Читать книгу The Elephant Never Forgets - Ethel Lina White - Страница 5

Table of Contents

AS Anna stared blankly before her, suddenly she realised the real reason for Conrad Stern's intervention. His question about Otto held no reference to the quarrel. He merely assumed that she had heard of the raid, and therefore, could have no wish to stay longer in Russia.

Her thoughts were recalled by the sight of Olga's stricken face. It brought home the truth that this was the Jewess's tragedy. Although she was both shocked and sorry personally, to hear of Otto's arrest, he had hurt her so much that she felt no sense of real loss.

"It must be some terrible mistake," she cried. "Why should they arrest him?"

Olga shook away her hand and laughed.

"For anti-Soviet propaganda," she said defiantly.

Anna felt as though Olga had struck her between her eyes.

"But the paper was non-political," she protested feebly.

"The paper was only a blind. He had you all fooled. Both sides were paying him—the Fascists and his rich intellectual friends."

"Don't talk like that. We must do him the justice to believe that he acted from conviction."

"Why must we?" Olga's thin red lips writhed with scorn, as she explained. "It's quite simple. He wanted money—that is all. The best posts in a government are always already filled. A young and ambitious man must be an 'Anti,' because a revolution will give him his chance to rise."

"Still I can't see why he should want money so desperately as all that. He had enough."

"Not enough for me. You understand, one must experience everything. But I had never known luxury...It was good while it lasted, especially when one knows the end...Now the future holds more experience. One can only wait."

The fatalistic attitude did not appeal to Anna, in spite of the jar to her feelings. Otto had betrayed his country—and the magnitude of this offence dwarfed his disloyalty to herself. All the same, it seemed scarcely civilised to abandon him to his fate.

At the memory of a muddy swell of water sweeping past the prison wall, she spoke urgently.

"Olga, we must do something at once. We must go to the prison and arrange bail for him."

The mention of the British procedure made Olga shake her head with a gloomy triumph in defeatism.

"It is all utterly hopeless," she told Anna. "We have all been to the prison—even the secret Stern. But they will tell us nothing of Otto. They say they do not know. All lies—but we shall never know. This is the end."

She lit another cigarette and stared at Anna with sombre eyes.

"Are you not unhappy now that you quarrelled with him yesterday?" she demanded. "You hurt him so deeply. Is it not misery to remind yourself that you would be spared this regret if only you had waited for one short day longer?"

Anna did her best to hide her real feeling, for the reproach had made her realise her luck.

Had she waited that extra day, her private money would now be confiscated with the rest of the funds.

Since her bedroom at the hotel was too communal for the safe-keeping of valuables, Otto had acted as her banker and kept her surplus funds at the office. During yesterday's quarrel, however, he marked his displeasure by opening the safe and taking out an envelope.

"Since you do not trust me," he said, "I refuse to hold this for you. Oblige me by counting it now, in my presence. You will find I have borrowed a little, from time to time—but I have always left an I.O.U."

Instead of being ashamed by his gesture and assuring him of her confidence in him, Anna was unfeignedly glad to take possession. What was worse, she exhibited a business spirit, which—besides being bourgeois—led to the revelation of Olga's fur coat.

At the end of the stocktaking interlude, they parted in mutual anger. Otto stamped out of the office, while Anna lingered, in order to place her money in a temporary hiding-place. On the morrow she would get a strong lock fitted to her suitcase; but, in the meanwhile, it seemed unwise to carry her surplus in her bag, for fear of mischance.

She knew of a cache which was her secret.

There was a deep crack at the back of one of the pigeon-holes in the battered roll-top desk, through which she pushed the envelope. It was completely concealed behind the matchwood lining, and she was confident that no one would guess its existence.

But even as she congratulated herself on her foresight, the recollection of the raid caused a doubt to form in her mind.

"Olga," she said, "wait here for me. I have something to do. I won't be long away."

With the sense that she could not reach the office quickly enough, she ran across the deserted square and turned into an alley where she scuffled through layers of half-frozen leaves.

To her relief, the wooden building wore its usual appearance. The door was unlocked and was unguarded by an official. As she rushed up the dark, crazy stairs her heart pounded with suspense. In her haste, she forgot to avoid the broken step and her heel crashed through the rotten wood; but she wrenched it free of splinters and raced up through the darkness of the top flight.

Her luck seemed to hold, for the office was deserted. It presented a scene of desolate disorder with its grimed windows and cold stove. The dirty walls were washed a pale blue—the hue of skim milk—and were covered with pencil scribbles. Although the files and official literature had been removed, the refuse was left, and the floor was littered with papers.

Anna was conscious of nothing but the roll-desk, which was still cluttered with rubbish. Scooping out a bundle of soiled typescript, she thrust her arm into the pigeon-hole and explored the crack.

To her joy, she could feel the top of the envelope.

Even as she congratulated herself, she heard the whine of the street-door being pushed over the stone passage. At the sound she began to panic.

"If it's an official he will confiscate my money," she thought. "I must get it before he comes."

Its removal was a delicate task for slim fingers, and, with time to spare, she could have managed it easily. But flurried by the clatter of heavy boots mounting the stairs, she made a frantic dive to grip a corner and only succeeded in prodding it farther back behind the lining.

As she fished frantically for it, she could feel it slipping away from under her touch. It was now a hopeless enterprise, for the steps had reached the door. She had barely time to spring away from the desk before a youth entered the room.

It was not the police, but one of the regular gang—a shaggy youth who had used the office as a club. Anna remembered that his name was "Ivan," and that, although she accepted him fraternally, she would not have tolerated him as a casual acquaintance.

He was an unpleasant-looking person, with shifty eyes; his hair was long and greasy, while his skin was pitted as a photograph of the surface of the moon.

"What are you doing here, Comrade?" he asked suspiciously.

"I have only just heard the news," she replied quickly. "So I came to see if any one was here who could tell me more. I am quite in the dark about it all."

"I, too," declared Ivan, with an emphasis which matched her own. "Before to-day, I knew nothing at all."

She had to accept his statement, although she was not impressed by his crafty glance.

"It has been a shock to both of us," she said. "But what have you come for?"

"To pick up any trifle they have left," replied the youth. "Paper and pencils are always useful to a student. Also I wish to write letters here. Maybe, I could find a stamp."

Anna clenched her fingers impatiently as Ivan seated himself at the desk. It was evident that he planned a lengthy session, for he laid his lunch—a parcel of garlic-sausage sandwiches—on the blotting-pad.

Tantalised by the check, she wondered whether she could appeal to him for help. She was trying to decide if she could trust him, when, fortunately, she remembered a story about his early youth.

It was whispered that, as a boy, he had been one of the Besprizorny—a band of child-robbers—that operated on a ruthless and wholesale scale.

It was not exactly a recommendation for honesty. Besides, she doubted the value of his services, for his hands were too clumsy for delicate manipulation. He would probably try to spike the envelope with his knife, in which case the notes might be mutilated.

"I think I could ease it out myself, with a manicure tool," she reflected. "But I must wait until he is gone."

"I must go back to Olga," she told Ivan. "When will you be leaving?"

"Seychas."

She might have known the answer would be the inevitable Russian "Presently," which spanned, without measuring, every interval of time. There was nothing to do now but to prepare for action and wait her opportunity.

She did not run on her return journey to the café. When she entered it, she found that Olga had gone without leaving any message. To fill the gap of waiting until Ivan had finished his letters, she walked back to the hotel as slowly as the temperature admitted.

The leaves underfoot rustled hoarsely at every step, as though in protest. In the lanes between the tall houses, she caught glimpses of a heaving ale-coloured sea, clotted thickly with cat-ice. Gone was the husky murmur of the trees and the lapping of wine-dark water in an enchanted dusk.

When she reached the hotel, the chambermaid met her in the hall.

"Now you have bought your ticket," she said to Anna, "we can begin our last game of chess."

Anna grimaced slightly at the reminder of her unfulfilled promise to Conrad Stern, as she set the pieces on the board. She lingered in the vestibule making the opening moves, in readiness for her inevitable nightly defeat by the chambermaid, and then went upstairs, to fetch her manicure-case.

As she hastened back to the office, she wondered hopefully whether Ivan had finished his letter.

"Perhaps in another five minutes I shall be on my way to buy my ticket," she thought. "He must be gone. I've given him enough time to clear out the place."

It was an ill-omened suggestion, for, when she entered the room, she stared around her in dismay.

Apparently the former boy-robber had broken his own record. He was there still, seated on the floor and chewing sunflower seeds as he scribbled in a notebook.

But every stick of furniture had disappeared.

"Where is the desk?" she gasped.

"Sold," replied Ivan. "Everything was confiscated by the State. After you left, a dealer arrived and took it all away."