Two candles were alight in beer bottles, next to the bust of Napoleon, and in the centre of the room was an iron bedstead and a tin bath.
“Here we are,” said Christy. “Home at last!”
Bertram was silent for a moment, looking unutterable things. Then he asked a series of questions, quietly but firmly.
“Tell me, have I gone raving mad? Or is this a real house in Bolshevik Russia? Who were all those strange people? Or did I only think I saw them?”
“It’s quite all right,” said Christy, soothingly. “I know how you feel, because I’d the jim-jams myself when I first came here. This is the Guest House of the Soviet Republic. It is also infested with the Cheka or secret police, who will take down anything you say as evidence against you, as the London Bobbies say, if you speak too loud, and unwisely of dangerous things. It used to be the palace of the Sugar King of Russia. It’s one of the few houses in Moscow which was left untouched by the Revolution.”
“Those Orientals?” asked Bertram.
“A mission from the Far Eastern Republic.”
“That fellow with the wine bottle and the wet sponge?”
“An American newspaper correspondent. Jemmy Hart. One of the best.”
“And the dreamy fellow playing ‘Three Blind Mice’?”