第66章

THE POISON CONTINUE5

At ten o'clock that morning Rouletabille went to the Trebassof villa, which had its guard of secret agents again, a double guard, because Koupriane was sure the Nihilists would not delay in avenging Michael's death.Rouletabille was met by Ermolai, who would not allow him to enter.The faithful servant uttered some explanation in Russian, which the young man did not understand, or, rather, Rouletabille understood perfectly from his manner that henceforth the door of the villa was closed to him.In vain he insisted on seeing the general, Matrena Petrovna and Mademoiselle Natacha.

Ermolai made no reply but "Niet, niet, niet." The reporter turned away without having seen anyone, and walked away deeply depressed.

He went afoot clear into the city, a long promenade, during which his brain surged with the darkest forebodings.As he passed by the Department of Police he resolved to see Koupriane again.He went in, gave his name, and was ushered at once to the Chief of Police, whom he found bent over a long report that he was reading through with noticeable agitation.

"Gounsovski has sent me this," he said in a rough voice, pointing to the report."Gounsovski, 'to do me a service,' desires me to know that he is fully aware of all that happened at the Trebassof datcha last night.He warns me that the revolutionaries have decided to get through with the general at once, and that two of them have been given the mission to enter the datcha in any way possible.They will have bombs upon their bodies and will blow the bombs and themselves up together as soon as they are beside the general.Who are the two victims designated for this horrible vengeance, and who have light-heartedly accepted such a death for themselves as well as for the general? That is what we don't know.

That is what we would have known, perhaps, if you had not prevented me from seizing the papers that Prince Galitch has now," Koupriane finished, turning hostilely toward Rouletabille.

Rouletabille had turned pale.

"Don't regret what happened to the papers," he said."It is I who tell you not to.But what you say doesn't surprise me.They must believe that Natacha has betrayed them.""Ah, then you admit at last that she really is their accomplice?""I haven't said that and I don't admit it.But I know what I mean, and you, you can't.Only, know this one thing, that at the present moment I am the only person able to save you in this horrible situation.To do that I must see Natacha at once.Make her understand this, while I wait at my hotel for word.I'll not leave it."Rouletabille saluted Koupriane and went out.

Two days passed, during which Rouletabille did not receive any word from either Natacha or Koupriane, and tried in vain to see them.

He made a trip for a few hours to Finland, going as far as Pergalovo, an isolated town said to be frequented by the revolutionaries, then returned, much disturbed, to his hotel, after having written a last letter to Natacha imploring an interview.The minutes passed very slowly for him in the hotel's vestibule, where he had seemed to have taken up a definite residence.

Installed on a bench, he seemed to have become part of the hotel staff, and more than one traveler took him for an interpreter.

Others thought he was an agent of the Secret Police appointed to study the faces of those arriving and departing.What was he waiting for, then? Was it for Annouchka to return for a luncheon or dinner in that place that she sometimes frequented? And did he at the same time keep watch upon Annouchka's apartments just across the way? If that was so, he could only bewail his luck, for Annouchka did not appear either at her apartments or the hotel, or at the Krestowsky establishment, which had been obliged to suppress her performance.Rouletabille naturally thought, in the latter connection, that some vengeance by Gounsovski lay back of this, since the head of the Secret Service could hardly forget the way he had been treated.The reporter could see already the poor singer, in spite of all her safeguards and the favor of the Imperial family, on the road to the Siberian steppes or the dungeons of Schlusselbourg.

"My, what a country!" he murmured.

But his thoughts soon quit Annouchka and returned to the object of his main preoccupation.He waited for only one thing, and for that as soon as possible - to have a private interview with Natacha.He had written her ten letters in two days, but they all remained unanswered.It was an answer that he waited for so patiently in the vestibule of the hotel - so patiently, but so nervously, so feverishly.

When the postman entered, poor Rouletabille's heart beat rapidly.

On that answer he waited for depended the formidable part he meant to play before quitting Russia.He had accomplished nothing up to now, unless he could play his part in this later development.

But the letter did not come.The postman left, and the schwitzar, after examining all the mail, made him a negative sign.Ah, the servants who entered, and the errand-boys, how he looked at them!

But they never came for him.Finally, at six o'clock in the evening of the second day, a man in a frock-coat, with a false astrakhan collar, came in and handed the concierge a letter for Joseph Rouletabille.The reporter jumped up.Before the man was out the door he had torn open the letter and read it.The letter was not from Natacha.It was from Gounsovski.This is what it said:

"My dear Monsieur Joseph Rouletabille, if it will not inconvenience you, I wish you would oome and dine with me to-day.I will look for you within two hours.Madame Gounsovski will be pleased to make your acquaintance.Believe me your devoted Gounsovski."Rouletabille considered, and decided: