A Case of Conspiracy in Clerkenwell

by Clara Benson

  Even from where they stood, across the crowd they could hear the booming sound of Trevett’s voice as he made an impassioned speech. Several times he clenched his fist and raised it into the air, to the sound of cheers. His mannerisms reminded Freddy of something.

  ‘I should have thought he’d be better off on the stage,’ he said.

  ‘Why, yes, Ivor was an actor for some years,’ said Ruth. ‘But he found that the public were not appreciative of his talents and abilities, and in the end we were fortunate that he decided to employ them to better purpose.’

  ‘Lost one too many parts,’ Freddy said to himself.

  Several policemen were trying to push through the crowd towards Trevett, in order to bring him down from the statue, and were meeting resistance at every turn. Trevett laughed and wagged a finger at them, and continued his speech, quite unconcerned.

  ‘They’re going to arrest him,’ observed Freddy.

  ‘Oh, they always arrest him,’ said St. John. ‘He’ll be disappointed if they don’t.’

  And indeed, within a very few minutes two police constables had pushed their way to the front of the group and dragged Ivor Trevett down from the statue. He was conducted away, struggling and shouting, but with every appearance of enjoying himself immensely. The police were now getting the upper hand of the more unruly of the protesters, while those who had come to stand peacefully with a placard began to disperse, since everybody had now left the Tradesmen’s Hall and the doors had been shut.

  ‘Well, I suppose we’d better be off,’ said St. John. ‘A splendid little outing, what? That ought to give us plenty to talk about at the meeting next Tuesday.’

  ‘Where is Sidney?’ said Ruth, looking around. ‘Are there funds to get Ivor out? I seem to remember we were running low.’

  ‘He was somewhere about with Peacock and Dyer,’ said St. John. ‘Ah, there he is—look.’

  Ruth was already making her way towards a round little man who was standing on the edge of the crowd. St. John turned to Freddy.

  ‘Well, cheerio,’ he said. ‘I look forward to seeing what you make of all this in your piece. Mind you put in all the details.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. I’m only surprised you weren’t the one being arrested,’ said Freddy.

  St. John gave a guffaw.

  ‘I told you, I don’t do that sort of thing any more,’ he said. ‘I’ve found a much more effective way of getting things done.’ He held up his dog-eared copy of the Radical. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword, as they say.’

  ‘But what about all that stuff you said about violence?’ said Freddy.

  ‘Mere metaphor,’ said St. John airily. ‘You don’t really think I approve of killing people, do you?’

  ‘I should hope not,’ said Freddy.

  Two days later, Freddy was surprised to receive a letter that he did not understand at all. It came from an address near Whitehall, bore an unfamiliar letterhead and an official stamp of some kind, and was signed by someone he had never heard of. The letter itself politely requested his presence at the address indicated at eleven o’clock that same day.

  Freddy was naturally very curious, and arrived punctually at the place in question, which turned out to be an unassuming building in a discreet side-street. He announced himself, and after a short wait was conducted up to the third floor, where he was ushered into the presence of a man wearing a pair of round spectacles that gave him an owlish look.

  ‘Hallo, Freddy,’ said Henry Jameson.

  ‘Hallo, sir,’ said Freddy. ‘I didn’t realize the letter was from Intelligence.’

  ‘I was out yesterday and someone else signed it for me,’ said Henry. ‘But even so, I thought it wisest not to be too obvious to start with. One never knows. Take a seat.’

  Freddy did so, wondering what exactly Henry Jameson meant by his somewhat cryptic remark, but before he could pursue the question, there was a soft knock at the door and someone poked his head round apologetically, waving a piece of paper. Mr. Jameson excused himself and went out, which gave Freddy the opportunity to look around him and take in his surroundings. For a man in such a position of power, Henry Jameson seemed to require little ostentation or show, for the room was furnished economically—sparsely, even—and contained the bare minimum number of chairs and tables required to avoid causing an echo. Yet despite the plainness of it all, Freddy could not help noticing that the apparently modest chair in which he had been directed to sit was perhaps the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in. And now he came to look more closely, he could see that everything appeared to have been designed with an admirable attention to function and a disdain for waste. The desk in front of him was bare apart from a blotter and a square inkstand. A bookshelf to one side of the room held a selection of books which, to look at their arrangement, seemed to have been chosen for their ability to fill the shelves perfectly without a gap. Even the solitary plant in a pot standing on a table had been placed so as to create the maximum aesthetic effect with the minimum of effort. Ten plants in any other room might have looked far less decorative. Freddy already knew better than to underestimate Henry Jameson, but here was further evidence that anything he wanted done would be carried out with the greatest efficiency and the least fuss.

  At last Henry returned and sat down at his desk.

  ‘I see you’ve been doing well at the Clarion,’ he said. ‘I read your recent piece on the problems in Ireland with interest. You seem to have quite a firm grasp on the question.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I did a little reading on the subject before I began,’ lied Freddy. As a matter of fact he had been late with the article, and in a panic had gleaned most of its content from a half-remembered conversation with an elderly Irishman with whom he had spent an uproariously drunken afternoon at the race-track a few weeks earlier.

  ‘I see,’ said Mr. Jameson. He regarded Freddy over his spectacles while Freddy tried not to shuffle in his seat. ‘I expect you’re wondering why I’ve invited you here,’ he went on.

  ‘I am, rather,’ said Freddy. ‘I say, I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’

  ‘I don’t know. Have you?’ said Henry with polite interest. ‘If you have, I suggest you keep it to yourself. You don’t want to get into trouble. No, it’s nothing like that.’

  He paused, as though wondering how to begin.

  ‘I dare say you remember certain events which occurred two years ago, the last time we met,’ he said at last.

  ‘At Fives Castle? I should say I do,’ said Freddy. ‘Difficult to forget, that sort of thing. Spies and dead bodies all over the place. Not the usual sort of Hogmanay party at all.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Henry Jameson. ‘Luckily we managed to keep it quiet and the story never got out, thanks partly to you. It’s not every press-man who knows how to hold his tongue, but I was pleased to find you did. And now you must show me you can do it again, because I am about to tell you some things which must remain entirely confidential—even if you don’t like them. Is that understood? Do I have your word?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Freddy, sitting up straighter.

  ‘Very well. Then I don’t suppose it will come as any great surprise to you to hear that what I have to say pertains to your friend Bagshawe.’

  ‘St. John?’ said Freddy. ‘What’s he been getting up to this time?’

  ‘That is the question,’ said Henry. ‘Yes, that is very much the question.’

  ‘I mean to say, I know he went through a hot-headed phase a year or two ago, but I saw him the other day, and—oh!’ said Freddy, in sudden realization. ‘You know that already, don’t you? That’s why I’m here now.’

  Henry merely smiled approvingly, and Freddy went on:

  ‘At any rate, he told me he was done with all that sort of thing. He’s started a newspaper, and has gone all respectable.’

  ‘The Radical,’ said Hen
ry. ‘Yes, I have seen the publication in question.’

  ‘Full of the usual rot, of course. I don’t think he’ll ever give up the Communism, but he did say he’d stopped setting fire to things. Seemed very pleased with himself, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Was he telling the truth, do you think?’

  Freddy thought.

  ‘As far as I could tell,’ he said after a minute. ‘He’s not exactly an intellectual prodigy—you saw that yourself at Fives—and he was so fearfully keen to tell me how he’d settled down that it never occurred to me that he might be lying. Besides, I rather think there’s a woman in the picture.’

  ‘Ruth Chudderley,’ said Henry.

  ‘Oh, you know her, do you? Anything on her?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Henry. ‘As far as we can gather, she is what she appears to be: a young lady of good breeding and a contrary enough disposition to offend her family by taking up with the Communist cause. I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered taking it up yourself, have you?’ he added casually.

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ said Freddy, surprised. ‘I shouldn’t dare. Half my family have titles, including my own grandfather, and my mother would flay me alive if she thought I was conspiring against them. Besides, they throw jolly good parties, and that takes money,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Quite,’ said Mr. Jameson dryly.

  ‘What makes you think St. John has been doing something he oughtn’t?’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, I can’t say for certain he has been. In fact, he may have nothing to do with it at all. But after what happened at Fives, he is naturally the first person to come under suspicion.’

  ‘Suspicion of what?’

  A look of vexation passed briefly across Henry Jameson’s face.

  ‘That’s just it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. And I don’t like it.’

  He sighed and gazed down at his desk. The position of the blotter seemed to displease him. He shifted it one inch to the right, looked up and began:

  ‘You know, of course, about the unrest we’ve been seeing in recent years, with the miners, the dock-workers and other trades—the papers have written enough about it, so I shan’t bore you by giving you a summary of what’s been going on. Suffice it to say that things were rather unpleasant for a while. However, they seemed to have calmed down a little lately with the election of the new Government.’

  ‘Seemed to have calmed down?’ said Freddy. ‘You mean there’s something afoot?’

  ‘Oh, there’s always something afoot,’ said Henry with a wave of the hand. ‘But most of it can be safely disregarded, or at least cleared up with a minimum of effort. The miners aren’t happy, and the mine-owners aren’t happy, and I dare say lots of other people aren’t happy either, but generally speaking they’re content to shout at one another and threaten all sorts of dire things, and march about a bit, then the whole thing blows over and we all go on as before. But this is something quite different.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We’ve started to receive reports from a number of sources,’ said Henry. ‘They began a few months ago, and at first we disregarded them as more of the usual stuff, but they’ve become so frequent and insistent recently that we’ve had to start paying attention. You know that there’s plenty of serious unrest happening in other countries at the moment. Normally that doesn’t concern us unduly, but lately I’ve begun to wonder whether there mightn’t be a danger of it spreading to Britain. We’ve been keeping an eye on things in the North—Manchester, and Newcastle, and Sheffield, and all those sorts of places—and there have been loud mutterings about calling another general strike, which I should have dismissed as exaggeration had it not been for the fact that we’ve also noticed a lot of unusual toing and froing between the unions and the Communists in the past few months.’

  ‘But aren’t the unions and the Communists hand in glove anyway?’ said Freddy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘But this is something else entirely. I can’t disclose anything more at this stage, I’m afraid, but you can take my word for it that our intelligence is sound. What I can tell you is that the activity seems to centre around the Labourers’ Union.’

  ‘Oh? I thought that was one of the more sensible unions.’

  ‘It is, as a rule,’ said Henry. ‘It’s headed by Rowbotham, whom I should call solid—not to say dull.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard him speak,’ said Freddy feelingly.

  ‘He’s fairly moderate as these men go, and has many loyal followers, and we regard him as a stabilizing influence on the other, more excitable unions. So long as he’s in charge the workers ought to be kept in check one way or another. Unfortunately for him, a substantial minority of his members would like to see him replaced by his deputy, John Pettit, who’s a firebrand and an avowed revolutionary. Pettit has many supporters who would be only too glad to stir things up if he came to power. I don’t mind telling you I’d be very concerned if they decided to try and oust Rowbotham—or perhaps even just ignore him altogether and act off their own bat.’

  ‘Is there such a plan, sir?’

  ‘I have no proof of it, but my instinct tells me that something is going on, and I’ve learned never to ignore my instinct.’

  ‘What do you think is going to happen?’

  ‘The most obvious possibility is that they’re organizing some sort of violent protest, or a riot of some kind, but it had occurred to me that they might even be planning another general strike, but in secret this time.’

  ‘Could that be done without your finding out?’

  ‘If they could recruit enough small groups of men in each of the unions, it might be possible,’ said Henry. ‘Personally, if I wanted to instigate such a thing, I should start by engineering simultaneous lock-outs at several mines or factories, and putting the blame on the employers. Then I should have agitators in place to rail against the rich men and inflame the mood of the workers until they downed tools and walked out. Yes, planned carefully enough it might be feasible. That would be the worst possible eventuality, of course, although I’m not especially keen on the thought of a riot either.’

  ‘And do you think St. John has something to do with all this?’

  ‘It’s possible. His past history counts against him, but even if he’s not directly concerned in the thing, we suspect that his newspaper is being used as a means of communication between the conspirators—if conspirators there be. We’ve been keeping an eye on the personal advertisements, and have seen a number of messages that were evidently in code. They might be quite innocent, but taken together with what we already know, they’re suggestive. Yes, very suggestive indeed.’

  ‘I see,’ said Freddy, wondering where all this was leading.

  ‘By the way, have you heard of a man called Anton Schuster?’ said Henry.

  Freddy frowned.

  ‘Schuster? Not the philosopher chappie?’

  ‘The very same,’ said Henry. ‘He and his wife left Vienna and moved to London a few months ago. Schuster had published a number of articles that were slightly too radical for Austrian tastes, and he was finding things a little hot at home, so he settled here and immediately threw himself into the Communist cause. He is a member of the East London Communist Alliance, so your friend knows him.’

  ‘And what has he to do with all this?’

  ‘I should like very much to know that myself,’ said Henry. ‘You see, the intelligence reports I’ve been telling you about only began to reach us after his arrival here.’

  ‘Coincidence?’ suggested Freddy.

  ‘Perhaps,’ conceded Henry. ‘But I’m not a great believer in coincidence as a rule. I find it easier to believe in design than in accident where this sort of thing is concerned.’

  ‘I see,’ said Freddy again. ‘Very well, if I understand correctly, you suspect a conspiracy of some sort, but you don’t know wha
t it is. What am I to do about it, though? Always supposing you didn’t invite me here just for the pleasure of giving me a lesson in current political developments.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Henry. ‘No, I want your help in finding out what’s going on.’

  ‘My help? Why me? Surely you have men in place who can do a better job than I can?’

  ‘We have agents and informants,’ said Henry, ‘but they can’t do everything. None of them went to school with St. John Bagshawe, for example. As an old friend of his you are in a position to get information out of him that he would never confide to someone of another class, or even someone from another school.’

  ‘The old school tie, eh?’ said Freddy. ‘I’m not certain I like the idea of spying on a friend, even if he is an ass.’

  ‘Remember, you mustn’t repeat what’s been said here, even if you don’t like it,’ warned Henry.

  ‘Of course not—I gave my word. I say, do you really think he knows something? I know one could comfortably scoop the entirety of his grey matter up into a teaspoon, but I should have said he was harmless enough.’

  ‘Even after the disaster he nearly caused at Fives Castle?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Freddy. ‘There is that, I suppose. It was idiotic of him, but it was unwitting rather than malicious.’

  ‘He was taken for a fool,’ said Henry. ‘Are you sure it couldn’t happen again?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Freddy.

  ‘And even if he knows nothing of what’s going on this time, it’s still possible he’s being used through his newspaper, through which it would be easy enough to pass on information without his knowledge.’

  ‘What exactly is it that you want me to find out?’

  ‘We’re missing a clear link between the Communist Alliance in London and the union men in the North,’ said Henry. ‘Oh, I know the Reds pledge general support and contribute to funds for those suffering hardship, but I’m almost certain there’s another, more direct connection between Anton Schuster and what’s going on at present, and I want to know what it is. We’ve been keeping an eye on Schuster’s post, but he’s far too careful to give himself away that easily. If he is communicating with his radical allies, then he’s not doing it through the mails.’ He gave a sigh that might have denoted frustration. ‘My job is to keep the country safe, Freddy, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what I’m supposed to be keeping it safe from. Now, are you willing to help me?’