In the afternoon I rode over to the Grange to learn if there was any news and to see how Fitz was bearing up. He was certainly doing uncommonly well. His face was less haggard, his eyes were not so wild, while a change of linen and a razor had helped his appearance considerably.
Coverdale had telegraphed to say that the car had been traced to a garage in Regent Street, and that before long he hoped to be in possession of further information.
Fitz seemed to regard the finding of the car as a favourable omen. At least his emotions were under far better control than on the previous day. His manner was no longer overwrought, and he was able to take a more practical view of the situation.
He promised to keep me informed of any fresh development, and I left him without misgiving. He seemed much more fit to cope with events than when I had left him the night before.
It was in the afternoon of the following day that I saw Fitz again. It happened that I was just about to set out from my own door when he drove up in a dogcart. He was accompanied by Coverdale.
Fitz has a curiously mobile countenance. It is quick to advertise the fleeting emotions of its owner. This afternoon there was a light in his eye and a look of resolution and alertness about him which said that news had come, and that, whatever its nature, Nevil Fitzwaren was not prepared to submit tamely to fate.
"I was on the point of coming to see you," I explained as I led them in.
The presence of Coverdale seemed to indicate an important development. It would have been difficult, however, to deduce so much from the bearing of the Chief Constable. He is such a discreet and sagacious individual, that no amount of special information is capable of detracting from or adding to his habitual air of composed importance.
My visitors were supplied with a little sustenance in a liquid form before I asked for the news; and then in answer to my demand Fitz called upon Coverdale to put meau faitwith the latest information.
It appeared that Coverdale had hastened to take Scotland Yard into his confidence, and that that famous organisation had been able in a surprisingly short space of time to shed a light upon the mysterious disappearance of Mrs. Fitz.
"She has been traced to the Illyrian Embassy in Portland Place," said Coverdale.
"Indeed!" said I. "In that case we can congratulate you, Fitz, that she is likely to come by no harm in that dignified seclusion."
"Yes, that aspect of the affair is decidedly favourable," said Coverdale. "But as far as the Commissioner is able to learn, the lady is to all intents and purposes being held a close prisoner."
"A very singular state of things, surely."
"Decidedly singular. But there can be no doubt that the Illyrian Ambassador is acting upon strict instructions from his Sovereign."
"He must be a pretty cool hand, to kidnap the wife of an Englishman in this country in the broad light of day, and the monarch for whom he acts strikes one also as being a pretty cool customer."
Coverdale laughed. He knocked the ash off the end of his cigar with an air of reflective enjoyment.
"Kings are kings in Illyria," said he. "Saving the presence of the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth, his Majesty is no believer in this damned constitutional nonsense. He has his own ideas and his own little way of carrying them out."
"He has, apparently. But unfortunately for Ferdinand the Twelfth and fortunately for his son-in-law, Fitz, we in this country are rather decided believers in this damned constitutional nonsense. I daresay, Coverdale, your friend the Commissioner will be able to put his Illyrian Majesty right upon the point."
The stealthy air of enjoyment that was hovering about Coverdale's rubicund visage seemed to deepen.
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he said, with a cheerful puff, "but it seems it is not quite so easy as you'd suppose."
I confessed to surprise.
"You see, Arbuthnot, even in a country like ours, kings are entitled to a measure of respect. The reigning family of Illyria—under the favour of our distinguished friend"—the Chief Constable bowed to Fitz with a solemn unction that to my mind was indescribably comic—"has ties of blood with nearly all the royal houses of Europe; the Illyrian Embassy is by no means a negligible quantity at the Court of Saint James, for if Illyria is not very large it is devilish well connected; and again, as the Commissioner assures me, an embassy is sacred earth which lies outside his jurisdiction."
"He seems to have come up against rather a tough proposition."
"He is the first to admit it. Here we have a flagrant outrage committed upon the personal property of a law-abiding Englishman, under his own vine and fig-tree, in his own little county; the perpetrators of the outrage sit unconcerned in Portland Place; yet there seems to be no machinery in this admirably governed and highly constitutional island which can redress this flagrant hardship."
"But surely, Coverdale, a way can be found?"
"The Commissioner declined point-blank to undertake anything on his own responsibility. Accordingly we went to the Foreign Office and had an interview with an Official. The Official didn't seem to know what the practice of the Office was in such cases, for the simple reason that it was the first time that the Office appeared to have acquired any practice in them. But upon one point he was perfectly clear. It was that the Commissioner would do well to return without delay to his fingermarks and his photographs of notorious criminals, and contrive to forget that "L'Affaire Fitz" had been brought to his notice."
"But that is absurd."
"That is how the matter stands at all events," said Coverdale with an air of detachment.
"Did the Official confer with the Minister?"
"Yes; and the Minister conferred with the Official; and their joint wisdom amounted to this: if a British subject indulges in the luxury of a Ferdinand the Twelfth for a father-in-law, he must refer to God any little differences that may arise between them, because the law of England does not contemplate and declines to take cognisance of these domesticities."
"It is incredible!"
"I agree with you, Arbuthnot; and yet if you look at the matter in all its bearings, it is difficult to see what other conclusion could have been arrived at. The whole affair bristles with difficulties. There is no specific evidence that the Crown Princess of Illyria is actually in need of aid. Although many of the details of her flight from Blaenau five years ago are known to the Foreign Office, it is in complete ignorance of the fact that she was in residence in this country. And again, the whole thing is far too delicate to risk a fall with the Illyrian Ambassador."
"Certainly the national horror of looking foolish appears to justify the F.O. in therôleof Agag. But in my humble judgment its masterly inactivity is desperately hard on a British subject."
"Well," said Coverdale, having recourse to the plain man's philosophy, "if a British subject will indulge in a Ferdinand the Twelfth for a father-in-law!"
During our extremely piquant discussion—to me it was certainly that, however tame and flat it may appear in the bald prose in which it is now invested—the person most affected by it was a study in sombre self-repression. He spoke not a word, he hardly indulged in a gesture; yet his whole bearing had significance. And when at last the time came for him to speak, he used a quiet deliberation as though every word had been sought out and weighed beforehand.
"There is only one thing to be done," he said. "As the law won't help me, I must help the law."
Not only in its substance, but also in the manner of its delivery, such an announcement was entirely worthy of the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth.
I saw the rather amused uplift of Coverdale's eyebrows, but knowing the unusual calibre of the speaker, I felt instinctively that at this stage a display of scepticism would be out of place. Fitz was quite capable of helping the law of England, if he really felt that it required his assistance.
"I can't thank you, Coverdale," he said simply. "You have done for me what I can't repay. This applies to you also, Arbuthnot. I shall never forget what you've done for me. But now I am going to ask you both as fellow Englishmen, with wives and children of your own, to stand by me while I try to get fair play."
Such words affected us both.
"You can certainly count upon me for what I may be worth," said I, "but frankly, my dear fellow, I fail to see what you can do in face of the Foreign Office decree."
"I shall play Ferdinand at his own game and beat him at it as I've done before to-day."
It was a vaunt that Fitz was entitled to make. The elopement from Blaenau must have been the work of a bold and resourceful man.
"Of one thing I am convinced," Fitz proceeded: "there is not an hour to lose. My wife may be taken back to Blaenau at any moment. I am confident that von Arlenberg, the Ambassador, has orders from Ferdinand. If I am to save the life of Sonia, I must act without delay."
Coverdale nodded his head in silence, while I felt a pang of dismay. The argument was clear enough, but Fitz's impotence in the presence of events made him a figure for pity.
His demeanour, however, betrayed no consciousness of this. In those strange eyes there was purpose, and something had entered his voice.
"I want half a dozen good fellows—sportsmen—to stand by me. You are one, Arbuthnot. You too, Coverdale. You will stand by me, eh?"
The Chief Constable looked a little uneasy. To the official mind such a request was decidedly ambiguous, not to say uncomfortable.
"I should be glad, Fitzwaren," said he, "if you will tell me precisely what responsibilities I shall incur if I pledge myself to this course."
"It depends on circumstances," said Fitz. "But if I find my back to the wall, as I daresay I shall before I am through with this business, I should like to have at my elbow a few men I can trust."
"So long as you don't depute me to throw a bomb into the Embassy!" said Coverdale.
Fitz's scheme for the recovery of his lawful property was not so drastic as that, yet when it came to be unfolded it was somewhat of a nature to give pause to a pair of Englishmen converging upon middle age, pledged especially to observe the law.
"I intend to have her out of Portland Place. She must come away to-morrow. There is not an hour to lose. But I must find a few pals who are good at need, because it won't be child's play, you know."
"It certainly won't be child's play," agreed the Chief Constable, "if it is your intention to break into the Illyrian Embassy and seize the Crown Princess by force."
"There is no help for it," said Fitz, quietly.
Coverdale grew thoughtful. It was tolerably clear that Fitz was contemplating an act of open violence; and as a breach of the peace must at all times be construed as a breach of the law, it was scarcely for him to aid and abet him. At heart, nevertheless, the worthy Chief Constable was a downright honest, four-square, genuine fellow. He did not say as much, but there was something in his manner which implied that he had come to the conclusion that those repositories of justice, national and international, Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office, were conniving at a frank injustice to a fellow Briton.
"It is a hard case," said Coverdale; "and in the circumstances I don't altogether see how you can be blamed if you take reasonable steps to recover your property."
"In other words, Coverdale," said I, "you are prepared to countenance the raid on the Illyrian Embassy?"
The Chief Constable laughed.
"I don't say that exactly. And yet, after all, this is a free country; and if a parcel of damned foreigners bagged my wife, and the law could afford me no redress, I'm afraid, I'm sadly afraid——"
"It would be 'Up Guards and at 'em'?"
"Upon my word, Arbuthnot, I'm not sure it wouldn't!"
"Thank you, Coverdale," said Fitz. "And I take it that both of you will go up to London with me to-morrow."
"What do you ask us precisely to do?"
"Leave the details to me"—Fitz's air was that of a staff officer. "You can trust me not to go out of my way to look for trouble. But it is not much use for one man single-handed to attempt to force his way into the Illyrian Embassy for the purpose of effecting the rescue of the Crown Princess."
"It would be suicidal for one man to attempt it," we agreed.
"What is the minimum of assistance you will require?" said I.
"Half a dozen stout fellows ought to be able to manage it comfortably. There's Coverdale and you and me. If I can enlist three others between now and to-morrow, the thing is as good as done."
Fitz's calm tone of optimism was certainly surprising. The Chief Constable and myself exchanged rather rueful glances. We appeared to have pledged ourselves to a course of action that might have the most serious and far-reaching consequences.
One thing was perfectly clear; we were pretty well in a cleft stick. So heartily had we espoused the cause of a much-injured man, that to withhold practical assistance, now it was needed so sorely, was hardly possible. Yet there could be no doubt that discomfiture and perplexity were beginning to play the deuce with the Chief Constable's official placidity. I also, "a married man, a father of a family, and a county member," began to have qualms.
"Three other stout fellows," said Fitz, "who are not afraid of a tight place and who can be trusted with a revolver, are almost a necessity. The trouble is to find them."
On many occasions since, I have had cause to review my conduct in this crisis. Whether it was that of a sane, judicial-minded, law-abiding unit of society I have never been able to determine. Doubtless I erred egregiously. All the same I shall always protest that Nevil Fitzwaren was a much-injured man. Moreover, now that the call to arms had come to him, nature had thought fit to invest him with that occult power that makes a man a leader of others. I could not have believed such a transfiguration to be possible. He seemed suddenly to emerge as the possessor of a steadfastness of purpose and a strength of will which commanded sympathy in almost the same measure that his pathetic helplessness had in the first place aroused it.
"Can you suggest three stout fellows, Arbuthnot? Gentlemen, if possible, and chaps to be trusted. Of course they will have to know the why and wherefore of it all."
Under the spell that Fitz was wielding over me I became the victim of an inspiration. In a flash there came into my mind the three gamesters necessary to complete thepartie. They were Jodey, his friend in Jermyn Street, "who had had lessons from Burns," and that much-enduring but thoroughly sound-hearted fellow, the Master of the Crackanthorpe. For an instant I reflected with the Napoleonic gaze of Fitz upon me. And then through sheer human weakness I committed the most signal indiscretion of which a tolerably blameless existence had ever been guilty. I permitted the names of these three champions to cross my lips.
Coverdale turned his sombre eyes upon me. They were devoid of anger, but extremely full of sorrow.
"You old fool!" he said under his breath. "You look like landing us fairly."
"Well," whispered the egregious I, "we can't leave the poor chap in the lurch at this stage of the proceedings, can we?"
"I suppose not; but this business looks like costing me my billet. Let us pray God he don't intend to shoot the ambassador."
"Not he," said I, assuming a cheerfulness I did not feel, in the hope of minimising my lapse from the strait way of prudence. "He is a very sensible fellow and a devilish plucky one."
The immediate result of my indiscretion was that I was urged to summon my relation by marriage, in order that his valuable services might be enlisted. With that end in view, Parkins was sent in search of him. He returned all too soon with the information that he was over at the Hall playing billiards with Lord Brasset.
"Two birds with one stone!" said Fitz, exultantly. "The best thing we can do is to go over and see them."
The Hall is not more than a hundred yards or so from our modest demesne; and at Fitz's behest we set forth in quest of recruits.
"Nice state o' things!" growled Coverdaleen route.
In due course we were ushered into Brasset's billiard-room. The owner thereof and my relation by marriage were engaged in a friendly but one-sided game of shilling snooker. The latter, in accordance with his invariable practice of "putting his best leg first" to atone for the lifelong handicap of having been born a younger son, was potting three times the number of balls of his charmingly amiable and courteous opponent.
"Hullo, you fellows," said Brasset. "Take a cue and join us."
The presence in that place of the husband of Mrs. Fitz was wholly unlooked-for, but neither of the players betrayed their surprise. Any surprise they had to display was duly forthcoming later.
Most people who have mixed at all with their fellows are more or less finished dissemblers. But Brasset and Jodey were by no means proof against the extraordinary tale that Fitz had come to unfold.
"Heiress to oldest reigning family in Europe!" exclaimed Brasset, whose perturbation and bewilderment were comic in the extreme. "In that case she had an absoluterightto hit me over the head with her crop, even if she did go rather far in overriding Challenger."
As for Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, his countenance was a study.
"Well, I always said she wasit," he murmured rapturously.
"Stand by you—ra-ther!" said Brasset. "Only too proud. I've got a beautiful Colt revolver in my bureau. Shot a lion with it in Africa."
"Then you ought to be able to manage an ambassador in Portland Place," said I.
"Ra-ther!"
"It's a go, then?" said Fitz. "I can count on you fellows to give me a hand. We may have to put it across that swine von Arlenberg, although of course he is merely obeying the orders of Ferdinand."
"Yes, of course."
The two recruits to the cause of the Crown Princess beamed joyfully. They took the oath of fealty, which merely assumed the form of promising to dine at Ward's before the event, and promising to sup at the Savoy after it.
The sixth person essential to the success of Fitz's scheme was the unknown sportsman of Jermyn Street, who had had lessons from Burns. Jodey was emphatic in his declaration that his friend, whom he proclaimed as "the amateur middle-weight champion of the United Kingdom," would be only too eager to seize one of the great opportunities of his life. A telegram was immediately concocted for this paladin, who was urged to turn up at Ward's on the morrow at the appointed hour. "Bring a revolver with you. There will be a bit of fun going after dinner," was a clause that the author of the telegram was keenly desirous to insert.
Opinion was divided as to the wisdom of inserting the clause in question. To the shrewd and cautious official mind, as represented by Coverdale, it would be sufficient to urge a sensible and law-abiding citizen to give the proposed dinner party a wide berth. Personally, I was of Coverdale's opinion; Fitz and Brasset "saw nothing out of the way in it," while its author was convinced that so little would the clause in question be likely to deter his friend O'Mulligan, that it would invest a commonplace invitation to dine at Ward's and sup at the Savoy with a sufficient spice of romance to preclude "the best sportsman that ever came out of Ireland" from having a previous engagement.
Youth will be served. Jodey's lucid argument carried weight enough for the telegram to be sent to Jermyn Street in all its pristine integrity. Coverdale looked rueful all the same, and I felt his gaze of grave reproach upon me. The leader of the enterprise, however, was far from sharing the misgivings of the Chief Constable. On the contrary, he felt that the cause of the Princess Sonia had gained three valuable recruits.
Certainly, the demeanour of Brasset and of my relation by marriage left nothing to be desired from the point of view of whole-heartedness. They were only too eager to embrace the opportunity of redressing a notorious wrong. Coverdale and I could by no means rise to their enthusiasm. We were both over forty, and at that time of life the average man cannot evoke that quality, unless it is in the pursuit of a peerage, but in our innermost hearts we were fain to feel that it did them honour.
To Brasset's suggestion that we should dine with him that evening, in order that we might evolve, as far as in us lay, a plan of campaign, we yielded a ready response. Incidentally, it may be well to state that Brasset is unmarried, and that his mother was spending the winter at San Remo.
It was in sore travail of the spirit that I walked back to Dympsfield House, and proceeded to hunt for the weapon which was kept in my dressing-room as a precaution against burglars. Ruefully it was taken from its sanctuary and examined. Then I went in search of the ruler of the household. Having found her pottering about the greenhouse, I broke the news that I was dining out that evening, and that on the morrow duty called me to the metropolis, because I feared that my aged grandmother's chronic bronchitis had taken a turn for the worse.
Both these announcements were accepted with more serenity than the inward monitor had led me to anticipate.
"By all means dine with Reggie Brasset, although I think it is very wrong of him not to ask me. And by all means go to London to-morrow to see poor dear Gran, and"—here it was that the first small fly was disclosed in the ointment—"take me. Now that the weather has gone all to pieces, it is a good time to see the new plays; and I must have at least two new frocks and one of those chinchilla coats that everybody is wearing."
There are occasions when the most reciprocal nature may regard marriage as an overrated institution.
"But, my dear child," I gasped, "did you not promise upon your sacred word of honour that if you had that mare at the beginning of November, you would not want to exceed your dress allowance before the summer?"
"Did I?" said a voice of bland inquiry.
"Did you,mon enfant!"
"But then you see the poor thing has been lame for quite a fortnight."
It was man's work to convince Mrs. Arbuthnot, delicately, tenderly, but quite firmly, that not for a moment could her demands be entertained. How in the end it was contrived I shall not attempt to explain. Who among us is competent to render these hearthrug diplomacies in a just notation? But by some occult means I was able to effect a compromise upon terms which only a sanguine temperament could have hoped for. I was to be permitted to dine with Brasset and play a quiet rubber of bridge, and on the morrow I was to go to town to spend the week-end with my grandmother; in consideration of which benefits, the second party to the contract was to spend the week-end with her admirable parents at Doughty Bridge, Yorks, and become the recipient of a sable stole and an oxidised silver muff chain.
I could not help feeling that such a compact was extremely honourable to the political side of my nature. I had been prepared for pearl earrings or a new opera cloak at the least. There can be little doubt that tolerably regular attendance at the House of Commons during the course of three sessions does not a little to equip a man for the more complex phases of civilised life.
Brasset's impromptu dinner party that evening was a decided success. For this happy result he was not a little indebted to the foresight of his amiable and ever-lamented father. The wine was excellent. Even the Chief Constable, who looked as sombre as a cardinal and as rueful as Don Quixote, swallowed the brown sherry with approbation, toyed with the lighter vintages, sipped the port wine with sage approval, admired the old brandy, and told one of the best stories I have ever heard in my life.
At the conclusion of this masterpiece of refined ribaldry, Brasset gave a peremptory little tap on the table and rose to his feet.
"Gentlemen," said he, "I ask you to drink the health of the Crown Princess of Illyria. May God defend the right! With the toast, I beg to be allowed to couple the name of our friend and neighbour, Mr. Nevil Fitzwaren."
The toast was honoured in due form.
"Thank you, gentlemen." Fitz's reply was made with touching simplicity. "Godwilldefend the right. He always does. But I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for standing by me to see that I get fair play. It's good to be born an Englishman."
"Hear, hear; quite so," said the Chief Constable.
Out of the corner of one rueful eye, however, the head of our constabulary favoured me with a glance that was at once whimsical and lugubrious. The thought was ever present in that official breast that the slightest hitch in a decidedly precarious adventure would be fraught for all concerned in it with consequences which he did not care to contemplate.
A calm inquiry into the case rendered it inconceivable that two pillars of the Constitution should commit themselves irrevocably to a scheme of action whose true sphere was the boards of a playhouse or the pages of a lurid romance. By what lapse of the reason had they permitted themselves to drift into a position so ludicrous yet so eminently dangerous? Possibly it was right for irresponsible youth; possibly it was right for men of temperament like the heroic Fitz; but for Lieutenant-Colonel John Chalmers Coverdale, C.M.G., late of His Majesty's Carabineers, and Odo Arbuthnot, Member of Parliament for the Uppingdon Division of Middleshire, it was confessedly an egregious folly.
We were both past the age when such a scheme would have appealed to our high spirits as a superior sort of "rag." Once embarked upon it, who should say whither it might lead? It was impossible to foretell the course of such an adventure. Two such devotees of law and order did well to entertain misgivings, even with the winecup in their hands.
As far as the other side of the picture was concerned, Fitz was fully entitled to regard himself as a much-injured man. It is true that in the first instance he had taken the liberty of contracting a morganatic marriage with a princess in the direct line of succession of a reigning house. But in a country like ours, where the freedom of the subject and the right of the individual to shape his own destiny form the keystone of the arch upon which the fabric of society is raised, it was impossible not to sympathise keenly with Fitz. All freeborn Englishmen could not fail to resent the intervention of an irresponsible third party, who was recklessly determined to violate a tie that had the sanction of God.
Over our cigars, when the servants had left the room, the orders for the morrow were discussed.
"I hope, Fitzwaren," said the Chief Constable, "that you fully realise the extreme gravity of your undertaking. A single error of judgment, a single slip in your mode of procedure, and we are certain to find ourselves very badly landed indeed. Personally, I hope very much that you will leave lethal weapons out of the case. If we carry them we run up against the law; and not only will they prejudice our cause but there is no saying to what they may lead."
"I should like," said I, "to identify myself with these remarks of Coverdale's. I concur entirely."
Fitz removed the cigar from his lips and leaned back in his chair. He seemed to be pondering deeply.
"I respect the opinion of both of you," he said, speaking with a good deal of deliberation after a pause that was somewhat lengthy. "You are quite right in one sense, but in the most important sense of all I am sure you are wrong. I should like everybody who is going into this business to understand clearly that it is most likely to prove extremely serious. We must take every reasonable precaution, because the moment we enter von Arlenberg's house we carry our lives in our hands. I know these Illyrians; as soon as they understand our game they will use no ceremony. Law or no law, they will shoot us like dogs if they think it is necessary. And I can assure you they will think it is necessary, unless we get them with their hands up."
"I don't like lethal weapons," said the Chief Constable.
"I don't like them either," said Fitz, "but if we are to come through with this business, we shall be compelled to carry them." Suddenly his voice sank. "The truth is, this game is so dangerous, that I don't urge anybody to take part in it. Let any man who thinks the cause is good enough follow me with a loaded revolver in his right-hand trouser pocket; and let any man who doesn't keep out of it and I shall be the last to blame him."
In the language there may not have been persuasiveness, but there was a good deal in the tone. Fitz's manner was that of a leader of others; of one who foresaw the risks he incurred; who embraced them deliberately; who having once formed his plan stuck to it whatever it might entail.
Coverdale had seen service in Zululand, the Transvaal, and in Eygpt; Brasset and I had borne a humble share in the recent transactions in South Africa; yet in an unconscious way we were all susceptible to the play of a powerful will and a magnetic personality. Cynics may say it was the wine that turned the scale—the juice of the grape is the fount of many a hardy resolution—but I prefer to think it was the quality of Fitz himself. Retreat at the eleventh hour might have been construed as dishonourable, but men like Coverdale had no need to be fantastically nice upon the point of honour. It was, I think, that Fitz carried conviction. His was the inestimable gift of rising with his theme. Heaven knew! the enterprise was foolhardy, but the man himself was a good one to follow.
All the same, when we adjourned our meeting with the compact that we should assemble at Middleham railway station on the morrow in time to catch the 3.30 to London, I went home in a state of depression. Were I to have been hanged at cock-crow I could not have found my bed more unsympathetic. Most of the night I lay awake in a state of the most unworthy apprehension. The very intangibility of the business of the morrow seemed to make it a nightmare. Had it been a duel, or a definite pitting of one known force against another, it would have seemed less uncomfortable, less sinister. As it was, we did not know precisely to what we stood committed. The thing might prove merely farcical. On the contrary, it might involve battle, murder and sudden death.
A dozen times in the dismal darkness the question was put, by what chain of events had a mildly egoistical hedonist, the husband of a charming lady, the father of a merry blue-eyed daughter, with a reasonable competence and an ambition to excel at golf, come to imperil all these delectable things? Merely at the beck of a wild-living profligate who felt he had been wronged.
Stated as bluntly as this in the high court of reason the whole thing seemed absurd. There was so much to lose and so little to gain. The scheme was preposterous. Nevil Fitzwaren might certainly be the victim of an injustice, but what of Miss Lucinda and her mama? True, Coverdale was also a party to the scheme; but he was by nature adventurous, a seeker after something fresh. To be sure he imperilled his billet, but he was understood to have private means.
"Odo Arbuthnot," said the thin voice of reason at three o'clock in the morning, "you must withdraw from this incredibly foolish and reprehensible proceeding."
Howbeit, the voice of reason never sways us entirely. Accordingly I made a particularly feeble breakfast, wrote a letter to my grandmother in Bolton Street, sped the Madam, looking supremely gay and engaging, on the way to her fond parents at Doughty Bridge, Yorks, read the immortal story of "The Three Bears" to Miss Lucinda for the thousand and first time, carefully overhauled the six-chambered weapon which a professional criminal had yet to put to the test, and in a miserable frame of mind sat down to luncheon in the company of my relation by marriage.
It may be that the holy state of wedlock makes cowards of us all. Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther was certainly not embarrassed by such qualms as these. He was even more serenely magnificent than usual in a suit of grey tweeds aggressively checked and a waistcoat that was conducting a violent quarrel with a Zingari necktie; while his air of hopeful enjoyment of life as it was and as it was going to be, provoked some rather pregnant reflections upon the crime of homicide.
"O'Mulligan's wired. Mad keen. A regular nut."
The well of English undefiled grows more copious with the process of ages. By what mysterious alchemy the quality of mad keenness transforms its possessor into "a regular nut" I was too low-spirited to elucidate.
"Fitz is a game bird, ain't he?" Flamboyant youth heartily poured half a bottle of Worcestershire sauce over its cutlet. "Didn't think he had it in him. Merely shows how you can be deceived."
I groaned in spirit, but plucked up the courage to take a dismal nibble at a piece of toast.
"That chap Coverdale is a bit of a funkstick. Made himself rather an ass about those firearms."
I assented feebly.
"Bet you a pony they want our photographs for theMorning Mirror."
I rose from the table and took a turn in the kitchen garden. When your heart is fairly in your boots, the society of your peers has its drawbacks.
At half-past two, punctual to the minute, the toot of the car was heard at the hall door. Miss Lucinda received a parting salute and an illicit box of chocolates which consoled her immensely for the temporary loss—permanent perhaps in the case of one—of both her parents.
I confess to being one of those weak mortals who on a journey is invariably accompanied by the consciousness of having left something undone or having omitted to pack some unremembered but quite indispensable necessary. Three-fourths of the way to the station I was haunted with this feeling in a more acute form than usual, and then quite suddenly, with a spasm of perverse joy, it occurred to me that I had left the burglar's foe in its secret receptacle.
"Thank God for that!" was the pious hyperbole which ascended to heaven.
At the station we were not the first to arrive on the scene, although there was a full quarter of an hour in hand. Fitz in a fur overcoat of some pretensions bore a look of collected importance which was quite in keeping with therôlehe had to fill.
"Tickets are taken," said he, "and carriage reserved for five."
In front of the bookstall a yellow newsbill displayed the contents of a London evening paper, issued at noon. "The Attempt on the Life of the King of Illyria. Latest Details."
"Clumsy fools," said the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth, gloomily. "They seem to have bungled the business badly, but they bungle everything in Illyria."
"His Excellency, the Ambassador, would appear to be an exception to the general rule."
Fitz bestowed upon me a murderous glower.
Brasset arrived full five minutes in advance of the London express. Pink and cherubic, his recent perplexity had yielded to an omnipresent look of peace. His well-groomed air suggested that he took a simple pleasure in being alive.
The question, however, for the four conspirators assembled on the Middleham platform was, what had happened to the Chief Constable? Was it conceivable that the noble Brutus had left us in the lurch? Remembering my own travail of the spirit, which still endured, it seemed most natural and becoming to my partial judgment, that one so wise had repented of his folly at the eleventh hour.
Howbeit, my lips were sealed upon these illicit thoughts. Fitz himself suspected no treachery. He ushered us into the reserved compartment with immense dignity, and retained the left-hand corner seat, with the back to the engine, for the missing warrior.
"Coverdale is cutting it fine," I ventured to remark.
"There is a minute yet," said Fitz, with an insouciance which, to use a much-abused expression, was Napoleonic.
A porter who suffered from rickets put in his head.
"All London, gentlemen?"
"Yes," said Fitz, introducing a shilling to a grimy but willing palm. "And just see that the station-master keeps the train a few minutes for Colonel Coverdale."
"Agen the regulations, you know, sir," said the porter, with polite misgiving.
"Against what regulations?" said the undefeated Fitz.
"The Company's."
"Against the Company's regulations! Who the devil are the Company thattheyshould have regulations?"
This was a poser for the porter, who made a rather ineffectual apology for such a piece of assumption on the part of the Company. But the station-master's bell was ringing, and I, peering wildly through the window, in the vain hope that my mentor, my hope, my stand-by might after all appear, could see never a sign of Lieutenant-Colonel John Chalmers Coverdale, C.M.G., late of His Majesty's Carabineers.
But what is that? A commotion away up the platform, under the clock. Yes, it is he, the faithful and the valiant! At least it is not he, but one Baguley, a superannuated police-sergeant, bereft of an eye in the service of the public peace. He staggers along under the oppressive burden of a kit bag of portentous dimensions, and twenty paces behind, sauntering along the platform with the most leisurely nonchalance in the world, blandly indifferent to the fact that the London express is due out, is the impressive and slightly pompous bulk of the fifth conspirator, the great Chief Constable.
There is a tremendous touching of hats along the platform. Even that true Olympian, the guard of the London express, contrives to dissemble his legitimate impatience, while Coverdale and his kit bag come aboard the reserved compartment.
"Cutting it rather fine, weren't you?" said I, with a tremor of relief in my voice.
"Time enough," said the Chief Constable, subsiding with a growl and a glower into the left-hand corner.
A shrill blast from the guard, a whistle and a snort from the engine, and we were irrevocably committed to the untender hands of destiny.
We were an ill-assorted party enough. Fitz the embodiment of masterful determination, with his black eyes glowing with their inward fire; Brasset and Jodey as cheerful and almost asblaséas two undergraduates on their way to attend a point-to-point race meeting; Coverdale and the humble individual responsible for this narrative, silent, saturnine and profoundly uncomfortable.
It is true that I was favoured with one fragment of the Chief Constable's discourse. It was communicated with pregnant brevity ten miles from Bedford.
"You old fool!" was its context.
"It was Fitz who kept the train for you," I countered weakly.
Whoever was to blame we were fairly in for it now; and to repine was vain.
"I am glad about your friend O'What's-his-name," said Fitz to Jodey. "A man of his hands, hey? By the way, I believe you did mention a revolver."
My relation by marriage grinned an almost disgustingly effusive affirmative.
"I suppose you fellows have all remembered to bring one?"
Somehow my looks betrayed me.
"You've brought one, Arbuthnot?"
I began to perspire.
"The fact is," said I, "I had a capital .38 Webley, but it appears to be mislaid."
"That can be easily remedied. I have brought three in case of emergency."
"How lucky," said I, with insincerity.
We were converging upon the metropolis all too soon.
"I have engaged six bedrooms at Long's Hotel," said Fitz.
"Only five will be necessary," said I, "as O'Mulligan lives in Jermyn Street."
"You have forgotten Sonia."
It is true that for the moment I had forgotten the cause of all our woes. Fitz had not, however; indeed, he had forgotten nothing. Not only did he appear to have everything arranged, but he seemed to have taken cognisance of the smallest detail.
"I have ordered quite a decent little dinner at Ward's," said he. "You can always depend upon good plain, solid, old-fashioned English cooking. They give you the best mulligatawny in London. I must say myself, that if I have to do a man's work, I like to have a man's meal. And I think we can depend on some very decent madeira."
"It is very satisfactory to know that," said Coverdale, with his deepest growl.
"There is nothing like madeira in my opinion," said Fitz, "if you are going to be busy and you want to keep cool."
"That is something to know," said the Chief Constable, without enthusiasm.
"I should think it was," said Fitz. "Do you know who gave me the tip?"
The Chief Constable gave a growl in the negative.
"Ferdinand himself. And what that old swine don't know of most things is not much in the way of knowledge. He once told me he practically lived on madeira throughout the Austrian campaign; and the night before Rodova he drank six bottles. He says nothing keeps you so cool and sharp as madeira."
"Umph," the Chief Constable grunted.
Brasset and Jodey, however, two extremely zealous subalterns in the Middleshire Yeomanry, were much impressed.
In three taxis we converged upon Long's Hotel; Brasset and Jodey in the first; the Chief Constable and his kit bag in the second; Fitz and myself in the third. A very respectable blizzard was raging; the streets of the metropolis were in a truly horrid condition, wholly unfit for man or beast; and the atmosphere had the peculiar raw chill of a thoroughly disagreeable winter's night in London. But at every yard we slopped precariously through the half-melted slush of the streets, Fitz seemed to wax more Napoleonic. He was not in any sense aggressive; there was not a trace of undue mental or moral elevation, yet he was the possessor of a subtle quality that seemed to render him equal to any occasion.
"There is just one thing may undo us," he confessed to me.
"Fate?"
"No; to my mind fate is never your master, if you really mean to be master of it. But there may be a spy. Von Arlenberg is as cunning as a fox. And if he thinks I may have something to say in the matter, he will take care that nothing is done without his knowledge. Probably we are being followed."
To test his grounds for this suspicion, Fitz suddenly ordered the driver to stop. He thrust his head out of the window, and then an instant later told our Jehu to drive on.
"Just as I thought," he said. "There is another taxi behind."
My companion became silent.
"Something will have to be done," he said. "It won't do for von Arlenberg to know too much."
During the remainder of the journey Fitz found not a word to say.
When we came to the quiet family hotel in Bond Street our leader seemed still preoccupied. Certainly he had grounds for his foreboding. A fourth taxi drew up behind the three vehicles we had chartered; and I observed that a man got out of it and, discharging his taxi, entered the hotel. As he passed me I was careful to note his appearance. He was a short, sallow, foreign-looking individual, with the collar of his overcoat turned up; a commonplace creature enough, who on most occasions would pass without remark.
While we inquired for our rooms, he sat in the lounge unobtrusively. Save for Fitz's own conviction upon the point, it would never have occurred to me that we were undergoing a process of espionage.
No sooner had Fitz secured his room, than he said, in a tone considerably louder than he used as a rule, that he had some business to see after, and that he would be back in an hour.
The man seated in the lounge could not fail to hear this announcement. And sure enough, hardly had Fitz passed out of the hotel, when the fellow rose and also took his leave.
"What is Fitzwaren's game now?" inquired Coverdale.
I refrained from advancing any theory as to the nature of Fitz's game. For that matter, I had no theory to advance. It was clear enough that the leader of our enterprise was fully justified in his suspicion, but what his sagacity would profit him, I was wholly at a loss to divine. I was convinced that the business that had called him so suddenly into the sleet-laden darkness of the streets had to do with the man who had passed out of the hotel upon his heels; yet precisely what that business was, it was futile to conjecture.
Prior to our departure for Ward's the time hung upon our hands somewhat heavily. Brasset and Jodey utilised some of it in bestowing even more pains than usual upon their appearance. In these days it is not necessary to don powder, ruffles and a brocaded waistcoat for the purpose of dining at Ward's, but there is an unwritten law which expects you to wear a white vest at least with your evening clothes. Even Coverdale and I thought well to comply with this sumptuary law. We were both past the age when one's tailor is omnipotent; but when in Rome, those who would be thought men of the world are careful to do like the Romans.
Four carefully groomed specimens of British manhood greeted Fitz in the hotel foyer upon his return. It was then five minutes to seven, and our mentor entered in a perfectly cool and collected manner. He apologised, perhaps a thought elaborately, for the necessity which had deprived us of his society. Twenty minutes later he was looking as spick and span as the rest of us.
While the hotel porter was whistling up the necessary means for our conveyance to Saint James's Street, I found Fitz at my elbow.
"By the way," said he in a casual undertone, "did you mention to the others about the fellow who followed us in the taxi?"
The answer was in the negative.
"I'm glad of that. I think it will be wise if you don't. It might worry them, you know. And there is no need to worry about him now."
"Have you thrown him off the scent?"
"Yes," said Fitz, quietly. "We shall have no more trouble from that sportsman."
I forbore to allow my curiosity any further rein upon this subject. Beneath Fitz's cool and cordial tone was a suggestion that he would thank me to dismiss it. Howbeit, I had no hint as to what had happened outside in the street, and I was burning to know.
It was a minute past the half-hour when we arrived at Ward's, but the punctual O'Mulligan was there already. He rejoiced in the name of Alexander; his freckles were many and he had a shock of red hair. His nose was of the snub variety; his ears stuck out at right angles; his eyes were light green; and his jaw was square and massive and the most magnificently aggressive the mind of man can conceive. Regarded from the purely æsthetic standpoint, Alexander O'Mulligan might be a subject for discussion, yet he was as full of "points" as a prize bulldog. He was not so tall as Coverdale, but every ounce of him was solid muscle; his chest was deep and spreading, his hands were corded, and he had the grip of a garotter.
Alexander O'Mulligan shook hands all round with the greatest comprehensiveness. As he did so he grinned from ear to ear in the sheer joy of acquaintanceship. Fitz was his first victim and I was his last, but each of us would as lief shake hands with a gibbon as with our friend O'Mulligan. The fellow was so abominably hearty. He shook hands as though it was the thing of all others he loved doing best in the world.
The dinner was admirable. Whether it was force of example, or the magnetic presence of Alexander O'Mulligan, I am not prepared to say, but certainly we did ourselves very well. Upon first entering the hallowed precincts of Ward's, I had been in no mood to appreciate "really good old-fashioned English cooking." One would have thought that only the mostrecherchéof dinners would have tempted us in our present state of mind. But somehow our new friend O'Mulligan dispensed an atmosphere of Gargantuan good humour.
Hardly had we come to close quarters with the far-famed mulligatawny, which was quite appropriate to the conditions prevailing without, when our latest recruit insisted that one and all must dine with him on the morrow, and then adjourn to the National Sporting Club, for the purpose of witnessing "Burns's do with the 'Gunner.'"
If I live to the age of a hundred and twenty, I shall not forget our little dinner at Ward's. Six commonplace specimens ofles hommes moyens sensuelswith lethal weapons in their pockets and anything from pitch and toss to manslaughter in their hearts! Really, it was the incongruous carried to the verge of thebizarre.
Fitz at the head of the table was gracious to a degree. The fellow was revealing a whole gamut of unsuspected qualities. His composure, his half-gay, half-sinisterinsouciance, his alertness, his knowledge, his faculty for action, which seemed to grow in proportion with the demands that were made upon it—such an array of qualities was curiously inconsistent with the heedless waster the world had always judged him to be.
Now that he had come to grips with fate the real Nevil Fitzwaren was emerging with considerable potency. As far as "the married man, the father of the family, and the county member" was concerned, the fellow's dæmonic power was the cause of his dining quite reasonably well. As for Coverdale, after swallowing his plate of mulligatawny, his glance ceased to reproach me. His habitual philosophy and the old-fashioned English cooking began to walk hand in hand. The evening's business was quite likely to cost him his billet, but at least it was sure to be excellent fun. Besides, when he stood fairly committed to a thing, it was his habit to see it through.
Dinner was conducted in the spirit of leisurely harmony which is due to the traditions accruing to the shade of John Ward, who left this vale of tears in 1720. Fitz assured us that there was no hurry. If we got a move on about nine we should have plenty of time to do our business with his Excellency.
"You haven't quite explained the orders for the day, my dear fellow," said Coverdale, taking a reverential sip of the famous old brandy.