第44章

"These functionaries are admirable," thought Rouletabille as he was led to the barracks.He felt he had not paid too much for the services of a personage whose uniform was completely covered with lace.They tramped, they climbed, they descended.Stairways, corridors.Ah, the barracks at last.He seemed to have entered a convent.Beds very white, very narrow, and images of the Virgin and saints everywhere, monastic neatness and the most absolute silence.Suddenly an order sounded in the corridor outside, and the police-guard, who sprang from no one could tell where, stood to attention at the head of their beds.Koupriane and his aide appeared.Koupriane looked at everything closely, spoke to each man in turn, called them by their names, inquired about their needs, and the men stammered replies, not knowing what to answer, reddening like children.Koupriane observed Rouletabille.He dismissed his aide with a gesture.The inspection was over.He drew the young man into a little room just off the dormitory.

Rouletabille, frightened, looked about him.He found himself in a chapel.This little chapel completed the effect of the guards'

dormitory.It was all gilded, decorated in marvelous colors, thronged with little ikons that bring happiness, and, naturally, with the portrait of the Tsar, the dear Little Father.

"You see," said Koupriane, smiling at Rouletabille's amazement, "we deny them nothing.We give them their saints right here in their quarters." Closing the door, he drew a chair toward Rouletabille and motioned him to sit down.They sat before the little altar loaded with flowers, with colored paper and winged saints.

"We can talk here without being disturbed," he said."Yonder there is such a crowd of people waiting for me.I'm ready to listen.""Monsieur," said Rouletabille, "I have come to give you the report of my mission here, and to terminate my connection with it.All that is left for clearing this obscure affair is to arrest the guilty person, with which I have nothing to do.That concerns you.

I simply inform you that someone tried to poison the general last night by pouring arsenate of soda into his sleeping-potion, which I bring you in this phial, arsenate which was secured most probably by washing it from grapes brought to General Trebassof by the marshal of the court, and which disappeared without anyone being able to say how.""Ah, ah, a family affair, a plot within the family.I told you so," murmured Koupriane.

"The affair at least has happened within the family, as you think, although the assassin came from outside.Contrary to what you may be able to believe, he does not live in the house.""Then how does he get there?" demanded Koupriane.

"By the window of the room overlooking the Neva.He has often come that way.And that is the way he returns also, I am sure.It is there you can take him if you act with prudence.""How do you know he often comes that way?""You know the height of the window above the little roadway.To reach it he uses a water-trough, whose iron rings are bent, and also the marks of a grappling-iron that he carries with him and uses to hoist himself to the window are distinctly visible on the ironwork of the little balcony outside.The marks are quite obviously of different dates""But that window is closed."

"Someone opens it for him."

"Who, if you please?"

"I have no desire to know."

"Eh, yes.It necessarily is Natacha.I was sure that the Villa des Iles had its viper.I tell you she doesn't dare leave her nest because she knows she is watched.Not one of her movements outside escapes us! She knows it.She has been warned.The last time she ventured outside alone was to go into the old quarters of Derewnia.

What has she to do in such a rotten quarter? I ask you that.And she turned in her tracks without seeing anyone, without knocking at a single door, because she saw that she was followed.She isn't able to get to see them outside, therefore she has to see them inside.""They are only one, and always the same one.""Are you sure?"

"An examination of the marks on the wall and on the pipe doesn't leave any doubt of it, and it is always the same grappling-iron that is used for the window.""The viper!"

"Monsieur Koupriane, Mademoiselle Natacha seems to preoccupy you exceedingly.I did not come here to talk about Mademoiselle Natacha.I came to point out to you the route used by the man who comes to do the murder.""Eh, yes, it is she who opens the way."

"I can't deny that."

"The little demon! Why does she take him into her room at night?

Do you think perhaps there is some love-affair...?""I am sure of quite the opposite."

"I too.Natacha is not a wanton.Natacha has no heart.She has only a brain.And it doesn't take long for a brain touched by Nihilism to get so it won't hesitate at anything."Koupriane reflected a minute, while Rouletabille watched him in silence.

"Have we solely to do with Nihilism?" resumed Koupriane.

"Everything you tell me inclines me more and more to my idea: a family affair, purely in the family.You know, don't you, that upon the general's death Natacha will be immensely rich?""Yes, I know it," replied Rouletabille, in a voice that sounded singular to the ear of the Chief of Police and which made him raise his head.

"What do you know?"

"I? Nothing," replied the reporter, this time in a firmer tone.

"I ought, however, to say this to you: I am sure that we are dealing with Nihilism...""What makes you believe it?"

"This."

And Rouletabille handed Koupriane the message he had received that same morning.

"Oh, oh," cried Koupriane."You are under watch! Look out.""I have nothing to fear; I'm not bothering myself about anything further.Yes, we have an affair of the revolutionaries, but not of the usual kind.The way they are going about it isn't like one of their young men that the Central Committee arms with a bomb and who is sacrificed in advance.""Where are the tracks that you have traced?""Right up to the little Krestowsky Villa."Koupriane bounded from his chair.