The door was opened by Anna. She had been mercifully sparing with cosmetics, and though her eyes met Andrew’s boldly and her manner showed little reserve, she was certainly not at her worst.
“Please come in,” she begged. “So you are my brother-in-law. I think that Félice is very lucky.”
He shook hands.
“And I,” he rejoined, “think I am.”
She led the way into the long, fusty apartment which Félice hated. There were signs of some effort to make it presentable. The window had been opened, cigarette ends had been collected and carted away, but the stains upon the table, the holes in the carpet, the displeasing public-house odour of stale drinks and tobacco remained. Serge Protinoff, with his high forehead and untidy hair, his steel spectacles and scraggly grey beard, seemed as ungainly and terrible as ever. His linen, carefully selected for him by Paul, was almost passable, but he wore carpet slippers, and his frock coat was a shapeless and horrible garment. Paul, looking a little less flashy than usual, pushed a book away and rose to his feet. Clara Protinoff, blowsy, untidy, the upper part of her dress unfastened, the eternal samovar in front of her, looked across the room in scarcely friendly fashion. Intuitively, she felt that the coming of these people meant no good for her.
“I am very glad to know you all,” Andrew greeted them simply. “I should like to explain that it is entirely owing to Félice’s wishes that I have not made your acquaintance before.”
“We thought it best,” Serge Protinoff explained, holding out his knobby hand. “My wife, my daughter Anna, my son Charles, we thought it best,” he continued in his harsh voice, “that there should be no meeting at present. We left Russia, son-in-law, under very terrible circumstances. Not only were we stripped of the whole of our possessions, but to save my family, to escape at all, I was forced to kill. All that we have prayed for is that we might remain hidden here. We feared that if the connection between Félice and ourselves and you were established, we should no longer be able to remain in concealment. Now, however, what we dreaded has come to pass. We have been discovered.”
“I won’t ask you for the whole story,” Andrew said in friendly fashion, accepting the chair which Paul had placed for him, “but if there was any way of arranging matters for you through the Government, I have some influence politically, and something might be done. I know nothing of the circumstances, and I don’t wish for any more of your confidence than you choose to offer me, but I can assure you of this. There is no crime which you as a monarchist may have committed against the Bolshevist Government which could possibly result in your extradition.”
Protinoff shook his head.
“I shall tell the truth,” he declared, looking round. “I shall tell the truth to my son-in-law. I killed a man to get free—a highly placed Bolshevist official —A relative of the arch-murderer himself. This is what happened. We had reached the frontier in such disguises as we could lay our hands upon. By some means or other, I became suspect. I was ushered into the office of this man for a private examination. I believe that he thought I still had millions, and that he might squeeze something out of me before I was shot. With his first sentence I knew that I was discovered, and discovery meant death as certainly as the death which befell Nicholas himself. I acted for the others as well as for myself. I killed him. I stole every penny of money there was in the office, and I forged a pass. That is the gist of the whole story. The Under Commissioner, the two officers in charge, and a dozen soldiers were shot on suspicion of having aided my escape. Then my name was added to the black list of the ‘Scarlet Vests.’ You know what that means?”
“Yes,” Andrew admitted dubiously. “Your son Charles told us yesterday.”
“No government, no influence, has any power against these people,” Serge Protinoff continued, stroking his stubbly chin. “They are on my track at this moment, hurrying across Europe for fear I should escape. That is why I throw myself upon your generosity, son-in-law, and that is why America is my only hope.”
“Well, there’s nothing to stop your reaching New York all right,” Andrew assured him. “Your tickets are here, for the steamer starting to-morrow. The train goes down from Waterloo to-night. Your passports, I presume, you have. You could sleep on board and you will find quite comfortable quarters. It is a very fine ship. Félice has some money for you which I have drawn from my bankers this morning, and when you arrive in New York, if you will cable your address, I will see that a reasonable allowance is paid to you through my bankers.”
The old man was plainly overcome. Even in his gratitude, however, he was repulsive-looking.
“You have married a prince, Félice!” he declared. Anna was laughing—curiously, and in a sense miserably. Andrew glanced at her in puzzled fashion. A more inhuman lot of people he had never seen in his life. And the girl—one moment she was looking at him wistfully and longingly out of her really beautiful eyes, the next moment her shoulders would turn from him, and she was indulging in a sort of hysteria.
“Is Charles not here?” Félice asked timidly.
“He is never here if he can help it. If he were not so frightened for his skin, he would not be going with us at all,” Anna replied bitterly.
“I do not wish to defend Charles,” Félice said. “By your own desire, I know little about the lives of any of you, but you have had small sums of money lately. I think perhaps you might have made even this home more attractive to him. It would only have needed a slight effort.”
Anna shrugged her shoulders.
“Why should one bother?” she demanded. “Charles makes use of the house when it suits him. When he has any money, he stays away. I do the the same. What is the good of pretending? We are all too miserable to do anything else except hate one another. We are the sort of family you read about in the crazy, hopeless novels of our country people,” she went on, looking defiantly at Andrew. “You don’t believe in us, but we exist. You throw the book down and say how sordid and wretched, but we are there all right. I hope you are going to make me a good allowance, brother-in-law. I shall spend it all on clothes and food and wine, and go on living just as I do here, only I shall pick and choose. That is all the promise of reformation you’ll get from me.”
Clara Protinoff, who understood little English, tried in vain to follow the discussion. She spoke in thick Russian to her husband, who took no notice. Then the door opened quickly, and Charles entered. He closed it behind him. He was out of breath, shaking in every limb, stark fear in his eyes, pale with the bloodless terror of one who has seen death.
“We’ve got the steamer tickets,” Protinoff announced, looking up exultantly from his study of them. “Here they are, Charles, for to-morrow, from Southampton. Félice, too, has money.”
Charles had half collapsed across the table, breathing heavily. He raised his head, and his father knew the truth.
“Not him, Charles?” he cried loudly.
“Here! Outside! He stepped out of a car, was looking up at the numbers,” the young man gasped, picking up the steamer tickets and dashing them down. “Too late! One day too late.”
Andrew rose to his feet and came quickly forward to the table.
“What is this trouble?” he demanded. “Tell the truth, and we may be ready for it. Is it the police?”
The old man Protinoff’s arms went up over his head.
“Worse,” he groaned. “Worse than the police. If God would only strike me dead!”
A curious silence seemed to fall upon the whole room. The woman tipped the samovar towards her and mumbled something in Russian, whilst she poured out the yellow liquid. Then there was the sound of a slow tapping upon the door.
“Are these your ‘Scarlet Vests?’ ” Andrew asked, bracing himself. “Is this a fight or what?”
The