Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [427]
He had been writing for several minutes when he heard someone creep along the passage and pause outside his door. Then he heard a key being inserted in the lock and softly turned. He shrugged. So they thought they could make him a prisoner. He continued to write.
Twenty minutes passed. He wrote two letters, then a short note. Having read them all carefully and satisfied himself that they were perfect, he got up.
Next, he went to the cupboard and took out the peasant’s clothes he had worn when working in the fields, together with a peasant’s hat that covered his red hair. Only when he was fully dressed in this did he bother to try the door. As he expected, it was locked. He went to the window and looked out. It opened wide enough to get his head and one arm out; if he wanted to leave that way, he would have to force the window out of its frame, and then take a fifteen-foot drop on to hard ground. As he looked round, however, it occurred to him that the window of Nicolai’s room was only the third along from his. He took a small coin out of his pocket and tossed it; then another. After the fourth coin had rattled against the glass, the tousled head of his friend appeared.
‘Hello, Nicolai,’ he called. ‘They’ve locked me in. You’d better let me out.’
At first, it seemed to Misha, it was clear what they should do. And so it would have remained, but for Boris.
It had only taken a few words, whispered by his son, to make the confused Timofei fully understand the danger Natalia was in from the leaflets; and once he understood, he was ready to do anything.
Certainly it was in all their interests that they should take care of the whole business themselves. ‘I don’t want him talking to outsiders, or even my own coachman,’ Misha frankly confessed, ‘because there’s no knowing what this accursed Popov might say about any of us.’ It was agreed, therefore, that before dawn the two Romanovs would come in their cart, collect the red-headed student, and take him all the way to Vladimir. ‘I’ve a stout club,’ Timofei remarked, ‘and we’ll strap him to the cart if necessary.’
‘When you get to Vladimir, you’re to put him on the Moscow train. And don’t go until you’ve watched it out of sight.’ This would complete Suvorin’s instructions and after that, Misha fervently hoped, he would never see the loathsome young man again.
At this point, it had occurred to Misha that perhaps he ought to lock Popov in his room. Fetching the key and going upstairs had taken several minutes. He was surprised, however, when he came down, to find both the Romanovs looking as if they had decided something separately between themselves.
It was Boris who took the lead.
He had a sharper mind than either of the older men. He had not given up hope of making some money from the landowner; and he also saw some real danger to all of them in the plan. His reasoning was simple. ‘After all, Mikhail Alexeevich, we’ve all seen what this fellow’s like. Even threatened with the law and Savva Suvorin, he refused to go. And if that’s so, then what’s the use of us putting him on a train to Moscow when he can just get off at the next station and be back here in a day or two?’
Misha couldn’t deny this. ‘But what can we do?’ he asked.
Boris paused, thoughtfully. ‘The fact is,’ he said coolly, ‘I’m worried about my sister, sir. She’s mixed up with this Grigory because she’s no dowry. And that’s because of my father’s debts.’ He looked at Bobrov politely but with meaning. ‘You’ve always been very good to our family, sir. You gave Natalia and me our education. Do you think you could see your way to helping us again?’
Misha frowned. ‘What did you have in mind?’
‘Maybe I could arrange for this Popov to make a long journey, so he’d be sure not to bother us again, sir.’
‘A long journey?’
‘Yes, sir. Very long.’
Misha felt himself tremble. The proposition was unthinkable. Yet – it was useless to deny it – he was tempted. At this moment there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to be rid, for ever, of Popov’s evil presence.
‘I could never countenance …’ he began.
‘Of