Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/286

274 which the Prince picked up without opening, but also that Shirinsky discovered, on arriving at his hotel, that, in addition to his money and his papers, his watch and chain and a diamond pin from his tie had likewise been left among the prisoners. Of course, none of the authorities in the prison had any knowledge as to who the thief actually was. And it was quite as natural that no results should have attended the search that was made; for, when prisoners can manage to hide anything up to a stolen locomotive, it was no task at all for them to cache such small articles as money and jewellery. In a prison there are hundreds of hiding places between the bricks of the walls, which are as movable as the keys of a piano, and in planks slit with a saw and afterwards closed up with bread.

In such a despicable and false manner did the "honourable old man," the Biblical patriarch Saloff, repay the really well-intentioned Inspector-General for his sympathetic attitude in the old man's case. Some years later, when I was living in St. Petersburg, I quite fortuitously happened to glance at an article which stated that a Prince Shirinsky, who had formed the habit of borrowing money from the leading citizens of a little town without giving it back, had been arrested. The account continued that the investigation which followed revealed the Prince as a usurper, that he had no right to the position he claimed.

As I pondered over the article for a moment, wondering why it had arrested my attention, I suddenly recalled the prison room and the striking figure of Saloff, beating his breast and kissing the hand of the grave and stately Prince.

"Well, old prison bird, you must have flown and hidden under the cover of the stolen documents!" And I