THE HAND AT THE WINDOW
An hour later she came from tennis, to find her father obviously bored
almost to the point of tears, yet making an heroic attempt to appear
interested in Malcolm's enthusiastic dissertation of the future of the
oil industry. The Grand Duke rose gladly on her appearance, and handed
him over.
"I have persuaded Mr. Hay to dine with us to-night, and I have sent to
the hotel for his baggage. He is most entertaining, my little love, most
entertaining. Persuade him to talk to you about--er--oil and things,"
and he hurriedly withdrew.
The girl sat down on the seat he had vacated.
"You're a most amazing person, Mr. Hay," she smiled.
"So I have been told," said Malcolm, as he filled a glass with tea from
the samovar.
"You have also a good opinion of yourself, it seems," she said calmly.
"Why do you think I am amazing, anyway?" said he recklessly, returning
to the relationships they had established at luncheon.
"Because you have enchanted my father," she said.
She was not smiling now, and a troubled little frown gathered on her
brow.
"Please tell me your magic."
"Perhaps it is the book," he said jestingly.
"The book!" she looked up sharply. "What book?"
And then, as a light dawned on her, she rose to her feet.
"You have--you have Israel Kensky's book?" she whispered in horror.
He nodded.
"Here with you?"
"Yes, here," he slapped his pocket.
She sat down slowly and reached out her hand, and he thought it shook.
"I do not know who was the madder--Israel Kensky to give it to you or
you to take it," she said. "This is the only house in Kieff where your
life is safe, and even here----" She stopped and shook her head. "Of
course, you're safe here," she smiled, "but I wish the book were
somewhere else."
She made no further reference either to the amazing volume or to her
father, and that night, when he came down to dinner, feeling more on
level terms with royalty (though his dress-suit was four years old and
his patent shoes, good enough for such mild society functions as came
his way, looked horribly cracked and shabby), he dismissed the matter
from his mind. The dinner party was a large one. There were two bishops,
innumerable popes, several bejewelled women, an officer or two and the
inevitable duenna. He was introduced to them all, but remembered only
Colonel Malinkoff, a quiet man whom he was to meet again.
To his amazement he found that he had been seated in the place of
honour, to the right of the Grand Duke, but he derived very little
satisfaction from that distinction, since the girl was at the other end
of the table.
She looked worried and her conversation, so far as he could hear,
consisted of "yes" and "no" and conventional expressions of agreement
with the views of her companions.
But the duke was loquacious, and at an early stage of the dinner the
conversation turned on the riot of the morning. There was nothing
remarkable in the conversation till suddenly the Grand Duke, without
preliminary, remarked in a matter-of-fact tone:
"The danger is that Kensky may very well use his evil powers against the
welfare of Holy Church."
There was a murmur of agreement from the black-bearded popes, and
Malcolm opened his eyes in astonishment.
"But surely your Highness does not believe that this man has any
supernatural gift."
The Grand Duke stared at him through his glasses.
"Of course," he said, "if there are miracles of the Church why should
there not be performed miracles by the Powers of Darkness? Here in
Kieff," he went on, "we have no reason to doubt that miracles are
performed every day. Who doubts that worship at the shrine of St.
Barbara in the Church of St. Michael of the Golden Head protects us
against lightning?"
"That is undoubtedly the fact, your Imperial Highness," said a stout
pope, speaking with his mouth full. "I have seen houses with lightning
conductors struck repeatedly, and I have never known any place to be
touched by lightning if the master of the house was under the protection
of St. Barbara."
"And beneath the Church of Exaltation," the Grand Duke went on, "more
miracles have been performed than elsewhere in the world."
He peered round the table for contradiction.
"It was here that the Two Brothers are buried and it was their prayer
that they should sleep together in the same grave. One died before the
other, and when the second had passed away and they carried his body to
the tomb, did not the body of the first brother arise to make room? And
is there not a column in the catacomb to which, if a madman is bound, he
recovers his reason? And are there not skulls which exude wonderful oils
which cure men of the most terrible diseases, even though they are on
the point of death?"
Malcolm drew a long breath. He could understand the superstitious
reverence of the peasant for these relics and miracles, but these were
educated men. One of them stood near to the throne and was versed in the
intricacies of European diplomacy. These were no peasants steeped in
ignorance, but intellectuals. He pinched himself to make sure that he
was awake as the discussion grew and men swopped miracles in much the
same spirit of emulation as store-loafers swop lies. But the
conversation came back to him, led thereto by the Grand Duke, and once
more it centred on that infernal book. The volume in question was not
six inches from the Grand Duke, for Malcolm had stuffed it into his tail
pocket before he came down to dinner, and this fact added a certain
piquancy to the conversation.
"I do not doubt, your Highness," said a stout bishop, who picked his
teeth throughout the dinner, "that Kensky's book is identical with a
certain volume on devil worship which the blessed Saint Basil publicly
denounced and damned. It was a book especially inspired by Satan, and
contained exact rules, whereby he who practised the magic could bind in
earthly and immortal obedience the soul of anybody he chose, thus
destroying in this life their chance of happiness and in the life to
come their souls' salvation."
All within reach of the bishop's voice crossed themselves three times.
"It would have been well," mused the Grand Duke, "if the people had
succeeded this morning."
He shot a glance at Malcolm, a glance full of suspicious inquiry, but
the young man showed no sign either of resentment or agreement. But he
was glad when the dinner ended and the chance came to snatch a few words
with the girl. The guests were departing early, and kummel and coffee
was already being served on a large silver salver by the _buffetschek_,
whom Malcolm recognized as the ubiquitous Boolba.
"I shall not see you again," said the girl in a low voice. "I am going
to my room. But I want you to promise me something, Mr. Hay."
"The promise is made before you ask," said he.
"I want you to leave as early as you possibly can to-morrow morning for
your mine, and if I send you word I want you to leave Russia without
delay."
"But this is very astonishing."
She faced him squarely, her hands behind her back.
"Mr. Hay," she said, and her low voice was vibrant with feeling, "you
have entangled yourself in an adventure which cannot possibly end well
for you. Whatever happens, you cannot come out with credit and safety,
and I would rather you came out with credit."
"I don't understand you," he said.
"I will make it plainer," said she. "Unless something happens in the
next month or two which will point the minds of the people to other
directions, you will be suspect. The fact that you have the book is
known."
"I know," he said.
"By whom?" she asked quickly.
"By Boolba, your servant."
She raised her hand to her lips, as if to suppress a cry. It was an odd
little trick of hers which he had noticed before.
"Boolba," she repeated. "Of course! That explains!"
At that moment the Grand Duke called him. The guests had dwindled away
to half a dozen.
"Your coffee, Mr. Hay, and some of our wonderful Russian kummel. You
will not find its like in any other part of the world."
Malcolm drank the coffee, gulped down the fiery liqueur, and replaced
the glass on the tray. He did not see the girl again, and half an hour
later he went up to his room, locked the door and undressed himself
slowly, declining the assistance which had been offered to him by the
trained valet.
From the open window came the heavy perfume of heliotrope, but it was
neither the garden scent nor the moderate quantity of wine he had taken,
nor the languid beauty of the night, which produced this delicious
sensation of weariness. He undressed and got into his pyjamas, then sat
at the end of his bed, his head between his hands.
He had sat for a long time like this, before he realized the strangeness
of his attitude and getting on to his feet, found himself swaying.
"Doped," he said, and sat down again.
There was little of his brain that was awake, but that little he worked
hard. He had been drugged. It was either in the kummel or in the coffee.
Nothing but dope would make him feel as he was feeling now. He fell into
bed and pulled the clothes about him. He wanted to keep awake to fight
off the effects of the stuff and, by an absurd perversion of reasoning,
he argued that he was in a more favourable position to carry out his
plan if he made himself comfortable in bed, than if he followed any
other course.
The drug worked slowly and erratically. He had moments of complete
unconsciousness with intervals which, if they were not free from the
effect of the agent, were at least lucid. One such interval must have
come after he had been in bed for about an hour, for he found himself
wide awake and lay listening to the thumping of his heart, which seemed
to shake the bed.
The room was bathed in a soft green light, for it was a night of full
moon. He could see dimly the furniture and the subdued gleam of silver
wall-sconce, that caught the ghostly light and gave it a more mysterious
value. He tried to rise but could not. To roll his head from side to
side seemed the limitation of conscious effort.
And whilst he looked, the door opened noiselessly and closed again.
Somebody had come into the room, and that somebody passed softly across
the foot of the bed, and stood revealed against the window. Had he been
capable of speech he would have cried out.
It was the girl!
He saw her plainly in a moment. She wore a wrapper over her nightdress,
and carried a small electric lamp in her hand. She went to the chair
where he had thrown his clothes and made a search. He saw her take
something out and put it under her wrap, then she went back the way she
came, pausing for the space of a second at the foot of his bed.
She stood there undecidedly, and presently she came up to the side of
the bed and bent down over him. His eyes were half closed; he had
neither the power of opening or shutting them, but he could see clearly
the white hand that rested on the bed and the book that it held, and the
polished table by the bedside reflecting the moonlight back to her face
so that she seemed something as intangible and as shadowy as the night
itself.
A little smile played upon her pale face, and every whispered word she
uttered was clear and distinct.
"Good-bye, poor Mr. Hay," she said softly.
She shook her head as though in pity; then, stopping swiftly, she kissed
him on the cheek and passed quickly to the half-open door by which she
had entered. She was nearing the door when she stopped dead and shrank
back toward the bed. Another electric lamp gleamed unexpectedly. He saw
the white of her nightdress show as a dazzling strip of light where the
beam caught it. Then the unknown intruder touched on the light, and they
stood revealed, the girl tall, imperious, a look of scorn on her
beautiful face, and the stout menial with the crooked nose.
Boolba wore an old dressing-gown girdled about with a soiled rainbow
sash. His feet were bare, and in his two hands laying from palm to palm
was a long thin knife.
At the sight of the girl he fell back, a grotesque sprawling movement
which was not without its comicality. A look of blank bewilderment
creased his big face.
"You--you, Highness!" he croaked. "The Jew, where is he?"
She was silent. Malcolm saw the quick rise and fall of her bosom, saw
the book clutched closer to her side beneath the filmy silken gown.
Boolba looked from the girl to Malcolm, from Malcolm to the heavy
curtains at either side of the open window--curtains which the drugged
man had not drawn.
"He has left his quarters, Highness," Boolba spoke eagerly; "he was seen
to enter the grounds of the palace--where is he?"
He took a step toward her.
"Stand back--you slave!" she breathed, but with a bound he was upon her.
There was a brief struggle, and the book was wrenched from her hand.
Malcolm saw all this, but lay as one dead. He was conscious but
paralysed by the potion, and could only watch the girl in the grip of
the obese monster and feel his heart going like a steam hammer.
Boolba stood gloating over his prize, fondling the book in his big,
coarse hands. Malcolm wondered why the girl did not scream--yet how
could she? She was in his room in the middle of the night, she, a
daughter of emperors.
The man tried to wrench open the locks which held the covers, but
failed. Suddenly he looked up, and glared across at the girl.
He said nothing, but the suspicion in that scowl was emphasized when he
moved to the wall near the window and the light of a bracket lamp.
Again he examined the book and for the first time spoke:
"Oh, Highness, was it you who sent for Israel Kensky that the book
should be restored----"
So far he got when an arm came from behind the curtain--a hand
blue-veined, and it held a yellow handkerchief.
The girl saw it, and her hand went to her mouth.
Then the handkerchief struck full across Boolba's face, covering it from
forehead to the mouth.
For a moment the man was paralysed, then he pulled the handkerchief away
and clawed at the clay-like substance which adhered to his face.
"Mother of God!"
He screamed the words and, dropping the book, stumbled forward, rubbing
at his face, shrieking with pain.
The girl ran swiftly through the open door, for feet were now pattering
along the corridors and the flicker of lights showed through the
doorway. Boolba was rolling on the ground in agony when the servants
crowded in, followed by the Grand Duke--and he alone was fully dressed.
"Boolba--what is it?"
"The book--the book! It is mine! See ... floor!"
But the book had disappeared.
"Where, Boolba--where, my good Boolba?" The voice of Boolba's master was
tremulous. "Show me--did he strike you--he shall suffer, by the saints!
Look for it, Boolba!"
"Look! Look!" yelled the writhing man. "How shall I look? I who am
blind--blind--blind!"