But I am now about to enter on what must be considered debatable ground.
I had taken the little house on the Alexander Quay, as the reader will have guessed, as a post of observation from which to watch the proceedings of the Russian Ministry of Marine, more particularly with regard to the fleet under the command of Admiral Rojestvensky.
It is my subsequent observations and discoveries which compel me, greatly to my regret, to give a direct contradiction to the gallant Admiral"s version of what took place in the North Sea on the night of Trafalgar Day, 1904.
It is for that reason that I desire to exercise particular care in this part of my statement.
Such care is the more inc.u.mbent on me, inasmuch as I was requested by the British Government to furnish a confidential copy of my evidence in advance, for the use of the members of the international court which sat in Paris to inquire into this most mysterious affair.
The following chapters should be read, therefore, as the sworn depositions of a witness, and not as the carelessly worded account of a journalist or popular historian.
The electrocution of the murderer, Petrovitch, already described, furnished me with a valuable opportunity which I was quick to seize.
I have not extenuated this act, and I will not defend it. I content myself with recording that this man had been the princ.i.p.al instrument in promoting the Russo-j.a.panese war, and the princ.i.p.al obstacle to peace. In this he was acting as the paid agent of a foreign Power, and was therefore guilty of high treason to his own country. On these grounds my execution of him, although irregular at the time, has since been formally ratified by the highest tribunal of the Russian Empire, the Imperial Council of State.
A justification which I value still more, consists in the fact that the removal of this man proved the turning point in the history of the war.
Within a month of his death I had the satisfaction to be made the medium of an informal overture for peace. The negotiations thus opened have proceeded with great secrecy, but before these lines meet the public eye, I have every hope that the calamitous struggle in Manchuria will have been suspended indefinitely.
To return:
Owing to the secret life led by the deceased man, it was some time before his absence from his usual haunts excited remark.
When it became evident that something must have happened to him, people were still slow to suspect that he had come to a violent end.
Many persons believed that he had been ruined by the ill-success of the war, and had gone into hiding from his creditors. Others supposed that he had been secretly arrested.
Some of his fellow-plotters in the Russian capital imagined that he had fled to Germany to escape the penalty of his treason. In Germany, on the other hand, I afterward learned, he was supposed to have been sent to Siberia by order of the Czar.
For weeks the "Disappearance of M. Petrovitch" was the general topic of discussion in the newspapers and in private circles; but no one came near guessing the truth.
There was one person who must have divined from the first what had happened. But she held her tongue.
So far as I could gather from the reports which continued to reach me from Fauchette, the Princess Y---- had sunk into a lethargy after my evasion. She seemed to wish only to be left alone to brood, perhaps to mourn.
The only sign she gave was by depositing a wreath on the empty grave in the English cemetery, a wreath which bore the solitary word, "Remembrance."
In the meanwhile I had gratifying evidence that the loss of the chief conspirator had completely disorganized the schemes of the plotters in the Ministry of Marine.
My first proceeding, after disconnecting the powerful battery which I had installed in my house for the purpose of the execution, was to summon my a.s.sistant Breuil.
With his aid, the corpse was stripped and sewn up in a sheet, together with some heavy weights. In the middle of the night it was committed to the waters of the Neva, almost within sight and sound of the fleet.
The papers which we found in his clothes were not numerous or important. But there was one which I thought worth preserving.
It was a pa.s.sport, made out in the name of the deceased, issued by the Russian Foreign Office, and vised by the German Amba.s.sador. This pa.s.sport I still have in my possession.
I now disclosed to my a.s.sistant a plan which had been in my own mind for some time, though, true to my principle of never making an unnecessary confidence, I had not previously mentioned it to him.
"I have decided," I told him, "to a.s.sume the personality of Petrovitch."
Breuil stared at me in consternation. It is only fair to say that he had not been with me very long.
I could see that some objection was trembling on the tip of his tongue. He had learned, however, that I expect my staff not to criticize, but to obey.
"You may speak," I said indulgently, "if you have anything to say."
"I was about to remark, sir, that you are not in the least like Petrovitch."
"Think again," I said mildly.
He gave me an intelligent look.
"You are much about the same height!" he exclaimed.
"Exactly."
"But his friends, who see him every day--surely they cannot be deceived? And then his business--his correspondence--but perhaps you are able to feign handwriting?"
I smiled. The good Breuil had pa.s.sed from one extreme to the other.
Instead of doubting me, he was crediting me too much.
I proceeded to explain.
"No, as you very properly suggest, I could not hope to deceive Petrovitch"s friends, nor can I imitate his hand. But remember, that in a few days Petrovitch will have disappeared. What will have become of him, do you suppose?"
Breuil was still puzzled. I had to make my meaning still plainer.
"He will be in concealment--that is to say, in disguise."
Breuil threw up his hands in a gesture of admiration.
"As the disguised Petrovitch I may manage to pa.s.s very well, more particularly as I shall be meeting people who have never seen the real Petrovitch."
Breuil did not quite understand this last observation.
"I am going," I exclaimed, "on board the Baltic Fleet."
"Sir, you are magnificent!"
I frowned down his enthusiasm. Compliments are compliments only when they come from those who pay us, not from those whom we pay.
"Go and procure me the uniform of a superintendent of naval stores.
And ascertain for me where Captain Va.s.sileffsky usually pa.s.ses his evenings."
Captain Va.s.sileffsky was the naval officer who had been present on the occasion when I was drugged at Petrovitch"s table.