“The schedule was changed to-day, sir. The last train left at ten-ten.”
My heart sank clear to my boots, for I knew what a shock it would be to Sasha, who had risen so well to the rôle he had assumed, so I inquired if there was a train to any point in Finland that night. There was none. There would not be another until the next morning.
Sasha flinched never so slightly when I told him and his face paled perceptibly, but he picked up the hat-box he had set down and led the way out of the station. We called a cab and started back for my rooms. On the way we arranged that Sasha would come to me the next night at seven o’clock and we would try it again. Then, leaving the luggage and the rug with me, he slipped noiselessly out of the carriage without the driver even knowing. All that night he wandered among the sheltering shadows, dodging gendarmes and late prowlers. I don’t know where he lay in hiding during the day. When I got in at the appointed time Sasha was asleep on my couch, apparently in no way troubled by the great peril that threatened.
I do not exaggerate the danger. Many more arrests had been made during the day, and early that evening a comrade not under suspicion had learned that the force of police spies in the stations had been greatly strengthened by the arrival of a party of Moscow police department men, and these had brought with them photographs of several men whom they were looking for, among them a photograph of Sasha. Sasha had once been “taken” in Moscow and escaped, but not before being photographed. This picture was now reproduced on slips of paper like handbills and circulated among the watchers. This knowledge shook even Nastasia in regard to the wisdom of repeating our plan of the previous evening. However, something had to be done, and that quickly, for the noise of this successful coup had echoed all over the empire, and the St. Petersburg authorities were goaded to great activity in the hope of making up in the number of arrests for their alleged negligence on the day of the incident. The chances of escape were growing hourly less, and a fear seemed to possess both Nastasia and Sasha that perhaps even my house was no longer safe. Yet in St. Petersburg they had no other.
Sasha scribbled a few mysterious words in Russian on one piece of paper and a name and address on another, and handed both to me, asking me to carry the note to the address on the second slip of paper. I rushed away without looking at the address, jumped into a cab that happened to be standing in front of the house, and directed that I be driven to—to—to—I could not make out the writing—
“Let me read it,” offered the driver.
“No—you can’t,” I said. “It is not written in Russian.”
“No matter,” said he, “I read German.”
“But it is not German. It is French.”
“C’est bien. Je parle français.”