The Red Symbol

by John Ironside

  CHAPTER XXIII

  FREEMAN EXPLAINS

  The next I knew I was in bed, in a cool, darkened room, with a manseated in an easy-chair near at hand, smoking a cigarette, and readingwhat looked remarkably like an English newspaper.

  I lay and looked at him lazily, for a few minutes. I hadn't the leastidea as to where I was, or how I came there; I didn't feel any curiosityon the point. The blissful consciousness of cleanliness and comfort wasquite sufficient for me at present. My broken arm had been set and putin rude splints while I was in the prison, by one of my fellowsufferers, I expect, and was now scientifically cased in plaster ofParis; the bullet wounds in my right arm and side were properly dressedand strapped, and felt pretty comfortable till I tried to shift myposition a little, when I realized they were there.

  At the slight movement the man in the chair laid down his paper and cameup to the bed.

  "Hello, Mr. Wynn; feel a bit more like yourself, eh?" he asked bluffly,in English.

  "Why, yes, I feel just about 'O. K.,' thanks," I responded, and laughedinanely. My voice sounded funny--thin and squeaky--and it jumped fromone note to another. I hadn't the least control over it. "Say, where amI, and who are you? I guess you've done me a good turn!"

  "Humph, I suppose we have. Good Lord, think of an Englishman--you're anAmerican, but it's all the same in this case--being treated like that bythese Russian swine! You're still in St. Petersburg; we've got to patchyou up a bit before we can take you back to good old England."

  Now why should he, or any one else, be "taking me back to England?" Ipuzzled over it in silence before I put the question.

  "Never you mind about that now," he said with brusque kindliness. "Allyou've got to think about is getting strong again."

  But already I began to remember, and past events came jumping before mymind like cinematograph pictures.

  "You fetched me out of prison,--you and Inspector Freeman," I saidslowly.

  "Look here, don't you worry," he began.

  "Yes, I must--I want to get things clear; wait a bit. He said something.I know; he came to arrest me for murder,--the murder of Cassavetti."

  "Just so; and a jolly good thing for you he did! But, as you'veremembered that much, I must warn you that I'm a detective in charge ofyou, and anything you say will be used against you."

  More cinematograph pictures,--Cassavetti as I saw him, lying behind thedoor, his eyes open, staring; myself on the steps below WestminsterBridge, calling to Anne, as she sat in the boat. Anne! No more pictures,but a jiggery of red and black splashes, and then a darkness, throughwhich I passed somehow into a pleasant place,--a garden where rosesbloomed and a fountain plashed, and Anne was beside me; I held her handin mine.

  Now she was gone, she had vanished mysteriously. What was that mansaying? "The Fraulein has not been here at all!" Why, she was here amoment ago; what a fool that waiter was! A waiter? No, he was a droshkydriver; I knew it, though I could not see him. There were other voicesspeaking now,--men's voices,--subdued but distinct; and as I listened Icame back from the land of dreams--or delirium--to that of reality.

  "Yes, he's been pretty bad, sir. He came to himself quite nicely, andbegan to talk. No, I didn't tell him anything, as you said I wasn't to,but he remembered by himself, and then I had to warn him, and he wentright off again."

  "You're an ass, Harris," said another voice. "What did you want to speakto him at all for?"

  I opened my eyes at that, and saw Freeman and the other man looking downat me.

  "He isn't an ass; he's a real good sort," I announced. "And I didn'tmurder Cassavetti, though I'd have murdered half a dozen Cassavettis toget out of that hell upon earth yonder!"

  I shut my eyes again, settled myself luxuriously against my pillows, andwent,--back to Anne and the rose-garden.

  I suppose I began to pull round from that time, and in a few days I wasable to get up. I almost forgot that I was still in custody, and evenwhen I remembered the fact, it didn't trouble me in the least. Afterwhat I had endured in the Russian prison, it was impossible, at present,anyhow, to consider Detective-Inspector Freeman and his subordinate,Harris, as anything less than the best of good fellows and good nurses.True, they never left me to myself for an instant; one or other of themwas always in close attendance on me; but there was nothing of espionagein that attendance. They merely safe-guarded me, and, at the same time,helped me back to life, as if I had been their comrade rather than theirprisoner. Freeman, in due course, gave me his formal warning that"anything I said with respect to the crime with which I was chargedwould be used against me;" but in all other respects both he and Harrisacted punctiliously on the principle held by only two civilized nationsin the world,--England and the United States of America,--that "a man isregarded as innocent in the eyes of the law until he has been tried andfound guilty."

  "Well, how goes it to-day?" Freeman asked, as he relieved his lieutenantone morning. "You look a sight better than you did. D'you think you canstand the journey? We don't want you to die on our hands _en route_, youknow!"

  "We'll start to-day if you like; I'm fit enough," I answered. "Let's getback and get it over. It's a preposterous charge, you know; but--"

  "We needn't discuss that, Mr. Wynn," he interrupted hastily.

  "All right; we won't. Though I fancy I shouldn't have been alive at thistime if you hadn't taken it into your heads to hunt me down as themurderer of a man who wasn't even a naturalized Englishman. You camejust in the nick of time, Mr. Freeman."

  "Well, yes, I think we did that," he conceded. "You were the mostdeplorable object I've ever seen in the course of my experience,--andthat's fairly long and varied. I'd like to know how you got into theirclutches; though you needn't say if it has any connection with--"

  "Why, certainly. It's nothing to do with Cassavetti, or Selinski, orwhatever his name was," I said.

  "I got wind of a Nihilist meeting in the woods, went there out ofcuriosity; and the soldiers turned up. There was a free fight; they gotthe best of it, took me prisoner with the others, and that's all. Buthow did you trace me? How long had you been in Petersburg?"

  "Only a couple of days. Found you had disappeared and the Embassies wereraising Cain. It seemed likely you'd been murdered, as Carson was. Thepolice declared they were making every effort to trace you, withoutsuccess; and I doubt if they would have produced you, even in responseto the extradition warrant, but that some one mysteriously telephonedinformation to the American Embassy that you were in prison--in thefortress--and even gave your number; though he would not give his ownname or say where he was speaking from."

  Who was it, I wondered,--Loris or Mirakoff? It must have been one or theother. He had saved my life, anyhow.

  "So acting on that, we simply went and demanded you; and good heavens,what a sight you were! I thought you'd die in the droshky that webrought you here in. I couldn't help telling the officer who handed youover that I couldn't congratulate him on his prison system; and hegrinned and said:

  "'Ah, I have heard that you English treat your prisoners as honoredguests. We prefer our own methods.'"