Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/250

200 such malice. Hastily I produced a Soviet credential vouching for me and bearing the signature of Chicherin. But reading was not this peasant's forte. The next man, a heavy set, scowling fellow, took it and scanned it critically.

"Forged!" was his instant verdict.

I passed out a credential signed by Trotzky. "Forged!" he repeated. I followed up with a document issued by the Bolshevik Railway Commissar. The same laconic comment "Forged!" Still obdurate, was he? As a climax I would play my trump card. I produced a letter signed by Nikolai Lenin. Not only his signature, but all the letter was written out in full by Lenin's own hand. My inquisitor scrutinized it intently, while I watched to see the magic name of Lenin transform the thunder-cloud on his face into a smile. I was certain that this would settle the matter. And it did. Not in my favor, however, but against me, as I discerned by the set of his jaw. I had overplayed myself in this matter of credentials.

In his mind my case was clear. Here is a plotter up to some deviltry against the Revolution. To ingratiate himself with the Bolsheviks, he displays a grand array of Soviet documents pretending to come from even Lenin himself. This marks him as no ordinary spy. We must act at once!

He carried my sheaf of papers over to a tall man dismounting from his horse. "That's Andrey Petrovich. He will know all about these papers," declared