BY A VANISHED HAND.
I met Felix Karelin in a rather curious manner. I had been visiting two
refugees, Dobroslavin and Bolomez, who lived in Little Alie Street,
Whitechapel, and about six o’clock one July evening was walking along
Leman Street towards Aldgate Station, intending to take train to the West
End. As I turned the corner into Commercial Road, an aged, decrepit,
blind man accidentally stumbled against me. Bent, haggard, and attired in
a ragged frock-coat, green with age, wearing a battered silk hat, the nap
of which had long ago disappeared, he looked unutterably miserable and
melancholy.
Halting, and tapping with his stick, he exclaimed in broken English: “I
beg your pardon, sir.”
He was moving onward when I caught him by the arm. There was an accent in
his voice that I recognised.
“What nationality are you?” I asked in Russian.
In the same language he replied that he was a native of Petersburg, and
an escaped political exile.
“A political!” I repeated, in surprise, as all escaped revolutionists in
London were well known to us, and many received money regularly from our
fund.
“Yes,” he said; “I escaped from the Algachi silver mines a year ago. But
you are Russian also.”
I replied in the affirmative. He at once urged me to accompany him to
his lodgings, where we could talk. “It is only in Briton’s Court, St.
George’s Road, not far from here,” he urged.
Feeling a sudden interest in the old man, I acceded to his request,
and he led me up and down several narrow, squalid streets, with which
he was evidently well acquainted. At length we turned down a dirty,
evil-smelling court, and he stopped before a small house at the further
end. He opened the door with a latch-key, and I followed him upstairs.
When we entered his sitting-room on the upper floor I was astonished to
find it bright and comfortably furnished. One would never have expected
such a clean, cosy room in a house of that character, situate as it was
in one of the lowest quarters of the metropolis. Crimson damask curtains
hung from a neat gilt cornice; in the centre of the room was a round
table, upon which tea was laid, and seated at the window, reclining in
a cane rocking-chair, was a pretty fair-haired girl of about sixteen
reading a novel.
Rising as we entered, she glanced shyly at me.
“Elyòna, I’ve brought a friend, one of our compatriots, whose name,
however, I have not the pleasure of knowing.”
“Ivan Lipatkin,” I replied, uttering the first name that crossed my mind.
I considered it politic to conceal my identity until I knew more about
him.
His daughter smiled, shook hands, and welcomed me.
“You are more comfortable here than in Algachi,” I said, glancing around.
“Yes,” he replied. “Although I am blind and helpless, I am not exactly
destitute.”
We took tea together, and were quite a merry trio. Elyòna Karelin was
charming, and her father’s conversation was that of an educated and
cultured man.
After I had given him a fictitious account of myself, he told me his
story. He was a lapidary in Petersburg, and had been thrice arrested
and confined in one of the bomb-proof casemates of the Prison of
Petropaulovsk, because it was alleged that his freedom was “prejudicial
to public order.” On the last occasion of his arrest he was condemned
to hard labour for life, and sent across Siberia to the dreaded mining
district beyond Irkutsk. His daughter went into voluntary exile with him,
and they remained at Algachi four years. At length, aided by a Cossack
officer who took compassion on the decrepit old man and his devoted
child, Karelin succeeded in escaping. He then became a _brodyag_, or
escaped convict who wanders about the country subsisting upon what he
can beg or steal, but always travelling towards the west. In this way
he managed to walk nearly a thousand miles towards the Ourals, when by
good chance he fell in with a train of freight sleighs going to Nijni
Novgorod fair. One of the drivers had fallen ill and died, therefore he
disguised himself in the dead man’s clothes and took his place, having
first, however, succeeded, with the help of some of the other men, in
filing away his leg-irons. His clothes with the yellow diamond upon them
he buried in a snowdrift, and with the dead man’s passport was allowed to
pass safely back to Europe, after an absence of nearly five years.
Soon after his arrival, however, he was stricken down by fever, and lost
his eyesight. In Kazan he was joined by Elyòna, who had followed him.
Afterwards they came to England.
The story of the daughter’s earnest affection was a touching one, and
as the old man related it tears fell from his sightless eyes. The whole
narrative was intensely interesting to me, inasmuch as his description
of the terrible hardships of deportation by road, of life in the filthy,
insanitary _étapes_, and the horrors of the Tomsk _perisilni_, were all
well known and vivid in my own recollection. It was evident that the poor
old man had been subjected to the same inhuman brutality that had wrecked
so many thousand lives, and none could sympathise with him more sincerely
than myself.
Without giving him any idea that I also had been exiled to the Great
Prison Land, I questioned him upon various points, and his replies,
one and all, were those of a man who had suffered in the same manner.
Besides, his head had been shaved, for upon one side his white locks were
thin, while on the other they grew thickly, and were of an iron grey.
“What can I do?” he asked mournfully, when he had concluded his story.
“The money I have will not last me much longer. I must seek work.”
“But you are blind!” I exclaimed, looking into his dull, bleared, stony
eyes.
“Yes; nevertheless I can still do my work. One can feel to cut and polish
gems better than using the keenest eyesight. For three months prior to
coming here I was employed at the Roeterseiland factory at Amsterdam. Do
you know any one in London who wants a workman?”
I was silent. I happened to know a wealthy Jew diamond merchant,
Goldberg by name, who lived in that dingy thoroughfare which contains
more wealth, perhaps, than the whole of the rest of London—Hatton Garden.
“Ah! you do not speak,” he said entreatingly, laying his thin hand upon
my arm. “If you do know any one, give me an introduction to them, and as
a Russian and a brother, I shall thank you.”
“Yes, do,” urged Elyòna, jumping to her feet and placing her arm
affectionately around her father’s neck. “He must do some work, or we
shall starve.”
I hesitated, reflected upon the curious fact that this man, being an
escaped “political,” was not included in our list. It was useless to give
him the Nihilist sign, for he could not see.
“Well,” I said presently, “I know one gentleman, a dealer in gems, who
frequently employs lapidaries. If you like I’ll speak to him to-morrow.”
Both father and daughter thanked me effusively, and I took a leaf from
my pocket-book and wrote Goldberg’s name and address, at the same time
promising to call personally and interest myself on his behalf.
Soon afterwards I bade them farewell, and walked homeward through the
city in a very meditative frame of mind.
Within a week of my first meeting with Karelin, he was engaged by
Goldberg, who found him an excellent workman. The delicate sense of
touch that he had developed caused him to exercise far greater care over
his work than the ordinary lapidary, and Goldberg expressed a belief that
the old man was the best diamond polisher in London.
I was glad I had been enabled to render the blind man a service, while
on his part he continually overwhelmed me with heartfelt gratitude. We
met frequently, and although I refrained from explaining my connection
with the Revolutionary Party, I introduced him to several minor Members
of Parliament and other persons who were advocates of Russian freedom,
and who made the National Liberal Club their headquarters. The old blind
man and his daughter were invited to numbers of houses, and much sympathy
was shown them. Elyòna was petted by the ladies, and her father appeared
never tired of describing the terrors of administrative exile.
Once or twice he lectured; on the first occasion at the National Liberal
Club, and afterwards at various halls in the metropolis. The title of his
lecture was “My Life in Siberia,” and great crowds assembled to hear him,
while the newspapers reported his observations and criticisms at unusual
length.
Although he had been exiled as “a dangerous political,” he denied that he
had ever entertained revolutionary ideas, and expressed his disagreement
with the propaganda of the Nihilists. By reason of that expression I
refrained from admitting that I was a Terrorist. Of course I had reported
to the Executive, and my instructions were to watch him narrowly and
penetrate the mystery enveloping his past.
At this period it chanced that we were unusually active with our
propaganda, especially in Poland, and the Government viewed their
futile efforts to suppress the circulation of revolutionary literature
with increasing alarm. They were aware that the majority of the books,
pamphlets, and manifestoes came from England, yet they were utterly
unable to discover the means by which they evaded the censorship.
One noteworthy document which was being circulated by hundreds of
thousands throughout the length and breadth of the Russian Empire was the
new programme of the Executive Committee.
“By fundamental conviction we are Socialists and Democrats,” was the
translation of the opening sentence. Then it proceeded as follows: “We
are satisfied that only through socialistic principles can the human race
acquire liberty, equality, and fraternity; secure the full and harmonious
development of the individual as well as the material prosperity of all;
and thus make progress. The welfare of the people and the will of the
people are our two most sacred and most inseparable principles.” The
document went on to criticise severely the condition of the country
under the Tzar Alexander III., and pointed out that in view of the stated
aim of the Party its operations might be classified under the heads of
propaganda, destructive activity, the organisation of secret societies,
and the organisation of the revolution.
Clause 2, headed “Destructive and Terroristic Activity,” was perhaps the
one most calculated to inspire the Tzar and his Government with feelings
of insecurity and fear. The intentions of the Party were expressed boldly
in the following terms: “Terroristic activity consists in the destruction
of the most harmful persons in the Government, the protection of the
Party from spies, and the punishment of official lawlessness and violence
in all the more prominent and important cases in which such lawlessness
and violence are manifested. The aim of such activity is to break down
the prestige of Governmental power, to furnish continuous proof of the
possibility of carrying on a contest against the Government, to raise in
that way the revolutionary spirit of the people, and inspire belief in
the practicability of revolution, and, finally, to form a body suited and
accustomed to warfare.”
So active were the police that it had been impossible to establish a
secret press in Russia with any degree of safety; hence it was that Boris
Dobroslavin and Isaac Bolomez, two working printers of Warsaw, had come
to London for the purpose of printing revolutionary literature, which
was afterwards smuggled across the Russian frontier.
The house in which they had established themselves was one of those
small, old-fashioned, grimy private dwellings of the usual type found in
the East End, and in the back parlour they had fitted up a hand-press,
while in an upstairs room they did the work of composing in Russian type
which they had brought from Poland.
Here the manifestoes and pamphlets issued by the Executive were printed,
and by means only known to our Organisation conveyed into Russia and
Siberia to be circulated secretly. For nearly a year the dissemination of
Terrorist literature had been going on, and we were gradually flooding
the Empire with documents advocating freedom.
Dobroslavin and Bolomez were pleasant, easy-going fellows, and one
day while walking with Karelin in the Whitechapel Road I met them and
introduced him. They had previously heard me speak of the blind exile,
and were at once interested in him, inviting him to their house. During
the weeks that followed we four often spent evenings together at Little
Alie Street, although it must be remembered that no intimation was ever
given to Karelin of the nature of the business that was carried on there,
or was he ever shown into the work-rooms.
Elyòna sometimes accompanied her father, and on those occasions would
sing some of those old Polish love-songs that touch the heart of the
exiled patriotic Russian. She possessed a pretty contralto voice, and
generally accompanied herself upon an old mandoline, which she played
with considerable skill.
One evening an incident occurred that puzzled me greatly. We had been
chatting together in the front sitting-room, and Boris and Isaac had
left the room in order to consult in private upon a note they had
just received from the Executive. Karelin and myself were sitting in
armchairs on either side of the fireplace, when I noticed that on a
table, immediately behind my companion, there lay a half-printed copy
of a sixteen-page pamphlet entitled “To-morrow,” which, couched in
inflammatory language, had been so largely circulated as to cause the
greatest consternation among members of the “Third Section,” who were
utterly at a loss to discover who was primarily responsible for the
multiplication of this severe and ruthless criticism of the Imperial
Autocrat.
As I sat watching the old man’s expressionless face I could not help
reflecting that it was a rash proceeding to allow such a document to lie
about openly. Yet I remembered that the old man was blind and could not
possibly ascertain the nature of the printed paper. Just at that moment
Bolomez put his head inside the door and called me into the next room to
join in their conference.
When, five minutes later, I returned to the sitting-room, Karelin was
still in the attitude in which I had left him, but the pamphlet was no
longer there!
Its disappearance surprised me, for it seemed quite as impossible that
any one had entered the room and taken it during my brief absence as that
the blind man had discovered it. It was upon my tongue to remark upon it,
but I hesitated, perceiving that to refer to it might whet the old man’s
curiosity and arouse his suspicions.
Nevertheless, the disappearance of the pamphlet was a mystery, and I
determined upon finding out whether he had purloined it, and if so, the
object of the theft.
A few days later I called upon Goldberg. His house was at the end of that
long row of gloomy second-rate-looking residences, with deep basements
and flights of stone steps leading to the front doors, which line one
side of Hatton Garden. There was nothing in the exterior to attract the
attention of any enterprising burglar, with the exception, perhaps, of
the iron bars which protected the windows in the area, and even the
shining brass plate bore simply the name, “F. Goldberg,” without any
indication of his business. Inside, in the room used as office, the
feature one would have expected to find—namely, a great green-painted
iron safe with enormous handles and hinges—was absent. The room was
nothing more than a comfortable library with well-filled bookcases around
the walls.
When I entered Goldberg was busy writing letters. Rising, he grasped my
hand, and, greeting me warmly, bade me be seated in the client’s chair.
“You would like to see your blind _protégé_ at work, eh?” he said, when
we had been chatting some time. “Well, you shall. He’s a marvellous
workman. See, here’s a stone he finished this morning;” and taking from
a drawer in his writing-table a tiny round cardboard box, he removed the
lid and handed it to me. Lying in its bed of pink cotton wool was an
enormous yellow diamond, which flashed and gleamed in the ray of sunlight
that strayed into the room.
“How much is it worth?” I inquired.
“My price is a thousand pounds,” he replied. “That particular one,
however, has been ordered by a jeweller, and is to form the centre of an
ornament which, in a few weeks’ time, will be presented by a bridegroom
to his bride.”
“I should like to see Karelin at work,” I said.
My friend acquiesced willingly, and took me upstairs to a small back
room, where the old man was seated. He was busily engaged “cleaving”
a rough diamond by means of another sharp-edged gem. In order that he
should not be aware of my presence, I did not speak. His master addressed
some words to him regarding his work, which the old lapidary answered
without turning his sightless eyes towards us. The careful and accurate
manner in which he worked was little short of marvellous, for he stopped
every few moments to feel with the tip of his forefinger the precise
dimensions of the incision he was making in the stone.
My object in seeing him at work was twofold. The first was to watch the
movement of his face, but I found that it wore the blank, expressionless
look of a blind man. The second was to make an investigation. His coat
was hanging upon a nail behind the door, and holding up my finger to my
friend as an indication of secrecy, I crossed noiselessly to the garment,
and placing my hand in the breast-pocket, abstracted its contents.
A momentary glance was sufficient to detect the object which I sought,
for, folded in half and lying among a number of letters and bills, was
the missing copy of the revolutionary pamphlet.
I pushed the papers back hurriedly, and with Goldberg left the old man’s
workshop. I was sorely puzzled to know what the blind man wanted with a
document of that description, and after replying evasively to Goldberg’s
questions, I bade him farewell, and left.
One evening I visited the house in Little Alie Street and found
Dobroslavin, Bolomez, and Karelin smoking together in the dingy little
sitting-room. We sat gossiping for an hour, when the old man knocked the
ashes from his pipe, and rising, said, “I must be going now. I promised
Elyòna to return early. She will be so lonely, poor child.”
The tender manner in which he spoke of her touched me, and I reflected
upon her dull and lonely life, for she was unable to speak English, and
had no friends.
“I will see you home,” I said, and presently we set out and walked
together to his humble abode. Elyòna was sitting as usual, bright and
cheerful, ready to welcome him. She jumped to her feet, kissed him
affectionately, ran to get his slippers, and bestowed upon him various
little attentions which showed how great was the affection between father
and daughter.
After remaining chatting with her for half an hour, I returned to
Little Alie Street, but judge my astonishment when I found that a
crowd had assembled outside the house. Hastily inquiring the nature of
the disturbance, I was informed by a lad that a police inspector had
entered the place. Such intelligence naturally caused me a good deal of
consternation, but I remembered that it was no offence against English
law to print Russian pamphlets.
I resolved to put on a bold front and enter the premises.
As I was forcing my way through the crowd to the door, the latter opened,
and I saw Dobroslavin and Bolomez in the custody of several constables.
“For what am I arrested?” I heard Bolomez ask in his broken English.
“You’ve already been told,” the constable replied. “Come, you’d best go
quietly.”
Neither of my two fellow-conspirators saw me, for I was standing among
the crowd of Whitechapel rabble; but as soon as they started to walk I
followed them to the Leman Street Police Station—famed in the history of
London crime as the headquarters of the police when searching for “Jack
the Ripper.” On arrival I hesitated whether to follow them into the
station, but at length decided not to do so, lest I might run unnecessary
risks and be identified as a too-frequent visitor at the house that had
just been raided.
Having in vain attempted to ascertain the exact nature of the offence
with which Dobroslavin and Bolomez were charged, I hurried away to
Aldgate and went by rail to Edgware Road, taking a cab thence to Oakleigh
Gardens in order to report our misfortune to the Executive.
With feelings of intense anxiety I sat in the Thames Police Court on the
following morning, awaiting the two prisoners to be brought before the
magistrate. Presently, after the usual applications for summonses and the
hearing of night charges, my two compatriots were placed in the dock.
“Boris Dobroslavin and Isaac Bolomez, you are charged with having forged
Russian banknotes in your possession, and further, with manufacturing
them at No. 132, Little Alie Street,” exclaimed the clerk of the court.
Forged notes! Impossible, I thought. The press was used for no other
purpose than for printing revolutionary literature. The evidence,
however, was extraordinary. As I sat listening to it I could scarce
believe my ears.
The first witness was a police inspector, who made the following
statement: “A warrant to search the premises, 132, Little Alie Street,
was given into my hands, and last night I went there with other officers.
In answer to a knock, the prisoner Bolomez opened the door, and we at
once searched the place. In the back room on the ground floor we found
a printing-press and printers’ materials, together with a very large
number of pamphlets and circulars in Russian. On searching the front
sitting-room, I found concealed under the cushion of the sofa four
engraved copper plates, which have been used for printing Russian notes
of the value of one and five roubles. In a drawer, in the same room,
I found the bundles of forged notes I produce. They are all new, and
represent a sum of 18,000 roubles. Two small tins of blue and yellow
lithographic ink I found concealed behind a sideboard. I then caused both
prisoners to be arrested.”
In reply to the magistrate, the officer said that a very large number
of forged Russian notes were in circulation, and the Russian Finance
Department had obtained information showing that they were being printed
in London. A heavy reward had been offered, but although the London
police had been endeavouring to trace the offenders, they had not
succeeded until the present occasion.
The other evidence was corroborative. I was dumb with amazement, and the
two prisoners seemed too much astonished at hearing the extraordinary
charge against them to make any effort to cross-examine the witnesses. At
length the case was remanded, and I left the court.
That day the Executive held a meeting to discuss the situation, but no
solution of the mystery was forthcoming; even the solicitor we employed
to defend entertained little hope of being able to make a satisfactory
defence in the face of such undeniable evidence.
For three days following the arrest of Boris and Isaac, and the seizure
of our press, I was too busy to call on Karelin, but I expected that he
had heard of the reports in the papers, with the sensational headlines,
“Clever Capture of Banknote Forgers: Thousands of False Notes.” On
the fourth morning, about nine o’clock, I chanced to be walking along
Farringdon Road, when it suddenly occurred to me to call at Goldberg’s,
and tell the old lapidary how narrowly he had escaped arrest.
When the lad admitted me I met his master talking excitedly with two men
in the hall.
“It’s a most clever robbery,” I heard one of the men say. “The thief was
evidently an expert.”
“Robbery!” I echoed. “What’s the matter, Goldberg?”
“My safe has been ransacked!” he cried wildly. “See, here!” and he pulled
me into his private room.
Bookcases completely lined the walls, but one of these was false,
containing only the backs of books behind a glass door. On pressing a
spring it opened, revealing a great safe imbedded in the wall, and large
enough for a man to enter. Both doors now stood open, and the place was
in great confusion. The drawers in the safe had been sacked, the little
boxes that had contained cut and uncut gems had been emptied and cast
aside, while papers had been tossed carelessly upon the floor.
“What does this mean?” I asked, amazed.
“It means that I have lost every gem I possessed. They were worth twenty
thousand pounds, and included the great yellow diamond which Karelin cut
so beautifully. The burglars, whoever they were, gained admittance by the
area window after filing away three of the bars.”
One of the detectives remarked that it was strange Karelin had not come
to work as usual that morning, and at his request I accompanied him in a
cab to Briton’s Court.
My knock at the door was answered by an obese, slatternly woman, who, in
reply to my question, said—
“Mr. Karelin’s gone away.”
“Gone!” I gasped.
“Yes, he came ’ome yesterday about five o’clock, and an ’our afterwards
left with his daughter. They took a small box with them, and said they
would probably be absent a month or so.”
“He is the thief,” the detective briefly remarked, turning to me.
We searched his rooms, but found nothing to show the direction of his
flight. I then accompanied the officer to Leman Street Police Station,
where I gave a detailed description of the fugitive and his daughter,
which was wired to every police station in the metropolitan area. An
hour later information was telegraphed to the ports of departure for the
Continent, together with a description of the stolen gems. As, however,
weeks passed without tidings of him, it was evident that he and his
affectionate daughter had succeeded in getting out of England with their
booty.
The celebrated case of forging Russian notes, tried at the Old Bailey,
is no doubt still remembered by many readers. The evidence for the
prosecution was conclusive, the jury returned a verdict of “guilty,”
and Dobroslavin and Bolomez were each sentenced to seven years’ penal
servitude.
Subsequent inquiries made by our Party, together with an incident that
occurred at Amsterdam, revealed some remarkable facts. Six months after
the two innocent men had been sentenced we unravelled the mystery
surrounding Karelin, and discovered that he was a genuine escaped exile,
but not a “political.” On the contrary, he was accredited by the Russian
police as the most expert diamond thief in the whole empire, and for
robbing a jeweller in Kovno he had been sent to Siberia with a yellow
diamond upon his back. For many years he had had an affection of the
eyes, but his blindness was only feigned, and the girl Elyòna was not his
daughter, but a clever accomplice.
After his escape from the mines he entered the Russian Secret Service
as spy. The Government, viewing with alarm the increasing flood of
revolutionary literature emanating from England, saw that the only way
to stop it was to get the men who were responsible imprisoned for a term
of years. With this object the _agent provocateur_ we knew as Karelin
assumed the character of a blind lapidary, obtained an entrance to the
house in Little Alie Street, and, when his plans were ripe, secreted the
plates and forged notes in the room, first, however, giving anonymous
warning to the Metropolitan Police. The result was that two innocent
men were convicted, and placed where they could do nothing to annoy the
Government of Russia.
Although Dobroslavin and Bolomez are still at Portland, Karelin met with
his deserts. He did not escape our vigilance, for our Party found him in
Amsterdam some months afterwards endeavouring to sell the great yellow
diamond that he had polished. He was arrested, extradited to England,
and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, while about half of Goldberg’s
property was recovered.
No trace, however, has yet been discovered of the charming Elyòna.