A Secret Service: Being Strange Tales of a NihilistLe Queux, William
General
A Secret Service: Being Strange Tales of a Nihilist
Le Queux, William
Nihilism -- Fiction; Russia -- Politics and government -- 1801-1917 -- Fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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