Fortunately my companions were well informed. In the wastes of the Mile End Road, with its drab commercial premises and the narrow streets of dockers’ terraced houses running to either side, Sergeant Wiley called a halt. We had stopped by a hemp merchant’s warehouse to pick up a shabby young fellow whom I would have avoided at all costs. In his brick-red wind-cheater jacket and his corduroy trousers, a careless scarf flapping at his neck, this idler proved to be Sergeant Atherton of Scotland Yard, in plain clothes suited to this habitat. It was no surprise to me after the shooting of five policemen that officers were active in the area, disguised as boot-blacks, pedlars and street-hawkers.
We turned off the main highway and dropped Atherton in the narrow thoroughfare of Jubilee Street to the north. Between the terraces of little houses was what appeared to be a dilapidated church hall. In reality it was, as a board announced, “The Hall of the Friends of the Workers.” This had been founded by the most famous Anarchist of all, Prince Kropotkin, during his long exile in England. It had a reputation for preserving anonymity. Even with his pseudonym of George Gardstein, Poloski Morountzeff was never known here as anything but “The Russian.”
The building was dilapidated but the gossipers gathered inside and outside its doors every day. That afternoon we again picked up Sergeant Atherton, or Volkoff as he was known in the club. He met us several streets away and confirmed that the sole topic of conversation among his comrades had been the arrival of Peter the Painter and the triumph that was to come. Men and women who associated at the club were by no means all in support of assassination but every one of them seemed to hail Piatkoff as the leader of a promised revolution.
Of Piatkoff himself there was still no further sign. Our driver turned his horse’s head from Whitechapel to Houndsditch, then to High Holborn. For the rest of the day, we pulled up at various cab-stands, as if waiting for a pre-arranged fare. At length we were drawn up in High Holborn, almost at half-past four with the lamps lit in a growing fog. I was watching the slow parade of pedestrians who sauntered past the illuminated shop-fronts with their lavish displays behind plate-glass windows.
We had been there almost ten minutes when I noticed a man moving more quickly and purposefully than the rest. He was walking away from us on the left-hand pavement. A broad-brimmed artist’s hat covered his head and the collar of his dark coat bore a strip of Astrakhan. I could not be sure that he was our quarry. As Holmes remarked, the coat, the hat, and the man’s height matched thousands of others.
Just then he began to cross the street and in doing so naturally turned in our direction to see that the way was clear. For about ten seconds I saw his face-the time was long enough. The steady eyes, the pointed nose, even the dangerous flush at the cheek-bones, were those I had fixed in my mind the evening before. He reached the far side, turned away from us again and almost at once entered a smartly equipped shop with its window brightly lit. Before I spoke to Sergeant Wiley I looked up to see which shop this might be. The name was there in polished brass, set into mahogany. “E. M. Reilly & Co.-Guns & Rifles.”
My escorts were under orders not to approach the subject. He was likely to be armed. I could not say whether Sergeant Wiley or Constable Parks carried a gun but such a thing is rare, even on plain-clothes duty. In any case, Holmes had insisted that a man suspected of being Piatkoff was not to be seized immediately. He was of more use at liberty, leading us to the rest of the conspiracy. Acting on my information, the sergeant and his constable now stepped quietly down from the cab, went separate ways, and closed in upon their prey from opposite points of the compass.
That was the last I saw of the drama. It would never have done for Piatkoff to recognise me-if he could. Much to my chagrin, the day now ended with a drive back to my club, the Army and Navy in St James’s Square, where I dined alone. Winter had come with the darkness. The breath of muffled passers-by beyond the dining-room windows condensed into clouds of mist. At half-past nine, another cab took me to Baker Street, where I slid my latch-key into the lock of 221 B just as the clock of St Mary’s, Upper York Street, struck ten on the cold and foggy stillness of London’s sooty air. Mrs Hudson’s maid had put up the gas and there was a welcome fire in the grate-but of Sherlock Holmes there was no sign. He had dined again with his brother Mycroft and I was content to pour myself a glass of whisky and reach for The Heart of Midlothian.
About twenty minutes later I heard voices and footsteps on the stairs. Sherlock Holmes came in first with Lestrade just behind him.
“Ah!” said Holmes, sliding his stick into the rack and taking the inspector’s coat, “our sleuth-hound Watson is here before us. We have heard from Mycroft of your invaluable piece of detection today, old fellow. My congratulations.”
He poured a measure from the decanter into each of two glasses and handed one to the inspector.
“He is our man, Watson, and you have tracked him down. Single-handed, last night and today, you have put Piatkoff within our reach.”
“Then had Scotland Yard better not arrest him while he remains within your reach?”
Lestrade had been bursting to say something important and now took his chance.
“Watch him, doctor! Shadow him. Those are the orders. Not just orders from the higher ranks in Scotland Yard. Not even from Mr Mycroft Holmes. They come from the Home Office and the Home Secretary himself-Mr Winston Churchill.”
I needed no account of this Home Secretary in Mr Asquith’s government. At the Colonial Office and the Board of Trade he had already shown a refusal to let problems stand in his way. “Do not argue that there are difficulties,” he told his protesting subordinates, “the difficulties will argue for themselves.”
“The duel between Churchill and Piatkoff is something of a personal matter,” Holmes remarked, “but Winston, as his minions call him when he is not present, is determined to have the entire bunch of Anarchists in his bag. His instructions are that nothing is to be done to alert them until we can get them all. Anarchism is what he describes as the hydra of revolution. If you merely cut the head from it, it will sprout twenty more.”
“Then what has happened?” I asked.
Lestrade gave a satisfied smile.
“Sergeant Wiley had a chat, as you might call it, with the manager of E. M. Reilly. Their customer did not call himself Piatkoff but Schtern. Despite that name, he claimed to be a Frenchman. According to the Home Office files, over which Mr Churchill has given us free range, Piatkoff sometimes uses the name Schtern in Paris and is known to most of the underworld simply as The Frenchman.”
“More to the point,” said Holmes impatiently, “their customer purchased three Enfield rifles, muzzle loading but deadly accurate, to be delivered as a parcel in the name of Schtern to 133 Jubilee Street, Stepney.”
“But that is the same street as the so-called Anarchist Club!” I said.
“It is better than that-it is the Anarchist Club. If we can keep absolute surveillance there, we may have them all before any harm can be done.”
Lestrade knocked his pipe out and looked up.
“With revolvers or handguns, they can only be sure of hitting their targets at close range. With rifles, a first-class marksman can hit a target a hundred yards off. Rifles, gentlemen, are the stuff of assassination. Mr Churchill has now taken measures over the Prime Minister’s movements between Downing Street and the House of Commons, as well as the appearance of the King and Queen at the opening of parliament in the New Year. We know that Gardstein and his friends already had ammunition for rifles. Now, it seems, they also have the weapons.”
“Only because you allow them to buy rifles from a gunsmith!” I said with some little indignation.”