Just then Michel appeared, his face lighting up as he saw me, and extended his hand.
“I knew you were here,” he said. “Zaidee told me, and that is why I came on the unpleasant duty of inquiring, instead of sending Paul Strigoff, who is most anxious to try his luck again with Ivan. I am glad to see you, and to find you as young as you were five years ago, when we met in the Gulf of Finland.”
He was still holding my hand, and his whole manner toward me was different from what it ever had been. There was no apparent repression about him now, as if keeping something back. He was genuinely glad to see me, and showed it in his voice and manner, as he asked after Katy and Jack, and laughed as he recalled the fearless boy, who was going to set the United States Government against Russia if the officials did not let Ivan go.
“And the young girl?” he said. “She was very lovely, and must be lovelier now than she was then. I wish this scamp Ivan, who escaped from Siberia—Heaven only knows how!—and has kept himself from the law for more than a year, I wish, I say, that he was in America, where such as he belongs, and where he could make something of himself better than hiding like a rat in a hole, or in many holes. He has a rare faculty of attracting people to him. Not a nihilist in the city would betray him. Zaidee did let out something accidentally, which made me think she knew where he was, but, when I asked her, she replied: ‘No, sir! I’d be broiled on a gridiron before I’d tell where he was, if I knew—and so would the rest of us!’ From the word ‘us,’ I knew she was one of them, as I had suspected. You know, perhaps, why I am here?”
“Yes; you are looking for Ivan,” I replied. “And I am glad you came, instead of that terrible Strigoff.”
“Do you know where Ivan is?” he asked, abruptly. And I answered, quickly: “No. I do not know; and, if I did—I am somewhat like Zaidee—I should not tell!”
He bowed, and went on: “I suppose I ought to search your rooms; but, if you say he is not here, I will take your word, and question this old woman a little. What is her name?”
“Alex,” I replied, feeling my blood grow cold as I wondered how Alex would pass the ordeal.
But there was no need for fear in that direction. She was polishing the hearth, and had given no sign that she heard a word we had said.
“Alex,” the officer said to her, but she did not turn her head.