Red Dusk and the Morrow · Chapter 2 (4/6)

“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 tomorrow. 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 a faux pas. The little man turned very red. “I beg your pardon,” I hastened to add, “I understood you were an official of the Okhrana.”

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 the Okhrana. 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 tonight?”

“A lodging for tonight? 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.” Then his careworn, 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 Liteyny 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 shirtsleeves, 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 Vera Alexandrovna 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 Troitskaya 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 and luxuriously furnished, and showed no signs of molestation. “You live comfortably,” I remarked, sinking into a deep leather armchair. “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 regime. My hobby,” he added, idly, “is contre-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. Nothing came 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 counterrevolution.

“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 Cromie 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 counterrevolutionary 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.

“Cromie 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?”

“Of him,” 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 is No. 2 Gorokhovaya! When anyone 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 of No. 2 Gorokhovaya?”

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 tonight. 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 someone 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 forever, 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 Communists work. That will be the next step in the revolution unless you Allies arrive and relieve them of that painful necessity. Your health, Pavel Ivanitch.”