous task fell made no sign, therefore all were unaware who would make the attempt. The strictest secrecy is always preserved in a Nihilist Circle, so that the members are never aware of the identity of the person who commits an outrage.
But the business of the secret council was over, the cunningly-concealed bomb was removed to a place where it was not likely to be accidentally knocked down, and the remainder of the evening passed in pleasant conversation. I had become fascinated by Sonia’s beauty, and when I found myself sitting alone with her in a corner of the room where we could not be overheard, I whispered into her ear words of love and tenderness. She, on her part, seemed to have no aversion to a mild flirtation, and admitted frankly that she had pleasant recollections of the sunset hour upon the Thames.
“Who is the man condemned to death?” I asked presently.
“What! are you unaware?” she exclaimed in surprise. “Why, the Tzarevitch.”
“The Tzarevitch? And you intend to murder him?”
She shrugged her shoulders, replying, “We have followed him here because he is not so closely guarded as in Petersburg. If we succeed, there will be no heir-apparent, for the Grand Duke George is already dying in the Caucasus, and the days of the autocrat Alexander are numbered. He will die sooner than the world imagines.”
The flippant manner in which she spoke of death appalled me; nevertheless, when I bade her farewell, I was deeply in love with her, and promised to be in the vicinity of the scene of the tragedy on the morrow.
I knew all the details of this desperate plot to kill the Russian heir-apparent – then on a brief visit to London with his fiancée– yet I dared not inform the police, for the terrible vengeance of the Circle was always swift and always fatal. Helpless to avert the calamity, I passed the long day in breathless anxiety, dreading the fatal moment when the blow would be struck. By some strange intuition, I felt that my every action was watched by emissaries of the Nihilists, who feared treachery on my part, for, as a journalist, I was personally acquainted with a number of officers at Scotland Yard. Hour by hour I strove to devise some plan by which I might prevent the foul murder that was about to be perpetrated; but, alas! no solution of the problem presented itself. The plans had been laid with such care and forethought, that undoubtedly the Tzarevitch would fall a victim, and Russia would be plunged into mourning.
At length twilight deepened into night, and as I walked from Charing Cross down the noisy, bustling Strand, the gas lamps were already alight, and the queues were forming outside the theatres. On passing the steps leading to Exeter Hall, I was startled by a hand being laid upon my arm, and found beside me an elderly woman, poorly-clad, wearing a faded and battered bonnet, with a black, threadbare shawl wrapped around her.
“You have not failed, then?” she exclaimed in low tones, that in an instant I recognised.
“You, Sonia? And in this disguise!” I cried.
“Hush! or we may be overheard!” she said quickly. “The choice fell upon me, but – but I have had a fainting fit, caused by over-excitement, and I cannot trust myself;” and she caused me to walk back and turn up Exeter Street, a short and practically deserted thoroughfare close by.
“Think, are not the risks too great?” I urged. “Why not abandon this attempt?”
“I have sworn to make it,” she answered determinedly.
“And the others – where are they?”
“An alarm has been raised. Baranoff, the chief of the Third Section, suspects, and is in London in search of us. We have all left England, with the exception of Karamasoff, who remains to witness the attempt, and make a report to the council.”
“And you will risk your life and liberty by endeavouring to strike this murderous blow, of which you do not feel yourself physically capable? For my sake, Sonia, defer the attempt until another occasion.”
“I cannot, even though you love me;” and her slim fingers tightened upon mine. Then, a second later, she clasped her hands to her forehead, and, reeling, would have fallen, had I not supported her.
“How – how very foolish I am!” she said, a few moments later. “Forgive me.” Then, as she steadied herself and strolled slowly by my side, she suddenly asked earnestly —
“Do you really love me, Andrew?”
“I do,” I answered fervently.
“Then dare you – dare you, for my sake, Andrew – dare you throw the bomb?” she whispered hoarsely.
Her suggestion startled me. I halted amazed.
“I – I could not – I really could not,” I stammered.
“Ah! it is as I thought – you do not love me,” she said reproachfully. “But it is time I took up my position at the next corner. If I die, it will be because you refused your assistance. Farewell!”
Before I could detain her, she had turned into the Strand, and was lost among the bustling crowd. Hurrying, I overtook her before she gained the corner of Burleigh Street.
“I have changed my mind, Sonia,” I said. “Give it to me; I will act in your stead. Fly to a place of safety, and I will meet you in Warsaw on the day appointed.”
From beneath her shawl she carefully handed me the bomb. It was heavy, weighing fully eight pounds. Slipping it into the capacious pocket of the covert coat I was wearing, I stood at the street corner. Sonia refused to leave, declaring that she would remain to witness the death of the son of the Autocrat.
Trembling and breathless, I stood dreading the fatal moment, knowing that my pocket contained sufficient picric acid to wreck the whole street.
Seconds seemed hours.
“As soon as you have thrown it, fly for your life,” urged Sonia. Then we remained silent in watchful readiness.
Suddenly, almost before we were aware of it, one of the Marlborough House carriages dashed round the corner past us, and drew up before the small door at the rear of the Lyceum. It was an exciting moment. Without hesitation I took out the deadly missile, and none too soon, indeed, for a second later the Tzarevitch’s carriage followed, and just as it passed, I hurled it with all my force against the wheels. Turning, I dashed away across to the opposite side of the Strand, and was there overtaken, a few seconds later, by Sonia and Karamasoff.