Graham Greene (8 page)

In St Petersburg, or even in Paris, such a man would have been shadowed, his every movement would have been watched, all his comings and goings noticed, and at any moment—such a one as this, for instance—he might have been pounced upon and searched as a suspicious person; and assuredly, if he had been, the toils of the law would have closed about him in such fashion that little but a miracle could have set him free again.

But here in London, the asylum of anarchy, and the focus of the most dangerous forces in the world, he went on his way unquestioned and unsuspected, for, although the police were morally certain that such a man existed, they had no idea as to his personality, no notion that this smart, good-looking young fellow, whose name had never been heard in connection even with such anarchist clubs as were known to have their quarters in London, and much less, therefore, with any of the crimes that had been laid to the charge of anarchy, was in reality even a greater criminal than Vaillant or Henry, or even the infamous Ravachol himself.

These were only the blind if willing tools, the instruments of political murder, the visible hands that obeyed the unseen brain, those who did the work and paid the penalty. But Max Renault was the brain itself, the intellect which conceived the plans for the execution of which the meaner and cheaper disciples of the sanguinary brotherhood of the knife and the bomb died on the scaffold, or wore out their lives in penal prisons or the mines of Siberia.

In a word, he was the moving spirit and directing intellect of what was soon to become the most dreaded body of men and women in the world, but which was now only known to the initiated as “Autonomie Group Number 7”…

A few hundred yards past the top of the hill, Max turned
sharply to the left, walked along a side street, turned to the right at the end of this, and went into another. Three minutes' quick walking brought him to the side door of a house which had a small timber yard on one side of it, and on the other a deserted beer-house, which had lost its licence, and remained unoccupied because the premises were fit for no other kind of business.

The house itself had a low shop front, with the lower half of its windows painted a dull green, and on the upper part was an arc of white letters making the legend “Social Club and Eclectic Institute.” A lamp over the shop door bore the same inscription in white letters on blue glass, but the lamp was out now, for it was one of the rules of the club that all members should leave the premises not later than twelve o'clock at night on weekdays and half-past eleven on Sundays.

This rule, however, seemed only to apply to a certain section of the members. After Max had opened the side door with his latch-key, and ascended the stairs at the end of the passage, with a familiarity that enabled him to dispense with a light in the absolute darkness, he knocked at the door of an upstairs room which he found without the slightest hesitation. It was opened, and he found himself in the presence of four men and three women sitting round a table on which were the remains of what had evidently been a substantial and even luxurious supper.

Renault's action on entering the room was one which more than bore out what has been said of his character and the desperate work that he was engaged in. He acknowledged with a brief, curt nod the salutations of the company, and then, putting his back against the door, he pulled his right hand out of his trousers pocket, and said, in a quiet, almost well-bred voice, which had just the faintest trace of a foreign accent:

“Victor Berthauld, sit still!”

There was a small, slender-barrelled, six-chambered Colt in his hand, and the muzzle was pointed at a little lean, wiry, black-muzzled, close-cropped Frenchman, who had begun to wriggle uneasily in his seat the moment Max had made his appearance. His black eyes rolling in their deep sockets took one frightened glance from face to face, and then he said, in a voice to which he in vain tried to impart a tone of bravado:

“Well, Comrade Renault, what do you want with me, and what is that revolver drawn for?”

“Don't ‘comrade' me, you little rat,” said Max, with a short, savage laugh. “Tell me who tried to warn the Paris police that Carnot's life was in danger. Tell me who would have had Santo arrested at Marseilles if his telegram had only got into the hands it was intended for.

“Tell me who means to repeat the message tomorrow morning to Paris and Lyons, and who means to have this place raided by the English police at an inconvenient hour within the next week, on the ground of unlawful gambling being permitted here. Tell me that, you dirty hound, and then I'll tell you, if you don't know, what we usually do with traitors.”

Berthauld sat for a moment speechless with fear. Then, with an imprecation on his lips, he leapt to his feet. Not a hand was moved to restrain him, but as he rose to his full height, Renault's arm straightened out, there was a crack and a flash, and a little puff of plaster reduced to dust leapt out of the angle of the wall behind him; but before the bullet struck the wall, it had passed through his forehead and out at the back of his head, his body shrank together and collapsed in a huddled heap in his chair, and Max, putting his pistol back into his pocket, said, just as quietly as before:

“It's a curious thing that even among eight of us we must have a traitor. I hope there aren't any more about. Take that
thing down to the cellar, and then let us get to business; I've something important to tell you.”

So saying, he walked round the table to a vacant armchair that stood at the end opposite the door, threw himself back in it, took out a cigar and lit it, and, with the same unshaken hand that a moment before had taken a fellow-creature's life, poured out a tumblerful of champagne from a bottle that stood half-empty beside him …

“I hope I haven't shocked you by such a rough-and-ready administration of justice,” said Max, half-turning in his chair and addressing a girl who sat next to him on his right hand.

“No,” said the girl. “It was obviously necessary. If half you charged him with is true, he ought to have been crucified, let alone shot. I can't think what such vermin are made for.”

And as she spoke, she flicked the ash off a cigarette that she held between her fingers, put it between as dainty a pair of lips as ever were made for kissing, and sent a delicate little blue wreathing cloud up to mingle with the haze that filled the upper part of the room.

GEORGE GRIFFITH

umph!” ejaculated the pedlar; “there is something particular indeed to be seen behind the thicket on our left—turn your head a little, and you may see and profit by it too.”

Henry eagerly seized this permission to look aside, and the blood curdled to his heart as he observed that they were passing
a gallows, that unquestionably had been erected for his own execution—he turned his face from the sight in undisguised horror.

“There is a warning to be prudent in that bit of wood,” said the pedlar, in the sententious manner that he often adopted.

“It is a terrific sight, indeed!” cried Henry, for a moment veiling his eyes with his hand, as if to drive a vision from before him.

The pedlar moved his body partly around, and spoke with energetic but gloomy bitterness—“and yet, Captain Wharton, you see it where the setting sun shines full upon you; the air you breathe is clear and fresh from the hills before you. Every step that you take leaves that hated gallows behind, and every dark hollow, and every shapeless rock in the mountains, offers you a hiding place from the vengeance of your enemies. But I have seen the gibbet raised, when no place of refuge offered. Twice have I been buried in dungeons where, fettered and in chains, I have passed nights in torture, looking forward to the morning's dawn that was to light me to a death of infamy. The sweat has started from limbs that seemed already drained of their moisture, and if I ventured to the hole that admitted air through grates of iron, to look out upon the smiles of nature, which God has bestowed for the meanest of his creatures, the gibbet has glared before my eyes, like an evil conscience harrowing the soul of a dying man. Four times have I been in their power, besides this last; but twice—twice—did I think that my hour had come. It is hard to die at the best, Captain Wharton: but to spend your last moments alone and unpitied, to know that none near you so much as think of the fate that is to you the closing of all that is earthly; to think, that in a few hours, you are to be led from the gloom, which as you dwell on what follows becomes dear to you, to the face of day, and there to meet
all eyes upon you, as if you were a wild beast; and to lose sight of everything amidst the jeers and scoffs of your fellow-creatures. That, Captain Wharton, that indeed is to die!”

FENIMORE COOPER

Control of the passes was, he saw, the key
To this new district, but who would get it?
He, the trained spy, had walked into the trap
For a bogus guide, seduced with the old tricks.

At Greenhearth was a fine site for a dam
And easy power, had they pushed the rail
Some stations nearer. They ignored his wires.
The bridges were unbuilt and trouble coming.

The street music seemed gracious now to one
For weeks up in the desert. Woken by water
Running away in the dark, he often had
Reproached the night for a companion
Dreamed of already. They would shoot, of course,
Parting easily who were never joined.

W. H. AUDEN

rom Rome to Petersburg is a far cry, especially in winter. You probably know Cubat's, that big, glaring restaurant in the Morskaya.

Everyone who has been in the Russian capital knows it, and many have, no doubt, regaled themselves with a dish of exquisite sterlet direct from the Volga, for there are only two places in the world where that delicacy can be obtained in perfection, at the Ermitage at Moscow and at Cubat's.

On the night of the 5th of March I was seated alone at one of the many small tables of the restaurant, and having dined well was sipping my kümmel smoking an excellent Babadagly—that brand of cigarette that one cannot obtain outside the Russian Empire—and pretending to be interested in the “latest informations” in the
Novoe Vremya.
I say pretending, for all my attention was really concentrated upon the movements of two persons, an elderly grey-bearded man and a young and rather pretty woman who, seated opposite me, were also dining. The place was crowded, but the pair, entering after me, managed to find a seat almost opposite. Both were well dressed, the woman wearing rich heavy furs of Zinovieff's cut, which became her well, and when on seating herself she allowed them to slip off she displayed a neat figure and a smart evening gown of some soft turquoise stuff cut slightly low, while about the throat was a thin gold chain to which, uncut and set as a pendant, was attached one of those dark green Siberian stones that are so often worn by Russian women.

She was decidedly pretty, with dark hair, regular features, well-defined brows, and a pair of sparkling eyes that danced mischievously whenever they glanced at me. Her companion,
however, was a rather evil-looking, square-jawed fellow who apparently treated her without consideration, for he ordered from the menu without consulting her.

They had been sitting there for nearly three-quarters of an hour, and I had become quite fascinated by the pale, wistful face of the pretty woman before me, when a newspaper hawker, well muffled up in his ragged
shuba,
entered from the street, and passing from one table to another came at last to mine.

“This is for you,” he said quickly in Russian. “Give me five copeks and attract no attention. Look in the margin.” And taking a paper from his bundle he laid it upon the table.

In surprise I flung the coin upon the table, and taking up the newspaper saw some faint writing in pencil on the margin close to the heavily-printed heading. The words were in French, and written in a strange hand, evidently that of a Russian. They read: