Just as the dusk had deepened into grey on the following evening I
alighted from a tram in the Lower Clapton Road, and, accompanied by
Hartwig, we turned up a long thoroughfare of uniform houses, called
Powerscroft Road, until we reached Blurton Road, where, nearly opposite
the Mission House, we found the house of which we were in search.
Hartwig had altered his appearance wonderfully, and looked more like a
Devonshire farmer up in London on holiday than the shrewd, astute head
of the Surete of the Russian Empire. As for myself, I had assumed a
very old suit and wore a shabby hat.
The drab, dismal house, which we passed casually in order to inspect,
was dingy and forbidding, with curtains that were faded with smoke and
dirt, holland blinds once yellow, but the ends of which were now dark
and stained, and windows which had not been cleaned for years, while the
front door was faded and blistered and some of the tops of the iron
railings in front had been broken off. The steps leading to the front
door had not been hearthstoned as were those of its neighbour, while in
the area were bits of wastepaper, straw, and the flotsam and jetsam of
the noisy, overcrowded street.
Unkempt children were romping or playing hopscotch on the pavement,
while some were skipping and others playing football in the centre of
the road--all pupils of the great County Council Schools in the
vicinity.
At both the basement window and that of the room above--the front
parlour--were short blinds of dirty muslin, so that to see within while
passing was impossible. In that particular it differed in no way from
some of its neighbours; for in those parts front parlours are often
turned into bedrooms, and a separate family occupies every floor. Only
one fact was apparent--that it was the dirtiest and most neglected house
in the whole of that working-class road, bordering upon the Hackney
Marsh.
To me that district was as unfamiliar as were the wilds of the Sahara.
Indeed, to the average Londoner Lower Clapton is a mere legendary
district, the existence of which is only recorded by the name written
upon tramcars and omnibuses.
Together we strolled to the bottom of Blurton Road, to where Glyn Road
crosses it at right angles, and then we stopped to discuss our plans.
"I shall ascend the steps, knock, and ask for Danilovitch," the great
detective said. "The probability is that the door will be
unceremoniously slammed in my face. But you will be behind me. I shall
place my foot in the door to prevent premature closing, and at first
sign of resistance you, being behind me, will help me to force the door,
and so enter. At word from me don't hesitate--use all your might. I
intend to give whoever lives there a sudden and sharp surprise."
"But if they are refugees, they are desperate. What then?"
"I expect they are," he laughed. "This is no doubt the hornets' nest.
Therefore it behoves us to be wary, and have our wits well about us.
You're not afraid, Mr Trewinnard?"
"Not at all," I said. "Where you dare go, there I will follow."
"Good. Let's make the attempt then," he said, and together we strolled
leisurely back until we came to the flight of unclean front steps,
whereupon both of us turned and, ascending, Hartwig gave a sharp
postman's knock at the door.
An old, grey-whiskered, ill-dressed man, palpably a Polish Jew, opened
the door, whereupon Hartwig asked in Russian:
"Is our leader Danilo Danilovitch here?"
The man looked from him to me inquiringly.
"Tell him that Ivan Arapoff, from Petersburg, wishes to speak with him."
"I do not know, Gospodin, whether he is at home," replied the man with
politeness. "But I will see, if you will wait," and he attempted to
close the door in our faces.
Hartwig, however, was prepared for such manoeuvre, for he had placed his
foot in the door, so that it could not be closed. The Polish Jew was
instantly on the alert and shouted some sharp word of warning, evidently
a preconcerted signal, to those within, whereat Hartwig and myself made
a sudden combined effort and next second were standing within the narrow
evil-smelling little hall.
I saw the dark figures of several men and women against the stairs, and
heard whispered words of alarm in Russian. But Hartwig lost no time,
for he shouted boldly:
"I wish to see Danilo Danilovitch. Let him come forward. If he does
not do so, then it is at his own peril."
"If you are police officers you cannot touch us here in England!"
shouted a young woman with dark, tousled hair, a revolutionist of the
female-student type.
"We are here from Petersburg as friends, but you apparently treat us as
enemies," said Hartwig.
"If you are traitors you will, neither of you, leave this house alive,"
cried a thick-set man, advancing towards me threateningly. "So you
shall see Danilovitch--and he shall decide."
I heard somebody bolting the front door heavily to prevent our escape,
while a voice from somewhere above, in the gloom of the stairs, shouted:
"Comrades, they are police-spies!"
A young, black-haired Jewess of a type seen everywhere in Poland,
thin-featured and handsome, with a grey shawl over her shoulders,
emerged from a door and peered into my face. There seemed fully fifteen
persons in that dingy house, all instantly alarmed at our arrival. Here
was, no doubt, the London centre of revolutionary activity directed
against the Russian Imperial family and Danilo Danilovitch was in hiding
there. It was fortunate, indeed, that the ever-vigilant Tack had
succeeded in running him to earth.
I had told Hartwig of the allegation which Tack had made against
Danilovitch, that, though in the service of the Secret Police, he had
arranged certain attempts against members of the Imperial family, and
how he had deliberately killed his sweetheart, Marie Garine. But
Hartwig, being chief of the Surete, had no connection with the political
department, and was, therefore, unaware of any agent of Secret Police
known as Danilovitch.
"I remember quite well the case of Marie Garine," he added. "I
thoroughly investigated it and found that she had, no doubt, been killed
by her lover. But I put it down to jealousy, and as the culprit had
left Russia I closed the inquiry."
"Then you could arrest him, even now," I said.
"Not without considerable delay. Besides, in Petersburg they are
against applying for extradition in England. The newspapers always hint
at the horrors of Siberia in store for the person arrested. And," he
added, "I agree that it is quite useless to unnecessarily wound the
susceptibilities of my own countrymen, the English." It was those words
he had spoken as we had come along Blurton Road.
Our position at that moment was not a very pleasant one, surrounded as
we were by a crowd of desperate refugees. If any one of them recognised
Ivan Hartwig, then I knew full well that we should never leave the house
alive. Men who were conspiring to kill His Majesty the Emperor would
not hesitate to kill a police officer and an intruder in order to
preserve their secret, "Where is my good friend Danilovitch?" demanded
Hartwig, in Russian. "Why does he not come forward?"
"He has not been well, and is in bed," somebody replied. "He is coming
in a moment. He lives on the top floor."
"Well, I'm in a hurry, comrades," exclaimed the great detective with a
show of impatience. "Do not keep me waiting. I am bearer of a message
to you all--an important message from our great and beloved Chief, the
saviour of Russia, whose real identity is a secret to all, but whom we
know as `The One'!"
"The One!" echoed two of the men in Russian. "A message from him! What
is it? Tell us," they cried eagerly.
"No. The message from our Chief is to our comrade Danilovitch. He will
afterwards inform you," was Hartwig's response.
"Who is it there who wants me?" cried an impatient voice in Russian over
the banisters.
"I have a message for Danilo Danilovitch," my friend shouted back.
"Then come upstairs," he replied. "Come--both of you."
And we followed a dark figure up to a back room on the second floor--a
shabby bed and sitting-room combined.
He struck a match, lit the gas and pulled down the blind. Then as he
faced us, a middle-aged man with deeply-furrowed countenance and hair
tinged with grey, I at once recognised him--though he no longer wore the
small black moustache--as the man I had met on Brighton Pier on the
previous night.
"Well," he asked roughly in Russian, "what do you want with me?"
I was gratified that he had not recognised Ivan Hartwig. For a moment
he looked inquiringly at me, and no doubt recognised me as the Grand
Duchess's companion of the previous night.
His hair was unkempt, his neck was thick, and his unshaven face was
broad and coarse. He had the heavy features of a Russian of the lower
class, yet his prominent, cunning eyes and high, deeply-furrowed
forehead betokened great intelligence. Though of the working-class, yet
in his eyes there burned a bright magnetic fire, and one could well
imagine how by his inflammatory speeches he led that crowd of ignorant
aliens into a belief that by killing His Imperial Majesty they could
free Russia of the autocratic yoke. Those men and women, specimens of
whom were living in that house at Clapton, never sought to aim at the
root of the evil which had gripped the Empire, that brutal camarilla who
ruled Russia, but in the madness of their blood-lust and ignorance that
they were being betrayed by their leader, and their lives made catspaws
by the camarilla itself, they plotted and conspired, and were proud to
believe themselves martyrs to what they foolishly termed The Cause!
The face of the traitor before us was full of craft and cunning, the
countenance of a shrewd and clever man who, it struck me, was haunted
hourly by the dread of betrayal and an ignominious end. Even though he
might have been a shoemaker, yet from his perfect self-control, and the
manner in which he greeted us, I saw that he was no ordinary man.
Indeed, few men could have done--would have dared to do--what he had
done, if all Tack had related were true. His personal appearance, his
unkempt hair, his limp collar and loosely-tied cravat of black and
greasy silk, and his rough suit of shabby dark tweed, his whole
ensemble, indeed, was that of the political agitator, the revolutionary
firebrand.
"I am here, Danilo Danilovitch," Hartwig said at last very seriously,
looking straight at him, "in order to speak to you quite frankly, to put
to you several questions."
The man started, and I saw apprehension by the slight movement in the
corners of his mouth.
"For what reason?" he snapped quickly. "I thought you were here with a
message from our Chief in Russia?"
"I am here with a message, it is true," said the renowned chief of the
Russian Surete. "You had, I think, better lock that door, and also make
quite certain that nobody in this house overhears what I am about to
say," he added very slowly and meaningly.
"Why?" inquired the other with some show of defiance.
"If you do not want these comrades of yours to know all your private
business, it will be best to lock that door and take care that nobody is
listening outside. If they are--well, it will be you, Danilo
Danilovitch, who will suffer, not myself," said Hartwig very coolly, his
eyes fixed upon the _agent-provocateur_. "I urge you to take
precautions of secrecy," he added. "I urge you--for your own sake!"
"For my own sake!" cried the other. "What do you mean?"
Hartwig paused for a few seconds, and then, in a lower voice, said:
"I mean this, Danilo Danilovitch. If a single word of what I am about
to say is overheard by anyone in this house you will not go forth again
alive. We have been threatened by your comrades down below. But upon
you yourself will fall the punishment which is meted out by your
comrades to all traitors--_death_!" The man's face changed in an
instant. He stood open-mouthed, staring aghast at Hartwig, haggard-eyed
and pale to the lips.