The Shadow of Tyburn Tree rb-2

by Dennis Wheatley

  "You lie," he repeated. "You stood there laughing at the vile sport you had planned for your own diversion. I both saw and heard you whilst I fought. And the leader of ray attackers was Count Yagerhorn. I knew him by his voice. Believing me to have been unfaithful to you with Angelique de Pons you deliberately set your ex-lover on to give me a whipping before your eyes,"

  Seeing that he knew too much for there to be any sense in deny­ing it further, she flared with sudden anger: "Well, what if I did? I warned you when I took you for my lover that I'd give you cause to rue it if you betrayed me with another. From your first night in Stock­holm you had a fancy for that French bitch. You admitted that you had been to her birthday-party, and you failed to keep our midnight tryst. In Sweden only big functions are kept up so late; 'twas proof enough that you had remained on, or gone back afterwards. I know the Marquis to have been in Gothenborg, and 'twas too good a chance for the pair of you not to take a tumble in her bed."

  He shook his head. "In that you wrong both myself and Angelique. 'Tis true I was unable to keep my midnight tryst with you, since the party was on the French model and a late one; yet in that lies the very proof of my innocence. We kept it up till past four o'clock, and I then returned to the city in company with the six other guests, who would vouch for dropping me at my inn. 'Twas full daylight already and, even had I left my inn again to return to the French Embassy, by the time I had got there the servants would have been up and about, so there was nought of the night left to make love in."

  "I care not," she muttered sullenly. " 'Tis my opinion that my suspicions were fully justified by your having failed to be at my disposal at the usual place and time. I warned you that I should take it ill should you ever fail in that."

  "I've not forgotten it," he snapped. "But at least you should haye had the decency to first accuse me to my face, and seek to verify your suspicions before setting your bullies on to me. To conceal your evil thoughts beneath false smiles, and let me lie with you after you had already planned to have me treated worse than a dog, was a most shameful thing to do.".

  "Nay," she protested with an outrageous frankness that quite took him aback. "How otherwise could I have ensured your being outside the postern-gate at dawn and getting the beating I believed you to deserve?"

  "But, damn it!" Roger gasped. "Have you no understanding of the baseness of such an act?"

  She shook her head. "I know only that I had wanted you the night before and believing you to be in the arms of another was rendered half-mad from jealousy. At two o'clock, since you had not come, and I could not beat you, I pulled my maid from her bed and beat her instead. But I vowed that I'd make you pay for the misery you had caused me before another night was past, and laid my plans accord­ingly."

  Roger scowled at her thin, sullen face below him, and the thought that the wretched maid had been beaten for no fault of her own added fresh fuel to his anger.

  " 'Tis over-time that someone put a check upon your vicious habits," he stormed. "Have you never a thought but for yourself? Did it not occur to you that in such an ambush as you planned some­one might have lost his life? You knew that I carried a cutlass and would be certain to use it; but with five of those rogues against me I might well have received a mortal wound myself."

  She shrugged her slim shoulders. "I loved you passionately and thought that you loved me no longer; so had you been killed I should have suffered less than in believing that you had cast me off and that another was the recipient of your caresses."

  "Lovel" he snarled. "You do not even begin to know the meaning of the word!" And he slapped her hard with the flat of his hand across the face.

  He had wrought himself up into a temper, yet his anger was nothing near so great as it appeared; and the blow was not delivered spon­taneously, but as a set-piece in an act that he had worked out with great care several hours before. He meant to break her spirit if he could, and had decided that in offering her violence lay his only real chance of making her his submissive puppet by the time they reached Russia.

  White and shaken she recoiled from the blow with a little gasp. Then her mouth opened to let out a scream. With a second slap he checked it, so that her cry was half-strangled in her throat.

  Squirming away from him she choked out a torrent of abuse mingled with the most terrifying threats. "You filthy Frenchman! By the death of God you shall pay for this. Son of a whore, how dare you strike me in the face! Wait only until we reach Russia, you gutter-bred parvenu, and I'll have the Empress's Cossacks ply their knouts upon you till you're flayed alive!"

  "We are not in Russia yet," he said curtly. "And before we get there I mean to teach you how a decent woman should behave herself."

  "You'll teach me nothing!" she screamed. "You'll not have the chance. I'll rouse the ship and have the Captain put you in irons for making an assault upon me."

  Swift as an eel she slid out of bed. He grabbed at her shoulder and caught her night-robe, but it ripped right down to the waist, and half-naked, she dashed towards the door with Roger in hot pursuit.

  Before she could get it open he was upon her. Grasping her wrist he gave it a violent jerk, which swung her round and sent her crashing to title floor. Swiftly he shot the bolt, then turned again towards her.

  She was already on her feet and had kicked herself free of her trailing night-robe. Agile as a panther, she bounded across the room towards the heavy desk, wrenched open one of its upper drawers and grabbed a long, curved knife. Before he could get within two yards of her she had whipped round and flashed the glittering blade before his eyes.

  Roger halted abruptly in his tracks. For a moment they both remained motionless, glaring at one another. Even in that moment of crisis he could not but catch his breath at the violent beauty of the figure she made. She had not a stitch of clothing on her slim, lissome body but her long, silvery-blonde hair hung like a cloak about her shoulders and half-way down her back. Her small breasts heaved violently with stress and emotion, and her green eyes blazed at him with the fury of a trapped animal.

  He felt certain that she meant to kill him if she could, yet he dared not back down now. To have shown a trace of fear or attempted to temporise would have spelled certain disaster. Even if it meant an ugly wound he had got to get the knife from her; otherwise there could be no reconciliation, and within a week she would carry out her threat to have him knouted to death. She was not the woman to forget an injury. Immunity from her vengeance could be secured only by subduing her completely. He had gambled on being able to do that, and now he must go through with it or pay the forfeit.

  Suddenly it came to him that, for these next few moments, he must forget that she was a woman, and deal with her as he would a drunken sailor who attempted to knife him in a brawl. So far he had merely slapped her; but now he must hit her in good earnest as the only means of preventing her from giving him an ugly wound.

  As he clenched his fists and raised them her eyes widened with astonished dismay. His left shot out straight for her face and she flung herself back against the desk in an attempt to escape the blow. But it was only a feint and did not even touch her. Before she could recover her balance his right landed with a thud in the middle of her stomach.

  Her mouth gaped open as the breath was driven from her body. A spasm of pain shot across her features, and dropping the knife, she clutched wildly at the place where his blow had landed, doubled up, then slid gasping to the floor.

  Roger kicked the knife away well out of her reach, picked her up and threw her on the bed. For a minute he stood watching her as she writhed there, but he knew that he had only winded her and the moment she got her breath back she would be cursing and threatening him again; so he decided that now was the time to go through with the distasteful task he had set himself.

  Striding across the room to a cloak-rack near the door he took frpm it the stoutest of Natalia Andreovna's three long parasols. By the time he got back to the bed her writhing had ceased; she was lying there panting heav
ily and staring up at him with a strange expression in her eyes. Ignoring her glance he grabbed the hair on the top-of her head with his left hand. Instantly she clawed at it with her long nails in an effort to free herself, but she could do no more than scratch him, and twisting her head round sideways he forced her over onto her face. Then he set about belabouring her bottom with the parasol in no half-hearted manner.

  For a few moments she bore her beating stoically, alternatively gritting her teeth and snarling curses at him. Then she began to shout for help, but he forced her face down into the pillow, half-muffling her cries. Next she started to beg for mercy, but he ignored her pleas and continued to belabour her. At last she ceased to curse, struggle and plead, went suddenly limp beneath his grip and burst into a flood of tears.

  Only then did he stop, and, throwing the parasol on the floor, stood back from her, panting as a result of his exertions.

  She did not move but continued to lie there with her face buried in the pillows, sobbing as though her heart would break. When he had recovered his breath he slowly began to undress, intent now on completing his plan for her subjugation.

  He hated the thought of taking her against her will, but not from any moral scruple. He had had her first, and many times since, with her eager consent; so this would have no semblance to a violation. But he disliked the thought of forcing a woman in any circumstances, and, moreover, believed that he had now come to far the most difficult part of the battle that he was waging; since, should she prove really stubborn, and refuse to respond to Ms passion by finally melting in his arms, all that had gone before would count for nothing. They would part still unreconciled and himself inevitably become the victim of her unappeasable hatred.

  Yet in this his fears were groundless. Had he lived in Russia for years and been an expert on Russian character and customs he could not have dealt more effectively with her than he had already done. As he laid his hand upon her shoulder she turned over of her own accord, smiled up at him from tear-dimmed eyes and, choking back her sobs, murmured:

  "Oh, Rojé Christorovitch, how deeply you must love me, to beat me so."

  "Indeed I love you," he replied; and looking down on her thus he almost believed he meant it as he went on: "Surely you do not think that I would have left Sweden at a moment's notice for the sole purpose of paying you out by giving you a beating. You are a wicked child, and it seems that like a fond parent I needs must be stern with you for your own betterment. But I determined at once to sail in this ship because I could not bear to be parted from you."

  "Yet you have found the way to my heart," she sighed contentedly. "All that you needed to-be a perfect lover was the violence of a Russian. You were too soft, too considerate, too woman-like before. You allowed me to bully you unmercifully without complaint, and that is wrong. No woman of my country ever believes that her man truly loves her unless he beats her now and then. Even the Empress Catherine has taken her beatings from the Orlofs' Potemkin and other favourites, and loved them for it all the more. Rojé Christorovitch, you are now my master and I your slave. Lie down here while I kneel at your feet and you, my lord, shall tell me how best I may pleasure you this night."

  Roger knew then that he had achieved a victory beyond his wild­est dreams. Their reconciliation was in keeping with the violence of their previous feelings and when, at last, their emotions were spent Natalia Andreovna wept again; but this time from sheer joy, and in the small hours she sobbed herself happily to sleep in Roger's arms.

  From then on everything about the four-day voyage went as merry as a marriage-bell. Roger came out into the open as Natalia's cavalier, and henceforth took his meals with her, the Captain, and two Secretaries of the Embassy, whom King Gustavus had compelled Count Razumof-sky to send home. One, Vladimir Paulovitch Lepekhin, was a tall, dark, amusing young man and the other, Dr. Drenke, was a fat, kindly, blue-eyed German of middle age, who had spent many years in the Russian service. Roger had, of course, already met both of them on numerous occasions, and together they formed a merry party.

  The weather was excellent and the sea like a mill-pond. On the evening of Sunday, the 24th of Jiuie, they ploughed their way steadily up the Gulf of Finland, and late that night, dropped anchor in Crondstadt Bay. The following morning the Russian authorities came aboard and gave the Swedish frigate permission to proceed up the channel to St. Petersburg for greater convenience in landing Natalia Andreovna and her party. As a member of it Roger went ashore with the others, and by eleven o'clock, found himself at last in the Imperial city where lay the focus of his secret mission.

  Natalia was in duty bound to take up her residence in the palace of her grandfather, Count Cyril Razumofsky. The Empress Elizabeth, whose lover he had been, had made him Herman of the Cossacks, and later he had played a leading part in the coup d'etatthat had placed Catherine on the throne. But he was now old, crotchety and abhorred strangers; so, although it had at first been mooted that Roger should be her guest there, they decided that it would be wiser for him to take lodgings in the city.

  Naturally he refrained from saying so, but this suited him much better, as he was far from wishing to place himself in a situation where he would have to account to his beautiful mistress for all his comings and goings.

  In the matter of a suitable lodging Dr. Drenke offered his assistance. He retained two rooms on the third floor of a house in a turning off the Nevsky, and thought that his landlord would be able to find Roger accommodation either in the same house or nearby. In con­sequence, having arranged with Natalia that she should let him hear from her through the Doctor, he took affectionate leave of her, and set off from the wharf in a droshkywith the amiable German.

  Roger knew that St. Petersburg was still less than a hundred years old; that it had been built with immense labour, and at the cost of thousands of lives, on countless piles driven deep into the boggy marshes at the mouth of the Neva; and that this extraordinarily unsuitable site had been chosen for the city solely because Peter the Great had desired a capital in which he could supervise the building of his beloved Navy. He was, therefore, all the more astounded at its size and magnificence.

  The only remaining traces of the marshes were the numerous canals and rivulets intersecting the city, and these were spanned at frequent intervals by stout wooden bridges gaily painted in different colours. Such narrow, twisting streets and noisome alleys as com­posed almost the whole of London, Paris and Stockholm were entirely absent, and even the open modern Danish capital was a mere model village compared to this splendid metropolis.

  The main thoroughfares had been laid out with a prodigal disregard of space and were grand boulevards on a scale that he had never even imagined. On either side of them were raised footways, so that pedestrians could traverse the town dry-shod during the autumn floods. The majority of the smaller houses were made of the native timber, but on every side there arose vast palaces of stone which housed the Government departments and the families of the aristocracy.

  When they arrived at the doctor's lodging they found that the first-floor suite, consisting of a bedroom and sitting-room, was free, and the landlord, a Courlander named Ostermann, agreed to let it to Roger for three roubles a week, which, as the rouble was then the equivalent of four shillings, he considered very cheap; but he was soon to learn that living in St. Petersburg was far less expensive than in London or Paris. He could have his meals sent in from a nearby pastrycook's and would provide his own servant, but Ostermann undertook to find one for Mm by that evening.

  Roger knew that German was the language most frequently spoken in St. Petersburg, and he had already mastered it sufficiently to under­stand beyond chance of mistake when Ostermann asked him: "By what military rank shall I address your nobleness?"

  He was about to reply "None," when Dr. Drenke intervened, and explained. "Since Russia is an autocracy every Russian is given a military grade. For example, the Empress's chief cook and chief coachman are both colonels. Since you are of noble birth you will au
to­matically be classed as an officer, and you must get yourself an officer's cockade to wear in your hat, as you will find that all the common people pay great respect to that symbol. The usual practice with foreigners is to grade them on their income; so, tell me please, how much you are worth a year?"

  Since it was essential to his mission to cut a good figure at the court, Roger thought it well to rate himself as a thousand-a-year man; so he replied, "Five thousand roubles."

  "You are wealthy then," the doctor smiled, "and with such an income cannot be ranked as less than a Major-General." While Ostermann, obviously much impressed, made his new lodger a deep obeisance, then hurried away to carry up his baggage.

  The doctor then invited Roger to dine with him, and they adjourned to the pastrycook's along the street". Roger had eaten caviare on a few occasions with Georgina, as a rare delicacy, but only the pressed variety which, packed in ice, was the kind then exported; but now he was given a plateful of the large grained grey ikra which comes from the Ural river, and he tucked into it most heartily. This rich hors d'ouvrewas followed by a hare, baked whole. While they made a skeleton of it the Doctor sent out to have some money changed for him, and when it came back, explained the values of the Russian currency.

  A gold Imperial, their two-pound piece, was worth ten roubles, and a half-Imperial, five. The silver consisted of roubles, half-roubles, quarter roubles and twenty, fifteen and ten cent coins; the copper of five, two, one, a half, and even a quarter, kopecks; so there seemed to be a coin suitable to every possible requirement.

  Doctor Drenke then went on to speak of the Russians and some of their customs. "So great a respect have they for St. Nicholas," he re­marked, "that they never pray to God except through him; and in the living-room of every house there is an ikonof the Saint, to which visitors are always expected to bow before greeting their host. On the other hand they are far from being a religious people in the western sense. They observe the celebrations of their church with much pomp, but do not give to their clergy, except for the higher dignitaries, the status of gentry. In the main they are drunken, untrustworthy, and extremely immoral. You will find a certain attraction about their childish, in­consequent gaiety, and they will tell you the most barefaced falsehoods in their eagerness to make a good impression on you; yet they will cheat you at every turn if they possibly can. The only way to earn their respect is by curses, kicks and blows, lavishly administered to men and women alike."