Chapter II (4)

Dinner that night was a pageant rather than a meal. Sixty-four of us sat down at a long table, the decoration of which with hothouse flowers had taken two gardeners the greater part of the day. We were served from gold plate and we drank strange wines from Venetian glasses. The Duke sat at one end of the table, with the Princess at his right hand, and his sister, the Marchioness of Leicestershire, sat at the other end. The Princess, of whom I had a good view, was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She was fair and slim, with a perfect complexion, dark, rather tired eyes, a fascinating mouth, and corn-coloured hair, whose seemingly simple arrangement was an artistic triumph. The one remarkable thing about her, though, was that she wore not a single article of jewellery. Her neck and bosom were bare, her fingers were ringless. I ventured to remark upon this fact to my neighbour, whose acquaintance I had made on the cricket field. She glanced down the table and nodded.

"The Princess has strange fancies," she remarked. "I have seen her wearing the Chantilly emeralds at a small dinner party, and afterwards go to a Court function wearing the jewels of an ingénue."

I looked back at her with a very genuine admiration.

"She ought to marry the Duke," I whispered, "if only for the sake of wearing the wonderful pink pearls."

My companion smiled.

"She would look better in them than any woman in the world," she agreed. "The pity of it is that she would only be able to wear them up here, and for a woman of her cosmopolitan tastes, Westmoreland would seem a little confining."

"But if she were Duchess of Lorringham?"

My companion shook her head.

"The jewels are a very solemn family trust," she told me. "I believe I am right in saying that they cannot be taken out of the United Kingdom. One of the famous tiaras was stolen about a hundred years ago in London, and the deed of trust was amended then. I suppose it is quite all right," she went on meditatively, "but in a way it seems a cruel thing to keep jewels of such value practically hidden."

We gave our little entertainment that evening, after which a great pianist who had travelled down from London gave a recital, Faraday made more magic, and a girl, who was one of the house party, danced. All the time our host never left the Princess's side. There was no doubt at all but that he was deeply in love with her. She, for her part, won all hearts. She was gracious and charming to every one. She seemed, indeed, to the Duke's delight, to almost assume at times the position of gracious chatelaine. A thought came to me during the evening and I sought out young Formby, with whom Leonard and I had become quite intimate. I found him with some of the younger spirits in the billiard room. I drew him on one side whilst he was waiting to play his shot at pool.

"Formby," I said, "I don't want to seem impertinent but I should like to ask you a question."

"Go ahead," the young man invited.

"Is the Duke a rich man?" I asked.

Formby looked at me in astonishment.

"What on earth makes you ask a question like that?" he demanded curiously.

"Well, I really haven't any reason," I hastened to assure him. "I just wondered, that's all."

"The Duke," he told me impressively, "is one of the richest men in England. He spends money in a princely fashion but he has never yet succeeded in spending half his income. What about a game of snooker--you and Cotton, too, if he likes? We are breaking up after this. Sir Charles wants to dance."

I left Cotton there and went in search of Rose. I found her on the balcony in our own sitting room, looking down at the guests--strange, picturesque figures as they strolled about the moon-dappled lawn, listening to the music.

"Maurice," she asked me, as I sank into a chair by her side, "have you found out yet what we are here for?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," I replied. "The chief has been even less communicative than usual. It seems to have something to do with the jewels and that is all I know."

"You don't think," she went on nervously, "that by any chance we are sent here to aid in any attempt to steal them?"

"No, I don't think that," I assured her. "Where the chief stands sometimes I can't quite make up my mind, but I don't think a jewel robbery, even on such a scale as this, is quite in his line. If our presence here has anything to do with jewels at all, and I think it has," I added, dropping my voice, "I should say that we were here indirectly to aid their guardians."

"Then why doesn't the Duke mention it to us?" she asked curiously.

"It's beyond me," I confessed.

She laid her hand upon my arm and drew me very near indeed.

"Maurice," she whispered, "there's something wrong about Faraday."

"Go on," I begged her.

"Well, for one thing, then, what does he want with a ninety horse-power car, concerning which he hasn't said a word to any of us? I saw him driving it in the lower stretches of the park this morning."

"Well, that might be any man's hobby," I replied. "What else?"

"I found him poring over a map this afternoon," she continued. "I looked over his shoulder. It was a road map of Westmoreland, and I am perfectly certain that he was tracing out the road from here to the sea. It is only twenty miles."

I nodded.

"Well," I said, "let us assume, then, that Faraday means to make an attempt to steal the jewels, that he has a high-powered car in readiness, and a boat of some sort waiting by the sea. I dare say that part of it might be managed all right. It's a desolate coast, the road to it lies over a mountain range, and he could easily start from a place where there is no telephone or telegraph. But--it's the robbery itself that seems to me so impossible. I can't conceive how any one could get at the Duke's key, and, having got it, how they could pass the man on duty at the door, to say nothing of leaving the Castle afterwards."

"Most robberies seem like that until afterwards," Rose answered, a little drily.

"Besides," I argued, "Faraday is, in his way, a famous man. He must earn several thousands a year. Why should he run such appalling risks?"

"Go and look at the _Era_, which I left on the sitting-room table," she enjoined. "Look at the paragraph at the bottom of the sixth page."

I obeyed her, and read with a little start of surprise of the great deception accorded to Faraday at Melbourne the previous week.

"What does it mean?" I asked Rose, when I returned.

"It means that this man isn't Faraday at all," she declared. "I was doubtful of him from the first. I saw Faraday at the Coliseum about two years ago, and I am sure that he was a much older man."

"In that case," I said thoughtfully, "I suppose it is our duty to warn the Duke."

"You must do as you think best," Rose decided.

I made my way reluctantly downstairs and turned into the gardens where I was told the Duke was. I found him at the end of a rose pergola. The Princess was seated by his side, and at the sound of their voices I hesitated and would have turned back. The Duke, however, recognised me and called out. In the bright moonlight which was flooding the gardens, he seemed unnaturally pale. His tone, too, when he addressed me, had lost its smooth, pleasant intonation. He was like a man who has been undergoing torture. The slight smile upon the Princess's lips chilled and depressed me. I felt that it was not a pleasant interview which I had disturbed.

"Were you looking for me, Lister?" the Duke asked.

"In a sense I was, your Grace," I admitted. "I--er--there was a little matter I thought I ought to mention to you."

"Well?"

I felt suddenly that my mission was ridiculous and my suspicions intolerable. Since I was there, however, I had to go through with it.

"The man Faraday, the illusionist," I began----

"Well, what about him?" the Duke interrupted sharply.

"Some one who saw Faraday perform at the Coliseum two years ago," I continued, "is of opinion that this man is not Faraday at all. The suspicion is confirmed by the fact that, according to this week's _Era_, Faraday is performing in Melbourne."

"I have no doubt that your information is correct," the Duke replied coldly. "Now I come to think of it, I believe the agents told me that they were sending a Faraday man but not Faraday himself. You surely had some reason for bringing me this--information?"

The wild absurdity of the whole thing made me feel like a fool. Then I remembered, however, that we had been deliberately sent here by our Machiavellian chief, and we had never been sent anywhere in vain.

"It must sound idiotic, your Grace," I confessed, "but we were all very much impressed by the precautions against robbery connected with your jewel chamber. The fact that there was a man staying here to whom you yourself preferred not to show the jewels--staying here under a false name, with a ninety horse-power motor car in the garage----"

The Duke interrupted me with a slight exclamation and a little wave of the hand.

"I never dreamed that you were such an old woman, Lister," he said. "I am much obliged to you for your warning," he added, with some return of his old courtesy. "As it happens, however, I was already aware that this man was not Faraday himself, and I fancy that my precautions for guarding the Lorringham treasures are adequate."

The Princess leaned a little forward. I sympathised with the Duke. In this faint, enchanting light, she was ravishingly beautiful.

"Do not be too confident, dear host," she murmured. "If women were only made of sterner stuff, a lock has never been fashioned which could keep a pearl lover from your jewel chamber."

The Duke smiled.

"Nevertheless," he added, turning to me with a friendly gesture of dismissal, "you may sleep soundly to-night and as many nights as you remain under my roof. The spells are not yet woven which could charm those jewels from their cases."

I made my way back to the Castle, a little confused. There seemed to be in the Duke's last words a subtle behest to me, a warning not to concern myself further in his affairs. And from three to six on this coming morning, Edwards was guard of the chamber, and my rôle of watcher was already established.

It must have been within a few seconds of the chiming of a quarter past three, that the intense silence of the gallery, into which I had found my way without difficulty, was broken in even the slightest degree. Opposite where I crouched, in a high-backed chair, with a glass of cold water by his side, sat the custodian of the jewel chamber. A little to the right was the narrow passage leading to the Duke's apartments. Two electric lights were burning, and through one of the windows came pale splashes of faint moonlight. The effect was a weird and confusing illumination which made it hard to recognise even the simplest objects. The armoured figures cast fantastic shadows across the floor, the outline of the watching man seemed distorted and unreal, and the whole setting of the little scene was unnatural, a stimulus to nervous imagination. For this very reason I covered my eyes and looked again for a moment at the apparition which at first presented every semblance of the impossible. The second time I knew that I had not been deceived--I knew that something was happening.

The end of that little passage leading from the Duke's apartments to the watching figure was wrapped in gloom. The faint creaking which had first attracted my attention might have come from an unseen door there, or it might have been the not unnatural creaking of timbers in an old house. The sound, however, was followed by a strange vision. I saw an arm stretched out from the shadows, linger for a moment over the tumbler, and then disappear. I rubbed my eyes. Was this Faraday and his toy magic, or reality? I waited. It might have been ten minutes before the next happening. The watcher in the chair stretched out his arm, lifted the tumbler to his lips and drank. After that there was silence again. Then from the spot where the arm had come, a figure dressed in black stole out, the figure of a man of medium height, without betraying collar or shirt front, black as a bat save for the pale blur of an indistinguishable face, and noiseless. He stooped over the custodian, now evidently either asleep or unconscious. In a moment or two he stood upright, paused before the door of the jewel chamber, and with a curious, apparently effortless movement, passed through it. Then it seemed to me that my time had come for action. I stole quietly down the few stairs, unfastened the door of the gallery, and crept up the corridor. The door of the jewel chamber was ajar, and through it I could see the shining of the electric light inside, a glimmer of which fell upon the face of the drugged custodian. Suddenly, upon the very threshold of the jewel chamber, I stopped short. All my wariness was gone, lost in a shock of surprise. A little exclamation broke from my lips. The next second I found myself struggling for my life. The walls swam round. I raised my voice and gave a great cry. After that there was silence.

At twelve o'clock the next morning, with a bandage around my head, and feeling still the effects of an almost delirious night, I stepped into the car which was waiting to take us to the station. The Duke, who was practising at the cricket nets, came hurrying across to us, his bat still in his hand.

"I had no idea that you were going by this early train!" he exclaimed. "So glad that I did not miss you altogether."

Rose murmured something polite, and Leonard said a word or two about the pleasure of our stay. I remained silent.

"I am afraid," our host continued, smiling at me, "that I was a little unsympathetic in the small hours of the morning. I am never at my best when I am roused from sleep. However, you must let me express my regrets to you now, Mr. Lister, for your little accident. At the same time," he went on, "I am sure you will agree with me that the neighbourhood of the jewel chamber is rather a dangerous place for a man addicted to nightmares to be wandering about at three o'clock in the morning."

I looked the Duke in the face.

"What I saw was no nightmare," I said. "I saw some sort of powder dropped into Edwards' glass, and I saw a man pass into the jewel chamber."

The Duke smiled tolerantly.

"My dear Mr. Lister," he protested, "if the man Edwards had been drugged as you suggest, could he have attacked you in the way he did and got the better of you in a scrap? Further, how was it possible for any one to open the door of the jewel chamber without a key?"

He rolled up the sleeve of his flannel shirt a little higher, touched the spring of his platinum bracelet, showed us the key and replaced it. I said nothing. I continued to watch the Duke's face.

"Perhaps the most satisfactory part of your hallucination," he went on, "is the fact that the jewels have neither been disturbed nor removed. I beg, Mr. Lister," he concluded indulgently, "that you will not let this unfortunate incident disturb any agreeable impressions you may have had of your stay here. It has been a great pleasure to me to entertain you. If you will allow me to refer for a moment to a business matter, my steward has sent a cheque this morning to your agent. And if you will allow me to offer you a slight memento of your stay here, I will ask you to accept this bat from me. It is one of Wisden's, and I think the best I have ever handled."

He held it out to me, and there passed between us one of those long and silent glances which convey more than words. I held out my hand and accepted the bat.

"Thank you, Duke," I said.

He stood away and lifted his cap. Then we drove off.

* * * * *

Mr. Thomson had his own methods of surprising us. Three nights after our return to town, we found ourselves, for instance, under the great plane tree at Ranelagh, drinking wonderful yellow chartreuse with our coffee, listening to the music and to the little murmur of pleasant, after-dinner conversation. The moment for which I had waited so eagerly had come at last.

"On this occasion," our host remarked tolerantly, "I feel that I must be a little more lenient than usual as regards questions. You came away from Lorringham a little puzzled, I have no doubt?"

"We did indeed," I replied. "We want to know why the Duke was engaged in a conspiracy to steal his own jewels, and why our mission there seemed to be to prevent it."

"Quite a little romance," our host observed. "The Duke, as you may have noticed, is very much in love with the Princess of Chantilly. The Princess is one of those women in whom the love of jewels amounts to a passion. The Lorringham pink pearls are, as you may know, priceless. More than anything in the world the Princess desires to wear those pearls."

"Then why doesn't she acquire them by marrying the Duke?" I asked.

"Because," Mr. Thomson explained, "in the trust deed relating to the jewels they can none of them be moved outside the United Kingdom. The Princess would never live in England for more than a month or so in the year, which means that she would be separated from the jewels she loves for the greater part of the time. The Duke has taken every sort of legal opinion, and there is no doubt that if they were stolen from the Castle and returned to him in some foreign country, there is no law which could compel him to bring them back here. That is why the Duke connived at the theft, which you prevented."

The elucidation was simple enough but scarcely satisfactory.

"If I had known this," I confessed, "I'm afraid my sympathies would have been with the Duke."

Mr. Thomson smiled indulgently.

"That proves, then," he said, "how wise I am to explain these little affairs with which you chance to become associated, afterwards instead of before. You were acting for the insurance companies, who would have to pay a very large sum to the vested estate if the jewels were stolen from Lorringham. On their behalf," he added, handing me an oblong strip of paper, "I am asked to hand you this cheque for five hundred pounds."

I passed it over to Leonard, who usually kept our accounts.

"All the same," I observed, "I don't wonder the Duke thought I was a meddlesome idiot."

"His Grace has probably forgiven you," Mr. Thomson remarked, "for the Princess has relented at last. If you buy an evening paper on your way home, you will see that they were married by special license this afternoon."

We found plenty to think and talk about for the next few minutes. Then Mr. Thomson, who had been leaning back in his chair, watching the stars and listening to the music, electrified us.

"In one month," he said, "the year for which you pledged your services to me will be up. At the end of that time we shall say good-by."

"You will not want us again?" Rose asked.

Mr. Thomson shook his head.

"Please do not consider that any reflection upon your efforts," he begged. "During the last ten years I have had assistants in every walk of life. No one has served me more intelligently or on the whole more successfully than you three. The fact of the matter is that I am going to retire."

"Retire from what?" I asked him impetuously. "Who are you? What are you? I have never been able to make up my mind whether we have been on the side of the sheep or the goats. How did you become interested, for instance, in this last affair? Did the insurance companies give you a brief? And if so, did they give it to a master criminal, to police headquarters, or to a private detective?"

"Shall we call that Conundrum Number Six?" Mr. Thomson suggested, watching the ash on his cigar. "You understand, of course, that we are going to have a grand finale. You have a week in which to rest, and I think a study of your banking account will prove that you are justified in taking a holiday if you wish to. On next Thursday evening, at six o'clock, I desire that all three of you will be at the rooms which you are now occupying in Clarges Street. You will there receive a message from me. I shall ask your help once more before I retire into private life--and safety."

The music surged in our ears, and the froth of light conversation filled the air. Of all the little groups of people seated about, we alone seemed to have our faces set towards the serious things. Perhaps our host noticed it, for he rose to his feet and drew Leonard on one side.

"If I were your age, Lister," he said, turning to me, "I should ask Miss Mindel to drift about with me in one of those shadowy boats."

So Rose and I strolled down towards the lake.

"To think," she murmured, a little tremulously, "that very soon we shall come to the end of our adventures!"

I drew her arm through mine. The sound of the music was growing fainter in the distance and the ripple of the water was in our ears.

"Or to the beginning," I whispered.

CONUNDRUM NUMBER SEVEN

THE GREATEST ARGUMENT

The clock had scarcely finished striking six when a two-seated car, throaty but sonorous, came to a standstill in front of the house in Clarges Street where Rose, Leonard and I had our temporary abode. An elegantly dressed but weary young man was shown into our sitting room. He bowed to Rose and addressed me.

"You're Maurice Lister, what, and Mr. Leonard Cotton?" he began. "No use telling you my name because you wouldn't know it. I've brought you a message."

I indicated a chair but our visitor shook his head.

"Got to be tooting off in a moment," he continued. "I have just come from the old man. He's in a nursing home round the corner."

"What, Mr. Thomson?" I exclaimed.

The young man assented, although at the mention of the name he winced.

"They nearly laid him out last night in Lansdowne Passage," he announced. "Fortunately, I wasn't far away. Number 100, John Street. He'd like you there in a quarter of an hour, Mr. Lister."

"But who laid him out?" I asked. "Is he seriously hurt?"

Leonard intervened, holding out a newspaper.

"There's an account here!" he exclaimed. "'Murderous assault in Lansdowne Passage.' They say the victim, name unknown, is in a precarious condition."

"Was that really Mr. Thomson?" Rose demanded, in a shocked tone.

"Less said, less trouble," the young man replied, embracing us all in a common farewell salute. "So long."

He took his leave, lit a cigarette on the kerb, assumed an almost horizontal position in the car, and shot like a rocket into the heart of the Piccadilly traffic. In rather less than five minutes I was ringing the bell at Number 100, John Street, and after a very brief delay was taken upstairs to a cool and pleasantly furnished bedroom. Mr. Thomson, almost undistinguishable for bandages, motioned to a chair by his bedside and the nurse departed.

"They pretty nearly got me this time, Lister," he remarked.

Curiosity mastered sympathy.

"Who did?" I asked breathlessly.

Mr. Thomson lay quite still, with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.

"A little company of men," he said, "who are dangerous fellows to deal with--very dangerous," he repeated pensively.

"Are you badly hurt?"

He shook his head.

"I am scarcely hurt at all."

"The newspapers," I began----

"Inspired."

"You are on the side of the law this time, then!" I exclaimed triumphantly.

He smiled.

"I confess it. The newspapers which speak of my perilous condition exaggerate. Nevertheless," he went on, "I have decided to spend a week here. The surroundings are pleasant and the rest is good. During that week you will take my place."

"The devil I shall!" I murmured, gazing at his head swathed with bandages.

"One reason," Mr. Thomson condescended to explain, "for my retirement from an active pursuit of--shall we call it my hobby?--is that, notwithstanding my repeated efforts to keep it in the background, my personality has become too well known amongst the inner circle of those against whom our energies are directed. In this present instance, the scene for a very stirring little drama in the history of to-day is laid in a comparatively small manufacturing town in the heart of Yorkshire. Whatever form of disguise I might select, my presence in that place would certainly be detected. Besides, the task before us is one in which direct action is impossible. We can only bait the trap and wait, and if the quarry refuses to enter, we must choose another trap and another bait. A good deal will rest with you, Lister. If you are completely successful in the undertaking which I shall presently disclose to you, you will receive a parting gift of ten thousand pounds for division amongst the three of you."

"It is princely," I acknowledged enthusiastically.

"If you succeed," Mr. Thomson continued, "it is a flea bite. Now leave me. To-morrow you will depart for the Grand Hotel at Blackham. Before midnight to-night you will receive from me a written report which will contain all the information you require. Read it, commit it to memory and destroy it. If you need further advice or help, do not hesitate to apply to me. There is a telephone here at my elbow, and I shall never be so ill as the papers may lead you to believe. Good fortune to you!"

I left our chief and returned to Clarges Street, impressed with a conviction that we were about to enter upon the most important enterprise which had yet come our way.

* * * * *

We found Blackham hideous, uninspiring, yet not without a certain impressiveness. It was situated in the midst of a district black with coal shafts and forges which squatted upon the ground, festering sores in the daytime, like drops from a spilt hell at night, when the roar of their flames was like a fiery wind, and the red vomit of their furnaces stained the very clouds. There were never-ending electric cars, linking up a whole series of town-villages, more public houses than I had ever seen before, a plethora of libraries and a perfect plague of cinema palaces. Day and night the streets were thronged. Food and living were inordinately dear but money was plentiful, although everywhere there seemed brooding over the place the shadow of that sullen storm of industrial unrest with which in those days the whole country was agitated. The shops, the cinema palaces, the theatre itself and the smaller music halls were packed every night. We only obtained a hall for our own performance with the utmost difficulty, and for our rooms and sitting room at the so-called Grand Hotel, which was little more than a glorified public house, we had to pay as much as though we were at a West End hotel. We advanced the price of the seats, however, at the building in which our performance was given, and were rewarded by finding the place packed on the first night. The only empty places were in the cheaper seats.

Late that night, Leonard and I came across a very valuable acquaintance, Arthur Rastall, a journalist on a London paper, a man whom I had known for years and who hailed from Leonard's part of the world. He visited our sitting room for a final whisky and soda, and he helped us to understand the somewhat tense atmosphere of the place.

"What on earth are you doing here?" was almost the first question I asked him.

He filled his pipe and lit it.

"I am here," he replied, "because during the course of the next few days history will be made in this most unattractive town. I am not alone, either. Fisher is here from _The Times_, Simpson from _The Post_, and I passed the _Express_ man in the town this afternoon."

"A Labour conference?" I asked.

"Something even more than that. These devils have got something up their sleeves. They have some reason for meeting in a small place like this, and meeting privately. There's something brewing."

"What sort of a something?" I asked. "Is it a secret from two harmless strolling players?"

"No secret at all that I know of," our friend replied gruffly, "except from the Government, who won't believe it, and Scotland Yard, who don't know how to act. They say that Creslin is coming, and two representatives from America."

I suppose I still looked a little puzzled, although what Rastall was telling us was not altogether news. He went on after a moment's pause.

"Every country," he explained, "has been able to deal with its own Labour question more or less successfully, except Russia. The greatest danger the world might have to face would be an internationalisation of so-called Labour. Creslin is the apostle of internationalisation."

"Do you mean Creslin, the Bolshevist?" Leonard demanded--"the man whom the Prime Minister referred to as the Horror of the World?"

"The same," was the grim admission.

"But how is it that that man is free to walk the streets of any English town?" Leonard persisted. "I should have thought such a criminal could have been shot anywhere."

"I don't think there is any offence against the English law under which he could be charged," Rastall declared. "Every port was watched, and they did try to keep him out of the country. They hadn't a chance, though. He was far too clever for them."

The story of Creslin's coming was already known to me, but I asked Rastall a question which had been in my mind all the time.

"Tell me what there is against the Government putting a bold front on the matter, arresting Creslin, and deporting him as an undesirable alien?"

"Just this. The whole country just now is in a dangerously inflammatory state. The committees for settling Labour disputes worked well enough at first, but so much of this false, socialistic literature, anarchistic stuff, has made its way into the country during the last few years, that Labour, fat and well-fed and surfeited with pleasure, is more dangerous to-day than it was in the old days of starvation. Wages to-day are an enormous tax upon capital, but you know what the screaming Bolshevist is. He wants all the time to kill the goose that lays the golden egg; he wants to pull down the capitalist and reign in his stead. If ever he succeeded, as he did in Russia, England would be industrially and commercially ruined."

"Yet even with that certainty before us, you mean to tell me that the Government is going to let Creslin meet the heads of all the trades unions here and pour his filth down their throats?"

"Seems like it," was Rastall's laconic reply.

There was a knock at the door. The manager of the hotel presented himself. Behind him stood another and a slighter figure. The former glanced around the apartment and with a little bow drew me on one side.

"Can I have a word with you, Mr. Lister?"

"Get right on with it," I invited.

"I wondered if by any chance you could be induced to give up your sitting room? It happens to be the only one I have in the house, and we have a very distinguished visitor from abroad, just arrived, who objects to the public rooms."

"Sorry," I said firmly, "but I took the rooms for a week, as you know, and a sitting room is an absolute necessity to us."

The manager glanced at his companion. The latter came a little forward. He was a fair, quiet-looking man, clean-shaven, moody, with light-coloured hair brushed back from his forehead. He was at first glance almost prepossessing. He had the nervous mouth and quick smile of an artist. It was only his rather light-coloured eyes which left one a little doubtful about him.

"It is on my behalf that the manager is speaking," he said. "I have the good or evil fortune to bear a name which in an industrial neighbourhood like this is somewhat too well known. I am Paul Creslin."

Somehow or other I had already surmised the fact, and I was able to control my countenance. Rose had dropped her newspaper and was studying the newcomer with interest. He seemed to observe her for the first time, and a look crept into his eyes which stamped him at once in my mind. There is a certain type of profligacy which is self-revealing. I felt myself in a quandary. My hatred of the man was already born and the words of dismissal were quivering upon my lips. Then I remembered my mission. I remembered Thomson's words--"Success is born of the brain and wrecked by impulse." I choked back the impulse.

"I am not a politician," I said, "but your name is of course known to me. I cannot offer you our sitting room, for the simple reason that there is no other place in the hotel for the young lady, but any time you would care to take refuge here we should be very pleased, and if you happen to be a late person, it will be at your disposal after twelve o'clock."

The manager glanced anxiously at his guest. Again the latter's eyes rested for a moment upon Rose, and he seemed satisfied.

"You are most courteous," he acknowledged. "I am going to my room for a few minutes. Afterwards I shall venture to intrude."

The two men left the room, followed a few minutes later by Rastall, in hot haste for the telegraph office. Leonard's expression, as he looked at me, was almost of horror. Rose, too, seemed troubled.

"What on earth do you mean, Maurice," she exclaimed, "by asking us even to breathe the same air as that hateful person?"

I thrust Leonard into a chair by Rose's side and stood on the shabby little bit of hearth rug, close to them.

"The time has come," I said, addressing myself particularly to Rose, "for me to pass on to you the chief's instructions."

* * * * *

In the days that followed, we seemed to have caught up into our own apparently uneventful lives something of that spirit of waiting drama which pervaded the teeming town and the smoke-stained countryside. The people all seemed to be waiting for something. We, too, waited, and in the meantime Creslin made free use of our sitting room, drove out with us in the car which I had hired for a week, and never failed to attend our performances. Our sitting room was almost a bower of roses and orchids, flowers which arrived in mysterious parcels from London and which must have cost a small fortune. I ventured to protest on the grounds of political economy, but Creslin only smiled.

"Every man is allowed one extravagance in life," he said. "You and your friend, for instance, drink wine and whisky and soda and smoke cigars. I do neither. My weakness lies elsewhere."

He glanced across at Rose as he spoke, and at the expression in his eyes, the slow, amorous, calculating expression, I had to grip the sides of my chair and look down at the carpet towards some spilt tobacco ash, to hide my fury. Creslin, who had been strolling uneasily around the room, seated himself on the sofa by Rose's side.

"You love flowers, Miss Mindel?" he asked softly, following the direction of her eyes, which were resting upon a bowl of red roses.

"I adore them," she acknowledged, "for their own sake--and sometimes, too," she went on, meeting his gaze with a coquetry for which I could never have given her credit, "sometimes, too, for the sake of those from whom they come."

He glanced almost imperceptibly towards Leonard and myself, one of those slow, inimical glances which seemed yet to betray some evil purpose. Bearing in mind the stories which one had been told of this man's cold-blooded and indiscriminate cruelty, it was easy to believe that if a word from him could have wiped us off the face of the earth at that moment, it would certainly have been spoken. Making the best of our presence, however, he continued his conversation in a low tone. Once I saw Rose flinch and glance up as though in distress. I came across the room, making a pretence at filling my pipe from a jar which stood upon a table near them. Creslin looked at me through his half-closed eyes.

"Miss Mindel does not approve of the coming emancipation of her sex," he observed. "I suppose the doctrines of the new world must sound strange at first to those who have counted the hard and fast chastity of the Puritan amongst the virtues."

"What are the doctrines of the new world?" I enquired.

"They include, at any rate," he replied, in his quiet, sibilant voice, "a complete reconstruction of the relations between man and woman."

"That sounds like Bolshevism, pure and simple," Leonard remarked bluntly.

"The actual principles of Bolshevism," Creslin asserted, "contain more than a germ of the truth."

"I should be sorry," I declared, "for the man who made a serious attempt to wipe out the marriage laws of this country."

He looked at me with a cynical turn of his thin lips.

"There was never a race of people in the world," he pronounced, "who hugged their chains like the British. In their hearts they love the lash of authority. Think. For generations their leaders, their prophets and their preachers have been drawn from one class only, the class which they are accustomed to obey. The people have never found their Rienzi in politics, in literature or in sociology. That is because of the age-long snobbishness of the Englishman. During the last ten years, for the first time, the people have kicked over the traces so far as regards their material prosperity. They are being fed with doles and pittances but they are moving forward. Soon they will begin to think. Then, just as they have asserted themselves in material ways, they will begin to demand an active voice in the reconstruction of Society."

"What is your substitute for the marriage laws?" Rose asked him bluntly.

To do him justice, I must say that he spoke with the conviction of one who enunciates the most obvious truths, truths which did not even admit of argument.

"Union between man and woman," he explained, "is intended for the production of children. The only sane restraint which common sense should place upon this connection is the presence of human affection. That is the only restraint there should be."

"I see," Leonard murmured. "And what would become of the children?"

"They are for the State--children of the State," was the almost wondering reply. "Every household should have its nursery. For every child born, a State grant should be given."

"Is there any literature," I enquired, "setting out these altruistic views?"

"There is," Creslin replied, after a moment's pause. "The time is scarcely ripe, however, for its dissemination. If you would care to possess a text book, drawn up by myself and embodying the principles which I desire sooner or later to be accepted by the whole world, I will present you with one."

Before we went to bed that night, the precious pamphlet was in our possession.

The presence of Creslin in the country was now universally admitted by the Press, although his exact whereabouts did not once appear in print. The day fixed for the Congress of Labour leaders, to be held at Blackham, drew near. Meanwhile, Creslin was watched by detectives and press men alike. It occurred to us more than once that he almost expected and certainly hoped for arrest. I spoke on this matter to Rastall.

"There is nothing Creslin desires so much," he pointed out, "as to pose as a martyr over here. Until he begins to preach his abominable doctrines or disseminate his literature, he is on the side of the law. The sociology he preaches, apart from its sexual side, is reasonable and even finely conceived."

"Supposing he were to be arrested?" I asked.

"The police would never get him out of town," Rastall replied. "There are a million of his followers within a radius of twenty miles from here. I think we should see a riot that would approach almost to a revolution. The man is as cunning as a fox. He will preach his idealistic sociology first. The rest will creep in by degrees."

Meanwhile, Creslin spent the greater part of his spare time in our sitting room. He scarcely now made a pretence of taking any particular interest in either Leonard or myself. His whole attention was directed towards Rose. To do him justice, he was a man of considerable culture and fine perceptions on many subjects. There were times when Rose's face seemed to light up, when she seemed to find a genuine pleasure in his conversation. There were others when I saw her cold and wooden, parrying the unspoken pleadings of his meretricious philosophy with a skill for which I should never have given her credit. It was evident that Creslin was very much in earnest indeed. He was continually inviting her to lunch, to motor, to leave the hotel alone with him, all of which invitations she contrived to evade. In the end, he even had the effrontery to appeal to me.

"I gather," he said, one morning, "that Miss Rose Mindel is nothing to either of you who are her companions."

"She is nothing to us," I replied, "except a very dear sister who has a claim upon our joint protection."

"I will not conceal from you," he continued, "that I have the greatest admiration for Miss Mindel--I might even venture to say affection."

I received the confession in silence. He seemed much less at his ease than usual.

"I have met with no woman," he went on, "in whose companionship I could find more joy."

"Then why don't you ask her to marry you?" I demanded.

He looked at me with his narrow eyes almost wide open.

"You are a little ignorant of the way things are moving in the world," he said quietly. "You are wrapped up, perhaps--in your art. I am Creslin. To-morrow, if I chose, I could be dictator of Russia or Germany, Hungary or Austria. It pleases me instead to be the spokesman of my class in every country of the world. I do not understand the word 'marriage'."

I had never harder work in controlling my temper, but I knew that the time had not yet come. I answered him a little abruptly.

"I am afraid you will find some of us a little insular. Miss Mindel is of course free to make her own decisions in life, but it is as well, perhaps, to impress upon you the fact that whilst she is travelling with us we consider ourselves, Mr. Cotton and I, her guardians. We should resent forcibly any offer to her which was not in accordance with the established conventions."

He smiled in maddening fashion.

"You speak like the hero of one of those melodramas in which I used to revel when I was a youthful student in London. What I choose to say to Miss Mindel I shall say. It will be a strange thing to me if she refuses to listen. Be sensible, my young friend, and remember."

"Remember what?" I demanded.

"Who I am," he answered, with cool and splendid assurance. "I carry the burden of the new world upon my shoulders. I am the future dictator of all human Society."

That finished my scruples. I went off with Leonard and discussed our plans. Creslin, with all the priceless imperturbability of his sublime conceit, remained in our sitting room, waiting for Rose.

On the day before the great Conference, Creslin was a busy man. All the time he was back and forth between the temporary offices arranged for the reception of the delegates and the hotel. When we returned to the sitting room after our evening performance, he was still absent. The three of us held a little consultation. We were all of one mind.

"On general principles," Rose agreed, "I think that Creslin is a detestable person, and I should like to see him publicly disgraced for ever. On the other hand, I don't think," she went on, with a little grimace, "that I was cut out for a Delilah. So far, my conscience is clear enough. I have never given him a word of encouragement, and if he were to insult me he would deserve any punishment my guardians might choose to inflict. But what does make me unhappy is the idea that I might have to deceive him even by my silence if----"

"But listen," Leonard interrupted eagerly, "I heard him distinctly whispering to you that to-morrow was to be his great day; all that he needed was inspiration, that he must carry with him on to the platform memories and hopes--and a lot of slush of that sort."

Rose nodded.

"Quite right," she assented. "I promised that I would not go to bed to-night until I had seen him. I am sure he will be here presently."

"Very well, then," I decided, "he shall have his chance. If he is just ordinarily offensive, he shall get the hiding he deserves, as publicly as possible, and the chief must be satisfied with that. If he attempts anything else--well, we are prepared."

Leonard was out of the room for a few minutes, and Rose held out a hand to me a little tremulously.

"Maurice," she said, and there was a look of trouble in her dear eyes, "I don't like this. I hate that man near me. I hate the idea that I may have to listen to horrible things from him."

"And I hate the thought of your doing it," I answered firmly. "Say the word, Rose, and we'll finish here. The pamphlet's enough. Any reasonable Englishman would be justified in giving him a thrashing for that."

She shook her head regretfully.

"The other is better, of course; only swear that you will not leave me alone for five seconds."

"I can promise that," I told her grimly.

After all, we need not have troubled ourselves with scruples. Creslin had made his own plans and made them with devilish cunning. At midnight, as we had seen nothing of him, I sent down an enquiry and was told that he had come in quite exhausted and gone at once to his room. To Leonard and me the news sounded natural enough. Rose's instinct, however, was not to be denied.

"I know that he meant what he said about to-night," she assured us uneasily. "Swear that you will be near, Maurice."

We promised, and soon afterwards she retired. Her bedroom adjoined the sitting room, and after she had passed through the connecting door we heard the click of the turning key on the other side. The outside door, opening upon the corridor, was secured by a bolt. It certainly seemed as though she could have no cause for fear. Leonard and I, however, took up our vigil behind a black lacquer screen at the farther end of the room. We heard the slow dying away of the footsteps upon the pavement below, the lessening scream of the electric cars, and finally silence. One o'clock struck, and half-past. We had both of us given up the idea that anything was likely to happen, when the door of the sitting room was quietly opened, and Creslin, in his dressing gown and slippers, entered. He stood listening for a moment, as though to make sure that he had not been followed. Then he turned on the electric light, drew a key from his pocket--a new, shining key--rubbed it with a little oil, and stole across the room towards the door which led into Rose's apartment. He essayed no knock, no whispered invitation. He fitted the key noiselessly into the lock, turned it softly and disappeared. In five seconds we heard the sound of her muffled cry. In ten we had dragged him out into the sitting room. He lay on the carpet, looking at us with frightened eyes, and that expression upon his face which had so often puzzled me now made clear. The man was a coward.

"What are you going to do?" he whimpered.

"Horsewhip you first," I told him, "and afterwards punish you. I shouldn't call out, if I were you," I added, as he opened his lips. "There's the skeleton key still in the door there, and the hotel is full of journalists. Better make up your mind to go through with it."

"If you do me an injury," he cried, "the people to-morrow will tear you limb from limb."

"Get up," I ordered roughly. "We're taking our chance about that."

* * * * *

Mr. Thomson presided over our usual banquet, a few evenings later, in the dining room of a suite at the Ritz. He was a little gaunt and pale, but otherwise showed few signs of his indisposition. By the side of the plate of each one of us was an envelope, which he begged us not to open until the end of the festivities.

"You three," he said musingly, "especially you, Lister, have put your finger upon one of the quaintest features of the psychology of these days. Reason and argument, common sense, statesmanlike appeal, may all fail. It is ridicule alone which kills. You three, my trusted confederates, have probably prevented a revolution. You have brought to an end in ridicule and disgust a great social upheaval."

"Helped by the Press," I reminded him.

"Helped by the Press, without a doubt," he assented. "Their tone was in every respect admirable. The _Daily Hour_ cartoon of Creslin, the pure-minded idealist, staggering to his feet from the bench in the Town Hall Square, tarred and feathered, a disgraced debauchee, with fragments of his pamphlet sticking in pieces to his body, and another copy of it hung around his neck, was the most wonderful thing in educational journalism. All the same, Lister, you had a narrow escape. It was the women who saved you."

"The women and again the Press," I reminded him. "Just as the people themselves were hesitating, the morning papers came out with a humourous recital of the true story and a digest of the pamphlet. Creslin could never again present a heroic picture to any one. The only earthly chance he ever had of posing successfully as a prophet of the new social law would have been the possession of a personal character of unblemished purity."

"At the same time," Mr. Thomson observed, a little gravely, "I want you to remember this. Creslin has many friends of his own ilk, friends who knew his real character and who were indifferent. I think a short sea voyage would be good for you and Miss Mindel, at any rate. I will speak of that again presently."

I met Rose's eyes, and with the knowledge that our compact ended that evening I attempted no more concealment. She looked for a moment startled--and then I knew.

"As this is our last official reunion," our host continued, "I am reminded that there are a good many questions which you have asked me at various times during our association, the answers to which I have postponed until this evening. Question me now as much as you will."

"Let me start," Rose begged. "I asked the first question, remember. When you arrested Mountjoy, for whom were you acting? Were you for the police, or just an ordinary informer?"