Karl joined him on the landing. High above, a little light filtered through a patched fanlight. Most of the gla.s.s had been replaced with slats of wood. From the room behind them the small sounds of sewing continued, like the noises made by rats as they searched the tenements for food.

Karl smiled at Kovrin and said familiarly: "He's mad, that old man. I think he meant you were a victim. But you are rich, aren't you. Mr. Kovrin?"

Kovrin ignored him.

Karl went and sat on the top stair. He hardly felt the cold at all. Tomorrow he would have a new coat.

He heard the street door open below. He looked up at Kovrin, who had also heard it. Karl nodded. It could only be Pesotsky. Kovrin pushed past Karl and swiftly descended the stairs. Karl followed.

But when they reached the pa.s.sage, the candle was still flickering and it was plain that no one was there. Kovrin frowned. His hand remained in the pocket of his coat. He peered into the back of the pa.s.sage, behind the stairs. "Pesotsky?"

There was no reply.

And then the door was flung open suddenly and Pesotsky stood framed in it. He was hatless, panting, wild-eyed. "Christ! Is that Kovrin?" he gasped.

Kovrin said quietly. "Kovrin here."

"Now," said Karl. "My five s.h.i.+llings, Mr. Pesotsky."

The young man ignored the outstretched hand as he spoke rapidly to Kovrin. "All the plan's gone wrong. You shouldn't have come here..."

"I had to. Uncle Theodore said you knew where Cherpanski was hiding. Without Cherpanski, there is no point in -" Kovrin broke off as Pesotsky silenced him.

"They have been following me for days, our friends. They don't know about Cherpanski, but they do know about Theodore's d.a.m.ned press. It's that they want to destroy. But I'm their only link. That's why I've been staying away. I heard you'd been at the press and had left for Whitechapel. I was followed, but I think I shook them off. We'd better leave at once."

"My five s.h.i.+llings, sir," said Karl. "You promised."

Uncomprehending, Pesotsky stared at Karl for a long moment, then he said to Kovrin: "Cherpanski's in the country. He's staying with some English comrades. Yorks.h.i.+re, I think. You can get the train. You'll be safe enough once you're out of London. It's the presses they're chiefly after. They don't care what we do here as long as none of our stuff gets back into Russia. Now, you'll want Kings Cross Station..."

The door opened again and two men stood there, one behind the other. Both were fat. Both wore black overcoats with astrakhan collars and had bowler hats on their heads. They looked like successful businessmen. The leader smiled.

"Here at last," he said in Russian. Karl saw that his companion carried a hat-box under his arm. It was incongruous; it was sinister. Karl began to retreat up the stairs.

"Stop him!" called the newcomer. From the shadows of the next landing stepped two men. They held revolvers. Karl stopped halfway up the stairs. Here was an explanation for the sound of the door opening which had brought them down.

"This is a good cover, Comrade Pesotsky," said the leader. "Is that your name, these days?"

Pesotsky shrugged. He looked completely dejected. Karl wondered who the well-dressed Russians could be. They acted like policemen, but the British police didn't employ foreigners, he knew that much.

Kovrin laughed. "It's little Captain Minsky, isn't it? Or have you changed your name, too? "

Minsky pursed his lips and came a few paces into the pa.s.sage. It was obvious that he was puzzled by Kovrin's recognition. He peered hard at Kovrin's face.

"I don't know you."

"No," said Kovrin quietly. "Why have they transferred you to the foreign branch? Were your barbarities too terrible even for St. Petersburg?"

Minsky smiled, as if complimented. "There is so little work for me in Petersburg these days," he said. "That is always the snag for a policeman. If he is a success, he faces unemployment."

"Vampire!" hissed Pesotsky. "Aren't you satisfied yet? Must you drink the last drop of blood?"

"It is a feature of your kind, Pesotsky," said Minsky patiently, "that everything must be colored in the most melodramatic terms. It is your basic weakness, if I might offer advice. You are failed poets, the lot of you. That is the worst sort of person to choose a career in politics."

Pesotsky said sulkily: "Well, you've failed this time, anyway. This isn't the printing press. It's a sweatshop."

"I complimented you once on your excellent cover," said Minsky. "Do you want another compliment? "

Pesotsky shrugged. "Good luck in your search, then."

"We haven't time for a thorough search," Minsky told him. He signed to the man with the hatbox. "We, too, have our difficulties. Problems of diplomacy and so on." He took a watch from within his coat. "But we have a good five minutes, I think."

Karl was almost enjoying himself. Captain Minsky really did believe that the printing press was hidden here.

"Shall we begin upstairs?" Minsky said. "I understand that's where you were originally."

"How could a press be upstairs," Pesotsky said. "These rotten boards wouldn't stand the weight."

"The last press was very neatly distributed through several rooms," Minsky told him. "Lead on, please."

They ascended the stairs to the first landing. Karl guessed that the occupants of these rooms were probably awake and listening behind their doors. He once again experienced a thrill of superiority to them. One of the men who had been on the landing shook his head and pointed up the next flight of stairs.

The seven of them went up slowly. Captain Minsky had his revolver in his gloved hand. His three men also carried their revolvers, trained on the wretched Pesotsky and the glowering Kovrin. Karl led the way. "This is where my father and mother work," he said. "It is not a printers."

"They are disgusting," said Minsky to his lieutenant with the hatbox. "They are so swift to employ children for their degraded work. There's a light behind that door. Open it up, boy."

Karl opened the door of the workroom, fighting to hide his grin. His mother and father were still asleep. The young woman who had complained before looked up and glared at him. Then all seven had pushed into the room.

Minsky said: "Oh, you do look innocent. But I know what you're really up to here. Where's the press?"

Now everyone put down their work and looked at him in astonishment as he kicked at the wall in which the fireplace was set. It rang hollow, but that was because it was so thin. There was an identical room on the other side. But it satisfied Minsky. "Put that in here," he told the man with the hatbox. "We must be leaving."

"Have you found the press, then?" Karl grinned openly.

Minsky struck him across the mouth with the barrel of his revolver. Karl moaned as blood filled his right cheek. He fell back over the sleeping bodies of his parents. They stirred.

Kovrin had drawn his gun. He waved it to cover all four members of the Secret Police. "Drop your weapons," he shouted. "You - pick that hatbox up again."

The man glanced uncertainly at Minsky. "It's already triggered. We have a few moments."

Karl realized there was a bomb in the box. He tried to wake his father to tell him. Now the people who had been working were standing up. There was a noisy outcry. Children were weeping, women shrieking, men shouting.

Kovrin shot Minsky.

One of Minsky's men shot Kovrin. Kovrin fell back through the door and Karl heard him fall to the landing outside. Pesotsky flung himself at the, man who had shot Kovrin. Another gun went off and Pesotsky fell to the floor, his fists clenched, his stomach pulsing out blood.

Karl's father woke up. His eyes widened at what they saw. He clutched Karl to him. Karl's mother woke up. She whimpered. Karl saw that Minsky was dead. The other three men hurried from the room and began to run downstairs.

An explosion filled the room.

Karl was protected by his parents' bodies, but he felt them shudder and move as the explosion hit them. He saw a little boy strike the far wall. He saw the window shatter. He saw the door collapse, driven out into the darkness of the stairwell. He saw fire send tendrils in all directions and then withdraw them. The workbench had come to rest against the opposite wall. It was black and broken. The wall was naked brick and the brick was also black. Something was roaring. His vision was wiped out and he saw only whiteness.

He closed his eyes and opened them again. His eyes stung but he could see dimly, even though the gas jet had been blown out. Throughout the room there was a terrible silence for a second or two. Then they began to groan.

Soon the room was filled with their groaning. Karl saw that the floor sloped where it had not sloped before. He saw that part of the outer wall had split. Through this great crack came moonlight. Black things s.h.i.+fted about on the floor.

Now the entire street outside was alive with noise. Voices came from below and from above. He heard feet on the stairs. Someone shone a lamp onto the scene and then retreated with a gasp. Karl stood up. He was unhurt, although his skin was stinging and he had some bruises. He saw that his father had no right hand any more and that blood was oozing from the stump. He put his head to his father's chest. He was still breathing. His mother held her face. She told Karl that she was blind.

Karl went out onto the landing and saw the crowd on both the upper and the lower stairs. The man with the lamp was Mr. Armfelt. He was in his nights.h.i.+rt. He looked unwell and was staring at the figure who leaned on the wall on the opposite side of the door. It was Kovrin. He was soaked in blood, but he was breathing and the strange gun was still in his right hand. Karl hated Kovrin, whom he saw as the chief agent of this disaster. He went and looked up into the tall Russian's eyes. He took the pistol from Kovrin's limp hand. As if the pistol had been supporting him, Kovrin crashed to the floor as soon as it was removed from his grasp. Karl looked down at him. Kovrin was dead. None of the watchers spoke. They all looked on as if they were the audience at some particularly terrifying melodrama.

Karl took the lamp from Mr. Armfelt and returned to the room.

Many of the occupants were dead. Karl saw that the young woman was dead, her body all broken and tangled up with that of her father, the man who had said "We are all victims". Karl sniffed. Minsky's body had been blown under the shattered bench, but Pesotsky had been quite close to the recess where Karl and his parents had lain. Although wounded, he was alive. He was chuckling. With every spasm, more blood gushed from his mouth. He said thickly to Karl: "Thanks - thanks." He waited for the blood to subside. "They've blown up the wrong place, thanks to you. What luck!"

Karl studied the gun he had taken from Kovrin. He a.s.sumed that it was basically the same as a revolver and contained at least another five bullets. He held it in both hands and, with both his index fingers on the trigger, squeezed. The gun went off with a bang and a flash and Karl's knuckles were driven back into his face, cutting his lip again. He lowered the gun and picked up the lamp which he had placed on the floor. He advanced on Pesotsky and held the lamp over the body. The bullet had driven through one of Pesotsky's eyes and Pesotsky was dead. Karl searched through Pesotsky's blood-soaked clothes and found two s.h.i.+llings and some coppers. He counted it. Three s.h.i.+llings and eight-pence in all. Pesotsky had lied to him. Pesotsky had not possessed five s.h.i.+llings. He spat on Pesotsky's face.

At the sound of the shot, the people on the stairs had withdrawn a few paces. Only Mr. Armfelt remained where he was. He was talking rapidly to himself in a language Karl did not recognize. Karl tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers and turned Kovrin's corpse over. In the pockets of the greatcoat he found about ten pounds in gold. In an inner pocket he found some doc.u.ments, which he discarded, and about fifty pounds in paper money. Carrying the lamp high he shone it on the blind face of his mother and on the pain-racked face of his father. His father was awake and saying something about a doctor.

Karl nodded. It was sensible that they should get a doctor as soon as possible. They could afford one now. He held out the money so that his father could see it all, the white banknotes and the bright gold. "I can look after you both, father. You will get better. It doesn't matter if you cannot work. We shall be respectable."

He saw that his father could still not quite understand. With a shake of his head, Karl crouched down and put a kindly hand on his father's shoulder. He spoke clearly and gently, as one might address a very young child who had failed to gather it was about to receive a birthday present and was not showing proper enthusiasm.

"We can go to America, father."

He inspected the wrist from which most of the hand had been blown. With some of the rags, he bandaged it, stopping the worst of the bleeding.

And then the sobs began to come up from his stomach.

He did not know why he was crying, but he could not control himself. The sobs made him helpless. His body was shaken by them and the noise he made was not very loud but it was the worst noise any of the listeners had heard that night. Even Mr. Armfelt, absorbed in his hysterical calculations, was dimly aware of the noise and he became, if anything, even more depressed.