CHAPTER XXVI — BLOODHOUNDS
The table d’htte of the Httel de Moscou at Tver had just begun. The soup had been removed; the diners were engaged in igniting their first cigarette at the candles placed between each pair of them for that purpose. By nature the modern Russian is a dignified and somewhat reserved gentleman. By circumstance he has been schooled into a state of guarded unsociability. If there is a seat at a public table conveniently removed from those occupied by earlier arrivals the new-comer invariably takes it. In Russia one converses—as in Scotland one jokes—with difficulty.
A Russian table d’htte is therefore any thing but hilarious in its tendency. A certain number of grave-faced gentlemen and a few broad-jowled ladies are visibly constrained by the force of circumstance to dine at the same table and hour, et voil` tout. There is no pretence that any more sociable and neighborly motive has brought them together. Indeed, they each suspect the other of being a German, or a Nihilist, or, worse still, a Government servant. They therefore sit as far apart as possible, and smoke cigarettes between and during the courses with that self-centred absorption which would be rude, if it were not entirely satisfactory, to the average Briton. The ladies, of course, have the same easy method of showing a desire for silence and reflection in a country where nurses carrying infants usually smoke in the streets, and where a dainty confectioner’s assistant places her cigarette between her lips in order to leave her hands free for the service of her customers.
The table d’htte of the Httel de Moscou at Tver was no exception to the general rule. In Russia, by the way, there are no exceptions to general rules. The personal habits of the native of Cronstadt differ in no way from those of the Czar’s subject living in Petropavlovsk, eight thousand miles away.
Around the long table of the host were seated, at respectable intervals, a dozen or more gentlemen, who gazed stolidly at each other from time to time, while the host himself smiled broadly upon them all from that end of the room where the lift and the smell of cooking exercise their calling—the one to spoil the appetite, the other to pander to it when spoilt.
Of these dozen gentlemen we have only to deal with one—a man of broad, high forehead, of colorless eyes, of a mask-like face, who consumed what was put before him with as little noise as possible. Known in Paris as “Ce bon Vassili,” this traveller. But in Paris one does not always use the word bon in its English sense of “good.”
M. Vassili was evidently desirous of attracting as little attention as circumstances would allow. He was obviously doing his best to look like one who travelled in the interest of braid or buttons. Moreover, when Claude de Chauxville entered the table d’htte room, he concealed whatever surprise he may have felt behind a cloud of cigarette smoke. Through the same blue haze he met the Frenchman’s eye, a moment later, without the faintest twinkle of recognition.
These two worthies went through the weird courses provided by a cook professing a knowledge of French cuisine without taking any compromising notice of each other. When the meal was over Vassili inscribed the number of his bedroom in large figures on the label of his bottle of St. Emilion—after the manner of wise commercial-travellers in continental hotels. He subsequently turned the bottle round so that Claude de Chauxville could scarcely fail to read the number, and with a vague and general bow he left the room.
In his apartment the genial Vassili threw more wood into the stove, drew forward the two regulation arm-chairs, and lighted all the candles provided. He then rang the bell and ordered liqueurs. There was evidently something in the nature of an entertainment about to take place in apartment No. 44 of the Httel de Moscou.