Chapter V

"What luck!" said Eleanor, looking out of the window in the morning. The sky was grey and the streets were wet and dirty.

John had urged her to stay at home, offering to explain to Mr. Crawford why she was not returning to her employment, but she had insisted that she was well enough now and must treat Mr. Crawford as fairly as he had treated her. "I'll give notice to him at once," she said, "and he can get someone else as soon as possible ... but I can't leave him in the lurch!"

They travelled by Tube to town together, and John went on to Westminster Abbey. He was very early and when he arrived at the entrance nominated on the Invitation Card he found that he was the first arrival. Ten minutes afterwards, a grubby-looking man in a slouch hat ambled up the asphalt path to the narrow door against which John was leaning. "Good morning!" John said, glancing at the slouch hat and the shabby reefer coat and the brown boots. "Have you come to do this ceremony, too?" The man nodded his head. He was very uncommunicative and had a surly look. "But they won't let you in, like that!" said John.

"Won't let me in! Who won't let me in?" the man demanded.

"It says 'Morning Dress to be worn' on the Invitation Card," John answered, showing his card as he spoke.

"That's all bunkum! They'd let me in if I were naked. I'm here to report the performance, not to display my elegance, and these people want the thing reported as much as possible. I don't suppose you know me?"

"No, I don't," said John.

"Well, I'm known as the Funeral Expert in Fleet Street. My paper always sends me out on special occasions to report big funerals. I'm very good at that sort of thing. I seem to have a flair for funerals somehow. I've never done a show like this before, but if I can only persuade myself to believe that there's a corpse about, I'll do it better than anybody else. I make a specialty of quoting the more literary parts of the Burial Service in my reports!..."

"You won't be able to do that to-day. This isn't a funeral," said John.

"No, but I can quote the hymns if they've got any merit at all. Otherwise I shall drag in the psalms. Hymns aren't very quotable as a rule. Shocking doggerel most of 'em!..."

They were joined by other reporters, and John observed that he alone among them was wearing a silk hat. He commented on the fact to the Funeral Expert.

"There's only one silk hat in the whole of Fleet Street," the Funeral Expert replied, "and it belongs to the man who specialises in Murders. He never investigates a murder without wearing his silk hat. He says it's in keeping with the theme!"

The door was opened by a verger and the journalists entered the Abbey and were led up some very narrow and dark and damp stone stairs until at last they emerged on to a rude platform of planks high up in the roof. At one end of the platform a pole had been placed breast-high between two pillars, and against this the journalists were invited to lean. Far below, the ceremony was to take place. John felt giddy as he looked down on the floor of the Cathedral.

"We shan't be able to see anything up here," he said to the Funeral Expert.

"What do you want to see?" was the reply he received. "You've got a programme of the ceremony, haven't you, and an imagination. That's all you need. I suppose you've never done a job of this sort before?"

"No. I'm a beginner!"

"Well, write a lot of slushy staff about the sun shining through the rose-coloured window just as the King entered the Abbey. That always goes down well. There are three psalms to be sung during the service. If you quote the first one, I'll quote the second, and then we shan't clash. Is that agreed?"

"All right!"

Half the journalists retreated from the pole-barrier and sat on a pile of planks at the back of the platform. Like John, they suffered from giddiness. They had their writing-pads open, however, and were busily engaged in inventing accounts of the ceremonial that was presently to be performed. John glanced over a man's shoulder and caught sight of the words, "As His Majesty entered the ancient abbey, a burst of sunlight fell through the old rose window and cast a glorious crimson light on his beautiful regalia!...."

"Lord!" said John, moving away.

He went to the end of the platform, and then, moved by some feeling which he could not explain, descended the dark, stone stairs which he had lately mounted. He could hear the music of the organ, and presently the choir began to sing an anthem.

"I suppose it's beginning," he thought.

He reached the ground-floor, and presently found himself standing behind a stone-screen in the company of selected persons and officials in brilliant uniforms. There were three special reporters here, to whom an official in a gorgeous green garb, looking very like a figure on a pack of cards, was giving information. John edged nearer to them, and as he did so, he saw that some ceremony was proceeding in one of the chapels.

"What's happening?" he asked in a whisper.

His neighbor whispered back that this was to be the chapel of the Order of the Bath, and that the King was about to conduct some ceremonial with the Knights of the Order. He raised himself on the edge of a tomb and saw two lines of old men in rich claret-coloured robes facing each other, with a broad space between them, and while he looked, the King passed between the Knights who bowed to him as he passed towards the altar. He heard the murmur of old, feeble voices as the Knights swore to protect the widow and the orphan and the virgin from wrong and injury!...

"They haven't the strength to protect a fly," John whispered to his neighbour.

"Ssh!" his neighbour whispered back, "it's a symbolical promise!..."