officially. And I wish to thank you for sending me the supper ticket,
and for your advice. But I cannot limit myself regarding the people with
whom I talk in Chita, even to please the Ataman.”
“Am I to tell the Ataman that?” asked Lutoff.
“You may tell the Ataman what you please of what I have said, or I am
ready to tell him the same myself.”
“Very good, sir,” said Lutoff, and clicked his spurs again most
formally. “But I can tell you now, sir, that you will come into conflict
with the Ataman Zorogoff if you interfere—if you take any further action
with these people to whom I have referred. And——”
“I cannot consider your warning unless you make clear to me just whom
you are talking about,” interrupted Peter.
“You still pretend not to know?” asked Lutoff in surprise.
“I want names, not assumptions,” said Peter.
“Very good, then,” said Lutoff. “Let us not have any doubt about it, and
then you cannot plead that you were not warned by the Ataman. I tell you
not to mix yourself in this affair of the Kirsakoffs—old General
Kirsakoff and his daughter Katerin Stephanovna!”
And Lutoff bowed again and walked directly out of the dining room,
leaving Peter clutching at the table as he swayed before he sank back
into his chair.
“Kirsakoff!” he whispered. “Kirsakoff—and his daughter Katerin
Stephanovna!” and then his voice rose in a hysterical wailing burst of
laughter above the playing of the orchestra.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXI
THE CAT’S PAW HAS CLAWS
THE electric lamp on Peter’s writing table was still glowing under its
shade, but it gradually waned as morning whitened the frost-bound
windows.
Peter sat by the table near the door. He was fully dressed, just as he
had come from the dining room after Lutoff had warned him to have no
more dealings with the Kirsakoffs. Peter’s left arm lay limply on the
dingy cloth, his automatic pistol close at hand lying on its side. He
was wide-eyed awake and staring at the door into the hall, as if he were
waiting for some one to enter. His jaw was set grimly, and at the right
side of his mouth his upper lip was askew, as if he had spent the night
in thoughts which resulted in nothing but a cynical smile. His face was
pale under the night’s growth of beardy stubble. The soles of both his
boots rested flatly on the floor, and were pulled back slightly under
his knees as he had gradually slipped down into the chair. His shoulders
were bent forward in a crouching attitude, and his chin rested upon the
front of his tunic.
When full daylight finally vanquished the darkness of his side of the
room, he lifted his head and pulled up the sleeve of his left arm to
look at his wrist-watch. He thought a moment, as if in doubt what to do
next, and wound the watch. He turned and looked at the windows behind
him, rubbed his jaw reflectively with the tips of his fingers, and got
up wearily to look for his shaving kit on the shelf under the mirror
between the windows.
He studied himself in the mirror, smoothed his rumpled hair with his
hand, and went about the business of getting out his razors. But he
pushed the kit away irritably, and returned to the table. He picked up
his pistol, took a cautionary glance at the catch which was so arranged
that it revealed the weapon to be ready for firing, and slipped the
pistol into its holster on his hip. Yet he did not button down the flap
of the holster, but sprung the stiff leather flap back and tucked it in
behind the belt. This left the butt of the pistol ready to his hand for
instant use—he could draw and fire it without the trouble of unbuttoning
the flap.
He went to the little wall sink near the wardrobe and dashed water in
his face. Drying himself with a handkerchief, he went once more to the
mirror and combed his hair with infinite pains. This done to his
satisfaction, he stood before the door leading into Katerin’s room, in
an attitude of listening.
He looked at his watch again after a time, and as if he had made a
decision, walked to the door and rapped gently upon it. He waited,
listening. He heard nothing. Finally he went to the push-button near the
door to the hall and pressed it three times in the usual signal for a
samovar. Then he fell to pacing the floor, head down, and his hands
clasped behind his back.
After a considerable delay, the peasant girl who had served him when he
first came to the hotel brought the samovar. She seemed to be still half
asleep, and having set the samovar upon the table, departed promptly
without so much as a look at Peter.
He took a few more turns up and down the room till the hissing of the
samovar drew his attention. He put the tea to brewing and waited
listlessly till it should be ready. He drank several glasses of the
steaming tea without any apparent relish of it or stimulation from it.
He seemed in a stupor, as he sat staring at the floor, haggard and
hollow-eyed. His face was drawn, and reflected the bitterness in his
soul. He hunted his pockets for cigarettes, but found none. He looked
under the table. There he saw a litter of flattened mouthpieces and
matches, the remains of his night-long smoking.
There came a gentle tapping at Katerin’s door. He sprang toward it and
threw off the bolt. The door came open under his hand, and Katerin stood
smiling at him. She did not look any too well, he thought—as if she had
not slept herself. His eyes met hers, and he forced a smile. He bowed,
and with a gesture invited her to enter. He did not look past her, but
he was conscious of some one moving in the room beyond—her father’s
room.
“Good-morning,” she said. “I did not bring the samovar because I did not
want to risk being seen in the hall.” Her voice was low, and there was a
note of worry in it, as if she had already sensed something inimical in
his manner, or in the close stale air of the room which reeked with the
fumes of dead tobacco smoke.
Peter turned toward the window to pull a chair from the writing table.
“You—you are ill!” she exclaimed suddenly, giving him a look of concern.
“And you have not slept!” She took in the undisturbed blankets on his
bed.
“Yes,” said Peter dully. “I have a cold—a headache. But it is
nothing—see—I have already had my morning tea and feel better.”
“I am sorry. You look as if you had suffered much,” and she sat down,
still observing him with troubled doubt. She saw the exposed pistol in
the holster, but refrained from anything which would indicate that she
had noticed it.
“What about Kirsakoff?” he asked, as if they should get to business.
His words startled her, but she concealed from him any indication of her
inner alarm.
“I came to tell you,” she answered. “We sent Wassili out through the
city last night, to people who have underground information. And he came
back early with his report.” She affected a quiet complacence, as if
seeking news of her father’s whereabouts was a trivial detail of
everyday life.
“And what did he learn?” asked Peter, sitting down by the writing table
with his back to the window. He was calmer now, resolved to play his
part of utter ignorance of the truth about Kirsakoff.
“The last word that has come to Chita is that—Kirsakoff is in Harbin.”
She looked straight at Peter to gauge the effect of her story upon him.
“In Manchuria,” he said, without surprise. “In that case, we should go
to Harbin. Could you and your father get away to Harbin with me?”
“It might be possible—with your help.” Her face took on a trace of color
as her heart began to respond to her rising hope that what she planned
with Peter could be carried through. At least, he had interposed no
objection to going to Harbin to find Kirsakoff, and actually had in mind
a willingness to take her and her father along.
“But could we find him when we got there?” he asked.
“We have friends there who know where he could be found. It should not
be difficult—there are not so many Russians in Harbin, after all.”
“You are a brave woman,” he said quietly. “You must know that this whole
plan holds naked menace for your father—and yourself.”
“There is greater menace here,” she replied, looking steadily into his
eyes.
He wondered if she could mean that he was part of the menace. It was
possible that she knew Lutoff had been talking—and that what Lutoff had
said was already known to her. If the latter were true, she must realize
that it would be impossible to manipulate Peter so that he would save
them from Zorogoff. He dismissed the thought—she was bent now on leading
him on a fool’s errand to Harbin, and once safe from the Ataman,
disappear in the Manchurian city.
It now struck Peter that it might be wise to get away from the Valley of
Despair with the Kirsakoffs. Harbin offered possibility not only to the
Kirsakoffs, but to himself. He could hardly expect to kill Kirsakoff in
Chita and cover his own tracks.
“Have you a plan for escape from the city?” he asked.
“We have talked it over with Slipitsky—the Jew. But my father is averse
to having any hand in putting you into danger.”
Peter smiled. “Your father need not worry about that,” he said lightly.
“Did we not arrange last night?”
“True, but——” She hesitated to go on, and turned her face from him.
“Has your father changed his mind since last night?” asked Peter, alert
at once.
“Oh, no,” she said, looking at the floor. “We—we thought you might
change yours. You have not been sleeping—and perhaps you gave thought
to——”
“I have not changed my mind about Kirsakoff,” he said when it was plain
that she was not going to finish her sentence. “I am still determined
to—find him.”
“We thought you might have changed your mind about helping us.” She
lifted her head, and smiled at him.
He saw at once that her reluctance to avail herself of his help was only
feigned. She was too subtle to be over-eager in a matter which concerned
her own safety and the safety of her father. She intended that Peter
should be the insistent one, so that any suspicions he might have that
they sought their own safety rather than Kirsakoff, would be allayed.
She wished the trip to Harbin to be made on his wishes instead of out of
their own selfish, if natural, desire to escape the Ataman.
Peter laughed without mirth.
“We might not be able to find Kirsakoff in Harbin,” he suggested.
“True,” she admitted at once. “He spends his time between Harbin and
Chita. By the time we got there, he might be on his way back here.”
“Would you advise waiting?” he asked.
“That is for you to decide.”
“Then we shall go to Harbin,” he announced. “This is a serious thing to
me. As I told you last night, I have waited twenty years to find
Kirsakoff.”
“It should not be difficult,” she said casually.
“Not with your help,” he said, with a play at enthusiasm. “If I find
him, it will be because——” He stopped short. What he was about to say
was that if he found Kirsakoff, it would be due to her. But that was not
true—she was concealing Kirsakoff. Peter felt he owed her nothing there.
“Perhaps you would prefer to wait till you feel better,” suggested
Katerin. She was still worried about his constrained manner, and not
quite sure that the change which she detected in him was due to his
feeling badly, as he claimed. She sensed an undercurrent of agitation,
and though the reason of it was far beyond her intuitions, she knew he
had undergone some change during the night—there was something hostile
in his eye, something in the slow turning of his head which revealed to
her the brooding rage which burned in his brain.
“I feel well enough,” he said, putting his hand to his ruffled brow.
“The pain has gone, but I feel dull and stupid. I hope you will forgive
my—stolidity.” He forced a smile, and threw back his head and shook it
as if to dispel a heaviness.
“When should we attempt to get away?” she asked.
“We should not delay, I think. Is it not likely that the Ataman will be
down upon the hotel at any time?”
She shivered slightly. “Every minute is precious.”
“The sooner away, the sooner we shall come up to Kirsakoff,” he said,
and rose to take a turn about the room. Then he came and stood over her,
looking down into her face.
“Take some more tea,” she said. “If we are to go away, you must feel as
well as possible.”
“True, I must. Suppose you bring your father here—and the three of us
talk over the plan of going—to Harbin.”
Katerin gave him a quick glance. Once more she had caught in Peter’s
manner a glimmer of the fact that he was holding himself in leash
against an impulse to action which he found it painfully difficult to
restrain. He frightened her a little, for there was that about his
mouth, about his eyes, and in his voice which told her that this man was
ready to slay.
“My father is still asleep, I am afraid,” she said. “But I know all the
plans that have been made. We are to leave by droshky—and Slipitsky will
forge passports for us. The old Jew is very shrewd about such things. He
helped many a man escape from—the old prison.”
Peter wondered if her reluctance to let him see her father could be due
to a suspicion that Peter already knew that her father was Kirsakoff.
“Droshky to Harbin! It sounds impossible! By droshky more than a
thousand versts in this time of the year?”
She laughed lightly. “Not all the way, of course,” she said. “Just far
enough to get away from the city—down the railway far enough to get a
train beyond where Zorogoff’s men are on guard.”
“But how are we to get through the cordons of Cossacks?”
“An American officer should be able to pass—if my father and myself have
forged passports. They would not stop you—an American.”
He saw the cleverness of her plan. It was a bold move. And the
Kirsakoffs would not have to risk having their identity revealed to
Peter during any quizzing at the railway station in Chita. Zorogoff’s
passport officers would undoubtedly hold Katerin and her father if they
attempted to board a train at the station with Peter—and the worst of it
would be, the old general would most likely be addressed by his name in
the hearing of Peter. But the sentries of the cordon around the city
would be more easily fooled. In the first place, they might not
recognize Kirsakoff at all if he were well wrapped in furs, and had his
bandage about his face. Besides, they might be deceived by the false
passports.
“Is it intended that we should go by night?” asked Peter.
“No, by day. The soldiers will not be so careful by day. By night, they
might fire upon us, or hold us till morning in some guardroom while our
papers were sent back to the city for examination. That is the advice
Slipitsky gives. He says the best escapes are made by daylight, and the
proper plan carefully worked out.”
Katerin waited till Peter thought it over. He considered the plan,
looking thoughtfully at the window.
“You, as an American, can be liberal with the soldiers. Give them enough
rubles to make them feel they want to please you, but not enough to
rouse their suspicions. We will give you the money.”
Peter found it hard to choke down the bitterness which rose anew within
him as he listened to her elaborating her plan for his deception. He was
tempted for an instant to laugh at her, and tell her now that he knew
all he needed to know. Yet there was a queer comfort for him in
listening to Katerin go on with her intricate scheme to save herself and
her father by means of the enemy of her father. And Peter realized also
that they probably did not contemplate going on to Harbin with him at
all—they would slip away from him on the train, at some station—anywhere
once they were clear of the district in which Zorogoff’s army held any
power.
“Does Wassili go with us?” he asked, thinking that perhaps the servant
would be taken for the purpose of killing Peter once they had used him
to get them free through the cordons.
“No, Wassili will remain here.”
“What is the first thing to be done?” he asked, as if anxious to get
about the business.
“Send Wassili for the droshky and the driver who is in the plan—a man
who can be trusted. That can be done as soon as Slipitsky has the
passports ready. He was drying the ink this morning, over a smoky lamp
to make the signatures fast and soften the wax of the seals so that the
counterfeit seal could be pressed in. Then we drive straight toward
Zorogoff’s headquarters, to make it appear first that we are going
there. But we go around the building, so that it will appear to the
first line of sentries on the other side that we have just left
headquarters. That will make the first cordon willing to let us pass
with scarcely any questioning. The next cordon will take it for granted
that we are all right because we have passed the first—and if there is
any trouble, the passports will let us through. The earlier we start,
the better.”
She rose, flushed with hope, which was engendered by the very telling of
how they were to escape.
“I am ready when you are,” said Peter. “Let us not lose any time.”
Tears came into her eyes. “We put our lives in your hands,” she said.
“God will bless you if you aid us in our escape.”
“The road to Harbin is before us yet,” he said with a smile. “You and
your father are not yet out of danger.”
“True,” she said, moving toward the door of her room. “I shall have him
get ready at once, and see Slipitsky about the passports.”
Peter opened the door for her, and bowed as she passed out. He closed
the door after her, and stood looking at the windows of his room, the
same queer twisted smile of the morning at the corner of his mouth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXII
THE OFFICER FROM THE ATAMAN
PETER paced the floor of his room, his head bent in thought, after
Katerin left him. He considered the possibilities of the proposed trip
to Harbin in relation to himself and Michael. An escape from Chita, he
saw now, would be most desirable for his own purpose, providing he was
not being walked into a trap in Harbin. It was quite possible that
Katerin and Michael would try to elude him in Harbin. It was
inconceivable that they were not quite as anxious to escape from Peter
as they were from the Ataman, for they were in full possession of his
secret. And once clear of the cordon of Cossack guards surrounding
Chita, they might be able to give him the slip.
He had a desire to play out the intricate game in which he found himself
enmeshed. He knew he would find it amusing to watch Katerin and Michael
play at being fugitives from the Ataman with him, and then play at
stalking Michael himself in Harbin—to see a man pretend to seek himself.
And at any time, Peter could turn to Michael, and say, “Thou art the man
I seek.”
The sheer chicanery of it had an irresistible appeal to Peter. Like all
Slavs, he loved the dramatic for the sake of itself, and he enjoyed
proceeding by devious ways. Besides, the fact that Katerin and Michael
were deliberately deceiving him, justified his own deception. Peter had
actually been sorry, as he sat thinking through the night, that the
identity of Michael had been made known so abruptly. It had all come
with such amazing clarity and finality that he had found himself rather
helpless when he realized that the whole business could be settled by
the simple expedient of killing Michael without any more delay. He
shrank from so hasty a conclusion to an affair which he had been
dreaming about for twenty years. He thought that perhaps the Russian
people had been caught in just such a staggering position by the easy
success of their revolution. A whole nation thrown back upon its
haunches, so to speak, and asking itself what it was to do now! Their
minds had been so occupied for years in planning and plotting to
overthrow the Czar and his government that they had neglected entirely
to think of what might face them once they were successful. Their plans
had not gone beyond the destruction of the Czar, and when he was
destroyed, they needed more years to give thought to what was necessary
for the good of the country and the people. It did not seem quite fair
to them that the Czar had allowed himself to be overthrown so easily—he
had destroyed their game, their one interest in life. So they began to
sulk, and intrigue against each other.
In the same way, Peter rather resented Lutoff’s directness in revealing
the fact that the “old exile” was Michael Kirsakoff. It made the matter
of killing Michael so absurdly easy! And the Slav insists upon making
all things difficult—life, war, government—before he can enjoy them. He
demands that Life shall be a puzzle, and examines its hidden purposes to
discover why the Creator has tricked him into being a living being. He
seeks a sinister motive behind his birth, and not being able to find one
or to construct one out of his fancy, he kills himself because life is
not worth living unless it can be proved to be a sort of divine
persecution. The Slav needs a lot of trouble to keep himself happy.
Convince him that the purpose of Life is to make him miserable and he is
content.
But Peter had become almost wholly Russian again, so he could not fully
consider himself in the proper light. He had no intention of letting
Michael escape. But he had the bothersome idea that he had to begin all
over again to run Michael into a snare—a snare of Peter’s own devising,
and built so leisurely that the joy of vengeance would have a
satisfactory accretion of mental torture for Michael.
The old general knew that Peter lusted for his life, and this knowledge
must in itself fill Kirsakoff with terror. Did not Kirsakoff live in
dread of a look, a word, an intonation of the voice, which would betray
him to Peter? And Peter knew that he had the power to precipitate the
dreaded catastrophe for Michael at any instant. All Peter waited for now
was the moment which would intensify the terror for Michael—that moment,
perhaps, when Michael would consider himself safest. It might come at
the instant when Michael would be ready to slip away from Peter in
Harbin, exulting in the thought that he was about to escape from the man
who sought to slay him. Safe at last! And then Peter could smile, and
instead of saying, “Good-by, my friend,” could say instead, “Now,
Michael Alexandrovitch, you die!”
And so utterly Russian such a moment would be! And how fitting, thought
Peter. Was not Michael Kirsakoff living in a fool’s paradise and
thinking that he could use his enemy to save his life from the Ataman?
When he saw it from this angle, Peter was glad that he knew the old man
was Michael. Now he could build Michael’s hopes, only to shatter them at
the end.
Once again Peter was master of himself and of the situation. He would
play the covert game with the Kirsakoffs—and Michael could not escape.
Harbin would be better than Chita after all, for it offered a better
chance for Peter to cover his tracks.
He had come to this decision when he heard the rattle of boots on the
other side of the door which led into Michael’s room. Then the door
opened slowly, cautiously, and presently Michael, the blanket over his
shoulders and clutching the loose ends of the covering to his breast,
looked in. The old man was crouched forward and he was visibly
trembling.
Peter thought at first that Michael had come sneaking in during the
absence of Katerin below, to attack him. But he saw at once that Michael
was alarmed—he stood hesitating in the door, looking back over his
shoulder, listening. He had a blanket over his shoulders, and his hair
stood up stiffly on the back of his head behind the bandages about his
face, like the crest of an angry cockatoo.
Peter stood still. He half expected that Michael had come to the
attack—that beneath the blanket Michael had a weapon. And there was no
longer any doubt that the old man was Kirsakoff. Peter recognized him
for the Governor at once, though the years had changed so much and the
bandages which covered his cheeks hid his predominant features. The nose
was still strong and arrogant, the black eyes now deeply set with age,
the white mustaches which had once been black, though sparse, changed
his appearance but little.
This was the moment for which Peter had waited so long—but he knew at
once that it was not the moment to strike. He wanted more time to deal
with Michael, and the old man was worried about something which seemed
to threaten from the hall.
“What is wrong?” asked Peter.
Michael threw up his hand in a gesture for silence, and did not turn his
head, but continued to look back over his shoulder into the two rooms
behind him.
“Some one outside my door,” he whispered.
Peter listened but heard nothing.