The four people converged upon him from different directions. They cornered him in an alley bordered by the blank walls and locked rear doors of shops. Two blocked each end of the alley. Slade cursed, angry at himself for getting trapped. He turned in a circle, viewing his captors. One was a beggar who wore layers of clothes, his feet bound in rags. The second was a hunter dressed in smelly, uncured leather and fur; the third a dumpy woman in long skirts and babushka; the fourth a slender man in the kind of cheap black coat and hat worn by many men in Moscow, including Slade himself. Slade realized that he’d seen these people before, separately, on several occasions. Maybe they were brigands who worked as a team; maybe they had marked him out as a target and had followed him in order to rob him. But Slade had an inkling that the truth was much worse.
“The great John Slade,” the hunter said. His face was smeared with soot. His eyes gleamed with malice. “We meet for the first and last time.”
He spoke English, his accent as British as high tea at Windsor Castle. Shock coursed through Slade as he realized who these people were and what they meant to do.
The woman reached inside her coat. Slade lunged at the same moment she pulled out a knife. He caught her wrist as she tried to stab him. She was stronger than he’d expected-she was a man in disguise. Weakened by illness and starvation, Slade could barely hold her off while she forced the blade toward his throat. Her companions drew daggers. They rushed Slade from behind.
He spun around, hauling her with him. The beggar jabbed at Slade. His weapon plunged into the fake woman’s back. She howled and staggered. Slade flung her at her companions. Her body struck the three men; they fell. Slade raced out of the alley, toward the Ryady Bazaar. The streets outside its cavernous buildings were empty of the crowds that shopped inside them by day. As Slade ran, he heard the assassins galloping over the rutted, frozen snow, gaining on him. The sleigh stood outside the bazaar. He was ten paces away from it when three men leaped out of the sleigh, drew pistols on him, and fired.
Slade dropped flat on the snow. Bullets zinged over him. Screams sounded behind him, then thuds. The shots had hit his pursuers. Slade scrambled and crawled in a desperate attempt to flee. The three men from the sleigh ran toward him. One of them was Plekhanov, the man who’d recruited Slade into the Third Section. He and the other police fired again. Someone tackled Slade. Looking backward, he saw that only three of the assassins lay dead; the slender man in black hung onto his legs. Slade kicked and fought. He and the assassin rolled in the snow while they battled over the knife in the assassin’s hand. The police yelled. A whip cracked. Slade heard hooves crunch on snow, the grating of the chains that towed the sleigh, and the rumble of its runners. He broke free of the assassin and ran toward the sleigh as it skimmed down the street. He jumped aboard.
The police surrounded the assassin and fired shot after shot into him. They thought he was Slade. The driver flailed his whip at Slade and cried, “Get off!”
“You sold me out to the Third Section,” Slade said. Furious, he grabbed the whip, beat the driver with its butt, and pushed him off the sleigh. He seized the reins and whipped the horses. As the police discovered their mistake and came running after him, the horses sped forward in a gallop. The sleigh picked up speed; the police fell behind. Slade gasped in relief and triumph.
He was free to make his way back to England. There he would hunt down Wilhelm Stieber, who must have already gone there to further his plan for Russia to gain unrivaled power over the world. When Slade found Stieber, there would be hell to pay.
26
While describing my recent experiences, I have more than once remarked that reality parallels fiction. Indeed, the story of Jane Eyre seems eerily prophetic in hindsight. Now, after fleeing the Lake District, I found myself living her flight from Thornfield Hall. Both of us were leaving all that was familiar, comfortable, and dear, to venture into an uncertain future.
Not a tie holds me to human society at this moment. Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt!
There were profound differences between her situation and mine, however. Jane had run from Mr. Rochester, in order to save him and herself from sin. I was running toward John Slade, and I must prove him and myself innocent of terrible crimes. Jane drew comfort from nature-a lovely summer day, sunshine, pastures, and streams. On that cloudy morning when I arrived in Whitechapel, I found slums, dirt, and unwashed humanity. She had lain down by the roadside to die; I followed the trail to Niall Kavanagh. Yet neither of us had second thoughts about the wisdom of our actions.
No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. The burden must be carried; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled.
I had endowed Jane with the strength to survive. Now I drew strength from her. If she could prevail, then so could I. Furthermore, I had advantages that I’d not given Jane. Lord Palmerston had sent me off from Osborne House with a pocketbook full of money. I was able to buy a ticket for a first-class carriage on the train to London; and, when I arrived, to secure a room in a first-class hotel. I went shopping and splurged on three expensive frocks, with accessories to match. I also bought an imitation-gold wedding ring. Standing before the mirror in my room, I looked every inch the fashionable London matron. If Wilhelm Stieber and the police were looking for a bedraggled fugitive in prison uniform, they would never spot me.
The neighborhood where Dr. Forbes’s friend had seen Niall Kavanagh had been affluent and respectable years ago. The white stucco building on Flower and Dean Street was part of a terrace left over from the Regency era-three row houses with ironwork balconies and curved bow windows. On the corner was a tavern where foreigners sat drinking. Across the street rose grimy, newer brick tenements. The terrace itself had fallen into disrepair. The stucco was gray with soot, the ironwork rusty. As I mounted the cracked stone steps, a man left the tavern and sauntered toward me.
“You want room?” He was stout and wore the sort of clothes common to London bankers. His hair was as sleek as mink’s fur, topped by a black skullcap. “I landlord.”
I halted, intimidated by his size, his foreignness, and the suspicion in his dark eyes. “No, I am not looking for a room to rent.”
“Then what you want?”
“I’m looking for Dr. Niall Kavanagh. Does he live here?”
“He gone.”
I was disappointed, even though I’d known it was too much to expect that I would find Dr. Kavanagh on my first try. “When did he go?”
The landlord shrugged.
“Do you know where he went?”
“No.” Irritation darkened the landlord’s features. “Why so many people come ask about Kavanagh?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear I wasn’t the first. “Who else asked you?”
“A Russian. He didn’t give name.”
Excitement filled me. “What did he look like?”
“Why I should remember?”
I felt sure the Russian was John Slade. He must have found out about this house from one of his mysterious sources. I had picked up his trail! “When was he here?”
“Two, three months ago.”
My heart sank: Slade’s trail was very cold. Another troubling thought struck me: “Has anyone else asked about Dr. Kavanagh?”
“Two English policemen. They don’t wear uniform, they don’t say they were police, but I know police. They the same in every country.”
I had expected to hear that three Prussians-Wilhelm Stieber and his two henchmen-had come. I was very glad that they had-n’t. “Did they say why they wanted him?”