"It was Anna Demidoff."
Mirkovitch jumped up; the gentleness, the sympathy he had assumed for a brief space was gone in a moment, and once more there stood the judge, ready to punish and to condemn.
"Iván Stefanovitch Volenski," he said, "you were then content to allow that spy, that agent of our bitterest foes, to have even for an hour our dearest secrets under her roof, close to her very hand, without sweeping her out of our path, or, if you were too faint-hearted, asking those who are strong to clear the way of such a powerful foe?"
Iván did not reply. What could he say? The reproach was true enough, but he had meant well; it was fate that had been too strong. He watched Mirkovitch now as the grim Nihilist paced up and down the narrow room, with thoughts of vengeance written on his stern, rugged face.
"If only the Tsarevitch were under my hands still," he muttered, "all might yet have been saved."
"Then…?" asked Iván eagerly, "Dunajewski –– ?"
"Is in England safely to-day, and the Tsarevitch back in Petersburg."
"I do not understand," said Iván, bewildered. "How, then, were the negotiations conducted?"
"In the simplest way imaginable," said Mirkovitch, "by a woman, my daughter."
"Maria Stefanowna?"
"She, it appears, had some womanish scruples, shared, by the way, by many of our comrades, as to the advisability of doing away with our prisoner as I had proposed all along, and accomplishing by terror what we could not do by diplomacy. When you were not heard of, and it became clear that some untoward fate had reached you, we all voted Nicholas' death sentence.
"She, on her own initiative, thought out the daring plan of making that old fool Lavrovski be the bearer of our manifesto to the Tsar, in exactly the same terms as on the letter you were yourself taking to Taranïew. Without consulting the committee she sought him out, for we had previously ascertained that through sheer terror he had persistently put off communicating with the government at Petersburg. With the dagger, so to speak, at his master's heart, Lavrovski had no chance but to accept, and he became the bearer of our ultimatum. What passed at Petersburg between himself and the authorities we, of course, do not know, but three days ago the official papers announced the liberation of the convicted Nihilist Dunajewski, and his comrades, and their safe conduct across the frontier. Some of our committee met them there with money and clothes, and Maria went with them, as we all thought it would be safer for us all if she stayed in England for a while.
"The evening of the same day the Tsarevitch was led blindfold out of my house in the Heumarkt, and thus was terminated the finest plot ever invented by our great brotherhood."
"Thank God for that," said Iván fervently.
"Curse you for compromising us all and our cause, just after our glorious victory," retorted Mirkovitch savagely, "and curse our folly for trusting you so much."
The young Pole sprang up at the taunt.
"Your trust is not misplaced, Mirkovitch," he said quietly, "and our cause and our comrades are not compromised. Give me the necessary funds, and the right to dispose of them, and I swear to you that three days hence I will hand over our papers safely in your keeping, to act with as you please after that, both with them... and with me."
"You know, then, where the candlesticks are at this moment?" said Mirkovitch, somewhat pacified.
"They are to be sold by auction on Thursday next, and we can buy them easily enough."
"Yes! unless fate or Madame Demidoff interposes."
"Madame Demidoff cannot know where the candlesticks are. Grünebaum was arrested half an hour after I saw him. He is not likely to have betrayed his accomplice in London, and she was bound to lose trace of them."
"You must act as you think best, Iván," said Mirkovitch at last; "as you know, we have ample funds, those of the fraternity; and Lobkowitz has placed them all at your disposal. We must trust you yet so far –– "
And he added after a slight pause:
"After that your life is in our hands."
That Iván knew full well. He knew that if harm came to the brotherhood after this, he would not be allowed to suffer or die with them. He knew that they would brand him as a traitor, disown him, revile him, and that he would die alone in the dark, stricken by the dagger of an avenger, and not be thought worthy the common death of the martyrs.
Mirkovitch handed him over the drafts and money Lobkowitz had given him. It represented a large sum, and Iván took it, feeling easy in his mind. The old Russian left him soon after, and Volenski was left alone and in peace to form what plans were needful. The interview with Mirkovitch had been very stormy, and it needed a strong effort of will to collect his faculties in the last great endeavour to save his comrades and himself from the dire catastrophe.
Obviously the first thing to do was to obtain a card to view the contents of 108, Curzon Street, and ascertain whether the Emperor's candlesticks were included among the objects put up for sale. Having assured himself of that all-important fact, his last move was to go to the auction room on Thursday, and, with the help of the funds placed at his disposal, bid for the candlesticks till they became his property.
The first part of his programme he found very easy of execution; the next morning he obtained a card from Messrs. Gideon, Eyre, and Blackwell, and ascertained that the, to him, ill-fated candlesticks were to be among the objects put up for sale on the following day. So far, so good.
There were a great many people examining the furniture and artistic bibelots, of which there were many thousands, but those people were chiefly Jews–dealers probably–and Volenski knew that the sum of money the secret society had placed at his disposal was infinitely beyond what the richest dealer could afford for a single bibelot. His mind, therefore, was perfectly at ease as to the result of next day's sale. When he left the house he stopped on the doorstep one moment to light a cigar; at that moment a carriage stopped too. A lady got out with an admission card in her hand, and, without noticing him, brushed past him and walked into the house. It was Madame Demidoff!
As a matter of fact, it had never for one moment entered Volenski's mind that either Madame Demidoff or the Cardinal could, by any possibility, hear of the whereabouts of the missing candlesticks, and the lady's presence there fell upon him like a thunder-bolt. And yet, what more natural than that she should be here? Two weeks had elapsed since the robbery; Grünebaum had in the meanwhile, as Volenski well knew, been denounced by his accomplice. His premises and books must have been searched, the name of his London accomplice discovered, and Madame Demidoff had no doubt acted in precisely the same manner as he, Volenski, had done himself; and, either through threats or bribery, traced the stolen candlesticks from Davies' shop to the house of Mr. James Hudson.
That her presence there meant the gravest danger to him, Volenski was at once aware. It was absolutely evident now that she had a secret personal interest in the recovery of the candlesticks, or she would never have come to London herself, but sent a clever agent to secure her stolen property.
If she intended to bid for them the next day Volenski felt it would mean the ruin of his hopes. He could now command a very large sum of money in an emergency like the present one, but if report spoke truly, and Madame Demidoff was a paid agent of the Russian government, then her credit would be practically unlimited, and the duel between him and her one for life and death.
Oh! for the power to look twenty-four hours ahead to know the worst at once! One moment he thought of inquiring at every hotel in London for Madame Demidoff, and hearing his fate from her own lips, but, apart from the hopelessness of such a task in a city of such magnitude as London, he felt that the lady might look upon this move as a sign of weakness, and, after all, so full of hope is the human heart, there was just a faint possibility yet that Madame Demidoff had not discovered the secret papers. In that case, the moment she recognised Volenski among the bidders, she would retire from the contest in the belief that