“He won’t fool the gendarmes.”
“He will!” the white speck behind the iron bars flicked out vehemently. “He’ll do it. Provided he is prepared for it.”
“You are impossible. If an order came from St. Petersburg your Zorki gendarmes would not dare think for themselves. They would just hustle him off to Miroslav.”
“Then get father away from there.”
“They would take your wife, anybody who could identify you.”
“Father is better after all. He would look me in the face and say he does not know me. He could do it.”
“And later go to Siberia for it?”
“You are right. But I don’t think the order will be to take him here at once. They’ll first examine him there. He’ll have a chance to fool them.”
Clara offered to go to Zorki at once, but Makar was for a postponement of her “conspiracy trip.” Saturday of Comfort was near at hand, and then the little Jewish town would be crowded with strangers, so that Mlle. Yavner might come and go without attracting attention even in the event the local gendarmes had already been put on the case.