That finished Lawrence.  He rushed forward, and they would certainly have “stuck” him too if someone hadn’t cried out, “Look out, he’s an Englishman—­an Anglichanin—­I know him.”

After that, for a time, he was uncertain of anything.  He struggled; he was held.  He heard noises around him—­shouts or murmurs or sighs—­that didn’t seem to him to be connected with anything human.  He could not have said where he was nor what he was doing.  Then, quite suddenly, everything cleared.  He came to himself with a consciousness of that utter weariness that he had felt before.  He was able to visualise the scene, to take it all in, but as a distant spectator.  “It was like nothing so much as watching a cinematograph,” he told me.  He could do nothing; he was held by three soldiers, who apparently wished him to be a witness of the whole affair.  Andre’s body lay there, huddled up in a pool of drying blood, that glistened under the electric light.  One of his legs was bent crookedly under him, and Lawrence had a strange mad impulse to thrust his way forward and put it straight.

It was then, with a horrible sickly feeling, exactly like a blow in the stomach, that he realised that the Baroness was there.  She was standing, quite alone, at the entrance of the hall, looking at the soldiers, who were about eight in number.

He heard her say, “What’s happened?  Who are you?...” and then in a sharper, more urgent voice, “Where’s my husband?”

Then she saw Andre....  She gave a sharp little cry, moved forward towards him, and stopped.

“I don’t know what she did then,” said Lawrence.  “I think she suddenly began to run down the passage.  I know she was crying, ’Paul!  Paul!  Paul!’...  I never saw her again.”

The officer—­an elderly kindly-looking man like a doctor or a lawyer (I am trying to give every possible detail, because I think it important)—­then came up to Lawrence and asked him some questions: 

“What was his name?”

“Jeremy Ralph Lawrence.”

“He was an Englishman.”

“Yes.”

“Working at the British Embassy?”

“No, at the British Military Mission.”

“He was officer?”

“Yes.”

“In the British Army?”

“Yes.  He had fought for two years in France.”

“He had been lodging with Baron Wilderling?”

“Yes.  Ever since he came to Russia.”

The officer nodded his head.  They knew about him, had full information.  A friend of his, a Mr. Boris Grogoff, had spoken of him.

The officer was then very polite, told him that they regretted extremely the inconvenience and discomfort to which he might be put, but that they must detain him until this affair was concluded—­“which will be very soon” added the officer.  He also added that he wished Lawrence to be a witness of what occurred so that he should see that, under the new regime in Russia, everything was just and straightforward.