"Even against the Nihilists!"
"Aye, madame, against all the world. I have eaten all your caviare. I am your guest. I am your friend."
As he said this he was so excited, so sincere and so droll that Madame Trebassof could not help smiling through her tears. She made him sit down beside her.
"The Chief of Police has talked of you a great deal. He came here abruptly after the last attack and a mysterious happening that I will tell you about. He cried, 'Ah, we need Rouletabille to unravel this!' The next day he came here again. He had gone to the Court. There, everybody, it appears, was talking of you. The Emperor wished to know you. That is why steps were taken through the ambassador at Paris."
"Yes, yes. And naturally all the world has learned of it. That makes it so lively. The Nihilists warned me immediately that I would not reach Russia alive. That, finally, was what decided me on coming. I am naturally very contrary."
"And how did you get through the journey?"
"Not badly. I discovered at once in the train a young Slav assigned to kill me, and I reached an understanding with him. He was a charming youth, so it was easily arranged."
Rouletabille was eating away now at strange viands that it would have been difficult for him to name. Matrena Petrovna laid her fat little hand on his arm:
"You speak seriously?"
"Very seriously."
"A small glass of vodka?"
"No alcohol."
Madame Matrena emptied her little glass at a draught.
"And how did you discover him? How did you know him?"
"First, he wore glasses. All Nihilists wear glasses when traveling. And then I had a good clew. A minute before the departure from Paris I had a friend go into the corridor of the sleeping-car, a reporter who would do anything I said without even wanting to know why. I said, 'You call out suddenly and very loud, "Hello, here is Rouletabille."' So he called, 'Hello, here is Rouletabille,' and all those who were in the corridor turned and all those who were already in the compartments came out, excepting the man with the glasses. Then I was sure about him."
Madame Trebassof looked at Rouletabile, who turned as red as the comb of a rooster and was rather embarrassed at his fatuity.
"That deserves a rebuff, I know, madame, but from the moment the Emperor of all the Russias had desired to see me I could not admit that any mere man with glasses had not the curiosity to see what I looked like. It was not natural. As soon as the train was off I sat down by this man and told him who I thought he was. I was right. He removed his glasses and, looking me straight in the eyes, said he was glad to have a little talk with me before anything unfortunate happened. A half-hour later the entente-cordiale was signed. I gave him to understand that I was coming here simply on business as a reporter and that there was always time to check me if I should be indiscreet. At the German frontier he left me to go on, and returned tranquilly to his nitro-glycerine."
"You are a marked man also, my poor boy."
"Oh, they have not got us yet."
Matrena Petrovna coughed. That us overwhelmed her. With what calmness this boy that she had not known an hour proposed to share the dangers of a situation that excited general pity but from which the bravest kept aloof either from prudence or dismay.
"Ah, my friend, a little of this fine smoked Hamburg beef?"
But the young man was already pouring out fresh yellow beer.
"There," said he. "Now, madame, I am listening. Tell me first about the earliest attack."
"Now," said Matrena, "we must go to dinner."
Rouletabille looked at her wide-eyed.
"But, madame, what have I just been doing?"
Madame Matrena smiled. All these strangers were alike. Because they had eaten some hors-d'oeuvres, some zakouskis, they imagined their host would be satisfied. They did not know how to eat.
"We will go to the dining-room. The general is expecting you. They are at table."
"I understand I am supposed to know him."
"Yes, you have met in Paris. It is entirely natural that in passing through St. Petersburg you should make him a visit. You know him very well indeed, so well that he opens his home to you. Ah, yes, my step-daughter also"—she flushed a little—"Natacha believes that her father knows you."
She opened the door of the drawing-room, which they had to cross in order to reach the dining-room.
From his present position Rouletabille could see all the corners of the drawing-room, the veranda, the garden and the entrance lodge at the gate. In the veranda the man in the maroon frock-coat trimmed with false astrakhan seemed still to be asleep on the sofa; in one of the corners of the drawing-room another individual, silent and motionless as a statue, dressed exactly the same, in a maroon frock-coat with false astrakhan, stood with his hands behind his back seemingly struck with general paralysis at the sight of a flaring sunset which illumined as with a torch the golden spires of Saints Peter and Paul. And in the garden and before the lodge three others dressed in maroon roved like souls in pain over the lawn or back and forth at the entrance. Rouletabille motioned to Madame Matrena, stepped back into the sitting-room and closed the door.
"Police?" he asked.
Matrena Petrovna nodded her head and put her finger to her mouth in a naive way, as one would caution a child to silence. Rouletabille smiled.
"How many are there?"
"Ten, relieved every six hours."
"That makes forty unknown men around your house each day."
"Not unknown," she replied. "Police."
"Yet, in spite of them, you have had the affair of the bouquet in the general's chamber."
"No, there were only three then. It is since the affair of the bouquet that there have been ten."
"It hardly matters. It is since these ten that you have had..."
"What?" she demanded anxiously.
"You know well—the flooring."
"Sh-h-h."
She glanced at the door, watching the policeman statuesque before the setting sun.
"No one knows that—not even my husband."
"So M. Koupriane told me. Then it is you who have arranged for these ten police-agents?"
"Certainly."
"Well, we will commence now by sending all these police away."
Matrena Petrovna grasped his hand, astounded.
"Surely you don't think of doing such a thing as that!"
"Yes. We must know where the blow is coming from. You have four different groups of people around here—the police, the domestics, your friends, your family. Get rid of the police first. They must not be permitted to cross your threshold. They have not been able to protect you. You have nothing to regret. And if, after they are gone, something new turns up, we can leave M. Koupriane to conduct the inquiries without his being preoccupied here at the house."
"But you do not know the admirable police of Koupriane. These brave men have given proof of their devotion."
"Madame, if I were face to face with a Nihilist the first thing I would ask myself about him would be, 'Is he one of the police?' The first thing I ask in the presence of an agent of your police is, 'Is he not a Nihilist?'"
"But they will not wish to go."
"Do any of them speak French?"
"Yes, their sergeant, who is out there in the salon."
"Pray call