It was from Ivan, no longer an outlaw, and ran as follows:

"Come to my lodging with your guards at twelve-thirty to-night. The meeting is an hour later. I will give you full instructions. Your Friend."

CHAPTER XX

Peter the valet was a man of criminal instincts, cunning, avaricious, and unscrupulous. Perhaps his sole remaining qualities were his devotion to his master, Zouroff, and his ardent love for the Princess's maid, Katerina.

His interview with the formidable and awe-inspiring Beilski had shaken him considerably. His faith in Zouroff was great, but in that brief conversation he had begun to realise the sinister power of the police, at which body, the Prince, in his arrogance, was wont to snap his fingers.

He returned home full of thought and much perturbed. He had already determined in his own mind the cause of the failure to remove Corsini.

In an unguarded moment, he had revealed to Katerina certain facts about a travelling carriage whose first stoppage was to be at Pavlovsk. Katerina had blabbed all this to somebody.

But, until his interview with Beilski, he had been content to let matters stand where they were. It did not greatly concern him that Corsini had been rescued and was back again in St. Petersburg. His master would never suspect him: he would rather suspect one of the four other men of having given it away, for the sake of the reward that he would claim. So reasoned Peter in his narrow, but cunning brain. Therefore, for many reasons, he did not tax Katerina at once with the betrayal of his misplaced confidence.

Beilski's threat set his thoughts working vigorously in the direction of self-preservation. He was devoted to the Prince, but he was still more devoted to himself. If he could have saved Zouroff, he would, but that seemed impossible, the Police knew too much. But he could save himself by telling what he knew. It was necessary therefore to earn that free pardon. It was only a matter of hours before he would go to the General and make a full confession.

It hurt him very much that he should crown so many years of fidelity with such a black act, but it seemed a question of _sauve qui peut_.

Loyal as he had been to his master, he knew enough of his character to be sure that the Prince, in a similar emergency, would have thrown him, and a dozen like him, to the wolves in order to purchase a moment's respite. Why should he pursue a different policy?

Beilski had promised a free pardon, and also not to implicate him in the transaction. Still Zouroff was a man of extraordinary shrewdness, and when he began to work it out in his mind, might quickly focus his suspicions in the right direction.

How to avert Zouroff's suspicions from himself! That was the question.

His narrow, but cunning brain bent itself upon this for some time. At the end of his cogitations, he sought Katerina, and bluntly taxed her with the betrayal of his confidence.

At first, Katerina, with the natural adroitness of her cla.s.s and s.e.x, protested indignant denial; she vowed that she had forgotten the incident altogether.

"You are lying," said her lover sternly. "If you do not confess this instant, I will take you to the Prince himself, and he will wring the truth out of you."

Katerina's face went white. She had been very frightened at Beilski, but her terror of Zouroff was greater even than her fear of the Head of the Police. If she saw him in one of the corridors, she would scuttle away like an alarmed rabbit. If he came into her young mistress's room, she was agitated till he was gone.

In a few moments, what with her fear of Zouroff and her genuine love for Peter, the artful valet had her reduced to a state of tears. It was not long before he forced out of her everything he wanted to know.

How she had conveyed the information to the Princess, how she had taken her mistress's note to Beilski, how, later on, she had been summoned to the presence of that formidable person and confessed much as she was doing now.

Peter uttered no word of reproach; the time of reproaches was past; but he saw clearly that the game was up, so far as the abduction of Corsini was concerned. The sooner he made a clean breast of it to Beilski, the better. At the same time, he wanted to throw suspicion upon somebody else.

He loved Katerina genuinely, too well to harm a hair of her head, even to save himself. In this respect he was several degrees better than his master, who would have sacrificed the whole world for such a laudable purpose.

And to the charming young Princess, with her gracious ways, her sweet friendliness to all, he was also strongly attached. He would not harm a hair of her head, if he could help it. But still, his first instinct was for self.

Besides, if he gave them away, he would be giving himself away, also.

What these two women knew, mistress and maid, they must have learned from some member of the Zouroff household.

Was there any member of that household, except himself, who had foreknowledge of the Prince's plans? He was inclined to doubt it.

Confidants he must have, when engaged in so many dark schemes, but Zouroff chose as few as possible. Yet, and yet--if only he could throw suspicion in a likely quarter, on somebody else!

Katerina, embarked on the full tide of confession and genuinely alarmed for her lover's safety, babbled on artlessly. Peter had drawn a gloomy picture of the vengeance he might expect at the hands of his master for that innocent gossip of a few moments, when discovery came home to him, as it was sure to do. In her revelations she let fall the fact that the celebrated Madame Quero had paid a visit to the Princess, during her brother's temporary absence.

Peter p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at the information. He knew full well the relations between the Prince and the handsome singer. Here was a fact that might be turned to his advantage. Madame Quero, he felt a.s.sured, partic.i.p.ated in all her lover's secrets.

"Have you any proof of that?" he asked eagerly.

Katerina opened wide her tear-dimmed eyes. "Proof? Do you doubt my word? Why, she gave me her card, and the Princess handed it me back and told me to return it to her, with her excuses for not receiving her. I did not like to be so rude, and I put it in my pocket."

"Have you still got that card, Katerina?" questioned the valet anxiously.

"Of course I have. I kept it as a souvenir. I regard her as a very distinguished person, and I hear she came from our own cla.s.s. The Princess, of course, looks upon her as the dirt under her feet, but in her position there is no blame, perhaps, for her doing that." Thus poor Katerina, divided between loyalty to her young mistress and admiration for the beautiful woman who had overcome such formidable obstacles.

The artful valet put his arm round her waist and imprinted a fond kiss on her pretty cheek.

"Katerina, my little sweetheart, I think you will admit you owe me some amends for your foolish indiscretion. Give me that card, and we will cry quits. But not a word to the Princess. But I forgot. You cannot tell her; you ought to have returned it to Madame Quero."

Katerina was glad to be reconciled to her lover on such cheap terms.

Five minutes later, the card of La Belle Quero was in Peter's hands.

And then Peter thought long and cunningly. He had made up his mind to betray his master--it was a matter of necessity--but he was very particular that his master should not know by whom he was betrayed.

There was Fritz, the German, one of the four men implicated in the abduction of Corsini. Fritz was always a shifty person, ready to sell himself to the highest bidder. Peter felt a.s.sured that Zouroff's suspicions were already centred on Fritz. He was one of the two men who had escaped, no doubt with the connivance of the police; anyway, that would be Zouroff's view.

The possession of Madame Quero's card had suggested new lines of thought. Of course, Peter did not know to what extent the beautiful singer was in the Prince's confidence. Here, naturally, he was groping wildly in the dark. But the more he diverted Zouroff's attention from himself on to other people, the better.

In divulging what he proposed to do to the Prince, it was more than probable that he would implicate the young Princess Nada. And Peter had a very soft spot in his heart for her. Still, it was simply a question of saving himself. If Zouroff saw red and laid all about him, as it were, Nada must protect herself. Even a ruffian like Zouroff would exercise some compunction when his sister was in question. With regard to La Belle Quero, who had, at times, treated him a little disdainfully, with the slight arrogance of a person who had emerged from his own cla.s.s into a superior one, Peter felt no qualms. The Prince and she could adjust their own differences at the proper time and hour.

Later on, he approached Zouroff with his fawning and cringing aspect, and handed him Madame Quero's card.

"You know that my eyes and ears are always open in your Excellency's service," he whined. "That is what I have found."

Zouroff's face grew as black as thunder as he read it. "She has been here, then. To see whom?"

Peter shrugged his shoulders. He wanted to be as non-committal as possible. "That I cannot tell. Your Excellency may guess better than I."

The Prince looked at him long and intently. Peter was a very cunning rogue; that he knew full well; but he was the last man he was inclined to suspect.

"How did you come into possession of this?" he thundered.

But Peter was determined not to implicate his sweetheart, Katerina. In this respect he was a slightly better man than his master.

"Your Excellency will excuse me; my lips are sealed. One must be faithful to one's comrades. There are wheels within wheels, as you well know."

The Prince nodded. He knew Peter well. In many ways he was docile and obedient, but it was always politic not to push him too far; on such occasions the valet was apt to take on a spirit of st.u.r.dy independence which his master was compelled to respect. Wild horses would not draw from him how, or through whom, he had discovered that card.

"Leave me, Peter, if you please," commanded Zouroff. "I must be alone to think this thing over, since you say your lips are sealed."

He shook his fist angrily in the direction of the retreating valet.

"Ah, for my good old father's days," he murmured regretfully. "I would have had it out of you with the knout then, my excellent friend."

Left alone, Zouroff pondered out all these things in his subtle brain.