Ivan had been astonished when he heard what Yuri had done; he had been utterly dumbfounded, and he was dumbfounded still, as he thought about it. That Yuri would have the courage, the cleverness, the extraordinary commitment required to carry out such a singular act made him feel enormously proud, even as he shook his head over the amazing improbability of such a thing. He felt a sharp sense of loss, as well (although he reminded himself that this was unforgivably bourgeois), for he had allowed himself to love Yuri (to the extent that an Anarchist could feel love) for his gentleness and compassion. Ivan feared that he had never fully understood the boy, for at times Yuri seemed remarkably dim-witted and yet at other times exhibited a deeply intuitive vision. And he had certainly neither understood nor shared Yuri’s devotion to Pierre, that inflammatory fire-brand of a fellow who seemed to Ivan to be manipulative and devious in the extreme. But this had not changed Ivan’s fondness for Yuri, and while he saluted Yuri’s heroic act, he mourned the lost young hero.
But there were other problems upon which Ivan must exercise his mind. His defense, for instance. Mr. Morley, the solicitor who had been sent by the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants to defend Adam, had refused to take Ivan’s and Pierre ’s case, on the grounds that the ASRS was paying him to arrange the defense of one man, not three. Nicholas Petrovich, one of the few comrades brave enough to acknowledge any connection with their jailed colleages, had paid Ivan a visit the day before, bringing some cheese and apples-which were promptly confiscated by the guard. Nikki had come to let Ivan know that a solicitation was being conducted among the members of the Hampstead Road cell to collect the eight guineas required by Mr. Brownlow, a barrister who had defended other Anarchists on occasion.
“Brownlow is very sharp, we understand,” Nikki had said, in his thick Slavic accent. “If anyone can get you two off the charge, he’s the man.”
“If the eight guineas can be found,” Ivan said dispiritedly. “That seems high.”
“I’m afraid it’s the charge,” Nikki replied in an apologetic tone. “If it had been anything else but explosives with intent, he would’ve come cheaper. But explosives-”
“Explosives?” Ivan had interrupted sharply. “How do explosives come into it?”
Nikki gazed at him as if he didn’t quite understand. “Why, the bombs,” he said. “In your room, and Pierre’s. Ginger-beer bottles with something in them-nitric acid, they say. Not to mention the Anarchist literature, and the bomb-making instructions found in Pierre ’s pocket.” Admiration and pride were mixed with exasperation in his look. “The comrades said to tell you that they didn’t know that you were a Dynamitard, or that you and Yuri and Pierre were planning to blow up the King. If they’d known, they’d have said it wasn’t a good idea. Too dangerous all ’round.”
“It was Yuri’s plan, not mine,” Ivan said. “I had nothing to do with it.” He was about to add that he had no idea how a bomb had come to be found in his room, but held his tongue. The comrades could think as they liked about him. And if they liked to think that he was a man of deeds, rather than words only, well, that was their choice. He stood no chance before the British bench, anyway, with or without the aid of the eight-guinea Brownlow. He was a Russian and an Anarchist, and when he was found guilty and had served his sentence, he would be handed over to the Ochrana, the Czar’s secret police, who would arrange for his deportation. Once in Russia, he was a dead man.
And this opened another vast panorama of problems upon which Ivan must exercise his mental faculties. For the past three weeks, he had suspected that he was being trailed by one of the Russian secret agents who prowled London, keeping a watch on the Russian émigrés, many of whom had sought refuge in the teeming East End. Ivan had done his best to avoid the man-a tall, thin fellow with a black Vandyke beard, wearing a dark overcoat with a fur collar-but he knew it was a futile effort. Whatever he did, he could not get away from the man. And even if he did, it would be of no use, for now that the Ochrana had located him, they would merely assign another agent to trail him.
In fact, now that he thought about it, it seemed to him quite likely that the explosives found in his room had been put there by a Russian agent, immediately after he was seen to be seized in the raid on the Clarion. The agent would know that Special Branch police would search his rooms and would want to ensure that they find something incriminating. Of course, the Ochrana would prefer to get their hands on him immediately, so it was possible that they might make some sort of arrangement with the British authorities to hand him over-a trade for another prisoner, or even an arranged escape. One had heard of that sort of thing.
Ivan ran his hands through his lanky, dirty hair. Of course, this didn’t explain why a bomb had also been placed in Pierre ’s room, since an Ochrana agent was not likely to have any special animosity toward a French Anarchist. Ivan smiled bleakly. Especially an ineffectual French Anarchist, all fierce words and no deeds, whose passion for the Cause blinded him to any real possibility for vigorous action. But there were French secret agents in the City as well (not to mention German and Spanish and Italian and American) and perhaps there had been some sort of collaboration.
However, Ivan did not intend to expend his mental energies on Pierre and his fate. He had to think how best to manage to free himself from this unimaginably tangled web and from the agent who would be waiting to lay hands on him when the Court found him guilty-which would happen, he was sure of it, whatever the efforts of Mr. Eight-Guinea Brownlow.
But Brownlow was to make no such efforts on their behalf, as Pierre Mouffetard learned the next day. Pierre, a dingy, hard-faced man, his jaw patchily smudged with a meager whisker, had also been in jails before, usually on a charge of picking pockets, for that was his criminal trade. But he had never stayed for long, since he or his associates had always managed some early means of egress. He therefore remained unconcerned about his current situation and continued to carry himself with his customary air of blustery self-confidence, even when Nicholas Petrovich came to tell him that Brownlow would not be hired, after all.
The conversation had taken place just an hour ago, in the visiting cage. Nikki said that he had been sent to inform both Pierre and Ivan that the Hampstead Road Anarchists had changed their minds. Instead of helping to procure a defense, they had decided that it would be best for them to disassociate themselves from their jailed comrades. As a messenger, Nikki was clearly uncomfortable with this announcement, and stammered as he said it.
“They… we want to express solidarity with militant action, of course, but we… the group, that is, feels it can’t be reckless.” He colored. “You must take it as you like, Pierre, but they… we have decided to disclaim all connection with you and Ivan. And Adam Gould, too, of course-he’s not a member, anyway. It’s the explosives, you see. Everyone’s nervous.”
Pierre frowned, not so much at the way the comrades had abandoned him, but at the charge itself, which he had heard from Nikki the day before, for the first time. “But I had no explosives in my room,” he said. “I told you that yesterday.”
“That does not alter the fact,” Nikki replied somberly, “that the police say they found a bomb there. And there were the instructions for bomb-making in your pocket.”
“Instructions?” Pierre gave a hard laugh. “That was merely a letter-a French compatriot writing to tell me about a Spanish comrade who built an explosive device of some sort.”