I nodded doubtful assent. Hermione Street has been, within the last
three years, improved out of any man's knowledge. The name exists still,
but not one brick or stone of the old Hermione Street is left now. It
was the old street he meant, for he said:
"There was a row of two-storied brick houses on the left, with their
backs against the wing of a great public building--you remember. Would
it surprise you very much to hear that one of these houses was for
a time the centre of anarchist propaganda and of what you would call
underground action?"
"Not at all," I declared. Hermione Street had never been particularly
respectable, as I remembered it.
"The house was the property of a distinguished government official," he
added, sipping his champagne.
"Oh, indeed!" I said, this time not believing a word of it.
"Of course he was not living there," Mr. X continued. "But from ten till
four he sat next door to it, the dear man, in his well-appointed private
room in the wing of the public building I've mentioned. To be strictly
accurate, I must explain that the house in Hermione Street did not
really belong to him. It belonged to his grown-up children--a daughter
and a son. The girl, a fine figure, was by no means vulgarly pretty.
To more personal charm than mere youth could account for, she added
the seductive appearance of enthusiasm, of independence, of courageous
thought. I suppose she put on these appearances as she put on her
picturesque dresses and for the same reason: to assert her individuality
at any cost. You know, women would go to any length almost for such
a purpose. She went to a great length. She had acquired all the
appropriate gestures of revolutionary convictions--the gestures of pity,
of anger, of indignation against the anti-humanitarian vices of the
social class to which she belonged herself. All this sat on her striking
personality as well as her slightly original costumes. Very slightly
original; just enough to mark a protest against the philistinism of the
overfed taskmasters of the poor. Just enough, and no more. It would not
have done to go too far in that direction--you understand. But she was
of age, and nothing stood in the way of her offering her house to the
revolutionary workers."
"You don't mean it!" I cried.
"I assure you," he affirmed, "that she made that very practical gesture.
How else could they have got hold of it? The cause is not rich.
And, moreover, there would have been difficulties with any ordinary
house-agent, who would have wanted references and so on. The group she
came in contact with while exploring the poor quarters of the town
(you know the gesture of charity and personal service which was so
fashionable some years ago) accepted with gratitude. The first advantage
was that Hermione Street is, as you know, well away from the suspect
part of the town, specially watched by the police.
"The ground floor consisted of a little Italian restaurant, of the
flyblown sort. There was no difficulty in buying the proprietor out. A
woman and a man belonging to the group took it on. The man had been a
cook. The comrades could get their meals there, unnoticed amongst
the other customers. This was another advantage. The first floor was
occupied by a shabby Variety Artists' Agency--an agency for performers
in inferior music-halls, you know. A fellow called Bomm, I remember. He
was not disturbed. It was rather favourable than otherwise to have a lot
of foreign-looking people, jugglers, acrobats, singers of both sexes,
and so on, going in and out all day long. The police paid no attention
to new faces, you see. The top floor happened, most conveniently, to
stand empty then."
X interrupted himself to attack impassively, with measured movements,
a bombe glacee which the waiter had just set down on the table. He
swallowed carefully a few spoonfuls of the iced sweet, and asked me,
"Did you ever hear of Stone's Dried Soup?"
"Hear of what?"
"It was," X pursued, evenly, "a comestible article once rather
prominently advertised in the dailies, but which never, somehow, gained
the favour of the public. The enterprise fizzled out, as you say here.
Parcels of their stock could be picked up at auctions at considerably
less than a penny a pound. The group bought some of it, and an agency
for Stone's Dried Soup was started on the top floor. A perfectly
respectable business. The stuff, a yellow powder of extremely
unappetizing aspect, was put up in large square tins, of which six went
to a case. If anybody ever came to give an order, it was, of course,
executed. But the advantage of the powder was this, that things could be
concealed in it very conveniently. Now and then a special case got put
on a van and sent off to be exported abroad under the very nose of the
policeman on duty at the corner. You understand?"
"I think I do," I said, with an expressive nod at the remnants of the
bombe melting slowly in the dish.
"Exactly. But the cases were useful in another way, too. In the
basement, or in the cellar at the back, rather, two printing-presses
were established. A lot of revolutionary literature of the most
inflammatory kind was got away from the house in Stone's Dried Soup
cases. The brother of our anarchist young lady found some occupation
there. He wrote articles, helped to set up type and pull off the sheets,
and generally assisted the man in charge, a very able young fellow
called Sevrin.
"The guiding spirit of that group was a fanatic of social revolution. He
is dead now. He was an engraver and etcher of genius. You must have seen
his work. It is much sought after by certain amateurs now. He began by
being revolutionary in his art, and ended by becoming a revolutionist,
after his wife and child had died in want and misery. He used to say
that the bourgeoisie, the smug, overfed lot, had killed them. That was
his real belief. He still worked at his art and led a double life. He
was tall, gaunt, and swarthy, with a long, brown beard and deep-set
eyes. You must have seen him. His name was Horne."
At this I was really startled. Of course years ago I used to meet Horne
about. He looked like a powerful, rough gipsy, in an old top hat, with a
red muffler round his throat and buttoned up in a long, shabby overcoat.
He talked of his art with exaltation, and gave one the impression of
being strung up to the verge of insanity. A small group of connoisseurs
appreciated his work. Who would have thought that this man. . . .
Amazing! And yet it was not, after all, so difficult to believe.
"As you see," X went on, "this group was in a position to pursue
its work of propaganda, and the other kind of work, too, under very
advantageous conditions. They were all resolute, experienced men of
a superior stamp. And yet we became struck at length by the fact that
plans prepared in Hermione Street almost invariably failed."
"Who were 'we'?" I asked, pointedly.
"Some of us in Brussels--at the centre," he said, hastily. "Whatever
vigorous action originated in Hermione Street seemed doomed to failure.
Something always happened to baffle the best planned manifestations in
every part of Europe. It was a time of general activity. You must not
imagine that all our failures are of a loud sort, with arrests and
trials. That is not so. Often the police work quietly, almost secretly,
defeating our combinations by clever counter-plotting. No arrests, no
noise, no alarming of the public mind and inflaming the passions. It
is a wise procedure. But at that time the police were too uniformly
successful from the Mediterranean to the Baltic. It was annoying and
began to look dangerous. At last we came to the conclusion that there
must be some untrustworthy elements amongst the London groups. And I
came over to see what could be done quietly.
"My first step was to call upon our young Lady Amateur of anarchism at
her private house. She received me in a flattering way. I judged that
she knew nothing of the chemical and other operations going on at
the top of the house in Hermione Street. The printing of anarchist
literature was the only 'activity' she seemed to be aware of there. She
was displaying very strikingly the usual signs of severe enthusiasm,
and had already written many sentimental articles with ferocious
conclusions. I could see she was enjoying herself hugely, with all the
gestures and grimaces of deadly earnestness. They suited her big-eyed,
broad-browed face and the good carriage of her shapely head, crowned by
a magnificent lot of brown hair done in an unusual and becoming style.
Her brother was in the room, too, a serious youth, with arched eyebrows
and wearing a red necktie, who struck me as being absolutely in the dark
about everything in the world, including himself. By and by a tall young
man came in. He was clean-shaved with a strong bluish jaw and something
of the air of a taciturn actor or of a fanatical priest: the type with
thick black eyebrows--you know. But he was very presentable indeed. He
shook hands at once vigorously with each of us. The young lady came up
to me and murmured sweetly, 'Comrade Sevrin.'
"I had never seen him before. He had little to say to us, but sat
down by the side of the girl, and they fell at once into earnest
conversation. She leaned forward in her deep armchair, and took her
nicely rounded chin in her beautiful white hand. He looked attentively
into her eyes. It was the attitude of love-making, serious, intense, as
if on the brink of the grave. I suppose she felt it necessary to
round and complete her assumption of advanced ideas, of revolutionary
lawlessness, by making believe to be in love with an anarchist. And this
one, I repeat, was extremely presentable, notwithstanding his fanatical
black-browed aspect. After a few stolen glances in their direction, I
had no doubt that he was in earnest. As to the lady, her gestures
were unapproachable, better than the very thing itself in the blended
suggestion of dignity, sweetness, condescension, fascination, surrender,
and reserve. She interpreted her conception of what that precise sort
of love-making should be with consummate art. And so far, she, too, no
doubt, was in earnest. Gestures--but so perfect!
"After I had been left alone with our Lady Amateur I informed her
guardedly of the object of my visit. I hinted at our suspicions. I
wanted to hear what she would have to say, and half expected some
perhaps unconscious revelation. All she said was, 'That's serious,'
looking delightfully concerned and grave. But there was a sparkle in her
eyes which meant plainly, 'How exciting!' After all, she knew little
of anything except of words. Still, she undertook to put me in
communication with Horne, who was not easy to find unless in Hermione
Street, where I did not wish to show myself just then.
"I met Horne. This was another kind of a fanatic altogether. I exposed
to him the conclusion we in Brussels had arrived at, and pointed out
the significant series of failures. To this he answered with irrelevant
exaltation:
"'I have something in hand that shall strike terror into the heart of
these gorged brutes.'
"And then I learned that, by excavating in one of the cellars of the
house, he and some companions had made their way into the vaults under
the great public building I have mentioned before. The blowing up of a
whole wing was a certainty as soon as the materials were ready.
"I was not so appalled at the stupidity of that move as I might have
been had not the usefulness of our centre in Hermione Street become
already very problematical. In fact, in my opinion it was much more of a
police trap by this time than anything else.
"What was necessary now was to discover what, or rather who, was wrong,
and I managed at last to get that idea into Horne's head. He glared,
perplexed, his nostrils working as if he were sniffing treachery in the
air.
"And here comes a piece of work which will no doubt strike you as a sort
of theatrical expedient. And yet what else could have been done? The
problem was to find out the untrustworthy member of the group. But no
suspicion could be fastened on one more than another. To set a watch
upon them all was not very practicable. Besides, that proceeding often
fails. In any case, it takes time, and the danger was pressing. I felt
certain that the premises in Hermione Street would be ultimately raided,
though the police had evidently such confidence in the informer that the
house, for the time being, was not even watched. Horne was positive
on that point. Under the circumstances it was an unfavourable symptom.
Something had to be done quickly.
"I decided to organize a raid myself upon the group. Do you understand?
A raid of other trusty comrades personating the police. A conspiracy
within a conspiracy. You see the object of it, of course. When
apparently about to be arrested I hoped the informer would betray
himself in some way or other; either by some unguarded act or simply by
his unconcerned demeanour, for instance. Of coarse there was the risk
of complete failure and the no lesser risk of some fatal accident in the
course of resistance, perhaps, or in the efforts at escape. For, as
you will easily see, the Hermione Street group had to be actually and
completely taken unawares, as I was sure they would be by the real
police before very long. The informer was amongst them, and Horne alone
could be let into the secret of my plan.
"I will not enter into the detail of my preparations. It was not very
easy to arrange, but it was done very well, with a really convincing
effect. The sham police invaded the restaurant, whose shutters were
immediately put up. The surprise was perfect. Most of the Hermione
Street party were found in the second cellar, enlarging the hole
communicating with the vaults of the great public building. At the first
alarm, several comrades bolted through impulsively into the aforesaid
vault, where, of course, had this been a genuine raid, they would have
been hopelessly trapped. We did not bother about them for the moment.
They were harmless enough. The top floor caused considerable anxiety
to Horne and myself. There, surrounded by tins of Stone's Dried Soup,
a comrade, nick-named the Professor (he was an ex-science student)
was engaged in perfecting some new detonators. He was an abstracted,
self-confident, sallow little man, armed with large round spectacles,
and we were afraid that under a mistaken impression he would blow
himself up and wreck the house about our ears. I rushed upstairs and
found him already at the door, on the alert, listening, as he said, to
'suspicious noises down below.' Before I had quite finished explaining
to him what was going on he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully and
turned away to his balances and test-tubes. His was the true spirit
of an extreme revolutionist. Explosives were his faith, his hope, his
weapon, and his shield. He perished a couple of years afterwards in a
secret laboratory through the premature explosion of one of his improved
detonators.
"Hurrying down again, I found an impressive scene in the gloom of the
big cellar. The man who personated the inspector (he was no stranger
to the part) was speaking harshly, and giving bogus orders to his
bogus subordinates for the removal of his prisoners. Evidently nothing
enlightening had happened so far. Horne, saturnine and swarthy, waited
with folded arms, and his patient, moody expectation had an air of
stoicism well in keeping with the situation. I detected in the shadows
one of the Hermione Street group surreptitiously chewing up and
swallowing a small piece of paper. Some compromising scrap, I suppose;
perhaps just a note of a few names and addresses. He was a true and
faithful 'companion.' But the fund of secret malice which lurks at the
bottom of our sympathies caused me to feel amused at that perfectly
uncalled-for performance.
"In every other respect the risky experiment, the theatrical coup, if you
like to call it so, seemed to have failed. The deception could not
be kept up much longer; the explanation would bring about a very
embarrassing and even grave situation. The man who had eaten the paper
would be furious. The fellows who had bolted away would be angry, too.
"To add to my vexation, the door communicating with the other cellar,
where the printing-presses were, flew open, and our young lady
revolutionist appeared, a black silhouette in a close-fitting dress and
a large hat, with the blaze of gas flaring in there at her back. Over
her shoulder I perceived the arched eyebrows and the red necktie of her
brother.
"The last people in the world I wanted to see then! They had gone that
evening to some amateur concert for the delectation of the poor people,
you know; but she had insisted on leaving early, on purpose to call in
Hermione Street on the way home, under the pretext of having some work
to do. Her usual task was to correct the proofs of the Italian and
French editions of the Alarm Bell and the Firebrand." . . .
"Heavens!" I murmured. I had been shown once a few copies of these
publications. Nothing, in my opinion, could have been less fit for the
eyes of a young lady. They were the most advanced things of the sort;
advanced, I mean, beyond all bounds of reason and decency. One of them
preached the dissolution of all social and domestic ties; the other
advocated systematic murder. To think of a young girl calmly tracking
printers' errors all along the sort of abominable sentences I remembered
was intolerable to my sentiment of womanhood. Mr. X, after giving me a
glance, pursued steadily.
"I think, however, that she came mostly to exercise her fascinations
upon Sevrin, and to receive his homage in her queenly and condescending
way. She was aware of both--her power and his homage--and enjoyed them
with, I dare say, complete innocence. We have no ground in expediency
or morals to quarrel with her on that account. Charm in woman and
exceptional intelligence in man are a law unto themselves. Is it not
so?"
I refrained from expressing my abhorrence of that licentious doctrine
because of my curiosity.
"But what happened then?" I hastened to ask.
X went on crumbling slowly a small piece of bread with a careless left
hand.
"What happened, in effect," he confessed, "is that she saved the
situation."
"She gave you an opportunity to end your rather sinister farce," I
suggested.
"Yes," he said, preserving his impassive bearing. "The farce was bound
to end soon. And it ended in a very few minutes. And it ended well. Had
she not come in, it might have ended badly. Her brother, of course, did
not count. They had slipped into the house quietly some time before. The
printing-cellar had an entrance of its own. Not finding any one there,
she sat down to her proofs, expecting Sevrin to return to his work at
any moment. He did not do so. She grew impatient, heard through the door
the sounds of a disturbance in the other cellar and naturally came in to
see what was the matter.
"Sevrin had been with us. At first he had seemed to me the most amazed
of the whole raided lot. He appeared for an instant as if paralyzed
with astonishment. He stood rooted to the spot. He never moved a limb. A
solitary gas-jet flared near his head; all the other lights had been put
out at the first alarm. And presently, from my dark corner, I observed
on his shaven actor's face an expression of puzzled, vexed watchfulness.
He knitted his heavy eyebrows. The corners of his mouth dropped
scornfully. He was angry. Most likely he had seen through the game,
and I regretted I had not taken him from the first into my complete
confidence.
"But with the appearance of the girl he became obviously alarmed. It was
plain. I could see it grow. The change of his expression was swift and
startling. And I did not know why. The reason never occurred to me. I
was merely astonished at the extreme alteration of the man's face. Of
course he had not been aware of her presence in the other cellar; but
that did not explain the shock her advent had given him. For a moment he
seemed to have been reduced to imbecility. He opened his mouth as if to
shout, or perhaps only to gasp. At any rate, it was somebody else who
shouted. This somebody else was the heroic comrade whom I had detected
swallowing a piece of paper. With laudable presence of mind he let out a
warning yell.
"'It's the police! Back! Back! Run back, and bolt the door behind you.'
"It was an excellent hint; but instead of retreating the girl continued
to advance, followed by her long-faced brother in his knickerbocker suit,
in which he had been singing comic songs for the entertainment of
a joyless proletariat. She advanced not as if she had failed to
understand--the word 'police' has an unmistakable sound--but rather as
if she could not help herself. She did not advance with the free gait
and expanding presence of a distinguished amateur anarchist amongst
poor, struggling professionals, but with slightly raised shoulders,
and her elbows pressed close to her body, as if trying to shrink within
herself. Her eyes were fixed immovably upon Sevrin. Sevrin the man, I
fancy; not Sevrin the anarchist. But she advanced. And that was natural.
For all their assumption of independence, girls of that class are used
to the feeling of being specially protected, as, in fact, they are. This
feeling accounts for nine tenths of their audacious gestures. Her face
had gone completely colourless. Ghastly. Fancy having it brought home to
her so brutally that she was the sort of person who must run away from
the police! I believe she was pale with indignation, mostly, though
there was, of course, also the concern for her intact personality, a
vague dread of some sort of rudeness. And, naturally, she turned to a
man, to the man on whom she had a claim of fascination and homage--the
man who could not conceivably fail her at any juncture."
"But," I cried, amazed at this analysis, "if it had been serious, real,
I mean--as she thought it was--what could she expect him to do for her?"