20 - Czars Spy by William Le Queux

When the British Consulate in Leghorn falls victim to a puzzling burglary, and an enigmatic English yacht pays an unexpected visit, it sparks an enthralling journey of espionage and hidden criminal machinations. This thrilling tale sweeps the reader from London to Scotland, and finally to the oppressed lands of Finland, under the harsh rule of imperial Russia. Our protagonist is a man of exceptional acumen, a precursor to the likes of Double O Seven, who finds himself pushed to his limits as he navigates this web of intrigue and deception to uncover the truth. - Summary by Nicholas Clifford

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The conclusion of the Tsar's Spy. This Liebervots recording is
in the public domain. Recording by Tom Weiss. The Tsar's
Spy by William Lecheu conclusion. Nearly two years have now
gone by. There have been great changes in Holy Russia,

(00:21):
many great and amazing changes consequent upon war and its disasters.
Russia is no longer the great power that she once
was supposed to be. Many events that have startled the
world have occurred since that day when I first enfolded
my silent love within my arms. One of them is
known to you all. You read in the newspapers without

(00:44):
a doubt, how the Baron Xavier Oberg, the persecutor of Finland,
the enemy of education, the relentless foe of the defenseless,
the man who ordered women to be knouted to death
in Kajana, the heartless official whom the Finns called the
stres Angler, was blown to pieces by a bomb thrown
beneath his carriage as he drove to the railway station

(01:05):
at Helsingfors on his way to have audience with the Emperor.
The secret truth was that the red priest decreed that
Oberg should die, and the plot was swiftly put into execution,
and although five hundred arrests were made, the police are
unaware to this day of the identity of the person
who directed it, or of who threw the fatal missile

(01:29):
from pillar to post. The revolutionists have been haunted by
the bloodhounds of police. Yet the Red Priest still lives
on quietly in Petersburg, and the Princess Zurlof, still unsuspected,
devotes the greater part of her enormous income to the
cause of freedom of Jack and Muriel. I need only

(01:49):
say they were married about three months after Elma's return
from Russia, and at the present time they are living
on the outskirts of Glasgow, where Jack has secured the
shore appointment which he so long coveted by some means.
Exactly how is not quite certain. The police discovered that
Dick Archer alias Woodruff alias Hornby, was concerned in the

(02:12):
clever robbery of a dressing bag containing the Dowager Lady
Lancashire's jewels from her footman on Euston Platform, and after
a long search they found him hiding at a hotel
in Liverpool. When, however, they went to arrest him, he
laughed in the faces of the detectives, placed something swiftly
in his mouth and swallowed it before they could prevent him.

(02:34):
Then ten minutes later he fell dead. He knew what
terrible revelations must be made if we gave evidence against him,
and he therefore preferred death by his own hand to
that following a judicial sentence. Chatter, although one of the
most expert jewel thieves in Europe, had never been actually

(02:54):
guilty of any graver offense, and when we heard that
he was in San Francisco, where he had opened a
small bar and was trying to live honestly, we resolved
to allow him to remain there. Indeed, Jack wrote to
him about nine months ago, warning him never to set
foot on English soil again on pain of arrest. Olinto

(03:16):
Santini has recently opened a small restaurant in Western Road, Brighton,
And is I believe doing very well and ourselves well.
What can I really tell you? Mere words failed to
tell you of the completeness of our happiness. It is idyllic,
that is all I can say. My proposal of marriage

(03:37):
was made to Elma a very few days after she
wrote down her startling and romantic story and a year
ago at a little village church in Hertfordshire, we became
man and wife. There being present at our wedding Madame Heath,
my bride's mother, to whom, by my exertions and official
quarters in Petersburg, the Csar's clemency was extended and she

(04:00):
was released from that far off arctic prison to which
she had been sent with such cruel injustice. Two of
the greatest London specialists have continually treated my dear wife,
and under them she has already recovered her speech so
far indeed, that she can now whisper in a low,
soft voice. But they tell me they are hopeful that

(04:23):
ere long her voice will become stronger, and speech practically restored.
Already too, she can begin to hear. After all the
storms and perils of the past, Our lives are now
indeed full of a calm, sweet peace. In our own
comfortable little house with its trellised porch covered with roses

(04:43):
and honeysuckle, that faces the blue channel at Saint Margaret's
Bay beyond Dover, we lead a life of mutual trust
and boundless love. We are supremely content, the happiest pair
in all the world. We think often as we sit
together at Ea evening, gazing out upon the great ships
passing darkly away into the mysterious afterglow, our hands clasped

(05:07):
mutually in a silence more eloquent than words. And as
we gaze into each other's eyes, there recurs to us
the divine injunction whom God hath joined. Let no man
put asunder. This is the end of the Tsar's Spy
by William Leque, recording by Tom Weiss.