"We needn't discuss that, Mr. Wynn," he interrupted hastily.

"All right; we won't. Though I fancy I shouldn't have been alive at this time if you hadn't taken it into your heads to hunt me down as the murderer of a man who wasn't even a naturalized Englishman. You came just in the nick of time, Mr. Freeman."

"Well, yes, I think we did that," he conceded. "You were the most deplorable object I've ever seen in the course of my experience,--and that's fairly long and varied. I'd like to know how you got into their clutches; though you needn't say if it has any connection with--"

"Why, certainly. It's nothing to do with Ca.s.savetti, or Selinski, or whatever his name was," I said.

"I got wind of a Nihilist meeting in the woods, went there out of curiosity; and the soldiers turned up. There was a free fight; they got the best of it, took me prisoner with the others, and that's all. But how did you trace me? How long had you been in Petersburg?"

"Only a couple of days. Found you had disappeared and the Emba.s.sies were raising Cain. It seemed likely you'd been murdered, as Carson was. The police declared they were making every effort to trace you, without success; and I doubt if they would have produced you, even in response to the extradition warrant, but that some one mysteriously telephoned information to the American Emba.s.sy that you were in prison--in the fortress--and even gave your number; though he would not give his own name or say where he was speaking from."

Who was it, I wondered,--Loris or Mirakoff? It must have been one or the other. He had saved my life, anyhow.

"So acting on that, we simply went and demanded you; and good heavens, what a sight you were! I thought you'd die in the droshky that we brought you here in. I couldn't help telling the officer who handed you over that I couldn't congratulate him on his prison system; and he grinned and said:

"'Ah, I have heard that you English treat your prisoners as honored guests. We prefer our own methods.'"

CHAPTER XXIV

BACK TO ENGLAND

We started for England the next night, second cla.s.s, and travelled right through, as I stood the journey better than any of us expected. After we crossed the frontier, I doubt if any of our fellow travellers, or any one else, for the matter of that, had the least suspicion that I was a prisoner being taken back to stand my trial on the gravest of all charges, and not merely an invalid, a.s.siduously tended by my two companions. I didn't even realize the fact myself at the time,--or at least I only realized it now and then.

"Well, Mr. Wynn, you've looked your last on Russia, and jolly glad I should be if I were you," Freeman remarked cheerfully when we were in the train again, on the way to Konigsberg.

"Looked my last,--what do you mean?" Even as I spoke I remembered why he was in charge of me, and laughed.

"Oh, I suppose you think you're going to hang me on this preposterous murder charge."

He was upset that I should imagine him guilty of such a breach of what he called professional etiquette, as, it seemed, any reference to my present position would have been.

"I meant that, if you wanted to go back, you wouldn't be allowed to.

They've fired you out, and won't have you again at any price," he explained stiffly.

"Oh, won't they? I guess they will if I want to go. Look here, Freeman, I bet you twenty dollars, say five pounds English, that I'll be back in Russia within six months from this date,--that is, if I think fit,--and that they'll admit me all right. You'd have to trust me, for I can't deposit the stakes at present; I will when we get back to England. Is it a deal?"

His answer was enigmatic, and I took it as complimentary.

"Well, you are a cough-drop!" he exclaimed. "No, I can't take the bet,--'twouldn't be professional; though I'd like to know, without prejudice, as the lawyers say, why on earth you should want to go back.

I should have thought you'd had quite enough of it."

I could not tell him the real reason,--that, if I lived, I should never rest till I had at least learned the fate of Anne Pendennis.

"There's a fascination about it," I explained. "They're back in the middle ages there; and you never know what's going to happen next, to yourself or any one else."

"Well, I'm--blessed! You'd go back just for that!"

"Why, certainly," I a.s.sented.

There were several things I'd have liked to ask him, but I did not choose to; for I guessed he would not have answered me. One was whether he had traced the old Russian whose coming had been the beginning of all the trouble, so far as I was concerned, anyway; and how he knew that a woman--a red-haired woman as he had said--had been in Ca.s.savetti's rooms the night he was murdered.

If that woman were Anne--as in my heart I knew she must have been, though I wouldn't allow myself to acknowledge it--he must have discovered further evidence that cleared her, or he would certainly have been prosecuting a search for her, instead of arresting me.

However, I hoped to get some light on the mystery either when my case came before the magistrate, or between then and the trial, supposing I was committed for trial.

It was when we were nearing Dover, about three o'clock on a heavenly summer morning, that I began to understand my position. We were all on deck,--I lying at full length on a bench, with plenty of cushions about me, and a rug over me.

"Well, we're nearly in," Freeman remarked cheerfully. "Another five minutes will do it. Feel pretty fit?"

"Splendid," I answered, swinging my feet off the bench, and sitting up.

"That's all right. Here, take Harris's arm--so. I sha'n't worry about your left arm; this will do the trick."

"This" meant that a handcuff was snapped round my right wrist, and its fellow, connected with it by a chain, round Harris's left.

I shivered involuntarily at the touch of the steel, at the sensation of being a prisoner in reality,--fettered!

"I say, that isn't necessary," I remonstrated, rather unsteadily. "You must know that I shall make no attempt to escape."

"Yes, I know that, but we must do things decently and in order," he answered soothingly, as one would speak to a fractious child. "That's quite comfortable, isn't it? You'd have had to lean on one of us anyhow, being an invalid. There, the rug over your shoulder--so; not a soul will notice it, and we'd go ash.o.r.e last; we've a compartment reserved on the train, of course."

I dare say he was right, and that none of the many pa.s.sengers noticed anything amiss; but I felt as if every one must be staring at me,--a handcuffed felon. The "bracelet" didn't hurt me at all, like those that had been forced on my swollen wrists in the Russian prison, and that had added considerably to the tortures I endured; but somehow it seemed morally harder to bear,--as a slight but deliberate insult from one who has been a friend hurts more than any amount of injury inflicted by an avowed enemy.

They were both as kind and considerate as ever during the last stage of our journey. From Dover to Charing Cross, Harris, I know, sat in a most cramped and uncomfortable position all the way, so that I should rest as easily as possible; but in some subtle manner our relationship had changed. I had, of course, been their prisoner all along, but the fact only came home to me now.

From Charing Cross we went in a cab to the prison, through the sunny streets, so quiet at this early hour.

"Cheer up," counselled Freeman, as I shook hands with him and Harris, from whom I was now, of course, unshackled. "You'll come before the magistrate to-morrow or next day; depends on what the doctor says. He'll see you directly. You'll want to communicate with your friends at once, of course, and start arranging about your defence. I can send a wire, or telephone to any one on my way home if you like."

He really was an astonishing good sort, though he had been implacable on the handcuff question.

I thanked him, and gave him Jim Cayley's name and address and telephone number.

"All right; I'll let Mr. Cayley know as soon as possible," he said, jotting the details in his note-book. "What about Lord Southbourne?"

"I'll send word to him later."

I felt distinctly guilty with respect to Southbourne. I ought, of course, to have communicated with him--or rather have got Freeman to do so--as soon as I began to pull round; but somehow I'd put off the unpleasant duty. I had disobeyed his express instructions, as poor Carson had done; and the disobedience had brought its own punishment to me, as to Carson, though in a different way; but Southbourne would account that as nothing. He would probably ignore me; or if he did not do that, his interest would be strictly impersonal,--limited to the amount of effective copy I could turn out as a result of my experiences.

Therefore I was considerably surprised when, some hours afterwards, instead of Jim Cayley, whom I was expecting every moment, Lord Southbourne himself was brought up to the cell,--one of those kept for prisoners on remand, a small bare room, but comfortable enough, and representing the acme of luxury in comparison with the crowded den in which I had been thrown in Petersburg.

Lord Southbourne's heavy, clean-shaven face was impa.s.sive as ever, and he greeted me with a casual nod.

"h.e.l.lo, Wynn, you've been in the wars, eh? I've seen Freeman. He says you were just about at the last gasp when he got hold of you, and is pluming himself no end on having brought you through so well."