In brilliant sunshine, with the larks singing merrily in the cloudless vault of blue, and the air heavy with the scent of hay, I drove from Horsham station along the old turnpike road to Warnham Hall. A carriage had been sent for me, as usual, and as I sat back moodily, I fear I saw little of interest in the typical English landscape. The joys of the world were dead to me, consumed as I was by the one great sorrow of my life. My mind was full of the tristful past. I had reached London from Paris on the previous night, and in response to a telegram from the Earl, saying he had left Osborne and gone to the Hall, I had travelled down by the morning train.

As we entered the park and drove up the broad, well-kept drive, the startled deer bounded away, and the emus raised their small heads with resentful, inquiring glance, but dashing along, the pair of spanking bays quickly brought me up to the great grey portico. As soon as I alighted I handed over my traps to one of the servants and walked straight to the great oak-panelled dining-room.

As I paused at the door, it suddenly opened, and a man emerged so quickly that he almost stumbled over me. Our eyes met. I stood aghast, staring as if I had seen an apparition. In the semi-darkness of the corridor I doubt whether my face was quite distinguishable, but upon his there shone the slanting rays of light from an old diamond-paned window. In a instant I recognised the features, although I had only seen them once before.

It was the foppish young man who had been Ella’s companion on that lonely walk in Kensington Gardens.

Why he had visited the Earl was an inscrutable mystery. He regarded me in surprise for a single instant, then, thrusting both hands negligently into his trousers pockets, strode leisurely away along the corridor, a straw hat with black and white band placed jauntily at the back of his head. I watched him until he had turned the corner and disappeared, then I entered the great old-fashioned apartment.

“Well, Deedes!” exclaimed the Earl, in a voice that was unusually cheerful. He was standing at the window gazing across the park, but my presence caused him to turn sharply. “Back again, then?”

“Yes. I think I have fulfilled the mission,” I managed to exclaim. Truth to tell, this extraordinary encounter had caused me considerable perplexity and annoyance.

“You have done excellently,” he said. “A telegram this morning from Lord Worthorpe shows with what tact you put matters to him, and I am glad to tell you that his interview with the President proved entirely satisfactory. I wired the news to Her Majesty only half-an-hour ago.”

“I did my best,” I observed, perhaps a trifle carelessly, for there was another matter upon which I was anxious to consult my eccentric benefactor.

“The task was one of unusual difficulty, I admit, Deedes, and you have shown yourself fully qualified for a post abroad. You shall have one before long.”

At other times I should have warmly welcomed the enthusiasm of this speech, and thanked him heartily for the promise of a more lucrative position, but now, crushed and hopeless, I felt that joy had left my soul for ever, and merely replied, —

“I am quite satisfied to be as I am. I do not care for the Continent.”

“Why?” he inquired, surprised. “If you remain in the Service here you will have but little chance of distinguishing yourself, whereas in Rome, Constantinople or Berlin, you might obtain chances of promotion.”

“I have been already in St Petersburg, you remember,” I said.

“Ah, of course. But you didn’t get on very well there,” he said. “It is a difficult staff for younger men to work amongst. You’d be more comfortable in Vienna, perhaps. Viennese society would suit you, wouldn’t it?”

“No,” I replied, very gravely. “I fear that henceforward I shall be, like yourself, a hater of society and all its ways.”

“Oh?” he exclaimed, placing his hands beneath his coat-tails, a habit of his when about to enter any earnest consultation. “Why?”

“Well, if you desire to know the truth,” I said, “it concerns my marriage.”

“Ah, of course!” he observed, with deep sorrow. “I had quite forgotten that unfortunate affair. Yet time will cause you to forget. You are young, remember, Deedes – very young, compared with an old stager like myself.”

“It is scarcely likely that I shall forget so easily,” I said, after a slight pause. “Since I have been in Paris I have made a discovery that has bewildered me. I confide in you because you are the only person who knows the secret of my wife’s flight.”

“Quite right,” he said, regarding me with those piercing eyes shaded by their grey shaggy, brows. “If I can assist you or give you advice I am always pleased, for the romance of your marriage is the strangest I have ever known.”

“Yes,” I acquiesced, “and the truth I have accidentally learnt still stranger. I have discovered that my wife was never Ella Laing, as I had believed, but that she really is the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Nicolayevna of Russia.”

“The Grand Duchess!” he cried, amazed, his eyes aflame in an instant. “Are you certain of this; have you absolute proof?”

“Absolute. I have seen her, and she has admitted it, and told me that she masqueraded in England as Ella Laing because she desired to avoid Court etiquette for a time,” I said.

“Grodekoff lied,” he growled in an ebullition of anger. “I recognised her at the Embassy ball when you pointed her out, yet the Ambassador assured me that Her Highness was at that moment in Russia. We have both been tricked, Deedes. But he who laughs last laughs longest.”

He had folded his arms and was standing resolutely before me, gazing upon the dead green carpet deep in thought.

“The mystery becomes daily more puzzling,” he said at length, seating himself. “Tell me all that transpired between you.”

I sank into a chair opposite the renowned chief of the Foreign Office and repeated the conversation that had taken place at our interview, while he listened attentively without hazarding a single remark.

“Then again she would tell you nothing,” exclaimed the Earl, when I had concluded. “She refused absolutely to divulge her secret.”

“Yes,” I said. “I promised to forgive if she would only tell me the truth. She refused; so we have parted.”

“And what do you intend doing?”

“I intend to seek the truth for myself,” I answered with fierce resolve.

“How?”

“I have not yet decided,” I said. “The reason she took such infinite pains to conceal her identity is incomprehensible, but her firm resolution to preserve her secret at all hazards appears as though she is in deadly fear of exposure by some person or other who can only be conciliated by absolute silence.”

“Then we must discover who that person is.”

I nodded, answering: – “I intend to do so.”

Presently, after he had crossed and recrossed the room several times with hands behind his back, murmuring to himself in apparent discontent, but in tones that were undistinguishable, I turned to him saying, —

“As I entered, a visitor left you. Who is he?”

“Cecil Bingham. He is staying with me for a few days.”

“A friend?”

“Well – yes,” answered his Lordship, halting, and regarding me with no little surprise. “What do you know of him?”

At first I hesitated, but on reflection resolved to explain the circumstances in which we had met, and slowly related to him how I had encountered him with my wife in Kensington Gardens on that well-remembered wintry afternoon.

The Earl grew grave, and after observing that Bingham had arrived on the previous day to spend a week, he for some moments stood looking aimlessly out of the window upon the broad park and the great sheet of water glistening in the sunlight beyond. Then, muttering something I could not catch, he walked quickly back to the fireplace, and touched the electric bell.

“Ask Mr Bingham to see me for a moment,” he exclaimed, when the man answered the summons, and in a few minutes the Earl’s guest came in with that affected jaunty air that had caused me to class him as a cad.

When he had entered, the Earl himself walked to the door and softly closed it, then, turning, said in a hard, dry voice, —

“This, Cecil, is my secretary, Deedes, the husband of the woman known as Ella Laing, with whom you have, I understand, been in correspondence, and have met clandestinely on many occasions.”

“What do you mean?” he cried, resentfully, glancing from the Earl to myself. “I know no one of that name. You are mistaken.”

“There is no mistake,” answered the great statesman, coldly, at the same time taking from an old oak bureau a large linen-lined envelope of the kind used in our Department. From a drawer he took one of his visitor’s letters, while from the envelope he drew forth a second letter. At a glance I saw that the latter was one of those mysterious missives signed “X” that had been received by my wife. Opening both, he placed them together and handed them to me without comment.

They were in the same handwriting.

“Do you deny having written that letter?” asked the Minister, sternly, at the same time showing him the note. He made a motion to take it, but suddenly drew away his hand. His lips contracted, his face grew pale, and with a gesture of feigned contempt he waved the Earl’s hand aside.

“Do you deny it?” repeated my chief.

He was still silent – his face a sufficient index to the agitation within him.

“You have endeavoured to deceive me,” continued the Earl, harshly. “You have some fixed purpose in accepting my invitation, and coming here to visit me, but you were unaware that already I had knowledge of facts you have endeavoured so cunningly to conceal. It is useless to deny that you are acquainted with Deedes’s wife, for he recognises you as having walked with her in Kensington Gardens, while I have ascertained at last who she really is – that her name was never Ella Laing.”

He started at this announcement. His lips moved, but no word escaped him.

That the Earl should have learned the true name and station of my wife apparently disconcerted him. His complexion was of ashen hue; all his arrogance had left him, for he saw himself cornered. I stood glaring at him fiercely, for was not I face to face with the man whom my wife had met times without number, concealing from me all motive or duration of her absences? Some secret had existed between them – he was the man whom she apparently feared, and whose will she had obeyed. I felt that now, at last, I should ascertain the truth, and obtain a key to the strange perplexing enigma that had held me in doubt and suspicion through so many weary months.

His shifty gaze met mine; I detected a fierce glint in his eyes.

“Well?” exclaimed his Lordship, as determined as myself upon seeking a solution of the problem. “Now that you admit these mysterious meetings with Her Highness, perhaps you will explain their object.”

“I admit nothing,” he answered in anger, knitting his brows. “Neither have I anything to explain.”

“See!” the Earl said, drawing Ella’s photograph from the envelope. “Perhaps you will recognise this picture?” and his bony hand trembled with suppressed excitement as he placed it before him.

At sight of it my wife’s strange friend drew a long breath. He was white to the lips. Never before had I witnessed such a complete change in any man in so short a period, and especially curious, it seemed, when I reflected that he had been charged with no very serious crime.

“You may allege whatever it may please you,” he said at last, with affected sarcasm. “But a woman’s honour is safe in my hands.”

“My wife’s honour!” I cried, with fierce indignation, walking towards him threateningly. I could no longer stand by in silence when I recollected what Ella had said about being compelled to act according to the will of another. She had, no doubt, been under the thrall of this overdressed dandy. “Now that we have met,” I exclaimed, “you shall explain to me, her husband.”

With a quick movement he strode forward as if to escape us, but in an instant I had gripped him by the shoulder with fierce determination, whole the Earl himself, apprehending his intention, placed his back against the door.

“Speak!” I cried wildly, shaking him in my anger. “You shall tell us the true nature of the secret between you and my wife, and prove your statement to our satisfaction, or, by heaven, I’ll thrash you as a cunning, cowardly cur!”

Chapter Thirty One
Due East

“Bah!” retorted the Earl’s visitor, contemptuously, shaking himself free with a sudden twist, and standing before me in defiance. “I understand,” he cried, glancing towards the elder man before the door. “You believe, gentlemen, that from me you can ascertain a key to certain curious occurrences that have puzzled you. But I may as well undeceive you at once. I can tell you absolutely nothing.”

“But you shall tell us!” I cried, angrily. “I found you walking with my wife in Kensington Gardens, and followed you. It was apparent from her demeanour that she feared you.”

He smiled sarcastically, and answered with a flippant air:

“Perhaps she did. If so, she certainly had cause.”

“Why? What power do you hold over her, pray?” I demanded.

In his eyes was a mysterious glance. He was scarcely the brainless young dandy that I had imagined.

“It is hardly likely that I shall divulge to you a secret. Remember that your wife comes of one of the highest families in Europe, and the slightest breath of scandal must reflect upon them.”

“At what scandal do you hint?” I asked, in fierce, breathless eagerness.

“At what is best kept quiet,” he answered, gravely.

His enigmatical words maddened me. I felt that I could spring upon him and strangle him, for I knew instinctively that he was my wife’s enemy – the man of whom she lived in deadly fear. If only I could silence him, she might then relate to me those long-promised facts.

“Then if you decline to prove that there is a concealed scandal, utter no more of your lying allegations,” I blurted forth.

He bowed deeply with mock politeness, and smiled grimly.

“Come,” exclaimed the Earl at last, in a conciliatory tone, advancing towards him and laying his hand upon his shoulder. “Let us get at once to the point. It is useless to quarrel. You decline to reveal to us the nature of your curious friendship with the Grand Duchess – eh?”

“I do,” he answered, firmly.

“Well,” said the tactful old Minister. “First carefully review the situation, and you will, I think, admit that I have been your friend. And how have you shown your gratitude?”

“By concealing from you a truth both hideous and terrible,” he replied, with apparent unconcern.

“But you can, if you will, give us some clue to this remarkable chain of circumstances. I appeal to you on behalf of Deedes, her husband,” the old man said.

“I am well aware of the reason you yourself desire to know the absolute truth, Lord Warnham,” he answered, after a brief pause, “but, unfortunately, I am unable to tell you, because of certain promises having been extracted from me.”

“At least you can tell us from whom I may ascertain the true facts,” I cried.

He looked at me for an instant gravely, then answered in all seriousness:

“The only person who knows the truth is Sonia Korolénko, the refugee.”

“Sonia!” gasped the Earl. “That woman is not in England, surely?”

“I think not,” Bingham replied. “But if you would ascertain the key to the enigma, seek her, and she may explain everything. That is as far as I can assist you. Remember, I myself have revealed nothing.”

“She has returned to Russia,” I observed. “Have you any knowledge where she is?”

“No, there are reasons why her whereabouts should remain unknown,” he answered, hesitatingly. “She is in fear of the police.”

“Do her friends know of her hiding-place?”

“No. A short time ago I desired to communicate with her, but was unable. The last I heard of her was that she was living at Skerstymone, a little town somewhere in Poland.”

“If she can successfully elude the vigilance of the Russian police, I can have but little hope of finding her,” I said, doubtfully.

“Make the attempt, Deedes,” the Earl suggested. “I will give you leave of absence.”

“I intend to do so,” I replied; and remembering my wife, lonely amid all her splendour, I added, “The elucidation of the mystery is, as it has long since been, the main object of my life.”

In consultation we sat a long time. This caddish young man of whom I had been so madly jealous had now grown quite calm and communicative, apparently ready to render me all assistance; yet to my questions regarding my wife he was as dumb as others had been. Now, more than ever, the Earl seemed anxious to solve the strange problem. With that object he obtained from the library a section of the large ordnance map of the Russian Empire, and with it spread before us we discovered that Skerstymone was a little place remotely situated on the bank of the Niemen river, within a short distance of the German frontier. I had long ago learned from Paul Verblioudovitch that my friend, the well-known adventuress, had crossed the frontier at Wirballen, or Verjbolovo, as it is called in Russian; but after that I knew nothing of her movements. Bingham seemed anxious to lead me indirectly towards the truth, and after assuring me with a firm hand-grasp that the secret that existed between himself and my wife was of a purely platonic nature, and that he had throughout acted on her behalf, I ate a hasty luncheon and again left the Hall on the first stage of my long, tedious journey across Europe. As I entered the carriage the old Earl and his guest stood out upon the gravelled drive and heartily wished me “Bon voyage,” and, waving them farewell, I was whirled away through the great park that lay silent and breathless beneath the scorching sun.

At the bookstall at Horsham station I bought an early edition of the Globe, and on opening it in the train my eyes fell upon the following announcement in its “Court and Personal” column, —

“A marriage is arranged, and will shortly take place between Mr Andrew Beck, the Member for West Rutlandshire, who is well-known in connection with African mines, and Miss Gertrude Millard, only daughter of Sir Maynard Millard, Bart, of Spennythorpe Park, Montgomeryshire.”

This was not exactly unexpected, for I had already heard vague rumours that news of Beck’s engagement would shortly be made public, therefore I tore out the paragraph and placed it in my pocket-book, with the reflection that my friend’s marriage might be more happy than mine.

That evening about six o’clock I called at Chesham House, the Russian Embassy, and obtained the signature of the Ambassador, Monsieur Grodekoff, to my passport. I did not, however, see Verblioudovitch, he being absent at Brighton, therefore I left the same evening for Flushing, and after a long and wearisome ride across Germany duly arrived at Verjbolovo, one of the principal gates of the great Russian Empire. The formalities troubled me but little, for I had passed the frontier on several occasions when stationed in St Petersburg. After getting my passport stamped I strolled up and down the platform gazing about over the flat, uninteresting country, contemplatively smoking a cigarette, and watching the crowd of tired, worried travellers experiencing the ways of Russian officialdom for the first time. Among them was an elderly Russian lady who, travelling with her three daughters, good-looking girls, ranging from eighteen to twenty-three, had omitted to have her passport viséd by a Russian Consul outside the Empire. So stringent were the regulations that, although they were subjects of the Tzar returning to their own country, the officer would not allow them to proceed, and all four were detained while the passport was sent back to the nearest Russian consul in Germany to be “treated.”

At first it had occurred to me to travel on to St Petersburg, and there endeavour to learn from a police official of my acquaintance whether Sonia Korolénko had been heard of lately, but on reflection I saw that every precaution would no doubt be taken by her in order that the police should not be made aware of her presence in Russian territory. A strange vagary of Fate it seemed that through my own action in obtaining for her a false passport she had been enabled to escape, and that my own endeavours had actually thwarted my own ends. As I paced the railway platform, with the brilliant afterglow shedding a welcome light across that dead level country so zealously-guarded by the green-coated sentries in their black and white striped boxes, and Cossack pickets, each with his “nagaika” stuck in his boot, I remembered with failing heart how this woman, whose fame was notorious throughout Europe, had told me that once past this portal of the Tzar’s huge domain all traces of her would be obliterated completely. This fact in itself convinced me that she had never intended to travel direct to St Petersburg, and it became impressed upon me that in order to trace her it would be necessary to first visit the little out-of-the-world town of Skerstymone, that was situated a long way to the north along the frontier. With that object I allowed the St Petersburg express to proceed, and after an hour’s wait entered a local train, alighting at a small town euphoniously termed Pilwiszki, where I spent the night in an exceedingly uncomfortable inn.

Next day I learnt with satisfaction that this town was situated on the main post-road between Maryampol and Rossieny, and that about thirty miles due north along this road was Skerstymone. The innkeeper, at an exorbitant figure, provided me with a rickety old cart and a pair of shaggy horses, driven by an uncouth-looking lad, wearing an old peaked cap so large that his brow and eyes were hidden. An hour before noon I set out upon my expedition. Our way lay across the boundless Nawa steppe, a plain which stretched away as far as the eye could reach without a single tree to break its monotony, until at a wretched little village called Katyle we forded a shallow stream, the Penta, and presently passed through the town of Szaki. Soon afterwards the road became full of deep ruts that jolted us terribly, and for many miles we travelled through a pine forest until at last we found ourselves at the ferry before Skerstymone.

In the mystic light of evening the place, standing on the opposite bank of the Niemen, presented a novel and rather picturesque aspect, with its wooden houses, their green and brown roofs of painted sheet-iron, but when landing from the ferry I was soon undeceived. It was one of those towns best seen from a distance. The dirt and squalor were horrible. For a fortnight I remained at the wretched little inn making inquiries in all quarters, but could hear nothing of the pretty dark-eyed girl who had earned such unenviable notoriety, and who in Vienna spent such an enormous sum in a single year that her extravagance had become proverbial, even in that most reckless of cities. That she had been here was certain from what Bingham had told us, and somehow I had an instinctive feeling that here the dainty-handed refugee had assumed a fresh identity, it being dangerous for her to proceed further into Russia, so well-known was she. Therefore, with fixed determination, I still prosecuted my inquiries everywhere, until I found the police regarding me with considerable mistrust, for the officers of public order are everywhere ubiquitous in the giant empire of the Tzar.

The hot July sun shone on the dusty streets; through the open windows of the white-washed barrack-like Government office the scratching of pens could be heard; the “factors,” agents who offer their services to strangers, lolled in the shade, keeping a watchful eye upon any stranger who might happen to pass by, and looking out eagerly for a “geschäft,” or stroke of business. The townspeople eyed me distrustfully as I wandered aimlessly about the streets, where tumble-down hovels alternated with endless expanses of grey moss-grown wood fences and plots of waste ground heaped with rubbish and offal. The place was full of horrible smells, filth, rags, and dirty children, who enjoyed themselves by rolling in the soft white dust. At either end of the noisy, evil-smelling place, a post-road led out along the bank of the sluggish yellow stream, and at the entrance to the town on the German side was a “schlagbaum,” a pole painted with the national colours that served as toll-bar, in charge of a sleepy invalided soldier in a dingy old uniform with a tarnished eagle on his cap, who looked the very incarnation of undisturbed slumber.

Life in Kovno was by no means diverting. Truly Skerstymone was a wretched, half-starved, miserable little place of terribly depressing aspect, notwithstanding the brilliant sunshine and blue sky.

The long, gloomy days dragged by, but no tidings could I glean of Sonia Korolénko. It was evident that if she had ever been there she had passed under some other name, and that her identity had been lost before arrival there.

One warm morning, while seated outside a “kabák” moodily watching the old women in the market selling their twisted rolls of bread called “kalách,” an ill-dressed man approached me, and, touching his shabby cap respectfully, pronounced my name with strong Russian accent, at the same time slowly sinking upon the wooden bench beside me. He was tall and square-built, with coarse but expressive features. His long grey hair was matted and unkempt; his low brow, protruding jaws, and the constant twitching of his facial muscles reminded me of a monkey, but the stern eyes shining from beneath a pair of bushy, overhanging brows, spoke of indomitable energy, cleverness, and cunning. They never changed; and while the rest of his face was a perfect kaleidoscope whenever he spoke, the expression of his eyes remained ever the same.

His confidence surprised me, and I immediately asked him how he had ascertained my patronymic, to which he replied, not without hesitation, —

“I am fully aware of your high nobility’s object in visiting Skerstymone. You are seeking Sonia Korolénko.”

“Yes,” I replied, in the best Russian I could remember. “Do you know her whereabouts? If you take me to her you shall have a handsome reward.”

He smiled mysteriously, and glanced so wistfully at my vodka that I at once ordered for him a second glass of the spirit so beloved of the Muscovite palate.

“Is your high nobility well acquainted with Sonia!”

I replied in the affirmative, offering him a cigarette from my case. At last I had found one who had met the dark-eyed girl of whom I was in search.

“You know her,” I said. “Where is she?”

“In hiding.”

“Far from here?”

“Well, not very,” he answered. “I could take you to her this very night – if you made it worth my while.”

“Why not in daylight?” I inquired.

“Because the frontier-guards are here in swarms.”

Then, in reply to my questions, he admitted that he was one of those who obtained his living by smuggling contraband goods and persons without passports across the frontier into and out of Germany. Along the whole of the Russo-German frontier there are bands of peasantry who live by smuggling emigrants, Jews, malefactors, and others who have no permit to leave the country, across into Germany by certain by-paths that remain unguarded, notwithstanding the constant vigilance of the military.

“And what is Sonia doing at present?” I inquired, after he had frankly related to me his position in a low tone so that we might not be overheard by any eavesdropper or police spy.

“She has always been a leader,” he answered, laughing gaily. “She is so still.”

“A leader of smugglers!” I exclaimed, surprised that the pretty girl who had been admired in every capital in Europe should adopt such a hazardous, reckless life.

“Well, yes, if you choose to call it so,” he said, rather resentfully, I thought. “We merely assist our countrymen to escape the police, and they pay toll for our aid,” he added. “She heard you were inquiring for her, here in Skerstymone, and has sent me as messenger to take you to her. She fears to come herself.”

I looked steadily at the man, and saw for the first time that, although a moujik, he was nevertheless a sturdy adventurer, whose brow was deeply furrowed by hardship.

“And you wish me to pay toll like the others?” I exclaimed with a smile.

“If we act as guide we are surely entitled to something. There are many risks,” he answered, puffing at his cigarette, afterwards examining it with the air of a connoisseur.

“How much?”

“The high nobility is rich,” he replied. “He was once at the English Embassy in St Petersburg. Let us say two hundred roubles.”

“Two hundred, to be paid only in Sonia’s presence,” I acquiesced eagerly. Truth to tell, I would have paid five hundred, or even a thousand for safe conduct to her.

“It’s a bargain,” he answered, draining his glass. “Meet me to-night at ten o’clock at this place. I hope you are a good walker, for we must travel by the secret paths. The post-road would mean arrest for me; it might also go rather hard with you to be found in my company.”

“I can walk well,” I answered. “To-night at ten.”

Then I ordered more vodka, and after drinking success to our midnight journey, he rose and left me, bending a good deal as he shuffled along the street in his old frieze overcoat many sizes too large for him.

In any other circumstances I should have looked upon this devil-may-care, shock-headed adventurer with gravest suspicion, for his face was of distinctly criminal physiognomy, and his speech was that of one utterly unscrupulous. Yet when I remembered the allegations that Sonia, the woman who lured the young Prince Alexis Gazarin to his death, was an associate of the most desperate thieves in Europe, the fact that she had sent him as messenger seemed by no means remarkable. From what he had told me it was apparent that this girl, whose beauty had brought her renown and held her victims fascinated, had returned to her own country and become leader of a desperate band of nomads who drove a thriving trade by guiding fugitives from justice out of the Tzar’s dominions, and importing from Germany dutiable articles of every description.