CHAPTER XIII

When they had eaten, Stephen went out. He had talked cheerfully throughout the meal, but his talk somehow gave Elizabeth the feeling that she was being shut out. She felt vaguely rebuffed. She wanted to know what he was thinking and planning. She was quite sure that behind the talk his mind was busy with plans. When he got up to go, she got up too and stood in his way, one hand upon the door.

“What are we going to do?” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Stephen—“Get away from here as soon as we can.”

“How soon can we get away?”

“Not to-night, I’m afraid.”

She felt a little shock of surprise. She had not thought of going on that night, but when he spoke of it the desire to go swept over her like a sudden gust of wind. It shook her, and she was afraid.

“No, I don’t think we could get away to-night,” Stephen repeated. “I’ve got one or two things to see about. I hope you don’t mind being left. It won’t do for you to go out and risk being seen. I hope Irina didn’t see you.”

Elizabeth hoped so too. Her hand dropped from the door. She was chilled and weary. She stood aside for Stephen to pass. Then all at once, with his hand on the latch, he turned round and came to her.

“Will you rest?”

“I’m not tired.”

They stood for a moment close together without speaking. Then Stephen took both her hands in his and lifted them to his lips. He kissed first one and then the other. Then he let them go and ran out of the room and down the stair.

He was in a state of extreme exhilaration as he came out into the cold street. He had held Elizabeth in his arms, and she had let him kiss her hands. Of course holding her in his arms had been more or less of an accident, but if she had been offended she wouldn’t have let him kiss her hands. The question was, had she let him kiss them, or had he just kissed them? A moment ago he had been sure; now he wasn’t. After all, how could she have stopped him? He had just grabbed her hands and kissed them. It was a very disquieting thought, and he must be more careful another time. It would be horrible if Elizabeth were to think that she couldn’t trust him.

He had got as far as this in his thoughts, when he heard Irina’s voice. He had come the width of three houses from Boris Andreieff’s lodging and he was just about to turn the corner, when from the other side of it he heard Irina speak his name. She said “Stefan,” and he did not wait to hear what else she said.

Irina being one of the two last persons on earth whom he desired to meet at this moment, he swung round and dived into the nearest doorway. It stood recessed under a half porch, and, flattening himself against the door with his face towards it, he waited for Irina to pass by.

She did not pass. She turned the corner, still talking, and there stood no more than a couple of yards away, the centre of a group which, from their voices and the sounds of their feet, must consist of some half dozen men. The street was very dark. The shadow of the porch was opportune. Stephen hoped for the best. Having tried the handle and found that the door was fast, he could do no more. If he were seen, it would be only as a shadow, an unknown man entering or attempting to enter an unknown house. Even Irina would not stand talking at a street corner for long in this bitter weather.

All this was in his mind as one thought.

He pressed against the door, wondered what Irina had been saying about him, and heard a man say,

“We’re not to go in?”

Irina’s voice answered him.

“No, no, of course not.”

Another man said,

“I don’t see why.”

“Why?” Irina’s tone was sharp. “Haven’t I told you why?”

A third man said in a slow, drawling manner,

“Alexis must always be told a thing three times. That is what he calls being thorough.”

The others laughed. There were certainly half a dozen of them.

“I don’t see why,” said Alexis obstinately.

“Haven’t I told you I’m not sure?” said Irina.

“I thought you said you were sure.” Alexis sounded a little sulky.

Stephen could hear Irina stamp her foot on the snow.

“I am sure in myself—I have told you that! From the moment I first saw her I said to myself, ‘There is something wrong there. Stefan is not the man to marry like that.’ And when she could not tell me the name of her village, then I began to think indeed. And when Comrade Petroff told me about the woman he was looking for, I was sure in myself that this Varvara must be the one, so we came here after them. Then, half an hour ago, when I met Vera and she told me she had seen Boris Andreieff at the station and that he said he had lent Stefan his room, I thought at once, ‘Now we have her!’ Only we mustn’t run any risk. She must be watched so that she can’t get away.”

“But still I don’t see why we are to wait outside,” said Alexis.

“Alexis never does see anything,” said the man with the drawling voice.

Irina stamped her foot again.

“How many times am I to tell you that it is Comrade Petroff who must identify her? You will wait on the stair and see that she does not go out. As soon as you are there I will go for Petroff. If she is not the woman he is looking for, there is no harm done—we have only paid a friendly call upon our friend Stefan and his wife. If she is the woman, then Petroff can deal with her. She is a counter-revolutionary and a bourzhui who has been withholding valuable information from the state.”

“But still I don’t see—” began Alexis.

Irina interrupted him furiously.

“Do you want Stefan to break your head? He probably will if he’s at home. It might be better for you not to be in such a hurry. He doesn’t like being interfered with, you know.”

“If it comes to head-breaking, a bullet can do more damage than a fist.” This was a dry voice that had not spoken till now.

They were armed. It was, of course, to be expected, but it was a death-warrant to any hope of getting Elizabeth away. If he had had a pleasant vision of knocking the conspirators’ heads together two by two, chucking them down Boris Andreieff’s conveniently steep stair, and carrying Elizabeth off in triumph over their silly prostrate bodies, it did most definitely drop down dead at the realization that these Young Communists were in possession of fire-arms. The young man with the dry voice sounded as if he would have a steady hand. Alexis, of course, could be trusted to miss anything he aimed at.

Alexis was saying,

“But if she is a counter-revolutionary—”

“Oh, go home, Alexis!” said the man with the drawling voice.

“There’s no need to get your head broken until Petroff has said what she is,” said Irina. “You stay on the stair till he comes. Once Stefan knows what she is, he will be on our side. He’s a good Communist. It is the woman who has deceived him!”

The feet moved on, tramping the snow. The voices became fainter and were lost.

Ten years in the Secret Service trains a man to think rapidly and to make lightning decisions. Before the sound of the tramping feet had died away Stephen knew what he must do. He began to run in the direction from which Irina and her friends had come. Irina would not run. She would go with the men as far as the door of Boris’ lodging. There would probably be a little more talk. Alexis would almost certainly delay the proceedings still further. Irina rarely missed any opportunity of holding forth. It might be another five minutes before she would start to fetch Petroff. In any case he had the legs of her and could count on getting there first. He spared no time to wonder what he would have done if he had not known where Petroff lodged. He did know, and the knowledge was to save them.

He came to the house with his part ready conned. Petroff had a three-roomed flat on the second floor. As Stephen knocked on the door, his ears cocked for the sound of Irina’s step on the stair behind him, it came to him that this had been the door of Elizabeth’s prison. Here she had lived in torment for a year. Here the old woman had bullied and starved her.

A voice shouted, “Come in!”

He opened the door and went in, his mind very clear and angry. The door led directly into a room from which other doors opened, one on either side. In the middle of this centre room was a large table littered with papers. Petroff sat at the table, but he was not occupied with the papers. He had a bottle in front of him and a glass in his hand. The room stank of vodka and the smoke of a rank cigar.

With a beaming smile Stephen rushed upon him and wrung him by the hand.

“Do you remember me, Comrade—Red Stefan? Yes, yes, of course you do—and Magnitogorsk—and the vodka! Well, well, well—that was a good meeting, wasn’t it? And the vodka was good vodka! You were pleased to see me that day—eh, Comrade? And to-day you’ll be even better pleased—unless I have made a mistake, and I don’t think I have.”

Petroff pushed back his chair, but he did not push it much farther from the table. He pushed it so that his hand could with one movement reach the revolver which he kept in the top right-hand drawer. He was not at all drunk. He had not had time to get drunk. He had merely taken enough vodka to make him feel that he was more than a match for Red Stefan.

Stephen saw the movement and laughed. He leaned on the table with an air of genial friendliness.

A man of stout build this Petroff. A little softer than he had been at Magnitogorsk. No—decidedly he had not improved. He had always had Tartar eyes and a face that looked as if someone had been careless with it. Now he had, in addition, an air of having gone to seed.

“What do you want?” said Petroff, his hand at the drawer.

Stephen laughed again.

“What do you think? You’ll never guess, so I must tell you. You’re looking for a woman, aren’t you-counter-revolutionary with important information?”

“Who told you that?” said Petroff sharply.

Stephen made a fine vague gesture.

“Some comrade—I don’t know—it might have been Irina. Could it have been Irina?”

His ears were strained for the sound of Irina’s footsteps. Yet he must not hurry too much. Petroff was no fool.

“It might have been Irina.” Petroff’s tone was noncommittal.

Stephen nodded.

“Or it might have been some other comrade. Anyhow I heard it, and—now see if you are not surprised—I believe I have found her, this counter-revolutionary of yours. What is her name?”

Petroff had opened the drawer. His hand was on the revolver. His shallow, slanting eyes watched Stephen’s face.

“Her name is Elizabeth Radin.”

Stephen looked first puzzled, then excited.

“She called herself Varvara to me. And I married her. Think of that, Comrade! I found her wandering about in the streets like a half-wit and took her off to my village—never suspected anything till she began to talk in her sleep, and then I thought to myself, ‘Oi, oi! What’s all this?’” He laughed boisterously. “It’s a funny business—eh, Comrade?”

Petroff kept his hand on the revolver.

“What did she say?”

“One night she said your name—‘Petroff’—just like that.”

Petroff reached his left hand for his glass and drank.

“She said my name?”

Stephen slapped his thigh.

“If I was a jealous husband, Comrade, what should I make of that? She said your name, and something more. She said, ‘Petroff wants it,’ and then she screamed out, ‘No—no—no!’”

Petroff set down his glass again, empty.

“You’re sure about this?”

“Sure? Of course I’m sure! That’s why I’m here. I didn’t say a word even to Irina. I just brought her along for you to have a look at her.”

The door at the foot of the stair opened and shut. That would be Irina. All right, let her come. He’d beaten her. There was nothing to spare, but he’d done it.

Petroff was saying,

“Here? She’s not here?”

Stephen leaned towards him eagerly.

“No, no, she’s at Boris Andreieff’s lodging. He lent us the room. I left her there and came to fetch you—”

Feet on the stair, and a knocking on the door … Irina.

“You’ll have to identify her,” said Stephen.

The knocking went on.

“Come in, if you want to!” shouted Petroff.

The knocking stopped. The door was flung open and Irina ran into the room.