I was awakened rudely by a loud ring at the bell, and sprang up, all alert. It was a quarter to eight. Who, I asked myself, could the callers be? A search? Had the house committee heard of the unregistered lodger? What should I say? I would say Stepanovna was a relative, I would complain rudely of being disturbed, I would bluster, I would flaunt my passport of the Extraordinary Commission. Or perhaps Stepanovna and Varia would somehow explain away my presence, for they knew the members of the committee. I began dressing hastily. I could hear Stepanovna and Varia conferring in the kitchen. Then they both shuffled along the passage to the door. I heard the door opened, first on the chain, and then a moment’s silence. At last the chain was removed. Someone was admitted and the door closed. I heard men’s voices and boots tramping along the passage. Convinced now that a search was to be made I fished feverishly in my pockets to get out my passport for demonstration, when—into the room burst Melnikoff! Never was I so dumbfounded in my life! Melnikoff was dressed in other clothes than I had seen him in when we last parted and he wore spectacles which altered his appearance considerably. Behind him entered a huge fellow, a sort of Ilya Muromets, whose stubble-covered face brimmed over with smiles beaming good-nature and jollity. This giant was dressed in a rough and ragged brown suit and in his hand he squeezed a dirty hat.
“Marsh,” observed Melnikoff, curtly, by way of introduction, smiling at my incredulity. We shook hands heartily all round while I still fumbled my passport. “I was about to defy you with that!” I laughed, showing them the paper. “Tell me, how the—I thought you were in prison!”
“Not quite!” Marsh exclaimed, dropping into English at once. “I had a lucky escape! Slithered down a drainpipe outside the kitchen window into the next yard as the Reds came in at the front door. Shaved my beard at once.” He rubbed his chin. “About time, by the way, I saw the barber again. The blighters are looking for me everywhere. I was held up one evening by one of their damned spies under a lamppost. I screwed my face into a grimace and asked him for a light. Then I knocked him down. And yesterday evening I was going into a yard on Sadovaya Street when under the arch I heard someone behind me say, ‘Marsh!’ I sprang round, just about to administer the same medicine, when I saw it was Melnikoff!”
“But how did you find me here?” I said.
“Ask Melnikoff.” I asked Melnikoff in Russian. He was nervous and impatient.
“Luck,” he replied. “I guessed you might possibly be in Sergeievitch’s flat, and so you are. But listen, I can’t stay here long. I’m being looked for, too. You can meet me safely at three this afternoon at the 15th communal eating-house in the Nevsky. You don’t need a ticket to enter. I’ll tell you everything then. Don’t stay more than two nights in one place.”
“All right,” I said, “three o’clock at the 15th eating-house.”
“And don’t go to Vera’s any more,” he added as he hurried away. “Something is wrong there. Goodbye.”
“Get dressed,” said Marsh when Melnikoff had gone, “and I’ll take you straight along to a place you can go to regularly. But rely mainly on Melnikoff, he’s the cleverest card I ever saw.”
Stepanovna, beaming with pleasure and pride at having two Englishmen in her flat, and nervous at the same time on account of the circumstances, brought in tea, and I told Marsh of my mission to Russia. Though he had not been connected with intelligence organizations, he knew people who had, and mentioned the names of a number of persons whose aid might be re-enlisted. One or two occupied high positions in the Ministry of War and the Admiralty.
But there was a more pressing task on hand than intelligence. The Bolsheviks suspected Marsh, together with other Englishmen, of complicity, in assisting allied citizens who were refused passports to escape from the country secretly. Numerous arrests among foreigners were being made and Marsh had had a hairbreadth escape. But his wife had been seized in his stead as hostage, and this calamity filled him with concern.
Mrs. Marsh was imprisoned at the notorious No. 2 Gorokhovaya Street, the address of the Extraordinary Commission, and Marsh was awaiting the report of a man who had connections with the Commission as to the possibilities of effecting her escape. “This man,” explained Marsh, “was, I believe, an official of the Okhrana (the Tsar’s personal secret police) before the revolution, and is doing some sort of clerical work in a Soviet institution now. The Bolsheviks are re-engaging Tsarist police agents for the Extraordinary Commission, so he has close connections there and knows most of what goes on. He is a liar and it is difficult to believe what he says, but” (Marsh paused and rubbed his forefinger and thumb together to indicate that finance entered into the transaction), “if you outbid the Bolsheviks, this fellow can do things. Understand?”
Marsh put me up to the latest position of everything in Petrograd. He also said he would be able to find me lodging for a few nights until
