Robin Paige - Death in Hyde Park

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 aspects 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 emigre 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.

“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.”