“They want to set the world on fire. Then they want to murder and rob everybody with any education. Then they plan to start things from the stone age again. They want loot and blood. That’s really all they want. Their object is to annihilate civilisation by exterminating the civilised. They desire to start all over from first principles––without possessing any––and turn the murderous survivors of the human massacre into one vast, international pack of wolves. And they’re beginning to do it in Russia.”
“A pleasant programme,” remarked Shotwell. “No 71 wonder you beat it, Jack. I recently met a woman who had just arrived from Russia. They murdered her best friend––one of the little Grand Duchesses. She simply can’t talk about it.”
“That was a beastly business,” nodded Estridge. “I happen to know a little about it.”
“Were you in that district?”
“Well, no,––not when that thing happened. But some little time before the Bolsheviki murdered the Imperial family I had occasion to escort an American girl to the convent where they were held under detention.... An exceedingly pretty girl,” he added absently. “She was once companion to one of the murdered Imperial children.”
Shotwell glanced up quickly: “Her name, by any chance, doesn’t happen to be Palla Dumont?”
“Why, yes. Do you know her?”
“I sold her that house I was telling you about. Do you know her well, Jack?”
Estridge smiled. “Yes and no. Perhaps I know her better than she suspects.”
Shotwell laughed, recollecting his friend’s inclination for analysing character and his belief in his ability to do so.