“What about clothing?” I said. “I don’t look much like a postal official.”
“There is something more important than that. What about military service?”
From my pocket I produced a new pamphlet on the soviet system. Opening a pocket of the uncut leaves at a certain page, I drew forth my blank exemption certificate and exhibited it to the Doctor.
“What are you, a magician?” he asked admiringly. “Or is this another gift from your friend Z.?”
“The certificates were born twins,” I said. “Zorinsky was accoucheur to the first, I to the second.”
In an hour I had filled in the blank exemption form with all particulars relating to Alexander Vasilievitch Markovitch. Tracing the signatures carefully, and inserting a recent date, I managed to produce a document indistinguishable as regards authenticity from the original, and thus was possessed of two sets of documents, one in the name of Krylenko for the benefit of Zorinsky, the other in that of Markovitch for presentation in the streets and possible registration.
Considering once more the question of uniform I recalled that at my own rooms where I had lived for years I had left a variety of clothing when last in Petrograd six or eight months previously. The question was: How could I gain admittance to my rooms, disguised as I was and with an assumed name? Furthermore, a telephone call having elicited no response, I had no idea whether the housekeeper whom I had left was still there, nor whether the apartment had been raided, locked up, or occupied by workmen. All these things I was curious to know, quite apart from obtaining clothing.
I enlisted the services of Varia as scout. Varia was the first person to whom I confided my English name, and doing it with due solemnity, and with severe cautionings that not even Stepanovna should be told, I could see that the girl was impressed with my confidence in her. Armed with a brief note to my housekeeper purporting to be written by a fictitious friend of mine, and warned to turn back unless everything were precisely as I described, Varia set out on a voyage of discovery.
She returned to impart the information that the front door of the house being locked she had entered by the yard, had encountered nobody on the backstairs, and that in answer to persistent ringing a woman, whom I recognized by the description as my housekeeper, had opened the kitchen door on a short chain, and, peering suspiciously through the chink, had at first vehemently denied any acquaintance with any English people at all. On perusing the note from my non-existent friend, however, she admitted that an Englishman of my name had formerly lived there, but she had the strictest injunctions from him to admit nobody to the flat.
Pursuing my instructions, Varia informed the housekeeper that my friend, Mr. Markovitch, had just arrived from Moscow. He was busy to-day, she said, and had sent her round to inquire after my affairs, but would call himself at an early opportunity.