Duncan Kyle - The King's Commisar

' "My wife has been ill recently, but there is promise now of better treatment for her. She sends you her warmest greetings and we join to congratulate you yet again on the first steps to the achievement of all our dreams."

'Now, let me see, how do you sign yourself. Ah, yes. "In affectionate brotherhood". Very suitable. Write it, Clark, and sign it.'

Clark did as he was told; he wrote a fine old-fashioned copperplate. Altogether the letter was of a neatness which belied the strain under which it had been written.

'Now the envelope,' said Zaharoff. 'Your name in the top corner, Clark. "From William Clark, British Museum, London." And now, just "V. I. Lenin." Yes, that will do nicely.'

Zaharoff blotted the letter and its envelope carefully. 'Now you may go, Clark. Your bag is in the car, is it not?'

'Yes.' Clark rose from the chair looking beaten, and Zaharoff picked up a small bell and rang it. A footman appeared at once, and it occurred to me that this imperious old man was making himself quite remarkably free of the Palace. 'Escort Mr Clark to my car,' he said. When the door closed, I said, 'Where are you taking him?'

'Spain,' said Zaharoff. 'To my house there. His wife will benefit from seclusion in the sunshine. So will he, though he doesn't believe it. And so -' here something like amusement seemed to pass momentarily across those strange eyes - 'and so will we, I fancy.'

Basil Zaharoff then produced from his attaché case two envelopes. 'You will deliver these unopened, you understand, to the men to whom they are addressed. Here is your passport. Here are the documents.'

He handed them to me: two heavy envelopes, each sealed with red wax. The first, not surprisingly, in view of earlier talk, was addressed to Lenin. But the sight of the name on the second envelope rattled me to my toes.

'But how -' and I am certain I stammered - 'am I to deliver this?'

"Youmust persuade Lenin to permit its delivery,' said Zaharoff bleakly. 'It must be handed over unopened - and then brought back to my hands duly signed.'

I stared at it in utter incredulity. On the envelope appeared the words: 'To His Imperial Majesty Nicholas II, Tsar of all the Russias.'

Those eyes of his were on me as I stood there. I could feel them and his attention, as certainly as a man feels the warmth of sunlight. But no warmth emanated from Zaharoff: the reverse indeed, for across my shoulders passed that shudder attributed to the passing shadow of a grey goose's wing. I heard a rustle and looked up to find he was holding out a sheet of paper. 'Your route,' he said. Again I felt the shiver. The October Revolution in Russia was about six months past and the great spaces of that vast country were a prey to warring factions, into which I was to be plunged at this man's will. For already I sensed that Zaharoff, the great salesman of war and death, was truly the hand behind my mission. I had pledged my life to my Sovereign, but it was now to be at Zaharoff s disposal.

'Go at once,' he said urgently, 'and you may save the life of the Tsar and his Family. I can put it no higher. When His Imperial Majesty signs the document, and only then, will the opportunity come to us.'

'Yes, sir,' I said, though I did not understand, and turned and left the room. When, long afterwards, I returned to England, he had been knighted—by a grateful King, one must suppose, though I know now that it was that devious Celt, David Lloyd George, who conferred honour upon him. Behind every man, it seems, there stands another, strings in his hands, to pull by means of some deeper knowledge.

But all that was far ahead. The paper in my hand already had me on the midnight train to Thurso in the far North of Scotland; yet first I had to outfit myself for the journey. I had no clothing suitable for Russia; indeed, I had access to little more than a weekend's changes of socks and underclothing lodged at the Russell Hotel. Now, in the next few minutes, I was to have a foretaste of Zaharoff s ways. The Daimler still stood in the courtyard, and though the odious Stott had vanished, the driver clearly had instructions.

'Gieves, first,' he said to me. 'Be quick, sir, if you please. We haven't much time.'

So it was up St James's this time, with my wristwatch now showing twenty minutes to eleven o'clock. Gieves would surely be shuttered long ago! But as the car stopped a minute or two later at 27 New Bond Street, lights blazed inside and a man in shirtsleeves stood in the doorway, tape-measure round his neck. Inside, to my amazement, there appeared to be an entire workroom staff!

The outfitting, I swear, took only minutes. A big suitcase was produced, and into it there tumbled a torrent of socks, underclothes, handkerchiefs, all of the choicest. Shirts of wool taffeta, fine as linen, yet of wonderful warmth. Three suits came. 'From the peg,' said the tailor regretfully, 'but you may rely on us, sir, to do our best.' I slipped on the jackets, watched him make his swift chalk hieroglyphs, and then they were whisked away as I tried trousers, whose length was adjusted with equal speed. From a long rack of ties I chose six in silk foulard, then collars to my size and taste. How many people laboured at stitching behind the mahogany I cannot know. But the jackets were quickly back for further fitting only seconds, it seemed, after they were taken away. And meanwhile I was being fitted with a thick topcoat of soft wool, the material from Crombie, the cut unmistakably Guardee, and of ankle length. Finally there were boots, soft leather and in the Russian style.

Dazed, I asked the tailor whence they came. He only smiled and said, 'We carry a large stock, sir. Our gentlemen come in many sizes and we try to meet both taste and need.'

By a quarter past the hour I was out of the shop, I swear it, and with a full kit in my case and not a bill to sign. It struck me, as we bowled away down the 'Dilly, that not Admiral Beatty, nor Jellicoe himself for that matter, could have commanded such service, even at Gieves. At the Russell Hotel a man waited in the entrance. At first sight of the Daimler he started forward, opened the door as the car stopped, and handed me my toilet valise. 'The rest will be looked after, sir, unless there is something you need.'

'The bill?' I asked.

'Attended to. Don't concern yourself.' He held out the receipt for examination, and while I satisfied myself that it had indeed been paid, he passed a wicker hamper into the car. 'In case you feel peckish on the train, sir.'

And by Jove, but I was peckish. Stott had robbed me of my supper and in the press of events there had not been a moment to think of the inner man. Now hunger was growling inside me. Again the Daimler moved off, quick beyond appearances, along Guilford Street, into Grays Inn Road, then towards King's Cross Station.

The terminus, and the night train too, seethed with people, but the Daimler was met by a detachment of military police who cut a way for me and my baggage through teeming masses of soldiers and sailors of all ranks who were bidding farewell to wives, sweethearts and children. Any man who travelled on the wartime trains will recall how dense the crowds were and how uncomfortable the conditions. Already, as I proceeded along the platform, I could see that even the corridors were crowded.

'Here, sir,' the Daimler's driver said, laying a hand upon my arm; our small party halted beside a first-class carriage two back from the engine. A door was opened for me, and I found myself entering what, in a ship, might be described as a small stateroom: possessed of bed, two comfortable seats and a tiny bathroom-cum-lavatory. The driver, entering behind me, drew down blinds on the corridor windows.

'No one will disturb you now.'

'But this is unfair!' I protested. There were many brother officers on the train, men bound for Scapa Flow and the hardship of duty at sea, who now faced a night and a day of discomfort in this jammed train, while I travelled in comfort.