“Then we’d better meet again to-morrow.” He gave A.J. an address, and the arrangement was made. A.J. did not sleep well that night. When he tried to look at the future quite coolly, when he asked himself whether his ambition really was to be a Secret Service spy in a Russian revolutionary club, the answer was neither yes nor no, but a mere gasp of incredulity. It was almost impossible to realise that such an extraordinary doorway had suddenly opened into his life. It was not impossible, however, to grasp the fact that if he did not accept Stanfield’s offer he would have to leave Russia in two days’ time, with very poor and uncertain prospects.
He called in the morning at the address Stanfield had given him—a well-furnished apartment in one of the better-class districts. Stanfield was there, together with another man, introduced as Forrester. “Well,” began Stanfield, “have you made up your mind?”
A.J. answered, with a wry smile: “I don’t feel in the least like jumping at the job, but I’m aware that I must either take it or leave Russia.”
“And you’re as keen as all that on not leaving Russia?”
“I rather think I am.”
“That means you’ll take on the job.”
“I suppose it does.”
Here Forrester intervened with: “I suppose Stanfield gave you details of what you’d have to do?”
“More or less—yes.”
“You’d have to be the young intellectual type—your accent and manner would pass well enough, I daresay. But what about enthusiasm for the cause—can you act?” He added, slyly: “Or perhaps you would not need to act very much, eh?”
“As an Englishman in Russia,” answered A.J. cautiously, “I have always felt that I ought to avoid taking sides in Russian politics. You can judge from that, then, how much I should have to act.”
Forrester nodded. “Good, my friend—a wise and admirable reply. I should think he would do, wouldn’t you, Stanfield?”
The latter said: “I thought so all along. Still, we mustn’t persuade him. It’s risky work and he knows some of the more unpleasant possibilities. It’s emphatically a game of heads somebody else wins and tails he loses.”
“Oh yes,” Forrester agreed. “Most decidedly so. The pay, by the way, works out at about fifty pounds a month, besides expenses and an occasional bonus.”
“That sounds attractive,” said A.J.
“Attractive?” Forrester turned again to Stanfield. “Did you hear that? He says the pay’s attractive! You know Stanfield, it’s the money that most people go for in, this job, yet I really do believe our friend here is an exception! He only admits that the money’s attractive!” With a smile, he swung round to A.J. “I’m rather curious to know what it is that weighs most with you in this business. Is it adventure?”
“I don’t know,” answered A.J. “I really don’t know at all.”
So they had to leave that engrossing problem and get down to definite talk about details. That definite talk lasted several hours, after which A.J. was offered lunch. Then, during the afternoon, the talk was resumed. It was all rather complicated. He was to be given a Russian passport (forged, of course, though the ugly word was not emphasised) establishing him to be one Peter Vasilevitch Ouranov, a student. He must secure rooms under that name in a part of the city where he was not known; he must pose as a young man of small private means occupied in literary work of some kind. To assist the disguise he must cultivate a short beard and moustache. Then he must frequent a certain bookshop (its address would be given him) where revolutionaries were known to foregather, and must cautiously make known his sympathies so that he would be invited to join a society. Once in the society, it would be his task to get to know all he could concerning its aims, personnel, and the sources from which it obtained funds; such information he would transmit at intervals to an agent in Petersburg whose constantly changing address would be given him from time to time. It would not be expected, nor would it even be desirable, that he should take any prominent or active part in the revolutionary movement; he must avoid, therefore, being elected to any position of authority. “We don’t want you chosen to throw bombs at the Emperor,” said Forrester, “but supposing anyone else throws them, then we do want to know who he is, who’s behind him, and all that sort of thing. Get the idea?”
A.J. got the idea, and left the two men towards evening, after Stanfield had taken his photograph with an ordinary camera. That night and much of the next day he spent in packing. He had told the porter and the woman who looked after his room that he might be leaving very soon, so they were not surprised by his preparations for departure. In the evening, following instructions, he gave the two of them handsome tips, said good-bye, and drove to the Warsaw station. There he left his bags in the luggage office, giving his proper name (which was, in fact, on all the luggage labels as well). After sauntering about the station for a short time he left it and walked to Stanfield’s address. There he handed over to Forrester his English passport and luggage tickets. He rather expected to see Forrester burn the passport, but the latter merely put it in his pocket and soon afterwards left the house. Stanfield smiled. “Forrester’s a thorough fellow,” he commented. “He doesn’t intend to have the Russian police wondering what’s happened to you. To-night, my friend, though it may startle you to know it, Mr. A.J. Fothergill will leave Russia. He will collect his luggage at the Warsaw station, he will board the night express for Germany, his passport will be stamped in the usual way at Wierjbolovo and Eydkuhnen, but in Berlin, curiously enough if anyone bothered to make enquiries, all trace of him would be lost. How fortunate that your height and features are reasonably normal and that passport photographs are always so dreadfully bad!”
After an hour or so Forrester returned and informed A.J. that he was to stay with them in their apartment for a fortnight at least, and that during that time he must consider himself a prisoner. The rather amusing object of the interval was to give time for his beard and moustache to grow. A.J. rather enjoyed the fortnight, for both Forrester and Stanfield were excellent company, and there was a large library of books for him to dip into. The two men came in and went out at all kinds of odd hours, and had their needs attended to by a queer-looking man-servant who was evidently trustworthy, since they spoke freely enough in front of him.
At the end of the fortnight, by which time A.J.’s face had begun to give him a remarkably different appearance, Forrester again photographed him, and a few days later handed him his new passport and papers of identity. It gave him a shock, at first, to see himself so confidently described as ‘Peter Vasilevitch Ouranov,’ born at such and such a place and on such and such a date. “You must get used to thinking of yourself by that name,” Forrester told him. “And you must also make it your business to know something about your own past life. Your parents, of course, are both dead. You have just a little money of your own—enough to save you from having to work for a living you are a studious, well-educated person, at present engaged in writing a book about—what shall we say?—something, perhaps, with a slightly subversive flavour—political economy, perhaps, or moral philosophy. Oh, by the way, you may permit yourself to know a little French and German—as much, in fact, as you do know. But not a word of English. Remember that most of all.”
The next morning A.J. was made to change into a completely different outfit of clothes. He was also given three hundred roubles in cash, a small trunk-key, and a luggage ticket issued at the Moscow station. After breakfast he said good-bye to Forrester and Stanfield, walked from their apartment to the station, presented his ticket, received in exchange a large portmanteau, and drove in a cab to an address Forrester had given him. It was a block of middle- class apartments on the southern fringe of the city. There chanced (or was it chance?) to be an apartment vacant; he interviewed the porter, came to terms, produced his papers for registration, and took up his abode in a comfortable set of rooms on the third floor. There he unlocked the portmanteau, and found it contained clothes, a few Russian books, a brass samovar, and several boxes of a popular brand of Russian cigarettes. These miscellaneous and well-chosen contents rather amused him.