MISS ALLANDALE'S ANARCHIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2986, 7 June 1911, Page 90

MISS ALLANDALE'S ANARCHIST.

By Peggy Webling

"I am perfectly sure of my facts, Mr Wolf." "Oh!" "Besides, I have absolute reliance on my intuition." "Ah!"

Miss Allandale tapped her fingers impatiently on the writing table. Several years' experience of editorial indifference to other people's grand ideas alone saved her from intense disappointment on this particular occasion. She had called upon Mr Wolf with the news of a thrilling discovery. He was not at all excited, although he liked Miss Allandale and considered her a clever little woman.

The editor of tbe Orb was big and heavily built, of foreign extraction; a fine journalist, but a singularly brusque and unattractive man. She was email and dainty, quick-witted, not without a touch of insolence, and with a very good opinion of hear own ability. Wolf, having looked through his letters, gave her his full attention. It was late in the evening, and he wanted to get rid of her.

"You've discovered an Anarchist plot, have you? Why not go to tbe police?" ho asked. "Wb/.t's the good of coming here?"

"I thought you might be able to use a special article " she began. "Send it, my dear girl send it!" he interrupted. "Of course, it looks to me like bloomin' nonsense ——" "I assure you I have seen the man hanging round the West End for days." It was her turn to interrupt; "I noticed him first outside Buckingham Palace, then, at the National Gallery, then in Downing street " "Good lookin' chap?" asked the editor.

"Very/, but sinister —foreign—there's something indescribably weird about him. Why should he haunt our public buildings?" "Sight seein' ?" suggested Mr Wolf. "But why should I be seized with this unaccountable premonition of evil?" "Gocd-night, dear lady!" said the editor.

Miss Allandale laughed—to do her jus tice, at herself—and rose to her feet.

"Good-night, Mr Wolf; I'll send you that article on tracking down an Anarchist."

"Send anything on earth you like, but go now!" said Mr Wolf. She walked quickly downstairs, not quite certain whether she had made a fool of herself or not. Her eyes were dangerously bright, for she was a sensitive girl with all her self-possession, and hotly resented the discipline of such cavalier treatment as Mr Wolf's, even though she realise! it was not wholly undeserved. By the time she reached the door Miss Allandale had recovered herself, smilingly nodded good-night to the doorkeeper, and turned into Fleet street. Every minute her interview ■ with the editor of the Orb became more ridiculous in recollection, her serise of humour alone saving her from utter humiliation.

Absorbed in these thoughts, she almost ran into a man at the corner of Chancery lane. Miss Allandale started back, looked up, and found herself face to face ■with the supposed Anarchist. For a second they stared at each other blankly. Then his expression changed. He did not smile, but a sudden light seemed to spring into his dark eyes—wonder, delight; admiration, —and the girl instinctively drew a veil over her own frank gaze, passed hinu by, and was painfully conscious of a sudden flush to her cheek. The lady journalist went home in a very unsettled state of mind. She had always prided herself on the possession of strong commonsenso and contempt for eentimen-

tality, but it was impossible- for her _to forget, dot what she would, the expression on the stranger's face. Their three former meetings struck her as remarkable coincidences, and they met again, on the following day, outside the British Museum!

She recognised him instantly. He was standing on the steps, peering about, with a slouch hat pulled down over his eyes. Strangely agitated by his sudden appearance she stopped for a minute on the stone path, apparently absorbed in admiration of the pigeons. The unknown man, directly he caught sight of her, lounged down the steps and deliberately took his stand at a little distance, also gazing with rapt eyes at the pigeons. She was about to walk away, carefully unconscious of his existence, when a peculiar word caught her ear. "Bombs!" she heard, in a low, deep whisper—" bombs!" She started slightly, listening with strained attention. The stranger drew a little nearer. He was muttering to himself. She could only hear a word now and again. " Buckingham Palace. . . . Bombs. . . . . Coronation. . . . Kill. . . Annihilate. . . . Revenge. . . ." Miss „Allandale shuddered; then turned, with a great effort, and stared at the dark stranger. The scowl instantly passed from his face. She saw that he knew her again. He pulled off his bat, showing a swarthy, lean, but singularly handsome ir.an. "Pardon me!" he said, with a strong foreign accent, " but I am a perfect stranger —1 hope lam not—what you call impertinent? Will you graciously inform me, madam, if this is your British Museum? Is it national property? Yes?"

"Yes," she answered. "Good!" exclaimed the man, "I thank you. One more question—you are so kind —your King lives at the so ugly house you call the Buckingham? Your Prime Minister in the dull street named Downing? Yes?" "Why do you ask?" she said, looking at him with stern, questioning eyes. " zi purpose of my own —curiosity " '' Excuse me from satisfying your curiosity any farther!" She bowed with a most captivating little air of hauteur and turned away. The dark stranger took a quick step to her side.

j "One moment more —I implore you! I You English ladies are so brave, so frank, so—what is it?—unconventional. I see it j in your courtesy to a poor stranger in a i strange land. You are probably a lady I of the pen —yes? Am I not right?" ; "You are certainly right," said Miss Allandale, in sheer surprise. I The stranger at once broke into a tor- ' rent of words. He told her his name, i which sounded Russian, entreated her not to mistake his frankness for impudence, and asked innumerable questions. I The journalist in Miss Allandale was keenly alive to any possibilities for good i "copy," and the young'Russian was undoubtedly good copy. i His political views were decidedly revolutionary. He freely admitted it, and she I could not forget the suggestive words he was mumbling to himself before he spoke - to her.

He had not under-estimated her unconventionality. She decided to make friends with this effusive stranger. What _ a triumph to discover the plots of a wily Russian! What a delight to go to Wolf, that harsh-tongued ruler of the Orb, with a journalistic coup to baffle Anarchism ! But, alas! she was wholly unable to hate, as she felt it was her duty to_ do, the unsuspecting, dark-eyed stranger in a strange land. The more she saw of him the more she liked him. Their chance meetings—it was mutually pretended they were chance meetings—showed him to be a man of good taste and invariable courtesy. He was demonstrative and hot-headed, and Miss Allandale's conscience was pricked by the knowledge of his willingness to confide in her. She felt her power, but trembled to use it.

Tracking down an Anarchst was not, after all, the good sport she had anticipated.

One night, two months after their eventful talk outside the British Museum, Miss Allandale and her Anarchist met, by appointment, at the top of Dean street, Soho.

A journalisitic friend, to whom she had confided her interest in revolutionary politics, had given her a letter of introduction to a certain Hungarian, in whose house it was customary to hold monthly meetings. She had hoped to hear startling doctrines, but was doomed to disappointment. There were not more than a dozen people all told; the air was blue with tobacco; the speeches were on a par with streetcorner oratory, and the only thins which gave life and interest to the meeting was the frequent sparring: between the chairman, ctn obstinate, slow Englishman, and an excitable little Frenchman. There was nothing to suggest a coming fray. The handsome young; Russian at her side, who did not applaud the sweeping denunciations of society as warmly as she expected, studied Miss AllandaVi's profile with frank, smiling admiration. He made her feel uncomfortablo and wretched. He was so entirely unconscious of her " tracking; down."

| The dogged manner of the chairman amused her. There was nothing alarming, to her inexperience, in the suppressed passion of a man of his type. She thought i he was merely stupid, and joined, not ill-naturedly, in the laughter evoked at his I expense by the fluent Frenchman. '' Do you. agree with all this talkytalk?" said the Russian, suddenly bending , towards her. She turned her eyes to his face with ] some surprise, answering his question by asking another. "Of course you do?" He shrugged his shoulders and then shook his head. " You can't deceive me any longer," she went on, moved by an unaccountablo

impulse to speak the truth, "I know your real opinions—and I abominate them. They are inhuman and heartless. You, and men like you, would have the innocent suffer with the guilty. You attempt' to, justify the crime of wholesale murder." The young Russian looked at her humbly, but there was a pucker about his lips—the aggravating pucker of suppressed amusement—that added fuel to her smouldering temper. It burst into a blaze. "I despise you as an Anarchist!" she said. "I will have nothing more to do with you. Good-night! -in o—you must not ,go with me. Stop with your friends. You are worthy of them!" The necessity of talking in whispers had not made this revelation of her feelinga easier for Miss Allandale, and her own agitation had deafened her to the noises in the room, but as she rose to her feet there was a sudden uproar. The chairman, goaded beyond endurance,, seized the little Frenchman by the throat, shook him like a terrier shakes a rat, and threw, him off with such violence that he fell, sprawling and spluttering, into the group of men sitting behind. One of them was knocked over. The little Frenchman was dragged to his feet, and, furious and undaunted, made a leap for his assailant.

The Hungarian (and others promptly joined the fray. The political meeting had changed into a free fight. Miss Allandale, the only woman in the room, did not scream, but staggered against the wall, struck by an overturned bench. In an instant she felt the arms t of the young Russian thrown round her. He was the one calm man in the room.

The chairman, all his stolidity gone, had come to blows with the man who had been knocked down in the fall of the little Frenchman. The Hungarian blocked the only exit to the room. Mies Allandale could see no way of escape. What could she do but cling to her "abused, despised Anarchist? Grasping her arm he pushed a way towards the door. His strength and sudden fury of energy filled her with admiration. The big Hungarian reeled on one side at the quick lunge of his fist. He seized the handle of the door, threw it open, and closed it again behind them. They were alone on the dimly-lighted staircase, and at the same time they heard a violent knocking at the street door and a loud peal of the bell. The Russian, taking her hand in his firm, but not ungentle, grasp, led h-a? downstairs into the dark little _ There was the sound of several impatient voices on the outer «u<fe of the door, while the knocking and ringing went on without ceasing for ,a minute. " The police!" exclaimed the Russian. "It is what you call a raid—they must not find you here. Come! we will make our exit elsewhere."

The passage ended in a dingy kitchen, and they groped their way into a backyard, surrounded by a high stone wall. " See! We climb over- —we drop into another street—we escape from my Anarchist friends (very pleasantly • Is it not so?" asked the young Russian. "I can't climb over!'' protested Miss Allandale. "Yes, my brave little one! I simash the bits of glass bottle—so —with my stick. I throw my coat across —I • pull myself U p— no w give" me your two hands. Come!"

Miss Allandale never knew how she managed it. She was only conscious of a grip like steel at her wrists, a second's wild scramble, a brief respite a* the top of the wall, and a dropping down into the arms held up to receive her. They were in a quiet back street, as the Russian had foreseen, with not a soul in view. "Now we'll hunt for <a taxi," he said with great, coolness. "But where shall we go?" gasped the lady journalist. "To the offices of the Orb," replied the Russian.

The harsh-tongued tyrant Wolf received the two fugitives from Anarchism in his private room, and listened to their story with tolerable patience. Miss Allandale was stupid with surprise. The Russian and the editor had greeted each <ther like old friends. Mr Wolf explained the situation in jerky sentences. - , "Now, young lady, when you talked that rot about discovering an Anarchist I never guessed you had spotted my sightseein' cousin, Michael Ivanitch, just arrived from Moscow. But when be called here the" self-same night I put two and two together. How did I do that? asked the editor sharply. "Well, he raved about a pretty girl he had passed- m Fleet street at the cornea- of Chancery lane By his description I knew it was you, so I told him of your terrible suspicions. H> made a bet he would induce you to 'track him down' as a dangerous Anarchist. , "I told him vou were going to the British Museum on the following day, so be knew where to look for you. It all began in a joke, but lately, I don't know why. Michael has turned repentant. Says ho feels like a scoundrel for deceiving vou. Perhaps you can understand him—l can't!" , „ "I am ashamed of myselt for all my cruel thoughts!" exclaimed Miss Allandale. "I said that I hated and despised you, Mr Ivanitch, and I believed I haa tracked you down." - . "No 1 No! It is I who must plead tor forgiveness.' Can you ever forgive me, my dearest—Miss Allandale?" said the She an answered very softly. Mr Wolf, who was bending over his work, looked at them both shrewdly for a minute Then he smiled an unusually kind and indulgent smile. "Go and discuss the matter in the next room I'll *ee that you're not disturbed,' said he. "Get out of my office! Come back again presently—but you needn t hurry. "-M.A.P.