Wallace Edgar
The Book of All-Power
CHAPTER IX
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!"
CHAPTER X
TERROR IN MAKING
In the spring of 1919 Malcolm Hay came out from the Kursky Voksal carrying his own well-worn valise. An indifferent cigar was clenched between his white teeth, and there was a sparkle of amusement in his grave eyes. He stood seventy inches in his stockings, and an excellent judge of men who looked him over, noted the set and width of shoulders, the upward lift of chin, the tanned face and flexibility of body, marked him down "soldier"—either American or English.
Malcolm looked up and down the deserted street and then caught the eye of the solitary intooski, a thoughtful-looking man with a short, square beard, looking monstrously stout in his padded green coat, the livery of the Moscow drosky driver.
The man on the sidewalk smiled and walked across the pavement.
"Little brother," he said in fluent Russian, "would you condescend to drive me to the Hotel du Bazar Slav?"
The driver who had noted so approvingly the shape of Malcolm's shoulders did not immediately answer; then:
"British?—I thought you were."
He spoke excellent English, and Malcolm looked up at him bewildered.
"I seem to know your face, too—let me think."
The cab-driver tapped his bearded chin.
"I have it—Hay. I met you four years ago at a dinner party in Kieff—you are the manager of an oil company or something of the sort."
"Right," said the astonished young man, "but—I don't exactly place you."
The drosky driver smiled.
"And yet I dined with you," he said. "I sat next the Grand Duchess Irene—later, when war broke out, I invited you to my headquarters."
"Good God!" Malcolm's jaw dropped. "General Malinkoff!"
"Commanding the 84th Caucasian Division," said the bearded man dryly, "and now commanding one little horse. If you will get into my excellent cab I will drive you to a restaurant where we may eat and drink and be almost merry for—fifty roubles."
Malcolm stepped into the little drosky like a man in a dream. Malinkoff! He remembered him, a fine figure on a horse, riding through Kieff at the head of a glittering throng of staff officers. There was a function at the Grand Hotel to meet the new Commander, a great parade at that ancient palace in his honour—Malcolm had come in from the oil-fields partly to meet him at dinner—partly for news of one who had of a sudden vanished from his life.
The drosky drove furiously through the east end of the town, and the passenger noted that the driver was careful to avoid the big thoroughfares which led to the Krasnaya Plotzad and that centre of Moscow which is the Kremlin.
Presently it drew up before a small eating-house in a poor street, and the driver hoisted himself to the ground. He left his horse unattended and, leading the way, pushed open the swing doors of the restaurant and passed down a long, low-ceilinged room crowded with diners, to a table at the far end.
"Sit down, Mr. Hay. I can promise you a fair but by no means sybarite feast—good morning, Nicholas Vassilitsky."
He nodded pleasantly to a grey-haired man in a workman's blouse sitting at the next table, and the man addressed rose stiffly, bowed and sat down.
"If you wish your clothes valeted whilst you are in Moscow, I recommend my friend," said the driver, snapping his fingers towards a stout waitress. "Colonel Nicholas Vassilitsky is not only an excellent Director of Military Intelligence but he can press a pair of trousers with any man."
He gave his orders briefly, and turned to his companion.
"First of all, let me interrogate you. You are on your way to Petrograd?"
"Yes—I am on my way home. During the war I have been controlling allied supplies in Little Russia—the Revolution stopped that."
"Fortunate man—to have a country," said General Malinkoff, and he spoke seriously and without bitterness. "A country and an army—coherent, disciplined comrades in arms."
He shrugged his padded shoulders.
"Yes—you are on your way to your home? It will take you months to leave the country—if you ever leave it. I tried to leave last month. I am a reactionary with a leaning toward discipline. I cannot breathe the air of democracy. I used to think I had Liberal ideas. There was a time when I thought that a day would dawn when the world would be a great United States of Free People. Ah, well—I am still a reactionary."
Malcolm knew that behind those grave eyes was a world of laughter, that beneath the solemn words was a gentle irony, and yet for the while he could not distinguish how much of tragedy there was in the man's fun.
"But why are you–"
"Driving a cab?" The general finished the sentence. "Because, my friend, I am human. I must eat, for example; I must have a room to sleep in. I need cigarettes, and clean shirts at least three times a week—for God's sake never let that be known. I must also have warm clothes for the winter—in fact, I must live."
"But haven't you—money?" Malcolm felt all a decent man's embarrassment. "Forgive me butting into your affairs, but naturally I'm rather hazed."
"Naturally," laughed the general. "A bottle of kavass, my peach of Turkistan, and a glass for our comrade."
"Long live the Revolution!" wheezed the waitress mechanically.
"Long may it live, little mother!" responded the general.
When the girl had gone he squared round to his companion.
"I have no shame, Mr. Hay—I'm going to let you pay for your own dinner because I cannot in these democratic times pauperize you by paying for you. No, I have no money. My balance in the State bank has been confiscated to the sacred cause of the people. My estate, a hundred versts or so from Moscow, confiscated to the sacred cause of the Revolution, my house in Petrograd is commandeered to the sacred service of the Soviet."
"But your command?"
The general did not smile now. He laid down his knife and fork and threw a glance behind him.
"The men began shooting their officers in March, 1917," he said, lowering his voice. "They executed the divisional staff in May—the democratic spirit was of slow growth. They spared me because I had written a book in my youth urging popular government and had been confined in the fortess of Vilna for my crime. When the army was disbanded I came to Moscow, and the cab was given to me by a former groom of mine, one Isaac Mosservitch, who is now a judge of the high court and dispenses pretty good law, though he cannot sign his own name."
"Mr. Hay," he went on earnestly, "you did wrong to come to Moscow. Get back to Kieff and strike down into the Caucasus. You can reach the American posts outside of Tiflis. You'll never leave Russia. The Bolsheviks have gone mad—blood-mad, murder-mad. Every foreigner is suspect. The Americans and the English are being arrested. I can get you a passport that will carry you to Odessa, and you can reach Batoum, and Baku from there."
Malcolm leant back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at the other.
"Is it so bad?"
"Bad! Moscow is a mad-house. Listen—do you hear anything?"
Above the hum of conversation Malcolm caught a sound like the cracking of whips.
"Rifle-firing," said the general calmly. "There's a counter-revolution in progress. The advanced Anarchists are in revolt against the Bolsheviks. There is a counter-revolution every morning. We cab-drivers meet after breakfast each day and decide amongst ourselves which of the streets shall be avoided. We are pretty well informed—Prince Dalgoursky, who was a captain in the Preopojensky Guard, sells newspapers outside the Soviet headquarters, and the comrades give him tips. One of these days the comrades will shoot him, but for the moment he is in favour, and makes as much as a hundred roubles a day."
The waitress came to the table, and the conversation momentarily ceased. When she had gone Malcolm put the question which he had asked so often in the past four years.
"Can you give me any news of the Grand Duke Yaroslav?"
The other shook his head.
"His Highness was in Petrograd when I heard of him last."
"And—and his daughter? She has been with the Russian Red Cross on the Riga front, I know."
The bearded man shot a queer glance at his companion.
"In what circumstances did you see her last?" he asked.
Malcolm hesitated.
He could hardly tell a stranger of that tragic scene which was enacted in his bedroom. From the moment she had fled through the door he had not set eyes upon her. In the morning when he had wakened, feeling sick and ill, he had been told that the Grand Duke and his daughter had left by the early northern express for the capital. Of Boolba, that hideously blinded figure, he heard nothing. When he inquired for Israel Kensky, men shrugged and said that he had "disappeared." His house was closed and the old man might be in prison or in hiding. Later he was to learn that Kensky had reappeared in Moscow, apparently without hindrance from the authorities. As for Boolba, he had kept his counsel.
"You seem embarrassed," smiled Malinkoff. "I will tell you why I ask. You know that her Grand Ducal Highness was banished from Court for disobedience to the royal will?"
Malcolm shook his head.
"I know nothing—absolutely nothing. Kieff and Odessa are full of refugees and rumours, but one is as much a suspect as the other."
"She would not marry—that is all. I forget the name of the exalted personage who was chosen for her, though I once helped to carry him up to bed—he drank heavily even in those days. God rest him! He died like a man. They hung him in a sack in Peter and Paul, and he insulted the Soviets to the last!"
"So—so she is not married?"
The general was silent, beckoning the waitress.
"My little dear," he said, "what shall I pay you?"
She gave him the scores and they settled.
"Which way now?" asked the general.
"I hardly know—what must a stranger do before he takes up his abode?"
"First find an abode," said the general with a meaning smile. "You asked me to drive you to the Hotel Bazar Slav, my simple but misguided friend! That is a Soviet headquarters. You will certainly go to a place adjacent to the hotel to register yourself, and afterwards to the Commissary to register all over again, and, if you are regarded with approval, which is hardly likely, you will be given a ticket which will enable you to secure the necessities of life—the tickets are easier to get than the food."
The first call at the house near the Bazar Slav gave them neither trouble nor results. The Soviet headquarters was mainly concerned with purely administrative affairs, and the organization of its membership. Its corridors and doorway were crowded with soldiers wearing the familiar red armlet, and when Malinkoff secured an interview with a weary looking and unkempt official, who sat collarless in his shirt sleeves at a table covered with papers, that gentleman could do no more than lean back in his chair and curse the interrupters volubly.
"We might have dispensed with the headquarters visit," said Malinkoff, "but it is absolutely necessary that you should see the Commissary unless you want to be pulled out of your bed one night and shot before you're thoroughly awake. By the way, we have an interesting American in gaol—by his description I gather he is what you would call a gun-man."
Malcolm stared.
"Here—a gun-man?"
Malinkoff nodded.
"He held up the Treasurer-General of the Soviet and relieved him of his wealth. I would like to have met him—but I presume he is dead. Justice is swift in Moscow, especially for those who hold up the officials of the Revolution."
"What sort of justice do these people administer?" asked Malcolm curiously.
Malinkoff shrugged his padded shoulders.
"Sometimes I think that the very habit of justice is dead in this land," he said. "On the whole they are about as just and fair as was the old regime—that is not saying much, is it? The cruelty of our rule to-day is due rather to ignorance than to ill will. A few of the men higher up are working off their old grievances and are profiting enormously, but the rank and file of the movement are labouring for the millennium."
"I think they're mad," said Malcolm.
"All injustice is mad," replied Malinkoff philosophically. "Now get into my little cab, and I will drive you to the Commissary."
The Commissary occupied a large house near the Igerian Gate. It was a house of such noble proportions that at first Malcolm thought it was one of the old public offices, and when Malinkoff had drawn up at the gate he put the question.
"That is the house of the Grand Duke Yaroslav," said Malinkoff quietly. "I think you were inquiring about him a little earlier in the day."
The name brought a little pang to Malcolm's heart, and he asked no further questions. There was a sentry on the podyasde—an untidy, unshaven man, smoking a cigarette—and a group of soldiers filled the entrance, evidently the remainder of the guard.
The Commissary was out. When would he be back? Only God knew. He had taken "the Little Mother" for a drive in the country, or perhaps he had gone to Petrograd—who knew? There was nobody to see but the Commissary—on this fact they insisted with such vehemence that Malcolm gathered that whoever the gentleman was, he brooked no rivals and allowed no possible supplanter to stand near his throne.
They came back at four o'clock in the afternoon, but the Commissary was still out. It was nine o'clock, after five inquiries, that the sentry replied "Yes" to the inevitable question.
"Now you will see him," said Malinkoff, "and the future depends upon the potency of your favourite patron saint."
Malcolm stopped in the doorway.
"General–" he said.
"Not that word," said Malinkoff quickly. "Citizen or comrade—comrade for preference."
"I feel that I am leading you into danger—I have been horribly selfish and thoughtless. Will it make any difference to you, your seeing him?"
Malinkoff shook his head.
"You're quite right, it is always dangerous to attract the attention of the Committee for Combatting the Counter-Revolution," he said, "but since I have taken you in hand I might as well see him as stay outside on my cab, because he is certain to inquire who brought you here, and it might look suspicious if I did not come in with you. Besides, somebody will have to vouch for you as a good comrade and friend of the Soviet."
He was half in earnest and half joking, but wholly fatalistic.
As they went up the broad spiral staircase which led to the main floor of the Yaroslav Palace, Malcolm had qualms. He heartily cursed himself for bringing this man into danger. So far as he was concerned, as he told himself, there was no risk at all, because he was a British traveller, having no feeling one way or the other toward the Soviet Government. But Malinkoff would be a marked man, under suspicion all the time. Before the office of the Commissary was a sentry without rifle. He sat at a table which completely blocked the doorway, except for about eight inches at one side. He inquired the business of the visitors, took their names and handed them to a soldier, and with a sideways jerk of his head invited them to squeeze past him into the bureau.
