The Shadow of Tyburn Tree rb-2

by Dennis Wheatley

  Orlof seemed to have suddenly sobered up. Snatching the parch­ment from the table, he threw it among the jumble of papers in the bureau and snapped down the lid. With his heavily-pouched eyes showing something of their old fire he turned upon her. "We still have the Fleet. St. Nicholas be praised that its sailing for the Mediterranean was delayed. It may prove our salvation yet!"

  Next moment he had grabbed up a great jewelled scimitar and brandishing it above his head ran from the room shouting at the top of his voice in a jumble of French, German and Russian. "To arms! To arms! Find me Admiral Greig! Every man to his post! To arms! To arms! We are attacked!"

  The officer who had brought the news, Natalia and Roger all followed him at the run. Halfway across the landing Roger halted in his tracks and shouted to his mistress. "I left my snuff-box on the table. Don't wait for me. I'll get it and be with you again in one moment."

  Swinging round he dashed back into the High Admiral's foul-smelling den, went straight to the bureau and pressed the two rosettes, just as Orlof had done. The lid flew open. In frantic haste he searched among the papers. Suddenly his eye fell upon the note that Orlof had produced. Thrusting it into his pocket, he snapped down the lid again and ran to join the others.

  The impulse to steal the document had come to him on the spur of the moment. It had suddenly flashed upon him that it was probably the only existing proof in the world that Catherine II was a mur­deress; and had deliberately ordered the assassination of her husband. As such it was a State paper of incalculable value. Yet he also knew that if the theft were discovered and the paper found in his possession death under the knout would be his portion.

  CHAPTER xv

  T H E P L 0 T

  A T the bottom of the staircase Roger caught up with Natalia. The scene had changed since they had come upon Orlof sitting there an hour and a half earlier. The long rooms were less crowded, the more respect­able guests having gone home, but hundreds of people were still dancing and feasting, the great majority of them now obviously the worse for liquor. The veneer of civilisation symbolised by the minuets, gavottes and quadrilles, danced while the Empress had been present, had been replaced by Tsardas, mazurkasand wild Russian country-dances; here and there men lying dead-drunk on the floor and couples were embracing openly in nearly every corner.

  Towering head and shoulders above the crowd, the giant High Admiral was running through it, bellowing for the bands to stop and beating the drunks he came upon into some sensibility with blows from the flat of his scimitar. Within five minutes the revelry had ceased only to be replaced by panic, as the drunken mob, believing the Swedes to be at the very gates of the city, began to fight its way towards the doors.

  Roger kept Natalia well back out of the press. After some twenty minutes it eased; a number of fainting women were carried back into the palace, and they were able to get out into the street. Having found her coach he took her home and it then carried him on to his lodging. He was now feeling cold and stale-tight from the amount of neat brandy he had drunk on top of a wide variety of wines; but little Zaria was, as usual, warming his bed for him, and, tumbling into it, he soon drifted off into a troubled sleep.

  When he got up and went out the following morning he found the city in a tumult. Everyone knew that North Russia was entirely denuded of troops, except for a few battalions of the Imperial Guard, and it seemed that short of an abject surrender by the Empress to any terms that Gustavus might dictate there was no way of preventing his army from taking and sacking St. Petersburg.

  It occurred to Roger that, since he was posing as a Frenchman, it might be thought odd if, at such a time of crisis, he did not place himself at the disposal of the French Embassy. On calling there he found a crowd of excited Frenchmen gathered round their Ambassador, who, it transpired, had returned from his fishing trip only the day before. The Comte de Segur proved to be a young man still in his twenties. He received Roger very affably and they discoursed for a little on their mutual acquaintances, then he remarked: "In the present emergency, Chevalier, you are no doubt anxious to place your sword at the disposal of the Empress?"

  Actually there were few things that Roger was less anxious to do than get himself sent to the front just when his introduction to the Court had opened a good prospect of getting to grips with his mission; but in those days, when all armies had large numbers of foreign officers in them, it was as natural to expect visitors who happened to be in a threatened city to participate in its defence as it is now for a house­holder to expect his male guests to assist him in catching a burglar.

  Faced with this dilemma Roger swiftly evaded the issue by reply­ing: "It so happened, Comte, that I was with Admiral Orlof last night when the news of the invasion reached him, and I am in hopes that he may find some employment for me."

  "I am delighted to hear it," replied the young Ambassador. "And, since you tell me that you have already been presented, you will doubt­less now frequent the Court until you hear further from him."

  Roger readily agreed to the suggestion, although not for the reason it was given; and offered to make one of Monsieur de Segur's suite should he be going there that evening. The Cbmte accepted the offer, so later that day Roger found himself one of a company of some dozen Frenchmen who set out in a small cavalcade of coaches for the Imperial Palace at Peterhof.

  The Empress, perhaps feeling the need of her most intimate possessions round her, had moved on that day of crisis to her quarters in the Hermitage, and had announced the holding of a special court there for that night. This suite of so-called private apartments was in fact little less than a palace itself, as it consisted of a splendid pavilion containing many reception as well as living-rooms, an art-gallery, a library, various cabinets for the display of her collections of porcelain and coins, and a spacious winter-garden; the whole being connected with the main palace by a covered passage over an archway.

  As Natalia Andreovna had, for the first time, failed to visit Roger that afternoon, he was all the more eager to see her; and he had hardly entered the main salon in company with de Segur when his desire was gratified by catching sight of her among a bevy of beauties behind Catherine's armchair.

  A master of ceremonies having announced the Ambassador, the crowd gave way and he advanced to make his bow. The Empress gave him her hand to kiss and asked at once: "Since you are just arrived from the Residence, Monsieur, tell us what the people there are talking?"

  "They say that your Majesty is preparing to seek refuge in Moscow," he returned at once.

  Her fat little body bridled and her blue eyes flashed. "I trust then that you did not believe it. 'Tis true that we have ordered great numbers of post-horses to be kept in readiness, but only for the purpose of bringing up soldiers and cannon."

  The Empress's words, Roger soon found, were the keynote of the evening. Gustavus's unprovoked aggression had caught her napping. There were plenty of defeatists round her who counselled a flight to the ancient capital of Russia, but she would not listen to a word of such talk. She had given orders for the mobilisation of every man available, even the convalescents in the hospitals, and the police. Couriers had been sent post-haste in every direction to summon such skeleton garrisons as had been left within five hundred miles of St. Petersburg; and she meant to remain, to fight the invader on the frontier with every resource she could command.

  Roger quickly made his way to Natalia, and, as the room grew ever more crowded with people arriving to proclaim their devotion to the throne, she pointed out many of the most interesting.

  Among them, Count Cobentzel, the immensely rich and very able Ambassador of Catherine's ally, Joseph II of Austria; old General Sprengtporten, the Finnish nationalist leader who had aided Gustavus III to become an autocratic .monarch, then quarrelled with him and come to Russia in the hope of persuading the Empress to champion the discontented Finns against their Swedish sovereign; and another exile, Prince Alexander Mauro-Cordato, Hospidar of Moldavia, who had sided with the Russians in thei
r quarrel with the Turks as the most likely means of securing independence for his Rumanians.

  Roger talked for some while with the last in Latin, and as a result of it formed an entirely new view of the then little-known Balkan country from which the Prince came. He had believed it to be even more barbarous than Russia, but learned that the Prince claimed direct descent from a Roman Emperor, and that in spite of three centuries of Ottoman oppression the Rumanian nobility still main­tained the culture and traditions of the Greeco-Roman civilisation. Mauro-Cordato told him that his library contained many ancient works of the greatest interest that had never reached the western world, and said that when he was restored to his capital of Jassy he would be delighted if Roger would pay him a visit there.

  By contrast with this charming Balkan potentate Roger found Bobrinsky, Catherine's natural son by Gregory Orlof, uncouth and barbarous. So too, were her legitimate grandsons, Alexander and Constantine. The latter had been so named, and received a Greek education, owing to her ambition to revive the ancient empire of Byzan­tium and place him on its throne; but both the boys were insufferably conceited and ill-mannered, having been abominably spoiled by her and ruined by bad tutors pandering to their vices.

  Their father, the Grand Duke Paul Petrovitch, struck Roger as being of a much quieter and more amiable disposition. The heir to the Imperial throne was now thirty-four years of age, but his mother still kept him very much in the background and he lived in semi-retirement. Only the invasion crisis had brought him and his wife to court on this occasion, and Natalia Andreovna said of him:

  "He takes after his father in that he is a great admirer of the Prussians, and spends much of his time training his regiment in their barrack-square evolutions. He and his wife are very devoted to one another, and I should think, the only couple in the whole court who have remained faithful to their marriage-vows. She was a Princess of Wurttemberg, and is of a very different nature from her predecessor. His first wife was Wilhelmina, the youngest of the three Hesse-Darmstadt girls, and she had a great taste for gallantry. My father became her lover. The Empress found them out and packed him off as her Minister to the two Sicilys; but the Queen of Naples then became his mistress, so he lost nothing by the exchange."

  Suddenly rapping Roger's arm with her fan, she went on: "Hist! I have just caught the Grand Duke's eye, and will present you to him."

  Neither the Grand Duke's features nor his manner were impressive. Above a long upper-lip he had a silly little retrousse nose and a pair of rather prominent brown eyes; he spoke with the jerkiness of a shy man who is called upon to display an air of authority for which he is quite unsuited. After asking Roger a few questions about himself, he said:

  "I have just obtained Her Majesty's permission to take my regi­ment to the front. If you are not already engaged elsewhere I should be happy to number you among my military household."

  Caught properly this time, there was nothing that Roger could do but bow and render thanks for the honour done him. Later that even­ing he learned its cause. Catherine, true to her policy of never taking any step which might bring her son into the public eye, had refused him the command of the emergency army that was being got together for the defence of St. Petersburg. Instead, all her great Captains, Romantzof, Repnin, Suvarof, Kamenskoi and Soltikof, being away at the Turkish war serving under Prince Potemkin, she had given the command to a comparatively inexperienced general named Mouschin-Pouskin. Smarting under the humiliation of being made to play second fiddle to this almost untried commander, the Grand Duke had deter­mined to outshine him by the size and brilliance of his personal entourage; so he was recruiting everyone he could to it as swiftly as possible.

  Roger was intensely annoyed at the turn affairs had taken, but the following morning he looked to his weapons and duly presented him­self at Paul Petrovitch's temporary headquarters. There, he soon saw, from the number of gentlemen assembled, that his duties would be entirely nominal and consist of no more than making one of a showy cavalcade whenever the Grand Duke chose to ride forth to battle.

  For a while they all stood about watching the military-minded Prince bark orders at his troops like a Prussian drill-sergeant, then the majority of them dispersed to go about their own business.

  That afternoon Natalia Andreovna brought the news that Alexis Orlof, feeling old and tired, had had the good sense voluntarily to surrender his right to command the Fleet so that the Empress might vest it in Admiral Greig; and that at that moment the gallant Scots­man was preparing to take it to sea. It sailed that evening, to the great relief of the citizens of St. Petersburg, who felt that in it lay their only real chance of protection.

  For the next few days Roger danced attendance on the Grand Duke, while a vast amount of baggage was being got together, and exercised a fine bay mare which Natalia had presented to him to carry him in the campaign. Then on the 8th of July, he was warned to be ready to set out the following day. He had a last hectic meeting with his green-eyed mistress, and did his best to comfort little Zaria, by telling her that he hoped to return soon so he was keeping on his rooms, and that she could remain there in the care of Dr. Drenke. On Monday, the 9th, to much blowing of trumpets and banging of drums, he made one of the brave company which rode out with Paul Petrovitch to the war.

  They had no great distance to cover, and on the third day pitched an elaborate camp, from which it was proposed to. operate against the Swedes. So far there had been no pitched-battle, only a number of skirmishes to secure frontier defiles, in most of which the Swedes had had the best of it. The people on both, sides of the frontier were pro-Russian, so fairly reliable reports were constantly coming in about the .invading army.

  It appeared that Gustavus had arrived at Sveaborg with sixteen ships of the line, five large frigates and a great fleet of war-galleys specially designed for operating in the shallow waters among the coastal islands. Rumour had it that he had intended to march direct upon the considerable town of Frederikshamn, but had been delayed by difficulty in landing his artillery. In consequence, having now lost the chance of taking the place by surprise, he proposed to attack it from both sides simultaneously, and was waiting for his fleet to come up to seaward of it.

  Roger had never yet participated in any military campaign so, annoyed as he was at having to leave the Court within a few days of securing the entree to it, he felt that he would at least be compen­sated by the excitement of seeing his first battle; but his hopes were doomed to disappointment. The nervy, narrow-minded little Grand Duke proved to be no more than a parade-ground soldier. Instead of seeking out the enemy he spent his days playing the petty martinet, inspecting and drilling his troops, and inflicting savage punishments on them for such slight misdemeanours as appearing with dirty buttons. Roger soon became extremely bored, but as he was technically on active service he could think of no possible excuse which would justify him in asking leave to return to St. Petersburg.

  On the 18th of July news came through that a great sea-battle had taken place the previous evening. At five o'clock in the afternoon while cruising off the island of Hogland, Admiral Greig had come across the Swedish fleet half-hidden by a fog-bank. A most bloody encounter ensued, which for a time had to be broken off from mutual exhaustion; but at eight o'clock Admiral Greig received reinforcements and attacked again. The fog had increased to such a degree that few of the ship's companies Were aware of what was going on except in their immediate vicinity, and the deadly carnage continued with groups of two or three ships fighting isolated duels to a finish.

  Both sides claimed a victory, but in the course of a few days it emerged that Achniral Greig had scored a great triumph, as he succeeded in driving the remains of the Swedish fleet into Sveaborg, and declared himself confident of being able to keep them bottled up there for the remainder of the campaign.

  Meanwhile it became clear that, having taken a few small towns, Gustavus had no intention of advancing further until he had reduced Frederikshamn. The immediate threat to St. Pet
ersburg having been removed, General Mouschin-Pouskin showed no inclination to give battle, and informed the Grand Duke that he was not to risk his troops for the time being. Paul Petrovitch regarded this as a fresh insult, and, evidently having no stomach for the more active part that he might be called on to play later, seized on it as an excuse to resign his little command. To Roger's great delight, on the 28th of the month the camp was packed up, and on the 30th, he accompanied the Grand Duke ingloriously back to St. Petersburg.

  The only thing he had gained from his three weeks of abortive campaigning was the somewhat disquieting knowledge that, should he have the good luck to gain any special intelligence which might prove of value to King Gustavus, it would be no easy matter for him to get through with it to the Swedish lines. On numerous occasions he had ridden out with reconnaissance parties, and each time they had approached one of the comparatively few ways of ingress through the exceptionally marshy and difficult country into Swedish Finland, they had found it guarded by a strong outpost with orders to turn everyone back. In addition the woods and fens were patrolled by sotniasof wild Cossacks, who were apt to give short shrift to anyone they suspected of attempting to go over to the Swedes.

  That these precautions were well justified Roger learned on his return to St. Petersburg. Apparently Gustavus was having considerable trouble with his army. It was said that, to justify his unconstitutional act in going to war without having first obtained the consent of his Riksdag, he had dressed up a lot of Finnish peasants in Russian uni­forms, caused them to fire upon his troops, then fired upon them in return; afterwards declaring that Russia had attacked Finland and he was within his rights in waging a defensive war.

  This measure of the crafty King had not fooled his own officers, and many of the nobility among them were reported to have expressed their disapproval of the war in the strongest terms; while others, particularly from the Finnish regiments, had deserted and come over to the Russians.