Knight Without Armour

Soon the members of the diplomatic corps arrived, gorgeously uniformed and decorated, and took up their allotted positions, while black-robed priests began the mournful singing of the Office for the Dead. Then followed an elaborate ritual in which the priests pretended to search in vain for the Body. Despite its touch of theatricalism the miming was deeply impressive. Then sharply, on the first stroke of midnight, the marvellous climax arrived; the chief priest cried loudly—’Christ is risen!’ while the gun-cotton, being fired, touched into gradual flame the thousands of candles. Simultaneously cannon crashed out from the neighbouring fortress, and the choir, led by the clergy (no longer in black but in their richest cloth of gold), broke out into the triumphant cadences of the Easter Hymn. The sudden transference from gloom to dazzling brilliance and from silence to deafening jubilation stirred emotions that were almost breath-taking.

Afterwards, amidst the chorus of Easter salutations the two men sauntered by the banks of the river. A.J. said how glad he was to have seen such a spectacle, and Stanfield answered: “Yes, it’s one of the things I never miss if I happen to be here. I’ve seen it now at least a dozen times, yet it’s always fresh, and never fails to give me a thrill.”

Something then impelled A.J. to say: “I’m particularly glad to have seen it, because I don’t suppose I’ll ever have the chance again.”

“Oh, indeed? You’re only on a visit? You spoke Russian so well I imagined you lived here.”

“I do—or rather I have done for some time—but I’m going away—very soon, I’m afraid—for good.”

“Really?”

A.J. was not a person to confide easily, but the difficulty of his problem, combined with Stanfield’s sympathetic attitude and the emotional mood in which the Cathedral ceremony had left them both, made it easy for him to hint that the circumstances of his leaving Petersburg were not of the happiest. Stanfield was immediately interested, and within half an hour (it was by that time nearly two in the morning) most of A.J.’s position had been explained and explored. Once the process began it was difficult to stop, and in the end A.J. found himself confessing even the ridiculous suffragette episode which had been the immediate cause of his departure from England four years before. Stanfield was amused at that. “So I gather,” he summarised at last, “that you’re in the rather awkward position of having to leave this country and of having no other country that you particularly want to go to?”

“That’s it.”

“You definitely don’t want to return to England?”

“I’d rather go anywhere else.”

“But you must have friends there—a few, at any rate. Four years isn’t such a tremendous interval.”

“I know. That’s why I’d rather go anywhere else.”

“Don’t you think you’re taking the suffragette affair rather too seriously? After all, most people will have forgotten it by now, and in any case it wasn’t anything particularly disgraceful.”

“Yes, but—there are other reasons—much more important ones. I—I don’t want to go back to England.” He gave Stanfield a glance which decided the latter against any further questioning in that direction. “Besides, even if I were to go back there, what could I do?”

“I don’t know, do I? What are your accomplishments?”

A.J. smiled. “Very few, and all of them extremely unmarketable. I can speak Russian, that’s about all. Oh yes, and I can swim and fence, and I’m a bit of a geologist in my spare time. It doesn’t really sound the sort of thing to impress an employment agency, does it?”

“Do you fancy an outdoor life?”

“I don’t mind, provided it isn’t just merely physical work. It may sound conceited, but I rather want something where I have to use a small amount of brains. Yet I wouldn’t care for a job at a desk all the time. I’m afraid I’m talking as though I were likely to be given any choice in the matter.”

“What about danger—personal danger? Would that be a disadvantage?”

“I’d hate the army, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, that isn’t what I mean. I meant some kind of job where you had occasionally to take risks—pretty big risks, in their way—playing for high stakes—that sort of thing.”

“I’m afraid your description doesn’t help me to imagine such a job, but as a guess I should say it would suit me very well.”

Stanfield laughed. “I can’t be more explicit. How about the money?”

“Oh well, I’d like enough to live on and a little bit more. But isn’t it rather absurd to be talking in this way, since I shall be very lucky to get any sort of job at all?”

“On the contrary, it’s just possible—yes, it is just possible that I might be able to put you in the way of the kind of job you say you would like. And here in Petersburg, too.”

“You forget that I have to leave. My police permit expires on Tuesday.”

“No, I don’t forget that at all. I am remembering it most carefully.”

“I don’t follow.”