From six o'clock until half an hour before the time fixed for the commencement of the performance, a steady crowd of people elbowed and pushed their way that night into the cheaper parts of the Alhambra Music-hall. Soon afterwards, the earliest arrivals presented themselves at the front of the house. Brightman and Crawshay arrived together, and made their way at once to the manager's office, the former noticing, with a little glint of recognition which amounted to scarcely more than a droop of the eyes, two or three sturdy looking men who had the appearance of being a little unused to their evening clothes, and who were loitering about in the vestibule.
The manager greeted his two visitors without enthusiasm. He was a small, worried-looking man, with pale face, hooked nose and shiny black hair. He had recently changed his name from Jonas to Joyce, without materially affecting the impression which he made upon the stranger.
"This is Mr. Crawshay," Brightman began, "who has charge from theGovernment point of view, of the little matter you and I know about."
The manager shook hands limply.
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Crawshay," he said, "but a little disturbed at the cause. I must say that I hope you will find your impressions ill-founded. I don't like things of this sort happening in my house."
"Might happen anywhere," Mr. Brightman declared, with an attempt at cheerfulness. "By-the-by, Mr. Joyce, I hope you got my note?"
The manager nodded.
"Yes," he assented, "I've made all the arrangements you wished, and the box has not been entered except by the cleaner."
"Mr. Thew himself, then, has made no attempt to visit it?" Crawshay enquired.
"Not to my knowledge," was the brusque reply.
The two men took their leave, strolled along the vestibule, glanced at the closed door of the box and made their way down into the stalls.
"Our friend must be exceedingly confident," Brightman remarked musingly.
"Or else we are on the wrong tack," Crawshay put in.
"As to that we shall see! I don't like to seem over-sanguine," Brightman went on, "but my impression is that he is rather up against it."
"All I can say is that he is taking it very coolly, then!"
"To all appearance, yes. But whereas it is quite true that he has made no attempt to get at the box, Joyce didn't tell us—as a matter of fact, I don't suppose he knows—that three times Jocelyn Thew has visited the theatre under some pretext or other, and spotted my men about. From half-an-hour after his bid at the fete, that box has been as inaccessible to him as though it had been walled up."
They took their seats in the stalls, which were now rapidly filling. About five minutes later, Jocelyn Thew arrived alone. The box opener brought him from the vestibule, and an amateur programme seller accepted his sovereign—both, in view of the many rumours floating about the place, regarding him with much curiosity. Without any appearance of hurry he entered the much-discussed box, divested himself of his coat and hat, and stood for a moment in full view, looking around the house. His eyes rested for a moment upon the figures of the two men below, and a very grim smile parted his lips. He stepped a little into the background and remained for some time out of sight. Brightman's interest became intense.
"From this moment he is our man," he whispered. "All the same, I should have liked to have seen where he has hidden the papers. I went round the box myself without finding a thing."
Jocelyn Thew had hung up his coat and hat upon one of the pegs, and for a few seconds remained as though listening. Then he turned the key of the door, and, taking the heavy curtain up in his hand, searched it for a few moments until he arrived at a certain spot in one of the bottom folds. With a penknife which he drew from his pocket, he cut through some improvised stitches, thrust his hand into the opening and drew out a small packet, which he buttoned up in his pocket. In less than a minute he had let the curtain fall again and unlocked the door. Almost immediately afterwards there was a knock.
"Come in," he invited.
Katharine and her brother entered, the former in a gown of black net designed by the greatest of French modistes, and Richard in active service uniform.
"We are abominably early, of course," Katharine declared, as they shook hands, "but I love to see the people arrive, and as it is Dick's last evening he couldn't bear the thought of losing a minute of it."
Jocelyn Thew busied himself in establishing his guests comfortably. He himself remained standing behind Katharine's chair, a little in the background.
"We are going to have a great performance to-night," he observed. "Exactly what time does your train go, Richard?"
"Ten o'clock from Charing Cross."
Jocelyn Thew thrust his hand into his pocket, and Richard, rising to his feet, stepped back into the shadows of the box. Something passed between them. Katharine turned her head and clutched nervously at the programme which lay before her. She was looking towards them, and her face was as pale as death. Her host stepped forward at once and smiled pleasantly down at her.
"You will not forget," he whispered, "that we are likely be the centre of observation to-night. I see that our friends Brightman and Crawshay are already amongst the audience."
Katharine picked up her program and affected to examine it. "If only to-night were over!" she murmured.
"It is strange that you should feel like that," he observed, drawing his chair up to the front of the box and leaning towards her in conversational fashion. "Now to me half the evils of life lie in anticipation. When the time of danger actually arrives, those evils seem to take to themselves wings and fly away. Take the case of a great actress on her first night, an emotional and temperamental woman, besieged by fears until the curtain rises, and then carried away by her genius even unto the heights. Our curtain has risen, Miss Beverley. All we can do is to pray that the gods may look our way."
She studied him thoughtfully for a moment. It was obvious that he was not exaggerating. His granite-like face had never seemed more immovable. His tone was perfectly steady, his manner the manner of one looking forward to a pleasant evening. Yet he knew quite well what she, too, guessed—that his enemies were closing in around him, that the box itself was surrounded, that notwithstanding all his ingenuity and all his resource, a crisis had come which seemed insuperable. She was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the pity of it. All the admiration she had ever felt for his strange insouciance, his almost bravado-like coolness, his mastery over events, seemed suddenly to resolve itself into more definite and more clearly-comprehended emotion. It was the great pity of it all which suddenly appealed to her. She leaned a little forward.
"You have called this our last evening," she whispered. "Tell me one thing, won't you? Tell me why it must be?"
The softness in her eyes was unmistakable, and his own face for a moment relaxed wonderfully. Again there was that gleam almost of tenderness in his deep-blue eyes. Nevertheless, he shook his head.
"Whether I succeed or whether I fail," he said simply, "to-night ends our associations. Don't you understand," he went on, "that if I pass from the shadow of this danger, there is another more imminent, more certain?"
He hesitated for a single moment, and his voice, which had grown softer, became suddenly almost musical. Katharine, who was listening intently, realised like a flash that for the first moment the mask had fallen away.
"I have lived for many years with that other danger," he went on. "It has lain like a shadow always in front of my path. Perhaps that is why I have become what I am, why I have never dared to hope for the other things which are dear to every one."
Her hand suddenly gripped his. They sat there for a moment in a strange, disturbing silence. Then the orchestra ceased, the curtain was rung up, the performance, which was in the nature of a music-hall show, with frequent turns and changes, commenced. Popular favourites from every department of the theatrical world, each in turn claimed attention and applause. Katharine watched it all with an interest always strained, a gaiety somewhat hysterical; Jocelyn Thew with the measured pleasure of a critic; Richard with uproarious, if sometimes a little unreal merriment. The time slipped by apparently unnoticed. Suddenly Richard glanced at his wrist-watch and stood up.
"I must go," he declared. "I had no idea that it was so late." Katharine's fingers clutched the program which lay crumpled up in her hand. She looked at her brother with almost frightened eyes. Their host, too, had risen to his feet, and down-stairs in the stalls two men had slipped out of their places. Jocelyn Thew threw back his head with a little familiar gesture. The light of battle was in his eyes.
"Richard is right," he observed. "It is twenty minutes to ten."
"My servant will meet me down there with my kit and get me a seat," the young man said. "I shall have plenty of time, but I think I had better make a start."
Katharine came into the back of the box and threw her arms around her brother's neck. He stooped and kissed her on the lips and forehead.
"Cheer up, Katharine," he begged. "There is nothing to worry about."
"Nothing whatever," Jocelyn Thew echoed. "The most serious contingency thatI can see at present is that you may have to find your way home alone."
"The number of the car is twenty," Beverley said, handing a ticket to his sister. "I'll send you a wire from Folkestone."
Jocelyn Thew suddenly held out his hand. His eyes were still flashing with the light of anticipated battle, but there was something else in his face reminiscent of that momentary softening.
"Mine, I fear," he murmured, "may be but a wireless message, but I hope that you will get it."
They departed, and Katharine, drawing her chair into the back of the box, faced many anxious moments of solitude. The two men made their way in leisurely fashion along the vestibule and turned upstairs towards the refreshment room. Half-way up, however, Jocelyn Thew laid his hand upon his companion's arm.
"Dick," he said, "I think if I were you I wouldn't have another. You've only just time to catch your train, as it is."
"Must have a farewell glass, old fellow," the young man protested.
His companion was firm, however, and Beverley turned reluctantly away. They walked arm in arm down the broad entrance lounge towards the glass doors. It seemed to have become suddenly evident that Jocelyn Thew's words were not without point. Richard stumbled once and walked with marked unsteadiness. Just before they reached the doors, Brightman, with a tall, stalwart-looking friend, slipped past them on the right. Another man fell almost into line upon the left, and jostled the young officer as he did so. The latter glanced at both of them a little truculently.
"Say, don't push me!" he exclaimed threateningly. "You keep clear."
Neither of the men took any notice. The nearer one, in fact, closed in and almost prevented Beverley's further progress. Brightman leaned across.
"I am sorry, Captain Beverley," he said, "but we wish to ask you a question. Will you step into the box office with us?"
"I'm damned if I will!" the young man answered. "I have a matter of ten minutes to catch my train at Charing Cross, and I'm not going to break my leave for you blighters."
Crawshay, who had been lingering in the background, drew a little nearer.
"Forgive my intervention, Captain Beverley," he said, "but the matter will be explained to the military authorities if by chance you should miss your train. I am afraid that we must insist upon your acceding to our request."
Then followed a few seconds' most wonderful pandemonium. Jocelyn Thew's efforts seemed of the slightest, yet Mr. Brightman lay on his back upon the floor, and his stalwart companion, although he himself was not ignorant of Oriental arts, lay on his side for a moment, helpless. Richard, if not so subtle, was equally successful. His great fist shot out, and the man whose hand would have gripped his arm went staggering back, caught his foot in the edge of the carpet, and fell over upon the tesselated pavement. There were two swing doors, and Richard, with a spring, went for the right-hand one. The commissionaire guarding the other rushed to help his companion bar the exit. The two plainclothes policemen, whose recovery was instantaneous, scrambled to their feet and dashed after him, followed by Crawshay. Jocelyn Thew, scarcely accelerating his walk, strolled through the left-hand door, crossed the pavement of the Strand and vanished.
Fortune was both kind and unkind to Richard in those next few breathless minutes. An old football player, his bent head and iron shoulder were sufficient for the commissionaires, and, plunging directly Across the pavement and the street, he leapt into a taxi which was crawling along in the direction of Charing Cross.
"Give you a sovereign to get to Charing Cross in three minutes," he cried out, and the man, accepting the spirit of the thing, thrust in his clutch, eagerly. For a moment it seemed as though temporarily, at any rate, Richard would get clear away. In about fifty yards, however, there was a slight block. The door of the taxicab was wrenched open, and one of the men who were chasing him essayed to enter. Richard sent him without difficulty crashing back into the street, only to find that simultaneously the other door had been opened, and that his hands were held from behind in a grip of iron. At the same time he looked into the muzzle of Crawshay's revolver.
"Sit down," the latter commanded.
Brightman, too, was in the taxicab, and one of the other men had his foot upon the step. With a shrug of the shoulders, the young man accepted the inevitable and obeyed. Brightman leaned out of the window, gave a direction to the driver, and the taxicab was driven slowly in through the assembling crowd. Richard leaned back in his corner and glared at his two companions.
"Say, this is nice behaviour to an officer!" he exclaimed truculently. "I am on my way to catch the leave train. How dare you interfere with me!"
"Perhaps," Crawshay remarked, "we may consider that the time has arrived for explanations."
"Then you'd better out with them quick," Richard continued angrily. "I am an officer in His Britannic Majesty's Service, come over to fight for you because you can't do your own job. Do you get that, Crawshay?"
"I am listening."
"I am on my way to catch the ten o'clock train from Charing Cross," Richard went on. "If I don't catch it, my leave will be broken."
"I feel sure," Crawshay remarked drily, "that the authorities will recognise the fact that you made every effort to do so. As a matter of fact, there will be a supplementary train leaving at ten-forty-five, which it is possible that you may be able to catch. Explanations such as I have to offer are not to be given in a taxicab. I have therefore directed the man to drive to my rooms, I trust that you will come quietly. If the result of our conversation is satisfactory, as I remarked before, you can still catch your train."
Richard glanced at the man seated opposite to him—a great strong fellow who was obviously now prepared for any surprise; at Brightman, who, lithe and tense, seemed watching his every movement; at the little revolver which Crawshay, although he kept it out of sight, was still holding.
"Seems to me I'm up against it," he muttered. "You'll have to pay for it afterwards, you fellows, I can tell you that."
They accepted his decision in silence, and a few minutes later they descended outside the little block of flats in which Crawshay's rooms were situated. Richard made no further attempt to escape, stepped into the lift of his own accord, and threw himself into an easy-chair as soon as the little party entered Crawshay's sitting room. There was a gloomy frown upon his forehead, but the sight of a whisky decanter and a soda-water syphon upon the sideboard, appeared to cheer him up.
"I think," he suggested tentatively, "that after the excitement of the last half-hour—"
"You will allow me to offer you a whisky and soda," Crawshay begged, mixing it and bringing it himself. "When you have drunk it, I have to tell you that it is our intention to search you."
"What the devil for?" the young man demanded, with the tumbler still in his hand.
"We suspect you of having in your possession certain documents of a treasonous nature."
"Documents?" Richard jeered. "Don't talk nonsense! And treasonous to whom?I am an American citizen."
"That," Crawshay reminded him, "is entirely contrary to your declaration when a commission in His Majesty's Flying Corps was granted to you. The immediate question, however, is are you going to submit to search or not?"
Richard glanced at that ominous glitter in Crawshay's right hand, glanced at Brightman, and at the giant who was standing barely a yard away, and shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose you must do what you want to," he acquiesced sullenly, "but you'll have to answer for it—I can tell you that. It's a damnable liberty!"
He drank up his whisky and soda and set down the empty glass. The search which proceeded took a very few moments. Soon upon the table was gathered the usual collection of such articles as a man in Richard's position might be expected to possess, and last of all, from the inside of his vest, next to his skin, was drawn a long blue envelope, fastened at either end with a peculiar green seal. Crawshay's heart beat fast as he watched it placed upon the table. Richard seemed to have lost much of his truculence of manner.
"That packet," he declared, "is my personal property. It contains nothing of any moment whatever, nothing which would be of the least interest to you."
"In that case," Brightman promised, "it will be returned to you. Mr. Crawshay," he added, turning towards him, "I must ask you, as you represent the Government in this matter, to break these seals and acquaint yourself with the nature of the contents of this envelope, which I have reason to suppose was handed to Captain Beverley by Jocelyn Thew, a few minutes ago."
Crawshay took the envelope into his hands.
"I am sorry, Captain Beverley," he declared, "but I must do as Mr.Brightman has suggested. This man Jocelyn Thew, with whom you have been inconstant association, is under very grave suspicion of having brought toEngland documents of a treasonable nature."
"I suppose," Richard said defiantly, "you must do as you d——d well please. My time will come afterwards."
Crawshay broke the seal, thrust his hand into the envelope and drew out a pile of closely folded papers. One by one he laid them upon the table and smoothed them out. Even before he had glanced at the first one, a queer presentiment seemed suddenly to chill the blood in his veins. His eyes became a trifle distended. They were all there now, a score or more of sheets of thin foreign note paper, covered with hand-writing of a distinctly feminine type. The two men read—Richard Beverley watched them scowling!
"What the mischief little May Boswell's letters have to do with you fellows, I can't imagine!" he muttered. "Go on reading, you bounders! Much good may they do you!"
There were minutes of breathless silence. Then Crawshay, as the last sheet slipped through his fingers, glanced stealthily into Brightman's face, saw him bite through his lips till the blood came and strike the table with his clenched fist.
"My God!" he exclaimed, snatching up the telephone receiver. "Jocelyn Thew has done us again!"
"And you let him walk out!" Crawshay groaned.
"We'll find him," Brightman shouted. "Here, Central! Give me Scotland Yard.Scotland Yard, quick! Johnson, you take a taxi to the Savoy."
Unnoticed, Richard Beverley had risen to his feet and helped himself to another whisky and soda.
"If you are now convinced," he said, turning towards them, "that I am carrying nothing more treasonable than the love letters of my best girl, I should be glad to know what you have to say to me on the subject of my detention?"
Crawshay for once forgot his manners.
"Damn your detention!" he replied. "Get off and catch your train."
On the extreme edge of a stony and wide-spreading moor, Jocelyn Thew suddenly brought the ancient motor-car which he was driving to a somewhat abrupt and perilous standstill. He stood up in his seat, unrecognisable, transformed. From his face had passed the repression of many years. His lips were gentle and quivering as a woman's, his eyes seemed to have grown larger and softer as they swept with a greedy, passionate gaze the view at his feet. All that was hard and cruel seemed to have passed suddenly from his face. He was like a poet or a prophet, gazing down upon the land of his desires.
Behind him lay the rolling moor, cloven by that one ribbonlike stretch of uneven road, broken here and there with great masses of lichen-covered grey rock, by huge clumps of purple heather, long, glittering streaks of yellow gorse. The morning was young, and little shrouds of white mist were still hanging around. His own clothes were damp. Little beads of moisture were upon his face. But below, where the Atlantic billows came thundering in upon a rock-strewn coast, the sun, slowly gathering strength, seemed to be rolling aside the feathery grey clouds. Downwards, split with great ravines, the road now sloped abruptly to a little plateau of farmland, on the seaward edge of which stood the ruins of a grey castle. Dotted here and there about that pastoral strip and on the opposite hillside, were a few white-washed cottages. Beyond these no human habitation, no other sign of life.
The traveller gazed downwards till he suddenly found a new mist before his eyes. Nothing was changed. Everywhere he looked upon familiar objects. There was the little harbour where he had moored his boat, scarcely more than a pool surrounded by those huge masses of jagged rocks; the fields where he had played, the cave in the cliffs where he had sat and dreamed. This was his own little corner, the land which his forefathers had sworn to deliver, the land for which his father had died, for which he had become an exile, to which he returned with the price of death upon his head.
After a while he slipped down from the car, examined the brakes, mounted to his seat and commenced the precipitous descent. Skilful driver though he was, more than once he was compelled to turn into the cliff side of the road in order to check his gathering speed. At last, however, he reached the lowlands in safety. On the left-hand side now was the rock-strewn beach, and the almost deafening roar of the Atlantic. On the right and in front, fields, no longer like patchwork but showing some signs of cultivation; here and there, indeed, the stooping forms of labourers—men, drab-coloured, unnoticeable; women in bright green and scarlet shawls and short petticoats. He passed a little row of whitewashed cottages, from whose doorways and windows the children and old people stared at him with strange eyes. One old man who met his gaze crossed himself hastily and disappeared. Jocelyn Thew looked after him with a bitter smile upon his lips. He knew so well the cause of the terror.
He came at last to the great gates leading to the ruined castle, gates whose pillars were surmounted by huge griffins. He looked at the deserted lodges, the coat of arms, nothing of which remained but a few drooping fragments. He shook the iron gates, which still held together, in vain. Finally he drove the car through an opening in the straggling fence, and up the long, grass-grown avenue, until he reached the building itself. Here he descended, walked along the weed-framed flags to the arched front door, by the side of which hung the rusty and broken fragments of a bell, at which he pulled for some moments in vain. To all appearances the place was entirely deserted. No one answered his shout, or the wheezy summons of the cracked and feeble bell. He passed along the front, barely out of reach of the spray which a strong west wind was bringing from seaward, looked in through deserted windows till he came at last to a great crack in the walls, through which he stepped into a ruined apartment. It was thus that he entered the home in which he had been born.
He made his way into a stone passage, along which he passed until a door on his right yielded to his touch. In front of him now were what had been the state apartments, stretching along the whole front of the castle save the little corner where he had entered. Here was dilapidation supreme, complete. The white, stone-flagged floor knew no covering save here and there a strip of torn matting. The walls were stained with damp. At long intervals were tables and chairs of jet-black oak, in all sorts and states of decay. On one or two remained the fragments of some crimson velvet,—on the back of one, remnants of a coat of arms! And here, entirely in keeping with the scene of desolation, were the first signs of human life—an old man with a grey beard, leaning upon a stick, who walked slowly back and forth, mumbling to himself.
A new light broke across Jocelyn Thew's face as he listened, and the tears stood in his eyes. The man was reciting Gaelic verses, verses familiar to him from childhood. The whole desolate picture seemed to envisage thoughts which he had never been able to drive from his mind, seemed in the person of this old man to breathe such incomparable, unalterable fidelity that he felt himself suddenly a traitor who had slipped unworthily away and hidden from a righteous doom. Better that his blood had been spilt and his bones buried in the soil of the land than to have become a fugitive, to have placed an ocean between himself and the voices to which this old man had listened, day by day and night by night, through the years!
Jocelyn Thew stole softly out of the shadows.
"Timothy," he called quietly.
The old man paused in his walk. Then he came forward towards the speaker and dropped on one knee. His face showed no surprise, though his eyes were strange and almost terribly brilliant.
"The Cathley!" he exclaimed. "God is good!"
He kissed his master's hand, which he had seized with almost frantic joy.Jocelyn Thew raised him to his feet.
"You recognised me then, Timothy?"
"There is no Cathley in the world," the old man answered passionately, "would ever rise up before me and call himself by any other name."
"Am I safe here, Timothy, for a day or two?"
The old man's scorn was a wonderful thing.
"Safe!" he repeated. "Safe! There is just a dozen miles or so of the Kingdom of Ireland where the stranger who came on evil business would disappear, and it's our pride that we are the centre of it."
"They've held on, then, in these parts?"
"Hold on? Why, the fire that smouldered has become a blaze," was the eager response. "Ireland is our country here. Why—you know?"
"Know what?" Jocelyn Thew demanded. "You must treat me as a stranger, Timothy, I have been living under a false name. News has failed me for years."
"Don't you know," the old man went on eagerly, "that they meet here in the castle, the men who count—Hagen, the poet, Matlaske, the lawyer, Indewick, Michael Dilwyn, Harrison, and the great O'Clory himself?"
"I thought O'Clory was in prison since the Sinn Fein rising."
"In prison, aye, but they daren't keep him there!" was the fierce reply. "They had a taste then of the things that are ablaze through the country. The O'Clory and the others will be here to-night, under your own roof. Aye, and the guard will be out, and there'll be no Englishman dare come within a dozen miles!"
Jocelyn Thew walked away to one of the great windows and looked out seaward. The old servant limped over to his side.
"Your honour," he said, his voice shaking even as the hands which clasped his stick, "this is a wonderful day—sure, a wonderful day!"
"For me, too, Timothy!"
"You've been a weary time gone. Maybe you've lain hidden across the seas there—you've heard nothing."
"I've heard little enough, Timothy," his master told him sadly. "There came a time when I put the newspapers away from me. I did it that I might keep sane."
"You've missed much then, Sir Denis. There has been cruelty and wickedness, treason and murder afoot, but the spirit of the dear land has never even flickered in these parts. The arms we sent to Dublin were landed in yonder bay, and there was none to stop them, either, though they laid hands on that poor madman who well-nigh brought us all to ruin. There's strange craft rides there now, where your honour's looking."
A silence fell between the two men. Presently the steward withdrew.
"I'll be seeing after your honour's room," he murmured "and there's others to tell. There's a drop of something left, too, in the cellars, thank God!"
Jocelyn Thew listened to the retreating footsteps and then for a moment pushed open the window. There was the old roar once more, which seemed to have dwelt in his ears; the salt sting, the scream of the pebbles, the cry of a wheeling gull. There was the headland round which he had sailed his yacht, the moorland over which he had wandered with his gun, the meadow round which he had tried the wild young horses. In those few seconds of ecstatic joy, he seemed for the first time to realise all that he had suffered during his long exile.
More and more unreal seemed to grow the world in which Sir Denis Jocelyn Cathley passed that day. Time after time, the great hall in which he had played when a boy, draughty now but still moderately weather-tight, had echoed to the roars of welcome from old associates. But the climax of it all came later on, when he sat at the head of the long, black oak table, presiding over what was surely the strangest feast ever prepared and given to the strangest gathering of guests. The tablecloth of fine linen was patched and mended—here and there still in holes. Some of the dishes were of silver and others of kitchen china. There were knives and forks beautifully shaped and fashioned, mingled with the horn-handled ware of the kitchen; silver plate and common pewter side by side; priceless glass and common tumblers; fragments of beautiful china and here and there white delf, borrowed from a neighbouring farm. The fare was simple but plentiful; the only drink whisky and some ancient Marsala, in dust-covered bottles, produced by Timothy with great pride and served with his own hand. The roar which had greeted the first drinking of Sir Denis' health had scarcely died away when Michael Dilwyn led the way to the final sensation.
"Denis, my boy," he said, "there's a trifle of mystery about you yet. Will you tell me then, why, when I spoke to you at the Savoy Restaurant the other night, you denied your own identity? Told me your name was Thew, or something like it, and I your father's oldest friend, and your own, too!"
A sudden flood of recollection unlocked some of the fears in DenisCathley's breast.
"I have not used the name of Cathley for many years," he said. "Was it likely that I should own to it there, in the heart of London, with a price upon my head, and half a dozen people within earshot? I came back to England at the risk of my life, on a special errand. I scarcely dared to hope that I might meet any of you. I just wanted twelve hours here—"
"Stop, lad!" Dilwyn interrupted. "What's that about a price on your head?You've missed none of our letters, by any chance?"
"Letters?" Sir Denis repeated. "I have had no word from this country, not even from Timothy here, for over three years and a half."
There was a little murmur of wonder. The truth was beginning to dawn upon them.
"It'll be the censor, maybe," Michael Dilwyn murmured. "Tell us, Denis Cathley, what brought you back, then? What was this special errand you spoke of?"
"Nothing I can discuss, even with you," was the grim answer. "It was a big risk, in more ways than one, but if to-night keeps calm I'll bring it off."
"You've had no letters for three years," Michael Dilwyn repeated. "Why, d——n it, boy," he exclaimed, striking the table with his fist, "maybe you don't know, then? You haven't heard of it?"
"Heard of what?" Sir Denis demanded.
"Your pardon!"
"My—what?"
"Your pardon," was the hoarse reply, "signed and sealed a year ago, before the Dublin matter. Things aren't as bad as they were! There's a different spirit abroad.—Pass him the Madeira, Hagan. Sure, this has unnerved him!"
Sir Denis drank mechanically, drank until he felt the fire of the old wine in his veins. He set the glass down empty.
"My pardon!" he muttered.
"It's true," Hagan assured him. "You were one of a dozen. I wrote you with my own hand to the last address we had from you, somewhere out on the west coast of America. Dilwyn's right enough. England has a Government at last. There are men there who want to find the truth. They know what we are and what we stand for. You can judge what I mean when I tell you that we speak as we please here, openly, and no one ventures to disturb us. Denis, they've begun to see the truth. Dilwyn here will tell you the same thing. He was in Downing Street only last week."
"I was indeed—I, Michael Dilwyn, the outlaw!—and they listened to me."
"The days are coming," Hagan continued, "for which we've pawned our lands, our relatives, and some of us our liberty. Please God there isn't one here that won't see a free Ireland! We've hammered it into their dull Saxon brains. It's been a long, drear night, but the dawn's breaking."
"And I am pardoned!" Sir Denis repeated wonderingly.
"Where have you been to these three years, man, that you've heard nothing?"Michael Dilwyn asked.
"In Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Uraguay. You're right. I've been out of the world. I crept out of it deliberately. When I left here, nothing seemed so hopeless as the thought that a time of justice might come. I cut myself off even from news. I have lived without a name and without a future."
"Maybe for the best," Hagan declared cheerfully. "Remember that it's but twelve months ago since your pardon was signed, and you'd have done ill to have found your way back before then.—But what about this mission you spoke of?"
Sir Denis looked down the table. Of servants there was only old Timothy at the sideboard, and of those who were gathered around his board there was not one whom he could doubt.
"I will tell you about that," he promised, leaning a little forward. "You have read of the documents and the famous stolen letter which were supposed to have been brought over to England in a certain trunk, protected by the seal of a neutral country?"
"Why, sure!" Michael Dilwyn murmured under his breath. "The box was to have been opened at Downing Street, but one heard nothing more of it."
"The stolen letter," Hagan remarked, "was supposed to have been indiscreet enough to have brought about the ruin of a great man in America."
Sir Denis nodded.
"You've got the story all right," he said. "Well, those papers never were in that trunk. I brought them over myself in theCity of Boston. I brought them over under the nose of a Secret Service man, and although the steamer and all of us on board were searched from head to foot in the Mersey before we were permitted to land."
"And where are they now?" Michael Dilwyn asked.
Sir Denis drew a long envelope from his pocket and laid it upon the table before him. Almost as he did so, another little sensation brought them all to their feet. They hurried to the window. From about a mile out seaward, a blue ball, followed by another, had shot up into the sky. Sir Denis watched for a moment steadily. Then he pointed to a bonfire which had been lighted on the beach.
"That," he pointed out, "is my signal, and there is the answer. The documents you have all read about are in that envelope."
There was a queer, protracted silence, a silence of doubt and difficulty.
"It will be a German submarine, that," Michael Dilwyn declared. "She has come to pick up your papers, maybe?"
"That's true," was the quiet answer. "I was to light the fire on the beach the moment I arrived. The blue balls were to be my answer."
The O'Clory, a big, silent man, leaned over and laid his hand on his host's shoulder.
"What are you going to do about it?" he demanded.
"For the moment I do not know," Sir Denis confessed. "Advise me, all of you. I undertook this enterprise partly because of its danger, partly for a great sum of money which I should have handed over to our cause, partly because if I succeeded it would hurt England. Now I have come back and I find you all moved by a different spirit."
"There isn't a man in this island," Michael Dilwyn said slowly, "who has hated England as I have. She has been our oppressor for generations, and in return we have given her the best of our sons, their life-blood, their genius, their souls. And yet, with it all there is a bond. Our children have married theirs, and when we've looked together over the side, we've seen the same things. We've made use of Germans, Denis, but I tell you frankly I hate them. There are two things every Irishman loves—justice and courage—and England went into this war in the great manner. She has done big things, and I tell you, in a sneaking sort of way we're proud. I am honest with you, you see, Denis. You can guess, from what I've said, what I'd do with that packet."
Sir Denis turned to the O'Clory.
"And you?" he asked.
"My boy," was the reply, "sure Michael's right. I've hated England, I've shouldered a rifle against her, I've talked treason up and down the country, and I've known the inside of a prison. I've spat at her authority. I've said in plain words what I think of her—fat, commerce-ridden, smug, selfish. I've watched her bleed and been glad of it, but at the bottom of my heart I'd have liked to have seen her outstretched hand. Denis, lad, that's coming. We've got to remember that we, too, are a proud, obstinate, pig-headed race. We've got to meet that hand half-way, and when the moment comes I'd like to be the first to raise the boys round here and give the Germans hell!"
Another blue ball shot up into the sky. Sir Denis took the packet of papers from the table and stood by the great open stone hearth. Michael Dilwyn moved to his side, a gaunt, impressive figure.
"You're doing the right thing, Denis," he declared. "What fighting we've done, and any that we may still have to do with England, we'll do it on the surface. I was down at Queenstown when they brought in some of the bodies from theLusitania. To Hell with such tricks! There's no Irishman yet has ever joined hands with those who war against women and babies."
Denis drew a log of burning wood out on to the hearth and laid the packet deliberately upon it. He stood there watching the smoke curl upwards as the envelope shrivelled and the flames crept from one end to the other.
"That seems a queer thing to do," he observed, with a dry little laugh. "I've carried my life in my hands for those papers, and there's a hundred thousand pounds waiting for them, not a mile away."
"Blood-money, boy," the O'Clory reminded him, "and anyway there's a touch of the evil thing about strangers' gold.—Eh, but who's this?"
A large motor-car had suddenly flashed by the window. With the instinct of past dangers, the little gathering of men drew close together. There was the sound of an impatient voice in the hall. The door was opened hurriedly and Crawshay stepped in. "It is a gentleman in a great hurry, your honour," Timothy explained.
Crawshay, dour and threatening, came a little further into the room. Behind him in the hall was a vision of his escort. Sir Denis looked up from the hearth with a poker in his hand.
"My friend," he observed, "it seems to be your unfortunate destiny to be always five minutes too late in life."
Crawshay's outstretched hand pointed denouncingly through the window towards the bay.
"If I am too late this time," he declared, "then an act of treason has been committed. You know what it means, I suppose, to communicate with the enemy?"
Denis shook his head.
"As yet," he said, "we have held no communication with our visitors. If you doubt my word, come down on your knees with me and examine these ashes."
Crawshay, with a little exclamation, crossed the floor and crouched down by the other's side. A word or two in the topmost document stared at him. The seal of the envelope had melted, and a little thread of green wax had made a strange pattern upon the stones.
"Is this the end, then?" he demanded in bewilderment.
"It is the end," was the solemn reply. "Perhaps if you take the ashes away with you, you will be able to consider that honours are divided."
"You burnt them—yourself?" Crawshay muttered, still wondering. "Every gentleman in this room," Denis replied, "is witness of the fact that I destroyed unopened the packet which I brought from America, barely five minutes ago."
Crawshay stood upright once more. He was convinced but puzzled.
"Will you tell me what induced you to do this?" he asked.
"We will tell you presently. As for the submarine outside, well, as you see, he is still sending up blue lights."
Crawshay gathered the ashes together and thrust them into an envelope.
"Your friend will be trying some of our Irish whisky, Denis," Michael Dilwyn invited. "We are hoping to make the brand more popular in England before long."
One by one, the next morning, in all manner of vehicles, the guests left the Castle. Sir Denis bade them farewell, parting with some of them in the leaky hall of his ancestors, and with others out in the stone-flagged courtyard. Crawshay alone lingered, with the obvious air of having something further to say to his host. The two men strolled down together seaward to where the great rocks lay thick upon the stormy beach.
"These," Sir Denis pointed out, "are supposed to be the marbles with which the great giant Cathley used to play. Tradition is a little vague upon the subject, but according to some of the legends he was actually an ancestor, and according to others a kind of patron saint…. Just look at my house, Crawshay! What would you do with a place like that?"
They turned and faced its crumbling front, majestic in places, squalid in others, one whole wing open to the rain and winds, one great turret still as solid and strong as the rocks themselves.
"It would depend very much," Crawshay replied, "upon the extremely sordid question of how much money I had to spend. If I had enough, I should certainly restore it. It's a wonderful situation."
The eyes of its owner glowed as he swept the outline of the storm-battered country and passed on to the rich strip of walled-in fields above.
"It is my home," he said simply. "I shall live in no other place. If this matter which we discussed last night should indeed prove to have a solid foundation, if this even should be the beginning of the end of the great struggle—"
"But it is," Crawshay interrupted. "How can you doubt it if you have read the papers during the last six months?"
"I have scarcely glanced at an English newspaper for ten years," was his companion's reply. "I fled to America, hating England as a man might do some poisonous reptile, sternly determined never to set foot upon her shores again. I left without hope. It seemed to me that she was implacable. The war has changed many things."
"You are right," Crawshay admitted. "In many respects it has changed the English character. We look now a little further afield. We have lost some of our stubborn over-confidence. We have grown in many respects more spiritual. We have learnt what it means to make sacrifices, sacrifices not for gold but for a righteous cause. And as far as regards this country of yours, Sir Denis," he continued, "I was only remarking a few days ago that the greatest opponents of Home Rule who have ever mounted a political platform in England have completely changed their views. There is only one idea to-day, and that is to let Ireland settle her own affairs. Such trouble as remains lies in your own country. Convert Ulster and you are free."
"You heard what was said last night?" Sir Denis reminded his companion."The O'Clory believes that that is already done."
The faintest of white mists was being burnt away now by the strengthening sun. Long, green waves came rolling in from the Atlantic. Distant rocks gleamed purple in the gathering sunshine. The green of the fields grew deeper, the colouring on the moors warmer. Crawshay lit a cigarette and leaned back against a rock.
"Over in America," he observed, "I heard all sorts of stories about you. The man Hobson, with whom I was sent to Halifax, and who dragged me off to Chicago, seemed to think that if he could once get his hand on your shoulder there were other charges which you might have to answer. Brightman, that Liverpool man, had the same idea. I am mentioning this for your own sake, Sir Denis."
The latter shook his head.
"Heaven knows how I've kept clear," he declared, "but there isn't a thing against me. I sailed close to the wind in Mexico. I'd have fought for them against America if they'd really meant business, but they didn't. I was too late for the Boer War or I'd have been in that for a certainty. I went through South America, but the little fighting I did there doesn't amount to anything. After I came back to the States I ran some close shaves, I admit, but I kept clear of the law. Then I got in with some Germans at Washington. They knew who I was, and they knew very well how I felt about England. I did a few things for them—nothing risky. They were keeping me for something big. That came along, as you know. They offered me the job of bringing these things to England, and I took it on."
"For an amateur," Crawshay confessed, "you certainly did wonderfully. I am not a professional detective myself, but you fairly beat us on the sea, and you practically beat us on land as well."
"There's nothing succeeds like simplicity," Denis declared. "I gambled upon it that no one would think of searching the curtains of the music hall box in which Gant and I spent apparently a jovial evening. No one did—until it was too late. Then I felt perfectly certain that both you and Brightman would believe I was trying to get hold of Richard Beverley. The poor fellow thought so himself for some time."
"There is just one question," Crawshay said, after a moment's pause, "whichI'd like to ask. It's about Nora Sharey."
Sir Denis glanced at his companion with a faint smile. He suddenly realised the purport of his lingering.
"Well, what about her?"
"She seems to have followed you very quickly from New York."
"Must you put it like that? Her father and brother were connected with the German Secret Service in New York, and on the declaration of war they had to hide. She could scarcely stay there alone."
"She might have gone with her father to Chicago," Crawshay observed.
"You must remember that she, too, is Irish," Sir Denis pointed out. "I am not at all sure that she wasn't a little homesick. By-the-by, are you interested in her?"
"Since you ask me," Crawshay replied, "I am."
Sir Denis threw away his cigarette.
"I suppose," he said quietly, "if I tell you that I am delighted to hear it, for your own sake as well as hers—"
"That's all I have been hanging about to hear," Crawshay interrupted, turning towards the castle. "I suppose we shall meet again in London?"
"I think not. They talk about sending me to the Dublin Convention here.Until they want me, I don't think I shall move."
Crawshay looked around him. The prospect in its way was beautiful, but save for a few bending figures in the distant fields, there was no sign of any human being.
"You won't be able to stand this for long," he remarked. "You've lived too turbulent a life to vegetate here."
Sir Denis laughed softly but with a new ring of real happiness.
"It's clear that you are not an Irishman!" he declared. "I've been away for over ten years. I can just breathe this air, wander about on the beach here, walk on that moorland, watch the sea, poke about amongst my old ruins, send for the priest and talk to him, get my tenants together and hear what they have to say—I can do these things, Crawshay, and breathe the atmosphere of it all down into my lungs and be content. It's just Ireland—that's all.—You hurry back to your own bloated, over-rich, smoke-disfigured, town-ruined country, and spend your money on restaurants and theatres if you want to. You're welcome."
Sir Denis' words sounded convincing enough, but his companion only smiled as he brought his car out of a dilapidated coach-house, from amidst the ruins of a score of carriages.
"All the same," he observed, as he leaned over and shook hands with his host, "I should never be surprised to come across you in that smoke-disfigured den of infamy! Look me up when you come, won't you?"
"Certainly," Sir Denis promised. "And—my regards to Nora!"
Richard Beverley, after his first embrace, held his sister's hands for a moment and looked into her face.
"Why, Katharine," he exclaimed, "London's not agreeing with you! You look pale."
She laughed carelessly.
"It was the heat last month," she told him. "I shall be all right now. How well you're looking!"
"I'm fine," he admitted. "It's a great life, Katharine. I'm kind of worried about you, though."
"There is nothing whatever the matter with me," she assured him, "except that I want some work. In a few days' time now I shall have it. I have eighty nurses on the way from the hospital, with doctors and dressers and a complete St. Agnes's outfit. They sailed yesterday, and I shall go across to Havre to meet them."
"Good for you!" Richard exclaimed. "Say, Katharine, what about lunch?"
"You must be starving," she declared. "We'll go down and have it. I feel better already, Dick. I think I must have been lonely."
They went arm in arm down-stairs and lunched cheerfully. Towards the end of the meal, he asked the question which had been on his lips more than once.
"Heard anything of Jocelyn Thew?"
"Not a word."
Richard sighed thoughtfully.
"What a waste!" he exclaimed. "A man like that ought to be doing great things. Katharine, you ought to have seen their faces when they searched me and found I was only carrying out a packet of old love letters, and it dawned upon them that he'd got away with the goods! I wonder if they ever caught him."
"Shouldn't we have heard of it?" she asked.
"Not necessarily. If he'd been caught under certain circumstances, he might have been shot on sight and we should never have heard a word. Not that that's likely, of course," he went on, suddenly realising her pallor. "What a clumsy ass I am, Katharine! We should have heard of it one way or another.—Do you see who's sitting over there in a corner?"
Katharine looked across the room and shook her head.
"The face of the man in khaki seems familiar," she admitted.
"That's Crawshay, the fellow whom Jocelyn Thew fooled. He was married last week to the girl with him. Nora Sharey, her name was. She came from New York."
"They seem very happy," Katharine observed, watching them as they left the room.
"Crawshay's a good fellow enough," her brother remarked, "and the girl's all right, although at one time—"
He stopped short, but his sister's eyes were fixed upon him enquiringly.
"At one time," he continued, "I used to think that she was mad aboutJocelyn Thew. Not that that made any difference so far as he was concerned.He never seemed to find time or place in his life for women."
They finished their luncheon and made their way up-stairs once more to Katharine's sitting room. Richard stretched himself in any easy-chair and lit a cigar with an air of huge content.
"I am to be transferred when our first division comes across," he told her. "Our Squadron Commander's going to make that all right with the W.O. We've had some grand flights lately, I can tell you, Katharine."
There was a knock at the door, a few moments later. The waiter entered, bearing a card upon a tray, which he handed to Katharine. She read it with a perplexed frown.
"Sir Denis Cathley.—But I don't know of any one of that name," she declared, glancing up. "Are you sure that he wants to see me?"
"Perhaps I had better explain," a quiet voice interposed from outside. "MayI come in?"
Katharine gave a little cry and Richard sprang to his feet. Sir Denis pushed past the waiter. For a moment Katharine had swayed upon her feet. "I am so sorry," he said earnestly. "Please forgive me, Miss Beverley, and do sit down. It was an absurd thing to force my way upon you like this. Only, you see," he went on, as he helped her to a chair, "the circumstances which required my use of a partially assumed name have changed. I ought to have written you and explained. Naturally you thought I was dead, or at the other end of the world."
Katharine smiled a little weakly. She was back again in her chair, but Sir Denis seemed to have forgotten to release her hand, which she made no effort to withdraw.
"It was perfectly ridiculous of me," she murmured, "but I was just telling Dick—he is back again for another four days' leave and we were talking about you at luncheon time—that I wasn't feeling very well, and your coming in like that was quite a shock. I am absolutely all right now. Do please sit down and explain," she begged, motioning him to a chair.
The waiter had disappeared. Sir Denis shook hands with Richard, who wheeled an easy-chair forward for him. He sat down between them and commenced his explanation.
"You see," he went on, "as a criminal I am really rather a fraud. When I tell you that I am an Irishman—perhaps you may have guessed it from my name—and a rabid one, a Sinn Feiner, and that for ten years I have lived with a sentence probably of death hanging over me, you will perhaps understand my hatred of England and my somewhat morbid demeanour generally."
Katharine was speechless. Richard Beverley indulged in a long whistle.
"So that's the explanation!" he exclaimed. "That was why you got mixed up with that German crew, eh?"
"That," Sir Denis admitted, "was the reason for my attempted enterprise."
"Attempted?" Richard protested. "But you brought it off, didn't you?"
"The end of the affair was really curious," Sir Denis explained. "I suppose, in a way, I did bring it off. I caught the mail train from Euston that night, got away with the papers and took them where I always meant to—to my old home on the west coast of Ireland. There, whilst I was waiting to keep an appointment with a German U-boat, I found out what happens to a man who has sworn an oath that he will never again look inside an English newspaper, and been obstinate enough to keep his word."
"Say, this is interesting!" Richard declared enthusiastically. "Why, of course, there have been great changes, haven't there? You Irish are going to have all that you want, after all."
"It looks like it," Sir Denis assented. "I found that my home was the rendezvous of a lot of my old associates, only instead of meeting underneath trapdoors at the risk of their lives, they were meeting quite openly and without fear of molestation. From them I heard that the Government had granted me, together with some others, a free pardon many months ago. I heard, too, of the coming Convention and of the altered spirit in English politics. I heard of these things just in time, for the U-boat was waiting outside in the bay."
"You didn't part with the stuff?" Richard exclaimed eagerly.
Sir Denis shook his head.
"I burnt the papers upon my hearth," he told them. "Crawshay ran me to ground there, but his coming wasn't necessary. A great deal besides the ashes of those documents went up in smoke that night."
Richard Beverley had risen to his feet and was pacing up and down the room.He found some vent for his feelings by wringing his friend's hand.
"If this doesn't beat the band!" he exclaimed. "My head isn't strong enough to take it all in. So Crawshay found you out?"
"He arrived," Sir Denis replied, "to find the papers burning upon the hearth. As a matter of fact, he took the ashes with him."
"He didn't arrest you, then, after all? There was no charge made?"
"None whatever. He was perfectly satisfied. He stayed until the next morning and we parted friends. A few days ago I had his wedding cards. You know whom he married?"
"Saw them together down-stairs," Richard declared. "I'm off in a moment to see if I can get hold of Crawshay and shake his hand.—So you're Sir Denis Cathley, eh, and you've chucked that other game altogether?"
"Naturally," the other replied—"Sir Denis Jocelyn Cathley. As a matter of fact, I am up in town to arrange for some one else to take my place at the Convention. I am not much use as a maker of laws. They've promised me a commission in the Irish Guards. That will be settled in a few days. Then I shall go back home to see what I can do amongst my tenantry, and afterwards—well," he concluded, with a little gleam in his dark eyes, "they promise me I shall go out with the first drafts of the new battalion."
Richard gripped his friend's hand once again and turned towards the door.
"It's great!" he declared. "I must try and catch Crawshay before he goes."
He hurried out. The door was closed. Sir Denis turned at once towards Katharine. He rose to his feet and leaned over her chair. His voice was not quite so steady.
"So much that I had thought lost for ever," he said, "has come back to me. So much that I had never thought to realise in this world seems to be coming true. Is it too late for me to ask for the one greatest thing of all of the only person who could count—who ever has counted? You know so well, Katharine, that even as a soured and disappointed man I loved you, and now it is just you, and you only, who could give me—what I want in life."
She laid her fingers upon his shoulders. Her eyes shone as he drew her into his arms.
"I ought to keep you waiting such a long time," she murmured, "because I had to ask you first—for your friendship, and you weren't very kind to die. But I can't."