by Robin Paige
All this uproar was followed by silence, an uneasy, fear-inducing silence that went on from the last three years of Victoria’s reign and into the first two years of Edward’s. Abroad, assassins were spreading terror among heads of state, while in England, Special Branch became increasingly anxious that a storm was brewing in the East End. But frustratingly, the police were left with little to do, except to keep a close watch on known and suspected Anarchists in the hope that they might commit a crime under the noses of the police. The Branch were assisted in this effort by the growing number of counterrevolutionary agents provacateurs who had begun to appear in London, sent by the Russian Secret Police to entrap Russian émigrés who posed a threat to the Czar’s life and regime.
Inspector Earnest Ashcraft of the Special Branch was perhaps more frustrated than any of his colleagues, for he had a very strong sense of duty, and every day that passed without his being called upon to perform that duty was a day that he felt he had somehow failed. Ashcraft was a man in his early thirties, broad-shouldered and thickset. He deeply regretted having missed the excitement of the Fenians and the Walsall terrorists and that bang-up Greenwich affair, all of which had occurred while he was still a youth.
In fact, almost everything of note, Inspector Ashcraft often thought sadly, seemed to have happened before he joined the force in ’98—except for the Boer War, of course. He had done his duty there, not waiting to be called up but enlisting as soon as the trumpets sounded and shipping out on the very first transport to South Africa. But he had been struck by dysentery before he could fire a shot at the enemy, and had come back wasted, in what he felt in his soul to be a kind of mortal disgrace. The fact that Scotland Yard welcomed him back without question and even promoted him to the rank of Inspector made no difference to him. In his mind, his promotion had no redemptive qualities; he could only hope to redeem himself by some sort of significant action.
While others in the Special Branch may have been lulled by the seeming quiet on the Anarchist front, Inspector Ashcraft was convinced that these dangerous people were only biding their time. The times themselves were dangerous, for the end of the war threw thousands of men into the labor market, and large throngs of the unemployed marched through the streets of London, disrupting traffic and frightening law-abiding citizens. And even the employed were dangerous, for membership in the trade unions was rising and the unions held the cudgel of the strike in their hands. In this restive, rebellious climate, Ashcraft felt, any little spark might flame up into an uncontrollable conflagration. All hell would break loose, and unholy chaos would reign over law and order. But Ashcraft knew this could not be allowed to happen. When the peace and stability of society were threatened, Special Branch would be there to protect it. And Earnest Ashcraft, at last, would have the chance to do his duty.
To that end, over the past few months, Ashcraft had paid special attention to the half-dozen Anarchist groups in the East End. He was most interested in the Clarion, an Anarchist newspaper that had begun publication a decade ago under the editorship of a woman named Sybil Conway, whose daughter was now the editor. Ashcraft had studied the Clarion diligently, and in his opinion it was among the most inflammatory of all those published in the country; it stood to reason, therefore, that if a plot was brewing, the Clarion would be somehow involved.
Inspector Ashcraft’s interest in the newspaper had been further fueled by a man calling himself Dmitri Tropov, although Ashcraft had reason to believe that this was not his real name. At Tropov’s invitation, Ashcraft had met him in a dirty, crowded café near the docks. Tropov was a thin man, rather tall and dressed as an ordinary seaman, although his fingers were long and delicate, the fingers of a musician, perhaps, but hardly the hands of a sailor. There was something about his eyes, too—something watchful and wary, as if he were always on the lookout.
After some initial conversation, Tropov identified himself as a member of the Ochrana, the Russian Secret Police. He was especially interested, he said, in a man called Ivan Kopinski, who worked as a printer at the Anarchist newspaper, the Clarion. If Special Branch ever had occasion to detain or arrest Kopinski, Tropov would be glad to be notified, for Kopinski’s name was on his list of dangerous individuals. In fact, if the opportunity arose, Tropov would be delighted to take Kopinski off Ashcraft’s hands and arrange his clandestine deportation to Russia.
“One less Anarchist to trouble the Yard,” he had said with a chummy laugh, in perfect, unaccented English. “Right, Inspector?”
Ashcraft was not surprised by Tropov’s fluency or easy manner. That was the way of it with these Ochrana chaps—they spoke any number of languages, could assume any number of disguises, carry off any number of masquerades. The next time he saw Tropov, he might be an aristocrat, or a race-course tout, or (with those hands) even a woman. Of course, he couldn’t be trusted; those fellows would sell their mothers if they could make a profit thereby. But that was of little importance to Ashcraft, since Tropov was not in his employ. The man made him uneasy, however. It was those eyes, he thought, those endlessly watching eyes.
In the event, Ashcraft had agreed that one less Anarchist would indeed be a good thing, and had gone back to the Yard to inform Chief Inspector Mattingly about his conversation with the Russian agent. The press had been full of stories about the thaw in Anglo-Russian relations and the eventuality of an Anglo-Russian alliance, and Ashcraft was not surprised when the chief inspector suggested that he keep in close touch with Tropov, to learn what the man was up to.
“I shouldn’t wonder if the Foreign Office would be interested in hearing about this particular contact,” Mattingly said with a deliberative air. He was a round-faced, white-haired man with the look of a genial Father Christmas but a reputation that was a great deal more sinister. “And especially about Tropov’s interest in the Clarion’s printer—that fellow Kopinski.” He paused, his eyes narrowing under bushy white brows. “One never knows about these things, Inspector. It could be that Kopinski is a nothing. On the other hand, he might be a something.” He stroked his white beard. “If you take my meaning.”
Ashcraft clasped his hands behind his back and said that he certainly took the chief inspector’s meaning.
“Well, then.” Mattingly picked up a sheaf of papers to signal the end of the interview. “I leave it to you, Inspector, to determine how to deal with the situation.” He would see to it, he added, that Tropov’s name was handed up to the assistant commissioner. If Ashcraft felt that he needed additional personnel to conduct surveillance or other activities, he might choose two or three Special Branch officers to assist him. If noses—informants—were needed, why, that would be no problem, either.
So Inspector Ashcraft, feeling that this was a significant assignment, through which he might at last be called upon to do his duty, had begun to watch the offices of the Clarion. He paid special attention to the comings and goings of Ivan Kopinski, of course, but he also kept his eye on Pierre Mouffetard, a Frenchman with a strong propensity to violent expression. There was a third employee, a boy named Messenko, but he did not seem of much importance. The editor, however, the attractive, free-spirited Charlotte Conway, was clearly dangerous, since hers was the hand and the brain behind the pen.
Indeed, as the days went on, Ashcraft’s attentions to Miss Conway gradually intensified. He was not the sort of man who would search his soul for the reasons for his growing interest in this female Anarchist, although if he had, he would have had to acknowledge a serious conflict, for Ashcraft was happily married and believed that he loved his wife and two children. Nevertheless, he frequently watched the lighted window of Miss Conway’s bedroom as she prepared to go to bed at night, standing on the street until long after the lamp had been extinguished, and he assigned to himself the task of following her from her mother’s house to the newspaper offices in Hampstead Road.
But however entranced Ashcraft may have become by the intriguing Miss Conway, he did not allow her to distract him from other important aspect
s of the investigation. He spent the day in the neighborhood of the Clarion’s office, and assigned to two associates the jobs of trailing Kopinski and Mouffetard from their rooms to the newspaper. And he purchased several noses.
From its beginnings, Special Branch had employed informants to help with investigations. In fact, while the Yard itself might modestly explain that a certain crime was solved by a good police work or a lucky chance of some kind—information offered by a disgruntled employee, a jealous lover, or a good-doing informant—the truth was that most often the information was purchased, and often at a very good price. This practice had been hotly debated for decades, for it certainly smacked of entrapment, and worse. Noses were known to sell unreliable information, and (when hard up for a guinea) to implicate innocent people. But Special Branch—and Scotland Yard in general—could not have done without noses, and continued, surreptitiously, to employ them. And Ashcraft himself would have dealt with the devil, if that’s what it took to do his duty.
But that was not necessary in this instance. The inspector procured the services of Mrs. Georgiana Battle, the owner of the green-grocer’s shop in the front of the building, as a nose—or in this case, perhaps she might perhaps rather have been called an ear. There was an opening in the wall at the back of the shop where, when the presses were not operating, voices could be distinctly heard, and Mrs. Battle was more than happy to keep Inspector Ashcraft apprised of what she heard when she applied her ear to the opening.
In addition to Mrs. Battle, Ashcraft had taken the precaution of obtaining the services of a young Russian émigré named Nicholas Petrovich, whom he paid to infiltrate the Anarchist cell in Hampstead Road. This group met each Sunday night in the grimy basement room of a bookseller’s shop a few doors down from the Clarion. Petrovich represented himself to the group as having just arrived from Munich, eager to carry out any duties to which he might be assigned. Anarchists, by and large, were a naive lot, and they readily accepted Petrovich’s offer, and he quickly became an indispensable member of the group.
In addition to these strategies, the inspector took the precaution of developing certain evidentiary contingencies that might make conviction more reliable, should he be called upon to make arrests in this case. He had once seen an Anarchist snatched from the clutches of the law, so to say, when a zealous barrister pointed out in the course of his client’s defense that there was no physical evidence of his guilt and that the informant upon whose word the police had acted had disappeared. The jury aquitted. Inspector Ashcraft did not intend that to happen in this case.
Given all these careful measures, then, it was certainly unfortunate that the inspector had neglected to monitor the movements of Yuri Messenko. But the young man had seemed a vague, gentle sort, not in the same class with the dangerous Kopinski, the inscrutable Mouffetard, or the clever, comely Miss Conway, and it did not seem useful to expend funds or footwork to watch a half-wit. It was only the greatest good luck, therefore, that had taken Inspector Ashcraft through Hyde Park on Coronation Day, at the precise moment that young Yuri blew himself into little pieces with the bomb that had obviously been meant for the King.
For once in his life, Earnest Ashcraft thought exultantly, he had been at the right place at the right time, and fully prepared to do his duty. Of course, it was altogether unfortunate that, in the subsequent raid on the offices of the Clarion, the tantalizing Miss Conway had been allowed to escape—how, he still did not quite understand. But that was of no great concern. He knew he would find her.
CHAPTER SIX
I WANTS T’ BE A LIDY
I wants to ’ave an evening dress that opens down to ’ere,
And wear a great big di’mond ti-a-ra in me ’air;
And when I to the playhouse go, I wants to play the grand
With a wreath of flowers on me breast and a basket in me ’and.
I wants t’ be a lidy through an’ through!
George Dance,
A Chinese Honeymoon,
A Musical Play in Two Acts, 1901
“No!” Nellie Lovelace exclaimed, raising a hand to her mouth and stifing a disbelieving gasp. “Across the roof and down the fire-ladder? You couldn’t have, Lottie!”
“Afraid I did,” Charlotte Conway replied with a rueful look. “It was rather a daredevil trick, and certainly ill-advised. I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself. But I was desperate, Nellie.” She bit her lip, looking anguished. “Adam and the others—I feel as if I abandoned them. It was a rotten thing to do.”
“But you had to,” Nellie said practically. “You couldn’t go to jail.” She knew that Lottie had been hauled before the magistrates on several previous occasions. She’d be in for it this time. Political radicals of all persuasions were increasingly targeted by the police, and since Lottie’s name was on the masthead of the Clarion, she was a perfect quarry. The newspapers would trumpet her arrest, the courtroom would be jammed at her trial, and the magistrate would be harsh.
Lottie sighed, glancing around Nellie’s bedroom. “I suppose I shouldn’t have come here, but I honestly couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. I can’t impose on any of the comrades—if I do, and I’m caught there, they’ll go to jail, too.” She lowered her head and glanced obliquely at Nellie. “I thought . . . well, you’re not a sympathizer. I didn’t think their spies would be watching you.”
“You did the right thing, Lottie.” Nellie opened her gold cigarette case—a gift from an admirer—and offered her friend a cigarette. “Good Lord, you are in a dreadful corner, aren’t you, old girl? Where did you sleep last night?”
“In Green Park.” Charlotte took the cigarette, wrinkling her nose. “I didn’t sleep, actually. A copper came along about midnight to roust out the vagabonds, and I slipped away before he collared me.” She bent to Nellie’s light and puffed, blowing out smoke. “The question is, Nellie, what the devil do I do now? I can’t go home, because that devil Ashcraft is no doubt watching Mum’s house. And I can’t go to the newspaper—from all the crashing and bashing I heard, I’m sure they wrecked the place. Last time, it took us a couple of months to put everything right and start printing again. This time, they’ve closed us down for keeps.” She closed her eyes and added, reflectively, “A damned shame, too. Without us, the movement has no voice.” Her own voice became bitter. “But that’s their aim, of course—to stifle anyone who doesn’t agree with the government. So much for the right of free speech.”
Nellie Lovelace sat back on her velvet sofa and regarded her friend. She had met Charlotte several years before, at the very beginning of her acting career. At the time, Nellie was still taking whatever parts she could find, mostly as a bit player at Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theater. She had gone to a meeting of the Fabian Society, the foremost Socialist group in England, to hear a lecture by the drama critic for the Saturday Review, George Bernard Shaw. She and Charlotte had sat next to one another. Nellie was only marginally interested in Socialism, and Charlotte was a committed Anarchist—a rather idealistic one, in Nellie’s view—but the two women quickly became fast friends and saw one another as often as their other commitments allowed.
“Yes, that is certainly the question,” Nellie said thoughtfully. “What are you to do now?” She surveyed her friend’s disheveled appearance with a critical eye. Never very tidy, Lottie certainly looked much the worse for wear: her boots were muddied, her skirt was torn, her blouse was stained, and her hair was a matted mess. “When did you last have something to eat?”
Lottie screwed up her forehead as if she were trying to remember. “An old lady gave me half of her sticky bun—this morning, I think it was.”
Nellie frowned, thinking that half a bun since morning wasn’t enough to keep body and soul together, even if you were a stick like Lottie and used to missing meals while you pecked away all day at the typewriter. “And you’re sure you can’t go home?” she asked. “You need a change of clothing, at least.”
“I don’t dare,” Lottie replied. “If Ashcraft so much
as catches a glimpse of me, he’ll have me in Police Court by morning. I need to get out of London for a while, Nellie, but I’m sure the filthy beast is watching the railway stations.” She made a wry face. “I have no money for a ticket, anyway. And nowhere to go. I’m afraid I’m a dreadful nuisance.”
“Well, money is not a problem,” Nellie said, considering. “I certainly have more than enough.” The year before, she had taken on her first important role, as Princess Soo-Soo in A Chinese Honeymoon, at the Royal Strand Theater. Musical theater had not been her goal when she had declared to herself that she wanted to be an actress—a serious Shakespearean actress. But Nellie was nothing if not practical, and she had quickly discovered that there was a great deal more money to be made in musical comedy, which was more respectable than music hall and more appealingly lighthearted than serious theater. She’d had some incredible luck along the way, of course—meeting Lady Sheridan, for instance, who had introduced her to Henry Irving and Bram Stoker at the Lyceum, and then to Frank Curzon, who managed the Royal Strand. It was Lady Sheridan who had persuaded Mr. Curzon to give her a part as one of the bridesmaids in A Chinese Honeymoon, and he had suggested that she understudy the leading lady. When Beatrice Edward got into a tiff and left the play, Nellie had stepped into her role.
