But it might take Peter a week or more to find Kirsakoff, and then it would take time to work out the details of the affair in such a way that there would not be the slightest indication that the American officer who had been staying at the hotel had had anything to do with it. But another American officer in the city would complicate the business. The newcomer would expect to keep in close touch with Peter, and would probably expect to share his room—and the stranger might have a Russian-speaking orderly with him. And that would mean that Peter’s facility with the language would be discovered, his request to be sent over into Trans-Baikailia would become significant, the leaving of the orderly at Nikolsk would build up a chain of circumstantial evidence. All that might be awkward for Peter if some slight trifle connected Peter with the killing of Kirsakoff. Peter wondered if he would see Vashka again. It seemed a remote possibility that she would return. Why should she? She knew now that he was not a messenger, and to visit Peter again could do her no good and might reveal to him the line on which she was working. There was a slight chance that she might be in the American service, but he dismissed that thought, for she had given him no sign that she was a member of the military secret service. His mind being occupied along a certain channel, he had no basis on which to begin to analyze the aims of Vashka. The key to the solution of the problem, for him, was old Rimsky. But that Rimsky was in any way concerned with the visit from Vashka, was as remote from Peter’s mind as would be a suggestion that the samovar girl was the little daughter of Kirsakoff. That little girl still lived in Peter’s memory as a child sitting in a sledge the morning Peter’s father had been killed. His mind held that picture—held it without change. It was a picture which did not take cognizance of the passage of years, a butterfly caught in amber, say, through the ages. If Vashka did not return, Peter resolved that he would go out and try his hand again with Rimsky. The old cigarette-seller might be induced to tell something which would afford a clew of the whereabouts of Kirsakoff. And it might be wise to loaf in the restaurant of the old post-house, and strike up an acquaintance with anybody who would talk. There was no time to be lost, if Peter was to find Kirsakoff and get about the business which had brought him back to the Valley of Despair. When noon came, he rang for a samovar. Before long he heard some one moving in the hall, and after a short interval, there came a gentle tapping at his door. “Come!” he called, and turned his head. “Vashka” entered with the samovar, pushing the door open before her with the forward end of the metal tray. “Oh, I am sorry,” he said, rising from his chair. “I did not expect to see you—I thought the other girl would come.”