3 September 1881

Though I am writing the following entry after the events took place, and my memory may be a tad faulty, I will set down the events to the best of my ability.

I was still thinking about my conversation with Dicky, when, the next morning, just before a lecture, Vera dashed into the hall and, without so much as a “Good morning,” took my arm. “Come immediately! We need your help.”

Her hair and clothing were more disheveled than usual, and there were deep worry lines around her eyes.

She led me across the university square to a maze of streets that led to a poor residential area on the industrial side of Vasilyevsky Island. She knocked softly on a wooden door until an aged housekeeper let us in to a weed-choked courtyard. Vera crossed to another door, which led to a corridor and to still another door.

I followed her. Golovinsky came out of the shadows with an angry grimace. “Why isn’t he blindfolded?” he asked.

“I trust him,” Vera said.

He shook his head angrily. “Nyet! You are too soft!” He roughly grabbed my right hand and twisted it behind my back. “Why must I do everything myself?”

“Damn you, fool! Don’t break my arm!” I shouted.

“Then don’t fight me.” He twisted even harder. There was a mad quality to his voice and his eyes radiated the fury of an enraged fanatic. I wilted and made no resistance when he tied a dark rag over my eyes. The door creaked open and he led us outdoors.

I struggled to keep up, but each time I faltered, he yanked my arm. Suddenly, my mind cleared and I remembered Dr. Bell’s oft-given advice to use all your senses.

We had made a left turn out of the door and walked on squishy mud. I tried to count the seconds, but lost track after four minutes. We turned left again into another street or alley.

A door opened and there was raucous laughter; a tavern, I thought. I could still hear the tavern when we stopped and Vera tapped softly on a door. By turning my head a bit, I could peek under the mask and had a fleeting glimpse of a narrow alley and an unpainted, wooden building.

Golovinsky pushed me into a room that smelled of cooking and down another flight of stairs. I was nearly overcome by the powerful, acrid odor of burning chemicals. Golovinsky jerked the mask away from my eyes. I was in a laboratory.

The acrid chemical odor was from large flasks of liquids boiling over Bunsen burners. There were benches, retorts, and other chemical apparatus; all tended by two young men with singed eyebrows and an older woman.

Vera led me to an adjoining room where the remains of a loaf of bread, a cut of cold meat, and a bottle of brandy were on a table next to an oil lamp. I first heard their piteous moans, then, when my eyes accommodated to the light, I could see three poor souls huddled on cots with their faces and hands swathed in dirty rags.

“What happened?” I asked.

“There was an explosion,” Vera said.

“Gunpowder?”

“No. It was a chemical explosion. Fulminate of mercury.”

“Great God, it is a wonder anyone is alive!” I recalled that fulminate of mercury is made by adding mercury to nitric acid and used as a detonator for explosives. If there was more of the stuff, the entire building could go up in smoke.

“What do you want with me?”

“You are a doctor. Take care of these people.”

There was no way to run, and this could be another challenge to my budding surgical skills. Golovinsky had settled into a chair, swigged from the bottle of brandy, and gestured with a revolver.

“English Doctor, if you wish to live, save our comrades.”

My anger at the abduction was overcome with pity for these poor wretches.

“I will help,” Vera said. She set about removing the bandage from the face of a young man with a horrible injury. His skin was seared to a crisp, and a there was a deep gash from his forehead to the corner of his mouth. Shards of glass were embedded in his neck, face, and forehead. Worst of all, a thick fluid dripped from his left eye where a shard of glass had penetrated the cornea.

“This man should be in a hospital. He needs expert care from an ophthalmic surgeon or he will lose both eyes. I can do nothing for him. Maybe Dr. Bell could...”

“No, we have no choice. You must do it. Make a list of medicines and instruments,” Vera said.

“We need everything - morphine, antiseptics, chloroform, bandages, sutures, surgical forceps, and, most of all, a bright light,” I said.

Vera sent a pale, sallow youth to fetch the supplies. I rolled up my sleeves and went to work with soap and water to sponge away the worst of the dirt and soot from the burns and deep lacerations. The flesh was blown away from the thumb and index fingers of the man with the horribly injured face.

Both hands of another poor fellow were mangled with exposed bone where there should have been fingers and a thumb. I had been at work on the two men for perhaps twenty minutes, when I became aware of a soft whimpering moan from the furthest, dimmest corner of the room. “Bolli, oh, boll, bolli, oh.”

“Bring the lamp,” I said.

The moaning, young woman was lying on a pile of rags. Her eyes were closed, her face was deathly pale, and her hair was softly braided in the Polish style. Any man could fall desperately in love with her delicate nose and softly-curving lips. She seemed to offer a bit of peace and sanity in this awful setting. I thought she was untouched by the explosion until I saw the long, tapering shard of glass, like a dagger, protruding from her chest, just beneath the left breast.

I instinctively reached to pull it out but drew back. The glass quivered with each heartbeat. In absolute horror, I realized the point had to be embedded in the heart muscle; its removal would cause an immediate fatal hemorrhage.

“Great God! What is the point of this insanity? Are you totally mad? How can you allow such injuries to occur?”

“You are so British. So foolish. So naïve.” Vera had steel in her voice. “A few lives don’t matter. Hundreds have already died for the cause. We must destroy the tsar and the nobles to free all of Russia. If hundreds more die, it will be well worth it.”

I was a trained doctor but with no surgical experience to help these poor wretches. When the supplies arrived, I set to work doing the best that I could. There was enough morphine, chloroform, and carbolic, but the instruments were old and crude. I gave a double dose of morphine to the poor girl and wished I could do more.

Vera gave chloroform to the men while I cleaned the wounds, removed broken glass, and sutured the deep lacerations with a plain sewing needle and cotton thread.

It took hours to remove the dead tissue and shattered bone from victim’s hands and to preserve bits of fingers for a serviceable hand. Meanwhile, the poor girl with the lacerated heart gave one last sigh and died while I was at work on the men. At last, I sank into a chair, drained the last of the brandy and, overcome by fatigue and chloroform fumes, passed out.

When I awoke some hours later, Vera was gone, but my foggy mind registered a strange sight. A grey-haired man, with a jeweler’s magnifying loop screwed into his right eye, worked at a treadle that turned a small, circular saw.

Incredibly, he held an egg cradled in his hand. There was a gently whirring sound as he held the egg against the saw, cut away the top, drained its contents into a bowl, and took up a second egg.

He raised his head and shouted at the door. “Comin sie hier, bitte!”

Suddenly, the two young men with seared eyelashes and Golovinsky, carrying a beaker of thick greenish liquid, stepped on tip-toe into the room.

“The nitro is ready,” one of them said.

I shrank back away from the madness while Golovinsky, with great care, poured the liquid nitroglycerin into an open egg, which was nestled in a small, straw-filled basket. He deliberately placed the beaker on the table and then, with infinite care, replaced the sawed-off bit of eggshell and sealed it with melted candle wax.

“There, that will be a nice treat for the tsar,” he said.

One of my patients, the fellow with mangled hands, raised himself. “We did our job. Now, how will you do yours?” he asked, through clenched teeth.

“It will not be difficult. The tsar pretends to be a man of the people. He prepares his own breakfast, coffee, black bread, and boiled egg. He is in for a deadly surprise.”

“Yes, but how will you deliver it?”

“The English woman will do it.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Who was the ‘English woman’? Had they recruited Penelope? My thoughts whirled, but it became clear; she had been devoted to my uncle and David Campbell. Both men had been captured, tortured, and left to die by the Russians in Afghanistan. She had every reason to hate the tsar, but would she turn against England and the Queen?

If she succeeded and it became known that an English woman was responsible for the death of the tsar, there would be an international catastrophe or a great world war. I had to stop her. I had to escape.

Golovinsky left the room with the egg, which was carefully packed in straw. In the distance, I heard his heavy tread on the stairway and, then, only an occasional murmur and the clink of glassware next door. Surely those people had orders to prevent me from leaving.

I knew I couldn’t idly wait. I had to create an opportunity to escape.

My only weapon was a small pen knife, but most anarchists carried knives or a pistol. I went to the dead girl who I thought might have a weapon. She was already cold and stiff with early rigor mortis. I went through her clothing, pocket by pocket. At first, I found nothing. Then, I felt a hard lump - a holster strapped on the outside of her thigh held a small, nickel-plated revolver loaded with five brass cartridges.

I blew out the oil lamp and, with infinite care, opened the door into the laboratory. Golovinsky had spoken in German, and many of our medical textbooks were in German, so I had a decent proficiency in the language. With great bravado, I waved the pistol and shouted in German. “Don’t move! Hold your hands up!”

“Nein!” growled a large, blonde fellow as he balled a fist. He backed down at the sight of the pistol for a moment, then, with a deep, low growl, hurled himself across the room. I stepped aside and accidentally bumped against a bench covered with flasks and burners.

“Watch out, you idiot! That’s nitroglycerine!” the second man screamed.

The bench tilted, and a thick, green liquid in an open flask sloshed with a small wave against the glass. The big man gasped and froze. I gently took up the flask and, again, spoke in German. “If you move, I will blow us to kingdom come. Into the other room - both of you. Now.”

They gave up and, with great care, went to the next room. There was only a flimsy lock on the door. I gently placed the flask of nitroglycerine on the floor against the door. “Open the door and the nitro explodes. Don’t follow me,” I said.

A few moments later, I was on the dark and empty street. I turned to the left but remembered that, on returning, the direction should be the opposite of the way we came. My impulse was to run, but I walked at a normal pace to avoid attracting attention. There were a few drunks in the tavern, but the streets were empty.

I recognized the muddy street and soon came to the Neva River. The English Church was on the other side. I ducked in the shadows as a squad of police cantered across the bridge headed in the direction of Professor Sechenov’s house. Were they searching for me? Going home might be risky, so I turned away and kept to the river bank in the other direction.

Dicky Ferguson’s rooms were only a short distance across the river. I slipped from shadow to shadow and finally reached his quarters. My old friend listened to my tale of woe. He pulled a long, unhappy face. “Go straight to the police, Doyle.”

“No, no, they’ll surely put me in prison, and if the English woman is Penelope, it’s curtains for her. Think what a black eye that would be for England. I must stop her. Please, my friend, you must help. Send for Mr. Tatum, our valet, at once.”

Ferguson saw my point as much to protect the Crown as me. “The tsar is at the Gatchina Palace, nearly forty miles away. There is no time.”

“We must try,” I said.

“My chaise is fast, but I don’t know,” he said.

“We have no choice.” By the time Tatum arrived, I had cleaned most of the blood and soot from my clothing and, after a cup of tea, felt much better. It was, however, nearly midnight. There was little time, but Ferguson had called out his driver, and with two fresh horses, we were on our way in his light, two-wheeled chaise.

Mr. Tatum gave the driver a handful of coins. “There will be more if we reach the palace before dawn.”

The driver took up the challenge and applied the whip with good will. The horses strained at their traces, and off we went at a gallop towards the palace.

There was light in the east when the parapets of Gatchina palace came into view. The horses were flagging, and we were within a mile or so from the moat that surrounded the parade ground when the right-hand horse threw a shoe.

I was all for going ahead, alone on the one horse, but Mr. Tatum sighed. “Sorry, it’s already within a few minutes of six-thirty.” He had scarcely finished speaking when a terrific explosion shook the earth. Smoke and debris rose in a great cloud.

“We had best get away as quickly as possible,” he said.

We had no sooner turned back, with the one horse in the traces and the other limping behind, when a troop of red-coated Cossacks raced by, standing in their stirrups, lances at the ready. Within a few minutes, a dozen blue-uniformed police drew up and surrounded our open chaise.

They would have shot us on the spot had not Mr. Tatum showed his papers to an officer and explained that we were merely eccentric Englishmen out for an early morning sightseeing trip. All seemed well until they found the revolver in my coat pocket. I had forgotten the weapon. It was damn foolish of me. The officers manacled my hands and threw me onto a wagon with other prisoners.

Two hours later, I was in Fontanka 16, headquarters for the secret police, which was overflowing with suspects who pushed against the officers and screamed their innocence. At first, the genial interrogator accepted my excuse for having the revolver for self-protection against the anarchists. It was all just a big misunderstanding...

I was surely in the clear, especially when Tatum arrived with the British consul, an affable fellow with nicotine-stained hands. They persuaded the police to set me free and remove my manacles.

As we left the secret police’s headquarters, there was a shout. “Don’t let him go! That man is a student anarchist!” It was the sandy-haired, saber-swinging policeman. The game was up. They pulled me away from Tatum and shackled my hands. Soldiers with bayonets jabbed and pushed me into a black carriage with dazed students and workers.

As the carriage bounced down the street, crowds of people shouted and danced with joy.

“What are they saying?” I asked a fellow student.

“The tsar lives! God saved the tsar!” The student slumped against my shoulder and sobbed. “The stupid people of St. Petersburg are filled with joy that their beloved tsar still lives.”

The carriage jostled over cobblestones until it arrived at the Yoannovsky gate of a gloomy and dark fortress. “Where are we?” I asked.

“The St. Peter and Paul Prison,” the student said. “No one has ever escaped from this rotten place.”

(Though my hand is shaking as I write, and I dread revisiting the horror of this last week, I know it is important to put it in writing. I shall, therefore, try my best to recount it and then forget as much about it as I can, if that is at all possible. I was not allowed pen or paper during my incarceration inside the St. Peter and Paul Prison, hence the gap in dates of this diary. My memory is still clouded by lack of sleep and I still feel the mental turmoil of being inside such a hell-hole, almost as if I were still there.)

When we arrived at the prison, soldiers with fixed bayonets herded the twenty or so of us out of the carriages, across an open courtyard, and down stone steps to a subterranean cell furnished with piles of moldy straw and a bucket overflowing with excrement. There was barely room to stand, let alone sit or lie down. The terrible odor added to our general misery and sense of hopelessness.

Once the soldiers left, the prisoners traded stories about their capture by the secret police. My fellow sufferers were mostly social activists whom the authorities had rounded up on the basis of reports by spies. It was a mixed group. There were students, Jews, and workers, as well as posh, upper-class men and women who had expressed sympathy for the dissidents or antipathy to the tsar.

There were many rumors milling about, but the only certainty was that the tsar had escaped an assassination. After less than an hour of confinement, the cell door clanged open. Two guards seized a victim at random, a boy of scarcely twenty years, for interrogation. The thwack of truncheons against flesh, the crack of a broken bone, and the howls and screams of the victim commenced immediately and went on for half an hour or more.

The same guards dragged him back, threw him into the cell, and selected another suspect. This went on for most of the afternoon. Two prisoners did not return. The rest were bleeding from their nose and mouth and suffered excruciating pain from dislocated fingers or broken bones. Each time the guards returned, every prisoner was frightened that they would be next. We suffered from fear of being picked, as well as the guilt of not being picked and remaining uninjured.

As a physician, there was little I could do but offer sympathy and soothing words. The police became more and more enraged and cruel when they learned nothing from us suspected regicides. I was at the side of one poor soul, attempting to straighten his broken arm, when a man knelt at my side. “It’s no use, Doctor, we are all doomed,” he said, in English.

“They cannot be so confounded inhumane. Why does the tsar allow the police to mistreat his subjects so?” I asked.

“It is the tragedy of Russia. In this terrible prison, Peter the Great strangled his own son, and Catherine buried her enemies alive. The best you can hope for is sudden death; the alternative is to slowly die by torture or to lose your mind in a lonely cell.”

He spit as he spoke and glared at me with piggish eyes. “A guard called my name. I steeled myself for torture and resolved to reveal nothing of my involvement with the student group or the bomb makers. Two officers led me to a small, plain room on the ground floor where a civilian, or at least an officer in plain clothes, offered a glass of tea. I lifted the glass with trembling hands, and as I drank, the officer began to speak. “The British ambassador spoke with Prince Vladimir and demanded your immediate release.”

My heart leaped with joy and I put down my tea.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

“Not so fast, Dr. Doyle...” Instead of removing my manacles, he folded his hands and smiled. “We would normally comply with the wishes of the Prince. However, since the case involves a plot against the tsar, it would be unwise to let you go without further investigation.”

“And so how long might that take? A few more hours?”

“Maybe... But maybe days... Months... or even years.”

“That is completely unjust!” I shouted. “I have done nothing to deserve a long prison term!”

“Dr. Doyle, you’re in serious trouble. We have more than enough evidence to hang you, but since we, like you British, are a civilized people, we will not keep you in the usual pigsty, but will place you in a more - shall we say, pleasant - cell.”

Two guards marched me, still in manacles, across an open courtyard to a sort of reception room where a fat, old man in the uniform of a general sat behind a desk. He examined the ambassador’s note and roared with laughter. His French was terrible, but I understood enough. “Comfortable quarters? Ha!”

A foreigner, an Englishman, like the scum filling our cells.” He leered at a non-commissioned officer. “Find a place for the Englishman where he will be comfortable until he hangs with the rest.”

The bastard was still roaring with laughter when a detachment of soldiers took me through an iron gate further into the fortress to a damp room. I waited while a silent guard entered my name into a large book and ordered me to remove my clothing.

They commanded me to dress in their prison garb, an ankle-length flannel gown, wool stockings, and high, felt shoes. There was no sound as we tramped through a long, cold corridor through another locked and guarded gate to a small courtyard. I looked at the angel at the top of the cathedral and wondered if this would be my last breath of fresh air and my last sight of an open blue sky.

The Trubetskoy Bastion was a long, low building with individual cells that faced an open, gloomy corridor. The heavy door to the cell on the very end of the building had only a peephole and a small portal for the passage of food. The guards removed my chains and thrust me into a narrow cell. The heavy door clanged shut. My heart sank.

The room was dark; not a single ray of sunshine came through the small, barred window. When my eyes finally adjusted to the gloom, I made out a small, moldy threadbare carpet, a paper-thin cot, and bare damp walls.

Then, my heart stood still and my limbs grew weak. I had never believed in ghosts, but the apparition that I saw rising out from the shadows - from behind a small writing desk in the far corner of the cell - could not be real. It was a horrific, ethereal monster, a supernatural being. Or was my overactive mind hallucinating?

I blinked and looked again. The apparition was still there - small, white-haired, and hunched. A threadbare garment, a sort of caftan, hung about the creature’s shoulders and dragged on the floor. The apparition’s features were almost obscured by a flowing beard and long, tangled, curly, white hair. The rheumy eyes were vacant, dark, deep-set globes. The wide nose and thick lips might have reflected facial aspects of an African ancestor. It moved forward, with its arm and skeletal fingers outstretched. I heard the swish, swish of felt boots on the floor and nearly screamed. I realized the apparition was human, and in horror, I retreated until my back pressed against the heavy door.

“Natalya, ma cherie?”

I caught my breath. “No, my name is Doyle,” I whispered, responding in French.

My first instinct was to strike the creature, but then my good sense took over and I stood stock still. This was a poor human being who must have been imprisoned for years and who certainly deserved pity. I held out my hand. “I am your new cellmate. What is your name?” I asked, in broken French.

“I have no name. I am officially dead - dead to the world, dead with a bullet in my spleen, dead to my dear wife, Natalya. Oh, Natalya, is that you?”

“Please, I am not your Natalya, but I am a trained physician.”

“I have waited so long for them to send you.” And with that, the old man tottered and fell into my arms. I carried him to the cot, where he lay back, folded his hands over his chest, and gave a great sigh.

“So many years. So many years... I have saved a candle for such an occasion as this. Light it, please.”

I groped my way to the desk and found an old-fashioned flint and steel and a candle in a brass holder. After a few strikes, I caught a spark on a bit of charred cloth then blew until the glow was sufficient to light the candle.

I anxiously surveyed my new world; there was no possible escape. The bars in the window were set in a wall several feet thick. Next to the candle holder, on the desk, was a worn bible and a slate with a bit of chalk.

There were no loose bricks, only solid stone walls. I held the candle to a yellowed, cracked calendar on the wall and painstakingly deciphered the date - 10 February 1837. This was beyond comprehension. Why was this poor gent here? Had he truly been imprisoned here for more than forty years?

I listened for some human sound, but the silence was broken only by the old man’s raspy breathing, the scurry of rats, and the drip of water. Finally, utterly exhausted, I threw myself onto the threadbare carpet and went soundly to sleep.

I awoke many hours later. Or was it all a dream?

The old man’s voice rose and fell in a sort of rhyme that seemed familiar. The words were Russian, but sometimes, he lapsed into French. “Tatyana, Natalya...” he murmured. Once, with great clarity, he shouted the name Eugene.

In the morning, the old fellow’s eyes were glued shut with thick, yellow pus, and his eyelids were swollen. I led him to the window and, by the light of a single ray of sunshine, saw pustules at the base of his eyelashes. He was in pain and nearly blind.

I didn’t have my bag or any medicine. What could I do for him?

My only remedy was to apply a wet compress with a bit of cloth soaked in the weak tea that came with breakfast. I plucked out several infected eyelashes, and over the course of several days, the infection resolved. His eyes cleared, and his gratitude was touching.

During the days, he scratched on the slate and then erased what he had written. I hoped that he could teach me a few phrases in Russian, or explain his nightly recitations, but his mind was too far gone.

The days dragged one after the other with no communication, no outside human sound. The guard passed our two meals of coarse bread with thin soup and took away the slop jar but remained absolutely silent. I paced back and forth, back and forth.

Day by dismal day, I sank into the most dreadful despair, broken by dreams of my mam or of crushing Penelope in my arms, her lips warming mine and bringing my dying body back to life. I knew not how long I was there, but it seemed like an eternity. One especially dreary morning, the guard opened our door.

A nun of the Orthodox faith put a gold coin in his hand. Her shapeless, black garment and a thick veil covered her body from head to foot. She offered the heavy cross that hung on a gold chain to the guard. He knelt, and with great reverence, kissed the cross. “Thank you, little mother,” he murmured. The guard took his rifle and left his post.

She motioned for me and the old man to follow. Was it my imagination, or was there a whiff of orange blossoms? Most of her face was covered, but her eyes looked familiar, and the way she swung her hips as she walked was not like any nun I had ever seen. My heart began to race, and for the first time in days, I had a spark of hope that I might live.

The nun spoke to the old man in Russian. His features broke into a twisted smile. He nodded. “Ah, an escape. No, I am too old and frail to leave. This is where I shall stay, but I will help you get away. If, in return, you could take this, I shall die in peace.” He withdrew from the depths of his old caftan a rolled bit of paper and pressed his greatest treasure into my hand.

“I will guard it with my life. Be well, my friend,” I said.

The nun led us across the courtyard towards a side door of the cathedral. My cellmate, the old man, stumbled, and after a few steps, he clutched his chest and cried as if in pain. He collapsed and fell to the ground. The guard ran to his side, put down the rifle, and knelt by the old man.

I wanted to help but the nun pulled my arm. “It is part of the plan. He is acting. We must go.”

We hurried and, in an instant, entered the cathedral and then the mausoleum between the tombs of Romanovs.

“Here, quickly, put these over your clothing.” She handed me the cassock of an orthodox priest, a bishop’s hat, and an enormous pectoral cross.

I pulled the black robe over my prison garb as fast as I could. “Walk, just ahead of me, slowly through the gate. There will be a waiting carriage. The driver will wear a blue coat,” she whispered.

At the gate, a guard with rifle and bayonet barred our way. I wanted to run, but, after having seen the first guard kneel before the nun, had the presence of mind to offer the cross to be kissed. The young guard put down his weapon. “Thank you, Your Excellency,” he murmured.

The slow march from the cathedral to the carriage seemed to take hours. At every step, I expected a bayonet thrust or a saber slash from one of the lounging soldiers. Suddenly, one of the guards ran towards me. All seemed lost. I was determined to smash his head with the heavy cross and run, but at the last moment he stopped, kneeled, and spoke with great urgency. “Please, Father, my son is sick. If you could give him a blessing?” he asked.

The soldier kneeled. I made the sign of the cross and recited a soft Latin blessing that I had learned as a child. When it was over, I helped him to his feet and he kissed my hand.

A few moments later, I assisted my companion into the carriage and slumped at her side. The driver did, indeed, have a spanking dark blue coat. We crossed the bridge over the Neva at a bare walk, and only then did the driver whip the horses to a gallop and the carriage lurch ahead. We were off.

The nun gave no inkling of her identity, and a scarf muffled the driver’s features. I wanted to hug my savior, but she kept her distance and remained silent. When we were well away from the fortress, on a deserted street, she finally spoke. “Remove the cassock, and remember, not a word - not one word to a single soul.”

She pulled off her headdress and long, chestnut curls tumbled out. “Penelope, what... How... Who are you?” I asked. She put her finger to her lips. “Don’t ask. It is better that you remain ignorant. But it has been great fun,” said she. I fell into her arms, happy beyond words to be with her again. She returned my gratitude with a long kiss, full on the lips, and then wiggled out of her black robe. She was, once again, transformed - now a demure young lady in afternoon dress. I was delirious with joy but no less mystified. She was a great actress, but how had she known I was in prison? Why had she come for me? Despite the fact that she had just saved me, the thought still plagued me - whose side was she on?

We took a roundabout route to Professor Sechenov’s home, and once there, I went around the back way to the servant’s entrance and slipped into my room unseen. I drew a bath and scrubbed away the prison dirt until Mr. Tatum knocked on the door.

I settled into an easy chair and told of my escape. He listened attentively, as if he was hearing this for the first time, but I wondered if he knew more about my adventure than he let on. Had he contacted Penelope through the British Secret Service?

Mr. Tatum rather solemnly recommended that I not leave my room. Thus, for days now, I have remained sequestered - eating, resting, recuperating and working with a Russian dictionary to decipher the tiny writing on the slip of paper from my mysterious cellmate. What follows is the most accurate translation I have been able to come up with.

d’Anthes’ bullet ruptured my spleen, but unfortunately for the tsar, I did not die. My doctor, with the aid of brandy and opium, performed surgery and saved my life. The tsar was enraged and announced my death. He then ordered me to prison where I have languished for I know not how many years. Nicholas arranged the scandal, the duel, and claimed my death to have my beautiful Natalya as his own. Once the world knows the truth, I can die in peace.

Pushkin