"She is held prisoner by the State--for conspiracy against Russian rule--not by herself personally."
"Who enticed her here? Why you, yourself. Who conspired to throw the guilt of this attempted murder of the general"s wife upon her? You--you, the man whom they call "The Strangler of Finland"! But I will avenge the cruel and abominable affliction you have placed upon her. Her secret--your secret, Baron Oberg--shall be published to the world. You are her enemy--and therefore mine!"
"Very well," he growled between his teeth, advancing towards me threateningly, his fists clenched in his rage. "Recollect, m"sieur, that you have insulted me. Recollect that I am Governor-General of Finland."
"If you were Czar himself, I should not hesitate to denounce you as the tyrant and mutilator of a poor defenseless woman."
"And to whom, pray, will you tell this romantic story of yours?" he laughed hoa.r.s.ely. "To your prison walls below the lake at Kajana? Yes, M"sieur Gregg, you will go there, and once within the fortress you shall never again see the light of day. You threaten me--the Governor-General of Finland!" he laughed in a strange, high-pitched key as he threw himself into a chair and scribbled something rapidly upon paper, appending his signature in his small crabbed handwriting.
"I do not threaten," I said in open defiance, "I shall act."
"And so shall I," he said with an evil grin upon his bony face as he blotted what he had written and took it up, adding: "In the darkness and silence of your living tomb, you can tell whatever strange stories you like concerning me. They are used to idiots where you are going," he added grimly.
"Oh! And where am I going?"
"Back to Kanaja. This order consigns you to confinement there as a dangerous political conspirator, as one who has threatened me--it consigns you to the cells below the lake--for life!"
I laughed aloud, and my hand sought my wallet wherein was that all-powerful doc.u.ment--the order of the Emperor which gave me, as an imperial guest, immunity from arrest. I would produce it as my trump-card.
Next second, however, I held my breath, and I think I must have turned pale. My pocket was empty! My wallet had been stolen! Entirely and helplessly I had fallen into the hands of the tyrant of the Czar.
His own personal interest would be to consign me to a living tomb in that grim fortress of Kajana, the horrors of which were unspeakable. I had seen enough during my inspection of the Russian prisons as a journalist to know that there, in strangled Finland, I should not be treated with the same consideration or humanity as in Petersburg or Warsaw. The Governor-General consigned me to Kajana as a "political,"
which was synonymous with a sentence of death in those damp, dark _oubliettes_ beneath the water-dungeons every whit as awful as those of the Paris Bastile.
We faced each other, and I looked straight into his gray, bony face, and answered in a tone of defiance:
"You are Governor-General, it is true, but you will, I think, reflect before you consign me, an Englishman, to prison without trial. I know full well that the English are hated by Russia, yet I a.s.sure you that in London we entertain no love for your nation or its methods."
"Yes," he laughed, "you are quite right. Russia has no use for an effete ally such as England is."
"Effete or powerful, my country is still able to present an ultimatum when diplomacy requires it," I said. "Therefore I have no fear. Send me to prison, and I tell you that the responsibility rests upon yourself."
And folding my arms I kept my eyes intently upon his, so that he should not see that I wavered.
"As for the responsibility, I certainly do not fear that, m"sieur," he said.
"But the exposure that will result--are you prepared to face that?" I asked. "Perhaps you are not aware that others beside myself--one other, indeed, who is a diplomatist--is aware of my journey here? If I do not return, your Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Petersburg will be pressed for a reason."
"Which they will not give."
"Then if they do not, the truth will be out," I said laughing harshly, for I saw how determined he had become to hold me prisoner. "Come, call up your myrmidon and send me to Kajana. It will be the first step towards your own downfall."
"We shall see," he growled.
"Ah! you surely do not think that I, after ten years" service in the British diplomatic service, would dare to come to Finland upon this quest--would dare to face the rotten and corrupt officialdom which Russia has placed within this country--without first taking some adequate precaution? No, Baron. Therefore I defy you, and I leave Helsingfors to-night."
"You will not. You are under arrest."
I laughed heartily and snapped my fingers, saying:
"Before you give me over to your police, first telegraph to your Minister of Finance, Monsieur de Witte, and inquire of him who and what I am."
"I don"t understand you."
"You have merely to send my name and description to the Minister and ask for a reply," I said. "He will give you instructions--or, if you so desire, ask his Majesty yourself."
"And why, pray, does his Majesty concern himself about you?" he asked, at once puzzled.
"You will learn later, after I am confined in Kajana and your secret is known in Petersburg."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," I said, "I mean that I have taken all the necessary steps to be forearmed against you. The day I am incarcerated by your order, the whole truth will be known. I shall not be the sufferer--but you will."
My words, purposely enigmatical, misled him. He saw the drift of my argument, and being of course unaware of how much I knew, he was still in fear of me. My only uncertainty was of the actual fate of poor Elma.
My wallet had been stolen--with a purpose, without a doubt--for the thief had deprived me of that most important of all doc.u.ments, the open sesame to every closed door, the ukase of the Czar.
"You defy me!" he said hoa.r.s.ely, turning back to the window with the written order for my imprisonment as a political still in his hand. "But we shall see."
"You rule Finland," I said in a hard tone, "but you have no power over Gordon Gregg."
"I have power, and intend to exert it."
"For your own ruin," I remarked with a self-confident smile. "You may give your torturers orders to kill me--orders that a fatal accident shall occur within the fortress--but I tell you frankly that my death will neither erase nor conceal your own offenses. There are others, away in England, who are aware of them, and who will, in order to avenge my death, speak the truth. Remember that although Elma Heath has been deprived of both hearing and of speech, she can still write down the true facts in black and white. The Czar may be your patron, and you his favorite, but his Majesty has no tolerance of officials who are guilty of what you are guilty of. You talk of arresting me!" I added with a smile. "Why, you ought rather to go on your knees and beg my silence."
He went white with rage at my cutting sarcasm. He literally boiled over, for he saw that I was quite cool and had no fear of him or of the terrible punishment to which he intended to consign me. Besides which, he was filled with wonder regarding the exact amount of information which Elma had imparted to me.
"There are certain persons," I went on, "to whom it would be of intense interest to know the true reason why the steam-yacht _Lola_ put into Leghorn; why I was entertained on board her; why the safe in the British Consulate was rifled, and why the unfortunate girl, kept a prisoner on board, was taken on sh.o.r.e just before the hurried sailing of the vessel. And there are other mysteries which the English police are trying to solve, namely, the reason Armida Santini and a man disguised as her husband died in Scotland at the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin. But surely I need say no more. It is surely sufficient to convince you that if the truth were spoken, the revelations would be distinctly awkward."
"For whom?" he asked, opening his eyes.
"For you. Come, Baron," I said, "can we not yet speak frankly?"
But he was silent for a moment, a fact which was in itself proof that my pointed argument had caused him to reconsider his intention of sending me under escort back to that castle of terror.
If my journey there was in order to meet my love, I would not have cared. It was the ignorance of her whereabouts or of her fate that held me in such deep, all-consuming anxiety. Each hour that pa.s.sed increased my fond and tender affection for her. And yet what irony of circ.u.mstance! She had been cruelly s.n.a.t.c.hed from me at the very moment that freedom had been ours.
I think it was well that I a.s.sumed that air of defiance with the man who had ground Finland beneath his heel. He was unused to it. No one dared to go against his will, or to utter taunt or threat to him. He was paramount, with all the powers of an emperor--the power, indeed, of life and death. Therefore he was not in the habit of being either thwarted or criticised, and I could see that my words had aroused within him a boiling tumult of resentment and of rage. I told him nothing of the loss of my wallet or of the precious doc.u.ment that it had contained. My defiance was merely upon principle.
"Arrest me if you like. Denounce me by means of any lie that arises to your lips, but remember that the truth is known beyond the confines of the Russian Empire, and for that reason traces will be sought of me and full explanation demanded. I have taken precaution, Xavier Oberg," I added, "therefore do your worst. I repeat again that I defy you!"
He paced the big room, his thin claw-like hands still clenched, his yellow teeth grinding, his dark, deep-set eyes fixed straight before him. If he had dared, he would have struck me down at his feet. But he did not dare. I saw too plainly that even though my wallet was gone I still held the trump-card--that he feared me.
The mention I had made of the Minister of Finance, however, seemed to cause him considerable hesitation. That high official had the ear of the Emperor, and if I were a friend there might be inquiries. As I stood before him leaning against a small buhl table, I watched all the complex workings of his mind, and tried to read the mysterious motive which had caused him to consign poor Elma to Kajana.
He was a proud bully, possessing neither pity nor remorse, an average specimen of the high Russian official, a hide-bound bureaucrat, a slave to etiquette and possessing a veneer of polish. But beneath it all I saw that he was a coward in deadly fear of a.s.sa.s.sination--a coward who dreaded lest some secret should be revealed. That concealed door in the paneling with the armed guard lurking behind was sufficiently plain evidence that he was not the fearless Governor-General that was popularly supposed. He, "The Strangler of Finland," had crushed the gallant nation into submission, ruining their commerce, sapping the country by impressing its youth into the Russian army, forbidding the use of the Finnish language, and taxing the people until the factories had been compelled to close down while the peasantry starved. And now, on the verge of revolt, there had arisen a band of patriots who resented ruin, and who had already warned his Majesty by letter that if Baron Oberg were not removed from his post he would die.
These and other thoughts ran through my mind in the silence that followed our heated argument, for I saw well that he was in actual fear of me. I had led him to believe that I knew everything, and that his future was in my hands, while he, on his part, was anxious to hold me prisoner, and yet dared not do so.
My wallet had probably been stolen by some lurking police-spy, for Russian agents abound everywhere in Finland, reporting conspiracies that do not exist and denouncing the innocent as "politicals."