In fact I was never so busy in all my life as during those four weeks
of preparation for the stupendous task I had set myself; and you will
understand that there were countless things to do, unnumbered details
to arrange, and a thousand and one ramifications of the work to be
planned and plotted and thoroughly comprehended, not alone by myself,
but by the men I would gather around me to work under my direction.
The organization of a secret service bureau, no matter how general may
be its duties, is at least a monumental task; but the organization of
such a bureau as this one whose very existence must remain a secret
from all the world, presented difficulties not to be met with or
contended against under any other circumstances.
It was necessary that I should become the chief over an army of men,
and it was equally imperative that not one person among the rank and
file of that army should know of my existence, as it was related to
them. With the chiefs of departments and sections, it was necessary
that I should have intercourse and interviews, but I had already made
my mental selection of persons to fill those positions, when I arrived
in St. Petersburg, and the organization of the several departments was
to be left in their hands.
I was determined that there should be no phase of Russian life which
could hide itself away from the skill of my investigating forces; from
palace to hovel, from the highest official in the Russian diplomatic
service and in the army to the meanest servant or laborer, my sources
of knowledge must extend, and every detail of it all must necessarily
be so complete as to render it not only exact, but absolutely under my
personal control and direction, without however in any way creating the
suspicion that I was personally interested. Presently you will
understand more perfectly how this all came about, and in quite a
natural way it would seem, for always things accomplished seem easy
enough to the casual observer; and you who read are only observers
after all. You are receiving a bit of unwritten history which closely
concerned the Russian empire and without which the assassination of
Alexander would undoubtedly have happened many years before it did, for
I give to myself the credit of having extended the days of that really
great but much misunderstood Moscovite gentleman.
At the time of my appearance in St. Petersburg the forces of nihilism
had assumed proportions greater than they had ever attained before or
will ever attain to again, thanks to my activities. The palace itself
was a hotbed of conspiracy; the rank and file of the army was so
disaffected that the officers never knew whom they could depend upon or
whom they might trust; a secret pressure of the thumb, indeterminate in
its character but nevertheless significant, was likely to be received
from any hand clasp, no matter where given or with whom exchanged, and
a princess or a countess was as likely to bestow it upon you as any
ordinary person whom you might chance to meet. The pressure itself was
merely a tentative question which might be translated by the words:
"Are you a nihilist?" and you might understand it and reply to it by a
returning pressure of acquiescence, or ignore it utterly, as you
pleased. The pressure itself was so slight, was carelessly given and
might so readily be attributed to a careless motion of the hand that it
could not betray the person who made it; nor could the answering
pressure do so.