The Man from St. Petersburg (19 page)

He was sitting at the window, in pajamas and a dressing gown, with a small glass of brandy in one hand and a cigar in the other, looking out over the moonlit park. He was surprised to see her come in, for it was always he who went to her room in the night. He stood up with a welcoming smile and embraced her. She realized that he misunderstood her visit: he thought she had come to make love.

She said: “I want to talk to you.”

He released her. He looked disappointed. “At this time of night?”

“I think I may have done something awfully silly.”

“You’d better tell me about it.”

They sat down on opposite sides of the cold fireplace. Suddenly Lydia wished she
had
come to make love. She said: “A man called this morning. He said he had known me in St. Petersburg. Well, the name was familiar and I thought I vaguely recalled him … You know how it is, sometimes—”

“What was his name?”

“Levin.”

“Go on.”

“He said he wanted to see Prince Orlov.”

Stephen was suddenly very attentive. “Why?”

“Something to do with a sailor who had been unjustly imprisoned. This … Levin … wanted to make a personal plea for the man’s release.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him the Savoy Hotel.”

“Damn,” Stephen cursed, then apologized: “Pardon me.”

“Afterward it occurred to me that Levin might have been up to no good. He had a cut hand—and I remembered that you had cut the madman in the park … so, you see, it dawned on me gradually … I’ve done something dreadful, haven’t I?”

“It’s not your fault. In fact it’s mine. I should have told you the truth about the man in the park, but I thought it better not to frighten you. I was wrong.”

“Poor Aleks,” Lydia said. “To think that someone would want to kill him. He’s so sweet.”

“What was Levin like?”

The question unsettled Lydia. For a moment she had been thinking of “Levin” as an unknown assassin; now she was forced to describe Feliks. “Oh … tall, thin, with dark hair, about my age, obviously Russian, a nice face, rather lined …” She tailed off.
And I yearn for him.

Stephen stood up. “I’ll go and rouse Pritchard. He can drive me to the hotel.”

Lydia wanted to say: No, don’t. Take me to bed instead; I need your warmth and tenderness. She said: “I’m so sorry.”

“It may be for the best,” Stephen said.

She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

“Because, when he comes to the Savoy Hotel to assassinate Aleks, I shall catch him.”

And then Lydia knew that before this was over one of the two men she loved would surely kill the other.

Feliks gently lifted the bottle of nitroglycerine out of the sink. He crossed the room as if he were walking on eggshells. His pillow was on the mattress. He had enlarged the rip until it was about six inches long, and now he put the bottle through the hole and into the pillow. He arranged the stuffing all around the bottle so that the bomb lay cocooned in shock-absorbing material. He picked up the pillow and, cradling it like a baby, placed it in his open suitcase. He closed the case and breathed more easily.

He put on his coat, his scarf and his respectable hat. Carefully, he turned the cardboard suitcase on to its edge, then picked it up.

He went out.

The journey into the West End was a nightmare.

Of course he could not use the bicycle, but even walking was nerve-racking. Every second he visualized that brown glass bottle in its pillow; every time his foot hit the pavement he imagined the little shock wave which must travel up his body and down his arm to the case; in his mind he saw the molecules of nitroglycerine vibrating faster and faster under his hand.

He passed a woman washing the pavement in front of her house. He went by on the road, in case he should slip on the wet flagstones, and she jeered: “A-scared of getting yer feet wet, toff?”

Outside a factory in Euston a crowd of apprentices poured through the gates chasing a football. Feliks stood stock-still as they rushed all around him, jostling and fighting for the ball. Then someone kicked it clear and they were gone as quickly as they had arrived.

Crossing the Euston Road was a dance with death. He stood at the curb for five minutes, waiting for a good-sized gap in the stream of traffic; and then he had to walk across so fast he was almost running.

In Tottenham Court Road he went into a high-class stationer’s. It was calm and hushed in the shop. He set the suitcase down gently on the counter. An assistant in a morning coat said: “Can I help you, sir?”

“I need an envelope, please.”

The assistant raised his eyebrows. “Just the one, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Any particular kind, sir?”

“Just plain, but good quality.”

“We have blue, ivory, eau-de-nil, cream, beige—”

“White.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And a sheet of paper.”

“One sheet of paper, sir.”

They charged him threepence. On principle he would have preferred to run off without paying, but he could not run with the bomb in his case.

Charing Cross Road teemed with people on their way to work in shops and offices. It was impossible to walk at all without getting buffeted. Feliks stood in a doorway for a while, wondering what to do. Finally he decided to carry the case in his arms to protect it from the scurrying hordes.

In Leicester Square he took refuge in a bank. He sat at one of the writing tables where the customers made out their checks. There was a tray of pens and an inkwell. He put the case on the floor between his feet. He relaxed for a moment. Frock-coated bank clerks padded softly by with papers in their hands. Feliks took a pen and wrote on the front of his envelope:

Prince A. A. Orlov The Savoy Hotel Strand, London W.

He folded the blank sheet of paper and slipped it inside the envelope, just for the sake of its weight: he did not want the envelope to seem empty. He licked the gummed flap and sealed it shut. Then he reluctantly picked up the suitcase and left the bank.

In Trafalgar Square he dipped his handkerchief in the fountain and cooled his face with it.

He passed Charing Cross Station and walked east along the embankment. Near Waterloo Bridge a small group of urchins lounged against the parapet, throwing stones at the seagulls on the river. Feliks spoke to the most intelligent-looking boy.

“Do you want a penny?”

“Yes, guv!”

“Are your hands clean?”

“Yes, guv!” The boy showed a pair of filthy hands.

They would have to do, Feliks thought. “Do you know where the Savoy Hotel is?”

“Too right!”

Feliks assumed this meant the same as “Yes, guv.” He handed the boy the envelope and a penny. “Count to a hundred slowly, then take this letter to the hotel. Do you understand?”

“Yes, guv!”

Feliks mounted the steps to the bridge. It was thronged with men in bowler hats coming across the river from the Waterloo side. Feliks joined the procession.

He went into a newsagent’s and bought
The Times.
As he was leaving a young man rushed in through the door. Feliks stuck out his arm and stopped the man, shouting: “Look where you’re going!”

The man stared at him in surprise. As Feliks went out he heard the man say to the shopkeeper: “Nervous type, is he?”

“Foreigner,” said the shopkeeper, and then Feliks was outside.

He turned off the Strand and went into the hotel. In the lobby he sat down and placed the suitcase on the floor between his feet. Not much farther now, he thought.

From his seat he could see both doors and the hall porter’s desk. He put his hand inside his coat and consulted an imaginary fob watch, then opened his newspaper and settled down to wait, as if he were early for an appointment.

He pulled the suitcase closer to his seat and stretched out his legs on either side of it, to protect it against an accidental kick from a careless passerby. The lobby was crowded: it was just before ten o’clock. This is when the ruling class has breakfast, Feliks thought. He had not eaten: he had no appetite today.

He examined the other people in the lobby over the top of
The Times.
There were two men who might be detectives. Feliks wondered whether they might impede his escape. But even if they hear the explosion, he thought, how will they know which of the dozens of people walking through this lobby was responsible for it? Nobody knows what I look like. Only if I were being chased would they know. I’ll have to make sure I’m not chased.

He wondered whether the urchin would come. After all, the boy had his penny already. Perhaps by now he had thrown the envelope into the river and gone off to the sweet shop. If so, Feliks would simply have to go through the whole rigmarole again until he found an honest urchin.

He read an article in the newspaper, looking up every few seconds. The Government wanted to make those who gave money to the Women’s Social and Political Union liable to pay for damage done by suffragettes. They planned to bring in special legislation to make this possible. How foolish governments are when they become intransigent, Feliks thought; everyone will just give money anonymously.

Where was that urchin?

He wondered what Orlov was doing right now. In all probability he was in one of the rooms of the hotel, a matter of yards above Feliks’s head, eating breakfast, or shaving, or writing a letter, or having a discussion with Walden. I’d like to kill Walden too, Feliks thought.

It was not impossible that the two of them should walk through the lobby at any minute. That was too much to hope for. What would I do if it happened? thought Feliks.

I would throw the bomb, and die happy.

Through the glass door he saw the urchin.

The boy came along the narrow road which led to the hotel entrance. Feliks could see the envelope in his hand: he held it by one corner, almost distastefully, as if it were dirty and he were clean instead of the reverse. He approached the door but was stopped by a commissionaire in a top hat. There was some discussion, inaudible from inside; then the boy went away. The commissionaire came into the lobby with the envelope in his hand.

Feliks tensed. Would it work?

The commissionaire handed in the envelope at the bell captain’s desk.

The captain looked at it, picked up a pencil, scribbled something in the top right-hand corner—a room number?—and summoned a bellboy.

It was working!

Feliks stood up, gently lifted his case and headed for the stairs.

The bellboy passed him on the first floor and went on up.

Feliks followed.

It was almost too easy.

He allowed the bellboy to get one flight of stairs ahead; then he quickened his step to keep him in view. On the fifth floor the boy walked along the corridor. Feliks stopped and watched.

The boy knocked on a door. It was opened. A hand came out and took the envelope.

Got you, Orlov.

The bellboy made a pantomime of going away and was called back. Feliks could not hear the words. The boy received a tip. He said: “Thank you very much indeed, sir, very kind of you.” The door closed.

Feliks started to walk along the corridor.

The boy saw his case and reached for it, saying: “Can I help you with that, sir?”

“No!” Feliks said sharply.

“Very good, sir,” said the boy, and he passed on.

Feliks walked to the door of Orlov’s room. Were there no more security precautions? Walden might imagine that a killer could not get into a London hotel room, but Orlov would know better. For a moment Feliks was tempted to go away and do some more thinking, or perhaps more reconnaissance; but he was too close to Orlov now.

He put the suitcase down on the carpet outside the door.

He opened the case, reached inside the pillow and carefully withdrew the brown bottle.

He straightened up slowly.

He knocked on the door.

EIGHT

W
alden looked at the envelope. It was addressed in a neat, characterless hand. It had been written by a foreigner, for an Englishman would have put
Prince Orlov
or
Prince Aleksey
but not
Prince A. A. Orlov.
Walden would have liked to know what was inside, but Aleks had moved out of the hotel in the middle of the night, and Walden could not open it in his absence—it was, after all, another gentleman’s mail.

He handed it back to Basil Thomson, who had no such scruples.

Thomson ripped it open and took out a single sheet of paper. “Blank!” he said.

There was a knock at the door.

They all moved quickly. Walden went over to the windows, away from the door and out of the line of fire, and stood behind a sofa, ready to duck. The two detectives moved to either side of the room and drew their guns. Thomson stood in the middle of the room behind a large overstuffed easy chair.

The knock came again.

Thomson called: “Come in—it’s open.”

The door opened, and there he stood.

Walden clutched at the back of the sofa. He
looked
frightening.

He was a tall man in a bowler hat and a black coat buttoned to the neck. He had a long, gaunt, white face. In his left hand he held a large brown bottle. His eyes swept the room, and he understood in a flash that this was a trap.

He lifted the bottle and said: “Nitro!”

“Don’t shoot!” Thomson barked at the detectives.

Walden was sick with fear. He knew what nitroglycerine was: if the bottle fell they would all die. He wanted to live; he did not want to die in an instant of burning agony.

There was a long moment of silence. Nobody moved. Walden stared at the face of the killer. It was a shrewd, hard, determined face. Every detail was imprinted on Walden’s mind in that short, terrible pause: the curved nose, the wide mouth, the sad eyes, the thick black hair showing beneath the brim of the hat. Is he mad? Walden wondered. Bitter? Heartless? Sadistic? The face showed only that he was fearless.

Thomson broke the silence. “Give yourself up,” he said. “Put the bottle on the floor. Stop being a fool.”

Walden was thinking: If the detectives shoot, and the man falls, could I get to him in time to catch the bottle before it crashes to the floor—

No.

The killer stood motionless, bottle raised high. He’s looking at me, not Thomson, Walden realized; he’s studying me, as if he finds me fascinating, taking in the details, wondering what makes me tick. It’s a personal look. He’s as interested in me as I am in him.

He has realized Aleks isn’t here—what will he do now?

The killer spoke to Walden in Russian: “You’re not as stupid as you look.”

Walden thought: Is he suicidal? Will he kill us all and himself too? Better keep him talking—

Then the man was gone.

Walden heard his footsteps running down the corridor.

Walden made for the door. The other three were ahead of him.

Out in the corridor, the detectives knelt on the floor, aiming their guns. Walden saw the killer running away with a queer fluid step, his left arm hanging straight down by his side, holding the bottle as steady as possible while he ran.

If it goes off now, Walden thought, will it kill us at this distance? Probably not.

Thomson was thinking the same. He said: “Shoot!”

Two guns crashed.

The killer stopped and turned.

Was he hit?

He swung back his arm and hurled the bottle at them.

Thomson and the two detectives threw themselves flat. Walden realized in a flash that if the nitroglycerine exploded anywhere near them it would be no use to be lying flat.

The bottle turned over and over in the air as it flew at them. It was going to hit the floor five feet away from Walden. If it landed it would surely explode.

Walden ran
toward
the flying bottle.

It descended in a flat arc. He reached for it with both hands. He caught it. His fingers seemed to slip on the glass. He fumbled it, panicking; he almost lost it; then he grasped it again—

Don’t slip Christ Jesus don’t slip—

—and like a goalkeeper catching a football he drew it to his body, cushioning it against his chest, and spun around in the direction of travel of the bottle; then he lost his balance, and fell to his knees, and steadied himself, still holding the bottle, and thinking: I’m going to die.

Nothing happened.

The others stared at him, on his knees, cradling the bottle in his arms like a newborn baby.

One of the detectives fainted.

Feliks stared in amazement at Walden for a split second longer; then he turned and raced down the stairs.

Walden was amazing. What a nerve, to catch that bottle!

He heard a distant shout: “Go after him!”

It’s happening again, he thought; I’m running away again. What is the matter with me?

The stairs were endless. He heard running footsteps behind him. A shot rang out.

On the next landing he crashed into a waiter with a tray. The waiter fell, and crockery and food flew everywhere.

The pursuer was one or two flights behind him. He reached the foot of the staircase. He composed himself and walked into the lobby.

It was still crowded.

He felt as if he were walking a tightrope.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted the two men he had identified as possibly detectives. They were deep in conversation, looking worried: they must have heard distant gunfire.

He walked slowly across the lobby, fiercely resisting the urge to break into a run. He had the illusion that everyone was staring at him. He looked ahead fixedly.

He reached the door and went out.

“Cab, sir?” said the doorman.

Feliks jumped into a waiting cab and it pulled away.

As it turned into the Strand he looked back at the hotel. One of the detectives from upstairs burst out of the door, followed by the two from the lobby. They spoke to the doorman. He pointed at Feliks’s cab. The detectives drew their guns and ran after the cab.

The traffic was heavy. The cab stopped in the Strand.

Feliks jumped out.

The cabbie shouted: “Oi? What’s on, John?”

Feliks dodged through the traffic to the far side of the road and ran north.

He looked back over his shoulder. They were still after him.

He had to stay ahead until he could lose himself somewhere, in a maze of back alleys, or a railway station.

A uniformed policeman saw him running and watched suspiciously from the other side of the street. A minute later the detectives saw the policeman and yelled at him. He joined the chase.

Feliks ran faster. His heart pounded and his breath came in ragged gasps.

He turned a corner and found himself in the fruit and vegetable market of Covent Garden.

The cobbled streets were jammed with trucks and horse-drawn wagons. Everywhere there were market porters carrying wooden trays on their heads or pushing handcarts. Barrels of apples were being manhandled off wagons by heavily muscled men in undershirts. Boxes of lettuce and tomatoes and strawberries were bought and sold by men in bowler hats, and fetched and carried by men in caps. The noise was terrific.

Feliks plunged into the heart of the market.

He hid behind a stack of empty crates and peered through the slats. After a moment he saw his pursuers. They stood still, looking around. There was some conversation; then the four of them split up to search.

So Lydia betrayed me, Feliks thought as he caught his breath. Did she know in advance that I was after Orlov to kill him? No, she can’t have. She wasn’t acting a part that morning; she wasn’t dissembling when she kissed me. But if she believed the story about getting a sailor out of jail, surely she would never have said anything to Walden. Well, perhaps later she realized that I had lied to her, so then she warned her husband, because she didn’t want to have any part in the killing of Orlov. She didn’t exactly betray me.

She won’t kiss me next time.

There won’t be a next time.

The uniformed policeman was coming his way.

He moved around the stack of crates and found himself alone in a little backwater, concealed by the boxes all around him.

Anyway, he thought, I escaped their trap. Thank God for nitroglycerine.

But
they
are supposed to be afraid of
me
.

I am the hunter; I am the one who sets traps.

It’s Walden—he’s the danger. Twice now he has got in the way. Who would have thought an aristocrat with gray hair would have had so much spunk?

He wondered where the policeman was. He peeped out.

He came face-to-face with the man.

The policeman’s face was forming into an expression of astonishment when Feliks grabbed him by the coat and jerked him into the little enclosure.

The policeman stumbled.

Feliks tripped him. He fell on the floor. Feliks dropped on top of him and got him by the throat. He began to squeeze.

Feliks hated policemen.

He remembered Bialystock, when the strikebreakers—thugs with iron bars—had beaten up the workers outside the mill, while the police looked on unmoving. He remembered the pogrom, when the hooligans ran wild in the Jewish quarter, setting fire to houses and kicking old men and raping the young girls, while the police watched, laughing. He recalled Bloody Sunday, when the troops fired round after round into the peaceful crowd in front of the Winter Palace, and the police watched, cheering. He saw in his mind the police who had taken him to the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul to be tortured, and those who had escorted him to Siberia and stolen his coat, and those who had burst into the strike meeting in St. Petersburg with their truncheons waving, hitting the women’s heads—they always hit the women.

A policeman was a worker who had sold his soul.

Feliks tightened his grip.

The man’s eyes closed, and he stopped struggling.

Feliks squeezed harder.

He heard a sound.

His head whipped around.

A small child of two or three years stood there, eating an apple, watching him strangle the policeman.

Feliks thought: What am I waiting for?

He let the policeman go.

The child walked over and looked down at the unconscious man.

Feliks looked out. He could not see any of the detectives.

The child said: “Is he sleepy?”

Feliks walked away.

He got out of the market without seeing any of his pursuers.

He made his way to the Strand.

He began to feel safe.

In Trafalgar Square he caught an omnibus.

I almost died, Walden kept thinking; I almost died.

He sat in the hotel suite while Thomson gathered his team of detectives. Somebody gave him a glass of brandy-and-soda, and that was when he noticed that his hands were shaking. He could not put from his mind the image of that bottle of nitroglycerine in his hands.

He tried to concentrate on Thomson. The policeman changed visibly as he spoke to his men: he took his hands out of his pockets, he sat on the edge of his chair, and his voice altered from a drawl to a crisp snap.

Walden began to calm down as Thomson was talking. “This man has slipped through our fingers,” Thomson said. “It is not going to happen a second time. We know something about him now, and we’re going to find out a great deal more. We know he was in St. Petersburg during or before 1895, because Lady Walden remembers him. We know he’s been to Switzerland, because the suitcase in which he carried the bomb was Swiss. And we know what he looks like.”

That face, Walden thought; and he clenched his fists.

Thomson went on: “Watts, I want you and your lads to spend a little money in the East End. The man is almost certainly Russian, so he’s probably an anarchist and Jewish, but don’t count on it. Let’s see if we can put a name to him. If we can, cable Zurich and St. Petersburg and ask for information.

“Richards, you start with the envelope. It was probably bought singly, so a shop assistant might remember the sale.

“Woods, you work on the bottle. It’s a Winchester bottle with a ground-glass stopper. The name of the manufacturer is stamped on the bottom. Find out who in London they supply it to. Send your team around all the shops and see whether any chemists remember a customer answering to the description of our man. He will have bought the ingredients for nitroglycerine in several different shops, of course; and if we can find those shops we will know where in London to look for him.”

Walden was impressed. He had not realized that the killer had left behind so many clues. He began to feel better.

Thomson addressed a young man in a felt hat and soft collar. “Taylor, yours is the most important job. Lord Walden and I have seen the killer briefly, but Lady Walden has had a good long look at him. You’ll come with us to see her ladyship, and with her help and ours you’ll draw a picture of the fellow. I want the picture printed tonight and distributed to every police station in London by midday tomorrow.”

Surely, Walden thought, the man cannot escape us now. Then he remembered that he had thought the same when they set the trap here in the hotel room; and he began to tremble again.

Feliks looked in the mirror. He had had his hair cut very short, like a Prussian, and he had plucked his eyebrows until they were thin lines. He would stop shaving immediately, so that in a day he would look scruffy and in a week his beard and mustache would cover his distinctive mouth and chin. Unfortunately there was nothing he could do about his nose. He had bought a pair of secondhand spectacles with wire rims. The lenses were small so he could look over the top of them. He had changed his bowler hat and black coat for a blue sailor’s pea jacket and a tweed cap with a peak.

A close look would still reveal him as the same man, but to a casual glance he was completely different.

He knew he had to leave Bridget’s house. He had bought all his chemicals within a mile or two of here, and when the police learned that, they would begin a house-to-house search. Sooner or later they would end up in this street, and one of the neighbors would say: “I know him; he stops in Bridget’s basement.”