The Mission of Poubalov

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE GHOST OF POUBALOV.

  Litizki laid the newspaper down and tried to reflect. He had not sleptat all since he awoke from a very brief nap in New York the morningbefore; therefore, he had not dreamed the scene in the drawing-roomcar. With his own hand he had actually struck Poubalov to the heart,and his victim had fallen with the gasp and shudder of death. This wasso, and no newspaper could make it otherwise; but how should it happenthat the reporters had missed the episode?

  It had happened upon a railroad train; what more probable, then, thanthat the railroad officials had suppressed the news? He had read manyaccounts of accidents in which the reporters set forth the reticence ofofficials and employees.

  "They imagine," thought Litizki, "that it is not for their interest tolet the public know that so violent a crime, so they would call it,could be committed in one of their high-toned cars, and that, moreover,the murderer could escape."

  This thought appeased for a moment the new fear that threatened tounman him for all time, the fear that he had failed! Though he openlyand emphatically repudiated all superstitions, and boasted over andagain that his life and views were ruled by reason alone, he was yetsubject to influences that, if they were not superstitions, wereremarkably like them. Among these were his estimate of Poubalov, whoseinvincibility seemed to surpass human powers and attributes. Litizkiwas conscious of this tendency to surround the spy with a supernaturalatmosphere, and he struggled against it, the result of his struggleinvariably being his deeper self-abasement as he recognized Poubalov'simmeasurable superiority. Now he felt again this superhuman characterof the spy appealing to him, setting his poor brain in a whirl, andblurring his eyes as if a mighty wind had taken up the dust of thestreet and held it suspended in a dense cloud before him.

  "Bah!" exclaimed Litizki, striking his brow angrily, "he cannot"--andhe stopped suddenly, conscious that he was speaking aloud. There wasnobody in the room but a sleepy clerk, who looked up curiously fromhis ledger and then bent his head again over his work. Litizki triedto force his thoughts away from the topics that absorbed him. Itoccurred to him that he had eaten nothing since the morning before,and he went to the hotel restaurant. On the table at which he took aseat was a newspaper left by some previous customer. It was the samejournal that had beaten its contemporaries in the first publication ofthe rumor, that was finally accepted as news, concerning the elopementof Strobel and Lizzie White. Litizki recalled the superior enterpriseof this paper, and while waiting for his breakfast, he looked it over.Yes! there it was, and his heart bounded with joy and fear at once.It was not a long story under a half-column head, but the few lineswere double-leaded, and paragraphed at every period. A newspaper manwould have seen at a glance that the item had come in late, after theforms were made up, and that the editor had "lifted" a story of minorinterest to make room for this. "Probable Murder," was the caption, andthe statement beneath it was as follows:

  "A passenger in one of the drawing-room cars attached to the New York express due at Park Square at six P.M., but some hours late last night, was stabbed just before the train reached the station.

  "It is believed that the wound was mortal.

  "The assailant took advantage of the excitement and confusion to jump from the train.

  "No trace of him has been found.

  "The name of the victim is not known at this writing.

  "No rumor concerning the tragedy reached this office until long after midnight.

  "The police, to whom the railroad officials secretly reported the affair, for reasons best known to themselves, withhold information, but they admit that the assault took place as described above.

  "It is believed that the murderer will be arrested this morning.

  "An extra edition giving full details of this occurrence will be published at ten o'clock."

  Litizki looked cautiously around the room. A policeman in full uniformwas eating at a table near the door. For one instant the tailormeditated flight through an open window. Then he pulled himselftogether and ate his breakfast. "We shall see," he thought, and hehastened, that he might finish ahead of the policeman and pass directlyin front of him on the way to the office.

  "If he is here to arrest me," reflected Litizki, "he will obey hisinstructions when he sees me go out. If he lets me alone, it will meanthat there is still a chance for me."

  The policeman did not stir when Litizki passed him. The tailor paid hisbill, and, the dock being open, went to the steamship office and boughta steerage ticket for Liverpool. He was exultant once more, proud ofhimself as a hero.

  "The next edition, and then all the papers," he thought, "will printmy name, and everybody will know what I have done. When Strobel isreleased there will be plenty of thinking people who will applaud me intheir hearts, whatever they may say aloud."

  Believing that he could sleep now that his mind was relieved ofuncertainty, he went down into the men's department of the steerageand crawled into a bunk away forward. A great many passengers werebooked for this trip, and a compartment never used except in the eventof a crowd had been fitted in the very prow of the ship. Litizki knewthat the steward would not assign the bunks there until none were leftelsewhere, and he hoped, therefore, to be undisturbed until after theboat had started.

  So he lay down upon the coarse mattress and tried to sleep. He closedhis eyes only to view again the scene in the drawing-room car. Physicalfatigue caused his mind to wander, and he would be conscious that hewas dropping into sleep when suddenly his nerves would seem to be onfire with life, and he would start violently and grip the low rail ofhis bunk as if he were about to fall out. By dint of will power hecompelled himself to remain there, although as the time passed he wasin momentary expectation of arrest. He began to regret that he hadshown himself so freely. Once the steamer was under way he would beable to rest undisturbed by phantasies for ten days. After that, whatmatter? Those ten days should be passed in full enjoyment of his onesuccessful act.

  As the forenoon dragged along the steerage filled with men, andthere was a constant hum of voices, and the shuffling of feet as thepassengers jostled about in the narrow quarters and stowed theirbaggage on and under their bunks. Several men came into Litizki'scompartment and took possession in turn of the unoccupied places. Someof them remained, scraping acquaintance with one another, and passingabout the liquor without copious draughts of which few ocean travelersregard a voyage as properly begun. In the saloon, champagne serves asthe exhilarant for a scene that should need no wine to set healthyblood to sparkling; and in the steerage, the whisky flask accomplishesits purpose just as effectively. A fellow-passenger offered his flaskto Litizki. He was no drinker, and he accepted the friendly offeringmore to attract no comment to himself than because he craved astimulant.

  Having mumbled "thanks, friend" and drunk as much as his throat wouldtolerate of the fiery stuff, he lay down again. A moment or two laterhe was surprised to find that he felt more composed, distinctly drowsy,in fact. He correctly attributed this to the whisky, and he lay verystill in the hope that natural sleep would at last come upon him. Thismight have been the case, but he was aroused by a rough hand on hisfoot.

  "Come on there, my man; come on," said a commanding voice.

  "You want me, then, do you?" responded Litizki, sitting up quickly andbumping his head against the deck.

  "Save the ship, man," remarked the voice, jocosely, "and it will bebetter for your head. That deck's made of iron. Let me see your ticket."

  So it was not a policeman. Litizki showed his ticket, and the purser'sassistant passed on. It must be approaching the hour of departure. Thetailor, fully aroused, wished that his neighbor would offer him moreliquor.

  "Do you think," he asked, "that I would have time to go ashore and geta bottle of whisky?"

  "Yes," was the facetious reply, "but you wouldn't have time to getback. Never mind, partner. Have a drop of this," and again the flaskwas passed to him.

  Litizki did not
lie down again immediately after drinking. He satcrouched over with his hands about his knees, wondering if Miss Hilmanhad received his letter. The men in his compartment were chatting andlaughing noisily. The single port-hole admitted so little light that hecould not have distinguished the features of any of them except by theclosest scrutiny. The steerage steward looked in.

  "There's one place here, sir," he said, "that your man can have."

  "All right," was the reply, in a wheezy, cracked voice; "take it,Billings."

  The tailor started. Was not that the name of the man whom Miss Hilmanhad mentioned as the driver of Strobel's second carriage? Could it bethat he was taking flight, too? or was it a mere coincidence of names?

  A young fellow, preceded by an odor of strong drink, and followed by adecrepit old man, edged into the compartment. He carried a black, shinyportmanteau which he threw upon the vacant bunk.

  "There!" he growled, "that was heavy. Give me another swig, Mr. Dexter."

  "You shall have it, my boy, and welcome," croaked the old man,producing a flask from his pocket; "take a good, long drink. That'sit! down with it, he! he! Pleasant voyage to you, Billings, my boy!"

  He patted the young fellow on the shoulder; and Billings, supposingthat his hand was extended to take the flask, turned his back, and whenhe had drunk, corked the flask and remarked thickly:

  "I'll keep it thish time."

  "All right, all right," responded Dexter; "you may have it now. I'mgoing on deck. It's too close here."

  He hobbled away, and Billings staggered after him.

  Full of wonder, and almost forgetting his own part in the Strobelmatter, Litizki descended from his bunk and went up to the deck also.To his amazement, he found that the Cephalonia was already a hundredyards from the dock. Several conceited little tugs were puffing awayat stem and stern, to turn the gigantic ship about. A great crowdof people were on the pier, waving hands and handkerchiefs, and thesalutes were frantically returned by the hundreds on board who crowdedclose to the rail.

  Billings had gone to the rail away from the shore, and Dexter stoodbeside him, still talking with forced jocularity, to which the youngman listened with only half comprehension. The most that his fuddledbrain could recognize was that he was on board a steamer bound forEurope, a big enough fact in itself to subdue the ordinary mind.

  Litizki watched the pair with troubled curiosity. Could this be thesame Billings? and could his going away portend any failure for theplan that Litizki had executed at such heroic self-sacrifice? It couldnot be possible! The guilty driver might well flee from punishment,but neither his presence nor his absence could materially affect theoutcome.

  Thinking thus, the tailor allowed his eyes to wander from Billings andDexter, taking in the sights of the ship with indifferent interest.Suddenly he retreated a pace, and grasped a hatchway to prevent himselffrom sinking prone upon the deck. Were all his railings againstsuperstition and the supernatural but empty words? Had he gone starkmad, or was that the ghost of Poubalov leaning negligently overthe rail of the promenade deck and grinning down at him in evidentamusement at his consternation?

  A long cry of terror seemed to struggle for utterance in Litizki'sthroat, but it found vent in a pitiable whine that nobody heard abovethe joyous cheering of the passengers except his frightened self. Hecould not take his eyes from that awful face, whose every featureseemed to glow with perfect health. How long he stood there, gasping,powerless under the terrible spell, Litizki could not have told, but acomplete revulsion of feeling overcame him when the figure on the deckabove shrugged its shoulders, sneered, and strode forward out of sight.

  Then Litizki knew that he had failed.

  Where now was all the exaltation of heroism that had sustained him?Where his devotion to Reason, that false goddess whose dictates hadseemed to him infallible? Even in his agony of humiliation the lightbroke in upon him, and he saw that the guiding spirit of his miserablecareer had not been abstract, unimpeachable Reason, but a base, weakimitation--the lucubration of a disordered intellect, Litizki's reason.

  The unhappy man tried to think, not so much to explain how it hadhappened that the dagger had not done its work, but how should he actnow? There was no withdrawal from the voyage already begun, and hewished least of all to go ashore. Why had he so insanely thrown awayhis revolver? The breast that had resisted a knife driven by his feeblearm could not withstand the force of a well-directed bullet.

  What should he do? Would fate be once more kind, just once more, andsome time during the coming ten days, put Poubalov in his way so thathe could push the villain overboard?

  Whisky mounted to his brain and told him to hope. He crawled up thesteps to the forecastle-top whence he could command a view of thepromenade deck throughout its entire length. Poubalov was there,idly observing the passing harbor. He hardly stirred until, justafter passing Boston Light, the steamer's engines were stopped, andwith several others, ladies and gentlemen, he went to the main deck.A tug came alongside, the visitors and the representatives of theCunard Company crossed the plank, and in another moment the greatvessel throbbed again with the revolutions of the screw that, barringaccident, would not cease its work until it had propelled the steamerto the other side of the world.

  Poubalov stood in front of the wheel-house of the tug and waved hishat to Litizki, and by the side of the spy stood the decrepit old man,Dexter.