When I Was Czar

You’ll remember my old yarn about the Czar having saved my life years ago in a pig-sticking do in Germany--he shoved or kicked me into a bush just in the nick of time when the b...

“The occasion itself is quite an extraordinary one, of course. But I repeat, you will be doing His Majesty and his Ministers a service of extreme importance. I have asked you, o...

I did not leave my rooms on the following day, and passed the chief part of it preparing for the part I was to play in the evening, and discussing the details.

Who was she? What was the mysterious mission of which she had spoken? What was her connexion with this Boreski affair? What part was she playing in the serio-comic drama in whic...

Helga met my eyes readily with something like a challenge in her own, and as the first question was on my lips, a thought struck me. It was odd that coming to such an interview...

How long I stood there, hesitating and embarrassed, while Helga was holding the door open for me in that queenly pose of splendid indignation, I do not know, but realizing at la...

The apartments to which I was shown were as luxurious in their way as the room in which I had been received, and as everything had obviously been ready in advance, I had a shrew...

“I have just heard very disturbing news, and hasten to send it you, while I go to make inquiries. Drexel and I had a somewhat serious quarrel after leaving your house last night...

“Must?” with a lift of the brows. “Your ride seems to have made you strangely impatient. Can you restrain it while I take off my hat, monsieur? I am hungry, too, after my ride....

The tragic and unutterably sorrowful story which Helga had told me had filled the cup of my sympathy with her to overflowing, and help her I vowed I would in some way. But she h...

Events had so crowded the few minutes that I had not had time to think, except in those flashes of decision necessary in a crisis. My instinct in such times is to act first and...

It was certainly one of the most untimely kicks which Fate could have dealt me; and it took all my reserved strength to brace myself and shake off my first feeling of dismay in...

“You know so well what I was doing that I suppose you know also I was going to open the door to let the men in. I am a spy and was acting like you no doubt think a spy would. Wh...

What to do with our prisoners embarrassed me for a moment. Every one of us might be needed below, and my first idea was to leave the men as they were. But happily I did not do t...

“Do you think I was such a fool as to want to kill him? I had no feud with him, nor have I with you. It was a question whether he shot me--thinking I was the Emperor--or whether...

With my hand on the door of the room where Helga was, I paused. The thought crossed my mind that I had not been alone with her since the critical moment in which the cloud betwe...

As soon as Helga was gone I sent for Ivan, and told him to have everything in readiness for the start in three hours’ time; and that of course he would go with us.

My first inclination was to burst out laughing at the egregious absurdity of the blunder, but I restrained myself. Had I had no one but myself to think for, I would have had my...

“You have quite a stage instinct, monsieur, in pausing thus at the critical moment. If I did not know you, I might be tempted to think you were arranging the duly dramatic unfol...

“You had better calm yourself, M. Denver. It will not help the case of an accused murderer to attempt my life, and such an attempt must fail, as a single cry from me will bring...

But I had little conscious thought beyond a burning impatience to get to Helga in the shortest possible time. I was jostled and pushed as I hurried on; now hustled off the side...

As I hurried out from Drexel, intending to try and find means to render myself more presentable by getting rid of some of my grime, I found Helga waiting for me.

Frank Siegel was one of those enthusiastic journalists to whose zeal the press of America owes its distinctive position. Enterprise, unhampered by too much discretion, was the g...

It was fortunate for my peace of mind in the hours which followed Helga’s arrest that I did not know a number of grim facts that afterwards came to my knowledge about Russian me...

I was very preoccupied with my plans as I left the Foreign Embassy, and, crossing the side path quickly, ran against a man, who turned, stared, started, and muttering some words...

My feelings as Prince Kalkov and I stood thus face to face for some half minute or so without speaking were not wholly those of disappointment and chagrin. Disappointed I was, o...

I had carried everything before me so triumphantly; had secured Helga’s freedom, and was on my way to take her the good news; she and I would leave the country; Siegel would be...

Prince Kalkov was an opponent with whom it was dangerous to hesitate and fatal to appear disconcerted, so I shook myself up as quickly as I could, and answered with a smile.

The clock was close on the stroke of ten when Siegel and I reached the prison where Marvyn was already waiting for us in the room in which Helga and I had seen each other. He sh...

Had Prince Kalkov taken that prompt step, he might or might not have been able to intercept the papers after finding they were not on me, but certainly things would have gone ve...

We were under arrest by Prince Kalkov’s orders, and his men left us in no doubt that both Helga and I were suspected of having caused in some way the sudden collapse.

“If you could have got to him all this would never have happened. I never saw a man more moved. I left all the papers with him and he’s going to study them himself, and then see...