His wife had earned an unenviable reputation by giving information which led to the arrest of a dozen unfortunate students, who were brought before the special court at Petersburg. Evidently fearing to return to Kiev, she had afterwards mysteriously disappeared.
The portrait—taken from a lady’s newspaper—which we had sent, had been identified, and the communication warned us that she was in England for the purpose of espionage.
Such were the circumstances in which I was entrusted with the discovery of her object in visiting London, and the extent of her knowledge of our movements. Matters were again ripe for a further attempt to overthrow the Imperial power, and the Executive had in preparation an elaborate and desperate plot which seemed likely to be as successful as that which—unfortunately for Russia—removed Alexander II.; providing the astute members of the “Third Section” could be baffled and led upon a wrong scent. It was highly desirable that we should know what Madame Vera was really doing, and with whom she was in communication in Russia; therefore it devolved upon me to watch her.
At frequent intervals signed articles and letters from her pen were appearing in the press in defence of the Imperial Autocrat, and endeavouring to prove, by relating personal narratives, that the prison horrors of Siberia as revealed by George Kennan and other travellers existed merely in the imagination. She even went so far as to assert that “the condition of the much-talked-of forwarding prison at Tomsk would do credit to any London hospital.”
This paid defender of Russian tyranny was but one of a number, each of whom has flourished in London society for a season or so and disappeared as mysteriously as they came. Some have succeeded in performing the secret services for which they were sent out from Petersburg, while upon others has fallen a relentless vengeance.
In order that my connection with the revolutionist colony in Oakleigh Gardens should not be discovered, I never visited them there. We had another place of meeting when I desired a conference. Indeed, I had found it necessary to remove my quarters from Shaftesbury Avenue to Dane’s Inn, that queer grimy abode of bachelors situate off Wych Street—the oldest and quaintest thoroughfare in London—under the shadow of the Law Courts. There, in chambers, I led the rollicking life of a Bohemian of independent means, had artists, authors, and actors, for my friends, and was known to them as Pierre Delorme. Speaking French fluently, I had no difficulty in disguising my nationality, and assuming the rôle of a subject of the French Republic.
The Rectory of the sleepy little Northamptonshire village of Kingsthorpe was a spacious old Jacobean house, hidden by ivy, with red, lichen-covered roofs, tall chimneys, and diamond-paned, mullioned windows. Standing back from the broad, white highway, a large, old-fashioned, flower-garden lay in front, while at the rear an orchard and well-kept lawn sloped down to the picturesque river Nene. The Reverend George Farrar, the rector, was a rubicund, happy-looking man, a true type of the port-drinking, fox-hunting British parson, and with his wife and two handsome daughters, was popular with all throughout his rural parish, from the Earl at the Hall down to the most humble and impecunious cottager. Though he hunted with the Fitzwilliam Pack, and could handle a cue with dexterity acquired by long practice, nevertheless there was no cant about him, and he was both pious and charitable.
It was at Kingsthorpe that Madame Kovalski was visiting during August, she having met the Farrars frequently in London and dispensed to them the hospitality of her house in Lexham Gardens, Kensington. By dint of a little artful manœuvring and the exertions of a mutual friend, I also had contrived to make the acquaintance of the warm-hearted old rector, and had responded to his cordial invitation to spend a fortnight at “Sleepy Hollow,” as he called it.
There were several other guests, but my attention was devoted to Madame Vera, with whom I very soon became on terms of pleasant friendship.