The Margin of Evil! (24 page)

From Surrey docks he headed off in a Westerly direction.
He followed the bend of the river around towards the Isle of Dogs. As he walked, Peter marvelled at things he had never seen before. There were overland and underground railways. Trains frequently moved in both directions, some bore freight, others ferried passengers to and from unknown destinations. Horse carts laboured in the streets, people hurried, children played in the street, people shouted and went everywhere about their business. Every now and then a policeman walked past. Whistles blew, klaxons sounded, horns honked and clock's regularly struck the quarter, half, and the hour.

Peter walked on, with a determined stride
because he knew exactly where he was going and, when he got there, he knew precisely what he was going to do. After all he'd had six months on the steamer to memorise the tiny map, which had been carefully concealed amongst the bundle of letters at the bottom of his 'Gunny sack'.

Two hours later he found his destination.
It was a public house situated down a side street. It was called 'The Beehive', a place regularly frequented by Baltic Nationals. Its popularity centred around the Latvian who ran it whom, like Peter, had arrived almost penniless, many years before. Unlike Peter Piaktow this national was genuinely dedicated to the revolutionary cause.

He ordered a pint of porter and then sat down.
The inside of the pub was dimly lit; it stank of stale beer and tobacco. Peter could see that most of the clientele were, like him, visiting sailors. There were a few English punters propping up the bar, most of the people seemed to be foreign. Peter sat as he'd been instructed and waited; he wasn't altogether sure how the next move was going to be played out. He just waited and waited and waited and waited.

Momentarily distracted, Peter watched a whore get slapped in the face.
Two 'Lubbers' were pathetically fighting over the toothless hag's favours. Soon the entertainment became boring and his eyes started to wander elsewhere.

As it happened he did not have long to wait.
The barman shouted over to him and caught his attention. Peter looked on and the barman pointed over to a door marked 'Snug'. He grabbed the bag and went over. Once inside he sat down at the small table, adjusting his eyes the tiny room, to him, seemed almost empty.

'
Peter Piaktow ...' the soft female voice said.

He knew the voice; he would recognise that velvet voice anywhere.
'Sara Trassjohnsky
[18]
, my Sara ... how are you?'

'
Don't worry yourself how I am.  Gardstein wants to see you. Drink up! We must go on to Whitechapel.'

They left the pub and walked down the street.
Peter marvelled at the surroundings. It even seemed to him that life was even busier than before. The pair of them walked down the street turning left onto a main road. Sara explained that they would wait at a place the English called a bus stop. So they waited, Peter stole a look at Sara, he thought that Gardstein was a lucky man.  He was, and that was a fact, he had two women in his life, Sara Trassjohnsky and Nina Milstein; Gardstein had them wrapped around his little finger. There was nothing that those two bitches wouldn't do for him.  Lucky bastard he thought!  The bus arrived.

They went upstairs and sat in silence, to all senses and purposes they looked like any other couple on the bus.
He dressed in his jumper, donkey jacket and cap and she in her best lace dress. As well he knew Sara was an attractive woman and had turned, his included, many a man's head. The journey progressed slowly; Peter continued to marvel from his bird's eye view of East London.

All around there were great municipal buildings and churches, Peter was taking all of this in, there was definitely a lot of money in this neighbourhood.
Elsewhere he noted that 'Old' condemned buildings were getting demolished; wasteland was being cleared, scaffolding going up, cranes swung; construction was going on everywhere in this metropolis. Peter made a special point of noting this fact; after all he was not called 'Peter the Painter' for nothing. In the near and far distance factories belched out smoke, in their busy yards foreman barked out orders and goods were fetched and carried, then weighed in and out. Trains rattled along in all directions. Once he thought he saw a horseless carriage motoring further on.  Yes, he had heard of them but he had never seen one, then he definitely saw one, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck, as the car drove a gang of street urchins followed it running alongside trying to keep up with it; the occupant was oblivious to all the interest his car generated. The further west they went, the more they appeared. Men wearing top hats rushed along the street. Some hailed cabs; others had their own carriages.  Children kicked footballs and ran around the streets, navvies shovelled up piles of horse dung. Men shouted, 'Gazette' and 'Get your Standard 'ere', dogs barked and whistles blew.

Sara and Peter got off at a stop on the
'Mile End' road. After five minutes, they turned left and walked halfway down a side street. They stopped outside a terraced house. Sara knocked on the door and waited. Peter saw the net curtains momentarily twitch and then the front door opened.

Pe
ter left his bag in the hallway and walked into the front room. He took a seat at the table. A man jumped up and gave him a hug.

'
Good to see you my friend.'

Peter gave the man a long hard look.
George Gardstein hadn't really changed that much in three years.

'
You to ... it's, it's been a long time!'  Peter said. 

Sara
brought in some food and drink and then left the room. Clearly they were to get down to business.

'
You are the third to last to arrive. We are only waiting for 'The Georgian' and Fritz Svaars to get here. Then we can get down to business,' Gardstein said. 'It is important that we don't draw attention to ourselves so I have arranged for you to lodge around the corner. We have to be careful and the Okhrana are here, so it is important that we are discrete in everything we do.'

'
You say that the Okhrana are here. How come, surely the English would not stand for it?' Peter said.

'
My friend, they don't care. Look around you Peter, what do you see? I tell you what you see; you see capitalism at work, which is all the English are interested in, making money! Haven't you seen it Peter, they have
all
sold their souls to Mammon. Everything in this city is about making money, they don't care about Latvian Nationalists; they don't care what the Okhrana get up to, as long as it doesn't interfere with their 'Good Business'. Indeed I think the Okhrana operates here with the full approval of the British authorities! They don't mind, as long as the Okhrana don't tread on too many toes,' Gardstein said.

Peter Piaktow thought for a moment, he didn
't disbelieve what Gardstein was saying to him, but he hadn't thought about it like that. He had always viewed this little island as the centre of Justice, Freedom, Habeas Corpus and Democracy; tyranny, or so he had been led to believe, existed elsewhere but not in this tiny island. Now Gardstein was doing a good job shattering those naively held illusions. Maybe he was right, maybe all countries were as bad as each other. Maybe some did a better job of concealing it than Imperial Russia did.  Gardstein bantered on whilst shadows of passers-by flitted across wall and ceiling.

'
It's like this Peter! This place is ripe for it and this city holds 'Rich-Pickings', for any 'Bogus' Marxist Revolutionary. Comrade, we are all going to have a ball here. These streets are paved with gold! You wait and see if we don't?'  Gardstein paused. 'Did you bring them?'

'
Yes I did, I'll go and get them.'  Peter said. A moment later he returned with the large padlocked Orthodox Christian Bible. He pulled out the key and unlocked the tiny padlock. He glanced momentarily at Gardstein and then opened the Bible. Its centre had been hollowed out and it contained several objects wrapped up in wax paper. He laid all four out on the table. Peter unwrapped them and arranged them in a square.

'
Aaaah, they're so beautiful; I take it you picked them up and there were no problems?' Gardstein said.

'
I did indeed ... Bremen to be precise!'

'
Peter, Peter, Peter! There are no pistols like this in this town. We will be unstoppable; no one will be able to touch us! You cannot, they cannot, beat four Dreyse M1907 pistols! Peter you are a genius and tonight we go out and celebrate. That is after I take you over to your new lodgings and introduce you to your new landlady.'

Next morning Peter awoke, his head was still thick from the night before.
Slowly he realised that he was still dressed in some of his clothes and half of his body was hanging out of the bed. He strained his mind, trying to remember exactly where it was that Gardstein had taken him. But, every time he moved his head, a terrible pain shot down the back of his neck into the shoulder. Slowly images of the night's revelry began to appear in his minds eye. The beer and the whores, it was really too much! What a place he thought; there was fornication inside pubs, outside in the street, up alley ways; where workers and, top hatted, gentlemen, vied for the favours of the women of the night.

Then his heart missed a beat;
there was a knock on the door.'  A woman's voice said, 'Mr Peter would you like a cup of tea?'

'
Yes, that would be very nice Mrs Brown,' even though he couldn't really stand the stuff. But his reasoning was, if you had to get on and blend in with the locals, you must not draw attention to yourself. Easier said than done, he thought.

Peter got dressed, his head was still throbbing.
More memories had returned to him. He now recollected that they, had 'pulled' two 'Dishy Dollies' and then returned to Gardsteins. Whereby Gardstein, never one to miss out on an opportunity to celebrate, had produced a bottle of 'Polish Vodka'. Which was happily consumed by all.

He had now made his way downstairs, in the meantime Mrs Brown had rustled up a bowl of porridge for him.
This, he thought, was not as bad as the tea, but, nevertheless it was still pretty revolting. She passed him the morning paper.

Peter looked at the adverts on the front of the paper.
He marvelled at what he saw. There were trouser presses and all manner of household gadgets. In his mind it was unbelievable that all theses useless consumer things could be advertised amongst all the other things that were bought and sold. In the bottom corner of the page you could ship stuff here and then you could send it there via the Peninsula and Orient Line. You could emigrate to Australia and New Zealand, and other far off places in the British Empire he had never heard of. The opportunities seemed to him to be limitless if you were a citizen or, better a subject of this country, you could do anything. On the other side, you could travel steerage to the United States on 'White Star Line' or on 'The Cunard Steamship Co Ltd'. Peter Piaktow continued to turn the pages. He now found that he turned to the general and world news pages.

The new King George V was doing this
, that and the other with his Queen. Elsewhere, Mexico was preparing for its centenary, independence from Spain, celebrations. Peter wished that Latvia could do the same! And what was this, wow, the earth has successfully passed through the tail of Halley's Comet. There was a knock on the door. Mrs Brown hurried to answer; he heard a familiar voice outside.

'
Good morning Peter, how are you feeling this fine morning?'  George Gardstein said, in his pigeon English.

'
Slightly jaded if I might say,' Peter replied.

Gardstein turned around
and gestured with his hand for Mrs Brown to leave. When she had left the room Gardstein leant towards Peter. He explained what they were going to do. There were numerous jewellers in and around the Farringdon area of London. The five of them, once the Georgian arrived, were going to stake out several of these shops and then they were going to rob them. Jewellers, he explained, were easy targets and, what was more, they could easily fence the swag. Money was difficult, it could easily be traced, but even if their 'Booty' could not be disposed of, they could still melt down the silver and the gold and turn it into ingots. George Gardstein assured Peter that they held all of the cards. For starters, the 'British Bobby' was not armed; therefore, in Gardstein's estimation, if cornered they held the advantage. No one, certainly no British crooks, would ever dream of firing on the police.

Their ace in the hole was the fact that they were in the possession of
'Dreyse' automatic pistols, and Gardstein impressed upon him, that if detected they must use them. If they were apprehended, then it really did not matter, because they would be 'Damned' and headed for the gallows. British public opinion would demand it and fair play had to be seen to be seen and done. But, and he firmly clasped Peter's hand, they were not going to get caught, everything was going to go to plan. Peter nodded in agreement.

Once Gardstein had finished, it was now Peter
's turn to say something. Of course he had worries on his mind. He reminded Gardstein that if the Okhrana were active in the East End of London, it was quite possible that they would, eventually, be discovered and then arrested; and, if that were the case, they all would certainly face deportation back to Russia. Let's face it he said, hadn't they both had enough of the Okhrana's hospitality back in 'Five.' Peter also stressed that it would drive him crazy if he hung around Mrs Brown's all day.  Could he not get a job?  After all he had worked for many years as a 'Painter and Decorator'; he stressed, that everywhere you looked there were building's going up.  If it was the case that they were simply meant to be blending into the East End, it would make good sense to get a labouring job. Gardstein nodded, but Peter wasn't altogether sure whether he noting the request or was simply agreeing it.