The Complete Works of Arthur Morrison (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

it.”

      We got rid of our collars and made chokers of our ties. We turned our coat-collars up at one side only, and then, with dented hats worn raffishly, and our hands in our pockets, we looked disreputable enough for all practical purposes in twilight. A cordon of plain-clothes police had already been forming round the club, we were told, and so we sallied forth. We turned into Windmill Street, crossed Whitfield Street, and in a turning or two we came to the Bakunin Club. I could see no sign of anything like a ring of policemen, and said so. Hewitt chuckled. “Of course not,” he said; “they don’t go about a job of this sort with drums beating and flags flying. But they are all there, and some are watching us. There is the house. I’ll negotiate.”

      The house was one of the very shabby passé sort that abound in that quarter. The very narrow area was railed over, and almost choked with rubbish. Visible above it were three floors, the lowest indicated by the door and one window, and the other two by two windows each — mean and dirty all. A faint light appeared in the top floor, and another from somewhere behind the refuse-heaped area. Everywhere else was in darkness. Hewitt looked intently into the area, but it was impossible to discern anything behind the sole grimy patch of window that was visible. Then we stepped lightly up the three or four steps to the door and rang the bell.

      We could hear slippered feet mounting a stair and approaching. A latch was shifted, a door opened six inches, an indistinct face appeared, and a female voice asked, “Qui est là?”

      “Deux camarades” Hewitt grunted testily. “Ouvrez vite.”

      I had noticed that the door was kept from opening further by a short chain. This chain the woman unhooked from the door, but still kept the latter merely ajar, as though intending to assure herself still further. But Hewitt immediately pushed the door back, planted his foot against it, and entered, asking carelessly as he did so, “Où se trouve Luigi?”

      I followed on his heels, and in the dark could just distinguish that Hewitt pushed the woman instantly against the wall and clapped his hand to her mouth. At the same moment a file of quiet men were suddenly visible ascending the steps at my heels. They were the police.

      The door was closed behind us almost noiselessly, and a match was struck. Two men stood at the bottom of the stairs, and the others searched the house. Only two men were found — both in a top room. They were secured and brought down.

      The woman was now ungagged, and she used her tongue at a great rate. One of the men was a small, meek-looking slip of a fellow, and he appeared to be the woman’s husband. “Eh, messieurs le police,” she exclaimed vehemently, “it ees not of ’im, mon pauvre Pierre, zat you sail rrun in. ‘Im and me — we are not of the clob — we work only — we housekeep.”

      Hewitt whispered to an officer, and the two men were taken below. Then Hewitt spoke to the woman, whose protests had not ceased. “You say you are not of the club,” he said, “but what is there to prove that? If you are but housekeepers, as you say, you have nothing to fear. But you can only prove it by giving the police information. For instance, now, about Gérard. What have they done with him?”

      “Jean Pingard — ’im you ‘ave take downstairs — ‘e ‘ave lose ’im. Jean Pingard get last night all a-boosa — all dronk like zis “— she rolled her head and shoulders to express intoxication — “and he sleep too much to-day, when Émile go out, and Gérard, he go too, and nobody know. I will tell you anysing. We are not of the clob — we housekeep, me and Pierre.”

      “But what did they do to Gérard before he went away?”

      The woman was ready and anxious to tell anything. Gérard had been selected to do something — what it was exactly she did not know, but there was a horse and cart, and he was to drive it. Where the horse and cart was also she did not know, but Gérard had driven a cart before in his work for a baker, and he was to drive one in connection with some scheme among the members of the club. But le pauvre Girard at the last minute disliked to drive the cart; he had fear. He did not say he had fear, but he prepared a letter — a letter that was not signed. The letter was to be sent to the police, and it told them the whereabouts of the horse and cart, so that the police might seize these things, and then there would be nothing for Gérard, who had fear, to do in the way of driving. No, he did not betray the names of the comrades, but he told the place of the horse and the cart.

      Nevertheless, the letter was never sent. There was suspicion, and the letter was found in a pocket and read. Then there was a meeting, and Gérard was confronted with his letter. He could say nothing but “Je le nie!” — found no explanation but that. There was much noise, and she had observed from a staircase, from which one might see through a ventilating hole, Gérard had much fear — very much fear. His face was white, and it moved; he prayed for mercy, and they talked of killing him. It was discussed how he should be killed, and the poor Gérard was more terrified. He was made to take off his collar, and a razor was drawn across his throat, though without cutting him, till he fainted.

      Then water was flung over him, and he was struck in the face till he revived. He again repeated, “je le nie! je le nie! “ and nothing more. Then one struck him with a bottle, and another with a stick; the point of a knife was put against his throat and held there, but this time he did not faint, but cried softly, as a man who is drunk, “je le nie! je le nie!” So they tied a handkerchief about his neck, and twisted it till his face grew purple and black, and his eyes were round and terrible, and then they struck his face, and he fainted again. But they took away the handkerchief, having fear that they could not easily get rid of the body if he were killed, for there was no preparation. So they decided to meet again and discuss when there would be preparation. Wherefore they took him away to the rooms of Jean Pingard — of Jean and £mile Pingard — in Henry Street, Golden Square. But Émile Pingard had gone out, and Jean was drunk and slept, and they lost him. Jean Pingard was he downstairs — the taller of the two; the other was but le pauvre Pierre, who, with herself, was not of the club. They worked only; they were the keepers of the house. There was nothing for which they should be arrested, and she would give the police any information they might ask.

      “As I thought, you see,” Hewitt said to me, “the man’s nerves have broken down under the terror and the strain, and aphasia is the result. I think I told you that the only articulate thing he could say was ‘ Je le nie! ‘ and now we know how those words were impressed on him till he now pronounces them mechanically, with no idea of their meaning. Come, we can do no more here now. But wait a moment.”

      There were footsteps outside. The light was removed, and a policeman went to the door and opened it as soon as the bell rang. Three men stepped in one after another, and the door was immediately shut behind them — they were prisoners.

      We left quietly, and although we, of course, expected it, it was not till the next morning that we learned absolutely that the largest arrest of Anarchists ever made in this country was made at the Bakunin Club that night. Each man as he came was admitted — and collared.

      We made our way to Luzatti’s, and it was over our dinner that Hewitt put me in full possession of the earlier facts of this case, which I have set down as impersonal narrative in their proper place at the beginning.

      “But,” I said, “what of that aimless scribble you spoke of that Gérard made in the police station? Can I see it?”

      Hewitt turned to where his coat hung behind him and took a handful of papers from his pocket.

      “Most of these,” he said, “mean nothing at all. That is what he wrote at first,” and he handed me the first of the two papers which were presented in facsimile in the earlier part of this narrative.

      “You see,” he said, “he has begun mechanically from long use to write ‘monsieur’ — the usual beginning of a letter. But he scarcely makes three letters before tailing off into sheer scribble. He tries again and again, and although once there is something very like ‘que,’ and once something like a word preceded by a negative ‘n,’ the whole thing is meaningless.

      “This” (he handed me the other paper which has been printed in facsimile) “does mean something, though Gérard