The Man From St. Petersburg

FIFTEEN

Something had gone wrong. Feliks had not seen Charlotte since midday, when she had brought him a basin, a jug of water, a towel and a cake of soap. There must have been some kind of trouble to keep her away-perhaps she had been forced to leave the house, or perhaps she felt she might be under observation. But she had not given him away, evidently, for here he was.

Anyway, he did not need her anymore.

He knew where Orlov was and he knew where the guns were. He was not able to get into Orlov’s room, for the security seemed too good; so he would have to make Orlov come out. He knew how to do that.

He had not used the soap and water, because the little hideaway was too cramped to allow him to stand up straight and wash himself, and anyway he did not care much about cleanliness; but now he was very hot and sticky, and he wanted to feel fresh before going about his work, so he took the water out into the nursery.

It felt very strange, to be standing in the place where Charlotte had spent so many hours of her childhood. He put the thought out of his mind: this was no time for sentiment. He took off all his clothes and washed himself by the light of a single candle. A familiar, pleasant feeling of anticipation and excitement filled him, and he felt as if his skin were glowing. I shall win tonight, he thought savagely, no matter how many I have to kill. He rubbed himself all over roughly with the towel. His movements were jerky, and there was a tight sensation in the back of his throat which made him want to shout. This must be why warriors yell war cries, he thought. He looked down at his body and saw that he had the beginnings of an erection.

Then he heard Lydia say: “Why, you’ve grown a beard.”

He spun around and stared into the darkness, stupefied.

She came forward into the circle of candlelight. Her blond hair was unpinned and hung around her shoulders. She wore a long, pale nightdress with a fitted bodice and a high waist. Her arms were bare and white. She was smiling.

They stood still, looking at one another. Several times she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Feliks felt the blood rush to his loins. How long, he thought wildly, how long since I stood naked before a woman?

She moved, but it did not break the spell. She stepped forward and knelt at his feet. She closed her eyes and nuzzled his body. As Feliks looked down on her unseeing face, candlelight glinted off the tears on her cheeks.

Lydia was nineteen again, and her body was young and strong and tireless. The simple wedding was over, and she and her new husband were in the little cottage they had taken in the country. Outside, snow fell quietly in the garden. They made love by candlelight. She kissed him all over, and he said: “I have always loved you, all these years,” although it was only weeks since they had met. His beard brushed her breasts, although she could not remember his growing a beard. She watched his hands, busy all over her body, in all the secret places, and she said: “It’s you, you’re doing this to me, it’s you, Feliks, Feliks,” as if there had ever been anyone else who did these things to her, who gave her this rolling, swelling pleasure. With her long fingernail she scratched his shoulder. She watched as the blood welled up, then leaned forward and licked it greedily. “You’re an animal,” he said. They touched one another busily, all the time; they were like children let loose in a sweet shop, moving restlessly from one thing to another, touching and looking and tasting, unable to believe in their astonishing good fortune. She said: “I’m so glad we ran away together,” and for some reason that made him look sad, so she said: “Stick your finger up me,” and the sad look went and desire masked his face, but she realized that she was crying, and she could not understand why. Suddenly she realized that this was a dream, and she was terrified of waking up, so she said: “Let’s do it now, quickly,” and they came together, and she smiled through her tears and said: “We fit.” They seemed to move like dancers, or courting butterflies, and she said: “This is ever so nice, dear Jesus this is ever so nice,” and then she said: “I thought this would never happen to me again,” and her breath came in sobs. He buried his face in her neck, but she took his head in her hands and pushed it away so that she could see him. Now she knew that this was not a dream. She was awake. There was a taut string stretched between the back of her throat and the base of her spine, and every time it vibrated, her whole body sang a single note of pleasure which got louder and louder. “Look at me!” she said as she lost control, and he said gently: “I’m looking,” and the note got louder. “I’m wicked!” she cried as the climax hit her. “Look at me, I’m wicked!” and her body convulsed, and the string got tighter and tighter and the pleasure more piercing until she felt she was losing her mind, and then the last high note of joy broke the string and she slumped and fainted.

Feliks laid her gently on the floor. Her face in the candlelight was peaceful, all the tension gone; she looked like one who had died happy. She was pale, but breathing normally. She had been half asleep, probably drugged, Feliks knew, but he did not care. He felt drained and weak and helpless and grateful, and very much in love. We could start again, he thought: she’s a free woman, she could leave her husband, we could live in Switzerland, Charlotte could join us-

This is not an opium dream, he told himself. He and Lydia had made such plans before, in St. Petersburg, nineteen years ago; and they had been utterly impotent against the wishes of respectable people. It doesn’t happen, not in real life, he thought; they would frustrate us all over again.

They will never let me have her.

But I shall have my revenge.

He got to his feet and quickly put on his clothes. He picked up the candle. He looked at her once more. Her eyes were still closed. He wanted to touch her once more, to kiss her soft mouth. He hardened his heart. Never again, he thought. He turned and went through the door.

He walked softly along the carpeted corridor and down the stairs. His candle made weird moving shadows in the doorways. I may die tonight, but not before I have killed Orlov and Walden, he thought. I have seen my daughter, I have lain with my wife; now I will kill my enemies, and then I can die.

On the second-floor landing he stepped on a hard floor and his boot made a loud noise. He froze and listened. He saw that there was no carpet here, but a marble floor. He waited. There was no noise from the rest of the house. He took off his boots and went on in his bare feet-he had no socks.

The lights were out all over the house. Would anyone be roaming around? Might someone come down to raid the larder, feeling hungry in the middle of the night? Might a butler dream he heard noises and make a tour of the house to check? Might Orlov’s bodyguards need to go to the bathroom? Feliks strained his hearing, ready to snuff out the candle and hide at the slightest noise.

He stopped in the hall and took from his coat pocket the plans of the house Charlotte had drawn for him. He consulted the ground-floor plan briefly, holding the candle close to the paper, then turned to his right and padded along the corridor.

He went through the library into the gun room.

He closed the door softly behind him and looked around. A great hideous head seemed to leap at him from the wall, and he jumped, and grunted with fear. The candle went out. In the darkness he realized he had seen a tiger’s head, stuffed and mounted on the wall. He lit the candle again. There were trophies all around the walls: a lion, a deer, and even a rhinoceros. Walden had done some big-game hunting in his time. There was also a big fish in a glass case.

Feliks put the candle down on the table. The guns were racked along one wall. There were three pairs of double-barreled shotguns, a Winchester rifle and something that Feliks thought must be an elephant gun. He had never seen an elephant gun. He had never seen an elephant. The guns were secured by a chain through their trigger guards. Feliks looked along the chain. It was fastened by a large padlock to a bracket screwed into the wooden end of the rack.

Feliks considered what to do. He had to have a gun. He thought he might be able to snap the padlock, given a tough piece of iron such as a screwdriver to use as a lever; but it seemed to him that it might be easier to unscrew the bracket from the wood of the rack and then pass chain, padlock and bracket through the trigger guards to free the guns.

He looked again at Charlotte’s plan. Next to the gun room was the flower room. He picked up his candle and went through the communicating door. He found himself in a small, cold room with a marble table and a stone sink. He heard a footstep. He doused his candle and crouched down. The sound had come from outside, from the gravel path: it had to be one of the sentries. The light of a flashlight flickered outside. Feliks flattened himself against the door, beside the window. The light grew stronger and the footsteps became louder. They stopped right outside and the flashlight shone in through the window. By its light Feliks could see a rack over the sink and a few tools hanging by hooks: shears, secateurs, a small hoe and a knife. The sentry tried the door against which Feliks stood. It was locked. The footsteps moved away and the light went. Feliks waited a moment. What would the sentry do? Presumably he had seen the glimmer of Feliks’s candle. But he might think it had been the reflection of his own torch. Or someone in the house might have had a perfectly legitimate reason to go into the flower room. Or the sentry might be the ultracautious type, and come and check.

Leaving the doors open, Feliks went from the flower room, through the gun room, and into the library, feeling his way in the dark, holding his unlit candle in his hand. He sat on the floor in the library behind a big leather sofa and counted slowly to one thousand. Nobody came. The sentry was not the cautious type.

He went back into the gun room and lit the candle. The windows were heavily curtained here-there had been no curtains in the flower room. He went cautiously into the flower room, took the knife he had seen over the rack, came back into the gun room and bent over the gun rack. He used the blade of the knife to undo the screws that held the bracket to the wood of the rack. The wood was old and hard, but eventually the screws came loose and he was able to unchain the guns.

There were three cupboards in the room. One held bottles of brandy and whiskey, together with glasses. Another held bound copies of a magazine called Horse and Hound and a huge leather-bound ledger marked GAME BOOK. The third was locked: that must be where the ammunition was kept.

Feliks broke the lock with the garden knife.

Of the three types of guns available-Winchester, shotgun or elephant gun-he preferred the Winchester. However, as he searched through the boxes of ammunition he realized there were no cartridges here either for the Winchester or for the elephant gun: those weapons must have been kept as souvenirs. He had to be content with a shotgun. All three pairs were twelve-bore, and all the ammunition consisted of cartridges of number-six shot. To be sure of killing his man he would have to fire at close range-no more than twenty yards, to be absolutely certain. And he would have only two shots before reloading.

Still, he thought, I only want to kill two people.

The image of Lydia lying on the nursery floor kept coming back to him. When he thought of how they had made love, he felt exultant. He no longer felt the fatalism which had gripped him immediately afterward. Why should I die? he thought. And when I have killed Walden, who knows what might happen then?

He loaded the gun

And now, Lydia thought, I shall have to kill myself.

She saw no other possibility. She had descended to the depths of depravity for the second time in her life. All her years of self-discipline had come to nothing, just because Feliks had returned. She could not live with the knowledge of what she was. She wanted to die, now.

She considered how it might be done. What could she take that was poisonous? There must be rat poison somewhere on the premises, but of course she did not know where. An overdose of laudanum? She was not sure she had enough. You could kill yourself with gas, she recalled, but Stephen had converted the house to electric light. She wondered whether the top stories were high enough for her to die by jumping from a window. She was afraid she might merely break her back and be paralyzed for years. She did not think she had the courage to slash her wrists; and besides, it would take so long to bleed to death. The quickest way would be to shoot herself. She thought she could probably load a gun and fire it: she had seen it done innumerable times. But, she remembered, the guns were locked up.

Then she thought of the lake. Yes, that was the answer. She would go to her room and put on a robe; then she would leave the house by a side door, so that the policemen should not see her; and she would walk across the west side of the park, beside the rhododendrons, and through the woods until she came to the water’s edge; then she would just keep walking, until the cool water closed over her head; then she would open her mouth, and a minute or so later it would be all over.

She left the nursery and walked along the corridor in the dark. She saw a light under Charlotte’s door, and hesitated. She wanted to see her little girl one last time. The key was in the lock on the outside. She unlocked the door and went in.

Charlotte sat in a chair by the window, fully dressed but asleep. Her face was pale but for the redness around her eyes. She had unpinned her hair. Lydia closed the door and went over to her. Charlotte opened her eyes.

“What’s happened?” she said.

“Nothing,” Lydia said. She sat down.

Charlotte said: “Do you remember when Nannie went away?”

“Yes. You were old enough for a governess, and I didn’t have another baby.”

“I had forgotten all about it for years. I’ve just remembered. You never knew, did you, that I thought Nannie was my mother?”

“I don’t know… did you think so? You always called me Mama, and her Nannie…”

“Yes.” Charlotte spoke slowly, almost desultorily, as if she were lost in the fog of distant memory. “You were Mama, and Nannie was Nannie, but everybody had a mother, you see, and when Nannie said you were my mother, I said don’t be silly, Nannie, you are my mother. And Nannie just laughed. Then you sent her away. I was broken-hearted.”

“I never realized…”

“Marya never told you, of course-what governess would?”

Charlotte was just repeating the memory, not accusing her mother, just explaining something. She went on: “So you see, I have the wrong mother, and now I have the wrong father, too. The new thing made me remember the old, I suppose.”

Lydia said: “You must hate me. I understand. I hate myself.”

“I don’t hate you, Mama. I’ve been dreadfully angry toward you, but I’ve never hated you.”

“But you think I’m a hypocrite.”

“Not even that.”

A feeling of peace came over Lydia.

Charlotte said: “I’m beginning to understand why you’re so fiercely respectable, why you were so determined that I should never know anything of sex… you just wanted to save me from what happened to you. And I’ve found out that there are hard decisions, and that sometimes one can’t tell what’s good and right to do; and I think I’ve judged you harshly, when I had no right to judge you at all… and I’m not very proud of myself.”

“Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes… and I love you, Mama, and that’s why I feel so wretched.”

Lydia was dazed. This was the last thing she had expected. After all that had happened-the lies, the treachery, the anger, the bitterness-Charlotte still loved her. She was suffused with a kind of tranquil joy. Kill myself? she thought. Why should I kill myself?

“We should have talked like this before,” Lydia said.

“Oh, you’ve no idea how much I wanted to,” Charlotte said. “You were always so good at telling me how to curtsy, and carry my train, and sit down gracefully, and put up my hair… and I longed for you to explain important things to me in the same way-about falling in love and having babies-but you never did.”

“I never could,” Lydia said. “I don’t know why.”

Charlotte yawned. “I think I’ll sleep now.” She stood up.

Lydia kissed her cheek, then embraced her.

Charlotte said: “I love Feliks, too, you know; that hasn’t changed.”

“I understand,” said Lydia. “I do, too.”

“Good night, Mama.”

“Good night.”

Lydia went out quickly and closed the door behind her. She hesitated outside. What would Charlotte do if the door were left unlocked? Lydia decided to save her the anxiety of the decision. She turned the key in the lock.

She went down the stairs, heading for her own room. She was so glad she had talked to Charlotte. Perhaps, she thought, this family could be mended, after all; I’ve no idea how, but surely it might be done. She went into her room.

“Where have you been?” said Stephen.

Now that Feliks had a weapon, all he had to do was get Orlov out of his room. He knew how to do that. He was going to burn the house down.

Carrying the gun in one hand and the candle in the other, he walked-still barefoot-through the west wing and across the hall into the drawing room. Just a few more minutes, he thought; give me just a few more minutes and I will be done. He passed through two dining rooms and a serving room and entered the kitchens. Here Charlotte’s plans became vague, and he had to search for the way out. He found a large rough-hewn door closed with a bar. He lifted the bar and quietly opened the door.

He put out his candle and waited in the doorway. After a minute or so he found he could just about make out the outlines of the buildings. That was a relief: he was afraid to use the candle outside because of the sentries.

In front of him was a small cobbled courtyard. On its far side, if the plan was right, there was a garage, a workshop, and-a petroleum tank.

He crossed the yard. The building in front of him had once been a barn he guessed. Part of it was enclosed-the workshop, perhaps-and the rest was open. He could vaguely make out the great round headlamps of two large cars. Where was the fuel tank? He looked up. The building was quite high. He stepped forward, and something hit his forehead. It was a length of flexible pipe with a nozzle at the end. It hung down from the upper part of the building.

It made sense: they put the cars in the barn and the petroleum tank in the hayloft. They simply drove the cars into the courtyard and filled them with fuel from the pipe.

Good! he thought.

Now he needed a container: a two-gallon can would be ideal. He entered the garage and walked around the cars, feeling with his feet, careful not to stumble over anything noisy.

There were no cans.

He recalled the plans again. He was close to the kitchen garden. There might be a watering can in that region. He was about to go and look when he heard a sniff.

He froze.

The policeman went by.

Feliks could hear the beat of his own heart.

The light from the policeman’s oil lamp meandered around the courtyard. Did I shut the kitchen door? Feliks thought in a panic. The lamp shone on the door: it looked shut.

The policeman went on.

Feliks realized he had been holding his breath, and he let it out in a long sigh.

He gave the policeman a minute to get some distance away; then he went in the same direction, looking for the kitchen garden.

He found no cans there, but he stumbled over a coil of hose. He estimated its length at about a hundred feet. It gave him a wicked idea.

First he needed to know how frequently the policeman patrolled. He began to count. Still counting, he carried the garden hose back to the courtyard and concealed it and himself behind the motor cars.

He had reached nine hundred and two when the policeman came around again.

He had about fifteen minutes.

He attached one end of the hose to the nozzle of the petroleum pipe, then walked across the courtyard, paying out the hose as he went. He paused in the kitchen to find a sharp meat skewer and to relight his candle. Then he retraced his steps through the house, laying the hose through the kitchen, the serving room, the dining rooms, the drawing room, the hall and the passage, and into the library. The hose was heavy, and it was difficult to do the job silently. He listened all the while for footsteps, but all he heard was the noise of an old house settling down for the night. Everyone was in bed, he was sure; but would someone come down to get a book from the library, or a glass of brandy from the drawing room, or a sandwich from the kitchen?

If that were to happen now, he thought, the game would be up.

Just a few more minutes-just a few more minutes!

He had been worried about whether the hose would be long enough, but it just reached through the library door. He walked back, following the hose, making holes in it every few yards with the sharp point of the meat skewer.

He went out through the kitchen door and stood in the garage. He held his shotgun two-handed, like a club.

He seemed to wait an age.

At last he heard footsteps. The policeman passed him and stopped, shining his torch on the hose, and gave a grunt of surprise.

Feliks hit him with the gun.

The policeman staggered.

Feliks hissed: “Fall down, damn you!” and hit him again with all his might.

The policeman fell down, and Feliks hit him again with savage satisfaction.

The man was still.

Feliks turned to the petroleum pipe and found the place where the hose was connected. There was a tap to stop and start the flow of petroleum.

Feliks turned on the tap.

“Before we were married,” Lydia said impulsively, “I had a lover.”

“Good Lord!” said Stephen.

Why did I say that? she thought. Because lying about it has made everyone unhappy, and I’m finished with all that.

She said: “My father found out about it. He had my lover jailed and tortured. He said that if I would agree to marry you, the torture would stop immediately; and that as soon as you and I had left for England, my lover would be released from jail.”

She watched his face. He was not as hurt as she had expected, but he was horrified. He said: “Your father was wicked.”

“I was wicked to marry without love.”

“Oh…” Now Stephen looked pained. “For that matter, I wasn’t in love with you. I proposed to you because my father had died and I needed a wife to be Countess of Walden. It was later that I fell so desperately in love with you. I’d say I forgive you, but there’s nothing to forgive.”

Could it be this easy? she thought. Might he forgive me everything and go on loving me? It seemed that, because death was in the air, anything was possible. She found herself plunging on. “There’s more to be told,” she said, “and it’s worse.”

His expression was painfully anxious. “You’d better tell me.”

“I was… I was already with child when I married you.”

Stephen paled. “Charlotte!”

Lydia nodded silently.

“She… she’s not mine?”

“No.”

“Oh, God.”

Now I have hurt you, she thought; this you never dreamed. She said: “Oh, Stephen, I am so dreadfully sorry.”

He stared at her. “Not mine,” he said stupidly. “Not mine.”

She thought of how much it meant to him: more than anyone else the English nobility talked about breeding and bloodlines. She remembered him looking at Charlotte and murmuring: “Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”; it was the only verse of the Bible she had ever heard him quote. She thought of her own feelings, of the mystery of the child starting life as part of oneself and then becoming a separate individual, but never completely separate: it must be the same for men, she thought; sometimes one thinks it isn’t, but it must be.

His face was gray and drawn. He looked suddenly older. He said: “Why are you telling me this now?”

I can’t, she thought; I can’t reveal any more. I’ve hurt him so much already. But it was as if she was on a downhill slope and could not stop. She blurted: “Because Charlotte has met her real father, and she knows everything.”

“Oh, the poor child.” Stephen buried his face in his hands.

Lydia realized that his next question would be: Who is the father? She was overcome by panic. She could not tell him that. It would kill him. But she needed to tell him; she wanted the weight of these guilty secrets to be lifted forever. Don’t ask, she thought; not yet, it’s too much.

He looked up at her. His face was frighteningly expressionless. He looked like a judge, she thought, impassively pronouncing sentence; and she was the guilty prisoner in the dock.

Don’t ask.

He said: “And the father is Feliks, of course.”

She gasped.

He nodded, as if her reaction was all the confirmation he needed.

What will he do? she thought fearfully. She watched his face, but she could not read his expression: he was like a stranger to her.

He said: “Oh, dear God in Heaven, what have we done?”

Lydia was suddenly garrulous. “He came along just when she was beginning to see her parents as frail human beings, of course; and there he was, full of life and ideas and iconoclasm… just the kind of thing to enchant an independent-minded young girl… I know, something like that happened to me… and so she got to know him, and became fond of him, and helped him… but she loves you, Stephen, she’s yours in that way. People can’t help loving you… can’t help it…”

His face was wooden. She wished he would curse, or cry, or abuse her, or even beat her, but he sat there looking at her with that judge’s face, and said: “And you? Did you help him?”

“Not intentionally, no… but I haven’t helped you, either. I am such a hateful, evil woman.”

He stood up and held her shoulders. His hands were cold as the grave. He said: “But are you mine?”

“I wanted to be, Stephen-I really did.”

He touched her cheek, but no love showed in his face. She shuddered. She said: “I told you it was too much to forgive.”

He said: “Do you know where Feliks is?”

She made no reply. If I tell, she thought, it will be like killing Feliks. If I don’t tell, it will be like killing Stephen.

“You do know,” he said.

She nodded dumbly.

“Will you tell me?”

She looked into his eyes. If I tell him, she thought, will he forgive me?

Stephen said: “Choose.”

She felt as if she were falling headlong into a pit.

Stephen raised his eyebrows expectantly.

Lydia said: “He’s in the house.”

“Good God! Where?”

Lydia’s shoulders slumped. It was done. She had betrayed Feliks for the last time. “He’s been hiding in the nursery,” she said dejectedly.

His expression was no longer wooden. His cheeks colored and his eyes blazed with fury.

Lydia said: “Say you forgive me… please?”

He turned around and ran from the room.

Feliks ran through the kitchen and through the serving room, carrying his candle, the shotgun and his matches. He could smell the sweet, slightly nauseating vapor of petrol. In the dining room a thin, steady jet was spouting through a hole in the hosepipe. Feliks shifted the hose across the room, so that the fire would not destroy it too quickly, then struck a match and threw it on to a petrol-soaked patch of rug. The rug burst into flames.

Feliks grinned and ran on.

In the drawing room he picked up a velvet cushion and held it to another hole in the hosepipe for a minute. He put the cushion down on a sofa, set fire to it and threw some more cushions onto it. They blazed merrily.

He ran across the hall and along the passage to the library. Here the petrol was gushing out of the end of the pipe and running over the floor. Feliks pulled handfuls of books off the shelves and threw them on the floor into the spreading puddle. Then he crossed the room and opened the communicating door to the gun room. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then threw his candle into the puddle.

There was a noise like a huge gust of wind and the library caught fire. Books and petrol burned fiercely. In a moment the curtains were ablaze; then the seats and the paneling caught. The petrol continued to pour out of the hosepipe, feeding the fire. Feliks laughed aloud.

He turned into the gun room. He stuffed a handful of extra cartridges into the pocket of his coat. He went from the gun room into the flower room. He unbolted the door to the garden, opened it quietly and stepped out.

He walked directly west, away from the house, for two hundred paces, containing his impatience. Then he turned south for the same distance, and finally he walked east until he was directly opposite the main entrance to the house, looking at it across the darkened lawn.

He could see the second police sentry standing in front of the portico, illuminated by the twin lamps, smoking a pipe. His colleague lay unconscious, perhaps dead, in the kitchen courtyard. Feliks could see the flames in the windows of the library, but the policeman was some distance away from there and he had not noticed them yet. He would see them at any moment.

Between Feliks and the house, about fifty yards from the portico, was a big old chestnut tree. Feliks walked toward it across the lawn. The policeman seemed to be looking more or less in Feliks’s direction, but he did not see him. Feliks did not care: if he sees me, he thought, I’ll shoot him dead. It doesn’t matter now. No one could stop the fire. Everyone will have to leave the house. Any minute now, any minute now, I’ll kill them both.

He came up behind the tree and leaned against it, with the shotgun in his hands.

Now he could see flames at the opposite end of the house, in the dining room windows.

He thought: What are they doing in there?

Walden ran along the corridor to the bachelor wing and knocked on the door of the Blue Room, where Thomson was sleeping. He went in.

“What is it?” Thomson’s voice said from the bed.

Walden turned on the light. “Feliks is in the house.”

“Good God!” Thomson got out of bed. “How?”

“Charlotte let him in,” Walden said bitterly.

Thomson was hastily putting on trousers and a jacket. “Do we know where?”

“In the nursery. Have you got your revolver?”

“No, but I’ve got three men with Orlov, remember? I’ll peel two of them off and then take Feliks.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“I’d rather-”

“Don’t argue!” Walden shouted. “I want to see him die.”

Thomson gave a queer, sympathetic look, then ran out of the room. Walden followed.

They went along the corridor to Aleks’s room. The bodyguard outside the door stood up and saluted Thomson. Thomson said: “It’s Barrett, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s inside?”

“Bishop and Anderson, sir.”

“Get them to open up.”

Barrett tapped on the door.

Immediately a voice said: “Password?”

“Mississippi,” said Barrett.

The door opened. “What’s on, Charlie? Oh, it’s you, sir.”

Thomson said: “How is Orlov?”

“Sleeping like a baby, sir.”

Walden thought: Let’s get on with it!

Thomson said: “Feliks is in the house. Barrett and Anderson, come with me and his lordship. Bishop, stay inside the room. Check that your pistols are loaded, please, all of you.”

Walden led the way along the bachelor wing and up the back stairs to the nursery suite. His heart was pounding, and he felt the curious mixture of fear and eagerness which had always come over him when he got a big lion in the sights of his rifle.

He pointed at the nursery door.

Thomson whispered: “Is there electric light in that room?”

“Yes,” Walden replied.

“Where’s the switch?”

“Left-hand side of the door, at shoulder height.”

Barrett and Anderson drew their pistols.

Walden and Thomson stood on either side of the door, out of the line of fire.

Barrett threw open the door, Anderson dashed in and stepped to one side, and Barrett threw the light switch.

Nothing happened.

Walden looked into the room.

Anderson and Barrett were checking the school room and the bedrom. A moment later Barrett said: “No one here, sir.”

The nursery was bare and bright with light. There was a bowl of dirty water on the floor, and next to it a crumpled towel.

Walden pointed to the closet door. “Through there is a little attic.”

Barrett opened the closet door. They all tensed. Barrett went through with his gun in his hand.

He came back a moment later. “He was there.”

Thomson scratched his head.

Walden said: “We must search the house.”

Thomson said: “I wish we had more men.”

“We’ll start with the west wing,” Walden said. “Come on.”

They followed him out of the nursery and along the corridor to the staircase. As they went down the stairs Walden smelled smoke. “What’s that?” he said.

Thomson sniffed.

Walden looked at Barrett and Anderson: neither of them was smoking.

The smell became more powerful, and now Walden could hear a noise like wind in the trees.

Suddenly he was filled with fear. “My house is on fire!” he shouted. He raced down the stairs.

The hall was full of smoke.

Walden ran across the hall and pushed open the door of the drawing room. Heat hit him like a blow and he staggered back. The room was an inferno. He despaired: it could never be put out. He looked along to the west wing, and saw that the library was afire too. He turned. Thomson was right behind him. Walden shouted: “My house is burning down!”

Thomson took his arm and pulled him back to the staircase. Anderson and Barrett stood there. Walden found he could breathe and hear more easily in the center of the hall. Thomson was very cool and collected. He began to give orders.

“Anderson, go and wake up those two bobbies outside. Send one to find a garden hose and a tap. Send the other running to the village to telephone for a fire engine. Then run up the back stairs and through the servants’ quarters, waking everyone. Tell them to get out the quickest way they can, then gather on the front lawn to be counted. Barrett, go wake up Mr. Churchill and make sure he gets out. I’ll fetch Orlov. Walden, you get Lydia and Charlotte. Move!”

Walden ran up the stairs and into Lydia’s room. She was sitting on the chaise longue in her nightdress, and her eyes were red with weeping. “The house is on fire,” Walden said breathlessly. “Go out quickly on to the front lawn. I’ll get Charlotte.” Then he thought of something: the dinner bell. “No,” he said. “You get Charlotte. I’ll ring the bell.”

He raced down the stairs again, thinking: Why didn’t I think of this before? In the hall was a long silk rope which would ring bells all over the house to warn guests and servants that a meal was about to be served. Walden pulled on the rope, and heard faintly the response of the bells from various parts of the house. He noticed a garden hose trailing through the hall. Was somebody fighting the fire already? He could not think who. He kept on pulling the rope.

Feliks watched anxiously. The blaze was spreading too quickly. Already large areas of the second floor were burning-he could see the glow in the windows. He thought: Come out, you fools. What were they doing? He did not want to burn everyone in the house-he wanted them to come out. The policeman in the portico seemed to be asleep. I’ll give the alarm myself, Feliks thought desperately; I don’t want the wrong people to die-

Suddenly the policeman looked around. His pipe fell out of his mouth. He dashed into the porch and began to hammer on the door. At last! thought Feliks. Now raise the alarm, you fool! The policeman ran around to a window and broke it.

Just then the door opened and someone rushed out in a cloud of smoke. It’s happening, Feliks thought. He hefted the shotgun and peered through the darkness. He could not see the face of the newcomer. The man shouted something, and the policeman ran off. I’ve got to be able to see their faces, Feliks thought; but if I go too close I’ll be seen too soon. The newcomer rushed back into the house before Feliks could recognize him. I’ll have to get nearer, Feliks thought, and take the chance. He moved across the lawn. Within the house, bells began to ring.

Now they will come, thought Feliks.

Lydia ran along the smoke-filled corridor. How could this happen so quickly? In her room she had smelled nothing, but now there were flames flickering underneath the doors of the bedrooms she passed. The whole house must be blazing. The air was too hot to breathe. She reached Charlotte’s room and turned the handle of the door. Of course, it was locked. She turned the key. She tried again to open the door. It would not move. She turned the handle and threw her weight against the door. Something was wrong, the door was jammed, Lydia began to scream and scream-

“Mama!” Charlotte’s voice came from within the room.

Lydia bit her lip hard and stopped screaming. “Charlotte!”

“Open the door!”

“I can’t I can’t I can’t-”

“It’s locked!”

“I’ve unlocked it and it won’t open and the house is on fire oh dear Jesus help me help-”

The door shook and the handle rattled as Charlotte tried to open it from the inside.

“Mama!”

“Yes!”

“Mama, stop screaming and listen carefully to me-the floor has shifted and the door is wedged in its frame-it will have to be broken down-go and fetch help!”

“I can’t leave you-”

“MAMA! GO AND GET HELP OR I’LL BURN TO DEATH!”

“Oh, God-all right!” Lydia turned and ran, choking, toward the staircase.

Walden was still ringing the bell. Through the smoke he saw Aleks, flanked by Thomson and the third detective, Bishop, coming down the stairs. Lydia and Churchill and Charlotte should be here, too, he thought; then he realized that they might come down any one of several staircases: the only place to check was out on the front lawn where everyone had been told to gather.

“Bishop!” shouted Walden. “Come here!”

The detective ran across.

“Ring this. Keep going as long as you can.”

Bishop took the rope and Walden followed Aleks out of the house.

It was a very sweet moment for Feliks.

He lifted the gun and walked toward the house.

Orlov and another man walked toward him. They had not yet seen him. As they came closer, Walden appeared behind them.

Like rats in a trap, Feliks thought triumphantly.

The man Feliks did not know looked back over his shoulder and spoke to Walden.

Orlov was twenty yards away.

This is it, Feliks thought.

He put the stock of the gun to his shoulder, aimed carefully at Orlov’s chest and-just as Orlov opened his mouth to speak-pulled the trigger.

A large black hole appeared in Orlov’s nightshirt as an ounce of number-six shot, about four hundred pellets, tore into his body. The other two men heard the bang and stared at Feliks in astonishment. Blood gushed from Orlov’s chest, and he fell backward.

I did it, Feliks thought exultantly; I killed him.

Now for the other tyrant.

He pointed the gun at Walden. “Don’t move!” he yelled.

Walden and the other man stood motionless.

They all heard a scream.

Feliks looked in the direction from which the sound came.

Lydia was running out of the house with her hair on fire.

Feliks hesitated for a split second; then he dashed toward her.

Walden did the same.

As he ran, Feliks dropped the gun and tore off his coat. He reached Lydia a moment before Walden. He wrapped the coat around her head, smothering the flames.

She pulled the coat off her head and yelled at them: “Charlotte is trapped in her room!”

Walden turned and ran toward the house.

Feliks ran with him.

Lydia, sobbing with fright, saw Thomson dart forward and pick up the shotgun Feliks had dropped.

She watched in horror as Thomson raised it and took aim at Feliks’s back.

“No!” she screamed. She threw herself at Thomson, knocking him off balance.

The gun discharged into the ground.

Thomson stared at her in bewilderment.

“Don’t you know?” she shouted hysterically. “He’s suffered enough!”

Charlotte’s carpet was smoldering.

She put her fist to her mouth and bit her knuckles to stop herself from screaming.

She ran to her washstand, picked up the jug of water and threw it into the middle of the room. It made more smoke, not less.

She went to the window, opened it and looked out. Smoke and flames poured out of the windows below her. The wall of the house was faced with smooth stone: there was no way to climb down. If I have to I’ll jump; it will be better than burning, she thought. The idea terrified her and she bit her knuckles again.

She ran to the door and shook the handle impotently.

“Somebody, help, quickly!” she screamed.

Flames rose from the carpet, and a hole appeared in the center of the floor.

She ran around the edge of the room to be near the window, ready to jump.

She heard someone sobbing and realized it was she.

The hall was full of smoke. Feliks could hardly see. He stayed close behind Walden, thinking: Not Charlotte, I won’t let Charlotte die, not Charlotte.

They ran up the staircase. The whole second floor was ablaze. The heat was terrific. Walden dashed through a wall of flame and Feliks followed him.

Walden stopped outside a door and was seized by a fit of coughing. Helpless, he pointed at the door. Feliks rattled the handle and pushed the door with his shoulder. It would not move. He shook Walden and shouted: “Run at the door!” He and Walden-still coughing-stood on the other side of the corridor, facing the door.

Feliks said: “Now!”

They threw themselves at the door together.

The wood split but the door stayed shut.

Walden stopped coughing. His face showed sheer terror. “Again!” he shouted at Feliks.

They stood against the opposite wall.

“Now!”

They threw themselves at the door.

It cracked a little more.

From the other side of the door, they heard Charlotte scream.

Walden gave a roar of anger. He looked about him desperately. He picked up a heavy oak chair. Feliks thought it was too heavy for Walden to lift, but Walden raised it above his head and smashed it against the door. The wood began to splinter.

In a frenzy of impatience Feliks put his hands into the crack and began to tear at the splintered wood. His fingers became slippery with blood.

He stood back and Walden swung with the chair again. Again Feliks pulled out the shards. His hands were full of splinters. He heard Walden muttering something and realized it was a prayer. Walden swung the chair a third time. The chair broke, its seat and legs coming away from its back; but there was a hole in the door big enough for Feliks-but not for Walden-to crawl through.

Feliks dragged himself through the hole and fell into the bedroom.

The floor was on fire, and he could not see Charlotte.

“Charlotte!” he shouted at the top of his voice.

“Here!” Her voice came from the far side of the room.

Feliks ran around the outside of the room where the fire was less. She was sitting on the sill of the open window, breathing in ragged gulps. He picked her up by the waist and threw her over his shoulder. He ran back around the edge of the room to the door.

Walden reached through the door to take her.

Walden put his head and one shoulder through the hole to take Charlotte from Feliks. He could see that Feliks’s face and hands were burned black and his trousers were on fire. Charlotte’s eyes were open and wide with terror. Behind Feliks, the floor began to collapse. Walden got one arm beneath Charlotte’s body. Feliks seemed to stagger. Walden withdrew his head, put his other arm through the hole and got his hand under Charlotte’s armpit. Flames licked around her nightdress and she screamed. Walden said: “All right, Papa’s got you.” Suddenly he was taking her entire weight. He drew her through the hole. She fainted and went limp. As he pulled her out the bedroom floor fell in, and Walden saw Feliks’s face as Feliks dropped into the inferno.

Walden whispered: “May God have mercy on your soul.”

Then he ran downstairs.

Lydia was held in an iron grip by Thomson, who would not let her go into the blazing house. She stood, staring at the door, willing the two men to appear with Charlotte.

A figure appeared. Who was it?

It came closer. It was Stephen. He was carrying Charlotte.

Thomson let Lydia go. She ran to them. Stephen laid Charlotte gently on the grass. Lydia stared at him in a panic. She said: “What-what-”

“She’s not dead,” Stephen said. “Just fainted.”

Lydia got down on the grass, cradled Charlotte’s head in her lap and felt her chest beneath her left breast. There was a strong heartbeat.

“Oh, my baby,” Lydia said.

Stephen sat beside her. She looked at him. His trousers had burned and his skin was black and blistered. But he was alive.

She looked toward the door.

Stephen saw her glance.

Lydia became aware that Churchill and Thomson were standing near, listening.

Stephen took Lydia’s hand. “He saved her,” he said. “Then he passed her to me. Then the floor fell in. He’s dead.”

Lydia’s eyes filled with tears. Stephen saw, and squeezed her hand. He said: “I saw his face as he fell. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, as long as I live. You see, his eyes were open, and he was conscious, but-he wasn’t frightened. In fact he looked… satisfied.”

The tears streamed down Lydia’s face.

Churchill spoke to Thomson. “Get rid of the body of Orlov.”

Poor Aleks, Lydia thought, and she cried for him too.

Thomson said incredulously: “What?”

Churchill said: “Hide it, bury it, throw it into the fire. I don’t care how you do it. I just want you to get rid of that body.”

Lydia stared at him aghast, and through a film of tears she saw him take a sheaf of papers from the pocket of his dressing gown.

“The agreement is signed,” Churchill said. “The Czar will be told that Orlov died by accident, in the fire that burned down Walden Hall. Orlov was not murdered, do you understand? There was no assassin.” He looked around at each of them with his aggressive, pudgy face set in a fierce scowl. “There was never anybody called Feliks.”

Stephen stood up and went over to where Aleks’s body lay. Someone had covered his face. Lydia heard Stephen say: “Aleks, my boy… what am I going to say to your mother?” He bent down and folded the hands over the hole in the chest.

Lydia looked at the fire, burning down all those years of history, consuming the past.

Stephen came over and stood beside her. He whispered: “There was never anybody called Feliks.”

She looked up at him. Behind him, the sky in the east was pearly gray. Soon the sun would rise, and it would be a new day.