Afterwards, amidst the chorus of Easter salutations the two men sauntered by the banks of the river. A.J. said how glad he was to have seen such a spectacle, and Stanfield answered: “Yes, it’s one of the things I never miss if I happen to be here. I’ve seen it now at least a dozen times, yet it’s always fresh, and never fails to give me a thrill.”
Something then impelled A.J. to say: “I’m particularly glad to have seen it, because I don’t suppose I’ll ever have the chance again.”
“Oh, indeed? You’re only on a visit? You spoke Russian so well I imagined you lived here.”
“I do—or rather I have done for some time—but I’m going away—very soon, I’m afraid—for good.”
“Really?”
A.J. was not a person to confide easily, but the difficulty of his problem, combined with Stanfield’s sympathetic attitude and the emotional mood in which the Cathedral ceremony had left them both, made it easy for him to hint that the circumstances of his leaving Petersburg were not of the happiest. Stanfield was immediately interested, and within half an hour (it was by that time nearly two in the morning) most of A.J.’s position had been explained and explored. Once the process began it was difficult to stop, and in the end A.J. found himself confessing even the ridiculous suffragette episode which had been the immediate cause of his departure from England four years before. Stanfield was amused at that. “So I gather,” he summarised at last, “that you’re in the rather awkward position of having to leave this country and of having no other country that you particularly want to go to?”
“That’s it.”
“You definitely don’t want to return to England?”
“I’d rather go anywhere else.”
“But you must have friends there—a few, at any rate. Four years isn’t such a tremendous interval.”
“I know. That’s why I’d rather go anywhere else.”
“Don’t you think you’re taking the suffragette affair rather too seriously? After all, most people will have forgotten it by now, and in any case it wasn’t anything particularly disgraceful.”
“Yes, but—there are other reasons—much more important ones. I—I don’t want to go back to England.” He gave Stanfield a glance which decided the latter against any further questioning in that direction. “Besides, even if I were to go back there, what could I do?”
“I don’t know, do I? What are your accomplishments?”
A.J. smiled. “Very few, and all of them extremely unmarketable. I can speak Russian, that’s about all. Oh yes, and I can swim and fence, and I’m a bit of a geologist in my spare time. It doesn’t really sound the sort of thing to impress an employment agency, does it?”
“Do you fancy an outdoor life?”
“I don’t mind, provided it isn’t just merely physical work. It may sound conceited, but I rather want something where I have to use a small amount of brains. Yet I wouldn’t care for a job at a desk all the time. I’m afraid I’m talking as though I were likely to be given any choice in the matter.”
“What about danger—personal danger? Would that be a disadvantage?”
“I’d hate the army, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, that isn’t what I mean. I meant some kind of job where you had occasionally to take risks—pretty big risks, in their way—playing for high stakes—that sort of thing.”
“I’m afraid your description doesn’t help me to imagine such a job, but as a guess I should say it would suit me very well.”
Stanfield laughed. “I can’t be more explicit. How about the money?”
“Oh well, I’d like enough to live on and a little bit more. But isn’t it rather absurd to be talking in this way, since I shall be very lucky to get any sort of job at all?”
“On the contrary, it’s just possible—yes, it is just possible that I might be able to put you in the way of the kind of job you say you would like. And here in Petersburg, too.”
“You forget that I have to leave. My police permit expires on Tuesday.”
“No, I don’t forget that at all. I am remembering it most carefully.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Let me explain. But first, I must pledge you to the strictest secrecy. Whether or not you and I can come to terms, you must give me that assurance.”
“I do, of course.”
“Good. Then listen.”
Briefly, Stanfield’s suggestion was that A.J. should become attached to the British Secret Service. That sounded simple enough, but an examination of all that it implied revealed a network of complication and detail. Stanfield, relying on A.J.’s promise of secrecy, was as frank as he needed to be, but no more so. British diplomacy, he explained, had its own reasons for wishing to know the precise strength and significance of the revolutionary movement in Russia. It was impossible to obtain reliable information from official channels, whether British or Russian; the only sources were devious and underground. “Supposing, for instance, you decided to help us, you would have to join one of the revolutionary societies, identify yourself with the cause, gain the confidence of its leaders, and judge for yourself how much the whole thing counts. I think you’ll agree with me that such a job calls for brains and might well involve considerable personal risks.”
“I should be a spy, in fact?”
“In a way, yes, but you would not be betraying anybody. You would merely make your confidential reports to our headquarters—you would not be working either for or against the revolutionaries themselves. We take no sides, of course—we merely want to know what is really happening.”
“I see. And the danger would be that the revolutionaries would find me out and think I was betraying them to the Russian police?”
“The danger, my friend, would be twofold, and I’m not going to try to minimise it in the least. There would be, of course, the danger you mention, but there would be the even greater danger that the Russian police would take you for a genuine revolutionary and deal with you accordingly. And you know what ‘accordingly’ means.”
“But in that case I suppose I should have to tell them the real truth?”
“Not at all—that is just what you would not have to do. You would have to keep up your pretence and accept whatever punishment they gave you. If you did tell them the truth, the British authorities would merely arch their eyebrows with great loftiness and disown you. I want you to be quite clear about that. We should, in the beginning, provide you with passport and papers proving you to be a Russian subject, and after that, if anything ever went wrong, you would have to become that Russian subject—completely. Do you see? We could not risk trouble with the Russian Government by having anything to do with you.”
“It seems rather a one-sided arrangement.”
“It is, as I can say from experience, having worked under it for the best part of my life. On the other hand, it has certain advantages which probably appeal to people like you and me rather more than to most others. It is interesting, adventurous, and quite well paid. It is also emphatically a job for the Cat that Walks by Itself—you remember Kipling’s story?—and I should imagine both of us are that type of animal.”
“Maybe.”
“Mind you, I don’t want to persuade you at all—and I do want you to have time to think the whole thing over very carefully before coming to a decision. Unless, of course, you feel that you may as well say ‘No’ straight away?”
A.J. shook his head. “I’ll think it over, as you suggest.”