Neither of my two fellow-conspirators saw me, for I was standing among the crowd of Whitechapel rabble; but as soon as they started to walk I followed them to the Leman Street Police Station—famed in the history of London crime as the headquarters of the police when searching for “Jack the Ripper.” On arrival I hesitated whether to follow them into the station, but at length decided not to do so, lest I might run unnecessary risks and be identified as a too-frequent visitor at the house that had just been raided.
Having in vain attempted to ascertain the exact nature of the offence with which Dobroslavin and Bolomez were charged, I hurried away to Aldgate and went by rail to Edgware Road, taking a cab thence to Oakleigh Gardens in order to report our misfortune to the Executive.
With feelings of intense anxiety I sat in the Thames Police Court on the following morning, awaiting the two prisoners to be brought before the magistrate. Presently, after the usual applications for summonses and the hearing of night charges, my two compatriots were placed in the dock.
“Boris Dobroslavin and Isaac Bolomez, you are charged with having forged Russian banknotes in your possession, and further, with manufacturing them at No. 132, Little Alie Street,” exclaimed the clerk of the court.
Forged notes! Impossible, I thought. The press was used for no other purpose than for printing revolutionary literature. The evidence, however, was extraordinary. As I sat listening to it I could scarce believe my ears.
The first witness was a police inspector, who made the following statement: “A warrant to search the premises, 132, Little Alie Street, was given into my hands, and last night I went there with other officers. In answer to a knock, the prisoner Bolomez opened the door, and we at once searched the place. In the back room on the ground floor we found a printing-press and printers’ materials, together with a very large number of pamphlets and circulars in Russian. On searching the front sitting-room, I found concealed under the cushion of the sofa four engraved copper plates, which have been used for printing Russian notes of the value of one and five roubles. In a drawer, in the same room, I found the bundles of forged notes I produce. They are all new, and represent a sum of 18,000 roubles. Two small tins of blue and yellow lithographic ink I found concealed behind a sideboard. I then caused both prisoners to be arrested.”
In reply to the magistrate, the officer said that a very large number of forged Russian notes were in circulation, and the Russian Finance Department had obtained information showing that they were being printed in London. A heavy reward had been offered, but although the London police had been endeavouring to trace the offenders, they had not succeeded until the present occasion.
The other evidence was corroborative. I was dumb with amazement, and the two prisoners seemed too much astonished at hearing the extraordinary charge against them to make any effort to cross-examine the witnesses. At length the case was remanded, and I left the court.
That day the Executive held a meeting to discuss the situation, but no solution of the mystery was forthcoming; even the solicitor we employed to defend entertained little hope of being able to make a satisfactory defence in the face of such undeniable evidence.