“You are a witch, Kate,” he said emphatically. “How under the sun did you manage to get Charlotte Conway here?”
“I didn’t do a thing,” Kate said with a little smile. “It was Nellie Lovelace who brought her, dressed as a young man. It was quite a convincing disguise, actually. I was totally fooled. Nellie has taken the train back to town, but I’ve invited Miss Conway to stay the night, and longer, if you approve.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I know that you planned to go up to London to find and talk with her, but she is after all a fugitive, and I’m not sure you’ll want to have her here. You should also know that it was only by determination and luck that she managed to elude the police, and she’s convinced that if she goes back to the city, she’ll be snatched up by the Scotland Yard detective who engineered the raid.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Charles said, settling back in his chair again. It was an odd but fortuitous coincidence, Miss Conway coming here, since he had planned to attempt to locate and question her about the
Clarion
employee who had blown himself up in Hyde Park. With any luck, she might have information that would fill in the many blanks in the story, as he knew it now. He sipped his tea. “Did she mention the men who were arrested during the raid—Adam Gould and the other two?”
Kate nodded. “She’s terribly concerned about them.” She gave Charles a slantwise look. “If Miss Conway thinks you are genuinely willing to help her friends, I’m sure she’ll tell you whatever you ask.” There was a sharp, cautionary undertone in her voice. “But if you feel you must convey her information to the Crown as part of this assignment you’ve taken on, I’m equally sure that she’ll refuse to cooperate. If it were me, I shouldn’t like to tell you something that you might turn around and use against my friends.”
Charles chuckled. “I think I can tell whose side you’re on.” He paused. “Now that I’ve had time to think about what Ponsonby asked me to do, Kate, I’ve found plenty of my own reasons for wanting to know what really happened in Hyde Park. It’s possible that the bombing was planned by one of the foreign agents who have been so active in the last few months—and we certainly have to think about the possibility of another attack. So far, though, no definite clues have emerged.”
Kate refilled his cup and handed it to him. Lightly, she said, “And you think you’ll have better luck than Scotland Yard at turning up a clue or two?”
“Oh, I just might,” he replied, grinning. “They have their noses, I have mine.” He paused, the smile fading. “But that raid on the newspaper and the arrests of the men—it’s troublesome, Kate. So far, at least, Special Branch hasn’t alleged a conspiracy, or specified any crimes. It’s not even clear on what charges the men are being held.”
“What about Miss Conway?” Kate asked, frowning. “Can she be charged with sedition?”
“The
Clarion
’s rhetoric may be a bit overheated,” Charles replied, “but other Socialist newspapers—
Freedom,
for instance—are equally vociferous, if not more. And if it is sedition for one to speak out, it must be sedition for all.” He shook his head. “The men ought to be freed, for there is no merit in stifling dissent. If the
Clarion
can be closed and its staff arrested, who’s to say that the same thing won’t happen to anyone else who ventures to speak freely, or to any other newspaper that dares to print something at odds with the general view?”
“If you really mean that, Lord Sheridan,” a quiet voice said from the doorway, “I would welcome whatever help you are able to offer.”
Charles set his cup aside and stood as Kate made introductions. Charlotte Conway was thin and angular and her dark curly hair was cut startlingly short, but there was a lively intelligence in her face and she moved with confidence across the room. She was wearing one of Kate’s dresses, of a pewter color that made her dark hair and eyes seem even more lustrous and gave her a feminine appearance that was somewhat at odds with her assured manner. She sat down, accepted a cup of tea from Kate, and said, without prompting, “I expect you want to know what happened when the newspaper was raided.”
“I do, yes,” Charles said, and listened as she related the story of her narrow escape from the
Clarion
office. He concealed his surprise at the idea of this slight, fragile-looking young woman scrambling adventurously across a roof, and went instead to the thing that concerned him most. “Was there any warning of the raid?” he asked. “Did the police present a warrant?”
“A warrant?” Miss Conway frowned. “I heard Adam ask about it—he was quite insistent, actually—but I didn’t hear an answer. And I’m sure there was no warning.” The corners of her mouth quirked upward in a ghost of a smile. “If there had been, I shouldn’t have had to take to the roof, now, should I?”
Kate passed around a plate of buttered scones. “On what basis could the police obtain a warrant, Charles? If no laws were broken—”
There was no amusement in Miss Conway’s short, brusque laugh. “I doubt that Inspector Ashcraft would worry his head with such niceties, Lady Sheridan. But if he did, he wouldn’t have any difficult finding a magistrate to issue a warrant for the arrest of an Anarchist. Any Anarchist, it doesn’t matter who, or that he’s done nothing illegal.” Her voice became bitter. “The name itself is proof of our criminal deeds.”
“Inspector Ashcraft?” Charles asked.
“Special Branch,” Miss Conway said dispiritedly. “Most of the police are at least civil, but not that one. He’s aggressive and arrogant. He’s out to make a name for himself, whatever it takes.”
“I see,” Charles said, thinking that it might be good to have a conversation with this Inspector Ashcraft.
Miss Conway gave him a long, straight look. “As I came into the room, I heard you say that you thought the men ought to be freed. Do you mean to offer any help to make that happen?”
“I will do what I can,” Charles said. “One of them, Adam Gould, is an acquaintance of mine. I supported the union in a case that came up on appeal last year—the Taff-Vale case. You may have heard of it.”
Miss Conway’s eyes widened in surprise. “You took the union’s side in the Taff-Vale case?”
“Yes,” Charles said. He smiled slightly. “For what little good it did.” It had been an ugly matter, a suit by the Taff-Vale Railroad against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, seeking reparation for losses suffered during a strike. The case had come up to the Lords of Appeal, who had found the union liable to the tune of twenty-three thousand pounds. The decision had annulled the long immunity that protected British labor unions against acts carried out by their members and exposed every union to crippling financial penalties each time its members were involved in a labor dispute. All but the most conservative newspapers had decried it as another instance of the power of the Lords being exerted on behalf of large industrialists and against the people.
Miss Conway tilted her head to one side and regarded him thoughtfully. “I had no idea,” she said. She gave a little laugh. “I supposed that all the Lords were against the unions.”
“Most are,” Charles said, “but there are a few of us who count ourselves Liberals—and worse.” He picked up his pipe and tobacco pouch. “I must say, I came away from the debate with a great admiration for Adam Gould’s courage. I should hate to see him brought to trial on a trumped-up charge.”
“If you sided with Adam on the Taff-Vale case, I can have no reason not to trust you,” Miss Conway said. She paused and, with a glance at Kate, added guiltily, “To tell the truth, I’m beginning to feel more than a little ashamed of myself. When I first escaped from the police, I was so frightened that I could think only of getting away. That’s why I went to Nellie and begged her to help me get out of London.” Her face darkened. “But the more I think about what I’ve done—coming here, I mean—the more I believe that I was wrong. I should have stayed in the City, where I might have been of some service to Adam and the others. They’re all alone, with no one to stand up for them.” She shook her head despairingly. “I don’t even know if they’ve been able to find a barrister to handle their defense.”
“I may know someone who might be willing to help,” Charles said, tamping tobacco into his pipe. “He is certainly more than competent. I’m planning to go up to London on Monday, and I’ll see him then. I’ll try to see Adam, as well, and find out exactly what the charges are.”
“I’ll go with you,” Miss Conway said vehemently, putting her cup down.
Charles shook his head. “Not unless you want to be jailed yourself. I don’t see how you can help Adam and the others if you are behind bars.”
“Lord Sheridan is right,” Kate said firmly. “You’re safe here, Miss Conway. If anything can be done, his lordship will do it. He’ll get at the truth, and within a few days, your friends will be out of jail.”
Miss Conway’s mouth hardened. “I hope you will pardon my skepticism, Lady Sheridan. Now that the men are in the hands of the law, the courts will never release them—not after what happened in Hyde Park. Scapegoats are wanted, and since Yuri is dead, others will have to do, the more the better.” She bit her lip. “Adam and the others will be lucky to get off with ten years’ penal servitude, like the comrades at Walsall.”
Charles put a match to his pipe. He had followed the Walsall case closely, and while he did not like to admit it, he suspected that Miss Conway might very well be right. Some years before, six Anarchists living in the village of Walsall had been charged with the unlawful possession of explosives with the intent to manufacture bombs. No explosives were ever found; in fact, the only evidence the police were able to produce was a length of fuse taken from one man’s house, a sketch of a bomb found in another’s, and a stack of Anarchist pamphlets discovered in the flat belonging to a third. On this flimsy evidence, the prosecution based its assertion that the men were “a dangerous new class of revolutionist,” part of a vast and frightening conspiracy that threatened the peace and stability of the entire country, and argued that it was not what these Anarchists had done that mattered, it was what they were prepared to do. The newspapers quickly took up the battle cry and a kind of mass hysteria began to prevail, for it seemed that unless the Walsall Anarchists were convicted and sentenced, all England would be at the mercy of terrorists with their dynamite.
Had the prosecution’s case been based solely on the evidence, it could not have held up against a vigorous defense in court. But fortunately for the Crown (the Attorney-General himself conducted the case for the prosecution), one of the conspirators, a man named Deakin, was persuaded to turn nose and supply a confession that implicated three of the others. Also fortunately for the Crown, several bombs exploded in France the week before the trial began, which increased the hysteria in Britain. It took the jury less than two hours to find Deakin and three others guilty and sentence them to five- and ten-year prison terms. Upon learning the verdict, the
Commonweal,
the Socialist League newspaper, printed an angry, impassioned editorial, pleading for justice. Shortly thereafter, the paper was raided, and both its editor and publisher jailed.
Charles pulled on his pipe. “This man Yuri Messenko,” he said. “The bomber. I read that he was employed at the
Clarion
. Did you know him well?”
Miss Conway sighed. “I knew him a little. His father was Ukrainian, his mother English, I believe. They lived in Manchester, although they are both dead now. Yuri seemed a soft-spoken, kind young man, always willing to run errands or do what he could to help. He was especially good with children and with people who were in trouble; he always knew what to say to comfort them.” She smiled a little, crookedly. “He wasn’t very bright, though. And his views were not threatening—at least, not as threatening as those of others, Pierre, for instance.”
“Did he have any expertise in chemistry?”
“In chemistry? I should say not!” Miss Conway gave a sad little laugh. “Yuri was no more able to build a bomb than to construct a flying-machine. He wouldn’t even know where to obtain explosive material.”
“But he was obviously carrying explosives,” Charles pointed out. “He might not have known exactly what was in the satchel, but someone did. Someone had to obtain the materials, construct the explosive device, put it into the satchel, and hand it to Messenko—all which suggests a conspiracy of some kind. Equally obviously, Yuri Messenko did not succeed in killing anyone else but himself.” Casually, he spoke around his pipe, not seeming to look at her. “Was that by accident, do you think, or by design?”
Kate frowned. “You’re suggesting that the explosion was not meant to kill the King?”
“I’m not sure what I’m suggesting,” Charles replied. “Miss Conway? Was it by accident?”
“How could I possibly know the answer to that question,” Miss Conway said defiantly, “unless I were a party to the conspiracy. And I was not.” Then, more tentatively, she added, “You are thinking that someone deliberately set out to kill Yuri?”
“At this point, it’s as likely an explanation as anything else,” Charles replied. “Do you know where he lived? Who his friends were?”
Miss Conway seemed wary, but she answered nonetheless. “He lived in Telson Street, Number 17, I think, or Number 19—not far from the
Clarion
office. As to his friends, I’m afraid I have no idea. Ivan might know. I’ve occasionally seen the two of them leaving the newspaper together in the evenings. Sometimes they went to meetings, sometimes they just went out for something to eat.” She pulled her brows together. “As for a conspiracy, all I can tell you is that different people who come to the newspaper—the Spaniards or the Italians, mostly—sometimes make threats or skulk around as though they are planning some violent action. But there isn’t as much of that as the authorities and the newspapers lead one to believe.” Her lips curved in what might have been a smile. “Most of the people in our cell—the Hampstead Road cell—prefer propaganda by word to propaganda by deed.”