Chapter XII

The court in which the Mickleton election petition was to be heard sat in the Town Hall of that borough, and the first day, Tuesday, was occupied in formalities, but even so the end of the great room set aside for the public was crowded.

The main part of the business was taken the next morning, the proceedings were short--and they proved decisive. After a few unimportant witnesses had been called--their testimony was very inconclusive--Mr. Stephens was heard. To the member's intense relief not a word passed upon the Bogey Man, not a word upon the bag of sovereigns, for the inquiry was conducted with honour, and the conventions of our elections were allowed. When Mr. Clutterbuck heard that his own secretary was to be examined, he could not but feel confident in the result, but the spectacle of one whom he trusted and who was his right hand throughout the struggle being used by the lawyers against himself, was a thing Mr. Clutterbuck very properly resented. He silenced his anger by remembering that justice will have its course.

Charlie Fitzgerald gave his evidence in that simple, direct way which should be a model for us all; he answered every question in few words, neither embellishing nor concealing anything. He admitted the very considerable influence of the Fishmonger Relief Committee, and was proceeding to estimate the ten or twelve thousand it had spent for his employer, when Sir John Compton at once interfered and ruled the evidence out. It had been clearly laid down in three precedents that an independent organisation was free to spend what sums it saw fit so long as those funds did not proceed from the pocket of the candidate or his agent.

The thing seemed settled and Mr. Clutterbuck was breathing again towards the close of that day, when counsel in a tone ominously calm, said shortly:

"Now, Mr. Fitzgerald, will you tell us where you were between half past nine and midnight, of Monday the 6th of November of last year?"

Mr. Fitzgerald remembered the hour and day and all the events with truly remarkable accuracy. He said with perfect frankness that he had spent the evening going in a cab from the Curzon Arms to the Mother Bunch; from the Mother Bunch to the Harvest Home; from the Harvest Home to the Drovers, from the Drovers to the Naked Man; from the Naked Man to the Adam and Eve; and from the Adam and Eve to the Prince of Wales's Feathers; he could not be absolutely certain of the order but it was more or less as he had stated it.

Those in court who did not understand the nature of the confession began to smile, but in a few moments they saw the drift of the examination when counsel put this perfectly plain demand:

"Mr. Fitzgerald, think carefully: did you or did you not offer a glass of whiskey in the Prince of Wales's Feathers to one Alfred Arthur Pound?"

"I offered a glass of whiskey to him and to several gentlemen," said Charlie Fitzgerald openly.

"You offered whiskey to these electors, Mr. Fitzgerald?" said counsel.

"I couldn't see," began Charlie Fitzgerald.

But the Bench at once interrupted. "You are not here, witness, to tell us what you saw or what you did not see. You are here to give us your evidence."

And Charlie Fitzgerald was silent. He was asked further questions. He had given whiskey to various citizens at the Curzon Arms, at the Naked Man, at the Adam and Eve, and in fact at every public-house but one upon the whole of that night. And of the men who could be traced, every one of whom gave evidence upon oath in rapid succession, no less than 72·6 per cent. possessed votes in the constituency.

The finding of the commission was very brief; it could not be otherwise after what they had heard. They emphasised in the strongest possible manner Mr. Clutterbuck's own innocence in the affair. The Bench affirmed in the most flattering and emphatic terms that a more honourable man than Mr. Clutterbuck had not appeared in the arena of our public life.

Fitzgerald also, in spite of what had proved a lamentable imprudence, was heartily and gladly exonerated of any attempt to corrupt that high standard of purity which is the glory of our public life. Sir John Compton was careful to add that no shadow of suspicion rested on Mr. Stephens; he was willing to exonerate Alfred Arthur Pound. But there was no choice offered to a reasonable man, before whom the facts had been presented; though most certainly no one had intended corruption or pressure in any form--_that_, he hoped, was absent from our public life--yet it was plain that within three weeks of the poll a large number of electors had received a benefit especially defined by statute as illegal and had received it at the hands of one virtually acting (though of course in complete innocence of any unworthy motive) for the gentleman who was candidate for the borough. Even had there been no such statute or definition, the conclusion was plain, and it was their very painful but solemn duty to declare, in accordance with the evidence they had heard--evidence Sir John Compton was careful to point out, which no one had attempted to rebut, and which he, for his part, had very fully believed, that the election was invalid.

Mr. Clutterbuck jumped up wildly:

"Oh my Lord!" he said.

But his counsel pulled him sharply by the coat tail, tearing in so doing, I am sorry to say, the seam by which that appendage is sometimes attached to the upper part of the garment; while Mr. Justice Paisley, who had hitherto been silent, sternly ordered him to be seated.

Once again within six months the Borough of Mickleton was widowed of its proud share in the administration of our land.

Whether it would or would not be disfranchised for a period of years was a matter which little concerned the unhappy man upon whom the blow had fallen. He walked distractedly away at such a pace that it was some hundred yards before Fitzgerald had caught him up and attempted to quiet his perturbation. To his first mood of despair was rapidly being added a second mood of anger and outraged justice, but he was honourable enough not to lay to the poor young man's account the terrible misfortune that had befallen himself. He did not forget all that Fitzgerald had done for him during the critical days of the election, and he was grateful even now for the many services rendered by one without whom his first and ephemeral success would never have been won.

Nevertheless he insisted, as the reader may well imagine, in seeking some relief in the company of William Bailey, and Charlie, after a moment's hesitation, was too wise to dissuade him.

He left his employer at the door in Bruton Street, with an appointment to meet later in the evening, and the broken man was ushered by Zachary into that familiar room, where he waited in a dull agony for his mentor's return.

It was a full half-hour before William Bailey came in. He had been hurriedly told in the hall what visitor he had. He had not troubled to look at the tape at his Club; he was pretty certain of the result, and there was a sort of I-told-you-so look on his face as he greeted Mr. Clutterbuck, which did little to raise that gentleman's spirits.

It was a foolish thing to ask, but Mr. Clutterbuck did ask William Bailey what he was to do.

William Bailey answered without hesitation that he could do nothing. "Unless indeed," he added, "you care to act and to lead from outside; you can still do that. One good meeting by an unseated member can do more against a Government than a dozen questions in the House. D'you care to try? It's risky, you know.... They'll put the whole thing into court and muzzle you; and you'll have to speak before Parliament opens also, because on the first day it'll be called out of order unless there's a really _strong_ press outside."

Mr. Clutterbuck was in a mood for anything. What he was to do, or why, was quite beyond him; but there was to be a meeting and it would hurt those who had hurt him: so much he saw.

"Other men have done it," said William Bailey, citing examples from a less orderly past, "and you can do it if you like."

"I'm willing enough," said Mr. Clutterbuck, setting his teeth. "You mean," he added, brilliantly concealing his ignorance; "you mean, I'm to go on about the mines?"

"That's it," said William Bailey.

"Well," said Mr. Clutterbuck, his head sinking upon his shoulders again, "you'll have to do it, Mr. Bailey. I can't see or think or plan; and I don't know what the Anapootra can do for me or any one, supposing I did----"

"Oh, nonsense," said Mr. Bailey briskly, "a man must do what he can; you can't get your seat again by main force. You can't get the other things you want right off the shelf by helping yourself. You must go on pressing and pressing. It's the only way--it's the one way in which anything gets done. Besides which, it's enough to make any man----"

"You're right there," said Mr. Clutterbuck eagerly; "it's enough to make any man take action. What will you do, Mr. Bailey?"

Mr. Bailey, when he had to form a rapid plan, gave a sort of false impression of rapidity and strength which had deceived many. He mapped out all the dates.

"You know the Directors are going for libel against the _Courier_?" he said.

Mr. Clutterbuck didn't know it.

"Well, but they are. To-day's Wednesday, and it will be before the courts to-day week, next Wednesday," he said. "Once it's before the courts you'll go to choke if you speak about it; so will any other Johnny except in Parliament; besides which, Parliament meets the same day, and what's more, I'm not at all sure they'd allow it even in Questions, and there won't be any Questions until Wednesday, and by that time, as I say, unless we get steam up outside it'll be out of order. Monday's no good, you can't get people on Monday. It'll take a day to get the posters up, and the advertisements and to dry them. We'll say Saturday--Saturday at eight, in the Jubilee Hall."

"What for?" said his slower minded companion.

"For the meeting of course," said Mr. Bailey in surprise; "for the great meeting of protest by the ex-Member from Mickleton, on the Anapootra Ruby Mines!"

For all Mr. Clutterbuck's determination he was somewhat appalled. "I'm not at all sure that I should speak, well I--I don't know even what or who ..." he began slowly.

"Oh that's all right," cut in William Bailey eager for the fray. "I'll write your speech out, and I'll introduce you on the platform. It's the _name_ we want, and your power in the constituency. They know _that_. The papers won't dare boycott it, and you'll get the horny-handed in thousands. We'll have a grand time!"

He said it with the irresponsibility of a boy, but that mood is dangerous in a man.

So was it decided that on the next Saturday, before Parliament opened, and before the matter was, to be classical, _sub-judice_, a great meeting should be held and the ball set rolling by Mr. Clutterbuck, Champion of the People; but the Champion was torn between fear and desire.

Mr. Clutterbuck when he reached the Plâs, was careful to keep the meeting even from his wife. He told it to none but Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was sympathetic and it felt like old times.

Meanwhile, in London, Mr. Bailey had hired the Jubilee Hall, and, if it were necessary for overflow, the Coronation Annex.

The next day he spent some hours with Mr. Clutterbuck, drilling his speech into him with unwearied repetition; and Charlie Fitzgerald, having nothing better to do, called on his dear old friend the Duke of Battersea, and passed with him a most delightful afternoon. Mr. Clutterbuck and Fitzgerald met at Victoria. The merchant and his secretary went home together. And that same evening the Duke of Battersea did what he had to do.

A telephone message to the Prime Minister's house and the assurance of a hearty welcome, made what he had to do easier for him. He found that statesman, still spirited and young in spite of his increasing trouble with the left lung, crouched over the fire, spreading his hands to the blaze. He talked to him of various things: of the session that was about to open, of the plague in Burmah, of Mrs. Kempton's latest book. He said a few words about Mr. Bailey, and casually mentioned the step which that gentleman was apparently about to take.

For a man in such doubtful health (and for one before whom such arduous duties immediately lay) the Prime Minister was quite vivacious in his replies. He differed from the Duke of Battersea with regard to Mrs. Kempton's latest book, and criticised her attitude towards Malthus. He spoke cheerfully of the coming session though he joked a little about the smallness of the majority; he was very grave indeed about the plague in Burmah--and he said nothing at all about Mr. Bailey.

The Duke of Battersea remained not more than twenty minutes. It was his interest to show his sympathy with the Prime Minister's illness rather than to detain him in conversation, and he could understand that the amusing story of Mr. Bailey's fanatical outburst would be touched on lightly or passed in silence by a man who sat in the same Cabinet with Lord Burpham; for after all, Lord Burpham's son, since the Duchess of Drayton's second marriage was stepfather to the girl whom William Bailey's favourite nephew had recently married, and relations of this kind, when they occur in the political life of our democracy, are naturally sacred. For all the shortness of his visit, the Duke of Battersea had learnt what he wanted to know. He did not depend upon the Prime Minister's aid. He re-entered his car with an alternative scheme clear before him, and when he reached home he began to carry it into effect.

In the midst of the room where the Philanthropist and Financier habitually worked, was a large table which had formerly been the property of the Cardinal de Rohan; it had passed into other hands during the misfortunes of the Reinachs[10] some twenty odd years before. Its broad surface supported but a few simple and necessary things: two tall Georgian candlesticks of silver plate, now fitted with electric lamps; a great ink-pot, and by the side of it an electric bell.

The Duke of Battersea spread out a large sheet of paper upon the table before him, made a few notes, re-arranged certain details, was satisfied with his plan, and next, without looking up, stretched forth his hand to touch the electric bell. He was old and some of his movements uncertain. His finger had the misfortune to find not the electric bell but the ink-pot, into which it deeply plunged. A lesser man would have been disturbed at the accident, and a coarser one might have been moved to suck the injured limb. The Duke of Battersea showed no such weakness. He looked up, rubbed his finger on the blotting-pad, made sure of the electric bell, and when it was answered, said in a low voice:

"Mr. Befan."

The servant disappeared, and came back in half an hour with the message:

"Mr. Bevan is not at the Agency, your grace; he is watching the Hampton divorce case, your grace. The Agency says, your grace, will you have Penderton?"

"Certainly not," said the Duke of Battersea, still intent upon the paper before him. "Find out when he will be back."

In a quarter of an hour he was told that the detective was expected home from Hertfordshire at half-past twelve that night.

The duke looked at his watch, compared it with a fine specimen of Toledo clockwork set in a German monstrance upon the mantelpiece, and saw that he had an hour to wait. He made a motion with his hand and was left alone. He was determined to see Bevan and to see him that night, but it was nearly one in the morning before the door opened and the detective appeared.

The detective was a short gentlemanly man with a hare lip and a malformation of the forehead which raised one eyebrow considerably above the other. He did not limp, but when he walked the emphasis was upon the right leg. His ears which were large and prominent did much to counter-balance the pleasing intelligence of his expression. He was not a man whom one would at the first sight, nor at the second, have chosen for the unravelling of difficult problems, but the Duke of Battersea knew far too much of the world to judge by any other standard than that of performance and of practice. And Mr. Bevan had not failed him on two recent occasions when rapid execution had been essential, as it was essential now.

He wasted no words. He described who had to be watched and what evidence if possible had to be gathered. He gave the address in Bruton Street, and as the detective stood respectfully at the door, he named a hundred pounds.

"It's worth a hundred and fifty, your grace," said Mr. Bevan, as he repeated the conditions which were laid down to him.

"Sefen and sixpence," said the Duke with a gentle smile, "if what I have told you already was all indeed"--and having said that he gave time for it to soak in.

Mr. Bevan changed his hat from one hand to the other, then held it in both hands and said he was sure he didn't mean to say more than one should say, and he would certainly leave it to the Duke, who nodded and answered him:

"That is good--that is right. For this reason I make it a hundred; and if he does nothing as you want, you shall see him do, and you shall be a witness."

"I can't make a man do anything worth telling you, my lord," said Mr. Bevan rather surlily.

"Why, then," said the Duke of Battersea, approaching his wrists and opening his hands widely outwards, "how can I either pay?"

Mr. Bevan sighed unpleasantly and was content.

He left the Presence before two o'clock, but such was his intimacy with more than one of the servants that it was half-past two in the morning before he was clear of Barnett House. He did not wait for the tardy advent of the winter dawn; he was home before three; he then and there put on his professional boots, to the soles of which were attached small pads of india-rubber. He secreted upon his person a small revolver, a yet smaller electric lantern, £5 in change in case the hunt should take him far afield, a flask of Scotch whiskey, a box of fusees, some cigarettes such as are smoked by the landed classes, two good cigars, five cheap ones, a little Craven mixture in one side of his tobacco pouch and some peculiarly vile shag in the other. He put on a waistcoat within the lining of which his true name and address were inscribed upon a linen pad, thrust into his breast pocket an envelope bearing a false name and address, and put into a visiting card case certain visiting cards bearing yet a third name and address, that of one Hilling, a commercial traveller in the Seven Sisters Road; others inscribed Mr. John Hilling, Captain 47th Fusiliers, Rochester, he also secreted in various pockets, and a few more in which the same name was played upon in other ways.

The reader will be surprised to hear that after these preparations he put upon his head a billycock hat of the most demonstrative type, and committed the imprudence of wearing a large, made-up blue tie. But genius, however universal, however disciplined and experienced, is human. It is easy to criticise a fault in detail; it is more difficult to reproduce the general plan of the master; and those who may be disposed to ridicule the large made-up tie of Mr. Bevan, or the billycock hat which I have gone so far as to call demonstrative, would do well to ask themselves whether they would have had the learning or the intuition to provide themselves--I mention but one point--with cigarettes such as are smoked by the landed gentry, with Craven mixture upon one side of the tobacco pouch and with a peculiarly vile shag upon the other; yet Mr. Bevan had thought of these things!

A few glasses of hot whiskey and water to prepare him for the ordeal were rapidly swallowed--for Mr. Bevan, like most men of acute intelligence, was a moderate drinker--and he went out into the night. It was a little after four o'clock.

A man of less experience in the ways of the world might have neglected to observe the movements of so wealthy a personage as Mr. Bailey until a later hour in the morning, so universal has the deplorable habit of late rising become among the governing classes of this country. Mr. Bevan knew better. He had seen many a dark deed done between five and seven of a London January morning, nay, in the old days as a member of the Force he could well remember routing out the Alsatians close upon six o'clock, though to be sure on that occasion the Force had been guided to those abandoned premises by the sound of boisterous music and the firing of a rocket through one of the upper windows.

It was not five, then, when Mr. Bevan took his stand opposite the little house in Bruton Street. He had chosen his advantage very well. With a courage and skill which only those who have served in the Metropolitan Police can understand, he hid himself in a corner where a shadow thrown by a buttress put him in complete darkness. He was a short man and yet had to crouch a little, but he was used to discomfort in the prosecution of his duty, and in this attitude, unable even to smoke for fear the light should betray him, he watched for over an hour. At the end of that time rain began to fall. He did not upon that account abandon his post; the tardy winter dawn gleamed at last over the shining roofs of London. With the first hint of daylight the light on his collar, which he had neglected to cover, betrayed him to a policeman of the name of Tooley, who was slowly pacing the street and whistling a mournful air.

As quick as lightning Mr. Bevan was grabbed by both elbows, his face thrust against the rough brick-work, and a natural demand, brief and perhaps somewhat too violent, as to his occupation and intentions was addressed to him by that Civil Servant. To the policeman's astonishment Mr. Bevan's only reply to these manœuvres was what is technically known in the Force as "the shake," and retreating rapidly three steps backward he had the presence of mind to say in a low tone, "I'll pass the order."

With these words he satisfied his colleague in the manner which is usual with our efficient and highly trained body of public guardians, of the nature and legitimacy of his mission. The respective positions of the Duke of Battersea and of Mr. Bailey were quite enough to convince a sober judgment, and policeman Tooley, an active and intelligent man, at once appreciated the situation, but felt bound in duty to add:

"I must keep my eye on you, mind," to which Mr. Bevan cheerfully replied by a nod of the head, and resumed his former post.

At about half-past seven the rain ceased. Eight o'clock struck: no one in the street was stirring. A milkman passed down on foot, leaving his little can at every gate, but carefully refraining from uttering that musical cry, which the upper classes have, very properly, forbidden in the neighbourhood of their town residences. It was a quarter to nine and the whiskey in Mr. Bevan's stomach had long ago grown cold; nay, he felt positively weak for want of breakfast, when the first signs of life appeared in Mr. Bailey's house: these took the form, first of a cat leaping out as though in panic from the area gate, and immediately afterwards the appearance of a young woman's head utterly incomplete in toilet, and, in everything save the sex and youth of its owner, repulsive. Next, two blinds were drawn up in a bedroom on the second floor. The window was thrown open; and for a little while nothing more of real importance occurred.

Within the house, Mr. Bailey's man Zachary had woken his master and had flooded the room with light.

"It is ten o'clock, sir," he said in his customary tone of mingled severity and deference.

"That's a lie," said Mr. Bailey, not moving his head from the pillow, nor withdrawing it by one inch from beneath the bedclothes.

Zachary made no reply. He was accustomed to conversations of this kind. He made an unnecessary noise with the hot water, banged the furniture about, and then before leaving the room said:

"May I go out for the day, sir?" in a tone rather of menace than of inquiry.

"You can go at a quarter past ten--it must be nearly that now," chuckled Mr. Bailey with sleepy humour.

Mr. Bailey's man Zachary was annoyed to have been caught in this trap; he consoled himself by remembering that he might leave the house at once and his master be none the wiser.

"If you're not back by six this evening," said Mr. Bailey good-naturedly, stretching his arms and yawning, "you'll be in the workhouse in a week or two."

"Very good, sir," said Zachary in a more respectful tone than he had yet adopted; he shut the door very softly after him and went tiptoe down the deep carpet of the stairs. For the next ten minutes he was dressing as befitted a man of his temper, and well before ten o'clock he had emerged from the front door in a quiet, sensible frock-coat, a good but not obtrusive top hat, quite new gloves of a deep brown, and a serviceable but neat umbrella. His boots, however, were laced, not buttoned; blacked, not polished.

Mr. Bevan's heart rose with a bound. His long vigil was ended! He permitted Zachary to turn the corner of Bruton Street into Berkeley Square, and then, gauging his pace at much the same as that set by this excellent domestic, he followed.

The error was not only natural, it was inevitable. It was no case for hesitation nor even for rapid decision; but even had such a necessity arisen in Mr. Bevan's mind, his habit of prompt decision would have saved him from even a moment's delay. He had found his quarry and he would hunt it down.

With the sober walk that denotes a man of the world, but now and then twirling his umbrella as though his birth and status gave him a right to despise convention, nay, going once or twice so far as to whistle the bar of a tune, Zachary proceeded northward to the Tube, and turned into that station which takes its name from Bond Street.

The Tubes of London have added yet another problem to the already arduous intellectual task of that great army of detectives which stands between Society and Anarchy. To follow a man in the street, to pursue his cab or his omnibus at the regulation distance advised by Captain Wattlebury, M. Grignan, and other authorities of European reputation, is an easy matter; but once let your man get into the train ahead of you on the Tube, and you have lost him! The Tube necessitates, as all my readers who have engaged in detective work will recognise, a close proximity to the person watched; but Mr. Bevan was equal to the occasion. Fully appreciating the strategical advantage of the stairs, he was at their foot long before the lift had reached the level of the trains, and following Zachary's tall hat through the crush, he sat down in the carriage next to that in which the scent lay, gazing into vacancy and sucking the top of his umbrella. Mr. Bevan watched him narrowly through a contrivance with which all the forces of law and order are familiar: a little book which can be easily held before the face as though one were reading, but which is pierced by a convenient hole through which the right eye can sweep the landscape beyond.

Zachary changed for Hampstead, and so did Mr. Bevan. At the junction he bought a newspaper, the name of which Mr. Bevan, to his great chagrin, was unable to note, as he folded it inside-out and read the lower half of the sheet. At Hampstead, I find it in Mr. Bevan's notes that they alit, and they reached the happy upper world together. Zachary made straight for the Heath. Mr. Bevan, now free to follow him at a discreet distance, did so, but grew fainter and weaker as he walked, for he was in desperate need of food. He hoped and prayed that the chase would turn into a restaurant: his prayer was answered, though in a manner shocking to one who still maintained his respect for rank.

Zachary turned into a little public-house of an unpleasing type, nodded cheerfully to the potman, whom he addressed as "Larky," and ordered--of all things in the world--gin and water!

The accident was a godsend to Mr. Bevan. He noticed that his quarry had at least had the decency to go into the saloon bar; he dashed into the public one, gulped down a glass of beer, bought a handful of biscuits, went out immediately lest he should miss the trail, and was glad to see that his victim yet lingered within.

In twenty minutes or so he came out, his eyes a little watery, and continued his unsuspecting way towards the Heath with the detective after him. But he was not alone! By his side there walked, dressed in a manner that would have appalled the Press itself, a young woman!

The plot thickened. And Mr. Bevan, who had expected a very different occupation to be provided for him, divined at once the possibilities which his discovery contained. He had no need now to fear hunger, anxiety, or lack of matter. It was plain sailing for the whole afternoon. He followed them to the Heath, he saw them seated and embraced behind a clump of thorn and ready to devour a luncheon they had purchased and carried in a paper bag. He would leave them now; he had time to return to the little public-house and to inquire of the potman every detail of the unhappy man's conduct; he was told of his monstrous promise to marry the daughter of the potman's master; of his repeated and lengthy calls; he learnt at full length the whole disgraceful business, and with admirable self-mastery he pretended to no surprise when he heard that the name the visitor was known to the publican and his servant by was "Zachary Hemmings." He waited patiently until the guilty man reappeared with his paramour in her father's home. He waited outside in the advancing dusk until the male offender had reappeared, somewhat unsteadily, and giving every sign of an exhilaration due to something more than requited affection. His hat was not absolutely straight upon his head; his umbrella trailed upon the ground; his face was indolently happy. Zachary did not take the Tube, but as it was now already dark and as he remembered in a fuddled way that his place was in jeopardy, he had the cunning to hail a lonely taximeter which was returning in no good humour after depositing a fare at the Spaniards.

There are in the humbler strata of our national life qualities of courage and immediate decision such as produce a Kitchener, a Milner, or a Macdonald in the higher ranks. A taximeter is the fleetest of all beasts: in Hampstead taximeters are rare. Mr. Bevan had decided in a flash. He dashed up, pulled off his hat, imitating with partial success the speech of a man out of breath with running, and told Zachary at top speed that if he would permit him to share his taximeter back to town he would be saving the life of a young child, of whose sudden accidental fall he had but just heard by telephone. The domestic, though perhaps not naturally warm-hearted, or if warm-hearted, rendered callous by years of exacting labour, was, under the combined influences which he had enjoyed, in a softer--nay, in an effusive mood. He seized Mr. Bevan's hands, swung him into the cab, shouted "Cer'nly!" and putting his head out of the window said to the astonished chauffeur, "Home!"

Before that mechanician had time to reply in suitable terms, Mr. Bevan had whispered through the little hole, "That's all right, Bond Street: tell you where to stop," and they darted away down the hill.

Zachary tried twice to sing, remembered each time that he was in company, smiled vapidly each time, and each time was silent again. But I cannot deny that at Chalk Farm, quite forgetting the child whose unhappy accident was causing an agonised father to be his guest, he insisted on getting out and drinking--a course from which that agonised father made no attempt to dissuade him; he repeated his folly at the Horseshoe.

At the corner of Bond Street the taximeter pulled up abruptly. Mr. Bevan leaped out, and nodding hurriedly at the astonished Zachary who had a vague comprehension that some things were too well known, and other things too mysterious, he gave the number in Bruton Street to the chauffeur and disappeared. The taximeter swept round eight or nine corners, waited perhaps a quarter of an hour behind as many blocks in the traffic, and finally deposited the unhappy Zachary at his master's door.

The noise of the engine attracted that master to the ground floor windows of his study, and Zachary noted with alarm the vision of his face. His confused brain prepared a defence. The sum marked upon the taximeter was four and tuppence: he feared for one idiotic moment that it represented 42_s_. Recovering from his alarm he remembered to divide it by eight, which is the number of pence per mile commonly charged by these useful vehicles, failed to arrive at a quotient, pressed ten shillings into the chauffeur's hand, and was only too glad to see him depart in the direction of Berkeley Square and of those wealthy regions to the West. The wretched man was fumbling with his latch-key for the keyhole, when he nearly fell forward inwards as the door was suddenly opened by Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Bailey's face was genial, his eyes bright as ever, his whiskers as healthy and florid as though he had but just completed his morning toilet. With his hands in his pockets he looked down on his abashed servitor and said pleasantly:

"How drunk you are to-night, Zachary!" He then added as Zachary's hat fell to the floor: "I hope that's your hat, Zachary, and not mine!"

Zachary said "Yes, sir," with painful clarity of intonation.

"You come in here, Zachary," said Mr. Bailey, opening the door of the study. "I want to talk to you. Sit down in that chair, a long way from the fire."

Zachary did as he was bid: Mr. Bailey shut him in, went to the kitchen stairs and roared down them:

"Jane-bring-me-up-a-cup-of-very-hot-coffee-with-no-sugar-in-it-at-once -I-don't-want-to-be-kept-waiting-in-the-study!" For such was Mr. Bailey's method of delivering an order in person on the rare occasions when he put himself to that inconvenience. The consequence of that method was that hardly had he joined Zachary in the study when Jane appeared, purple in the face, with a large cup of coffee which contained no trace of sugar, and which was extremely hot. The moment she was out of the room Mr. Bailey solemnly dropped a pinch of salt into the coffee and said to his miserable servant:

"Drink that!"

"I do assure you, sir--" said Zachary in tones of increasing sobriety.

"Drink that, you ass," said Mr. Bailey, "do you suppose I don't know what's good for you?"

"Yes, sir, certainly sir," said Zachary humbly. He gulped the coffee down, and when he had done so began: "It's not near seven, sir."

Mr. Bailey put up his hand.

"Now look here, Zachary," he said; "what I want is information. First of all, you came in a taxi' cab."

"Yes, sir, I did, sir," said Zachary. "I'm sure, sir, I wouldn't have----"

"I don't mind your coming home in a pumpkin with six white mice," said Mr. Bailey. "I don't want to know why about anything. What I want is information. Where did you come from?"

"'Ampstead, sir," said Zachary, who but rarely dropped his h's, but thought there were occasions when it was necessary to do so. Then forgetting his master's injunction, he added: "But there was a gentleman, with me, sir."

"Oh," said Mr. Bailey, thoroughly interested. "That's what I wanted--information. You came in a taximeter (that I could see for myself). You came from Hampstead, you came drunk (I'm sure you won't mind my saying that!) and there was a gentleman with you. Now, who was that gentleman?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said the bewildered Zachary.

"Good heavens!" replied Mr. Bailey. "Can't you remember where you met him?"

"It was coming out of my friend's father's house that is to be," said Zachary, with a precision rather of visual concept than of terminology.

"The Hop and Garters?" said Mr. Bailey, with vague reminiscence.

"No, sir," said Zachary, with as much severity as he had power under the conditions to assume. "The Hop Garden, sir; that's the name of the house, the Hop Garden."

"How had you passed your time till then?" asked Mr. Bailey.

Zachary recounted his day in no great detail, and in some fear lest his dignity should suffer as he told the story.

Mr. Bailey mused. To characters so wayward and loose the solid plans whereby great men of affairs achieve their ends are at once inexplicable and tedious. Mr. Bailey had no conception of what was toward. He might even have been ready, had Zachary remembered the circumstance, to believe the story the detective told about a sick child and the necessity for speed. As it was, he was merely bewildered, and was filled with a sort of instinctive muddled conception that somehow or other it had been worth somebody's while to shadow Zachary as far as the top of Bond Street and no further. But why on earth should any one want to shadow Zachary? He thought of burglars, but burglars do not become intimate with servants by exciting their suspicions. He thought of practical jokes; he thought of petty theft, but Zachary assured him he was only ten shillings out, and even then remembered that he had given the ten shillings to the chauffeur.

While he was in this sort of study, making neither head nor tail of the adventure, Zachary volunteered, a little nervously, for he was afraid it might sound like an explanation and not like the "information" his master was after:

"I'm sure he was a gentleman, sir--he knew where you lived."

Mr. Bailey was quite seriously concerned. To men of his intellectual calibre, utterly unworthy to compete with the great directing brains of our masterful time, and capable only of a superficial and purely verbal display, a sense of a force which knows _them_ while they do not know _it_, is intolerable. Such men are the weak, hunted creatures of our powerful and creative generation--that is, when the hunt is worth the hunter's while. And the hunters--the successful hunters--are the financiers, the statesmen, the owners, the doers--the Hearsts, the Northcliffes, the Clemenceaus, the Roosevelts, the Levi Leiter Juniors--who make us what we are.

Mr. Bailey, who knew so little of reality, knew this at least, and with the instinct of all hunted things, he was troubled. He was much graver when he rose after this conversation and said:

"That's all right, Zachary, you'd better go to bed. Don't eat anything, and drink nothing beyond such cold water as you absolutely require. I'm sure it will be sufficient."

"I thank you humbly, sir," said Zachary. He went out of the room quite sober--such is the effect of coffee with a little salt--and crept up to bed.

Mr. Bailey remained for an hour and more gazing at the fire; then he rang the bell and ordered dinner with the most precise care, choosing just those articles which could be cooked lightly and quickly, insisting to the cook whom he saw in person, that they should follow in a precise order and at precise intervals of time, and adding, as was his invariable custom after each item:

"If you haven't got it, send for it."

At half-past eight this repast was to be ready, and for him alone. He puzzled at Zachary's mysterious adventure for some moments and longer, could make nothing of it, and in order perhaps to relieve his uneasy sense of incapacity, took refuge in reading one evening newspaper after another, and passing upon each some silent, facile, cynical comment as he read.

Meanwhile Mr. Bevan had reported at Barnett House. He was at once admitted.

He found the aged statesman and philanthropist before the Adams chimney-piece, a mass of papers upon a what-not beside him, his telephone mobilised upon the great central table, and a pile of bank-notes standing by the side of it under a paper-weight of bronze representing the Ariadne of Knidos, a bust the poor Master of Kendale had especially admired.

Mr. Bevan stood waiting at the door. The Duke of Battersea with exquisite good breeding waved his aged hand towards a chair, but Mr. Bevan preferred to remain standing, and he was not pressed. He first broke the silence:

"I've done the job proper, my lord--your grace, I mean," he said; "heavy, too."

"I ask you to tell me quite shortly what you have found," said the Duke, without lifting his eyes.

It was almost the same order that Mr. Bailey was giving to his servant at that same moment some two or three hundred yards away, but what a gulf between the two men! The strong and secure architect of his own and of his country's successes, sitting in the splendour of Barnett House, doing, controlling all--and the poor egoist whose feeble good-nature or vanity had been the chief feature of the interview in Bruton Street! Mr. Bevan told his story with precision, described the well-dressed gentleman leaving the house in Bruton Street; his disgraceful adventures in a lower rank; his assumed name of "Zachary Hemmings." The Duke asked the detective whether he were sure Mr. Bailey used that false name. Mr. Bevan said "Quite sure, your grace," and completed his tale with the story of the drunkenness, the taxi, and all the nasty business. When he had done he pulled out the piece of paper which had accompanied him throughout the day and to which he had added a few lines in the Bull and Flummery, on his way from Bond Street to Barnett House.

"I've got it all writ down here, sir--I mean your grace." (The Duke of Battersea made an impatient gesture--he could not bear to have his title insisted upon.) "It's all here," repeated Mr. Bevan with legitimate pride.

"Give it me," said the Duke of Battersea quietly.

Mr. Bevan knew the world as well as a man can under his circumstances; he also was one of the strong girders of our State, not one of its painted ornaments; but when two generals meet the greater conquers. He handed over the paper quite innocently, and before he knew what had happened, the Duke of Battersea had put it in the fire; nay, with a vigour rare at his age and rarer still in men of his worldly possessions, he had thrust it among the coals with the toe of his boot.

Mr. Bevan could not restrain a movement towards it. He was too late to save it, then the reserve which the presence of the Great imposes upon us all recalled him to himself.

This brief episode over--and it did not take thirty seconds--the Duke of Battersea said in a rather louder, more vibrant tone than he had yet used:

"Thank you, Bevan, there iss your money"--he wagged his head towards the table. "You said you would not take it in a cheque; so: but I like to know where my money goes; and how also."

Mr. Bevan opened his mouth to speak.

"It is take it or leaf it," said the Duke of Battersea.

Mr. Bevan took it.

"I do think, sir ..." began Mr. Bevan.

There passed suddenly over the Duke of Battersea's face an expression of such concentration and power as may have passed perhaps over that of another great genius[11] when he planned the Parliamentary fortunes of the Panama Canal and seemed for a moment thwarted. It was an expression of enormous intensity, and Mr. Bevan, putting the notes without counting them into a side pocket of his coat, and keeping his hand upon it, quietly left the room.

When he was gone the Duke of Battersea took a note which he had already written and was keeping against this moment, and sent it round the corner in a cab to the club where he knew that Fitzgerald was waiting upon that critical night before going back to the Plâs. The cab came back immediately with Charles Fitzgerald in it. Here at least was a man who understood haste. He was not even wearing a hat!

The Duke of Battersea rose to receive him--a rare honour, but he knew when to pay honour. He was affectionate to him, put one hand upon his shoulder, and asked him whether he would drink anything, which Fitzgerald very gladly did; and when Fitzgerald had drunk he said:

"Do you think you can bring Mr. Bailey at once here? Ah?"

"He'll be dining now," said Fitzgerald.

"He is dining alone to-night," said the Duke of Battersea, "he is not dining till half-past eight o'clock. It is twenty minutes only past seven o'clock." He knew these things.

He added a number of other details, stuffed with research, concentration, and plan, and Fitzgerald admired all he heard.

Fitzgerald waited a moment. "Mary Smith could get him," he said finally, thinking as he spoke and holding his head to one side. "I'll telephone to her and she'll telephone to him. Then she'll let me know, and I'll go and fetch him. I'm sure he'll come."

He bothered for no formalities but went out at once, for he knew what was wanted.

The time seemed very long to the Duke of Battersea. The moments were important. Fitzgerald was gone but twenty-five minutes, and when he returned the Duke was glad to hear two shambling footsteps accompanying Fitzgerald's own decided step down the marble of the passage.

And sure enough, there came in, half a head above the tall young man, the taller, somewhat hesitating figure with its good-natured face, upon which could now be very palpably read a lack of ease.

The Duke of Battersea put out his hand, but Mr. Bailey was so awkward as to be occupied at that moment in blowing his nose. It was but one of many indications of the man's inward disturbance. Then he sat down, and behind him, without a word of comment or apology, Fitzgerald withdrew and was off to Mr. Clutterbuck's home.

When they were alone the Duke of Battersea said in a very gentle but very decided tone:

"Mr. Bailey, I think we know each other. I want to tell you a story. Will you listen out?"

"Listen what?" said Mr. Bailey, with his irritating verbal quibbles.

"Listen out to me," said the Duke of Battersea, certain of his idiom.

"Would I listen you out?" said Mr. Bailey.

"Yes," said the Duke of Battersea, still thoroughly master of himself.

"Go ahead," said Mr. Bailey. He leant back, put his hands into his pockets as though that drawing-room were the most familiar to him in the world, and surveyed the Duke of Battersea downward through half-shut eyes.

The old man began his tale. The wording of it was perfect, and if here and there a foreign idiom crept into his terse and carefully chosen phrases, Mr. Bailey would murmur a correction. To such impertinences the Duke paid no attention. He told the story of a man who had left home that morning; he gave the precise hour at which he left home, the manner of his dress, and the very lace upon his boots. He told the whole shameful story of the Tube, of the Hop Garden--

"Hop and Garters," said Mr. Bailey quietly.

"So--well then," cried the Duke of Battersea, for one moment visibly angered, "laugh at last and you laugh best." Then he sank back into his own sense of power, recovered English idiom and continued. As he went on to the story of the Heath, and of the luncheon, Mr. Bailey rose and began pacing up and down the room. When the Duke came to the final visit to the public-house, to the name "Zachary Hemming," which he scanned slowly, hardening the gutturals in "Zachary" and filling that word with sting, Mr. Bailey sat down again, and before the Duke had concluded he had covered his face with his hands. But the old man was pitiless. He told the story of the excesses at Chalk Farm, of further excesses at the Horseshoe; he gave the very description of the mysterious stranger, of the taximeter--of all. Then he ceased.

There is always something of the Cad in the Fanatic. A gentleman would have warned the aged Philanthropist of the error under which he laboured. Not so Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Bailey's face was still hidden. A slight movement of the shoulders did not betray his emotion. There was a long interval of silence. Then the Duke said:

"Well, Mr. Bailey, now who laughs at last?"

Mr. Bailey answered never a word.

"Mr. Bailey," continued the Duke, "I will do nothing, but so also you will nothing. No-thing," he added, pronouncing the word quite slowly, "no-thing at all." He wagged his head gently, and permitted the slightest of smiles to greet Mr. Bailey's face as it rose from between his hands. "No-thing at all. That is all is there," he ended.

Mr. Bailey, with bowed head and with an inaudible sigh repeated, but in a lower tone, stunned as it were into repeating the very phrases and accent of his host, "No-thing at all--that is all is there."

And he went out without another word.

In this way the Duke of Battersea secured himself from danger, and he slept that night certain that the meeting would not be held. He had won his battle.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: I do not allude to M. de Reinach, the great French statesman and champion of Truth and Justice, but to his uncle, whose sudden demise will be familiar to many.]

[Footnote 11: I refer once more to the (alas!) late Baron de Reinach, uncle of the great French statesman, Joseph de Reinach.]