Corsini looked at her steadily. “Madame, you have been good enough to call me your friend. If that is the case, why have I not been invited to those little private suppers at your villa? So many go, that one more would not have made a serious addition.”
Her face went as white as death. “Who has told you such a falsehood?” she stammered.
Nello never took his eyes off her. The white face, the stammering tongue, proved that Golitzine was right. She had secret parties at her villa, and she was dismayed to find that anybody had heard of them.
“A friend of mine, whose name I must not reveal, Madame.”
Without another word Madame Quéro went to her dressing-room. From there she despatched a hasty note to Prince Zouroff.
CHAPTER XIII
La Belle Quéro and the Prince Zouroff were sitting together in the boudoir of the small villa on the outskirts of St. Petersburg.
They were both smoking cigarettes. Madame Quéro looked anxious and perturbed, Zouroff surly and annoyed.
“Inez, you are very unreasonable. Why have you dragged me here at this time of night? If your note had not said ‘very urgent,’ I should not have taken myself away from more important matters.”
La Belle Quéro flicked the ash of her cigarette on the carpet. “Once, my friend, you would have come on the slightest request from me. I should not have been compelled to mark my note urgent, eh?”
The Prince answered a little awkwardly. “Don’t let us be too sentimental, dear child. We have been good friends, we have got to a closer degree of comradeship. Is it not an ideal relationship? Well, what have you to tell me? You have not summoned me here for nothing, I am sure?”
“Not even for the pleasure of your society, my most charming and exquisite Boris?” inquired the prima donna, in a tone of raillery.
The Prince frowned. At the moment, the light caprices of women did not appeal to him.
“You are talking nonsense, my dear Inez. Let us come to the point.”
The Spanish woman came to the point at once, with an angry glitter in her eyes. What a pity that Zouroff was not a little more gentle in his dealings with women!
“Our little secret evening parties have been discovered, that is all. It may give you and me food for reflection.”
The Prince drew a deep breath. “Discovered! It is impossible. Who dares to suspect us?”
“It does not matter who suspects us. It is enough that we are suspected. I suppose the Secret Police have been at work.”
Zouroff thought a few moments, and then a sudden light came to him. He crossed over and grasped the beautiful young woman by the arm.
“Tell me the truth and don’t palter with me,” he thundered in his harsh, raucous tones. “Where have you this information? But I can answer the question myself. It is from that white-livered Italian, Corsini. He is a spy in the pay of Golitzine.”
Madame Quéro endeavoured to utter a faltering negative, but Zouroff, always fond of brutal methods, tightened his grasp on the delicate flesh.
Under the hypnotic influence of this brutal and commanding man, she stammered forth the truth.
“You have guessed right. It was Corsini who told me, in a very brief interview. He had heard the rumour from a friend.”
Zouroff smiled. It was a very sinister smile at the best. The lips curled up, the strong, white, even teeth showed themselves, suggesting the fangs of a wolf.
“So this degenerate Italian is daring to thrust himself across our path, is he? Well, then! the Italian mountebank must disappear.”
Madame Quéro rose to her full height and braved the brutal and truculent Prince.
“I think I have got a word to say in this: If he does disappear, I shall go to the Emperor and tell him the whole truth.”
“You have fallen in love with this young man, eh?” inquired the Prince in a jeering voice.
“No, I will not say that. And besides, he is in love with somebody else. But understand me, if you please” – she spoke with her old imperiousness – “I will not have a hair of this young man’s head harmed. He is young, he is innocent; he shall not fall a victim to your dastardly schemes.”
Boris regarded her with his cold, hard glance. “Suppose I said that, in that case, even La Belle Quéro herself must disappear. What then?”
Tears came into the beautiful woman’s eyes. She looked at him, more compassionate than angry.
“Oh, Boris, have you sunk so low, have you let your ambitions overcome all the softer impulses of your nature? Would you really murder me for fear I should tell, and frustrate your schemes?”
She looked very beautiful as she appealed to him. For a moment the old love for her, the old infatuation surged up in his heart. He clasped her to his breast, and murmured softly the words: “Why are you not heart and soul with me, as you used to be?”
She disengaged herself gently from his embrace; it no longer thrilled her. “You are no longer the same to me, Boris,” she whispered, with the usual subterfuge of the woman. “You have had other loves besides La Belle Quéro.”
“I do not admit that, Inez,” he answered, in his rough, hard tones, a little shaken by his emotion. “But remember, we are bound together by solemn ties, by solemn oaths, to the same cause. Mark my words,” he added, with a sudden access of savagery. “If you play me false in that respect, expect no mercy.”
“If I play you false, Boris, I expect no mercy; I shall get none. I know the manner of man you are.”
“Yes, you know the sort of man I am, Inez. Pursue your little flirtations, if you will. I shall not complain. But once play me false in other matters, and your doom is sealed.”
He strode out of the room, and the face of Madame Quéro went white as she remembered the threat. The Prince loved her in his rough, brutal way, but if she interfered with his plans, he would brush her out of his path with as little compunction as he would kill a fly that annoyed him with its impertinent buzzing.
And then, in a few moments, her thoughts went back to the handsome young Italian, Corsini. She had, in an unguarded moment, given him away. Zouroff’s slow, but unrelenting, vengeance would pursue him. The Prince had said that Corsini must disappear. In this autocratic country people disappeared every day, and nobody seemed to wonder. It was such a common occurrence.
Next day Madame Quéro, very disturbed, sought Corsini at his private office at the Imperial Opera. Her object was to gain a little time before Zouroff could put his evil designs into execution.
She approached him with her most winning smile.
“Signor, you reproached me for not having asked you to my villa. Will you allow me to repair the omission? Will you sup with me, tête-à-tête, on Thursday night?”
She had meant, in this intimate meeting, to give him a few hints as to his personal safety without too closely inculpating Zouroff and his associates, whom she still greatly feared.
Nello expressed a thousand regrets. After his duties at the Opera were over, Prince Zouroff had requested his attendance at his Palace, as Princess Nada had wished to again hear his rendering of the romance which had now become celebrated.
The voice of the prima donna grew agitated. She was very distrustful of Boris and his ways.
“But, Signor Corsini, why go there when you know so well that the Prince is quite indifferent to music? He does not care for any sort, yours or mine.”
Nello darted at her a shrewd glance. “I do not think myself, Madame, that the Prince is a great connoisseur; but he is generally in his box when you sing.”
The beautiful Spanish woman blushed ever so slightly. “Ah, Signor, he comes because I am the fashion. But all the same, I wish you would not go.”
Her manner was very insistent. Nello could see that she was greatly agitated.
“Tell me, Madame. You have some reason for not wishing me to go?”
Madame Quéro hesitated. She dared not tell the truth, that she feared there was some sinister design on the part of the Prince. Had he not said that Corsini must disappear? Her blood ran cold at the thought.
She relied on her woman’s wiles. “Suppose,” she whispered softly, “that I told you I was very jealous of the Princess Nada. Would that keep you away?”
Nello looked at her steadily. A few days ago her request might have had some influence on him, but now he knew her for a traitress. She was only seeking to trap him for her own ends. He was proof against her. Golitzine had warned him.
“The Princess Nada is an old friend of mine, Madame. I have promised to play that little romance for her whenever she wishes to hear it. I cannot break my promise.”
The blood of the Biscayan peasant surged wildly in her veins. “You are a fool, Signor Corsini; you do not know your real friends, I assure you.”
Corsini assumed his most diplomatic manner. He bowed profoundly. “I have made many friends in St. Petersburg, Madame, but I shall always remember that you were one of the first and best.”
“Always excepting Princess Nada,” remarked the prima donna spitefully.
“Ah, Madame, I met her first in London; I cannot tell you under what tragic circumstances. Yes, to be quite frank, the Princess has a little niche in my memory that nobody else can occupy. You will forgive me?”
Madame Quéro turned away from him scornfully, her warm Spanish blood all aflame at the mention of her rival.
“Go then to your beautiful Princess, with her bloom of the lilies and roses on her cheeks, and your fate be on your own head.”
Corsini, in spite of his equable temperament, was a little disturbed by the interview. Madame Quéro had been very insistent that he should not go to the Zouroff Palace. What was there behind this insistence?
He had pressed her closely as to her reasons, and she had led him to understand she entertained an undefined jealousy of the Princess Nada. In all probability that was the true explanation. Anyway, she would give him none other.
He was very busy during the next day or two with the cares of management – the directorship of the Imperial Opera was no light task. He met the singer several times, but she still appeared to nourish resentment.
Well, he could not help it. Wild horses would not have kept him away from the Zouroff Palace, from the few minutes’ glimpse of the beautiful young Princess. The Thursday drew near, and his pulses beat with pleasurable anticipation. If Madame Quéro withdrew her friendship from him, it would not break his heart; and if she was the traitress that Golitzine assumed, her friendship was not worth having.
As for the woman herself, she was torn with conflicting emotions. At one moment she hated him, at another she wept to think that he should fall a victim to the machinations of the unscrupulous and unrelenting Prince. And on the Wednesday, the day before the reception at the Zouroff Palace, her softer feelings conquered.
She had seen the Prince the night before, and he had told her that he was going into the country and would not return to St. Petersburg till the midday of the Thursday.
She drove to the Zouroff Palace in the afternoon and sent up her card to the Princess Nada. On it she had pencilled – “To see you on an urgent matter.”
The young Princess’s maid, Katerina, who was devoted to her mistress, brought in the card.
Nada read it, and she frowned. She was not at all conventional for a girl of her rank and station, and she numbered many artists amongst her friends. But she had heard of the reputation of La Belle Quéro. Rumours had reached her of the peculiar relations between the singer and her brother, the Prince. Obviously, she was not the sort of woman she could receive in a private capacity.
“Go down yourself, Katerina, to this person, and be perfectly civil,” she enjoined her maid. “Explain to her as politely as possible that I am not able to see any visitors to-day.”
The young woman conveyed the cold, decisive message to the waiting Madame Quéro. A dull, red flush spread over the singer’s face as she recognised the reasons for the refusal to accord her an interview.
But she had not come unprepared for such a rebuff. “One moment, if you please,” she said, drawing forth a letter and handing it to the maid. “Take this to your young mistress. I will wait till you return. I fancy next time you will bring me a different answer.”
The maid bowed and went back to the Princess. Nada tore the letter open angrily. The woman was a trifle too insolent and persistent. Then her angry mood passed as she mastered the brief contents.
“I regret very much to intrude upon you; I can quite guess that my presence is not welcome. A great danger is threatening a certain gentleman, Signor Corsini, for whom I believe you have some friendship. You are the only person I can think of at the moment who can avert that danger, especially as it is threatened by a member of your own family. If you still persist in refusing to see me, please seal up this letter and return it by your maid.”
There was no longer any fear of refusal. Corsini threatened with danger, and by a member of her own family, who could be none other than Boris!
“Bring the lady to me at once, Katerina,” she commanded the wondering maid.
A moment later the two faced each other, the Princess standing in the middle of the room, courteous but distantly polite, to receive her unwelcome guest.
They looked at each other steadily, with dislike in their hearts, the aristocrat of pure and ancient lineage, the woman who had played barefoot in the gutter as a child, and won her way with her exquisite talent to fame and fortune.
There was between them, at the start, the antagonism of class. But there was also between them a still more subtle antagonism, recognised by each: they had a mutual tenderness for the same man.
CHAPTER XIV
It was exceedingly difficult for a person of Nada’s frank and open temperament to resort to the arts of the dissembler, to feign a cordiality she did not feel. Still, she managed to pull herself together and, to a creditable extent, conceal her dislike of her unwelcome visitor. With a grave courtesy she invited the Spanish woman to seat herself.
“Your note has distressed me, Madame, for more than one reason. In the first place I am very sorry to hear that Signor Corsini is menaced by a great danger. I met him in London; ours was the first private house he played at after his great success at the Covent Garden concert. I have a great esteem for him as an artist, and I am shocked to think that, after so short a stay in my own country, he should be the victim of some sinister designs. Secondly, I am the more disturbed because your letter tells me very plainly in what quarter these designs are being entertained.”
Madame Quéro spoke very quietly. The Princess disliked her, of that she was assured, and she returned the dislike with compound interest. Still Nada was doing her best to be civil and polite. It should not be her fault if the interview was not conducted with perfect discretion on both sides.
“If the danger had not been very great and also very imminent, Princess, I should not have taken the liberty of intruding myself upon you. We move in different worlds, it is true, but I am some sort of a personage in my own sphere and not fond of exposing myself to rebuffs at the hand of a waiting-maid.”
Nada blushed at the shrewd, quick thrust, although the words were spoken without the least heat.
“I am very sorry you should have felt offended,” she faltered. “But of course, I could not deliver the message myself.”
Madame Quéro dismissed the subject with a graceful wave of the hand. If Nada had the composure of the aristocrat, she had the self-possession of the woman of the world. She could skate over thin ice as delicately as anybody.
“I have every reason to know that your brother, Prince Boris, has taken a violent enmity to this young musician.”
“My brother, I regret to say, takes violent dislikes to many people, for reasons that I have never been able to fathom. But I cannot guess any motive for enmity against Signor Corsini. In what possible way can their paths cross?”
“You will, of course, understand, Princess, that I cannot, in every instance, speak as plainly as I could wish. You may have heard, it is hardly possible you should not, that for some few years past Prince Zouroff has been one of my most intimate friends.”
Nada bowed her graceful head, while a faint flush rose to the fair cheek. Of course it was common rumour in St. Petersburg that he was greatly attracted by the handsome singer and was prepared to marry her, if her husband could be got out of the way. Such an alliance would not, naturally, recommend itself to the other members of the proud and ancient house of Zouroff.
“It would certainly seem a strange thing that their paths should cross in any way,” was Madame Quéro’s answer. “And here, I am afraid, I dare not be as explicit as I wish. You must forgive me, Princess, if I content myself with hints instead of full explanations. I can only just tell you this: Signor Corsini has discovered a jealously guarded secret of your brother’s. Your brother, therefore, regards him as a dangerous man, to be got out of his way.”
Nada’s face went pale as she listened to these rather vague utterances. Although so young, with a disposition naturally frank and trusting, she had a very quick intelligence. She thought she could read between the lines. It was some time before she spoke.
“My brother has a jealously guarded secret which Signor Corsini has discovered,” she repeated slowly. “If he revealed that secret, it would mean danger to Boris?”
Madame Quéro bowed. “At present his knowledge is not very great, but if he learnt more, it would mean the greatest possible danger to your brother.”
There was no mistaking the sinister meaning behind these words. The young girl reflected a few moments. Not once, but many times, some unguarded phrase of the Prince, dropped in one of his frequent rages, had set her thinking.
“Boris is not, then, exactly what he seems, Madame?”
“Far from it, Princess,” replied the singer, speaking with a frankness that a second later she regretted.
“And perhaps, too, Signor Corsini is not exactly what he seems?” queried Nada. Intuition was leading her very near the truth.
“Of that I cannot speak with any certainty. Your brother has certain suspicions of him, but I have no means of knowing whether they are well- or ill-founded. One thing is certain, Prince Boris goes in fear of him and meditates harm to him.”
“You are sure of his intentions?” asked Nada.
Madame Quéro shrugged her shapely shoulders. “Should I be here, if I were not?”
The Princess questioned her a little more closely. “You will not tell me more than you wish, I know, but I think I am entitled to put this question. How did you learn his intentions, from himself or a third party?”
And the singer answered truthfully. “From his own lips.”
Nada was silent for some seconds. She was working it out in her own mind, on the somewhat scanty data that had been furnished her.
“You mean that the Prince intends to get Signor Corsini out of the way by some treacherous means?”
“That is the idea that is forming in his mind, Princess.”
“When will he put that idea into action, do you think?” was Nada’s next question.
“Corsini plays here at the Prince’s request to-morrow evening – is that not so?”
Yes, it was true. She had written the invitation herself at Zouroff’s request.
“Well, the Prince is a man who acts very rapidly when he has once made up his mind. It is my belief that whatever project he has formed will be put into execution to-morrow night.”
Nada put her hand to her brow. “It is horrible, Madame, unthinkable, that a brother of mine should stoop so low. Why should he have a secret so guilty, that he cannot afford to have it dragged forth into the light?”
Madame Quéro did not answer the question directly. “I fear, Princess, your brother is not a man easily to be read even by those who have lived in the same house with him.”
“What is it you suggest that I should do?” asked the Princess after a long pause. “Shall I meet him at the entrance and entreat him to go away at once, on some pretext or another? And what might follow if I took such a strange step? I cannot bring myself to confess to him that I suspect my own brother of base designs against him.”
It was a puzzling question, which Madame Quéro could not answer at once. For some moments the two women, their mutual hostility suspended for the time being, put their wits together. Suddenly an idea occurred to the singer.
“That maid of yours, who interviewed me on your behalf. Can you trust her?”
“She is devoted to me,” was the Princess’s answer.
“Your brother, I happen to know, has one or two confidential servants in his employ.”
“Yes,” said Nada, looking at her visitor steadily. It was evident that if the Prince concealed some things from Madame Quéro, there were many things that he told her. The girl had a very shrewd suspicion that the guilty secret which Corsini had discovered was also known to the beautiful singer herself.
“It is just possible that if your maid instituted a few discreet inquiries in certain quarters, she might learn something.”
“Can you suggest any particular quarter in which she could put them?” asked the Princess. It was evident that the Spanish woman knew a great deal about the Zouroff household – a great deal more than she did herself.
“Peter, his valet, is, I know, absolutely in his master’s confidence.”
“That is fortunate,” remarked Nada; “because I happen to know that Katerina and he are very great friends; in fact, I believe lovers.”
She rose, touched the bell and commanded the attendance of her maid. For a long time the two women, mistress and servant, talked together in Russian. Madame Quéro, who only knew two languages, her own and French, could not, of course, follow them.
The Princess explained the result of the interview. “I have enlisted Katerina’s sympathies, she is going to find out if Peter knows anything.”
Madame Quéro rose. “Whatever it is, I am sure he will have a hand in it, although I don’t expect he will take an active part. Well, Princess, I must leave it to you to take what steps may occur to you.”
Nada put to her the shrewd question. “Is it impossible for you to take any steps yourself, Madame?”
A shamed expression came into the singer’s beautiful eyes. “Alas, Princess, I fear I must admit it is. If the Prince could trace anything to me directly, his vengeance would follow me very swiftly.”
Nada shuddered. She had long ago ceased to entertain any illusions as to her brother. She knew he was hard, tyrannical, brutal, and pitiless. But this conversation with the foreign woman had thrown a new and sinister light upon his character. There was in him, in addition to these disagreeable qualities, a strong criminal taint.
He did not intend to spare Corsini, and from what she had just heard, he would not, if necessity arose, spare the woman to whom he professed attachment, but would punish her ruthlessly for daring to thwart his plans. And the poor young Princess shuddered again as the thought crossed her that he would not be likely to spare his own sister, if she offended him in the same way.
It was not till the middle of the next day that Katerina had charmed out of Peter certain information which confirmed her worst fears.
Briefly, the information amounted to this. The Prince had sent one of his trusted servants into the country to order relays of horses. A travelling carriage was to be waiting at midnight close to the Zouroff Palace. But Peter either did not know, or would not tell, who was to be the occupant or the persons in attendance on the carriage.
One little important detail he had dropped. The carriage was to make its first halt at Pavlovsk, the first stage of the journey, on the Moscow road.
There was no longer any doubt in Nada’s mind as to the Prince’s intentions. Corsini was to be entrapped on leaving the Palace and thrust into the carriage; in all probability, drugged and bound. Of his ultimate fate she shuddered to think.
She knew the Chief of Police, General Beilski, well. He was an old friend of the family, also one of the Emperor’s most trusted adherents. While devoted to her mother and herself, he had never shown himself much attached to the Prince.
Nothing easier than for her to pay a private visit to the General at his office, or invite him to the Palace, and request his assistance in thwarting her brother’s foul designs. It was the course which Madame Quéro could have taken had she so wished, in the first instance.
The same reason held back both women. Such a step must have brought about the immediate ruin of Zouroff, with its consequent degradation for his relatives. The General was a man who would put duty and patriotism before every other consideration. He would not consent to any paltering with justice, he would drive no bargain. He would not save Corsini at the cost of letting the Prince go free and unpunished.
It was a terrible situation for so young a girl, thrown upon her own resources. True, she could have taken counsel with her mother, but she shrank from exposing her brother’s villainy to such a close relation. She would keep the shameful secret locked in her own breast so long as it was possible.
And then came a ray of light. She wrote a letter in a feigned hand to the General, which ran thus:
“A travelling carriage will set out to-night from St. Petersburg at any time after midnight, and will halt at Pavlovsk, on the road to Moscow. Let the carriage be examined, as the writer of this letter has reason to believe there is a plot afoot to deport a certain person well-known in artistic circles.”
This she handed to Katerina, whom the General had never seen, with instructions to take it to his office and hand it for delivery to some responsible person. She was to disguise herself as well as she could, and not linger a moment after she had delivered the letter. It was next to impossible that Beilski should ever discover where that letter came from, but she was certain he would act upon it at once.
What would follow from her action she could not foresee; but she had done the best, according to her lights, to save the young man who had had the misfortune to cross her brother’s path.
Zouroff, just returned from his journey into the country, entered her charming little boudoir half an hour after she had despatched Katerina with the warning note.
He seemed in a good mood to-day. With bitterness at her heart, she guessed the reason. He had laid his plans so well for this evening that he did not anticipate any likelihood of their being disturbed.
He greeted her with a sort of rough geniality. “Well, little Nada, you seem very thoughtful. Wondering what particularly charming costume you will wear to-night?”
With difficulty she forced herself to meet his gaze, to banish from her own the loathing that was in her heart. She tried to speak lightly, so that he should suspect nothing from her voice or manner.
“Not quite accurate, Boris. No, I have decided on the costume. I was really wondering what jewels I should select.”
The Prince seemed to accept her explanation readily. “Well, I am certain you will enjoy yourself. Your great favourite, Corsini, is sure to play that little romance which has so captivated you. I really asked him here to give you pleasure.”
Was it fancy, or did she really catch the ghost of a sneering smile on the hard, handsome face, as he turned to leave the room?
“Base, treacherous hypocrite!” she murmured when she was alone. “Why have I been cursed with such a brother, my poor mother with such a son?”