XXI THE CAT’S PAW HAS CLAWS

THE electric lamp on Peter’s writing table was still glowing under its shade, but it gradually waned as morning whitened the frost-bound windows.

Peter sat by the table near the door. He was fully dressed, just as he had come from the dining room after Lutoff had warned him to have no more dealings with the Kirsakoffs. Peter’s left arm lay limply on the dingy cloth, his automatic pistol close at hand lying on its side. He was wide-eyed awake and staring at the door into the hall, as if he were waiting for some one to enter. His jaw was set grimly, and at the right side of his mouth his upper lip was askew, as if he had spent the night in thoughts which resulted in nothing but a cynical smile. His face was pale under the night’s growth of beardy stubble. The soles of both his boots rested flatly on the floor, and were pulled back slightly under his knees as he had gradually slipped down into the chair. His shoulders were bent forward in a crouching attitude, and his chin rested upon the front of his tunic.

When full daylight finally vanquished the darkness of his side of the room, he lifted his head and pulled up the sleeve of his left arm to look at his wrist-watch. He thought a moment, as if in doubt what to do next, and wound the watch. He turned and looked at the windows behind him, rubbed his jaw reflectively with the tips of his fingers, and got up wearily to look for his shaving kit on the shelf under the mirror between the windows.

He studied himself in the mirror, smoothed his rumpled hair with his hand, and went about the business of getting out his razors. But he pushed the kit away irritably, and returned to the table. He picked up his pistol, took a cautionary glance at the catch which was so arranged that it revealed the weapon to be ready for firing, and slipped the pistol into its holster on his hip. Yet he did not button down the flap of the holster, but sprung the stiff leather flap back and tucked it in behind the belt. This left the butt of the pistol ready to his hand for instant use—he could draw and fire it without the trouble of unbuttoning the flap.

He went to the little wall sink near the wardrobe and dashed water in his face. Drying himself with a handkerchief, he went once more to the mirror and combed his hair with infinite pains. This done to his satisfaction, he stood before the door leading into Katerin’s room, in an attitude of listening.

He looked at his watch again after a time, and as if he had made a decision, walked to the door and rapped gently upon it. He waited, listening. He heard nothing. Finally he went to the push-button near the door to the hall and pressed it three times in the usual signal for a samovar. Then he fell to pacing the floor, head down, and his hands clasped behind his back.

After a considerable delay, the peasant girl who had served him when he first came to the hotel brought the samovar. She seemed to be still half asleep, and having set the samovar upon the table, departed promptly without so much as a look at Peter.

He took a few more turns up and down the room till the hissing of the samovar drew his attention. He put the tea to brewing and waited listlessly till it should be ready. He drank several glasses of the steaming tea without any apparent relish of it or stimulation from it. He seemed in a stupor, as he sat staring at the floor, haggard and hollow-eyed. His face was drawn, and reflected the bitterness in his soul. He hunted his pockets for cigarettes, but found none. He looked under the table. There he saw a litter of flattened mouthpieces and matches, the remains of his night-long smoking.

There came a gentle tapping at Katerin’s door. He sprang toward it and threw off the bolt. The door came open under his hand, and Katerin stood smiling at him. She did not look any too well, he thought—as if she had not slept herself. His eyes met hers, and he forced a smile. He bowed, and with a gesture invited her to enter. He did not look past her, but he was conscious of some one moving in the room beyond—her father’s room.

“Good-morning,” she said. “I did not bring the samovar because I did not want to risk being seen in the hall.” Her voice was low, and there was a note of worry in it, as if she had already sensed something inimical in his manner, or in the close stale air of the room which reeked with the fumes of dead tobacco smoke.

Peter turned toward the window to pull a chair from the writing table.

“You—you are ill!” she exclaimed suddenly, giving him a look of concern. “And you have not slept!” She took in the undisturbed blankets on his bed.

“Yes,” said Peter dully. “I have a cold—a headache. But it is nothing—see—I have already had my morning tea and feel better.”

“I am sorry. You look as if you had suffered much,” and she sat down, still observing him with troubled doubt. She saw the exposed pistol in the holster, but refrained from anything which would indicate that she had noticed it.

“What about Kirsakoff?” he asked, as if they should get to business.

His words startled her, but she concealed from him any indication of her inner alarm.

“I came to tell you,” she answered. “We sent Wassili out through the city last night, to people who have underground information. And he came back early with his report.” She affected a quiet complacence, as if seeking news of her father’s whereabouts was a trivial detail of everyday life.

“And what did he learn?” asked Peter, sitting down by the writing table with his back to the window. He was calmer now, resolved to play his part of utter ignorance of the truth about Kirsakoff.

“The last word that has come to Chita is that—Kirsakoff is in Harbin.” She looked straight at Peter to gauge the effect of her story upon him.

“In Manchuria,” he said, without surprise. “In that case, we should go to Harbin. Could you and your father get away to Harbin with me?”

“It might be possible—with your help.” Her face took on a trace of color as her heart began to respond to her rising hope that what she planned with Peter could be carried through. At least, he had interposed no objection to going to Harbin to find Kirsakoff, and actually had in mind a willingness to take her and her father along.

“But could we find him when we got there?” he asked.

“We have friends there who know where he could be found. It should not be difficult—there are not so many Russians in Harbin, after all.”

“You are a brave woman,” he said quietly. “You must know that this whole plan holds naked menace for your father—and yourself.”

“There is greater menace here,” she replied, looking steadily into his eyes.

He wondered if she could mean that he was part of the menace. It was possible that she knew Lutoff had been talking—and that what Lutoff had said was already known to her. If the latter were true, she must realize that it would be impossible to manipulate Peter so that he would save them from Zorogoff. He dismissed the thought—she was bent now on leading him on a fool’s errand to Harbin, and once safe from the Ataman, disappear in the Manchurian city.

It now struck Peter that it might be wise to get away from the Valley of Despair with the Kirsakoffs. Harbin offered possibility not only to the Kirsakoffs, but to himself. He could hardly expect to kill Kirsakoff in Chita and cover his own tracks.

“Have you a plan for escape from the city?” he asked.

“We have talked it over with Slipitsky—the Jew. But my father is averse to having any hand in putting you into danger.”

Peter smiled. “Your father need not worry about that,” he said lightly. “Did we not arrange last night?”

“True, but——” She hesitated to go on, and turned her face from him.

“Has your father changed his mind since last night?” asked Peter, alert at once.

“Oh, no,” she said, looking at the floor. “We—we thought you might change yours. You have not been sleeping—and perhaps you gave thought to——”

“I have not changed my mind about Kirsakoff,” he said when it was plain that she was not going to finish her sentence. “I am still determined to—find him.”

“We thought you might have changed your mind about helping us.” She lifted her head, and smiled at him.

He saw at once that her reluctance to avail herself of his help was only feigned. She was too subtle to be over-eager in a matter which concerned her own safety and the safety of her father. She intended that Peter should be the insistent one, so that any suspicions he might have that they sought their own safety rather than Kirsakoff, would be allayed. She wished the trip to Harbin to be made on his wishes instead of out of their own selfish, if natural, desire to escape the Ataman.

Peter laughed without mirth.

“We might not be able to find Kirsakoff in Harbin,” he suggested.

“True,” she admitted at once. “He spends his time between Harbin and Chita. By the time we got there, he might be on his way back here.”

“Would you advise waiting?” he asked.

“That is for you to decide.”

“Then we shall go to Harbin,” he announced. “This is a serious thing to me. As I told you last night, I have waited twenty years to find Kirsakoff.”

“It should not be difficult,” she said casually.

“Not with your help,” he said, with a play at enthusiasm. “If I find him, it will be because——” He stopped short. What he was about to say was that if he found Kirsakoff, it would be due to her. But that was not true—she was concealing Kirsakoff. Peter felt he owed her nothing there.

“Perhaps you would prefer to wait till you feel better,” suggested Katerin. She was still worried about his constrained manner, and not quite sure that the change which she detected in him was due to his feeling badly, as he claimed. She sensed an undercurrent of agitation, and though the reason of it was far beyond her intuitions, she knew he had undergone some change during the night—there was something hostile in his eye, something in the slow turning of his head which revealed to her the brooding rage which burned in his brain.

“I feel well enough,” he said, putting his hand to his ruffled brow. “The pain has gone, but I feel dull and stupid. I hope you will forgive my—stolidity.” He forced a smile, and threw back his head and shook it as if to dispel a heaviness.

“When should we attempt to get away?” she asked.

“We should not delay, I think. Is it not likely that the Ataman will be down upon the hotel at any time?”

She shivered slightly. “Every minute is precious.”

“The sooner away, the sooner we shall come up to Kirsakoff,” he said, and rose to take a turn about the room. Then he came and stood over her, looking down into her face.

“Take some more tea,” she said. “If we are to go away, you must feel as well as possible.”

“True, I must. Suppose you bring your father here—and the three of us talk over the plan of going—to Harbin.”

Katerin gave him a quick glance. Once more she had caught in Peter’s manner a glimmer of the fact that he was holding himself in leash against an impulse to action which he found it painfully difficult to restrain. He frightened her a little, for there was that about his mouth, about his eyes, and in his voice which told her that this man was ready to slay.

“My father is still asleep, I am afraid,” she said. “But I know all the plans that have been made. We are to leave by droshky—and Slipitsky will forge passports for us. The old Jew is very shrewd about such things. He helped many a man escape from—the old prison.”

Peter wondered if her reluctance to let him see her father could be due to a suspicion that Peter already knew that her father was Kirsakoff.

“Droshky to Harbin! It sounds impossible! By droshky more than a thousand versts in this time of the year?”

She laughed lightly. “Not all the way, of course,” she said. “Just far enough to get away from the city—down the railway far enough to get a train beyond where Zorogoff’s men are on guard.”

“But how are we to get through the cordons of Cossacks?”

“An American officer should be able to pass—if my father and myself have forged passports. They would not stop you—an American.”

He saw the cleverness of her plan. It was a bold move. And the Kirsakoffs would not have to risk having their identity revealed to Peter during any quizzing at the railway station in Chita. Zorogoff’s passport officers would undoubtedly hold Katerin and her father if they attempted to board a train at the station with Peter—and the worst of it would be, the old general would most likely be addressed by his name in the hearing of Peter. But the sentries of the cordon around the city would be more easily fooled. In the first place, they might not recognize Kirsakoff at all if he were well wrapped in furs, and had his bandage about his face. Besides, they might be deceived by the false passports.

“Is it intended that we should go by night?” asked Peter.

“No, by day. The soldiers will not be so careful by day. By night, they might fire upon us, or hold us till morning in some guardroom while our papers were sent back to the city for examination. That is the advice Slipitsky gives. He says the best escapes are made by daylight, and the proper plan carefully worked out.”

Katerin waited till Peter thought it over. He considered the plan, looking thoughtfully at the window.

“You, as an American, can be liberal with the soldiers. Give them enough rubles to make them feel they want to please you, but not enough to rouse their suspicions. We will give you the money.”

Peter found it hard to choke down the bitterness which rose anew within him as he listened to her elaborating her plan for his deception. He was tempted for an instant to laugh at her, and tell her now that he knew all he needed to know. Yet there was a queer comfort for him in listening to Katerin go on with her intricate scheme to save herself and her father by means of the enemy of her father. And Peter realized also that they probably did not contemplate going on to Harbin with him at all—they would slip away from him on the train, at some station—anywhere once they were clear of the district in which Zorogoff’s army held any power.

“Does Wassili go with us?” he asked, thinking that perhaps the servant would be taken for the purpose of killing Peter once they had used him to get them free through the cordons.

“No, Wassili will remain here.”

“What is the first thing to be done?” he asked, as if anxious to get about the business.

“Send Wassili for the droshky and the driver who is in the plan—a man who can be trusted. That can be done as soon as Slipitsky has the passports ready. He was drying the ink this morning, over a smoky lamp to make the signatures fast and soften the wax of the seals so that the counterfeit seal could be pressed in. Then we drive straight toward Zorogoff’s headquarters, to make it appear first that we are going there. But we go around the building, so that it will appear to the first line of sentries on the other side that we have just left headquarters. That will make the first cordon willing to let us pass with scarcely any questioning. The next cordon will take it for granted that we are all right because we have passed the first—and if there is any trouble, the passports will let us through. The earlier we start, the better.”

She rose, flushed with hope, which was engendered by the very telling of how they were to escape.

“I am ready when you are,” said Peter. “Let us not lose any time.”

Tears came into her eyes. “We put our lives in your hands,” she said. “God will bless you if you aid us in our escape.”

“The road to Harbin is before us yet,” he said with a smile. “You and your father are not yet out of danger.”

“True,” she said, moving toward the door of her room. “I shall have him get ready at once, and see Slipitsky about the passports.”

Peter opened the door for her, and bowed as she passed out. He closed the door after her, and stood looking at the windows of his room, the same queer twisted smile of the morning at the corner of his mouth.