“Yes, that is often so,” continued the Policeman in a tone of feigned consolation. “The investigator can frequently be induced to turn the evidence in favour of the accused. But in this case it is unfortunately useless to offer the usual bribe, for even if Madame Marsh’s innocence is proven to the hilt, she will still be detained as a hostage until the discovery of Monsieur Marsh.”
Marsh’s face twitched. “I feared so,” he said in a dull voice. “What are the chances of flight?”
“I was coming to that,” said the Policeman, suavely. “I am already making inquiries on thesubject. But it will take some days to arrange. The assistance of more than one person will have to be enlisted. And I fear—I hesitate,” he added in unctuous tones of regret, “I hesitate to refer to such a matter—but I am afraid this method may be a little more—er—costly. Pardon me for——”
“Money?” cried Marsh. “Damn it all, man, don’t you realize it is my wife? How much do you want?”
“Oh, Monsieur Marsh,” expostulated the Policeman, raising his palm, “you are well aware that I take nothing for myself. I do this out of friendship to you—and our gallant allies. But there is a prison janitor, I must give him 5,000, two warders 10,000, a go-between 2,000, odd expenses——”
“Stop!” put in Marsh, abruptly, “tell me how much it will cost.”
The Policeman’s face assumed a pained expression. “It may cost,” he said, “twenty-five, possibly thirty thousand roubles.”
“Thirty thousand. You shall have it. I gave you ten thousand, here are another ten thousand; you shall have the third ten thousand the day my wife leaves prison.”
The Policeman took the notes, and with a look of offended dignity, as though the handling of money were altogether beneath him, hid them in an inner pocket.
“When will you be able to report again?” asked Marsh.
“I expect the day after to-morrow. If you like to come to my house it is quite safe.”
“Very well, we will meet there. And now, if you are not in a hurry, I’ll see if I can raise some tea. It’s damned cold in this room.”
When Marsh had gone into the kitchen the little Policeman ventured to open conversation.
“Such times, such times,” he sighed. “Who would have thought it possible? You live in Petrograd, Michael Ivanitch?”
“Yes.”
“You are in service, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause.
“Yours must have been an interesting occupation,” I remarked, “in days gone by.”
“You mean?”
“You were connected with the police, were you not?”
I saw at once I had made afaux pas. The little man turned very red. “I beg your pardon,” I hastened to add, “I understood you were an official of theohrana.”
This apparently was still worse. The little Policeman sat up very straight, flushing deeply and looking rather like a turkey-cock.
“No, sir,” he said in what were intended to be icy tones, “you have been grossly misinformed. I have never been connected either with the police or theohrana. Under the Tsar, sir, I moved in Court circles. I had the ear of his late Imperial Majesty, and the Imperial Palace was open to me at any time.”
At this point, fortunately for me, Marsh returned with three glasses of tea, apologizing for not providing sugar, and the conversation turned to the inevitable subject of famine. At length the Policeman rose to go.
“By the way, Alexei Fomitch,” said Marsh, “can you find me a lodging for to-night?”
“A lodging for to-night? I shall be honoured, Monsieur Marsh, if you will accept such hospitality as I myself can offer. I have an extra bed, though my fare, I am afraid, will not be luxurious. Still, such as it is——”
“Thank you. I will come as near nine o’clock as possible.”
“Give three short rings, and I will open the door myself,” said the Policeman.
When he had gone I told Marsh of our conversation and asked what the little man meant by “moving in Court circles.” Marsh was greatly amused.
“Oh, he was a private detective or something,” he said. “Conceited as hell about it. ‘Ear of the Tsar,’ indeed! What he’s after is money. He’ll pocket most of the 30,000. But he’s afraid of us, too. He’s cocksure the Allies are coming into Petrograd, so if you have anything to do with him tell him you’re an Englishman and he’ll grovel. By the way, we had better let Dmitri Konstantinovitch into the secret, too, because you will find this flat very useful. The Journalist is a damned old coward, but buy him some grub or, still better, pay for his fuel and he will let you use the flat as much as you like.”
So the nervous ex-journalist was initiated into the great secret, and when Marsh said, “You don’t mind if he comes in occasionally to sleep on the sofa, do you?” Dmitri Konstantinovitch nearly died with fear. His thin lips vibrated, and clearer than any words his twitching smile and tear-filled eyes implored, “Oh, for God’s sake, leave me alone!”—until I said boldly, “But I don’t like sleeping in the cold, Dmitri Konstantinovitch. Perhaps you could get some wood in for me. Here is the price of a sazhen of logs; we will share the wood, of course.” Thenhis care-worn, troubled face again became suddenly transfigured as it had when Marsh gave him bread. “Ah, splendid, splendid,” he cried in delight, his fears completely obliterated by the anticipation of coming warmth. “I will get the wood in this very afternoon, and you shall have sheets and blankets and I will make you comfortable.” So it was arranged that unless Melnikoff found me a more suitable place I should return to the Journalist’s that night.
It was now time for me to be thinking of keeping my appointment with Melnikoff at the communal eating-house. So I left Marsh, arranging to meet him at the empty flat “No. 5” next morning. Musing on the events of the day I made my way down the staircase and came out again into the Liteiny Prospect. It seemed ages since, but two days ago, I walked along this same street on the day of my arrival in Petrograd, after crossing the frontier. What would Melnikoff now have to tell me, I wondered?
As I rounded the corner of the Nevsky Prospect I noticed a concourse of people outside the communal eating-house toward which I was directing my steps. I followed the people, who were moving hurriedly across the street to the other side. At the entrance to the eating-house stood two sailors on guard with fixed bayonets, while people were filing out of the building singly, led by militiamen. In the dark lobby within one could dimly discern individuals being searched. Their documents were being examined and, standing in their shirt-sleeves, their clothing was being subjected to strict investigation.
I waited to see if Melnikoff would emerge from the building. After a moment I felt a tap on my arm and looking round I was confronted by Zorinsky, the officer who had accosted me in the café of VeraAlexandrovna on the day of my arrival. Zorinsky signalled to me to move aside with him.
“Were you to meet Melnikoff here?” he asked. “It is lucky for you you did not enter the restaurant. The place is being raided. I was about to go in myself, but came a little late, thank God. Melnikoff was one of the first to be arrested and has already been taken away.”
“What is the cause of the raid?” I asked, dismayed by this news.
“Who knows?” replied Zorinsky. “These things are done spasmodically. Melnikoff has been tracked for some days, I believe, and it may have been on his account. Anyway, it is serious, for he is well known.”
People were beginning to move away and the search was clearly nearing its end.
“What are you going to do?” said my companion.
“I do not know,” I replied, not wishing to confide any of my movements to Zorinsky.
“We must begin to think of some way of getting him out,” he said. “Melnikoff was a great friend of mine, but you are, I expect, as interested in his release as I am.”
“Is there any chance?” I exclaimed. “Of course I am interested.”
“Then I suggest you come home with me and we will talk it over. I live quite near.”
Anxious to learn of any possibility of saving Melnikoff, I consented. We passed into Troitzkaya Street and entered a large house on the right.
“How do you wish me to call you?” asked Zorinsky as we mounted the staircase. I was struck by the considerateness of his question and replied, “Pavel Ivanitch.”
The flat in which Zorinsky lived was large andluxuriously furnished, and showed no signs of molestation. “You live comfortably,” I remarked, sinking into a deep leather arm-chair. “Yes, we do pretty well,” he replied. “My wife, you see, is an actress. She receives as many provisions as she wants and our flat is immune from requisition of furniture or the obtrusion of workmen. We will go round some evening, if you like, and see her dance. As for me, my wife has registered me as a sub-manager of the theatre, so that I receive additional rations also. These things, you know, are not difficult to arrange! Thus I am really a gentleman at large, and living like many others at the expense of a generous proletarian régime. My hobby,” he added, idly, “iscontre-espionnage.”
“What?” I cried, the exclamation escaping me inadvertently.
“Contre-espionnage,” he repeated, smiling. When he smiled one end of his crooked mouth remained stationary, while the other seemed to jut right up into his cheek. “Why should you be surprised?Tout le monde est contre-révolutionnaire: it is merely a question of whether one is actively or passively so.” He took from a drawer a typewritten sheet of paper and handed it to me. “Does that by any chance interest you?”
I glanced at the paper. The writing was full of uncorrected orthographical errors, showing it had been typed by an unpractised hand in extreme haste. Scanning the first few lines I at once became completely absorbed in the document. It was a report, dated two days previously, of confidential negotiations between the Bolshevist Government and the leaders of non-Bolshevist parties with regard to the possible formation of a coalition Government. Nothingcame of the negotiations, but the information was of great importance as showing the nervousness of the Bolshevist leaders at that time and the clearly defined attitude of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevist parties toward the military counter-revolution.
“Is it authentic?” I inquired, dubiously.
“That report,” replied Zorinsky, “is at this moment being considered by the central committee of the Menshevist party in this city. It was drawn up by a member of the Menshevist delegation and despatched secretly to Petrograd, for the Bolsheviks do not permit their opponents to communicate freely with each other. I saw the original and obtained a copy two hours before it reached the Menshevist committee.”
The suspicion of forgery immediately arose, but I could see no reason for concocting the document on the off-chance of somebody’s being taken in by it. I handed it back.
“You may as well keep it,” said Zorinsky. “I should have given it to Melnikoff and he would doubtless have given it to you. I am expecting a further report shortly. Yes,” he added, nonchalantly, tapping the arm of the desk-chair in which he sat, “it is an amusing game—contre-espionnage. I used to provide your Captain Crombie with quite a lot of information. But I’m not surprised you have not heard of me, for I always preferred to keep in the background.”
He produced a large box of cigarettes and, ringing a bell, ordered tea.
“I don’t know what you Allies propose doing with regard to Russia,” he observed, offering me a light. “It seems to me you might as well leave us alone as bungle things in the way you are doing. Meanwhile, all sorts of people are conducting, or think they are conducting, espionage underground in Russia,or planning to overthrow the Reds. Are you interested?”
“Very.”
“Well, have you heard of General F.?” Zorinsky launched into an exposition of the internal counter-revolutionary movement, of which he appeared to know extensive details. There existed, he said, belligerent “groups,” planning to seize army stores, blow up bridges, or raid treasuries. “They will never do anything,” he said, derisively, “because they all organize like idiots. The best are the S.R.’s (Socialist-Revolutionaries): they are fanatics, like the Bolsheviks. None of the others could tell you what they want.”
The maid, neatly attired in a clean white apron, brought in tea, served with biscuits, sugar, and lemon. Zorinsky talked on, displaying a remarkable knowledge of everybody’s movements and actions.
“Crombie was a fine fellow,” he said, referring to the British Naval Attaché. “Pity he got killed. Things went to pieces. The fellows who stayed after him had a hard time. The French and Americans have all gone now except (he mentioned a Frenchman living on the Vasili Island) but he doesn’t do much. Marsh had hard luck, didn’t he?”
“Marsh?” I put in. “So you know him, too?”
“Ofhim,” corrected Zorinsky. All at once he seemed to become interested and leaned over the arm of his chair toward me. “By the way,” he said, in a curious tone, “you don’t happen to know where Marsh is, do you?”
For a moment I hesitated. Perhaps this man, who seemed to know so much, might be able to help Marsh. But I checked myself. Intuitively I felt it wiser to say nothing.
“I have no idea,” I said, decisively.
“Then how do you know about him?”
“I heard in Finland of his arrest.”
Zorinsky leaned back again in his chair and his eyes wandered out of the window.
“I should have thought,” I observed, after a pause, “that knowing all you do, you would have followed his movements.”
“Aha,” he exclaimed, and in the shadow his smile looked like a black streak obliterating one-half of his face, “but there is one place I avoid, and that isNo. 2 Goróhovaya! When any one gets arrested I leave him alone. I am wiser than to attempt to probe the mysteries of that institution.”
Zorinsky’s words reminded me abruptly of Melnikoff.
“But you spoke of the possibility of saving Melnikoff,” I said. “Is he not in the hands ofNo. 2 Goróhovaya?”
He turned round and looked me full in the face. “Yes,” he said, seriously, “with Melnikoff it is different. We must act at once and leave no stone unturned. I know a man who will be able to investigate and I’ll get him on the job to-night. Will you not stay to dinner? My wife will be delighted to meet you, and she understands discretion.”
Seeing no special reason to refuse, I accepted the invitation. Zorinsky went to the telephone and I heard him ask some one to call about nine o’clock “on an urgent matter.”
His wife, Elena Ivanovna, a jolly little creature, but very much of a spoilt child, appeared at dinner dressed in a pink Japanese kimono. The table was daintily set and decked with flowers. As at Vera Alexandrovna’s café, I again felt myself out of place, and apologized for my uncouth appearance.
“Oh! don’t excuse yourself,” said Elena Ivanovna, laughing. “Everyone is getting like that nowadays. How dreadful it is to think of all that is happening! Have the olden days gone for ever, do you think? Will these horrid people never be overthrown?”
“You do not appear to have suffered much, Elena Ivanovna,” I remarked.
“No, of course, I must admit our troupe is treated well,” she replied. “Even flowers, as you see, though you have no idea how horrible it is to have to take a bouquet from a great hulking sailor who wipes his nose with his fingers and spits on the floor. The theatre is just full of them, every night.”
“Your health, Pavel Ivanitch,” said Zorinsky, lifting a glass of vodka. “Ah!” he exclaimed with relish, smacking his lips, “there are places worse than Bolshevia, I declare.”
“You get plenty of vodka?” I asked.
“You get plenty of everything if you keep your wits about you,” said Zorinsky. “Even without joining the Communist Party. I am not a Communist,” he added (somehow I had not suspected it), “but still I keep that door open. What I am afraid of is that the Bolsheviks may begin to make their Communistswork. That will be the next step in the revolution unless you Allies arrive and relieve them of that painful necessity. Your health, Pavel Ivanitch.”
The conversation turned on the Great War and Zorinsky recounted a number of incidents in his career. He also gave his views of the Russian people and the revolution. “The Russian peasant,” he said, “is a brute. What he wants is a good hiding, and unless I’m much mistaken the Communists are going to give it to him. Otherwise the Communists go under. In my regiment we used to smash a jaw nowand again on principle. That’s the only way to make Russian peasants fight. Have you heard about the Red army? Comrade Trotzky, you see, has already abolished his Red officers, and is inviting—inviting, if you please—us, the ‘counter-revolutionary Tsarist officer swine,’ to accept posts in his new army. Would you ever believe it? By God, I’ve half a mind to join! Trotzky will order me to flog the peasants to my heart’s content. Under Trotzky, mark my words, I would make a career in no time.”
The dinner was a sumptuous banquet for the Petrograd of the period. There was nothing that suggested want. Coffee was served in the drawing-room, while Zorinsky kept up an unceasing flow of strange and cynical but entertaining conversation.
I waited till nearly ten for the call from Zorinsky’s friend with regard to Melnikoff, and then, in view of my uncertainty as to whether the Journalist’s house would still be open, I accepted Zorinsky’s invitation to stay overnight. “There is no reason,” he said, “why you should not come in here whenever you like. We dine every day at six and you are welcome.”
Just as I was retiring Zorinsky was called to the telephone and returned explaining that he would only be able to begin the investigation of Melnikoff’s case next day. I was shown to the spare bedroom, where I found everything provided for me. Zorinsky apologized that he could not offer me a hot bath. “That rascal dvornik downstairs,” he said, referring to the yard-keeper whose duty it was to procure wood for the occupants, “allowed an extra stock of fuel that I had my eyes on to be requisitioned for somebody else, but next week I think I shall be able to get a good supplyfrom the theatre. Good-night—and don’t dream ofNo. 2 Goróhovaya!”
The Extraordinary Commission, spoken of with such abhorrence by Zorinsky, is the most notorious of all Bolshevist institutions. It is an instrument of terror and inquisition designed forcibly to uproot all anti-Bolshevist sentiment throughout Lenin’s dominions. Its full title is theExtraordinary Commission for the Suppression of the Counter-Revolution and Speculation, “speculation” being every form of private commerce—the bugbear of Communism. The Russian title of this institution isTchrezvitchainaya Kommissia, popularly spoken of as theTchrezvitchaika, or still shorter theTche-Ka. The headquarters of theTche-Kain Petrograd are situated at No. 2 of the street namedGoróhovaya, the seat of the Prefecture of Police during the Tsar’s régime, so that the popular mode of appellation of the Prefecture by its address—“No. 2 Goróhovaya”—has stuck to the Extraordinary Commission and will go down as a by-word in Russian history.
At the head ofNo. 2 Goróhovayathere sits asoviet, or council, of some half-dozen revolutionary fanatics of the most vehement type. With these lies the final word as to the fate of prisoners. Recommendations are submitted to thissovietby “Investigators” whose duty it is to examine the accused, collect the evidence and report upon it. It is thus in the hands of the “Investigators” that power over prisoners’ lives actually lies, since they are in a position to turn the evidence one way or the other, as they choose.
Investigators vary considerably. There are some who are sincere and upright, though demoniacal visionaries, cold as steel, cruel, unpolluted by thirstfor filthy lucre, who see the dawn of proletarian liberty only through mists of non-proletarian blood. Such men (or women) are actuated by malignant longing for revenge for every wrong, real or imaginary, suffered in the past. Believing themselves to be called to perform a sacred task in exterminating the “counter-revolution,” they can upon occasion be civil and courteous, even chivalrous (though that is rare), but never impartial. There are other investigators who are merely corrupt, ready to sacrifice any proletarian interest for a price, regarding their job purely as a means of amassing a fortune by the taking of bribes.
Every responsible official of the Extraordinary Commission must be a member of the Communist Party. The lower staff, however, is composed of hirelings, frequently of foreign origin, and many of them re-engaged agents of the Tsarist police. The latter, who lost their jobs as the result of the revolution which overthrew the Tsarist autocracy, have been re-enlisted as specialists by the Bolsheviks, and find congenial occupation in spying, eavesdropping, and hounding down rebellious or suspected workmen just as they did when the government was the Tsar’s instead of Lenin’s. It is this fact which renders it almost impossible for the Russian workers to organize a revolt against their new taskmasters. It is thus that arose thesobriquetapplied to the Red régime of “Tsarism inside out.” The faintest signs of sedition are immediately reported to theTche-Kaby its secret agents disguised as workers, the ringleaders are then “eliminated” from the factory under pretext of being conscripted elsewhere, and they are frequently never heard of again.
The Extraordinary Commission overshadows all else in Red Russia. No individual is free from itsall-perceiving eye. Even Communists stand in awe of it, one of its duties being to unearth black sheep within the Party ranks, and since it never errs on the side of leniency there have been cases of execution of true adherents of the Communist creed under suspicion of being black sheep. On the other hand, the black sheep, being imbued with those very qualities of guile, trickery, and unscrupulous deceit which make the Extraordinary Commission so efficient a machine, generally manage to get off.
One of the most diabolic of the methods copied from Tsarist days and employed by the Extraordinary Commission against non-Bolsheviks is that known in Russia asprovocation. Provocation consisted formerly in the deliberate fomentation, by agents who were known asagents-provocateurs, of revolutionary sedition and plots. Such movements would attract to themselves ardent revolutionaries, and when a conspiracy had matured and was about to culminate in some act of terrorism it would be betrayed at the last moment by theagent-provocateur, who frequently succeeded in making himself the most trusted member of the revolutionary group.Agents-provocateurswere recruited from all classes, but chiefly from the intelligentsia. Imitating Tsarism in this as in most of its essentials, the Bolsheviks employ similar agents to foment counter-revolutionary conspiracies and they reward munificently aprovocateurwho yields to the insatiableTche-Kaa plentiful crop of “counter-revolutionary” heads.
As under the Tsar, every invention of exquisite villainy is practised to extract from captives, thus or otherwise seized, the secret of accomplices or sympathizers. Not without reason was Marsh haunted with fears that his wife, nerve-racked and doubtless underfed, if fed at all, might be subjected to treatmentthat would test her self-control to the extreme. She did not know where he was, but she knew all his friends and acquaintances, an exhaustive list of whom would be insistently demanded. She had already, according to the Policeman, given confused replies, which were bound to complicate her case. The inquisition would become ever more relentless, until at last——
On the day following my visit to Zorinsky I appeared punctually at eleven o’clock at the empty flat with “No. 5” chalked on the back door. It was not far from Zorinsky’s, but I approached it by a circuitous route, constantly looking round to assure myself I was not being followed. The filthy yard was as foul and noisome as ever, vying in stench with the gloomy staircase, and I met no one. Maria, no longer suspicious, opened the door in answer to my three knocks. “Peter Ivanitch is not here yet,” she said, “but he should be in any minute.” So I sat down to read the Soviet newspapers.
Marsh’s three thumps at the back door were not long in making themselves heard. Maria hurried along the passage, I heard the lock creak, the door stiffly tugged open, and then suddenly a little stifled cry from Maria. I rose quickly. Marsh burst, or rather tumbled, into the room with his head and face bound up in a big black shawl. As he laboriously unwound it I had a vision of Maria in the doorway, her fist in her mouth, staring at him speechless and terrified.
It was a strange Marsh that emerged from the folds of the black shawl. The invincible smile struggled to maintain itself, but his eyes were bleared and wandered aimlessly, and he shook with agitation despite his efforts to retain self-control.
“My wife——” he stammered, half coherently, dropping into a chair and fumbling feverishly for his handkerchief. “She was subjected yesterday—seven hours’ cross-examination—uninterruptedly—no food—not even allowed to sit down—until finally she swooned. She has said something—I don’t know what. I am afraid——” He rose and strode up and down, mumbling so that I could scarcely understand, but I caught the word “indiscretion”—and understood all he wished to say.
After a few moments he calmed and sat down again. “The Policeman came home at midnight,” he said, “and told me all about it. I questioned and questioned again and am sure he is not lying. The Bolsheviks believe she was implicated in some conspiracy, so they made her write three autobiographies, and” (he paused) “they—are all different. Now—she is being compelled to explain discrepancies, but she can’t remember anything and her mind seems to be giving. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks are resolved to eradicate, once and for all, all ‘English machinations,’ as they call it, in Russia. They know I’ve shaved and changed my appearance and a special detachment of spies is on the hunt for me, with a big reward offered to the finder.”
He paused and swallowed at a gulp the glassful of tea Maria had placed beside him.
“Look here, old man,” he said, suddenly, laying his hands out flat on the table in front of him, “I am going to ask you to help me out. The ‘Policeman’ says it’s worse for her that I should be here than if I go. So I’m going. Once they know I’ve fled, the Policeman says, they will cease plaguing her, and it may be easier to effect an escape. Tell me, will you take the job over for me?”
“My dear fellow,” I said, “I had already resolved that I would attempt nothing else until we had safely got your wife out of prison. And the day she gets out I will escort her over the frontier myself. I shall have to go to Finland to report, anyway.”
He was going to thank me but I shut him up.
“When will you go?” I asked.
“To-morrow. There are a number of things to be done. Have you got much money?”
“Enough for myself, but no reserve.”
“I will leave you all I have,” he said, “and to-day I’ll go and see a business friend of mine who may be able to get some more. He is a Jew, but is absolutely trustworthy.”
“By the way,” I asked, when this matter was decided, “ever heard of a Captain Zorinsky?”
“Zorinsky? Zorinsky? No. Who is he?”
“A fellow who seems to know a lot about you,” I said. “Says he is a friend of Melnikoff’s, though I never heard Melnikoff mention him. Yesterday he was particularly anxious to know your present address.”
“You didn’t tell him?” queried Marsh, nervously.
“What do you take me for?”
“You can tell him day after to-morrow,” he laughed.
Marsh went off to his business friend, saying he would warn him of my possible visit, and stayed there all day. I remained at “No. 5” and wrote up in minute handwriting on tracing paper a preliminary report on the general situation in Petrograd, which I intended to ask Marsh to take with him. To be prepared for all contingencies I gave the little scroll to Maria when it was finished and she hid it at the bottom of a pail of ashes.
Next morning Marsh turned up at “No. 5” dressedin a huge sheepskin coat with a fur collar half engulfing his face. This was the disguise in which he was going to escape across the frontier. As passport he had procured the “certificate of identification” of his coachman, who had come into Petrograd from the expropriated farm to see Maria. With his face purposely dirtied, and decorated with three days’ growth of reddish beard, a driver’s cap that covered his ears, and a big sack on his back to add a peasant touch to his get-up, Marsh looked—well, like nothing on earth, to use the colloquial expression! It was a get-up that defied description, yet in a crowd of peasants would not attract particular attention.
Confident that he was doing the right thing by quitting, Marsh had completely recovered his former good spirits and joked boisterously as he put a finishing touch here and there to his disguise. I gave him my report and folding it flat into a packet about two inches square he removed one of his top boots and hid it inside the sole of his sock. “The population of hell will be increased by several new arrivals before the Bolsheviks find that,” he said, pulling on his boot again and slipping a heavy revolver inside his trousers.
Poor Maria was terribly distressed at Marsh’s departure. So was the coachman, who could find no terms wherein to express his disgust and indignation at the conduct of the elder of the two stable-boys, who had joined the Bolsheviks, assisted in sacking Marsh’s country house and farm, and was now appointed Commissar in supreme control of the establishment. The coachman exhausted a luxuriant fund of expletives in describing how the stable-boy now sprawled in Marsh’s easy-chairs, spitting on the floor, how all the photographs had been smashed to pieces, and the drawing-room carpets littered withdirt, cigarette-ends, and rubbish. At all of which Marsh roared with laughter, much to the perplexity of the coachman and Maria.
With trembling hands Maria placed a rough meal on the table, while Marsh repeated to me final details of the route he was taking and by which I should follow with his wife. “Fita,” he said, mentioning the name of the Finnish guide on whom he was relying, “lives a mile from Grusino station. When you get out of the train walk in the other direction till everybody has dispersed, then turn back and go by the forest path straight to his cottage. He will tell you what to do.”
At last it was time to start. Marsh and I shook hands and wished each other good-luck, and I went out first, so as not to witness the pathetic parting from his humble friends. I heard him embrace them both, heard Maria’s convulsive sobs—and I hurried down the stone stairway and out into the street. I walked rapidly to the street-car terminal in the Mihailovsky Square, and wandered round it till Marsh appeared. We made no sign of recognition. He jumped on one of the cars, and I scrambled on to the next.
It was dark by the time we reached the distant Okhta railway station, a straggling wooden structure on the outskirts of the town. But standing on the wooden boards of the rough platform I easily discerned the massive figure, pushing and scrambling amid a horde of peasants toward the already over-crowded coaches. Might is right in Red Russia, as everywhere else. The Soviet Government has not yet nationalized muscle. I watched a huge bulk of sheepskin, with a dangling and bouncing grey sack, raise itself by some mysterious process of elevation above the heads and shoulders of the seething mass around andtransplant itself on to the buffers. Thence it rose to the roof, and finally, assisted by one or two admiring individuals already ensconced within the coach, it lowered itself down the side and disappeared through the black aperture of what had once been a window. I hung around for half an hour or so, until a series of prolonged and piercing whistles from the antediluvian-looking locomotive announced that the driver had that day condescended to set his engine in motion. There was a jolt, a series of violent creaks, the loud ejaculations of passengers, a scramble of belated peasants to hook themselves on to protruding points in the vicinity of steps, buffers, footboards, etc., and the train with its load of harassed creatures slowly rumbled forward out of the station.
I stood and watched it pass into the darkness and, as it vanished, the cold, the gloom, the universal dilapidation seemed to become intensified. I stood, listening to the distant rumble of the train, until I found myself alone upon the platform. Then I turned, and as I slowly retraced my steps into town an aching sense of emptiness pervaded everything, and the future seemed nothing but impenetrable night.
I will pass briefly over the days that followed Marsh’s flight. They were concentrated upon efforts to get news of Mrs. Marsh and Melnikoff. There were frequent hold-ups in the street: at two points along the Nevsky Prospect all passengers were stopped to have their documents and any parcels they were carrying examined, but a cursory glance at my passport of the Extraordinary Commission sufficed to satisfy the militiamen’s curiosity.
I studied all the Soviet literature I had time to devour, attended public meetings, and slept in turn at the homes of my new acquaintances, making it a rule, however, never to mention anywhere the secret of other night-haunts.
The meetings I attended were all Communist meetings, at each of which the same banal propagandist phraseology was untiringly reeled off. The vulgar violence of Bolshevist rhetoric and the triumphant inaccuracy of statement due to the prohibition of criticism soon became wearisome. In vain I sought meetings for discussion, or where the people’s point of view would be expressed: freedom of speech granted by the revolution had come to mean freedom for Bolshevist speech only and prison for any other. Some of the meetings, however, were interesting, especially when a prominent leader such as Trotzky, Zinoviev, or Lunacharsky spoke, for the unrivalledpowers of speech of a few of the leading Bolsheviks, who possess in a marked degree “the fatal gift of eloquence,” had an almost irresistible attraction.
During these days also I cultivated the friendship of the ex-Journalist, whom, despite his timidity, I found to be a man of taste and culture. He had an extensive library in several languages, and spent his leisure hours writing (if I remember rightly) a treatise on philosophy, which, for some reason or other, he was convinced would be regarded as “counter-revolutionary” and kept locked up and hidden under a lot of books in a closet. I tried to persuade him of the contrary and urged him even to take his manuscript to the department of education, in the hope that someone of the less virulent type there might be impressed with the work and obtain for him concessions as regards leisure and rations.
When I visited him the day after Marsh’s flight I found him, still wrapped in his green coat, running feverishly from stove to stove poking and coaxing the newly lit fires. He was chuckling with glee at the return of forgotten warmth and, in truly Russian style, had lit every stove in his flat and was wasting fuel as fast as he possibly could.
“What the devil is the use of that?” I said in disgust. “Where the deuce do you think you will get your next lot of wood from? It doesn’trainwood in these regions, does it?”
But my sarcasm was lost on Dmitri Konstantinovitch, in whose system of economy, economy had no place. To his intense indignation I opened all the grates and, dragging out the half-burnt logs and glowing cinders, concentrated them in one big blaze in the dining-room stove, which also heated his bedroom.
The Author, Disguised
The Author, Disguised
“That’s just like an Englishman,” he said inunspeakable disgust as he shuffled round watching me at work. “You understand,” I said, resolutely, “this and the kitchen are the only stoves that are ever to be heated.”
Of course I found his larder empty and he had no prospect of food except the scanty and unappetizing dinner at four o’clock at the local communal eating-house two doors away. So, the weather being fine, I took him out to the little private dining-room where I had eaten on the day of my arrival. Here I gave him the biggest meal that miniature establishment could provide, and intoxicated by the unaccustomed fumes of gruel, carrots, and coffee he forgot—and forgave me—the stoves.
A day or two later the Journalist was sufficiently well to return to work, and taking the spare key of his flat I let myself in whenever I liked. I took him severely to task in his household affairs, and as the result of our concerted labours we saved his untidy home from degenerating completely into a pig-sty. Here I met some of the people mentioned by Marsh. The Journalist was very loth to invite them, but in a week or so I had so firm a hold over him that by the mere hint of not returning any more I could reduce him to complete submission. If I disappeared for as much as three days he was overcome with anxiety.
Some people I met embarrassed me not a little by regarding me as a herald of the approaching Allies and an earnest of the early triumph of the militarist counter-revolution. Their attitude resembled at the other extreme that recently adopted by the Bolshevist Government toward impartial foreign labour delegates, who were embarrassingly proclaimed to be forerunners of the world revolution.
One evening the Journalist greeted me with looks ofdeep cunning and mystification. I could see he had something on his mind he was bursting to say. When at last we were seated, as usual huddled over the dining-room stove, he leaned over toward my chair, tapped me on the knee to draw my very particular attention, and began.
“Michael Mihailovitch,” he said in an undertone, as though the chairs and table might betray the secret, “I have a won-der-ful idea!” He struck one side of his thin nose with his forefinger to indicate the wondrousness of his idea. “To-day I and some colleagues of former days,” he went on, his finger still applied to the side of his nose, “determined to start a newspaper. Yes, yes, a secret newspaper—to prepare the way for the Allies!”
“And who is going to print it?” I asked, fully impressed with the wondrousness of his idea.
“The BolshevistIzvestia,” he said, “is printed on the presses of theNovoye Vremya,2but all the printer-men being strongly against the Bolsheviks, we will ask them to print a leaflet on the sly.”
“And who will pay for it?” I asked, amused by his simplicity.
“Well, here you can help, Michael Mihailovitch,” said the Journalist, rather as though he were conferring an honour upon me. “You would not refuse, would you? Last summer the English——”
“Well, apart from technique,” I interrupted, “why are you so certain of the Allies?”
Dmitri Konstantinovitch stared at me.
“But you——” he began, then stopped abruptly.
There followed one of those pauses that are more eloquent than speech.
“I see,” I said at last. “Listen, Dmitri Konstantinovitch, I will tell you a story. In the north of your vast country there is a town called Archangel. I was there in the summer and I was there again recently. When I was there in the summer the entire population was crying passionately for the Allies to intervene and save them from a Bolshevist hooligan clique, and when at last the city was occupied the path of the British general was strewn with flowers as he stepped ashore. But when I returned some weeks after the occupation, did I find jubilation and contentment, do you think? I am sorry to say I did not. I found strife, intrigue, and growing bitterness.
“A democratic government was nominally in power with the venerable revolutionist Tchaikovsky, protégé of the Allies, at its head. Well, one night a group of officers—Russian officers—summarily arrested this government established by the Allies, while the allied military leaders slyly shut one eye so as not to see what was going on. The hapless democratic ministers were dragged out of their beds, whisked away by automobile to a waiting steam launch, and carried off to a remote island in the White Sea, where they were unceremoniously deposited and left! Sounds like an exploit of Captain Kidd, doesn’t it? Only two escaped, because they happened that evening to be dining with the American Ambassador, and he concealed them in his bedroom.
“Next morning the city was startled by a sensational announcement posted on the walls. ‘By order of the Russian Command,’ it ran, ‘the incompetent government has been deposed, and the supreme power in North Russia is henceforth vested exclusively in the hands of the military commander of the occupying forces.’
“There was a hell of a hubbub, I can tell you! For who was to untangle the knot? The allied military had connived at the kidnapping by Russian plotters of a Russian government established by order of the Allies! The diplomats and the military were already at loggerheads and now they were like fighting-cocks! Finally, after two days’ wrangling, and when all the factories went on strike, it was decided that the whole proceeding had been most unseemly and undemocratic. ‘Diplomacy’ triumphed, a cruiser was despatched to pick up the wretched ministers shivering on the remote White Sea island, and brought them back (scarcely a triumphal procession!) to Archangel, where they were restored to the tarnished dignity of their ministerial pedestals, and went on trying to pretend to be a government.”
The Journalist gaped open-mouthed as I told him this story. “And what is happening there now?” he asked after a pause. “I am rather afraid to think of what is happening now,” I replied.
“And you mean,” he said, slowly, “the Allies are not——?”
“I do not know—they may come, and they may not.” I realized I was rudely tearing down a radiant castle the poor Journalist had built in the air.
“By why—Michael Mihailovitch—are you——?”
“Why am I here?” I said, completing his unfinished question. “Simply because I wanted to be.”
Dmitri Konstantinovitch gasped. “You—wanted to behere?”
“Yes,” I replied, smiling involuntarily at his incredulity. “I wanted to be here and took the first chance that offered itself to come.” If I had told him that after mature consideration I had elected to spend eternity in Gehenna rather than in the felicity ofcelestial domains I should not have astonished the incredulous Journalist more.
“By the way,” I said rather cruelly, as a possibility occurred to me, “don’t go and blurt that Archangel story everywhere, or you’ll have to explain how you heard it.”
But he did not heed me. I had utterly demolished his castle of hope. I felt very sorry as I watched him. “Maybe they will learn,” I added, wishing to say something kind, “and not repeat mistakes elsewhere.”
Learn? As I looked into the Journalist’s tear-dimmed eyes, how heartily I wished they would!
While the journalist’s home until my arrival was only on the downward grade toward pig-stydom, that of the Policeman had already long since arrived at the thirty-third degree. His rooms were in an abominable condition, and quite unnecessarily so. The sanitary arrangements in many houses were in a sad state of dilapidation, but people took urgent measures to maintain what cleanliness they could. Not so the Policeman, who lived in conditions too loathsome for words and took no steps to check the progressive accumulation of dust, dirt, and filth.
He kept a Chinese servant, who appeared to be permanently on strike, and whom he would alternately caressingly wheedle and tempestuously upbraid, so far as I could see with equal ineffect. In the nether regions of the house he occupied there lived, or frequently gathered, a bevy of Chinamen who loafed about the hall or peeped through gratings up the cellar stairways. There was also a mysterious lady, whom I never saw, but whom I would hear occasionally as I mounted the stairs, shrieking in an hystericalcaterwaul, and apparently menacing the little Policeman with physical assault. Sometimes he would snarl back, and one suchscène d’amourwas terminated by a violent crash of crockery. But the affable female, whom I somehow figured as big and muscular with wild, floating hair, a sort of Medusa, had always vanished by the time I reached the top of the stairs, and the loud door-slam that coincided with her disappearance was followed by death-like silence. The little Policeman, whose bearing was always apologetic, would accost me as though nothing were amiss, while the insubordinate Chinese servant, if he condescended to open the front door, would stand at the foot of the staircase with an enigmatical sneering grin spread over his evil features. It was altogether an uncanny abode.
Marsh had prepared the way, and the Policeman received me with profuse demonstrations of regard. I was fortunately not obliged to accept his proffered hospitality often, but when I did, it was touching to note how he would put himself out in the effort to make me as comfortable as the revolting circumstances would permit. Despite his despicable character, his cringing deceitfulness, and mealy-mouthed flattery, he still possessed human feelings, showed at times a genuine desire to please not merely for the sake of gain, and was sincerely and passionately fond of his children, who lived in another house.
He was excessively vain and boastful. In the course of his career he had accumulated a collection of signed photographs of notables, and loved to demonstrate them, reiterating for the fiftieth time how Count Witte said this, Stolypin said that, and So-and-so said something else. I used to humour him, listening gravely, and he interpreted my endurance as ability to venerate the great ones of the earth, and an appreciation of hisillustrious connections, and was mightily pleased. He was full of grandiose schemes for the downthrow of the Red régime, and the least sign of so much as patience with his suggestions excited his enthusiasm and inspired his genius for self-praise and loquacity.
“Your predecessors, if you will allow me to say so,” he launched forth on the occasion of my first visit, “were pitifully incompetent. Even Mr. Marsh, delightful man though he was, hardly knew his business. Nowyou, Michael Ivanitch, I can see, are a man of understanding—a man of quite different stamp. I presented a scheme to Marsh, for instance,” and he bent over confidentially, “for dividing Petrograd into ten sections, seizing each one in turn, and thus throwing the Bolsheviks out. It was sure of success, and yet Mr. Marsh would not hear of it.”
“How were you going to do it?”
He seized a sheet of paper and began hastily making sketches to illustrate his wonderful scheme. The capital was all neatly divided up, the chiefs of each district were appointed to their respective posts, he had the whole police force at his beck and call and about half-a-dozen regiments.
“Give but the signal,” he cried, dramatically, “and this city of Peter the Great is ours.”
“And the supreme commander?” I queried. “Who will be governor of the liberated city?”
The sanguine little Policeman smiled a trifle confusedly. “Oh, we will find a governor,” he said, rather sheepishly, hesitant to utter the innermost hopes of his heart. “Perhaps you, Michael Ivanitch——”
But this magnanimous offer was mere formal courtesy. It was plain that I was expected to content myself with the secondary rôle of king-maker.
“Well, if all is so far ready,” I said, “why don’t you blow the trumpets and we will watch the walls of Jericho fall?”
The little man twirled his moustache, smirking apologetically. “But, Michael Ivanitch,” he said, growing bold and bordering even on familiarity, “er—funds, don’t you know—after all, nowadays, you know, you get nowhere without—er—money,doyou? Of course, youquiteunderstand, Michael Ivanitch, that I, personally——”
“How much did you tell Marsh it would cost?” I interrupted, very curious to see what he would say. He had not expected the question to be put in this way. Like a clock ticking I could hear his mind calculating the probability of Marsh’s having told me the sum, and whether he might safely double it in view of my greater susceptibility.
“I think with 100,000 roubles we might pull it off,” he replied, tentatively, eyeing me cautiously to see how I took it. I nodded silently. “Of course, wemightdo it for a little less,” he added as if by afterthought, “but then there would be subsequent expenses.”
“Well, well,” I replied, indulgently, “we will see. We’ll talk about it again some time.”
“There is no time like the present, Michael Ivanitch.”
“But there are other things to think of. We will speak of it again when——”
“When——?”
“When you have got Mrs. Marsh out of prison.”
The little man appeared completely to shrivel up when thus dragged brusquely back into the world of crude reality. He flushed for a moment, it seemed to me, with anger, but pulled himself together at once andreassumed his original manner of demonstrative servility.
“At present we have business on hand, Alexei Fomitch,” I added, “and I wish to talk first about that. How do matters stand?”
The Policeman said his agents were busily at work, studying the ground and the possibilities of Mrs. Marsh’s escape. The whole town, he stated, was being searched for Marsh, and the inability to unearth him had already given rise to the suspicion that he had fled. In a day or two the news would be confirmed by Bolshevist agents in Finland. He foresaw an alleviation of Mrs. Marsh’s lot owing to the probable cessation of cross-examinations. It only remained to see whether she would be transferred to another cell or prison, and then plans for escape might be laid.
“Fire ahead,” I said in conclusion. “And when Mrs. Marsh is free—we will perhaps discuss other matters.”
“There is no time like the present, Michael Ivanitch,” repeated the little Policeman, but his voice sounded forlorn.
Meanwhile, what of Melnikoff?
Zorinsky was all excitement when I called him up.
“How is your brother?” I said over the ‘phone. “Was the accident serious? Is there any hope of recovery?”
“Yes, yes,” came the reply. “The doctor says he fears he will be in hospital some time, but the chances are he will get over it.”
“Where has he been put?”
“He is now in a private sanitarium in Goróhovaya Street, but we hope he will be removed to some larger and more comfortable hospital.”
“The conditions, I hope, are good?”
“As good as we can arrange for under present-day circumstances. For the time being he is in a separate room and on limited diet. But can you not come round this evening, Pavel Ivanitch?”
“Thank you; I am afraid I have a meeting of our house committee to attend, but I could come to-morrow.”
“Good. Come to-morrow. I have news of Leo, who is coming to Petrograd.”
“My regards to Elena Ivanovna.”
“Thanks. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
The telephone was an inestimable boon, but one that had to be employed with extreme caution. From time to time at moments of panic the Government would completely stop the telephone service, causing immense inconvenience and exasperating the population whom they were trying to placate. But it was not in Bolshevist interests to suppress it entirely, the telephone being an effectual means of detecting “counter-revolutionary” machinations. The lines were closely watched, a suspicious voice or phrase would lead to a line being “tapped,” the recorded conversations would be scrutinized for hints of persons or addresses, and then the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold to seize books, papers, and documents, and augment the number of occupants ofGoróhovayancells. So one either spoke in fluent metaphor or by prearranged verbal signals camouflaged behind talk of the weather or food. The “news of Leo,” for instance, I understood at once to mean news of Trotzky, or information regarding the Red army.
Zorinsky was enthusiastic when I called next day and stayed to dinner. “We’ll have Melnikoff out inno time,” he exclaimed. “They are holding his case over for further evidence. He will be taken either to the Shpalernaya or Deriabinskaya prison, where we shall be allowed to send him food. Then we’ll communicate by hiding notes in the food and let him know our plan of escape. Meanwhile, all’s well with ourselves, so come and have a glass of vodka.”
I was overjoyed at this good news. The conditions at either of the two prisons he mentioned were much better than atNo. 2 Goróhovaya, and though transference to them meant delay in decision and consequent prolongation of imprisonment, the prison régime was generally regarded as more lenient.
“By the way,” said Zorinsky, “it is lucky you have come to-day. A certain Colonel H. is coming in this evening. He works on the General Staff and has interesting news. Trotzky is planning to come up to Petrograd.”
Elena Ivanovna was in a bad mood because a lot of sugar that had been promised to her and her colleagues had failed to arrive and she had been unable to make cakes for two days.
“You must excuse the bad dinner to-night, Pavel Ivanitch,” she said. “I had intended to have chocolate pudding for you, but as it is there will be no third course. Really, the way we are treated is outrageous.”
“Your health, Pavel Ivanitch,” said Zorinsky, undismayed by the prospect of no third course. “Here we have something better even than chocolate pudding, haven’t we?”
He talked on volubly in his usual strain, harping back again to pre-war days and the pleasures of regimental life. I asked him if he thought most of the officers were still monarchists.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I expect you’ll find they are pretty evenly divided. Very few are socialists, but a lot think themselves republicans. Some, of course, are monarchists, and many are nothing at all. As for me,” he continued, “when I joined my regiment I took the oath of allegiance to the Tsar.” (At the mention of the Tsar he stood upright and then sat down again, a gesture which astonished me, for it really seemed to be spontaneous and unfeigned.) “But I consider myself absolved and free to serve whom I will from the moment the Tsar signed the deed of abdication. At present I serve nobody. I will not serve Trotzky, but I will work with him if he offers a career. That is, if the Allies do not come into Petrograd. By the way,” he added, checking himself abruptly and obviously desirous of knowing, “do you think the Allies really will come—the English, for instance?”
“I have no idea.”
“Strange. Everyone here is sure of it. But that means nothing, of course. Listen in the queues or market places. Now Cronstadt has been taken, now the Allies are in Finland, and so on. Personally, I believe they will bungle everything. Nobody really understands Russia, not even we ourselves. Except, perhaps, Trotzky,” he added as an afterthought, “or the Germans.”
“The Germans, you think?”
“Surely. Prussianism is what we want. You see these fat-faced commissars in leathern jackets with three or four revolvers in their belts? or the sailors with gold watch-chains and rings, with their prostitutes promenading the Nevsky? Those rascals, I tell you, will beworkinginside of a year, working like hell, because if the Whites get here every commissarwill be hanged, drawn and quartered.Somebodymust work to keep things going. Mark my words, first the Bolsheviks will make their Communists work, they’ll give them all sorts of privileges and power, and then they’ll make the Communists make the others work. Forward the whip and knout! The good old times again! And if you don’t like it, kindly step this way toNo. 2 Goróhovaya! Ugh!” he shuddered. “No. 2 Goróhovaya!Here’s to you, Pavel Ivanitch!”
Zorinsky drank heavily, but the liquor produced no visible effect on him.
“By the way,” he asked, abruptly, “you haven’t heard anything of Marsh, have you?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “he is in Finland.”
“What!” he cried, half rising from the table. He was livid.
“In Finland,” I repeated, regarding him with astonishment. “He got away the day before yesterday.”
“He got away—ha! ha! ha!” Zorinsky dropped back into his seat. His momentary expression changed as suddenly as it had appeared, and he burst into uproarious laughter. “Do youreallymean to say so? Ha! ha! My God, won’t they be wild! Damned clever! Don’t you know they’ve been turning the place upside down to find him? Ha, ha, ha! Now that really is good news, upon my soul!”
“Why shouldyoube so glad about it?” I inquired. “You seemed at first to——”
“I was astounded.” He spoke rapidly and a little excitedly. “Don’t you know Marsh was regarded as chief of allied organizations and a most dangerous man? But for some reason they were dead certain of catching him—dead certain. Haven’t they got his wife, or his mother, or somebody, as hostage?”
“His wife.”
“It’ll go badly with her,” he laughed cruelly.
It was my turn to be startled. “What do you mean?” I said, striving to appear indifferent.
“They will shoot her.”
It was with difficulty that I maintained a tone of mere casual interest. “Do you really think they will shoot her?” I said, incredulously.
“Sure to,” he replied, emphatically. “What else do they take hostages for?”
For the rest of the evening I thought of nothing else but the possibility of Mrs. Marsh being shot. The Policeman had said the direct opposite, basing his statement on what he said was inside information. On the other hand, why on earth should hostages be taken if they were to be liberated when the culprits had fled? I could elicit nothing more from Zorinsky except that in his opinion Mrs. Marsh might be kept in prison a month or two, but in the long run would most undoubtedly be shot.
I listened but idly to the colonel, a pompous gentleman with a bushy white beard, who came in after dinner. Zorinsky told him he might speak freely in my presence and, sitting bolt upright, he conversed in a rather ponderous manner on the latest developments. He appeared to have a high opinion of Zorinsky. He confirmed the latter’s statements regarding radical changes in the organization of the army, and said Trotzky was planning to establish a similar new régime in the Baltic Fleet. I was not nearly so attentive as I ought to have been, and had to ask the colonel to repeat it all to me at our next meeting.
Maria was the only person I took into my confidenceas to all my movements. Every morning I banged at the chalk-marked door. Maria let me in and I told her how things were going with Mrs. Marsh. Of course, I always gave her optimistic reports. Then I would say, “To-night, Maria, I am staying at the Journalist’s—you know his address—to-morrow at Stepanovna’s, Friday night at Zorinsky’s, and Saturday, here. So if anything happens you will know where it probably occurred. If I disappear, wait a couple of days, and then get someone over the frontier—perhaps the coachman will go—and tell the British Consul.” Then I would give her my notes, written in minute handwriting on tracing paper, and she would hide them for me. Two more Englishmen left by Marsh’s route a few days after his departure and Maria gave them another small packet to carry, saying it was a letter from herself to Marsh. So it was, only on the same sheet as she had scrawled a pencil note to Marsh I wrote a long message in invisible ink. I made the ink by—oh, it doesn’t matter how.
Zorinsky’s reports as to Melnikoff continued to be favourable. He hinted at a certain investigator who might have to be bought off, to which I gave eager assent. He gave me further information on political matters which proved to be quite accurate, and repellent though his bearing and appearance were, I began to feel less distrustful of him. It was about a week later, when I called him up, that he told me “the doctors had decided his brother was sufficiently well to leave hospital.” Tingling with excitement and expectation I hurried round.
“The investigator is our man,” explained Zorinsky, “and guarantees to let Melnikoff out within a month.”
“How will he do it?” I inquired.
“That rather depends. He may twist the evidence, but Melnikoff’s is a bad case and there’s not much evidence that isn’t damaging. If that’s too hard, he may swap Melnikoff’sdossierfor somebody else’s and let the error be found out when it’s too late. But he’ll manage it all right.”
“And it must take a whole month?”
“Melnikoff will be freed about the middle of January. There’s no doubt about it. And the investigator wants 60,000 roubles.”
“Sixty thousand roubles!” I gasped. I was appalled at this unexpected figure. Where should I get the money from? The rouble was still worth about forty to the pound, so that this was some £1,500.
“Melnikoff’s case is a hopeless one,” said Zorinsky, dryly. “No one can lethimoff and go scot-free. The investigator wants to be guaranteed, for he will have to get over the frontier the same night, too. But I advise you to pay only half now, and the rest the day Melnikoff gets out. There will also be a few odd bribes to accomplices. Better allow 75,000 or 80,000 roubles all told.”
“I have very little money with me just now,” I said, “but I will try to get you the first 30,000 in two or three days.”
“And by the way,” he added, “I forgot to tell you last time you were here that I have seen Melnikoff’s sister, who is in the direst straits. Elena Ivanovna and I have sent her a little food, but she also needs money. We have no money, for we scarcely use it nowadays, but perhaps you could spare a thousand or so now and again.”
“I will give you some for her when I bring the other.”
“Thank you. She will be grateful. And now,unpleasant business over, let’s go and have a glass of vodka. Your health, Pavel Ivanitch.”
Rejoicing at the prospect of securing Melnikoff’s release, and burdened at the same time with the problem of procuring this large sum of money, I rang up next day the business friend of whom Marsh had spoken, using a pre-arranged password. Marsh called this gentleman the “Banker,” though that was not his profession, because he had left his finances in his charge. When I visited him I found him to be a man of agreeable though nervous deportment, very devoted to Marsh. He was unable to supply me with all the money I required, and I decided I must somehow get the rest from Finland, perhaps when I took Mrs. Marsh away.
The “Banker” had just returned from Moscow, whither he had been called with an invitation to accept a post in a new department created to check the ruin of industry. He was very sarcastic over the manner in which, he said, the “government of horny hands” (as the Bolsheviks frequently designate themselves) was beginning “to grovel before people who can read and write.” “In public speeches,” said the Banker, “they still have to call us ‘bourzhu(bourgeois) swine’ for the sake of appearances, but in private, when the doors are closed, it is very different. They have even ceased ‘comrading’: it is no longer ‘Comrade A.’ or ‘Comrade B.’ when they address us—that honour they reserve for themselves—but ‘Excuse me, Alexander Vladimirovitch,’ or ‘May I trouble you, Boris Konstantinovitch?’” He laughed ironically. “Quite ‘pogentlemensky,’” he added, using a Russianized expression whose meaning is obvious.
“Did you accept the post?” I asked.
“I? No, sir!” he replied with emphasis. “Do Iwant a dirty workman holding a revolver over me all day? That is the sort of ‘control’ they intend to exercise.” (He did accept it, however, just a month later, when the offer was renewed with the promise of a tidy salary if he took it, and prison if he didn’t.)
On the following day I brought the money to Zorinsky, and he said he would have it transferred to the investigator at once.
“By the way,” I said, “I may be going to Finland for a few days. Do not be surprised if you do not hear from me for a week or so.”
“To Finland?” Zorinsky was very interested. “Then perhaps you will not return?”
“I am certain to return,” I said, “even if only on account of Melnikoff.”
“And of course you have other business here,” he said. “By the way, how are you going?”
“I don’t know yet; they say it is easy enough to walk over the frontier.”
“Not quite so easy,” he replied. “Why not just walk across the bridge?”
“What bridge?”
“The frontier bridge at Bielo’ostrof.”
I thought he was mad. “What on earth do you mean?” I asked.
“It can be fixed up all right—with a little care,” he went on. “Five or six thousand roubles to the station commissar and he’ll shut his eyes, another thousand or so to the bridge sentry and he’ll look the other way, and over you go. Evening is the best time, when it’s dark.”
I remembered I had heard speak of this method in Finland. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. It was the simplest thing in the world, but it wasn’t sure. Commissars were erratic and not unfearful ofburning their fingers. Furthermore, the Finns sometimes turned people back. Besides, Mrs. Marsh would be with me—I hoped—and of that Zorinsky must know nothing.
“That is a splendid notion,” I exclaimed. “I had never thought of that. I’ll let you know before I start.”