Rescuing the Czar | Page 5

moment
and asked a few questions in Russian. He seemed to be listening very
attentively and answering only in monosyllables.
"Then I noticed the elder of the women unfold a well-known London
newspaper and move closer to his side. They began glancing over its
pages together and seemed to be deeply moved by an article they,
apparently, were reading as they walked slowly toward the gate. Finally,
when they were about ten feet from where I stood concealed behind
one of the massive palms, the man raised his head from the page and,
looking earnestly into the woman's eyes, exclaimed in a skeptical tone:
'_Il n'aurait jamais cru le fait si ces messieurs n'avaient pu lui jurer
L'avoir vu!... Tout ce que j'ai prédit!... Les faux nobles,--les
plagiaires_!' which means in English, "He couldn't have believed the
thing unless these gentlemen had sworn they witnessed it!... All that I
predicted!... The sham nobles!... the stealing authors!" The comment
set me thinking.
"Who is he? I asked myself. Inside of five minutes I had heard him
speak in English, in Russian and in French! I am certain that he is not a
Frenchman,--although his accent would have proclaimed him a native
of the Avenue des Champs Elysées. He had a Danish countenance, the
eyes of English Royalty and the forehead of an early Christian martyr.

"No one I have talked to on the island seems certain of his identity.
Some take the view that he is a retired millionaire, judging from the
refined simplicity of his family and the strict guard the Government has
furnished to protect his undisturbed retirement. Others hint that he may
be, possibly, some very high dignitary, judging from the almost Royal
homage that some people in the city pay to his person and family.
"The only reliable information I got about him was that he arrived upon
the island aboard a man-o'-war accompanied by one of the richest tea
merchants in the Empire. He declines all membership in any of the
clubs, apparently satisfied to spend the time among his orchids and the
lovely white-robed debutantes I saw blooming in that fascinating
garden.
"Naturally I was very curious about the identity of this secluded family.
But the only information given out about them by the chivalrous tea
merchant or the Government officials is simply, 'Oh, the family have
friends in India and are living in retirement.'"
One would be very bold to say, after reading the foregoing, that the
personages described were the same people who had been driven out of
the Winter Palace upon the ebb-tide of their Imperial splendor a few
months before. Yet a long and somewhat intimate interest in the
underground diplomacy of the world will lead one thus engaged to
piece together stray bits of gossip that come from different sources to
check up the information that some others may possess. In this way
will the letter of an American who was held incommunicado at Geneva
by the Swiss Government in the latter part of 1919, be found
exceedingly persuasive in the process of reconstructing the tragic
comedy which struts around the vacant Russian throne. The American
was en route to Turkestan under proper credentials from the United
States; yet there were certain powerful combinations sufficiently
interested in his mission to cause his imprisonment for a time
sufficiently lengthy to enable their emissaries to precede him beyond
the Caspian, where other secret combinations were incubating that
American foreign traders would have given much to understand.
It was during this period of restraint that the American, whose name we

will call Fox, wrote to a friend in the United States: "You have often
heard me speak of my brother who was in Turkestan when the Russian
Revolution burst upon the world. He is now resting in Tasmania after
going through one of the most remarkable experiences ever given to an
ordinary tea merchant intrusted with some secrets of the greatest land
monopoly in the world. You may call it a fairy tale; and if you did not
know me as a business man of ordinary sense, I should hesitate to
intimate that Nicholas R---- and all the family are quite well, I thank
you, not a million miles distant from my brother."
Fox had learned from his experience at Geneva that governments are
sometimes cajoled by diplomatic pressure to do undreamed-of things.
The dispatch of an expeditionary force to Siberia by the United States
without a declaration of war against the Revolutionists struck him as an
instance of this kind, and he knew his correspondent to be sufficiently
versed in the underground politics of Europe to look for a connection
between some member of that expedition and the subject mentioned in
the two foregoing letters. This connection was innocently revealed by a
newspaper report