Phil left the table and slowly paced up and down the room, turning over in his mind the latest development in this game. Kapaloff had entered the room behind Mikhail, had kept his right hand in his jacket pocket, and had not allowed his servant to get out of the range of his vision for an instant. If Kapaloff couldn’t trust Mikhail, perhaps Phil could. The man was standing across the room from Kapaloff. His face showed nothing.
Kapaloff was asking: “You are still obdurate, then; and will not make terms?”
“I’m willing to make terms; but not to accept the ones you have made.”
Passing the table, Phil’s glance fell on the knife with which he had cut his meat. It was silver, and of little value as a weapon, but it would serve to cut the cords with which he had been bound. He reached the wall and turned. The cigarette between his lips was but a stub now. He went to the table and selected a fresh cigarette. Reaching for a match, he placed his body between Kapaloff and the tray. Mikhail, on the other side of the room, could see every movement of Phil’s hands. Fumbling with the matches, he picked up the knife with his left hand and slid it up his sleeve. Mikhail’s face was expressionless. Phil turned with the lighted cigarette in his mouth and resumed his pacing, thrusting his hands in his trouser pockets and allowing the knife to slide down into one of them. He reached the end of the room and started to turn. His elbows were seized, and he looked over his shoulder into Mikhail’s stolid face. Mikhail drew the knife from the pocket, returned it to the tray, and went back to his post by the wall.
Kapaloff spoke approvingly to Mikhail in Russian, and then said to Phiclass="underline" “I did not see you get it. But, behold, you cannot put faith even in the disloyalty of my servitors!”
Phil felt tired and spent — he had counted on the scarred man’s help. He went to the bed and Mikhail bound him. Then the lights were turned off and he was left alone.
Chapter IX
A Break for Freedom
The sound of a key being turned slowly, cautiously, in the door awakened Phil from the fitful sleep into which he had fallen. The noise stopped. He could see nothing. Something touched the sole of one bare foot and he jumped convulsively, shaking the bed.
“Sh-h-h!”
A cool, soft hand touched his cheek, and he whispered: “Romaine?”
“Yes. Be still while I cut the cords.”
Her hands passed down his arms, and his hands were freed. A little more fumbling in the dark and his feet were loose. He sat up suddenly and their faces bumped in the dark, and quite without thought he kissed her. For an instant she clung to him. Then she retreated a few inches, and said: “But first we must hurry.”
“Sure,” he agreed. “What do we do next?”
“Go downstairs to the front of the house, and wait until we hear the dogs in the rear. Mikhail will call them back there under some pretext, and hold them until we get out of the yard.”
She pressed a heavy revolver into Phil’s hand.
“But aren’t the dogs kept locked up?”
“No.”
“They were last night,” Phil insisted, “or I never would have made it.”
“Oh, yes! Uncle Boris expected you, and kept them in the garage until after you arrived.”
“Oh!” So he had done what was expected of him! “Well, if Mikhail’s with us, why not slip down and grab your uncle and wind this thing up?”
“No! Mikhail wouldn’t help us do that. Even when his brother was killed before his eyes he would do nothing. For generations his people have been serfs, slaves, of uncle’s — and he hasn’t the courage to defy him. If he’s to help at all it must he secretly. If it comes to a point where he must choose, he will be with uncle.”
“All right, let’s go!” His bare feet touched the floor and he laughed. “I haven’t seen my shoes since I came through the window. I’m going to have a lot of fun running around on my naked tootsies!”
She took his hand and led him to the door. They listened but heard nothing. They crept out into the hall and toward the stairs. An electric light over the stairs gave a dim glow. They halted while Phil mounted the balustrade and unscrewed the bulb, shrouding the steps into darkness. At the foot of the flight they halted again, and Phil darkened the light there. Then she guided him toward the front door.
Somewhere in the night behind them a door opened. A noise of something sliding across the floor. Kapaloff’s mellow tones:
“Children, you had best return to your rooms. There really is nothing else to do. If you move toward the door, you will show up in the moonlight that is shining through there. On the other hand, I have thoughtfully pushed a chair a little way down the hall from where I am, so that even if you could creep silently upon me you must inevitably collide with the chair and give me an inkling of where to send my bullets. So there is really nothing else to do but return to your rooms.”
Huddled against the wall, Phil and Romaine said nothing, hut in the hearts of each a desperate hope was born. Kapaloff chuckled and he killed their hopes.
“You need expect nothing from Mikhail. Your escape meant nothing to him, but he trusted you to exact the vengeance that he is too much the serf to take himself. So he supplied you with a weapon, I suppose, and sent you down into the hall. Then he pretended to hear a noise — thinking that I would rush out here to fall before your bullets. Happily, I know something of the peasant mind. So when he started and pretended to hear something that my keener ears missed I knocked him down with my pistol, and came out here knowing about what to expect. Now I must ask that you return to your rooms.”
Phil pressed the girl down until she lay flat on the floor, close to the wall. He stretched out in front of her, his eyes trying to dissolve the darkness. Kapaloff was lying on the floor somewhere ahead; but which wall was he clinging to? In a room something of his position could have been learned from his voice, but in this narrow passage all sense of direction was lost. The sounds simply came out of the night.
The Russian’s cultured voice reached them again. “You know, we are on the verge of making ourselves ridiculous. This reclining in the dark would be well enough except that I fancy we are both exceptionally patient beings. Hence, it is likely to be prolonged to an absurd length.”
With the hand that was not occupied with the revolver Phil felt in his pockets. In a vest pocket he found several coins. He tossed one of them down the hall; it hit a wall and fell to the floor.
Kapaloff laughed. “I was thinking of that, too; but it isn’t easy to imitate the sound of a person in motion.”
Phil cursed under his breath. “ There must be some way out of this hole!” Toward the front the hall was too light, as Kapaloff had said; and there seemed to be no other exits except by the stairs, or past the Russian. He might chance a volley — but there was the girl to consider. He never questioned that Kapaloff would shoot. Romaine crawled to his side.
“If we go upstairs,” she whispered, “we are trapped.”
“Can you think of anything?”
“No!” And then she added naively: “But here with you I am not afraid.” She clutched his arm. “I believe he has gone. It feels as if no one else was here.”
“What would that mean?”
“The dogs, maybe!”
He thought of the sinewy bodies and dripping jaws he had seen in the yard, and shuddered.
“You wait here,” he ordered, and started crawling silently toward the rear of the hall. After it seemed that he must have gone a hundred feet his hand touched the chair of which Kapaloff had spoken. He moved it aside carefully, and went on. His fingers touched a door-frame — the end of the hall.
He whispered to the girl, “He’s gone,” and she joined him.
“Shall we make a break for it?” he asked.
“Yes. Better try the back.”
She pushed past him, took his hand, and led him through the room beyond.