He picked up a small oblong card, holding it gingerly in his finger-tips, and handed it to me.

I think I knew what it was, even before I looked at it. A photograph of Anne Pendennis, identical--save that it was unframed--with that which was in the possession of the miserable old Russian, even to the initials, the inscription, and the red symbol beneath it!

CHAPTER IV

THE RIVER STEPS

"This was found in Carson's pocket?" I asked, steadying my voice with an effort.

He nodded.

I affected to examine the portrait closely, to gain a moment's time.

Should I tell him, right now, that I knew the original; tell him also of my strange visitant? No; I decided to keep silence, at least until after I had seen Anne, and cross-examined the old Russian again.

"Have you any clue to her ident.i.ty?" I said, as I rose and replaced the blood-stained card on his desk.

"No. I've no doubt the Russian Secret Police know well enough who she is; but they don't give anything away,--even to me."

"They sent you that promptly enough," I suggested, indicating the photograph with a fresh cigarette which I took up as I resumed my seat.

I had managed to regain my composure, and have no doubt that Southbourne considered my late agitation was merely the outcome of my natural horror and astonishment at the news of poor Carson's tragic fate. And now I meant to ascertain all he knew or suspected about the affair, without revealing my personal interest in it.

"Not they! It came from Von Eckhardt. It was he who found poor Carson; and he took possession of that"--he jerked his head towards the desk--"before the police came on the scene, and got it through."

I knew what that meant,--that the thing had not been posted in Russia, but smuggled across the frontier.

I had met Von Eckhardt, who was on the staff of an important German newspaper, and knew that he and Carson were old friends. They shared rooms at St. Petersburg.

"Now why should Von Eckhardt run such a risk?" I asked.

"Can't say; wish I could."

"Where was he when poor Carson was done for?"

"At Wilna, he says; he'd been away for a week."

"Did he tell you about this Society, and its red symbol?"

"'Pon my soul, you've missed your vocation, Wynn. You ought to have been a barrister!" drawled Southbourne. "No, I knew all that before. As a matter of fact, I warned Carson against that very Society,--as I'm warning you. Von Eckhardt merely told me the bare facts, including that about the bit of geranium Carson was clutching. I drew my own inference.

Here, you may read his note."

He tossed me a half-sheet of thin note-paper, covered on one side with Von Eckhardt's crabbed German script.

It was, as he had said, a mere statement of facts, and I mentally determined to seize an early opportunity of interviewing Von Eckhardt when I arrived at Petersburg.

"You needn't have troubled to question me," resumed Southbourne, in his most nonchalant manner. "I meant to tell you the little I know,--for your own protection. This Society is one of those revolutionary organizations that abound in Russia, but more cleverly managed than most of them, and therefore all the more dangerous. Its members are said to be innumerable, and of every cla.s.s; and there are branches in every capital of Europe. A near neighbor of yours, by the way, is under surveillance at this very moment, though I believe nothing definite has been traced to him."

"Ca.s.savetti!" I exclaimed with, I am sure, an excellent a.s.sumption of surprise.

"You've guessed it first time; though his name's Vladimir Selinski. If you see him between now and Monday, when you must start, I advise you not to mention your destination to him, unless you've already done so.

He was at the Savage Club dinner to-night, wasn't he?"

One of Southbourne's foibles was to pose as a kind of "Sherlock Holmes,"

but I was not in the least impressed by this pretension to omniscience.

He was a member of the club, and ought to have been at the dinner himself. If he had looked down the list of guests he must have seen "Miss Anne Pendennis" among the names, and yet I believed he had not the slightest suspicion that she was the original of that portrait!

"I saw him there," I said, "but I told him nothing of my movements; though we are on fairly good terms. Do you think I'm quite a fool, Lord Southbourne?"

He looked amused, and blew another ring before he answered, enigmatically: "David said in his haste 'all men are liars.' If he'd said at his leisure 'all men are fools,--when there's a woman in the case'--he'd have been nearer the mark!"

"What do you mean?" I demanded, hotly enough.

"Well, I also dined at the Cecil to-night, though not with the 'Savages,' and I happened to hear that you and Ca.s.savetti--we'll call him that--were looking daggers at each other, and that the lady, who was remarkably handsome, appeared to enjoy the situation! Who is she, Wynn?

Do I know her?"

I watched him closely, but his face betrayed nothing.

"I think your informant must have been a--journalist, Lord Southbourne,"

I said very quietly. "And we seem to have strayed pretty considerably from the point. I came here to take your instructions, and if I'm to start at nine on Monday I shall not see you again."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"All right; we'll get to business. Here's the new code; get it off by heart between now and Monday, and destroy the copy. It's safer. Here's your pa.s.sport, duly _vised_, and a cheque. That's all, I think. I don't need to teach you your work. But I don't want you to meet with such a fate as Carson's; so I expect you to be warned by his example. And you are not to make any attempt to unravel the mystery of his death. I tell you that for your own safety! The matter has been taken up from the Emba.s.sy, and everything possible will be done to hunt the a.s.sa.s.sin down.

Good-bye, and good luck!"

We shook hands and I went out into the night. It was now well past midnight, and the streets were even quieter than usual at that hour, for there had been a sharp storm while I was with Southbourne. I had heard the crash of thunder at intervals, and the patter of heavy rain all the time. Now the storm was over, the air was cool and fresh, the sky clear.

The wet street gleamed silver in the moonlight, and was all but deserted. The traffic had thinned down to an occasional hansom or private carriage, and there were few foot-pa.s.sengers abroad. I did not meet a soul along the whole of Whitehall except the policemen, their wet mackintoshes glistening in the moonlight.

But, as I reached the corner of Parliament Square, I saw, just across the road, a man and woman walking rapidly in the direction of Westminster Bridge. I glanced at them casually, then looked again, more intently. The man looked like a sailor; he wore a pea-jacket and a peaked cap, while the woman was enveloped in a long dark cloak, and had a black scarf over her head. I saw a gleam of jewelled shoe-buckles as she picked her way daintily across the wet roadway to the further corner by the Houses of Parliament.

My heart seemed to stand still as I watched her. At any other time or place I would have sworn that I knew the tall, slender figure, the imperial poise of the head, the peculiarly graceful gait, swift but not hurried. I inwardly jeered at myself for my idiocy. My mind was so full of Anne Pendennis that I must imagine every tall, graceful woman was she! This lady was doubtless a resident in the southern suburbs, detained by the storm, and now on her way to one of the all-night trams that start from the far side of Westminster Bridge. There was quite a suburban touch in a woman in evening dress being escorted by a man in a pea-jacket. She might be an _artiste_, too poor to afford a cab home.

Nevertheless, while these thoughts ran through my mind, I was following the couple. They walked so swiftly that I did not decrease the distance between us. Half-way across the bridge I was intercepted by a beggar, who whined for "the price of a doss" and kept pace with me, till I got rid of him with the bestowal of a coin; but when I looked for the couple I was stalking they had disappeared.

I quickened my pace to a run, and at the further end looked anxiously ahead, but could see no trace of them. There were more people stirring in the Westminster Bridge Road, even at this hour; street hawkers starting home with their sodden barrows, the usual disreputable knot of loungers gathered around a coffee-stall; but those whom I looked for had vanished. Swiftly as they were walking they could scarcely have traversed the distance between the bridge and the trams in so short a time.

Had they gone down the steps to the river embankment? I paused and listened, thought I heard a faint patter, as of a woman's high heels on the stone steps, and ran down the flight.

The paved walk below St. Thomas' Hospital was deserted; I could see far in the moonlight. But near at hand I heard the plash of oars. I looked around and saw that to the right there was a second flight of steps, almost under the shadow of the first arch of the bridge, and leading right down to the river.

I vaulted the bar that guarded the top of the flight and ran down the steps. Yes, there was the boat, with the sailor and another man pulling at the oars, and the woman sitting in the stern. The scarf had slipped back a little, and I saw the glint of her bright hair.

"Anne! Anne!" I cried desperately.

She heard and turned her face.