On the day following my visit to Zorinsky I appeared punctually at eleven o’clock at the empty flat with “No. 5” chalked on the back door. It was not far from Zorinsky’s, but I approached it by a circuitous route, constantly looking round to assure myself I was not being followed. The filthy yard was as foul and noisome as ever, vying in stench with the gloomy staircase, and I met no one. Maria, no longer suspicious, opened the door in answer to my three knocks. “Peter Ivanitch is not here yet,” she said, “but he should be in any minute.” So I sat down to read the Soviet newspapers.
Marsh’s three thumps at the back door were not long in making themselves heard. Maria hurried along the passage, I heard the lock creak, the door stiffly tugged open, and then suddenly a little stifled cry from Maria. I rose quickly. Marsh burst, or rather tumbled, into the room with his head and face bound up in a big black shawl. As he laboriously unwound it I had a vision of Maria in the doorway, her fist in her mouth, staring at him speechless and terrified.
It was a strange Marsh that emerged from the folds of the black shawl. The invincible smile struggled to maintain itself, but his eyes were bleared and wandered aimlessly, and he shook with agitation despite his efforts to retain self-control.
“My wife—” he stammered, half coherently, dropping into a chair and fumbling feverishly for his handkerchief. “She was subjected yesterday—seven hours’ cross-examination—uninterruptedly—no food—not even allowed to sit down—until finally she swooned. She has said something—I don’t know what. I am afraid—” He rose and strode up and down, mumbling so that I could scarcely understand, but I caught the word “indiscretion”—and understood all he wished to say.
After a few moments he calmed and sat down again. “The Policeman came home at midnight,” he said, “and told me all about it. I questioned and questioned again and am sure he is not lying. The Bolsheviks believe she was implicated in some conspiracy, so they made her write three autobiographies, and” (he paused) “they—are all different. Now—she is being compelled to explain discrepancies, but she can’t remember anything and her mind seems to be giving. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks are resolved to eradicate, once and for all, all ‘English machinations,’ as they call it, in Russia. They know I’ve shaved and changed my appearance and a special detachment of spies is on the hunt for me, with a big reward offered to the finder.”
He paused and swallowed at a gulp the glassful of tea Maria had placed beside him.
“Look here, old man,” he said, suddenly, laying his hands out flat on the table in front of him, “I am going to ask you to help me out. The ‘Policeman’ says it’s worse for her that I should be here than if I go. So I’m going. Once they know I’ve fled, the Policeman says, they will cease plaguing her, and it may be easier to effect an escape. Tell me, will you take the job over for me?”
“My dear fellow,” I said, “I had already resolved that I would attempt nothing else until we had safely got your wife out of prison. And the day she gets out I will escort her over the frontier myself. I shall have to go to Finland to report, anyway.”
He was going to thank me but I shut him up.
“When will you go?” I asked.
“Tomorrow. There are a number of things to be done. Have you got much money?”
“Enough for myself, but no reserve.”
“I will leave you all I have,” he said, “and today I’ll go and see a business friend of mine who may be able to get some more. He is a Jew, but is absolutely trustworthy.”
“By the way,” I asked, when this matter was decided, “ever heard of a Captain Zorinsky?”
“Zorinsky? Zorinsky? No. Who is he?”
“A fellow who seems to know a lot about you,” I said. “Says he is a friend of Melnikoff’s, though I never heard Melnikoff mention him. Yesterday he was particularly anxious to know your present address.”
“You didn’t tell him?” queried Marsh, nervously.
“What do you take me for?”
“You can tell him day after tomorrow,” he laughed.
Marsh went off to his business friend, saying he would warn him of my possible visit, and stayed there all day. I remained at “No. 5” and wrote up in minute handwriting on tracing paper a preliminary report on the general situation in Petrograd, which I intended to ask Marsh to take with him. To be prepared for all contingencies I gave the little scroll to Maria when it was finished and she hid it at the bottom of a pail of ashes.
Next morning Marsh turned up at “No. 5” dressed in a huge sheepskin coat with a fur collar half engulfing his face. This was the disguise in which he was going to escape across the frontier. As passport he had procured the “certificate of identification” of his coachman, who had come into Petrograd from the expropriated farm to see Maria. With his face purposely dirtied, and decorated with three days’ growth of reddish beard, a driver’s cap that covered his ears, and a big sack on his back to add a peasant touch to his getup, Marsh looked—well, like nothing on earth, to use the colloquial expression! It was a getup that defied description, yet in a crowd of peasants would not attract particular attention.
Confident that he was doing the right thing
