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THE CAST
Elena . Kay Francis
Stephen Locke . Leslie Howard
Pavlov . Irving Pichel
Stanley . Walter Byron
Medill . William Gargan
Evans . Ivan Simpson
Commissioner . J. Carroll Naish
Romano . Paul Procasi
Lord Carrister . Haliwell Hobbes
Lady Carrister . Dorris Lloyd
Lenin . Tenen Holtz
BRITISH
AGENT
IT WAS the twenty-fifth of the month before Stephen Locke reached St. Petersburg again. He hastened to present his new diplomatic credentials to Sir Walter Carrister, British Ambassador, and was bid to the Embassy Ball that evening.
Stephen donned his dress clothes reluctantly. It still rankled a bit that he was on this seemingly safe diplomatic work, when other men his age were in the trenches, fighting with the Allies. Yet he realized, that given a chance, he could be worth many soldiers, here in Russia. He knew Russia, knew the tense situation thoroughly.
On this last trip to England, he had done his best to convince the War Lords that a way could be found to pre¬ vent The Bear That Walks Like a Man from making a separate peace with Germany. Had he been successful ? Would they take his opinions seriously, young as he was?
Lloyd George had said to him: “From the kind of dis¬ patches you have been sending us, I expected you to have a long white beard.’’
But Stephen had known whereof he spoke. He had come fresh from a country seething with revolt to that quiet house in Downing Street that is the hub of the British Empire. Now he was back in Russia, and his first official duty was to attend a Ball !
In October, the Russian winter has already set in, but it was not the searing cold that made Stephen shiver as he descended from his droshky in front of the brilliantly lighted Embassy. It was not the cold. It was the undefinable smell of trouble in the air, the miasma of human misery, oppressed for centuries, that had at last seeped up from the depths and now coiled about the city ; invisible tentacles of a poisonous emanation, a deadly compound of unpredict¬ able strength, of such unstable nature that no one could guess from where would come the spark to touch it off.
i
The girl had fired at the Cossack . , . now he had jumped from his horse to pursue her!
Stephen shivered, and passed on up the steps. He was met at the door by an old friend, Evans, the Embassy butler.
“If you’ll excuse me for saying so, sir, you’re getting more like your father every day,” the stately old man de¬ clared.
“Official responsibility !” Stephen grinned. “I’ve just been promoted. Consul-general at Moscow.”
“Congratulations, sir. Pity your father couldn’t have lived to see it.”
“Yes. He always enjoyed a good laugh.”
Stephen paid his respects to the Ambassador and to Lady Carrister, and then wandered off among the crowd. The Ball was in full swing, the magnificent rooms bright under the coruscating crystal chandeliers. Music from two bands blended with the murmur of polite conversation and the sound of dancing feet.
He was out of mood with it all, and the evening seemed interminable. Twice, rumor reached him that riots were breaking out all over the city, but the music never slackened and the champagne flowed undiminished.
Stephen had hidden himself in a nook of a window, idly watching the street. He glanced at his watch from time to time, and as midnight approached, prepared to take his
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