Rouletabille walked back and forth, very much worked
up; then suddenly he stopped short.
“Impossible,” he said. “It
is impossible. I cannot; I am not able to go
yet.”
“Why?”
“Good God, Monsieur Koupriane, because I have
to interview the President of the Duma yet, and complete
my little inquiry into the politics of the cadets.”
“Oh, indeed!”
Koupriane looked at him with a sour grin.
“What are you going to do with that man?”
demanded Rouletabille.
“Have him fixed up first.”
“And then?”
“Then take him before the judges.”
“That is to say, to the gallows?”
“Certainly.”
“Monsieur Koupriane, I offer it to you again.
Life for life. Give me the life of that poor
devil and I promise you General Trebassof’s.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Not at all. Do you promise me that you
will maintain silence about the case of that man and
that you will not touch a hair of his head?”
Koupriane looked at Rouletabille as he had looked
at him during the altercation they had on the edge
of the Gulf. He decided the same way this time.
“Very well,” said he. “You
have my word. The poor devil!”
“You are a brave man, Monsieur Koupriane, but
a little quick with the whip...”
“What would you expect? One’s work
teaches that.”
“Good morning. No, don’t trouble
to show me out. I am compromised enough already,”
said Rouletabille, laughing.
“Au revoir, and good luck! Get to work
interviewing the President of the Duma,” added
Koupriane knowingly, with a great laugh.
But Rouletabille was already gone.
“That lad,” said the Chief of Police aloud
to himself, “hasn’t told me a bit of what
he knows.”
ANNOUCHKA
“And now it’s between us two, Natacha,”
murmured Rouletabille as soon as he was outside.
He hailed the first carriage that passed and gave
the address of the datcha des Iles. When he got
in he held his head between his hands; his face burned,
his jaws were set. But by a prodigious effort
of his will he resumed almost instantly his calm,
his self-control. As he went back across the
Neva, across the bridge where he had felt so elated
a little while before, and saw the isles again he
sighed heavily. “I thought I had got it
all over with, so far as I was concerned, and now
I don’t know where it will stop.”
His eyes grew dark for a moment with somber thoughts
and the vision of the Lady in Black rose before him;
then he shook his head, filled his pipe, lighted it,
dried a tear that had been caused doubtless by a little
smoke in his eye, and stopped sentimentalizing.
A quarter of an hour later he gave a true Russian
nobleman’s fist-blow in the back to the coachman
as an intimation that they had reached the Trebassof
villa. A charming picture was before him.
They were all lunching gayly in the garden, around
the table in the summer-house. He was astonished,
however, at not seeing Natacha with them. Boris
Mourazoff and Michael Korsakoff were there.
Rouletabille did not wish to be seen. He made
a sign to Ermolai, who was passing through the garden
and who hurried to meet him at the gate.
