The Book of All-Power by Edgar Wallace (the best books to read .TXT) 📕

isn't it?"

"That's the word," agreed Malcolm grimly, "but he's also a man of my own race and breed, and whilst I would not trust him with my pocket-book--or I should not have trusted him before I came in here--I think I can trust him with my life, supposing that he has my life in his hands."

In twenty minutes Cherry Bim was back, very solemn and mysterious until the gaoler was gone. Then he asked:

"Who is Israel Kensky, anyway?"

"Why?" asked Malcolm quickly.

"Because I'm going to make a statement about him--a written statement," he said cheerfully. "I'm going to have a room all to myself," he spoke slowly as though he were repeating something which he had already told himself, "because I am not a quick writer. Then I am going to tell all that she said about Israel Kensky."

"You can tell that in a second," said Malcolm sternly, and the little man raised a lofty hand.

"Don't get up in the air."

"Why have they sent you back now?"

"To ask a question or two," said Cherry.

He put on his coat, examined the interior of his hat thoughtfully, and jammed it down on his head.

"Ten minutes are supposed to elapse," he said melodramatically, "passed in light and airy conversation about a book--the 'Book of--of----"

"'All-Power'?" said Malcolm.

"That's the fellow. I should say it's the history of this darned place. Here they come."

He pulled down his coat, brushed his sleeves and stepped forward briskly to meet the English-speaking officer.

They passed an anxious two hours before he returned, and, if anything, he was more solemn than ever. He made no reply to their questions, but paced the room, and then he began to sing, and his tune had more reason than rhyme.

"Look through the grating," he chanted, "see if anybody is watching or listening, my honey, oh my honey!"

"There's nobody there," said Malcolm after a brief inspection.

"He'll be back again in five minutes," said Cherry, stopping his song and speaking rapidly. "I told him I wanted to be sure on one point, and he brought me back. I could have done it, but I wouldn't leave you alone."

"Done what?" asked Malcolm.

"Saved myself. Do you know what I saw when I got into that room for the first time? The guy in charge was locking away in a desk three guns and about ten packets of shells. It sounds like a fairy story, but it's true, and it's a desk with a lock that you could open with your teeth!"

It was Malinkoff who saw the possibilities of the situation which the man described.

"And they left you alone in the room?" he asked quickly.

"Sure," said Cherry. "Lift my hat, and lift it steady."

Malcolm pulled his hat up, and the butt of a revolver slipped out.

"There's a Browning there--be careful," said Cherry, ducking his head and pulling off his hat in one motion. "Here's the other under my arm," he put his hand beneath his coat and pulled out a Colt.

"Here are the shells for the automatic. I'll take the long fellow. Now listen, you boys," said Cherry. "Through that gateway at the end of the yard, you come to another yard and another gate, which has a guard on it. Whether we get away or whether we don't, depends on whether our luck is in or out."

"Look!" he whispered, "here comes Percy!"

The door swung open and the officer beckoned Cherry forward with a lift of his chin. Cherry walked toward him and the officer half turned in the attitude of one who was showing another out. Cherry's hand shot out, caught the man by the loose of his tunic and swung him into the room.

"Laugh and the world laughs with you," said Cherry, who had an assortment of literary quotations culled from heaven knows where. "Shout and you sleep alone!"

The muzzle of a long-barrelled '45 was stuck in the man's stomach. He did not see it, but he guessed it, and his hands went up.

"Tie him up--he wears braces," said Cherry. "I'll take that belt of deadly weapons." He pulled one revolver from the man's holster and examined it with an expert's eye. "Not been cleaned for a month," he growled; "you don't deserve to be trusted with a gun."

He strapped the belt about his waist and sighed happily.

They gagged the man with a handkerchief, and threw him ungently upon the bench before they passed through the open door to comparative freedom. Cherry locked and bolted the door behind them, and pulled down the outer shutter, with which, on occasions, the gaoler made life in the cells a little more unendurable by excluding the light. The cells were below the level of the courtyard, and they moved along the trench from which they opened.

Pacing his beat by the gateway was a solitary sentry.

"Stay here," whispered Cherry; "he has seen me going backward and forward, and maybe he thinks I'm one of the official classes."

He mounted the step leading up from the trench, and walked boldly toward the gateway. Nearing the man, he turned to wave a greeting to an imaginary companion. In reality he was looking to see whether there were any observers of the act which was to follow.

Watching him, they did not see exactly what had happened. Suddenly the soldier doubled up like a jack-knife and fell.

Cherry bent over him, lifted the rifle and stood it against the wall, then, exhibiting remarkable strength for so small a man, he picked up the man in his arms and dropped him into the trench which terminated at the gateway. They heard the thud of his body, and, breaking cover, they raced across the yard, joining Cherry, who led the way through the deep arch.

Now they saw the outer barrier. It consisted of a formidable iron grille. To their right was a gloomy building, which Malcolm judged was the bureau of the prison, to the left a high wall. On either side of the gateway was a squat lodge, and before these were half a dozen soldiers, some leaning against the gate, some sitting in the doorway of the lodges, but all carrying rifles.

"This way," said Cherry under his breath, and turned into the office.

The door of the room on his left was open, and into this they walked. It was empty, but scarcely had they closed the door than there were footsteps outside. Cherry, with a gun in each hand, a hard and ugly grin on his fat face, covered the door, but the footsteps passed.

There was a babble of voices outside and a rattle and creak of gates. Malcolm crept to the one window which the office held (he guessed it was here that Cherry had written his "statement"), and peeped cautiously forth.

A big closed auto was entering the gate, and he pulled his head back. Cherry was at his side.

"Somebody visiting--a fellow high up," whispered the latter hoarsely; "they'll come in here, the guy we left in the cell told me he'd want this room. Try that door!"

He pointed to a tall press and Malinkoff was there in a second. The press was evidently used for the storage of stationery. There was one shelf, half way up, laden with packages of paper, and Malinkoff lifted one end. The other slipped and the packets dropped with a crash. But the purring of the auto in the yard was noisy enough to drown the sound unless somebody was outside the door.

"Three can squeeze in--you go first, Mr. Hay."

It was more than a squeeze, it was a torture, but the door closed on them.

Malcolm had an insane desire to laugh, but he checked it at the sound of a voice--for it was the voice of Boolba.

"I cannot stay very long, comrade," he was saying as he entered the room, "but...."

The rest was a mumble.

"I will see that she is kept by herself," said a strange voice, evidently of someone in authority at the prison.

Malcolm bit his lips to check the cry that rose.

"Irene!"

"..." Boolba's deep voice was again a rumble.

"Yes, comrade, I will bring her in ... let me lead you to a chair."

He evidently went to the door and called, and immediately there was a tramp of feet.

"What does this mean, Boolba?"

Malcolm knew the voice--he had heard it before--and his relief was such that all sense of his own danger passed.

"Sophia Kensky," Boolba was speaking now, "you are under arrest by order of the Soviet."

"Arrest!" the word was screamed, "me----?"

"You are plotting against the Revolution, and your wickedness has been discovered," said Boolba. "_Matinshka!_ Little mama, it is ordered!"

"You lie! You lie!" she screeched. "You blind devil--I spit on you! You arrest me because you want the aristocrat Irene Yaroslav! Blind pig!"

"_Prekanzeno, dushinka!_ It is ordered, dear little soul," murmured Boolba. "I go back alone--listen! My auto is turning. I go back alone, _drushka_, and who shall be my eyes now that my little mama is gone?"

They heard the chair pushed back as he rose and the scream and flurry as she leapt at him.

"Keep her away, little comrade," roared Boolba. "Keep her away--I am blind; her father blinded me; keep her away!"

It was Cherry Bim who slipped first from the cupboard.

Under the menace of his guns the soldiers fell back.

"Auto Russki--hold up the guard, Hay," he muttered, and Malinkoff jumped through the doorway to the step of the big car in one bound.

Cherry held the room. He spoke no Russian, but his guns were multi-lingual. There was a shot outside before he fired three times into the room. Then he fell back, slamming the door, and jumped into the car as it moved through the open gateway.

Malcolm was on one footboard, Malinkoff by the side of the chauffeur on the other.

So they rocked through the ill-paved streets of Moscow, and rushed the suburban barricade without mishap.


CHAPTER XIV

IN THE HOLY VILLAGE


"Preopojensky, but by a circuitous route," said Malinkoff, speaking across the chauffeur. "What about the wires?"

He looked up at the telegraph lines, looping from pole to pole, and Malcolm thrust his head into the window of the limousine to communicate this danger to the sybaritic Mr. Bim, who was spraying himself with perfume from a bottle he had found in the well-equipped interior of the car.

"Stop," said Cherry. "We're well away from Moscow."

At a word from Malinkoff the chauffeur brought the car to a standstill and Cherry slipped out, revolver in hand.

Then to the amazement of Malcolm and the unfeigned admiration of the general, Cherry Bim made good his boast. Four times his gun cracked and at each shot a line broke.

"To be repeated at intervals," said Cherry, climbing into the car. "Wake me in half an hour," and, curling himself up in the luxurious depths of swansdown cushions, he fell asleep.

Happily Malinkoff knew the country to an inch. They were not able to avoid the villages without avoiding the roads, but they circumnavigated the towns. At nightfall they were in the depths of a wood which ran down to the edge of the big lake on which the holy village of Preopojensky stands.

"The chauffeur