Part 13

I thanked the Servian prince for this pledge, which was all I had any right to expect. The claimant to a Crown could hardly be asked to veto all attempts on his behalf on the mere chance that some of them might endanger the lives of the reigning family.

I returned to Paris, and sought to distract myself in my work from brooding over the tragedy which seemed to be shaping itself in the Servian capital.

As we had both foreseen, Queen Draga incurred the obloquy of the world by marrying Alexander. Her reputation was sacrificed to his, and I believe that she deliberately posed as the instigator of all his violent and injudicious measures, in the hope of acting, so to speak, as a conductor of the popular wrath, and thereby saving her husband.

Had she been able at the same time to wean Alexander from his wild passion for herself, he and his dynasty might have been preserved. It is the charitable view to take that the young King was not fully responsible for his acts at this time. The distressing circumstances of his bringing-up, the fatal inheritance of his father’s example and influence, render it impossible to regard Alexander Obrenovitch as a normal young man.

The long period of suspense which I passed through, while watching from Paris over the safety of the Queen of Servia, was at last put an end to by a cypher telegram from the agent whom I had stationed in Belgrade unknown even to Draga herself.

‘_Death of King fixed for next week. Queen must be persuaded to fly at once._’

The despatch reached me just half an hour before the departure of the Oriental express, into which I flung myself panting as it began to glide out of the station.

My agent, warned from Vienna, met me as I alighted in Belgrade.

The pallor of his countenance told me that he had bad news to communicate.

‘The worst--instantly!’ I exclaimed, in Polish, a language I have taught to all the most trusted members of my staff.

‘Nothing has happened,’ he stammered out. ‘But I tried to give a hint to the Queen; she has passed it on to her husband. The conspirators have learned that suspicion has been aroused in the Palace; and----’

‘And what?’ I seized him by the wrist.

‘The assassination is to be carried out to-night, instead of next week.’

‘To-night!’

Exhausted as I was by the long journey, this news almost broke me down. I had to lean against my agent for support.

The poor wretch, conscious that he had blundered disastrously, dared not meet my eye, and I felt him trembling.

It is my maxim never to be angry with an employee except for bad faith. If an agent of mine blunders or breaks down I consider the fault is mine for having intrusted him with a task beyond his powers. Besides, there are no perfect instruments. In my own career I have made two mistakes.

Therefore I assured the unfortunate man that all was well, since Queen Draga was yet alive. We went together to the house in which my agent had been residing for some time in the character of correspondent of the Havas Agency. There I assumed the Servian dress which he had had the forethought to prepare for me, and, disguised as a _sous-officier_, I set off for the Palace.

My military uniform naturally inspired confidence in the sentries, those in the plot no doubt supposing that I was so, also.

I made my way round to a side entrance, suitable to my apparent station, and there, by my agent’s advice, asked to see Anna Petrovitch, the waiting-maid who had shared the Queen’s fortunes for many years.

I was admitted without any demur, and presently Anna herself appeared. She took me apart into a small chamber apparently used by the upper servants of the Palace, and asked me what I wanted.

‘I must see the Queen immediately, in private,’ I answered.

‘You cannot do that. Her Majesty is just sitting down to dinner. What is your name; and what do you want to see her about?’

‘My name does not matter. I come as a friend, and I bring her Majesty a message from one who wishes her well.’

I knew that if this woman were really in Draga’s confidence these words would not fall unheeded.

‘Cannot you tell me something more? I will try to get you an audience as soon as dinner is over, provided I am sure that you are a friend.’

‘Listen!’ I bent forward and whispered in her ear. ‘Have you ever heard the Queen mention a certain Monsieur V----?’

The woman gave a start of joy, impossible to be feigned.

‘You come from him?’

I bowed.

‘Then I will endeavour to let the Queen know at once. In the meantime, follow me.’

Anna conducted me up one of the back staircases of the Palace and along a corridor, till we arrived at a door, which she unlocked with a key taken out of her pocket.

I found myself in a small bedroom, humbly, but comfortably furnished.

‘This is my own room. The Queen’s boudoir is reached through that door,’ she explained, pointing to it. ‘Wait here, and excuse me if I take the precaution of locking you in.’

‘Stay,’ I said sharply. ‘In situations like this I trust no one. Give me the key, and I will lock myself in, and open to your knock.’

The servant made no objection, and a signal was arranged between us; after which she stole away, leaving me there in the gathering dusk, with the fate of a kingdom trembling in the balance.

Of my feelings during the next half hour it would be useless to speak. Murder, red-armed and tiger-eyed, was whetting its knife against the bosom of the woman whom I would gladly have died to save. And I could do nothing but stand there and gaze furtively through the window for the first sign of the approaching cyclone.

At the end of thirty eternal minutes the expected knock came at the outer door. I took out my loaded revolver, cocked it, and advanced to the threshold.

‘Who is there?’

‘The Queen’s friend,’ came the expected answer.

I unlocked the door, opened it just widely enough to admit the waiting-maid, and promptly shut and locked it again.

‘The Queen knows you are here, but she dares not leave the table for another half hour. At the end of that time she will be in her boudoir, and will admit us.’

I took out my watch, and cursed each dilatory hand.

‘Is the danger so pressing, then?’ asked the frightened woman.

‘I do not know how pressing it is,’ I answered gloomily. ‘I cannot even be sure that Queen Draga will be suffered to leave that table alive.’

‘Oh, you are mistaken there!’ Anna exclaimed. ‘My mistress is safe. She has had a private assurance that she will be allowed to flee.’

‘Has she fled?’ I retorted. I thought I knew Draga better than her servant did.

Silence followed. The knowledge that Prince Peter had evidently contrived to give orders on behalf of the Queen, in the event of violence being employed, soothed me to some extent. Nevertheless, a sad and terrible presentiment warned me to expect the worst.

A low scratching on the inner door, that leading into the Royal boudoir, told us that the victim was still alive. A bolt was withdrawn, and the next moment I found myself in Queen Draga’s presence.

It was the same woman whom I had left a few years ago, in the full bloom of her womanhood, but how changed, how stricken! The harassed brow, the hunted look in the eyes, the grey streaks in the hair, all told me what the difference had been between the lot of the Queen and the simple Countess.

‘You are from Monsieur ----?’ she whispered.

I drew myself up. Recognition flashed in her eyes.

‘You are Andrea!’

That word repaid me for everything. I went down on one knee, and pressed her offered fingers to my lips.

It was only by the light of the moon that we were able to see each other. Anna was moving towards the key of the electric lamps, but the Queen forbade her with a gesture.

‘Now, tell me, what is it?’

‘You must this very minute put on Anna’s dress, and leave the Palace with me. We shall go straight to the railway, where my agent has by this time chartered a special train.’

Draga drew back unconvinced.

‘The assassination is fixed for next Tuesday,’ she declared.

‘It is fixed for to-night.’

‘To-night? You must be mistaken.’

I smiled bitterly.

‘The Tsar of Russia has never said that to me, madam.’

‘But how?--when?--Your own agent told me--if he was your agent----’

I waved my hand impatiently.

‘All that was true three days ago, madam. Your Majesty told King Alexander, and the conspirators have advanced the hour in consequence.’

For the first time the heroic woman turned pale, and began to tremble.

‘At what hour to-night is it?’

‘I have not ascertained. For ought I know the assassins are at this moment surrounding the Palace. There may be just time for you to leave.’

‘But the King! Alexander! My husband!’

‘I do not think there will be time for him to leave as well,’ I said gravely.

Queen Draga threw one hand across her breast with a superb defiance.

‘I do not go without my husband, sir.’

I was torn between admiration and despair.

‘I should have done better to remain in Paris, I perceive,’ I said sullenly.

‘On the contrary, dear Andrea, I, who know you so well, know that you have the heroism of soul to save the man you hate at the prayer of the woman you love.’

I stood thunderstruck, while she crossed the room into the adjoining bedchamber, and sounded a silver bell.

‘Inform his Majesty that I desire to see him very particularly as soon as possible.’

The servant who had answered the bell bowed and withdrew, with startled looks, from which I was inclined to suspect that he was in the pay of the assassins. Fortunately, he had not been able to see me where I stood.

The Queen now began hurriedly to change her dress for one more suitable for the emergency. Meanwhile there was no sign that her message had reached Alexander.

‘You have been betrayed, madam,’ I observed at last. ‘That servant was a traitor. I saw it in his face.’

Draga uttered a cry of despair.

‘You, Anna, you go and bring the King here at all costs.’

Anna darted out of the room.

The Queen, too terribly anxious to go on with her own preparations for flight, paced the room like a lioness listening for the approach of the hunters.

Five minutes passed--ten minutes--a quarter of a year! Then a step was heard in the adjoining room, and the young King of Servia, his dark face flushed with wrath, strode in.

‘What is all this? Are you trying to frighten me, Draga?’

He saw me and stopped, at the same time putting his hand to his side where his sword should have been. The weapon was missing, perhaps by accident.

‘This is our best friend, Alexander. He has come to save us. The assassins have changed their plans, and will be here to-night. A special train has been got ready, and if you can leave the Palace in disguise, all will be well.’

The ascendency of a powerful intellect in the moment of danger made itself felt. Alexander looked about him, half-dazed, as the poor youth well might be, by the ghastly imminence of the peril.

‘What disguise can I wear?’ he demanded, in a choked voice.

‘Change clothes with your valet,’ the Queen replied, with feminine quickness. ‘This gentleman affirms that he is one of the conspirators.’

‘Constantine! Impossible! I do not believe it.’

Draga wrung her hands.

‘I cannot save him. He is obstinate!’ she sobbed.

The sob conquered the stubborn narrow mind which would have resisted all argument. Alexander darted into his dressing-room, from which the valet was just trying to escape.

Seizing the man by the throat, Alexander dealt him a blow on the temple which deprived him of his senses. I had followed his Majesty, and I now stripped the valet while the King hastily undressed. While the King was assuming the disguise thus provided for him, I carried the insensible man into the bedroom, and placed him between the royal sheets.

At this moment the white face of Anna Petrovitch appeared in the doorway beyond.

‘They are coming! I see them outside in the courtyard.’

‘Quick, quick!’ burst from the lips of Queen Draga, whose self-possession seemed almost unnatural. And she pushed her husband towards the door of his own dressing-room.

‘This way?’ he exclaimed, his mind unable to keep pace with hers.

‘Yes. You are Constantine. You are in the plot, remember. You must let them in to kill your master, who is asleep.’

I shuddered. My suspicion--for it was hardly more--was going to be fatal to the valet.

‘Go with him,’ Queen Draga added, turning to me. ‘I am safe. I need neither protection nor guidance. He needs both. I adjure you, Andrea!’

Swept away by the torrent of her impetuosity, I followed Alexander to the dressing-room.

Draga herself came to the door, and closed it softly after us.

We were just in time to meet a party of a dozen soldiers, headed by Colonel Masileff himself.

Stepping past the young King, who was shaking like a leaf, I whispered in Masileff’s ear--

‘Be quiet, or you will awake him. He is lying on the bed, drunk.’

The soldiers filed in past us, not one casting so much as a glance at our faces, shrouded by the darkness.

The moment the last man had stepped across the threshold of the dressing-room, I took Alexander by the arm and drew, or rather dragged, him out into the corridor, and down the great staircase of the Palace.

We passed out unquestioned. It did not occur to one of the men whom we found outside that Masileff could have missed his prey.

My uniform was enough to disarm suspicion, for it was that of a regiment in which every man had sworn on the Gospel not to let Alexander escape alive. My agent had served me well.

We found him at the station. The special train was ready, with steam up, waiting for the signal to place us in safety on the soil of Austria.

I made Alexander take his seat in the meanest compartment, while I waited outside the station for the appearance of the two women.

I waited a long time.

From the town, all buried in darkness, there came sounds of tumult and exultation, which must have shaken the heart of the young man in the train.

It was not till I had been there for nearly three-quarters of an hour that I saw one female form creeping feebly along the road towards the station.

I darted out to meet her, and uttered an oath.

Anna Petrovitch fell weeping into my arms, with the doleful cry: ‘Queen Draga is dead! Queen Draga is dead!’

Five minutes later I had placed the desolate creature in the train, and we were speeding on our way to Vienna.

It was in the train that I learned the few particulars that Anna had to tell. But I had already guessed the nature of the catastrophe.

Another party of soldiers, headed by a personal enemy of the Queen’s, had invaded the Royal suite through the waiting-maid’s room at the instant that Masileff and his men burst into the bedroom where the valet was lying insensible. Whether Draga’s life might really have been spared or not, it is impossible to say. The heroic woman’s resolution was instantly taken. She knew that if the valet were recognised there would at once be a hue and cry, and that the King would be pursued and probably taken; and she resolved to give her life for her husband’s. She cast herself on the inanimate form lying on the bed, concealed the face in her arms, and allowed herself to be stabbed by a dozen bayonets.

Of the savage details of the murder I dare not trust myself to write. To those who know how thin is the veneer of civilisation on the Southern Slaves, how faint is the moral difference between some of these so-called Christians and their Mohammedan neighbours, it will not come as a surprise to learn that when the bloodhounds desisted from their work there was no longer any possibility of recognising either of their victims.

Of the young King, and what has become of him since that hideous night, I intend to say no single word. Of her who perished, let no man henceforth say anything but good.

X

THE POLICY OF EDWARD VII.

It is always a delicate matter for a foreigner to write about the Sovereign of another country in such a way as to be acceptable to his subjects. In case I, a citizen of the United States, should unwittingly offend any English prejudices in the following narrative, I can only assure my readers that I am actuated by no feeling but that of the most sincere respect for the greatest of living Sovereigns and the mighty people over whom he reigns.

In the summer of 1902 the whole world was dismayed by the news that the Coronation of King Edward VII. had been postponed at the last moment, on account of his Majesty’s grave state of health.

The Governments of the Continent, ever distrustful, and prone to credit others with their own Machiavellian statecraft, eagerly asked themselves if the official explanation of this event was genuine, or whether it did not conceal some subtle political purpose.

As a result, I found myself commissioned by a certain great Power to go over to London, and ascertain the true state of affairs.

Needless to say, my inquiries enabled me in a very short time to report to my employers that their suspicions were groundless.

In the course of the brief investigation I was brought into personal touch with a man of high rank, occupying a confidential position in the Royal Household--the Marquis of Bedale. The manner in which I carried out my delicate mission caused Lord Bedale to compliment me highly upon my courage and discretion, and I have every reason to think that his lordship spoke in favourable terms of me to his exalted master.

Before I left England I was surprised and gratified to receive a request from Lord Bedale to wait upon him in his private apartment in Buckingham Palace, on confidential business.[1]

His lordship received me in the friendliest fashion, and talked to me quite freely.

‘Let me begin,’ he said, ‘by asking you for your frank opinion on our Secret Service.’

‘The Secret Service of Great Britain is the most scrupulously conducted in the world,’ I replied discreetly.

Lord Bedale gave me a queer smile.

‘That means, I suppose, that it is the most inefficient?’ he suggested.

‘It is the worst paid,’ I said, by way of extenuation. ‘I have heard that the total amount voted for this purpose by the British Parliament is only £40,000, but that sounds incredible.’

‘I am afraid it is not far from the truth,’ Lord Bedale answered. ‘We have acted in the belief that the British Empire was too strong to care about what its enemies were planning.’

‘I should think the Boer War must have made you realise that such a policy was not the cheapest in the long run,’ I ventured to remark.

‘It has shown _me_ so, at all events,’ he answered, ‘and possibly some others. You will not offend me in the least, Monsieur V----, if you tell me plainly that you consider our Intelligence Department the weakest branch of our Foreign Service, and utterly unworthy of an Empire with such world-wide interests as ours.’

I was obliged to admit that such was my opinion. His lordship proceeded.

‘This state of things constitutes a national danger. In a country like ours, run on democratic lines, it is almost hopeless to look to Parliament for any improvement. The only remedy is for some one who has the interests of his country at heart to supplement the work of the public service by a private intelligence department conducted at his own expense, just as in the case of a newspaper proprietor.’

I gave the speaker a quick glance of interrogation. I happened to be aware that the Marquis, in spite of his high rank, was not a very wealthy man, and it was therefore clear to me that he was not speaking of himself.

‘Such a person as you describe would, indeed, deserve well of his country,’ was all I thought it prudent to say.

‘I shall be glad if you will consider me as the person concerned,’ Lord Bedale said in a tone which warned me that I was on delicate ground. ‘I have sent for you to ask if you will accept a commission from me to act as a Secret Service agent in the interests of Great Britain.’

I hesitated. It is my fixed rule to deal only with principals, and I could not escape the conclusion that Lord Bedale was merely the agent of another.

‘Will you let me ask your lordship one question?’ I said. ‘Do you offer me this commission as a private citizen solely, or am I at liberty to infer, from your position in the Royal Household, that you have no concealments from the exalted personage you serve, and that by accepting your offer I shall, in effect, be serving his Majesty?’

The Marquis studied my face carefully before answering.

‘It seems to me that such an inference is right and natural, and one that you are bound to make,’ he said slowly.

‘Then I shall feel highly honoured by accepting,’ I returned, bowing.

The question of terms was disposed of to our mutual satisfaction. I came away from the Palace filled with reverence for the monarch who, unless I were completely deceived, had decided to contribute out of his private purse to the defence of the great Empire whose politicians were so neglectful of its safety.

On my return to Paris I set to work to organise a special department for the purpose of collecting intelligence likely to be of importance to the British Empire.

I was amused to find that several of the secret agents in the service of the British Foreign Office were receiving much larger salaries from the Russian Government than from the one they were supposed to act for. Among other similar discoveries my agents reported to me that a certain British Vice-Consul in the Euphrates Valley, a Greek by extraction, had secretly taken out letters of naturalisation as a German subject. It was on this man’s recommendation chiefly that the British Government had been induced to give its countenance to the project for a German railway to Baghdad.

I duly forwarded this and other items to Lord Bedale, but I could not perceive that any notice was taken of them by the Foreign Office. Probably the permanent staff resented the idea that they were being checked and inspected, and determined to show that they were not going to let even their monarch interfere with them.

But all this was merely preliminary. I was on the eve of a discovery of so much moment that I have often asked myself since whether, but for me, the British Empire would be in existence to-day.

Newspaper readers may recollect that not very long ago a sharp passage of words took place between a German Minister and an English statesman whom I will not indicate more closely in the present excited state of party politics. Although in appearance but a quarrel of Ministers, it was perfectly well understood on the Continent that the Count von Bülow was only the mouthpiece of his Imperial master on this occasion. Europe gasped at the spectacle of this political thunderstorm, in which the lurking hatred of Germany towards England was for the first time brought to the surface, and exposed.

I knew the character of both of these formidable peoples too well to believe that the incident would have no after effects. As by the glare of a lightning-flash, there stood revealed before me the figures of the two great protagonists, contending together for the mastery in a war raging over three continents.

Very soon after Lord Bedale, or whoever stood behind him, had confided the safety of Great Britain to my care, I repaired in disguise to Berlin. My instinct taught me that this capital was the true storm-centre, and that from here, rather than St. Petersburg, would be directed the designs of any really dangerous movement against the country of Edward VII.