The Czar's Spy: The Mystery of a Silent Love

THE CZAR'S SPY

_The Mystery of a Silent Love_

By CHEVALIER WILLIAM LE QUEUX
_Author of "The Closed Book," Etc._



 1905.


CONTENTS


CHAPTER


    I. HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S SERVICE

   II. WHY THE SAFE WAS OPENED

  III. THE HOUSE "OVER THE WATER"

   IV. IN WHICH THE MYSTERY INCREASES

    V. CONTAINS CERTAIN CONFIDENCES

   VI. THE GATHERING OF THE CLOUDS

  VII. CONTAINS A SURPRISE

 VIII. LIFE'S COUNTER-CLAIM

   IX. STRANGE DISCLOSURES ARE MADE

    X. I SHOW MY HAND

   XI. THE CASTLE OF THE TERROR

  XII. "THE STRANGLER"

 XIII. A DOUBLE GAME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

  XIV. HER HIGHNESS IS INQUISITIVE

   XV. JUST OFF THE STRAND

  XVI. MARKED MEN

 XVII. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE "LOLA"

XVIII. CONTAINS ELMA'S STORY

CONCLUSION




CHAPTER I

HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S SERVICE


"There was a mysterious affair last night, signore."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "Anything that interests us?"

"Yes, signore," replied the tall, thin Italian Consular-clerk, speaking
with a strong accent. "An English steam yacht ran aground on the Meloria
about ten miles out, and was discovered by a fishing-boat who brought
the news to harbor. The Admiral sent out two torpedo-boats, which
managed after a lot of difficulty to bring in the yacht safely, but the
Captain of the Port has a suspicion that the crew were trying to make
away with the vessel."

"To lose her, you mean?"

The faithful Francesco, whose English had mostly been acquired from
sea-faring men, and was not the choicest vocabulary, nodded, and, true
Tuscan that he was, placed his finger upon his closed lips, indicative
of silence.

"Sounds curious," I remarked. "Since the Consul went away on leave
things seem to have been humming--two stabbing affrays, eight drunken
seamen locked up, a mutiny on a tramp steamer, and now a yacht being
cast away--a fairly decent list! And yet some stay-at-home people
complain that British consuls are only paid to be ornamental! They
should spend a week here, at Leghorn, and they'd soon alter their
opinion."

"Yes, they would, signore," responded the thin-faced old fellow with a
grin, as he twisted his fierce gray mustache. Francesco Carducci was a
well-known character in Leghorn; interpreter to the Consulate, and
keeper of a sailor's home, an honest, good-hearted, easy-going fellow,
who for twenty years had occupied the same position under half a dozen
different Consuls. At that moment, however, there came from the outer
office a long-drawn moan.

"Hulloa, what's that?" I enquired, startled.

"Only a mad stoker off the _Oleander_, signore. The captain has brought
him for you to see. They want to send him back to his friends at
Newcastle."

"Oh! a case of madness!" I exclaimed. "Better get Doctor Ridolfi to see
him. I'm not an expert on mental diseases."

My old friend Frank Hutcheson, His Britannic Majesty's Vice-Consul at
the port of Leghorn, was away on leave in England, his duties being
relegated to young Bertram Cavendish, the pro-Consul. The latter,
however, had gone down with a bad touch of malaria which he had picked
up in the deadly Maremma, and I, as the only other Englishman in
Leghorn, had been asked by the Consul-General in Florence to act as
pro-Consul until Hutcheson's return.

It was in mid-July, and the weather was blazing in the glaring
sun-blanched Mediterranean town. If you know Leghorn, you probably know
the Consulate with its black and yellow escutcheon outside, a large,
handsome suite of huge, airy offices facing the cathedral, and
overlooking the principal piazza, which is as big as Trafalgar Square,
and much more picturesque. The legend painted upon the door, "Office
hours, 10 to 3," and the green persiennes closed against the scorching
sun give one the idea of an easy appointment, but such is certainly not
the case, for a Consul's life at a port of discharge must necessarily
be a very active one, and his duties never-ending.

Carducci had left me to the correspondence for half an hour or so, and I
confess I was in no mood to write replies in that stifling heat,
therefore I sat at the Consul's big table, smoking a cigarette and
stretched lazily in my friend's chair, resolving to escape to the cool
of England as soon as he returned in the following week. Italy is all
very well for nine months in the year, but Leghorn is no place for the
Englishman in mid-July. My thoughts were wandering toward the English
lakes, and a bit of grouse-shooting with my uncle up in Scotland, when
the faithful Francesco re-entered, saying--

"I've sent the captain and his madman away till this afternoon, signore.
But there is an English signore waiting to see you."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know him. He will give no name, but wants to see the Signor
Console."

"All right, show him in," I said lazily, and a few moments later a tall,
smartly-dressed, middle-aged Englishman, in a navy serge yachting suit,
entered, and bowing, enquired whether I was the British Consul.

When he had seated himself I explained my position, whereupon he said--

"I couldn't make much out of your clerk.