Читать книгу Gabriel Samara, Peacemaker - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 9

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Catherine, on her return to Samara's suite at the Hotel Weltmore, found the sofa in the sitting room occupied by a young man who stared at her with curious eyes as she entered. He was tall, phenomenally thin and phenomenally sallow. The hollows in his cheeks were so pronounced that the higher bones themselves seemed almost on the point of pushing their way through the flesh. His coal-black hair was long and dishevelled, and his unshaven condition added to the wildness of his appearance. Catherine, with the instinct of her sex, took note only of his obvious ill health, and her tone as she addressed him was kindly.

"You must be Andrew Kroupki, Mr. Samara's secretary," she said, removing the cover from her typewriter. "Mr. Samara scarcely expected that you would be well enough to get up to-day."

"I cannot lie in bed here," he declared feebly. "I become nervous. It is terrible to be ill so far from home. There is only Ivan, and Ivan hates me."

"Why should he do that?" she asked soothingly.

"Because he and I live closest to the Chief," was the impatient reply. "Ivan is jealous. He is very foolish. It is his strength which protects, and my brains. We are allies but he will not have it so. Have you been working for the Chief?"

"All the morning," she answered. "I still have a long list of invitations to decline. He is returning at four o'clock."

"Do you know anything about a despatch for Cherbourg?" he continued. "My brain was on fire this morning. I could not even ask."

"The despatch is finished and Mr. Samara took it away with him," she confided. "Part of it I typed and the more important part he wrote in by hand."

The young man closed his eyes for a moment.

"It is terrible to be like this," he groaned, "when one is needed."

She rose from her seat and came over to the couch, laid her hand for a moment upon his head and felt his pulse.

"Have you seen a doctor?" she enquired.

"Yes," he answered; "I am taking some medicine. He told me to lie in bed and let my brain rest."

"Would you like a drink? Some iced water?"

He made a little grimace.

"I hate it," he muttered. "In Russia we do not drink water."

She drew a phial of eau de Cologne from her bag, soaked her handkerchief with it and laid it upon his head.

"That is very pleasant," he sighed gratefully.

"I wonder," she suggested, "would you care for some tea—tea with lemon, freshly made and clear coloured?"

"Wonderful," he assented eagerly.

She sent for the floor waiter, procured some materials, and busied herself for a few minutes with the equipage which he brought. The young man sipped the beverage when she handed it to him with something approaching ecstasy.

"I have had nothing like this since the fever came," he told her. "What is your name?"

"Catherine Borans."

He looked at her with wide-open eyes. Already there was a gleam of something more than admiration in them.

"Where do you come from?" he asked.

"The Weltmore Typewriting Bureau downstairs," she replied. "Now try to go to sleep for a little time. Do you think that the sound of the typewriter will disturb you? If so, I will write some of these letters by hand. I do not think that Mr. Samara would mind."

He shook his head.

"It will not disturb me," he assured her. "I should like to lie here and watch you work. You are a very wonderful person. Are you an American?"

She smiled.

"You are not to talk any more," she enjoined. "Close your eyes and try to sleep."

"I like to watch you," he murmured.

Catherine was a person unafflicted with self-consciousness, so she continued her work methodically, although every time she looked up she found his eyes upon her.

"More tea," he begged once.

She gave him another cup, and renewed the eau de Cologne on her handkerchief. Presently he closed his eyes. When Samara returned he was sleeping peacefully.

"You didn't tell me that I was to be hospital nurse as well as typist," she remarked, speaking in an undertone.

Samara crossed the room and looked down at the young man.

"You've done very well with him," he said. "His respiration is better, the fever is down. What have you been giving him? Tea? It smells very good. I should like to try it myself."

She made some more and he drank it gratefully. He appeared a little tired; his interview had not been altogether satisfactory.

"You have the Russian touch for tea," he told her. "There is nothing like it in the world. I drink wines and spirits—everything—but tea like this is better than all."

"And better for you," she observed.

"Sometimes its exhilaration is not rapid enough," he said.

The young man stirred in his place. His master's tone was suddenly kind as he turned towards him.

"You are feeling better, Andrew?" he asked in Russian.

"Much better," was the eager reply. "This young lady has been very good to me. Did you find her by accident, sir?"

"By accident," Samara assured him.

"She is intelligent?"

"She is adequate," was the expressionless reply. "I need your help, though, Andrew. Get well quickly."

"I am almost well now," the young man declared, sitting up. "In a few days I shall be able to do anything. It is fortunate for you, master," he went on, still speaking in his own language, "that you hate women."

"I do not hate them," Samara protested. "I simply do not appreciate them."

"You hate them," Andrew repeated emphatically. "Even when you play with them you show it in your manner. It is fortunate for you. This young lady might cause you trouble."

Samara glanced behind uneasily. Catherine was continuing her task with immovable face.

"I am going to take you to your room now, Andrew," he announced. "Your leaving it was against the doctor's orders."

"I am content," the young man assented. "I am very weary, but I feel sleep coming."

They crossed the room together, the young man leaning on Samara's arm. At the door he turned back.

"Thank you very much, miss," he said in English.

"Get well quickly," she enjoined, with a smile.

Samara returned a few minutes later. Catherine leaned back in her chair.

"Thank you for being kind to Andrew," he said.

"He seems delicate," she remarked.

"A little neurotic, and, I am afraid, consumptive," Samara agreed. "He is the son of one of my great friends, the man who first helped me fight against the anarchists. When he died I took the lad to work for me. He is able and devoted, but he has exaggerated ideas of everything. Your kindness has been good for him. He is already asleep."

"He is very devoted to you," she said.

"Almost foolishly so," he admitted. "There are times when I have trouble with him. Tell me now about these friends of yours. I see that I was right in my assumption. You and your companions are amongst those who hope for the impossible things."

"If I may, I will explain," Catherine suggested. "My mother died in this country when I was three years old and left as my patroness the exiled Grand Duchess Alexandrina, Sophia of Kossas. I have been brought up, therefore, indirectly attached to a strange little circle. Would you really like to know about them?"

"Most certainly," he assured her emphatically. "They are Russians."

"Very well, then," she continued. "There are six of them. We live in an apartment house a long way the other side of Central Park. We all share a sitting room for purposes of economy. Every one is poor, every one is shabby, every one is miserable. Now, if you wish, I shall tell you about them, one by one."

"If you please," he murmured.

"First of all, then, there is Nicholas Imanoff," she began. "He is the nearest living descendant of the last Tzar. He is twenty-five years old, was educated with great difficulty at Harvard, and ekes out an embittered existence selling bonds on commission for a New York stock-broking firm. He calls himself Mr. Ronoff, but every one knows who he is, and I think it very probable that the little business he gets is because he appeals to people's curiosity. He is rather bad-tempered, does not take enough exercise, drinks a little more than is good for him, but is quite capable at times of justifying his descent."

"An admirable sketch," Samara declared. "Proceed, please."

"I will speak of my patroness, the Grand Duchess," Catherine continued. "She is a fair, fat old lady of sixty-eight. She dresses abominably, her walk is almost a waddle, she takes no care of her person, and she earns a few dollars a month by making artificial roses. She calls herself Mrs. Kossas."

"Less interesting," Samara commented. "Proceed."

"There is Boris Kirdorff," she went on. "Sometimes I believe he uses an obsolete title of 'Colonel.' I think that he has more brains than any of the others, and certainly less conscience. He comes from a great family, as I dare say you know. His is a cold, unattractive personality, but he is a born schemer and if ever the others have hopes it is through him they are expressed. He is secretary to a very bourgeois card club, but I think the greater part of his small earnings is spent in gambling.

"General Orenburg is a more pleasing personality, but he is older. He is the only one who has any money and that is a very small amount. He puts it into the common stock. He spends his whole day at the libraries, and he has fifteen different schemes for bringing about a monarchist rising in Russia."

"Any other young people?" Samara enquired.

"There is Cyril Volynia Sabaroff of Perm and his sister, Rosa. Cyril is interested in the sale of automobiles. His income varies a great deal, though. Rosa is engaged as reception clerk at a photographer's shop. They are less serious than the rest of us, and, if only they had money, I think they would be content to stay in this country for the remainder of their days. The others of us, as you may have gathered, have only one desire in life, and that is to return to Russia."

"Why not?" Samara observed. "You are all Russians. You have a perfect right to live in your native land."

There was a moment's silence. Catherine was gazing across the top of her typewriter at her companion. Samara was lounging on the other end of the table, his hands in his pockets, a cigar which he had lighted, without remark, between his lips.

"You seem to forget," she said quietly, "that there is such a thing as a decree of banishment against the absentee aristocracy of Russia."

"Rubbish!" he exclaimed. "Out of date! Antediluvian! I'll revoke it the day I get back. You can consider it revoked now. Mind you," he went on, striking the table a mighty blow with his fist, "there is another decree in Russia which will never be suspended. It is my aim to make Russia the freest country in the world, but if I find an anarchist in café, street or public meeting, he is shot within the hour. Against anarchists the law of Russia is as the law against vermin—death; summary, unquestionable! There is no one else calling himself a Russian who is not welcome to take his place amongst the community."

"Will you repeat this to my friends?" she asked, and there was very nearly a tremor in her tone.

"Take me to them," he invited.

"I shall call for you at nine o'clock," she promised. "Please let us work now. I feel that I am wasting your time."

It was a dejected, almost a pathetic little crowd gathered round the sparsely laid dinner table in a back apartment of the Amsterdam Avenue Private Hotel. The furniture, the table appointments, the faded carpet upon the floor were all according to type. The prospect from the solitary window was of brick and masonry and a jumble of telegraph wires. Occasionally the room shook with the thunder of an elevated train passing near by. A coloured servant, whose dress seemed to have been put on in scraps, was serving the meal from the sideboard. There were two jugs of water and a carafe of light beer upon the table; in its centre a little vase with a handful of cheap flowers. General Orenburg sat at one end and Alexandrina of Kossas at the other. Conversation was intermittent. They all appeared to be engrossed in their own thoughts.

"Catherine is late to-day," Alexandrina observed.

"Catherine is late but here," the young lady in question remarked, opening the door in time to hear the sound of her own name.

They all looked at her with interest. She seemed somehow or other to represent the vitality of the little circle, which brightened visibly at her coming. Kirdorff, whom nothing in this world escaped, watched her curiously, as she took her place. His was a queer, hawklike face with black eyes and indrawn lips. His hair, thin about the temples and carefully brushed, was unexpectedly light-coloured.

"Catherine has something to tell us," he observed.

"I have something very wonderful to tell you," Catherine confessed, as she pushed aside a bowl of very unappetising soup. "You need not bother about my dinner. I lunched at the Ritz Carlton, and I shall eat a great many of Mrs. Saxon J. Bossington's sandwiches later on. Listen to me, everybody. Of all men in this world, with whom do you think I lunched? It is absurd to ask you to guess. I lunched with Gabriel Samara!"

A thunderbolt through the roof could have scarcely created a greater sensation. There were exclamations in every key. Then, with the passing of that first wave of astonishment, came a fierce and intense interest. Kirdorff leaned across the table, his fists clenched, his eyes protuberant. The Grand Duchess talked to herself in broken sentences. Nicholas Imanoff spoke.

"How came you to meet Samara?" he demanded.

"In the most natural way possible," Catherine explained. "He telephoned to the Bureau for a typist—his secretary has been taken ill. The assignment was given to me. My work pleased him. He invited me to lunch."

"You lunched with that man!" Nicholas muttered.

"There are very few men I wouldn't lunch with at the Ritz Carlton," Catherine rejoined coolly, "but I will tell you this now of Gabriel Samara. He stands for other principles than ours, but he is a man. He is what Cyril Volynia here, when he came back from England, called a 'sportsman.' We met Mrs. Saxon J. Bossington, and she spoke of to-night. Samara asked me who my Russian friends were, and I told him. Then listen to what he said. 'They are Russians. Why do they live in New York? Why do they not go back to Russia?'"

"Samara said that!" Kirdorff intervened.

"Absolutely!" Catherine continued. "I reminded him of the decree of banishment. He scoffed at it. He undertook that it should be revoked. He has told me in plain words that you are all of you free to return to Russia."

There was an almost awed silence. Alexandrina was sobbing quietly into her handkerchief. Kirdorff was drumming upon the table.

"Free to return!" he muttered. "Why not? If one could only breathe there—could live——"

"Or die," General Orenburg interrupted fervently, "so long as it was in Russia!"

"There is surely a living to be made there as well as here," Cyril Volynia declared. "Perhaps my firm would let me open a branch depot at Moscow."

"Listen," Catherine warned them, "you must make up your minds to this. It is necessary and it may lead to great things. You must meet Samara."

The Grand Duchess left off sobbing. The suggestion was so astounding that the words themselves seemed to convey no definite meaning to her.

"Meet Samara!" Kirdorff reflected. "He will want to know our attitude towards his Government, of course. He will require pledges."

"I have not the faintest idea what he will say to you," Catherine observed. "I can only tell you this. He is a brave man. He is rash. He is broad-minded. He is ingenuous. He does not in the least resemble one's idea of a democratic leader."

Nicholas Imanoff looked across the table. There was a note of covert jealousy in his tone.

"Does he know who you are?" he asked.

"He does not, and I desire that he should not know," she rejoined. "I have spoken of Alexandrina of Kossas as my patroness."

"Tell us this," Kirdorff asked quietly, the instincts of the conspirator already stirring within him. "In the course of your work to-day did you come to any conclusion as to the success or failure of his mission over here? Have you formed any idea as to how far he means to go with this mad scheme of his?"

"We will talk of that later," Catherine replied. "It is better for you to know nothing to-night. What I want you all to remember now is that in half an hour's time we leave here to hold one of our formal meetings under the roof and patronage of Mrs. Saxon J. Bossington."

"You are coming with us, Catherine?" the Grand Duchess demanded.

"I am going back to the hotel to fetch Mr. Samara," was the unexpected rejoinder.

Nicholas half rose to his feet.

"I will escort you," he declared.

Catherine smiled at him coldly.

"You will do nothing of the sort, Nicholas," she said. "If you take my advice, you will remember what I say. So far as Gabriel Samara knows, I am a typist from the Weltmore Secretarial Bureau. It is my wish that he knows no more than this. Kindly remember that."

Kirdorff nodded approvingly.

"Our little sister knows best," he pronounced.