The Ship of Shadows/Chapter 4

AD anyone followed Mr. Shinski as he left the wharf and scene of his travail behind, early that evening, it would have been observed that for a stoker on a tramp steamer he acted in a very inconsistent fashion!

He went, first, to a Chinese hotel for officials and gentry in the French Settlement. Thence, an hour later, emerged a new Shinski, immaculate in whites, a suitcase in his hand. He took a cab to the Imperial Hotel, in the same quarter of the city, where he registered for a ten-dollar room. He inquired for mail, and a letter was given him.

Upon reading the letter, Shinski used the telephone briefly, then sank into a chair in the lobby, companioned by a fifty-cent cigar. It might have been noted that he chose a chair in a corner, away from other loungers.

Before the cigar was half smoked, a woman entered the lobby, Shinski rose to meet her, hand outstretched. Color suffused his pale features; his eyes burned luridly on hers.

“My dear Marie!” he murmured, speaking now in Russian.

“You are wonderful, Serge—as always!” Her voice held admiration, but nothing deeper. “You have actually managed it! We had given you up!”

He drew up a chair for her, laughing. His manner was excited, eager with suppressed exhilaration; the whole man seemed to be highly tensed, vibrating.

“Many people would be glad to leave America, but they cannot,” he answered, settling down in his own chair again. “I wanted to come here—and I am here. But in the name of the devil, how I have worked to get here! Well! Tell me quickly about everything! You have been successful?”

“Partly.”

Marie seemed to enjoy his impatience, as she drew off her gloves. She was a handsome woman, a magnificently hand some woman; her face was not in the least aristocratic, being rather coarse, but it was suffused with a dynamic force of character, a driving vitality. One would have put her age at thirty, her experience and ability at fifty. Yet there was nothing hard or harsh in her features. A mass of bronze hair lowered above her brow; her voice was rich and deep, an instrument entirely responsive to her wishes.

Her gloves removed, she turned a ring upon her left hand so that the bezel came outward. A gasp broke from Shinski. He leaned forward, stared at the glittering yellow diamond in its antique setting, then lifted his eyes to the poised gaze of the woman.

“The Shirvan diamond—then you have succeeded! But you must not display that in this place.”

ARIE nodded as she again turned the bezel of the ring inward—not, perhaps, without reluctance, since this was one of the historic jewels of the world, and a wonderful stone.

“We have succeeded very largely. Two of us alone failed; Arnheim was caught in Vladivostok and killed. Abe Gerin was recognized in Omsk—and is still there.”

“How did you manage it?” exclaimed Shinski, his eyes devouring her. “Getting the jewels through, I mean!”

“Largely by wit, my dear friend. The six of us separated in Moscow, after dividing the jewels, and came separately. Gerin, being ’s secretary, secured correct papers for us all. I kept the largest stones myself, so that the others had no temptation to abscond; the big money would come when we pooled again and sold the stuff. I now have the entire lot in my possession and keeping—Arnheim and Gerin had small lots, so that we lost little.

“We are now living separately, the others in the Japanese quarter, I in the British. Even here there is a violent feeling against anything that savors of Bolshevism, and the others are afraid to take chances. You and I had best arrange everything, for we are safe enough.”

“Exactly.” Shinski nodded energetically. “I now have my first papers as an American. Well! This is better than I had hoped for! You had my cable about the Ivanoff woman? The devil himself must have helped her! Getting money out of American millionaries [sic] is hard; I know, because I tried. Yet she must have succeeded, because she—”

Marie’s eyes dwelt upon him in a pitying comprehension.

“Don’t you realize the truth, my dear Serge?” she said quietly. “Such men demand proofs. You had none; you are a Russian, of peasant stock, and they were afraid of you. The Ivanoff, on the contrary, shows in her very person the caste to which she was born. She doubtless had letters from the Metropolitan of Moscow and others; American and allied diplomats would know her and vouch for her; the Russian aristocrats now in America would be wholly behind her endeavors. Naturally, she would succeed!”

Shinski’s eyes were red. “Class!” his voice bit out. “Again the aristocrat—”

“Be quiet!” Marie’s hand touched his arm, silenced him, quelled him, this little man with the fiery eyes and soul. “All that is done with, my friend. Before you left Russia, we agreed that the proletariat cause had cut its own throat; it is but a question of time, and for that reason we have turned individualist. Now that we have gotten out with our loot, it ill becomes us to use the old language on which we have turned our backs.”

Shinski shrugged his shoulders. “None the less, it is true! We are traitors to our ideals, but—”

“No but’s!” she intervened crisply. “As for me, I want no more revolution. I have worked twenty years in its cause, and I have seen it succeed, only to fail in a spasm of blood and ruin. I am sick of it! We shall reach Mexico and be rich—that is enough for me. In course of time we shall get into the United States; you and I can do so at any time, being citizens. You have not discovered what the Ivanoff woman is planning?”

HINSKI gave her a caustic glance. “Since you have abandoned the cause, Marie, why not call her the Princess Irene?”

“Very well!” Marie laughed softly, gayly, and patted Shinski’s arm. One gathered that she regarded him rather in the light of an animal tamed and subservient to her will, that intimacy with him had bred in her something akin to good-natured contempt. Certainly there was no fear in her wide eyes.

“She has some mad scheme.” Shinski spoke in a voice softened, mollified. “I don’t know it, but I gathered that it dealt with religion. She’s that type of fool.”

Marie nodded. “I can tell you all about it,” she said calmly. “She has been raising American money for two objects: first, to rescue the Romanoff women, and second, to rescue many of the ancient relics of the Russian church.”

“Oh!” said Shinski, a sudden light in his eyes. “Then she has gone back into Russia! We shall send word of that—”

“Not at all! She has sent a good deal of money back, and expects the Romanoff women to be brought out by others working inside the country. A large trunk filled with relics has already been sent to her. That was where we overlooked something, my friend! We took the jewels and reliquaries, and threw aside the relics. Well, those relics are worth something! And this woman has them, together with many jewels that we were unable to obtain—some of the finest, in fact! She is now waiting for the Romanoff women—or at least, for the czar’s daughters. And they will not come.”

“Why not?” demanded Shinski.

“Because I sent warning.”

“You are consistent, you!” Shinski’s eyes were beginning to blaze again. “You talk about turning your back on everything—”

“Because I hate that woman!” cried Marie in a sudden gust of passion. “It was her dead husband who sent me to Siberia years ago, a girl! She stands for everything I have fought against, for everything I have suffered! If I had her here now, I would kill her!”

Shinski drew back from her, alarmed. “But her husband died before the war; she too has suffered—”

ARIE’S mood changed abruptly. With a gesture she dismissed the matter.

“She has chartered a ship and has kept it waiting for the Romanoffs.”

“Where? At ValdivostokVladivostok [sic]?”

“No. Here—down the river at the Taku anchorage.”

“Ah! Then she herself—”

“Is here in town, at the Astor House.”

Shinski drew a long breath. For a moment he sat looking straight out before him, at nothing. His eyes were narrowed, filled with calculation, lurid with a cunning fury of thought. At last he spoke, his voice soft and low.

“How many are with her?”

“One—an old fool of a family servant.” Marie was watching him curiously. “Why? What is stirring in that clever head of yours?”

Shinski gave her a grin. He set his cigar-stub between his teeth, leaned forward and fastened his eyes upon hers.

“Listen, Marie! Because you and I are Americans, you think it easy to get away from here, to reach Mexico and America?

But I tell you it is not easy! The three with you are—”

“David Pinsky, Levi Deardorf, and the boy, young Marks.”

He nodded swiftly. “New York East Siders—fools who burst over to Russia and threw away their American citizens’ papers! Now, let me tell you, America is in fear of letting in the radicals! They don’t want us. South America also. Our one sure haven is Mexico, and there I have made all arrangements. But first we must get there; it will be hard, hard!”

“But why? There are ships—”

“And there are spies, of all countries; also there are customs officials! We can not travel on any public carrying steamer, unless we go separately and by stealth. This we cannot do, with three accompanying us—”

“If you mean,” she broke in coldly, “to desert Pinsky, Deardorf and Marks here, and to run away with the loot, I say no!”

“Nonsense! I meant nothing of the sort!” cried Shinski with an impatient gesture, although disappointment lurked in his eyes. “I mean that to reach Mexico, we must go via other countries, which is hardly possible; or else we must charter a ship—or obtain a ship—of our own. Ships are not easily chartered. The cost is terrific.”

“Well?” She regarded him steadily. “You propose—”

“The simplest thing imaginable. Tell me about this ship of the Ivanoff—her name, size and so forth.”

“She is called the Kum Chao, is Chinese-owned, and is a small steamer of two thousand tons—a coaster, I think, and an old ship. But surely you could not get—”

“It is simple, my dear!” Shinski looked cheerful. “There are difficulties, of course. The chief one is getting away without trouble; to effect that, we must manage the Ivanoff woman, let her smooth away every rocky spot, work hard for us! We must have a go-between, some one she will trust—one of the old aristocrats who will sell his soul for our money! The woman must be made to realize that the Romanoffs are beyond rescue, but that others need her help. She will thus get the millionaires some value for their money.”

HE watched him intently, trying to pierce the veil of his crafty thought.

“Even if we succeeded, Serge, we could not make her think we are aristocrats.”

“Tut, tut! Am I a fool? She will not see us. Where is the man or woman to help us?”

“Ah!” The quick word broke from her. “Boris Kryalpin is at Port Arthur—I heard that he was playing the French tourist! You remember Boris? In the old diplomatic service, a noble; he was disgraced by Grand Duke Michael early in the war for selling information to the Germans, and the Czarina barely managed to save his life! He was organizing the German prisoners in Siberia when the Czechoslovaks cut him off from home, and he fled. He dares not go to any Allied country, and he is unable to get back into Russia now.”

“The very man for us, and a most accomplished liar!” exclaimed Shinski. “You must see him at once; leave to-night or in the morning, by the first ship! Before he sees the Ivanoff, I shall have her informed about the failure of her hopes; thus, she will jump at the chance that Boris will offer her—”

“Not so fast! How shall I handle Boris? What story shall I tell him?”

“Can you trust him with that Shirvan diamond?”

“If he is closely enough watched.”

Shinski grinned, and drew his chair closer. He was aflame now, aflame with creation and construction—his brain, developed along one particular line, was working like clockwork as he mapped out his scheme.

It was a good scheme, an excellent scheme in its own way. There was no mercy in it, and its merciless quality was odd to be engendered in a man who loved animals and all living things as did Shinski. But his brain was warped. To him, aristocrats were as lice. To him, the struggle of classes was the great and only thing in the world, responsible for all history and underlying all mundane events; everything that happened to him or to anyone else was viewed by Shinski through class-struggle glasses. He was perfectly sincere, and believed absolutely in this philosophy of his.

“You are sure Boris has no present connection with Moscow?” asked Shinski suddenly.

“I am sure of nothing; but I know of none,” answered Marie. “He has little money, I hear, and while he might be very glad to reach Moscow, he is at present cut off from everyone back there. He can turn to nobody, and will welcome our offer as a godsend.”

“Good! Then squander promises on him, but no more cash than you must. Get him here at the earliest possible moment, and cable me when you leave Port Arthur. I shall be busy.”

“By the way, arrange to look for Abe Gerin,” said Marie, at a stab of memory. “I sent money to insure his escape from Omsk, and if he gets out at all, he is due here shortly.”

“Then it must be very shortly,” Shinski snarled. “I have no time to waste! If he comes—”

“Then he is entitled to his share of the proceeds, whether he has lost his share of the loot or not.”

Shinski met the steady gaze of Marie, and nodded—as though he could not help himself.