Read Ebook: When I Was Czar by Marchmont Arthur W

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Ebook has 4024 lines and 102166 words, and 81 pages

"Too dangerous for me to see him," returned the Prince with a smile, falling readily into the language of the pool room. "And the worst of it was he knew it and claimed the jack pot."

"He's a smart man. And his terms are?"

"Preposterous, absolutely; monstrous. The Imperial consent to his marriage; a special dowry of a million roubles; a patent of nobility; and a private interview with His Majesty. It was then I thought of you, His Majesty having told me you were coming here, and that you bore so striking a resemblance to him. I arranged the scene at the station this evening to test that."

"And you wish me to go to this interview, fool the man, and get the papers?"

"Precisely. Counting upon your obligation to the Emperor, I have indeed fixed the interview for to-morrow."

"The deuce you have. Isn't that rather sharp work?"

"The matter does not admit of delay; but it is of course open to you to decline."

"In which case?"

"I have not yet considered any alternative."

His coolness staggered me. But he was keen enough to see that I rather enjoyed the prospect of the adventure.

"Now as to the risks?" I asked after a pause.

"I cannot even pretend to gauge them, M. Denver. I don't think they should be considerable; but there is naturally the chance that the deception would be discovered. I don't think it is probable. Those who are constantly with His Majesty would know you in a moment of course; but these people only see my master on public occasions, and, as you have had evidence, are quite ready to be deceived."

"But the risk is there."

"Unquestionably," he assented. "The incident with the lady in the train which you described is, however, very promising. Still, as you say, the risk is there, and it is enough to make any ordinary man unwilling to run it."

"You flatter me, Prince."

"No, I try to judge you. An ordinary man would not be eager to rush off to Khiva. Besides, you are an American."

The appeal to my vanity was put astutely.

"If I were discovered I should have to get out the best way I could?"

"There might be some little trouble, but I don't think it would be really serious--to a man of resource, that is. You would be quite authorized to put the blame on me."

"And if the deception were not discovered?"

"It would be a short interview, and you would at the worst have to postpone your departure for one day."

"You don't anticipate any treachery? No assassination business, for instance?"

"Boreski has too much at stake. He would lose everything--including his worthless life, of course. About the strongest guarantee for your safety that you could have."

He put the amazing proposal bluntly and argued the case with as much coolness as if it had been little more than a simple conventional matter of almost everyday routine.

"You would naturally like to think it over," he said, after I had paced the room a while in thought.

"You have told me everything?"

"Yes, I think so, except, perhaps, that, of course, I don't for a moment believe Boreski made the proposition seriously."

"Yet it's an odd sort of joke, isn't it?"

"I don't mean that. I mean that no man in his senses would believe the Emperor would consent to his conditions for the interview--that my master should go to it absolutely unattended, that the place should be determined by Boreski and known to him alone, and that my master should meet a lady at the railway station, get into a strange carriage with her and be taken wherever they pleased to take him. Even in democratic countries monarchs don't act like that."

"Then what do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.

"That he intended to have his terms rejected in order that he might use the rejection to raise them. When I agreed--I only did so with you in my thoughts--I saw that his surprise amounted almost to embarrassment."

"There's this woman in it then, beside the Duchess Stephanie? Who is she?"

"I haven't an idea--some accomplice no doubt."

"Since the conditions are, as you say, so ridiculous, may he not be suspicious when we agree to them?"

"It is very possible. But on the other hand he knows that my master is as anxious as I am about those papers."

"And he may think the Emperor would take the risk. I see. Well, I guess I'll do it, Prince, but I should like to think it over."

Prince Kalkov rose at once.

"Naturally. I need only say, monsieur, that you will be doing His Majesty and Russia a service which we shall not forget. Shall I have your decision in the morning?"

"To-night, if you'll come back, say, in a couple of hours. You won't find me asleep after all you've said."

He smiled pleasantly, and as he went to the door, said--

"You are just the man I would have chosen for such a task, M. Denver."

"That remains to be seen," I replied; "but there's just one more question, by the by. Which are the countries concerned in those papers?"

He paused and gave me a sharp swift look, which broke to a smile.

"Not the United States, monsieur, but European Powers."

"That's the assurance I wished," said I, and then he went.

I had virtually made up my mind before the Prince left the room, and save for one consideration I should have consented right away. But I could not quite size up the Prince himself.

I was almost British in my distrust of certain classes of Russian officials. I had lived in Petersburg for some years as a boy, and my father, who was at the Embassy, had inculcated this prejudice.

I could never resist the feeling that they had some subtle undercurrent motive which made for duplicity; and I could not now shake myself free from the belief in regard to Prince Kalkov.

I had no tangible reason for it. He stood high in the confidence of the Czar; he had gone out of his way to make himself agreeable to me; he had treated me apparently with signal frankness; and had admitted the possible risks and complications of the very tangled business.

I had another slight qualm. My sympathies were rather with than against the man Boreski. I was not a Russian aristocrat; and from my American point of view I was disposed to admire the pluck of a man who was fighting single-handed against the powerful Russian Court, and giving that autocratic body a real bad time. His methods were not nice, but his adroit use of them was so smart that I could not help enjoying them. Whereas, if it came to a mere question of ethics, I couldn't see that, taking into account the shady episode of the secret papers, either side had much pull over the other.

What really decided me was my old obligation to the Czar. My inclinations were all on the side of going in for the thing; and probably I gave more weight to that consideration than it deserved. But anyway I convinced myself that I could wipe out the old debt by doing what was asked of me, and when the Prince came back, I met him with the statement that if the details of the thing could be fixed, I was his man.

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