The next morning at breakfast I found the two invitations already promised. That of the head of the Manchurian Syndicate was for the same night.

Resolved not to remain in the dark any longer as to the reason for this apparent breach of etiquette, I decided to do what the Marquis of Bedale had suggested, namely, approach the Dowager Empress in person.

Well accustomed to the obstacles which beset access to royalty, I drove to the Palace in a richly appointed carriage from the best livery stable in Petersburg, and sent in my card to the chamberlain by an equerry.

“I have a message to the Czaritza which I am instructed to give to her majesty in person,” I told him. “Be good enough to let her know that the messenger from the Queen of England has arrived.”

He went out of the room, and at the end of ten minutes the door opened again and admitted—the Princess Y——!

Overpowered by this unlucky accident, as I at first supposed it to be, I rose to my feet, muttering some vague phrase of courtesy.

But the Princess soon showed me that the meeting did not take her by surprise.

“So you have a message for my dear mistress?” she cried in an accent of gay reproach. “And you never breathed a word of it to me. Mr. Sterling, I shall begin to think you are a conspirator. How long did you say you had known that good Mr. Place? But I am talking while her majesty is waiting. Have you any password by which the Czaritza will know whom you come from?”

“I can tell that only to her majesty, I am afraid,” I answered guardedly.

“I am in her majesty’s confidence.”

And bringing her exquisite face so near to mine that I was oppressed by the scent of the tuberoses in her bosom, she whispered three syllables in my ear.

Dismayed by this proof of the fatal progress the dangerous police agent had already made, I could only admit by a silent bow that the password was correct.

“Then come with me, Mr. Sterling,” the Princess said with what sounded like a malicious accent on the name.

The reception which I met from the Dowager Empress was gracious in the extreme. I need not recount all that passed. Her imperial majesty repeated with evident sincerity the assurances which had already been given me in a different spirit by the two arch-intriguers.

“There will be no war. The Czar has personally intervened. He has taken the negotiations out of the hands of Count Lamsdorff, and written an autograph letter to the Mikado which will put an end to the crisis.”

I listened with a distrust which I could not wholly conceal.

“I trust his majesty has not intervened too late,” I said respectfully, my mind bent on framing some excuse to get rid of the listener. “According to the newspapers the patience of the Japanese is nearly exhausted.”

“No more time will be lost,” the Czaritza responded. “The messenger leaves Petersburg to-night with the Czar’s letter.”

I stole a cautious glance in the direction of the Princess Y——. She was breathing deeply, her eyes fixed on the Czaritza’s lips, and her hands tightly clenched.

I put on an air of great relief.

“In that case, your majesty, I have no more to do in Petersburg. I will wire the good news to Lord Bedale, and return to England to-morrow or the next day. I beg your pardon, Princess!” I pretended to exclaim by a sudden afterthought, “after the next day.” And turning once more to the mother of the Czar, I explained:

“The Princess has honored me with an invitation to dinner.”

The Dowager Empress glanced at her attendant in evident surprise.

“I must implore your pardon, Madam,” the Princess stammered, in real confusion. “I am aware I ought to have solicited your leave in the first place, but knowing that this gentleman came from——”

She broke off, fairly unable to meet the questioning gaze of her imperial mistress.

I pretended to come to her relief.

“I have a private message,” I said to the Empress.

“You may leave us, Princess,” the Empress said coldly.

As soon as the door had closed on her, I gave a warning look at the Czaritza.

“That woman, Madam, is the most dangerous agent in the secret service of your Empire.”

I trusted to the little scene I had just contrived to prepare the mind of the Czaritza for this intimation. But she received it as a matter of course.

“Sophia Y—— has been all that you say, Monsieur V——. I am well acquainted with her history. The poor thing has been a victim of the most fiendish cruelty on the part of the Minister of Police, for years. At last, unable to bear her position any longer, she appealed to me. She told me her harrowing story, and implored me to receive her, and secure her admission to a convent. I investigated the case thoroughly.”

“Your majesty will pardon me, I am sure, if I say that as a man with some experience of intrigue, I thoroughly distrust that woman’s sincerity. She is intimate with M. Petrovitch, to my knowledge.”

“But M. Petrovitch is also on the side of peace, so I am assured.”

I began to despair.

“You will believe me, or disbelieve me as your majesty pleases. But I am accustomed to work for those who honor me with their entire confidence. If the Princess Y—— is to be taken into the secret of my work on your majesty’s behalf, I must respectfully ask to be released.”

As I offered her majesty this alternative in a firm voice, I was inwardly trembling. On the reply hung, perhaps, the fate of two continents.

But the Dowager Empress did not hesitate.

“What you stipulate for shall be done, Monsieur V——. I am too well aware of the value of your services, and the claims you have on the confidence of your employers, to dispute your conditions.”

“The messenger who is starting to-night—does the Princess know who he is?”

“I believe so. It is no secret. The messenger is Colonel Menken.”

“In that case he will never reach Tokio.”

Her majesty could not suppress a look of horror.

“What do you advise?” she demanded tremulously.

“His majesty the Czar must at once write a duplicate of the despatch, unknown to any living soul but your majesty, and that despatch must be placed by you in my hands.”

The Dowager Empress gazed at me for a moment in consternation.

But the soundness of the plan I had proposed quickly made itself manifest to her.

“You are right, Monsieur V——,” her majesty said approvingly. “I will communicate with the Czar without delay. By what time do you want the despatch?”

“In time to catch the Siberian express to-night, if your majesty pleases. I purpose to travel by the same train as Colonel Menken—it is possible I may be able to avert a tragedy.

“And since your majesty has told me that the Princess Y—— is aware of the Colonel’s errand, let me venture to urge you most strongly not to let her out of your sight on any pretense until he is safely on his way.”

I need not go into the details of the further arrangements made with a view to my receiving the duplicate despatch in secrecy.

I came away from the Palace fully realizing the serious nature of my undertaking. I understood now all that had worried me in the proceedings of the Princess. It was clear to me that Lord Bedale, or the personage on whose behalf he instructed me, had wired to the Dowager Empress, notifying her majesty of my coming, and that she had shown the message to her lady-in-waiting.

Blaming myself bitterly for not having impressed the necessity for caution on the Marquis, I at once set about providing myself with a more effectual disguise.

It is a proverb on the lips of every moujik in Petersburg that all Russia obeys the Czar, and the Czar obeys the Tchin. Ever since the bureaucracy deliberately allowed Alexander II. to be assassinated by the Nihilists out of anger at his reforming tendencies, the Russian monarchs have felt more real dread of their own police than of the revolutionists. The Tchin, the universally-pervading body of officials, who run the autocracy to fill their pockets, and indulge their vile propensities at the expense of the governed, is as omnipotent as it is corrupt. Everywhere in that vast Empire the word of the Tchinovink is law—and there is no other law except his word.

Taking the bull by the horns, I went straight to the Central Police Bureau of the capital, and asked to see a certain superintendent named Rostoy.

To this man, with whom I had had some dealings on a previous occasion, and whose character was well understood by me, I explained that I had accepted a mission from a friendly Power to travel along the Siberian Railway and report on its capacity to keep the Army of Manchuria supplied with food and ammunition in the event of war.

He expressed no surprise when I told him it was essential that I should leave Petersburg that night, and accordingly it did not take us long to come to terms.

The service which I required of him was, of course, a fresh passport, with a complete disguise which would enable me to pass anywhere along the railway or in Manchuria without being detected or interfered with by the agents of the Government.

After some discussion we decided that the safest plan would be for me to travel in the character of a Russian police officer charged with the detection of the train thieves and card-sharpers who abound on every great route of travel. I could think of no part which would serve better to enable me to watch over the safety of the Czar’s envoy without exciting suspicion.

I placed in Rostoy’s hands the first instalment of a heavy bribe, and arranged to return an hour before the departure of the Moscow express to carry out my transformation.

It was only as I left his office that I remembered my unlucky engagement to dine that very night with the head of the Manchurian Syndicate.

I perceived that these hospitalities were well devised checks on my movements, and it was with something of a shock that I realized that when I went to dinner that evening with the most active promoter of the war I should be carrying the Czar’s peace despatch in my pocket!

If the enemies of peace had foreseen every step that I was to take in the discharge of my mission, their measures could not have been more skilfully arranged.

And as this reflection occurred to me I turned my head nervously, and remarked a man dressed like a hotel porter lounging carelessly in my track.