The Book of All-Power/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
THE COMMISSARY WITH THE CROOKED NOSE
THERE were a dozen men in the room in stained military overcoats and red armlets. One, evidently an officer, who carried a black portfolio under his arm, was leaning against the panelled wall, smoking and snapping his fingers to a dingy white terrier that leapt to his repeated invitations.
At the table, covered with documents, were two people, the man and the woman.
She, sprawling indolently forward, her head upon her arm, her strong brown face turned to the man, was obviously a Jewess. The papers were streaked and greasy where her thick black ringlets had rested, and the ashes of her cigarette lay in little untidy heaps on the table.
The man was burly, with a great breadth of shoulder and big rough hands. But it was his face which arrested the feet of Malcolm and brought him to a sudden halt the moment he came near enough to see and recognize the Commissary.
It was not by his bushy red beard nor the stiff, upstanding hair, but by the crooked nose, that he recognized Boolba, sometime serving-man to the Grand Duke Yaroslav. Malcolm, looking at the sightless eyes, felt his spine go creepy.
Boolba lifted his head sharply at the sound of an unfamiliar footfall.
"Who is this?" he asked. "Sophia Kensky, you who are my eyes, tell me who is this?"
"Oh, a boorjoo," said the woman lazily.
"A foreigner too—who are you, boorjoo?"
"A Britisher," said Malcolm.
Boolba lifted his chin and turned his face at the voice.
"A Britisher," he repeated slowly. "The man on the oil-fields. Tell me your name."
"Hay—Malcolm Hay," said Malcolm, and Boolba nodded.
His face was like a mask and he expressed no emotion.
"And the other?"
"Malinkoff!" snapped the voice at Malcolm's side, and Boolba nodded.
"Commanding an army—I remember. You drive a cab, comrade. Are there any complaints against this man?"
He turned his face to Sophia Kensky, and she shook her head.
"Are there any complaints against this man, Sophia?" he repeated.
"None that I know. He is an aristocrat and a friend of the Romanoffs."
"Huh!" The grunt sounded like a note of disappointment. "What do you want?"
"The stranger wishes permission to remain in Moscow until he can find a train to the north," said Malinkoff.
Boolba made no reply. He sat there, his elbows on the table, his fingers twining and untwining the thick red hair of his beard.
"Where does he sleep to-night?" he asked after awhile.
"He sleeps in my stable, near the Vassalli Prospekt," said Malinkoff.
Boolba turned to the woman, who was lighting a new cigarette from the end of the old one, and said something in a low, growling tone.
"Do as you wish, my little pigeon," she said audibly.
Again his hand went to his beard and his big mouth opened in meditation. Then he said curtly:
"Sit down."
There was no place to sit, and the two men fell back amongst the soldiers.
Again the two at the table consulted, and then Sophia Kensky called a name. The man in a faded officer's uniform came forward, his big black portfolio in his hand, and this he laid on the table, opening the flap and taking out a sheaf of papers.
"Read them to me, Sophia," said Boolba. "Read their names."
He groped about on the table and found first a rubber stamp and then a small, flat ink-pad. Sophia lifted the first of the papers and spelt out the names.
"Mishka Sasanoff," she said, and the man growled.
"An upstart woman and very ugly," he said. "I remember her. She used to whip her servants. Tell me, Sophia, my life, what has she done now?"
"Plotted to destroy the Revolution," said the woman.
"Huh!" grunted the man, as he brought his rubber stamp to the paper, passing it across to the waiting officer, who replaced it in his portfolio. "And the next?"
"Paul Geslkin," she said and passed the document to him. "Plotting to overthrow the Revolution."
"A boorjoo, a tricky young man, in league with the priests," he said, and again his stamp came down upon the paper, and again the paper went across the table into the portfolio of the officer.
The soldiers about Malcolm and his friend had edged away, and they were alone.
"What are these?" whispered Malcolm.
"Death warrants," replied Malinkoff laconically, and for the second time a cold chill ran down Malcolm's spine.
Name after name were read out, and the little rubber stamp, which carried death to one and sorrow to so many, thudded down upon the paper. Malcolm felt physically ill. The room was close and reeked of vile tobacco fumes. There was no ventilation, and the oil lamps made the apartment insufferably hot. An hour, two hours passed, and no further notice was paid to the two men.
"I can't understand it quite," said Malinkofi in a low voice. "Ordinarily this would mean serious trouble, but if the Commissary had any suspicion of you or me, we should have been in prison an hour ago."
Then suddenly Boolba rose.
"What is the hour?" he said.
A dozen voices replied.
"Half-past ten? It is time that the sweeper was here."
He threw back his head and laughed, and the men joined in the laughter. With a great yellow handkerchief, which reminded Malcolm of something particularly unpleasant, Boolba wiped the streams from his sightless eyes and bent down to the woman at his side, and Malcolm heard him say: "What is his name—he told me," and then he stood up.
"Hay," he said, "you are a boorjoo. You have ordered many men to sweep your room. Is it not good that a house should be clean, eh?"
"Very good, Boolba," said Malcolm quietly.
"Boolba he calls me. He remembers well. That is good! I stood behind him, comrades, giving wine and coffee and bowing to this great English lord! Yes, I, Boolba!" he struck his chest, "crawled on my knees to this man, and he calls me Boolba now—Boolba!" he roared ferociously. "Come here! Do this! Clean my boots, Boolba! Come, little Boolba, bow thy neck that I may rest my foot!"
A voice from the door interrupted him.
"Good!" he said. "My sweeper has arrived. Hay. Once a day she sweeps my room and once a day she makes my bed. No ordinary woman will satisfy Boolba. She must come in her furs, drive in her fine carriage from the Nijitnkaya—behold!"
Malcolm looked to the doorway and was struck dumb with amazement.
The girl who came in was dressed better than he expected any woman to be dressed in Moscow. A sable wrap was about her shoulders, a sable toque was on her head. He could not see the worn shoes nor the shabby dress beneath the costly furs; indeed, he saw nothing but the face—the face of his dreams—unchanged, unlined, more beautiful than he had remembered her. She stood stiffly in her pride, her little chin held up, her contemptuous eyes fixed upon the man at the table. Then loosing her wrap, she hung it upon a peg, and opening a cupboard, took out a broad broom.
"Sweep, Irene Yaroslav," said the man.
Malcolm winced at the word, and Malinkoff turned to him sharply.
"You know her?" he said. "Of course you do—I remember. Was that why Boolba kept us waiting?"
"He was butler in the Yaroslav household," said Malcolm in the same tone.
"That explains it," said Malinkoff. "All this is for the humiliation of the Grand Duchess."
"Sweep well, little one," scoffed Boolba from his table. "Does it not do your heart good, Sophia Kensky? Oh, if I had only eyes to see! Does she go on her knees? Tell me, Sophia."
But the woman found no amusement in the sight, and she was not smiling. Her high forehead was knitted, her dark eyes followed every movement of the girl. As Boolba finished speaking she leant forward and demanded harshly:
"Irene Yaroslav, where is Israel Kensky?"
"I do not know," replied the girl, not taking her eyes from her work.
"You lie," said the woman. "You shall tell me where he is and where he has hidden his 'Book of All-Power.' She knows, Boolba."
"Peace, peace!" he said, laying his big hand on her shoulder. "Presently she will tell and be glad to tell. Where is your father, Irene Yaroslav?"
"You know best," she replied, and the answer seemed to afford him amusement.
"He was a religious man," he scoffed. "Did he not believe in miracles? Was there any saint in Kieff he did not patronize? He is with the saints this day," and then, in a fierce whisper to Sophia—"How did she look? Tell me, Sophia. How did she look when I spoke?"
"He died three weeks ago," said Irene quietly, "at the Fortress of Peter and Paul," and Boolba rapped out an oath.
"Who told you? Who told you?" he roared, "Tell me who told you, and I will have his heart out of him! I wanted to tell you that myself!"
"The High Commissary Boyaski," she replied, and Boolba swallowed his rage, for who dared criticize the High Commissaries, who hold power of life and death in their hands, even over their fellow officials? He sank down in his chair again and turned impatiently to Sophia.
"Have you no tongue in your head, Sophia Kensky!" he asked irritably. "Tell me all she does. How is she sweeping—where?"
"By the men, near the big bookcase," said the woman reluctantly.
"Yes, yes," and he nodded his great head.
He rose, walked round the table, and paced slowly to the girl as she stood quietly waiting. Malcolm had no weapon in his pocket. He had been warned by Malinkoff that visitors were searched. But on the table lay a sheathed sword—possibly the mark of authority which Boolba carried. But evidently this ceremony was a nightly occurrence. Boolba did no more than pass his hand over the girl's face.
"She is cool," he said in a disappointed tone. "You do not work hard enough, Irene Yaroslav. To-morrow you shall come with water and shall scrub this room."
The girl made no reply, but as he walked back to his seat of authority she continued her work, her eyes fixed on the floor, oblivious of her surroundings. Presently she worked round the room until she came to where Malcolm stood, and as she did so for the first time she raised her head, and her eyes met his. Again he saw that little trick of hers; her hand went to her mouth, then her head went down, and she passed on as though she had never seen him.
"What did she do, Sophia? Tell me what she did when she came to the Englishman. Did she not see him?"
"She was startled," grumbled Sophia; "that is all. Boolba, let the woman go."
"Nay, nay, my little pigeon, she must finish her work."
"She has finished," said Sophia impatiently; "how long must this go on, Boolba? Is she not an aristocrat and a Romanoff, and are there none of your men who want wives?"
Malcolm felt rather than saw the head of every soldier in the room lift to these words.
"Wait a little," said Boolba. "You forget the book, my little pigeon—the 'Book of All-Power.' I would have that rather than that Irene Yaroslav found a good husband from our comrades. You may go, Irene Yaroslav," he said. "Serge!"
The officer who had taken the death warrants, and who stood waiting for dismissal, came forward.
"Take our little brother Malinkoff and the Britisher Hay and place them both in the prison of St. Basil. They are proved enemies to the Revolution."
"I wonder who will feed my little horse to-night," said Malinkoff as, handcuffed to his companion, he marched through the streets in the light of dawn, en route, as he believed, to certain death.