The Police Minister. A tale of St. Petersburg

Front matter

London and New York: Frederick Warne and Co. 1890 ■Ut Rights Reserved. I i _*IL J. COLX.IS BROWNE'S CHLORODYNE. Diarrhœa, even In the [more terrible forms of j Cholera itself, we have wit« »nessed its surprisingly con j trolling power. We have I never used any other form of 'this medicine than Cor.Lis i Browne's, from a firm con jviction that it is decidedly i the best, and also from a ' sense of duty we owe to the profession and the public, as we are of opinion that the substitution of any other than Collis Browne's is a < < g _ H Pi o COUGHS, COLDS, I 1 jx w_ • • TJIARRHŒA, , TJYSENTERY, d liberate breach of faith on :_.e part of the chemist to prescriber and patient aliko —We are, Sir, faithfully yours, Stubs & Co., Mem bers of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, hia Excellency the Viceroy's Chemists.

QHOLERA. ASTHMA, The GENERAL BOARD OF HEALTH, LONDON, REPORT that it ACTS BRONCHITIS. as a CHARM, one Dose generally sufficient. DR. J.OOLLIS BROWNE'S CHLORODYNE. — Dr. J. C. Browne (iate Army Medical Staff) Discovered a Remedy, to denote which he coined the word CHLORO DYNE. Dr. Browne is the SOLE INVENTOR, and, as the composition of Chloro dyne cannon possibly be discovered by Analysis (organic substances defying elimina tion), and since the formula has never been published, it is evident that any statement to the effect that a com pound is identical with Dr. Browne's Chlorodyne must be false. Dr. Gibbon, Army Medi cal Staff, Calcutta, states : — "TWO DOSES COM PLETELY CURED ME of DIARRHŒA." DR. J OOLLIS BROWNE'S CHLORODYNE' is the TRUE PALLIATIVE in lSJEURALGIA, GOUT, x' OANOER, TOOTH ACHE, RHEUMATISM.

R. J. COLLIS BROWNE'S CHLORODYNE is a LIQUID MEDICINE which ASSUAGES PAIN of EVERY KIND, aflords a Calm, Refreshing Sleep WITHOUT HEADACHE, and INVIGORATES the NERVOUS SYSTEM when- From Svues & Co., Pharmaceutical Chemists, Simla, Jan. 5, 1880. ToJ.T. Davenport, London. " Dfar Sir,— We congratu late you upoD the widespread reputation this justly es teemed medicine ha? earned for itself all over the East. As a remedy of general utility, we much question" whether a better is imported, and we shali be glad to bear of its' finding a place in every i Anglo-Indian home. The, other brands, we are happy ro say, are now relegated to I the native bazaars ; and, i judging from their sale, we fancy their sojourn there will I be but evanescent. We i could multiply instances ad inhnitum of the extraor dinary efficacy of Dr. Coxl.s Browne's CHLORODYNE in Diarrhœa and Dysentery, Spasms, Cramps, Neuralgia, the Vomiting of Pregnancy, and as a general sedative, that have occurred under our personal observation during many years.

Chapter I

"I AM ONE OF THE VERY FEW WHO CAN DEFY EVEN THE SECRET POLICE." The pit of the great Opera House at St. Petersburg is boarded ovii, and five thousand of the elite of the Russian capital have met thereon, "to chase the glowing hours with flying feet." Without, tho City of the Czar is locked in its five months' belt of ice, the snow lies deep, there are but four hours of daylight between therising and the setting of the pale, rayless, heatless winter's sun, and from a hundred different quarters of the metropolis the cry of famine rises to the aurora quivering heavens. Yet there, in this one building, is assembled wealth suffi cient to rescue from the death-pit tens of thousands of starv ing families, were but the diamonds, the emeralds and the opals that glitter on white arms and whiter bosoms, and the bullion lace, the seed pearls and the garnets that flash on uniforms (some of which have cost more than would suffice to clothe an entire regiment of British cavalry), turned into honest com of the realm, and disbursed in warm blankets and nourishing food.

But let us not look without, where the thermometer is so many degrees below freezing point, when within is light and warmth and luxury. _ Why, the very orchestra (wherein the band of the Volhy nian Guard, a hundred and fifty strong, discourses such music as could be heard in no other capital in Europe) is an orange grove, and eveiy corridor and robing room and vestibule is a separate tropical paradise, where the perfume of exotic flowers is mingled with spray from ess-bouquet and wood-violet fountains, and wherein canary birds that have cost four guineas a-piece warble within aviaries of golden wire. Princes of the blood are there, and Grand Dukes and Marshals of the Empire, glittering with military orders. There, too, are the Ambassadors of well-nigh every nation in Europe, attended by their attaches.

The dancing had continued for some hours, and the time had arrived at which it was most usual for his Majesty the Emperor to make his appearance, when the attention of everyone was attracted by the unusual vision of a gentleman arrayed in sombre evening dress, and leaning on his arm a beautiful girl of some eighteen years of age, whoso golden hair and the delicate pink and white of whose com plexion declared most unmistakably that she was English. What other nation but our own could produce so ex quisite a face and form, arms so rounded and fair, shoulders so plump and dimpled, and a chest so snowily white that the pearl necklet that lay thereon looked actually yellow by comparison % " Sir Harry Gordon, your country-women make up won drously well," exclaimed the beautiful Princess Olga to the young attache of the.

British Embassy, with whom she was dancing. The Princess Olga was twenty-one, an orphan, her own mistress, and the reputed possessor of an immense fortune. But she was an inveterate gambler, scattered gold broadcast in the gratification of any particular whim, and was addicted to coquetry and jealousy. " Surely your highness does not imagine that young girl to be made up in any way ? " retorted the 'English officer. "I assure you, on my honour, that she owes not a siii'de charm to art." ° " I am willing to believe that her hair and her eyes are her own, which proves the immense extent of my good-nature • but that the exquisite whiteness and clearness of her skin are not due to some wondrous cosmetique I will not credit." " I assure your highness — nay, I would stake my life on it, that the strongest cosmetique she has ever used has been soft water," exclaimed Sir Harry Gordon, rather warmly.

"England's daughters aie famed for the softness and white ness of their skins, and the full beauty of their forms, just as the Russian ladies are famed for tho smallness of their feet and hands, their animation, grace and wit." " Beauties and accomplishments which they should have sense enough to bestow 011 their countrymen, who alone can be expected to appreciate them at their proper value," replied the Princess, biting her full red under lip. " Ha, the music has ceased, the dance is over. Your fair country woman must be longing for a younger cavalier than her father, I should think, so I dismiss you from my service in order that you may enter hers." "But, your highness, pray consider," began Sir Harry. "Highnesses are not given to consider and when princesses command they expect their subjects to obey.

On second thoughts, however, you may lead me as far as the cardroom. The click of the roule'tte ball is sweeter music to me than any that the band can discourse," and her arm was again passed within his. He did not feel it tremble, he did not notice the scintilla tion of the diamonds as her bosom rose and fell, he did not perceive the flush on her cheeks, or the angry light that had newly come into her deep, unfathomable, yet wholly beautiful, violet eyes ; he never guessed, did that handsome, stolid young Englishman, that the impulsive Princess loved him ; with a love, moreover, that would delight in digging a pitfall deep and dark for any rival who dared supplant her in the heart wherein she had once deigned to reign. The Princess was a woman, or rather a girl, who com pelled coquetry from her male acquaintances by herself first throwing down the ball.

Sir Harry Gordon had been accustomed of late to attend her reunions, for the reason that other fashionable young men did the same. But, though favoured with much of the volatile Princess' attention on such occasions, as indubitably the handsomest cavalier present, he never for an instant imagined that she had lost her heart to him, far less that she expected his own in exchange ; for he had come but lately from a country where modest women are supposed to keep their hearts carefully locked up within their own bosoms until they are with some eagerness sought and prayed for. Thus it was that Sir Harry Gordon, the young I attache, left the Princess Olga within the precincts of tin.' cardroom, sincerely pitying her degraded passion for gambling; and returning through a flower decked corridor to the theatre, sought out, with a heart now beginning to throb more violently than was its w7ont, the lovely girl who had been the subject of the Princess' obloquy.

" Ada ! " " Harry ! " was the mutual greeting when they met, and for nearly a minute they stood gazing into other's faces, hand clasped in hand, utterly unconscious of what was passing around. "Ada Bayard, what, in heaven's name, brings you to Russia?" then exclaimed Sir Harry, in a low, anxious tone; "why, it is but six weeks ago that I supped with you at your aunt's in Fulham." "A week from which time, hearing that my dear father was failing in health and strength, I resolved, unsolicited, to come to Russia to keep house for him and nurse him. Aunt Ruth was strongly opposed to the measure, but I carried my point, as I generally do." "And so that old gentleman on whose arm I saw you leaning as you entered the theatre is your father ? " "Yes, but he would not be flattered at your calling him an old gentleman, for he is but very little over forty."

"What? and with his hair so white and his step so feeble?" l " Ho has been made old by one great grief — one great horror. What it was I know not, for he has never told me, but it had something to do with the death of my dear mother, and with my being sent to England. Oh, how many times has he not longed to return to England himself, but the Czar will not let him ! Often has the petition been made, but it is ever refused." "But by what right, human or divine, dare the Czar detain him ? " " Eecause many years ago, to secure great temporary ad vantages, my father consented to become naturalised as a Russian subject. That is the reason, Harry." "It was a very foolish step, Ada." " It was, indeed, for, although now almost a millionaire as regards wealth, yet is he in another sense little better than a slave Were he by a mere mischance to lose the Czar's favour he might, be knouted, or sent to Siberia, at an hour's notice. 'Tis this thought that is breaking his heart, 'tis this knowledge that is digging his grave; and yet it is but a phantom fear after all, for the Emperor loves him and is wont to call him the Father of his Navy, a tribute he has well deserved."

"Then your father is Mr. Bayard, the great shipbuilder? You must introduce me to him, Ada. I want to ask him to give you to me for a wife — that is, if you will have me ? " " Alas ! Harry, since our last pleasant ramble beside the Thames I have resolved to give myself entirely to my parent. I am his sole stay. He has not a real friend in all St. Petersburg. He hates the Russians, and — " " My pretty little friend w7ith the skin of snow, the first lesson to be learnt in Russia is that speech is given us not to express our thoughts but to conceal them," said a stout matronly looking lady, as she patted one of Ada's glossy shoulders warningly. Then, approaching her lips close to her ear, she added, in a whisper, "For heaven's sake be more cautious, my dear. Golgorouki, the head of the Secret Police, has been drinking in your words for the past five minutes, and his mental notes will to-morrow be committed to his books, wherein you will be marked 'dangerous.' I would not dare to give you this warning were I other than what I am ; but I am one of the very few who can defy ever, the Secret Police."

And with a light, silvery, mocking laugh the lady passed on — a vision of silks, velvets, old lace and flashing diamonds. "Ada," said Sir Harry Gordon then, "I begin to feel that this country is all that I have read of it. Let us leave the glittering but hollow crowd, and seek some quiet and secluded nook where heart can speak to heart and eye to eye without any princely detective being at hand to take notes."

Chapter II. Three Rapid Reports From

A REVOLVER SOUNDED. A beautiful little retreat was soon found in one of the boxes of the grand circle. It was as large as a small room, and was hung all round with white satin drapery, whereon the two headed Russian eagle was wrought all over in gold. "There, Ada," said he, "now we are as much alone as though we were shipwrecked on a desert isle, and yet we have the advantage of looking down upon one of the most brilliant assemblages that the whole world could produce. Let us, then, feast our eyes and talk at the same time, for the sharp ears of Messieurs the Police will not avail them, if we converse in an undertone." But this assertion proved Sir Harry to bo more short sighted than it becomes an Englishman staying in Russia to be, for, at that very instant, a tall, saturnine expressioned man, with a face as white as the enamelled one of a watch, and hair, eyebrows, and upward pointed moustaches as black as the Roman numerals that are painted thereon, his well knit form arrayed in a handsome uniform, and his cocked hat tucked under his arm, entered the adjoining box as lightly as though his patent leather Hessians had been shod with gutta-percha, closed the door behind him, drew a cork screw from his pocket, bored it into a seeming knot in the thin partition wall between the tw70 boxes, drew forth a plug the size of a crown-piece, gently moved a chair up to the spot, and seated himself therein with his ear to the orifice.

"You can't think," Ada w7as saying to Sir Harry, "how rejoiced 1 was to see you to-night. I don't know why my i.: father brought me to this place. Sure am I that he did so much against his will, but the invitation was for us both, and it was as though he did not dare to decline it." " And from whom did the invitation come, the Czar t " "Indirectly it may have been so, but officially all such invitations, when sent to aliens and strangers, are issued from the Police Bureau, Section des Etrangers." " But your father, you say, is a naturalised Russian subject?" " Yes, but I am not, and there lies the difference." " Thank God that you are not, dear Ada. For heaven's sake let nothing tempt you to become one. This is a land where ultra-civilization and ultra-barbarism walk hand-in hand. Look down at that bright and apparently happy assemblage, yet the fairest girl there on leaving the Opera House might find that she was on her way to the mines of Siberia instead of returning to her mother's arms." ' ' Harry, my father was telling me an awful history only yesternight.

It was of a lady, young and beautiful, who, forty five years ago, at one of these brilliant assemblages, was beckoned into an anteroom at the close of a waltz, to be gagged and hurried away to the Police Bureau. There, without being accused of any crime, or even allowed to speak, she was divested of her ball dress and her diamonds, arrayed in a peasant's garb of the very coarsest materials, and, without being permitted to see a single relative or friend, was at once sent off on her 3,000 miles' journey to Siberia. After labour ing there in the mines for thirty-five years, she was brought back to St. Petersburg in the same secret and mysterious manner, and in the same room of the same Police Bureau her penitential garb was taken off and she was re-arrayed in the rich and costly jewels that had once set off her lustrous youth, but now mocked her prematurely grim and ■wrinkled age.

The transformation completed, she was turned out, of doors to wander where she listed, and that was to end her life and her troubles in the cold embrace of the Neva, for all whom she had loved wore dead, and no one even recollected her." "I read of her sad case in the London papers," said Sir Harry, with a shudder ; " but I set it dowm to be a mere penny a liner. So your father knows it to be true ? " "Alas! yes. He had the narrative from her own lips during the brief hour that our roof afforded the poor lady shelter. I am sure she might have stayed there days, weeks, and even months, had she felt so inclined ; but her grief and her desolation were too great for her to bear, and so she preferred the river. May God have mercy on her poor soul." "Amen," answered Sir Harry, solemnly; and then he added, " who can wonder at such a land producing Nihilists ?

Such a government should be swept from tho earth's face." "And were I Russian born, and a man, I would help so to sweep it," replied Ada Bayard, her bosom heaving with a generous excitement and sympathy for the down trodden people of the mighty land in which she was but a so journer. "Ay," she added, "I fancy that I could nerve myself to do great things, and if I firmly believed that the death of one tyrant would make millions free and happy, I do not say but I would dare to emulate the heroic action of Charlotte Corday, and fire a revolver at even an emperor's breast." " Ha, ha, ha ! For those words thou art Prince Golgor ouki's," muttered the police agent in the adjoining box to himself ; and then he chuckled afresh and rubbed his hands together, as he added, "in any case there's a thousand silver roubles in Ivan Reyloff's pouch for the telling, and the crime. that he must either commit or fall by secret daggers is shifted from his own shoulders to whiter and fairer ones."

"I do not believe that the Emperor is at all to blame," Sir Harry Gordon was meanwhile saying. "He is a most excellently intentioned monarch. See how earnestly he desires to release all the serfs, see how — by Heaven, you may see himself. Talk of a certain gentleman, and he is wont to show his horns, you know, and there is the Czar of all the Russias just entering the Opera House, surrounded by a brilliant staff." It was indeed the Emperor, the Great Red Sun of Russia, as the loyal peasants were wont to affectionately term him, and as he strode up the entire of the theatre, attended by about a dozen magnificently clad cavaliers, the brilliant crowd parted to right and left, leaving a broad avenue for him to traverse, whilst the band of the Volhynian Guards struck up the National Anthem Borshoe zara Brangie (God protect the Czar), and every head was bowed.

" Well, he looks a good man. 'Tis the first time I have seen him," remarked Ada Bayard. But hardly had the words escaped her lips when three rapid reports from a revolver sounded close by, and were followed by a scene of the most unexampled consternation and confusion. Almost ere it had attained its height Sir Harry Gordon had dashed out of the box and collared the man whom he detected sneaking forth from the adjoining one. The next instant, however, a stab in the back caused him to relinquish his hold, and the ruffian glided away. Sir Harry pursued him through the corridor, down the grand staircase, and into the body of the house, where he fell to the floor, whilst, pointing with the last effort of his strength towards the retreating figure that by this time had mingled with the crowd ; but unable to utter a word.

Ada Bayard meanwhile knew not why her companion had quitted the box so suddenly, and she had begun to feel alarmed at his prolonged absence, when the door opened and her father walked hurriedly in. "Come, Ada," said he, "we had better get home at once, for all the fun is over for the night. His Majesty is most providentially uninjured, but, I am sorry to say, they have failed to discover the assassin. In the horror and confusion, no one seems to have noticed from what direction the shots came. Alas ! they were mischievous enough, though they failed to find their destined billet, for one lovely girl was shot dead, and I hear that a very promising young officer also is wounded seriously. Come, Ada, we do not know how many more murderers there may be in the Opera House, and I tremble for your safety.

A cordon of police is drawn around the theatre, but that they will let me pass I have no doubt." Then the beautiful young girl taking the prematurely old man by the arm, they quitted the sumptuous box together, she first drawing a sw7ans'-down lined opera cloak over the creamy back and the plump white shoulders, above which the cruel knout now hung suspended by a single hair ; for within that very box, on the floor between the rich satin hangings and the wainscoting, all unknown to both father and child, lay a small revolver, a delicate but deadly toy, that might have been carried in a waistcoat pocket. He who had discharged it had had time to thrust it thi . h the hole in the wainscoting ero he replaced the plug, which fitted the orifice so exactly as to be almost undiscoverable ; and there the weapon was, a mute witness, when found, against those who had occupied that box, at the time of tho attempted, but happily frustrated, assassination of the Czar.

The shipbuilder's sleigh stood, amidst a thousand others, in the great courtyard of the Opera House. He handed his beautiful child in, wrapped her up in soft bearskin rugs, and then sprang in beside her. The ischvostchik, or driver, whipped up the two line black horses, with the solid silver harness, and passing tho police cordon by the mere mention of their names, away the)' sped over the snow as smoothly and unjoltingly as a ship rides the foaming billows ; the way revealed by millions of earthen pots, filled with train oil and furnished with wicks of tow, that, placed equidistant!}7 ami at short intervals from each other, marked the lines of the streets for miles, producing a most curious and ghastly effect. It v\is easy to imagine one's self gliding along the roofs of a city of the dead that was illumined by corpse candles, and some such idea did seize upon Ada, causing her to shrink closer to her father's side. 2—2

Chapter III

"i AJI BOTH PRINCESS AND POLICE SPY." In England it would have been twelve o'clock at noon ; but in St. Petersburg the sun is only just rising to dissipate the darkness of the twenty hours' night. Introduce we the reader to the interior of the palace of the Princess Olga, and first of all to an ante-chamber therein. It is a bare, uncarpeted room, and not over clean, but the ■windows have double frames to keep out the cold, and a big fire roars in the stove, around which half a dozen female servants are seated, drinking tea and constantly replenishing their cups from the great brass samovar. " Our lady condescends to sleep soundly this morning," remarks one, as she squeezes a few drops of lemon juice into her tea. "Yes, but be sure to have her coffee ready the instant she rings, that she may deign to moisten her lips," said another.

" But no one makes her coffee so nicely as did Katinka. It was a great misfortune for her highness that one who made coffee so sweetly should have caught the fever and died." " She would not have caught the fever had not her highness sent her to the police barracks to be flogged for giving her a handkerchief perfumed with frangipani instead of ess-bouquet. There's no knowing what one may catch at such places ; and besides, the punishment was brutal for such an offence." " Hush, Baba, hush," said the oldest of the party ; "we shall think you a Nihilist if you chatter such non sense. 'Tis only the lazy ones who don't beat us. Know you not the good old Russian proverb, minion : ' A maid who has been well beaten is worth two maids whose backs are unscored ? ' Her highness is condescending enough to house and feed us ; so what more can we want ?

" "A bird is well enough in a golden cage, but he is better on the green branch," muttered Baba, half apologetically, and at that instant the ringing of a bell checked further conversation. Lota, the youngest and the prettiest of the assemblage, whipped up the silver tray, already laid with an exquisite Sevres breakfast service, to which a dainty coffee pot was quickly added, aud away she hurried to her mistress' bedroom. Let us enter with her and share her dismay at beholding ■the Princess Olga, not reclining at full length in her bed of down, with her beautiful black hair rippling, as was its wont, over the costly lace pillow7, but sitting, half -dressed, in a luxurious easy chair, with a wild, deliant look in her large violet eyes, and a face pale almost to ghastliness. " Your highness, my queen, my empress !

" gasped Lota ; " is it possible that you could have rung before, and that I failed to hear ? Oh, do not have me whipped, for indeed it was not my fault ! " "Lota, do not talk nonsense. Kneel down and button up my boots," snapped out the beautiful Princess, viciously. The girl, in her hurry and anxiety to oblige her, placed the breakfast equipage on an exquisite malachite-topped table, but, in her excessive nervousness, too near to the edge thereof. The consequence was that the table turned over, tho Sevres service went rolling all uver the floor, and the silver coffee pot deposited its entire contents in the Princess' lap. It is very unlikely that she was scalded, for the blue satin robe de chambre that she wore tvas thickly quilted, but Lota had it off her in a trice, and before hardly a drop of the liquid could soak through.

If the exquisite form of the Princess did not quiver with pain, it most assuredly did with rage, however, and, seizing Lota by the hair with one hand, she picked up a tiny red morocco slipper from off the floor with tho other, aud with the high heel thereof commenced to belabour her still kneeling victim across the head, shoulders, and even face as hard as she could strike. When she had thoroughly tired herself out, but not before, she threw down the dainty instrument of torture, and, sinking languidly back in her chair, exclaimed, waspishly — " There, I vow that you have quite put me out of breath, you little, pig. Leave the room and send me in Baba." So exit Lota, sobbing, and with her face covered with blood, and a minute later enter Baba, pale but uutrembling. " Baba," said the Princess, " dress me, and tenderly, mind, not as though I was made of such coarse common clay as yourself.

It has always seemed to me that your knuckles are the boniest of any living creature's. Do not let me feel them as you button up my boots or fasten my dress, or your back shall smart." " No, your highness," was all that Baba replied, and then she set cautiously to work, for she had no wish to be made such a spectacle of as poor Lota had just been. "Baba," said the Princess, presently, with a harsh, jerky httle laugh, "would you cry your heart out were you to learn that your dear, kind, indulgent mistress was ruined, eh?" "I hope that I should feel very sorry, your highness." "Yon hope; you are not sure, then, that you should? Am I to understand you in that way, ungrateful slave ? " "Believe me that I am not ungrateful, your highness, for any kindness or favours that you may have shown me, and it would be a dreadful thing for one so young and lovely to be ruined."