Inside, the room was cool and staid. Gentle shadows, like the caresses of middle-aged lovers, hung over the bookshelves and the pictures on the wall. There stood, in orderly rows, all Sir Evelyn's favourite books; old memoirs bound in faded calf, tall folios rich in illustrations, rebound in purple leather and adorned with gilt impressions of the Dent coat of arms, portfolios of ancient charts, squat vellum-coloured accounts of early voyages. The pictures were those which Sir Evelyn chiefly delighted in, sea pieces, where old-fashioned ships lay in harbour with high-peaked bowsprits, tall poops and hanging sails; or plunged through crested seas while windy clouds raced across the sky.
Sir Evelyn, stretched in a deep chair, looked round at the books and pictures with mild pleasure. His was the delightful ease which follows a time of weariness. And that weariness in his case had been the result of hard work well done, toil brought to a successful end. Ease without the congratulations of a satisfiedconscience loses half its delight. Sir Evelyn's conscience was in alliance with his surroundings to give him the full joy of peace. His work was done, well done, praised by all men and need never be done again. Is any state achieved by man on earth more delightful than that?
On the table beside his chair stood piles of press cuttings, four large piles. They had been taken from their green wrappers and neatly arranged by a careful servant. Sir Evelyn had not, while his guests remained with him, had time to read the accounts of the pageant; but when the judge, latest lingering of his guests, had gone, he looked forward to the pleasure of studying all the papers had to say about him. Never, even when he was Cabinet Minister, had his piles of cuttings been quite so high. But Sir Evelyn waited, like an epicure who hesitates before putting the delicious morsel into his mouth, hoping to double the pleasure by adding expectation to realisation.
While he lingered, satisfied with stillness and silence, tenderly savouring the pleasure to come, his chance of ever enjoying it was snapped from him. A servant entered the room.
"A gentleman has called who wishes to see you, sir."
"I won't see anyone to-day," said Sir Evelyn.
He had seen and talked to gentlemen of every sort and description every day and at all hours for a week. He had been photographed, interviewed, invited and pressed to do fifty troublesome things. He was determined to have no more gentlemen let loose at him.
"He's a Mr. East, sir," said the servant, "and he says his business is most important."
"Mr. East!"
Sir Evelyn was dimly aware of having heard the name before, but couldn't remember when or where.
"He asked me to mention that he is connected with the Board of Inland Revenue, sir."
"What on earth can he want with me? The entertainment tax is paid. At least I think we paid the entertainment tax. Mr. Linker undertook to look after that."
"The gentleman says his business is very urgent, sir."
"I suppose I'd better see him, though it's a nuisance. Show him in here."
Mr. East was shown in, a lean little man with a ragged brown beard. He introduced himself as a supervisor of Customs and Excise for the district. He was so nervous that his hands shook and his voice quavered.
"If there's been any misunderstanding about the entertainment tax," said Sir Evelyn, "I wish you'd see Mr. Linker about it. His shop is in High Street, and at this time of day you're sure to find him there."
Mr. East, fidgeting uncomfortably, said that the entertainment tax had been paid and that no question about it had been raised or was likely to be raised by the Inland Revenue authorities, "but——" he stuttered, and then hesitated.
The man's nervous fidgetiness exasperated Sir Evelyn, who could imagine no reason why he did not go straight to his business, whatever it was. Yet certain excuses might have been made for Mr. East. He was a minor officer in a branch of the Civil Service. Nurtured in the tradition of that great service he regarded the Parliamentary Heads of Departments as men who should be treated as the heathen, and someothers, treat their gods, with reverential respect and humble worship; although—the example of the heathen and others may be cited again—their commands and expressed opinions may be and should be regarded as unimportant and generally foolish. Sir Evelyn was, or had been, such a god. Mr. East was an orthodox worshipper. It is natural for pious men to be nervous and fidgety in the presence of gods.
And Mr. East was a man who had achieved a certain amount of what is called education by means of County Council scholarships and had successfully passed the examination which admitted him to the Civil Service. He was therefore inclined to dislike and despise those for whom the winning of scholarships in early life had not been necessary and who, in spite of their expensive education could not at any time have passed a Civil Service examination. By temperament, position and achievement he was one of those Englishmen who have a thorough contempt for our aristocracy, the class to which Sir Evelyn unquestionably belonged. No one is more nervous than your thoroughgoingdemocrat who is determined not to be uncomfortable in the company of men like Sir Evelyn.
But there was yet another reason to account for the perspiration which was standing on Mr. East's forehead. Imagine a worshipper forced to accuse the god above his altar of a base fraud, or an independent member of the middle class who finds himself compelled to make a charge of a dishonourable kind against a man whose name, borne by a long list of ancestors, is written like an endorsement across page after page of English history.
That was the unfortunate position of Mr. East.
He had that morning received from London by registered post from the permanent head of his department, instructions to visit Sir Evelyn, to see him personally, to inform him that His Majesty's Department of Customs and Excise was fully aware that smuggling on a large scale had been carried on under cover of the Hailey Compton pageant.
Mr. East had gasped when he read that letter. It gave details, so many gallons ofFrench brandy and wine, a very large quantity. So many hundred yards of silk, the real product of the industry of the foreign worm. The fraud was as shameless as it was immense; and there was no doubt whatever about the facts. Mr. East, who knew his business and the ways of his department, understood exactly how this information had been received and how it came that the department was so sure of its facts. Notice is always sent by agents, whose business it is to watch such things, of any considerable shipment of contraband goods from a Continental port. The ship which carries them is known. The men to whom they are consigned in England are marked.
All this Mr. East had to tell, and in the end did tell to Sir Evelyn. He was nervous and miserable, but he was a man possessed by that spirit which forces the best of us to do desperately unpleasant duties. He did his.
Sir Evelyn's conscience was perfectly clear. He was annoyed that such an absurd and tiresome mistake should have been made; but he had not the slightest doubt that it was a mistake.He said so with the confidence of an accused man who knows that he is innocent.
Mr. East, more nervous than ever, but still determined to do his duty, went on:
"I'm instructed to say, sir, that the department is unwilling to allow the law to take its course in the case of a man——" Here he corrected himself and said "gentleman, in your position. If you will make a frank statement of the amount of contraband goods imported, and will at once pay the full duty applicable to such goods no further proceedings will be taken. You will understand, sir"—Mr. East nearly choked while saying this—"that this leniency is only extended to you in order to avoid what might well be a most disagreeable scandal."
Here, it is regrettable to have to relate it, Sir Evelyn lost his temper. Being perfectly innocent of any attempt to defraud, or intention of making an attempt to defraud anyone, he was very naturally indignant. He suggested in tones of icy dignity that Mr. East should leave the room and communicate with him further—if further communication was necessary—through a firm of solicitors.
"I am also instructed, sir," said Mr. East, "to say that no steps will be taken before to-morrow morning. The department, though unable to condone or overlook the fraud, is willing to give you time to consider their proposal and your position."
This was more than Sir Evelyn could stand. He stood up and rang the bell.
"I shall direct my servant," he said, "to show you out and not to admit you into my house again."
Mr. East, by this time sweating at every pore and tingling with acute discomfort, bowed and turned towards the door.
"I ought to add," he said as he went out, "that no attempt to remove the dutiable goods from the cave in which we believe them to be stored will be permitted. To-morrow at noon, unless you have complied with the terms of the department's proposal, our officers will enter the cave and seize the goods."
"Your officers," said Sir Evelyn, goaded to extreme exasperation, "may search the cave as much as they damned well choose. They'll find nothing there."
The departure of the last guest from the Manor House was almost as great a relief to Lord Colavon as to Sir Evelyn. It was he who drove the judge and his suit case to the railway station in Morriton St. James. Having handed over the case to the porter and waved farewell to the judge he felt that duty had no further claim upon him. He swept the car round, picked his way through the narrow streets of the town and set out upon the road which led to Hailey Compton. There he indulged in a joyous burst of speed. The Pallas Athene, restored by the new parts sent from London, responded and showed herself to be the sort of car he hoped and supposed when he bought her.
The twenty miles to the top of the cliff were covered in less than half an hour, and when Jimmy changed gear for the descent into the village he felt well satisfied. He had reason to be. The weather which had pleased SirEvelyn, resting in his study, delighted Jimmy who had the sparkling sea in front of him. Beth was at the vicarage and he was on his way to see her. He had stored safely in the cave six dozen pairs of silk stockings. He looked forward to seeing the pleasure of the two girls when he made his present to them. There were also in the cave a number of cases of brandy, some hundreds of bottles of champagne and a quantity of other wine, the property of James Hinton. There were some large bales of silk which belonged to Mr. Linker. Jimmy was not concerned about these. He had helped to land them and helped to store them, without, as he believed, attracting any attention or giving rise to any questions or inquiries. The business had been carried through with the greatest ease and Jimmy's part of it was over. The removal and final disposal of the goods was the affair of the owners. All Jimmy had to do was to pick up his own parcel, tuck it under his arm and walk out of the cave with it.
The car drew up at the vicarage door and Jimmy was greeted by the two girls with shouts of welcome.
"We're just starting off to bathe," said Mary.
"You'll come too, of course," said Beth. "If you haven't got a bathing dress you must borrow Uncle Timothy's. I've never known him bathe, but he's sure to have one somewhere."
Mrs. Eames, laden with towels, appeared and greeted Jimmy.
"This is just splendid," she said. "We'll all go and bathe together. Such a day! The first really hot day this summer. The pool at the mouth of the cave will be glorious. And then you'll come back and lunch with us. Now don't interrupt me, Beth." Beth was trying to speak. "I know there's nothing to eat, literally nothing. Two great hungry girls, Lord Colavon. You can't imagine what a lot of food they get through. But we'll send Gladys out to borrow what she can. Her aunt may have some bacon. Anyway we can get some bread and cheese. I'm sure you won't mind, Lord Colavon. Beth is trying to say that you will, but you won't."
"I wasn't trying to say any such thing," said Beth. "I was trying to say that Jimmy hasn't got a bathing dress."
"Would Timothy's fit you? He has one, I know, for I bought it for him last summer. But he's never worn it, not once. Such a pity. But you know the sort of man your poor, dear uncle is, Beth. He won't enjoy himself. So tiresome of him. I'm just as fond of him as I was the day I married him, but I do wish I could tempt him to do something really wrong. It would be so good for him. Not that bathing is wrong. It isn't. Though I sometimes think that Timothy thinks it is."
After a long search in which both girls joined, the vicar's bathing dress was found, still wrapped in the paper in which it had left Linker's shop in Morriton St. James. The towel offered by Mrs. Eames was not so new. Indeed it was far from being clean. The vicar, apparently, had not thought it wrong to use it.
"How tiresome," said Mrs. Eames, a few minutes later as they crossed the beach. "There's somebody there at the mouth of the cave. A man. I can't think what he's doing there. It doesn't matter really of course. Still, it would have been nicer if we'd had the place to ourselves."
"He looks like a policeman," said Mary.
"He can't be a policeman," said Mrs. Eames. "There aren't any in Hailey Compton. I never saw one here in my life except on the day of the pageant. There were a few then."
"It is a policeman right enough," said Jimmy.
They were near enough to be sure of the uniform. Mrs. Eames was surprised and annoyed.
"Perhaps he'll go away," she said, "when he sees we're going to bathe. I'm not particularly modest and I don't mind any ordinary man watching me. But a policeman is different somehow. I'm sure you'd hate to have a policeman standing about while you undress, wouldn't you, Mary?"
Beth evidently disliked the presence of the policeman quite as much as her aunt did, though not perhaps through feelings of modesty. She caught Jimmy's arm and looked anxiously into his face.
"Let's wave towels and bathing dresses," said Mrs. Eames, "and if that doesn't make him understand that he's not wanted you'll have to ask him to go away, Lord Colavon."
The demonstration with towels and bathing dresses had no effect whatever on the policeman. He stood there, stolid and unmoved, an Englishman at the post of duty, and in all the world there is nothing so immovable as that.
Jimmy, pushed forward by Mrs. Eames, approached the man.
"I wonder," he said, "if you'd mind moving away a little, a few yards along the beach in either direction. The ladies want to bathe in this pool and it's rather awkward if you stand just there. No place to undress, you know."
"Very sorry, sir," said the policeman. "No one is allowed to enter the cave. Orders, sir."
"Orders!" said Jimmy sharply. "Whose orders?"
"Orders of the district superintendent at Morriton St. James, sir."
Jimmy turned away and whistled softly. Mrs. Eames addressed a vigorous protest to the policeman. She said a great deal about the rights of free British citizens to enter caves if they chose. She argued about the unreasonableness of interfering with an innocent pleasure like bathing. She spoke, as she always did,volubly and with energy. The policeman remained entirely indifferent, merely repeating the word "Orders" from time to time when Mrs. Eames paused for breath.
"Jimmy," said Beth, in an anxious whisper, "what's he doing here?"
"It looks to me," said Jimmy, "very much as if somebody had tumbled to the fact that all the cargo we landed the other night wasn't stage property. If so, the fat's in the fire and no mistake."
"But was there anything really smuggled?" said Beth.
There is honour and a sense of comradeship among thieves. Jimmy would not give away the secrets of Hinton and Linker.
"There was that little parcel of silk stockings," he said, "which I promised to get for you and Mary."
"How perfectly sweet of you," said Mary. "I never thought you really meant to."
"I'm beginning to wish I hadn't," said Jimmy. "That policeman——"
"Do you mean to say he'll take the stockings?" said Mary. "How mean!"
"I'm very much afraid he'll do more than that," said Jimmy.
"Jimmy, dearest," said Beth, "do you think he'll put you in prison?"
Mrs. Eames, finding that neither protests nor arguments affected the policeman, ended her harangue with a threat.
"Perhaps you're not aware," she said, "that my husband is the vicar of the parish, the Reverend Timothy Eames. I shall go straight to him now and tell him of your outrageous behaviour. He'll know how to deal with you."
She cannot have believed that; but she spoke with dignity and firmness, as if her husband was a masterful archdeacon and the policeman a naughty choirboy. Perhaps the policeman knew the Reverend Timothy Eames, perhaps he was a believer in the majesty of the law and held that the temporal power is greater than the might of the Church. He was quite unmoved by the threat, and when Mrs. Eames turned her back upon him and walked stiffly away he showed no sign of fear.
Mrs. Eames, very angry indeed, stalked back across the beach. Jimmy and the girls followedher, Mary puzzled, Beth anxious, Jimmy thinking deeply.
"You'd better go to the vicarage with your aunt," he said. "I must trot off and see James Hinton."
"But can't I help you?" said Beth. "I'm rather frightened. I do wish you hadn't done it, Jimmy."
Jimmy refrained from saying he was not the only person who had done it and that things would have been just as bad if there were no silk stockings in the cave for her and Mary.
A fresh surprise, exceedingly alarming and unpleasant, waited for him at the Anchor Inn. On the bench outside were two policemen. They were seated very much at their ease in the pleasant sunshine, and both of them were smoking. It was plain that they were not on duty at the moment. Jimmy's first thought was that Hinton had been already arrested, but the attitude of the policemen reassured him. It is not lolling with a pipe in his mouth that the British constable guards an important prisoner.
Jimmy passed into the inn and found Hintonin the room behind the bar packing a suit-case. He looked white and haggard and was badly frightened. But even with the fear of the vengeance of the law hanging over him his excellent manners did not fail.
"Good morning, my lord. Is there anything I can do for your lordship? I fear the house is rather upset, but—a glass of beer, perhaps? I am thinking of going away for a few days, just packing up, as you see, my lord. But if there's anything I can do to make your lordship comfortable before I go—— It has always been my wish, my lord, to make any gentleman who employs me as comfortable as possible—or his friends, my lord."
The man, apparently, scarcely knew what he was saying. He was frightened out of his senses and was possessed by a desire to get away as quickly as possible.
"You're not arrested, are you, Hinton?"
"Me, my lord! Certainly not. I've always borne a most excellent character. No one has ever had occasion to say anything against me. I'm—I'm going away for a few days, my lord. A little holiday."
"There's a policeman at the mouth of the cave, Hinton, and there are two more outside your door at this moment. What are they doing?"
"I don't know, my lord. I prefer not to inquire; but——" Here Hinton's nerves failed him completely, and he broke down. Even his precise English failed him, and he forgot to say "my lord" at the end of every sentence. "Mr. Linker, he 'phoned through this morning," he whimpered. "He said as how that cave was to be guarded night and day so that nobody could go in or out nor nothing be taken in or out till to-morrow and then the blasted Customs officers is to come and see what's there. They can't arrest me till then. There isn't nothing for them to go on, till they can lay their hands on the goods. That's why I'm off. And Mr. Linker, he's off too. And if you take my advice you'll do a bolt before they nab you. France I'm going to, or maybe Spain. Linker, he's thinking of Russia; says as how the Russian Government won't give him up. But I don't know. I never did trust them Bolshies myself."
It was plain that there was neither counsel of a sensible kind nor any help to be got from James Hinton. The man was the victim of an ague of terror, and could not be trusted to do the simplest thing. Jimmy left the inn, speaking a word of cheerful greeting to the policemen as he passed.
An hour later James Hinton placed his suit-case in the Ford car which had once towed the Pallas Athene into Morriton St. James. He cranked up his engine and went clattering up the village street. The policemen watched him go. Then one of them took possession of the telephone in the inn and rang up the constabulary office in Morriton St. James. No one had authority or power to stop Hinton, but the police felt that it might be convenient to know where he went, in case they wanted to arrest him later on. The progress of the car was reported until it was placed in a garage in Southampton. Hinton's further movements and his embarking on board the steamer for St. Malo were also reported. After that, he was left to the French police to see where he went and what he did.
Mr. Linker, making a break for freedom in another direction, reached Amsterdam and was there marked down by the police. Whether he would ever have got to Russia, or what would have happened to him there if he had, we do not know. It turned out to be unnecessary for him to go beyond Amsterdam. Hinton got no further than an hotel in Paramé.
Jimmy went back to the vicarage. He found Beth and Mary anxious and troubled. Mrs. Eames had gone up to the church, where she expected to find her husband. She intended, so Beth said, to induce that unfortunate man to go down to the cave and drive away the policeman, by force if necessary.
"Beth," said Jimmy, "we're in a middling tight place, all of us, especially me. I've told you that I smuggled over a few stockings for you and Mary."
"Surely there won't be a row over a couple of pairs of silk stockings," said Mary. "Nobody could be fool enough to make a fuss about that, not a real fuss."
"As a matter of fact there are six dozen pairs," said Jimmy. "But——"
"How gorgeous!" said Mary. "Three dozen each. Jimmy, we must get them somehow. Suppose I go and make myself perfectly sweet to that policeman. He might be beguiled into letting me——"
"Do shut up, Mary," said Beth anxiously. "This is serious. Go on, Jimmy. What were you going to say?"
"If it was only the stockings I've smuggled," said Jimmy, "there wouldn't be much said about it, but the damned lugger was half full of brandy and wine for Hinton and bales of silk for that sneaking ruffian Linker."
"Will they be arrested?" said Beth. "Don't say they'll be hanged. They don't hang people for smuggling nowadays, do they?"
"They won't be arrested or hanged if I can help it," said Jimmy. "Not that I'd care if they were. I'd be glad. Those two sneaking cowards have bolted, leaving the rest of us to take what's coming, and it'll be mighty unpleasant, unless——"
"Will they put you in prison, Jimmy?" said Mary.
"They may. I don't know, and I don't muchcare. It won't be for very long, anyhow. What I mind is the infernal mess Uncle Evie will be in, and your aunt, and the bishop, a thoroughly decent old boy that bishop, and all the rest of them. They'll never be able to hold up their heads again. What I mean to say is, it doesn't matter about a fellow like me. But how can Uncle Evie go on being a leading statesman and all that? How can the bishop go on preaching the way bishops do? How can your aunt go on being a vicar's wife, if once it comes out that they've all been deliberately defrauding the revenue on a large scale?"
"Do you mean to say that Aunt Agatha will have to give up being married to Uncle Timothy?" said Beth. "She never will, whatever they say or do to her."
"She'll have to," said Jimmy. "Either that or he'll have to resign the parish, unless we can pull them out of the mess they're in."
"Then let's do it," said Beth. "I'm on for anything to save Aunt Agatha and your old pet of an uncle whom I love. And the bishop. I've always liked bishops, and thisone seemed particularly nice. You'll help too, Mary, won't you?"
"Of course I will. I may not be as keen on bishops as you are, Beth, but there are very few things I wouldn't do for the sake of three dozen pairs of silk stockings."
"The first question," said Jimmy, "is, can we persuade your uncle to chip in and stand by us?"
"He'd do anything for Aunt Agatha," said Beth. "He's just as fond of her as she is of him."
"I wonder would he do the sort of thing that some people might call wrong?"
"Of course he would," said Mary. "Anybody would. All really nice and exciting things are wrong, but everybody does them."
Beth was doubtful.
"Uncle Timothy," she said, "isn't like you, Mary, or like most other people. He has a conscience, rather a queer kind of conscience, quite different from Aunt Agatha's, though hers is pretty silly too. The way it takes her is, making her do things, for the parish and all that; whereas it works the other way round with Uncle Timothy, and won't let him doanything hardly. Queer things consciences are, aren't they?"
"Glad I haven't got one," said Mary.
"Well," said Jimmy, "we'll try him. But I tell you plainly that if he won't, we're in an ugly place. Whether he helps or not, we're in an ugly place; but it'll be much uglier if he won't stand in with us. I'm not going to ask him to do much; but I must be able to count on his not giving us away. I think I'd better go up to the church and tackle him."
While he was speaking Mrs. Eames came up the drive holding the vicar's hand. She was trying to walk much more quickly than he wanted to, and it looked as if she was dragging him after her, a prisoner, but apparently not an unwilling one, for his face expressed a kind of puzzled delight.
"Beth," she shouted, "you naughty girl! And you're just as bad, Lord Colavon. Fancy your knowing all about it for days and days and never saying a word to me, either of you."
"I've just been showing her our little discovery," said the vicar in a tone of mild apology. "You remember, Beth, the passage from the church to the cave."
"Aunt Agatha," said Beth, "I want to tell you——"
"You were a wicked girl not to tell me before," said Mrs. Eames. "It's the most exciting thing that's ever happened in Hailey Compton. We'll get down the Royal Society of Antiquaries—I suppose there is a Royal Society of Antiquaries. If there isn't we'll get down the whole British Association, all sorts of learned men from everywhere. You remember the fuss that there was over that skull they dug up somewhere a few years ago. That will be nothing to what this will be. Hailey Compton will be famous all over the world. I always said you ought to do something for the parish, Timothy, and you have at last."
"I'm so glad you're pleased," said the vicar with a wavering little smile.
"Aunt Agatha——" said Beth again.
"Don't interrupt your uncle, Beth, when he's just going to tell us all about his discovery."
"Mrs. Eames," said Lord Colavon, "I really must speak to the vicar for a minute. It's about a serious business and dashed unpleasant."
Even Mrs. Eames was silenced for a moment by the gravity of his tone. When he began to tell the story of the smuggling she grew excited and indignant.
"So that's what James Hinton had in his mind all the time," she said, "and he was only pretending to be interested in the pageant. Guaranteeing fifty pounds! And all the time I thought—— He has——" here she stamped her foot, "he has had the insolence to make a fool of me, he and that nasty Linker, a man I always hated, though I did deal at his shop. But I never will again, or with Hinton. I'll get any beer I want somewhere else, or I'll do without beer altogether. Lord Colavon, do you mind not having any beer for luncheon to-day? Timothy, you must promise me never to have Hinton for your churchwarden again."
"The worst of it is," said Jimmy, "that the Inland Revenue people have found out."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Mrs. Eames.
"And now," said Jimmy, "I'm very much afraid that there may be arrests."
"The policeman at the mouth of the cave!" said Mrs. Eames. "So that's why he was there. I don't care. I'm glad. Let him arrest James Hinton as soon as he likes. I'd like to see him in prison. After the way he made fools of us all he deserves it."
"Hinton has run away," said Beth, "and the policeman will arrest you."
"That's ridiculous," said Mrs. Eames. "He can't arrest me. I haven't smuggled. They can't touch me, can they, Lord Colavon?"
"I don't think they can arrest you," said Jimmy, "but they may arrest me. And anyhow, there are other things to consider besides arrests. There's your reputation, Mrs. Eames, and Uncle Evie's, and the bishop's, and—well, all the people who've been down here, patrons of the pageant and so forth. When this scandal comes out——"
Even Mrs. Eames, though conscious of complete innocence, saw that a scandal would be most unpleasant for everyone, andvery damaging for men like Sir Evelyn and the bishop.
"But Jimmy has a plan," said Beth. "If only Uncle Timothy will agree to it. Jimmy, what is your plan?"
Jimmy explained a simple but promising scheme. The examination of the cave and the seizure of the smuggled goods would not take place until the next day. If, in the meanwhile, all the brandy, wine and silk could be removed from the cave the Customs officers would find no smuggled goods. There would therefore be no evidence that contraband goods had been landed or that any smuggling had actually been done. Whatever suspicions might be entertained there would be no sort of proof.
"But we can't get the things out of the cave with a policeman on guard," said Beth. "Unless—— Oh, Jimmy, the hole from the church into the cave! Could we?"
"We can," said Jimmy, "if the vicar will let us."
"I won't have poor darling Timothy mixed up in it," said Mrs. Eames. "He's never done anything wrong in his life."
"I don't think this is very wrong," said Beth.
"It's helping a fraud," said Mrs. Eames, "and that is wrong. What is it called? Accessory after the fact or something. Anyhow it's wrong and Timothy mustn't do it. They can arrest me if they like and put me in prison, but I won't have Timothy dragged into it."
She put her arm round his neck and stood beside him, her free hand tightly clenched, the fire of defiance in her eyes.
"What do you say yourself, sir?" said Jimmy.
The vicar said nothing for a while. He may have been trying to make up his mind what he ought to say, or it may have been simply that his wife's clasp on his neck was so tight as to make speech impossible.
Jimmy,advocatus diaboliin the matter, put the case for wrong-doing as strongly as he could. The reputations of many eminent men were threatened by a scandal from the defilement of which none of them would ever be able to get wholly clear. The good name of the Church was in peril. The prospects of a greatparty in the State were in jeopardy. Every man, institution or party has enemies. The enemies of religion, atheists and mockers, would fasten on the bishop and through him would injure the Church and Christianity itself. The enemies of the State, socialists and communists, would swarm round Sir Evelyn and work incalculable mischief. The scandal would give them the opportunity they wanted. He pleaded earnestly. Beth backed his appeal; but Mrs. Eames's eyes still flashed righteous indignation and her fist was still tightly clenched.
"Agatha, dear, do let me speak," said the vicar in a hoarse whisper.
Mrs. Eames slightly relaxed her hold on his neck.
"You've often said," the vicar began addressing his wife, "You've often said that I would be a better man if——"
"You couldn't be better, Timothy darling. I've always said that."
"——that I would be a better man if only I would do something wrong."
"Timothy, dearest one, I never said that."
"You did, Aunt Agatha," said Beth. "I've heard you often."
"I rather think I have, too," said Jimmy, "once or twice."
"I should like to be a better man," said the vicar. "I've always wished to be that."
"And you will be," said Jimmy. "If you help us in this you'll be—— By Jove! you'll be the best man I've ever met."
"And it isn't very wrong," said Beth.
"It isn't wrong at all," said Mary eagerly. "When anyone is wicked enough to make a law against silk stockings it isn't wrong to break it, it's right."
"The wronger it is the better man the vicar will be afterwards," said Jimmy. "That's what Mrs. Eames says, and she knows."
"If I ever said any such thing——" said Mrs. Eames.
"You have," said the vicar. "My dear Agatha, you often have."
"I may have," said Mrs. Eames unwillingly. "But if I did, I certainly never meant the sort of wrong thing you could be put in prison for."
"But he won't be," said Jimmy, "or if he is, we'll all be there with him."
"I've always known you were quite right, Agatha, dear," said the vicar plaintively, "and that I ought to do something wrong. My difficulty was to find out something that I could do. I really didn't want to restore a church or write a book about heretics, and nothing else seemed to offer itself. But now—— Lord Colavon, I'm greatly obliged to you, and I regard this as just the opportunity I wanted. Agatha dearest, don't say anything more."
But that was asking too much of Mrs. Eames. She did say a great deal more, though nothing to dissuade the vicar from his determination to pursue the crown of sainthood through the ways of wrong-doing. Having withdrawn her opposition to Jimmy's plan she flung herself eagerly into a discussion of the best ways of carrying it out. There were a great many details to be arranged. Young Bunce's tackle, for instance, which was still in the church, was plainly insufficient for the work of hoisting things out of the cave. The rope was not long enough. As the police were blocking theordinary entrance to the cave someone would have to be let down to the cave and afterwards hoisted up. Jimmy volunteered for the work but objected to trusting his life to young Bunce's frayed rope. He proposed to buy a new outfit of ropes and blocks, some materials for the erection of a derrick in the church and perhaps a windlass. It was regarded as undesirable to make such purchases in Morriton St. James, where the suspicions of the police might easily be aroused. Here the Pallas Athene proved its value. With such a car it would be possible to rush off to Southampton, thence to Portsmouth, afterwards, if necessary, to Plymouth, places in which such gear might be purchased, a rope here and a block there, without giving rise to inquiries.
There was the question, a much more difficult one, of the disposal of the smuggled goods after they had been lodged in the church.
"They can be piled up in the old pew in the chancel," said Mrs. Eames, "and the curtains drawn. No one ever goes there."
"But they can't always stay there," said the vicar. "I shouldn't like the feeling that the church was full of brandy."
"I don't see how we could possibly take all that stuff away," said Beth, "or where we could put it if we did."
Here Mary made a suggestion, though not a very helpful one.
"I'll carry my stockings away with me," she said, "and I'll take yours, too, if you like, Beth."
"Couldn't we leave it to Hinton and Linker to take away their own things?" said Beth.
"Certainly not," said Mrs. Eames vindictively. "It was Hinton and Linker who got us into this trouble, and I'll never agree to their being rewarded for it."
"Besides," said Jimmy, "they've both run away and we can't get at them."
It was, oddly enough, the vicar who hit on the solution of the difficulty.
"This is only Tuesday," he said. "As long as the things are taken out of the church before Sunday it will be all right. Suppose we lower them all down into the cave again on Friday or Saturday. The Customs officers will have given up searching by that time."
"Splendid!" said Beth. "No one evergoes into the cave except you, Aunt Agatha. I should think the brandy and other things might stay there for ever without anybody knowing."
"It does seem a pity about the silk," said Mary. "Such waste."
"And I did hope——" said Mrs. Eames, with a deep sigh.
Everyone understood and sympathised with her. She was called upon to renounce her ambition, to surrender a great hope at the very moment of fruition. The cave had been advertised by the pageant, would be re-advertised by the vicar's discovery. Crowds of people would come to see it. Antiquaries would explore its depths. Picnic parties would shout hilariously to its echoing walls. Just one effort, scarcely an effort, merely the allowing of things to take their course and all this would be realised. Hailey Compton would be famous. Wealth would pour in upon its inhabitants. A great and glorious work for the village would be accomplished. But all this, so it seemed, must be given up. The cave must lapse into a solitude again and the village remain as poor and primitive as it had ever been.It was a bitter disappointment to Mrs. Eames; but she bore it bravely, sustained by the thought that her beloved Timothy was at last doing something, though something in itself undesirable.
For the rest of that morning and all the afternoon the Pallas Athene raced at incredible speeds, east and west on the great main roads of the south of England. Jimmy, at the steering-wheel, broke record after record and rejoiced. Beth, beside him, glowed with a satisfaction not unlike her aunt's. Like the Reverend Timothy Eames, Jimmy, her lover, was proving himself a worthy man, actually doing something of real usefulness. He was breaking laws with reckless daring all day long in order to be able to break other laws all night. But—Beth thrilled with the thought, he was saving the honour of men and women, the good name of the church, the constitution of the State, the majesty of the Empire.
At ten o'clock that night, Jimmy, seated in the loop of a carefully tied knot, was lowered slowly, turning giddily round, from the squire's pew in Hailey Compton church into the profounddarkness of the cave below. Clinging tightly to the rope, paying it out inch by inch were Mrs. Eames, Mary Lambert, Beth Appleby and the vicar. Their muscles were tense, their faces set with anxious determination. A distant sound of rolling stones and a sharp twitching of the rope told them that the ordeal was safely over. The rope was hauled up again and Beth, with white face and clenched teeth, took her seat in the loop. She grasped the rope above her firmly. The descent began. She bumped against the sides of the hole and was bruised. She grew giddy as the rope swung round and round. But her courage held. She was received at last in Jimmy's arms.
Then began for the whole party a night of desperate toil. Jimmy and Beth, sweating and half smothered in the close air of the cave, dragged the bales and cases to the gaping hole. Their fingers bled where the skin was rubbed off them. Their nails were broken. Their muscles were strained to utter weariness. Far above them, the vicar, Mrs. Eames and Mary hauled at the rope. The slowly raised weights seemed to grow heavier and heavier. Theymoved uneasily in a space which became gradually narrowed and less sufficient as bales and cases were piled up in the square pew. How fortunate that the eighteenth century lord of the manor, who designed and built the pew, should have liked ample space for his devotions! He planned largely, a room rather than a pew, intending perhaps to use the place not only for worship but for just such purposes as it was used for that night.
All night long—such are the curious inequalities of the human lot—a policeman stood at the mouth of the cave. While others toiled, he wearied of utter idleness. While others gasped for air, the sea breeze blew round him. While others sweated, he stamped his feet and swung his arms to keep himself warm. In the new society of which we dream, for which we strive, things must be better ordered. No longer must our souls be vexed by the contrast between excessive toil and listless idleness.
Yet—and here again we have an instance of the oddness of human affairs—the leisured policeman, yawning and stretching himself, missed something which came to the perspiringtoilers in the cave—a thrill, a joy, a rapture which more than compensated for bleeding knuckles, broken nails and aching limbs.
The last case was secured in its sling and ascended slowly into the darkness. The work of the night was finished. In a few minutes Beth would be following the case, seated in the loop, clinging to the rope. Then Jimmy would follow her, and after that—— He hoped that Mrs. Eames had some beer in the vicarage. He believed she had. He thought she must have. No woman would be so foolish as to forget to have beer ready at the end of such a night. Beer! Not since the day when Sir Evelyn first drove down the hill into Hailey Compton had any man wanted beer so much as Jimmy wanted it then.
But Beth, it seemed, was not thinking of beer, or even of tea, which for some women takes the place of beer.
"Jimmy," she said softly, "do you remember the last time we were here?"
"Of course I do. A smuggler's ghost threw stones at us."
"And I said——"
Beth paused for a while. Then the darkness, a wonderful solvent of maiden modesty, helped her to go on again.
"I think I said—— I mean, after you said—— You remember what you said——"
"I said what I've been saying for the last two years," said Jimmy. "And what you said was 'No.'"
"But I told you why," said Beth.
"You've always been telling me why."
"Jimmy," she burst out, "are you going to make me propose to you? Don't you see, you silly old dear, that that isn't a why any longer? You've been perfectly splendid to-night. You've thought of things and done things—and—— Oh, Jimmy, only for you where would everybody be to-morrow when the horrid Customs officers come to search the cave?"
Then, though very thirsty, Jimmy forgot about the beer. Ben Jonson, a dramatist and a poet who knew something about human nature and could express himself very prettily, says that kisses are to be preferred sometimes "even to Jove's nectar." Jimmy, tired, soreand grimy, in a stuffy cave, at the horrible hour of 4 a.m., found them more to be desired than much beer.
A good conscience is a priceless possession. Sir Evelyn had not broken the laws of his country by bringing into it forbidden things. With all his admiration for the smugglers of the eighteenth century, whose lives he studied, it would have been impossible for him to imitate them. Nor would he willingly have associated with a man who smuggled anything more than a box of cigars after a trip to the Channel Islands. The accusation of the egregious Mr. East left Sir Evelyn untroubled. Some incredibly absurd mistake had been made for which in due time an apology would be forthcoming. It was impossible that a pageant, in itself a highly commendable thing—a pageant under the patronage of a bishop, of a judge, of a man who had been Prime Minister, of Sir Evelyn Dent—should have been in reality a smuggling raid. Was he to suspect Mrs. Eames, atransparently honest though too talkative lady, of being a smuggler? And she had managed the whole affair from the beginning. Could he think that James Hinton, the very type of superior upper servant, that Linker, a most respectable shopkeeper with a taste for politics, had deliberately planned a disgraceful fraud? The idea was preposterous. And had not his own nephew, Lord Colavon, to whom the petty gains of illicit trading could be no temptation—had he not been in command of—had he not actually steered the lugger?
Someone in a Government office in London had blundered badly, and the ridiculous, tremulous Mr. East with his ultimatum and his threats could be forgotten as quickly as possible.
Nevertheless, Sir Evelyn could not quite forget Mr. East, and after a while he rose and rang the bell.
"If Lord Colavon is anywhere about the place," he said, "ask him to be so good as to come and speak to me here for a few minutes."
A servant searched for Lord Colavon in the house. A gardener sought him in the grounds. A man who cleaned the boots and carried coalreported that the Pallas Athene was not in the garage. It was surmised that Lord Colavon had not yet returned from the railway station to which he had conveyed the judge.
"Very well," said Sir Evelyn, "as soon as he does return ask him to come here."
The morning passed, not unpleasantly for Sir Evelyn, who found much to interest him in the press-cuttings. Luncheon-time came and he ate it alone. Lord Colavon had not yet returned and the Pallas Athene was not yet in the garage. The servant, surmising again, suggested that his lordship might have gone to Hailey Compton to visit the young ladies. Sir Evelyn thought this very likely, and ate his luncheon peacefully. Tea-time came, and after that dinner, but Lord Colavon did not appear. Sir Evelyn was slightly annoyed but not much surprised. His nephew was a young man of irregular habits.
The servant, bringing whisky and a siphon into the study at half-past nine, ventured on a further guess.
"His lordship's car may have broken down somewhere."
This, too, seemed probable.
"Very unreliable, these high-powered cars," said the servant. "So I've always been led to believe."
"Don't sit up for him," said Sir Evelyn. "He's not likely to return to-night. I shall go to bed as usual."
He did, at the sober hour of eleven o'clock. He was by that time seriously annoyed and a little uneasy—not because he feared that any harm had come to his nephew. Whatever might have happened to the car, Jimmy himself was sure to be safe. Accidents do not happen to that kind of young man, though they ought to. Yet, Sir Evelyn reflected, it would have been satisfactory to have heard him deny—— No. It would be ridiculous to expect a formal denial of Mr. East's accusation. It would have been satisfactory to have laughed over the matter with his nephew. To make jokes about it and hear jokes made before going to bed. Yet, in spite of annoyance, Sir Evelyn slept quietly that night.
Next morning at eight o'clock he was called and his letters laid beside him. Sir Evelyn glanced at them as he poured out his tea.There was a thick bundle of press-cuttings, more comments on the pageant. There were several circulars. There were one or two bills. There was just one envelope which looked as if it contained a letter. It came from a very important political personage, one of those gentlemen whose names do not appear prominently in the newspapers, who seldom make speeches on full-dress occasions, but are powerful in the councils of parties and have a great deal to do with the administration of funds.
Sir Evelyn opened the envelope with a vague feeling of uneasiness. The premonition was justified at once. The letter was startling and disquieting.