wooden hook on the wall, not sure now that the two strangers had not
evaded him while he was asleep.
“I am crazy for my twenty rubles!” raged Slipitsky, and Dazo pulled on
his coat and dashed into the street.
Slipitsky ran back to his little office and let himself in.
“Come!” he commanded. “I will put you in rooms, now that I have sent
that fool of a Dazo down the Sofistkaya looking for you.”
Michael and Katerin followed him down the long hall. The Jew put a big
brass key into a door, and, turning the lock, thrust Michael into the
room and handed him the key. “Keep quiet till I come with food, and if
any one knocks do not answer. We have fooled that fox of a Dazo, and we
shall fool the Ataman!”
And the old Jew put his fingers to his lips against the thanks which
Michael and Katerin would have expressed, slipped out through the door
and was gone, wailing through the hall about the fictitious twenty
rubles which he had lost by the carelessness of Dazo, the spy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIII
KATERIN PLANS TO MEET THE AMERICAN
SLIPITSKY returned to the Kirsakoffs in an hour, bringing with him a
small samovar, some bread, and a cold partridge. In his pocket he
carried a bottle of wine for Michael.
“You will need something to warm and hearten you, Excellence, for there
is not much warmth,” he said when Katerin had let him in.
Michael was sitting on the bed, his boots off and his eyes blinking, for
he had been sleeping, being worn out with waiting up for the return of
Wassili the night before, the preparation for the flight, and the
journey afoot into the city.
“Ah, that is good!” said Michael. “I am famished, though I have had a
good sleep—without bad dreams, for now we are out of danger, old
friend.”
Slipitsky turned and looked at him in surprise. “Out of danger! Do not
think my hotel is so safe, Excellence. Zorogoff may ask for all my rooms
any day for more of his officers—and when he takes the notion he
searches the place. So you are still in danger—unless you have a plan
for escape from the city. Surely you and the daughter must have some
scheme for getting out by an underground!”
“Oh, true!” said Michael, taking a glass of wine from Katerin’s hand.
“That is why we have come—there is an American here?”
“Friends have sent an American officer to us,” explained Katerin to the
Jew. “Is he not here in the house?”
“So-o!” whispered Slipitsky, betraying his amazement. “It is you he has
come for? And that is why so little has been seen of him! Two nights he
has been under the roof and he has not stirred out, but sits all day
smoking by a samovar! I have seen him in the hall once—a big fellow,
maybe a colonel! And he has paid a week in advance, too, but I could not
read what he wrote in the book for Dazo. So he got word to you that he
was here—well, that is good for you.”
“We have heard that he was in the city looking for us,” said Michael.
“But we are not sure—we must look into the matter. But I doubt if
Zorogoff will dare interfere with an American—or us if the American has
come to help us.”
Slipitsky sat down and pulled his beard thoughtfully while Katerin
busied herself with brewing the tea at the samovar.
“It is hard for us to tell what that devil of an Ataman will do with
anybody,” said Slipitsky. “But an American—that is different. So your
friends have done this for you! And the American has sent word to you
that he is here waiting for you, eh?”
“We heard it through Ilya Andreitch, a peasant, who came to our house
last night with the news,” explained Katerin. “But when Ilya was sent
here with a message last night he was killed. But the American did not
tell Ilya to go to us—Ilya got news from friends of his.”
Slipitsky opened his eyes at that, and rolled them thoughtfully. “Then
the American did not send the word to you by Ilya?” He was puzzled—and
troubled again. “And Ilya was shot? That is bad.”
“We shall have to be very cautious about it,” put in Michael, “for I am
afraid of a trap.”
“Ilya got the news from Rimsky, an old cigarette-seller,” said Katerin.
“What!” exclaimed Slipitsky. “From that old liar? He will say anything
for ten kopecks. What does he know about our American? Rimsky has not
been here to see him. I tell you, there is something wrong about this—it
may be that Rimsky is a spy.”
“Ah, yes!” said Michael, frowning thoughtfully. “What if Rimsky is a
spy, as you say, and Ilya was fooled about the American’s having come
for us? That is what I said from the first!”
“But it may be that the American asked Rimsky about us before he came to
the hotel at all,” said Katerin. “And perhaps Rimsky gave the news to
poor Ilya, and perhaps the news was truth. Then would it not be right?”
“I would like to see something that is right if Rimsky has had a hand in
it,” grumbled Slipitsky, who was getting more worried as he considered
the matter. He was reluctant to ask too many questions, for he supposed
there might be angles to the situation which the Kirsakoffs would prefer
not to discuss.
But Katerin was becoming alarmed by Slipitsky’s doubts. She realized
well enough that there had never been any proof beyond Ilya’s word that
the American had come seeking them, and that Ilya himself had been
dependent upon what Rimsky had said. But she did feel that there was
protection of some kind for them in the bare fact that an American was
under the same roof with them now, and that Zorogoff might not dare
persecute them openly or take them from the hotel. She was determined to
appeal to the American, but she wanted time to make her own plans. What
she feared now was that Slipitsky, by his suspicions and doubts, would
put her father back into his mood of dejection and discouragement. So
she laughed gayly and served her father with tea and the cold partridge.
“I shall find some way of talking with the American,” she declared to
Slipitsky. “You must help me in some plan.”
“I can go to him and tell him that I know where the Kirsakoffs may be
found,” suggested the Jew. “He will tell me, I think, at once, if he
seeks you or not.”
“I am not so sure,” said Katerin. “He may not want to discuss a secret
with you—he will be suspicious of any person who talks with him about
us, if he is trying to find us unbeknownst to others in the city. He
might deny that he seeks us, and thus we should be deprived of his
help.”
“True,” said Slipitsky. “The owl says little but thinks much, so what he
knows is his own, which is wisdom. We need not fear the American—I wish
there were more of them here. But this old fox of a Rimsky! It would be
well to know what he is at.”
“No,” said Michael. “You cannot go running to a stranger and saying you
know where we are hidden. And we cannot go to him and make ourselves
known till we know for sure that he is seeking us. The matter will have
to be arranged with more care.”
“Yes, Excellence, the wolf knows the forest and its ways,” said the Jew.
“We must be wise about it, for there is no tax on wisdom. It would be
well for me to bring Rimsky to the house and question him about what he
knows—and what he said to Ilya.”
“You say you do not trust Rimsky,” said Katerin. “You say he is a
liar—and may be a spy for the Ataman. Even if the American asked Rimsky
about us, Rimsky might lie about it—and even if he tells the truth,
whatever he says we will mistrust it. And we must be careful that we do
not set his tongue wagging in the city. Till we have thought more about
it, we must be most cautious.”
“Then shall I ask the American about it, mistress?” asked the Jew.
“No, thank you—I shall go and see the American myself.”
“See the American yourself!” gasped Michael in astonishment.
“Yes, I shall see him,” replied Katerin calmly. “That is the simplest
and best way to learn what we want to know.”
“That is sensible,” agreed Slipitsky.
“You mean that you will go and tell him who you are?” demanded Michael,
his horror intensifying at the idea the more he realized that Katerin
meant what she was saying.
“He may know who I am when he sees me,” said Katerin.
“It must not be done, my daughter,” said Michael, his agitation only
growing. “We can trust no one, especially not a strange man who comes
from whom we know not. This is no time to be rash, and I cannot let you
put yourself into danger.”
“If this American has come seeking Michael Kirsakoff and his daughter,
will he not have descriptions of us? And if he is not seeking us, how is
he to know who I am? I shall not tell him my name, you may be assured of
that, unless he knows me—or unless he tells me that he seeks us. So what
can the danger be, my father?”
“There is some truth in what you say,” admitted Michael, as he resumed
eating the partridge. “If he knows you, he knows, and that would mean he
has come from friends. But if he does not recognize you, and he does not
tell you that he is seeking us, what have you learned? And how are you
to go talking with a man you do not know? I tell you you must not take
risks on what Ilya has said!”
“That is wisdom,” assented the Jew, nodding his head slowly. “You must
always test the ice before you walk upon it, else you will find yourself
in the river with the fish.”
“Tell me, where is the room of the American?” asked Katerin.
“The other way—down at the end of the hall with windows that look up the
Sofistkaya, mistress.”
“Can you put us in rooms near him?”
“Yes, mistress, I could. When Dazo goes out later in the day, it can be
accomplished secretly. Is it that you intend to watch the American? You
will see little of him if he keeps to his room as he has.”
“What good would it do us to watch him?” asked Michael. “It would tell
us nothing to see him going and coming.”
“No,” said Katerin. “But I wish to be near him for protection in case
the Ataman’s officers come here. Now, have you a servant for us who can
be trusted not to talk about us?”
“Yes, mistress—a sister of my cousin. She waits upon some of the
Ataman’s officers who live in the house. It is she who will bring you
your samovars and your food. She is safe—not too much sense and little
to say to any one.”
“Then this is my plan,” said Katerin. “If you will contrive to put us
near the American officer, the next thing will be to take care that when
the American rings for a samovar the girl does not take it to him, but
brings it to us. And I shall carry the samovar to him. He, thinking I am
but a samovar girl, may talk with me and I may learn if he seeks among
the people of the city for a man by the name of Kirsakoff.”
“A Kirsakoff a servant! You, Katerin Stephanovna, a samovar girl in this
hotel! How can you think of such a thing?” cried Michael.
Katerin laughed merrily and tossed her head, already in a mood for the
plan which she had evolved. “I would not be a samovar girl because I
play at it, my father,” she said. “What is it but fun? Who can help the
Kirsakoffs better than God and themselves?”
“But I say you are not to be a servant!” objected Michael.
“Better a living servant than a dead aristocrat,” replied Katerin. “What
harm can come of it? Is it not wise to be known here as a servant? We
have come here as peasants and wish to be known as such for safety. Look
at my old black dress! I have on my slippers—see—and I can let down my
hair. How will an American know that I am not a samovar girl—unless, as
we have said, he recognizes me at once as a Kirsakoff? And I can talk
with him, perhaps. He will not be afraid of saying things to a girl who
is a servant which he would keep from others.”
“And what then?” asked Michael with a frown. “Do you think that this
American is going about telling his secret business to any samovar girl?
Fi! You must take him for a fool before you have seen him!”
“I am afraid that he will know you are not a servant, if I am allowed to
say my opinion, mistress,” said the Jew dolefully.
“But he is an American,” persisted Katerin. “He probably knows little
Russian. But what I wish to learn at once is whether he will know me for
a Kirsakoff. And if he does not recognize me, and yet sees that I am not
of the servant class, all the more reason why he should suspect that I
might know the Kirsakoffs. So he might ask me if I know them. Why should
he not ask a samovar girl, when he has asked old Rimsky for General
Kirsakoff? Do you think I will only take his food to him and then run
away without a word?”
“And what else can you do?” asked her father.
“I shall talk to him—of the weather, and the troubles that have come
upon the people. And if he does not tell me why he has come to Chita, I
shall try and learn it from him. Can he speak Russian, do you know, Mr.
Slipitsky?”
“He must speak a little,” said the Jew. “He is alone, and he has made
his way about. He talked with Dazo, who knows nothing but Russian, the
stupid ox. But the American wrote in the book in English and I could
make nothing of it—just a scrawl.”
“Then he will be able to talk a little with me,” said Katerin. “At
least, enough so that I may gain his confidence and be able to talk with
him in a way of gossip about General Kirsakoff who was Governor here.”
“By the Prophets!” said Slipitsky. “The mistress Katerin Stephanovna
should be in the secret police, Excellence! It is all a good plan, and
the mistress should be allowed to have her way in it.”
“I wish there were some other way to go about it than this business of
being a samovar girl,” said Michael as he lighted a cigarette. “We shall
know how wise it all is when we see what we shall learn by it. But I
shall not prevent its being done, for we are in danger enough, and
making danger for you, my friend.”
“Think not of my danger,” said the Jew.
“Then I shall do it,” said Katerin. “We cannot delay, and we cannot take
outsiders, like this man Rimsky, into our confidence. Our safety now
depends upon keeping secret where we are, and upon making the best of
such time as we have. Who knows when the Ataman will learn where we have
gone from the house? And you shall be well paid for your help, Mr.
Slipitsky, and for what you have done.”
“Ah, it is not for money,” said the Jew. “When are you to begin as
samovar girl, mistress? I must make the arrangements and be sure that
everything is ready.”
“The morning is the best time for me to go to the American,” said
Katerin. “I shall take his morning samovar to him, the girl bringing it
to me first. And I shall go on serving him till I have learned what I
need. And if he should not tell me before he is to leave the city, I
shall tell him that we wish to escape the city under his protection.
Surely, we need not be afraid of an American!”
“No,” agreed Michael. “He cannot be from enemies if he is not from
friends. But it is best to learn what we can first, and you must have a
good rest before you begin a battle of wits.”
The Jew left them again, and later in the day he put Michael and Katerin
into two rooms next to the room in which Peter was resting and planning
how he should deal with Michael Kirsakoff if he could be found in Chita.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIV
THE SAMOVAR GIRL
IT was nine o’clock by his wrist-watch when Peter got out of bed that
morning. From what he could see of the city through the frosted windows,
it was a cold gray day, with the position of the sun above the ridge of
hills marked by a yellow blotch through the scattering fog.
The room was cold and he dressed rapidly. He rang at once for a samovar,
and began shaving. He had made up his mind to make definite efforts this
day to trace Michael Kirsakoff, for he was now rested from his journey
on the train. He thought of Rimsky. It might be wise to go in and see
the graybeard again, and pick up once more the conversation and the
gossip. In time Rimsky would be willing to talk more freely, Peter was
sure.
The samovar girl was slower than usual in coming. Peter rang again—three
times, and with as much insistence as he could put into the pressure of
the button. He finished shaving, and had a mind to go out to the dreary
dining room and see what could be done about getting some hot tea there.
It was apparent that the stupid and slatternly girl who had been serving
him could not be depended upon for prompt service—and he was beginning
to suffer from the cold.
When he had decided that he should wait no longer, there came a knock at
the door. He opened it—and stared! For instead of the peasant girl who
had been serving him since his arrival at the hotel, there was a tall
young woman with a beautiful face—a patrician face, the face of a woman
of noble lineage! And he was startled, though he was too well trained in
his business to reveal his amazement to her. Still, he paused for an
instant, not sure that she had not mistaken the room and had not come in
response to his ringing. He looked at her over the top of the big brass
samovar which she bore on a tray before her, and her keenly intelligent
blue eyes met his with a self-possessed and frank gaze. He half expected
her to mutter some apology and go away. Instead, she stood gazing at
him, waiting for him to make way for her, and the trace of a smile came
into her eyes, as if she felt like saying to him, “Here is your samovar!
How do you expect to get it if you stand all morning in the doorway?”
Peter bowed slightly, and said good-morning with an effort to be casual.
In the second which he had stood stock still looking at her, a suspicion
had crossed his mind—this well-born woman had not taken the place of his
unkempt serving girl without good reason. It was quite possible, and
quite in the Russian style, to send an attractive woman to serve him and
spy upon him. Very well! He decided that he should play a little at that
game himself.
“Good-morning, master,” Katerin replied modestly, and came through the
door when Peter stepped aside to admit her. She smiled as a matter of
duty, and went about her business of placing the samovar and the
breakfast things on the table.
Peter went before the big mirror on the wall between the windows and
pretended to be combing his hair. He wished to conceal from the new
samovar girl his close observation of her, and he could watch her image
in the mirror without appearing to pay any special attention to her.
Katerin wore her old black dress. Peter knew at once that it was not a
cast-off garment such as might be given to a serving girl by a woman of
the upper class—it was obviously her own garment, cut and made
especially for her. Though the material was old, he knew it for fine
stuff, probably imported. A real American might have been deceived into
the belief that this woman was nothing but a servant; Peter, however,
knew that such a delicate face, such fine features, such a carriage of a
proud head were to be found only among the nobility of his native
country. If she had been sent to watch him, he knew that whoever had
sent her could not know that he was a native Russian—it was presumed
that he was an American so unfamiliar with Russia as to be easily
misled.
He smiled as he watched her. She handled the crude dishes as if they
were of the most fragile china or of fine glass. She put down the heavy
blue sugar-urn gently; she transferred the tea-glass, which was made
from the bottom of a bottle, from the tray to the table with infinite
care. She laid out the old brass spoon beside the heavy plate on the
dingy cloth as if instead of being brass it were of the finest silver.
He noted her hands. The fingers were slender—and clean. The nails were
polished. Her black hair, braided down her back and tied with a bit of
velvet black ribbon, had a sheen which indicated the care which had been
given to it. And the low collar of her gown revealed the fine texture of
her skin.
Having arranged the dishes on the table, Katerin stood with her back to
Peter, hands on hips and watching the teapot atop the samovar. This was
all in startling contrast to the abrupt manner of the other girl, who
had dumped the things down upon the table and departed. This new girl
seemed suspiciously solicitous about the comfort of the American—and was
possessed of plenty of time for lingering in the rooms of guests!
Peter walked to the table, and sat down with his back to the window. She
remained standing before the samovar in thoughtful attitude,
disregarding him. He saw that her face showed traces of strain—a pallor
which was not natural to her skin and a gauntness about her eyes which
gave her a sad and melancholy expression. Presently she picked up the
blue sugar-urn as if to put it better within his reach.
“Ah!” said Peter, rubbing his hands and smiling up at her. “On cold
mornings like this one the song of the samovar makes pretty music in our
ears!”
It was an old saying of his father’s—and Peter spoke the Russian words
with casual rapidity, for he wanted to see what she would think of
him—an American who spoke Russian as only one born under the Czar could
speak it.
The sugar-urn slipped from Katerin’s fingers and crashed down upon the
metal tray, spilling the sugar. And he heard her give a startled gasp. A
look of utter astonishment came into her face and she gave him a
frightened stare. The Russian words had put her into a swift panic—she
was more than astonished—she was actually alarmed at hearing her own
language flow so freely from the lips of a man she supposed to be an
American.
“Have I frightened you?” he asked, looking at her with feigned concern,
and speaking gently. “Do you fear the sound of your own language?”
“You are Russian,” she said simply, but with the faintest trace of a
question in the words.
“Oh, no, I am an American,” he replied easily. “True, I am of Russian
blood.” He smiled at her, and she looked away from him swiftly, renewing
her efforts to save the sugar which had been spilled from being wet in
the bottom of the tray. He saw her fine white skin show a sudden flush
of color that rose from her throat and mounted slowly to her cheeks,
tinting the pale skin under her eyes. He thought now that she was more
beautiful than he had at first realized.
“Is it because I am Russian that you show fear?” he went on.
She tossed her head a trifle, as if in defiance. “I do not fear you,”
she said lightly, and gave him a shy smile.
“I would be sorry if you did.”
“It is very pleasant—that we may speak to each other and understand. I
was surprised—yes. Now, there is your sugar, and I must go.”
“No, please!” he objected as she turned as if to go to the door.
“Everybody is surprised to hear the American officer speak real Russian,
but no one stops to talk with me—and I am hungry for talk—talk in
Russian. I have only just come, and the other girl would say only, ‘Yes,
master’ and ‘No, master,’ and run away frightened, just as you are about
to do.”
“But I am not frightened,” she said, pretending to bother with the
teapot on the top of the samovar.
“But just now, at hearing your own language, you dropped the sugar dish.
Is it not true?”
Peter was joking her now in an effort to get on friendly terms with her.
But she still appeared a bit distrait, as if she had not yet recovered
from the shock of hearing a foreigner speaking the Czar’s Russian.
“Yes, I was startled,” admitted Katerin, and now smiled at him frankly,
though she gave him a searching look—the silver bars on his shoulders,
the buttons of his blouse, the circle of brown tape at the cuffs of his
tunic. “And you would be surprised, American, if a samovar girl should
speak to you in perfect English.”
“Probably I should,” said Peter. “As it was, you surprised me this
morning—I was expecting the other girl to come.”
She said nothing to that. She realized now that it would be foolish to
expect him to think of her as of the servant class, and had already
given up all ideas of making a pretense.
And as for Peter, he was beginning to abandon his theory that she was a
spy. There was probably some other reason for her being a servant. He
was chiefly concerned now with making her a friend, for the thought
crossed his mind that this girl might be able to give him information
about Kirsakoff, though the subject of the former Governor would have to
be approached with great caution.
“The other girl could not come this morning,” she said. “But I shall not
always bring your samovar—my work is on the other floors.”