Front matter (continued 4)

"Are you going to publish it?" asked Mr. Clutterbuck politely, by way of beginning the conversation.

"Well," said Mr. Bailey, "I rather think I am. I dare say I should have to get it printed abroad, but that's no drawback."

"I hope it's all right," said Mr. Clutterbuck in alarm.

"Oh yes, it's quite moral," said Mr. Bailey airily. "But one often has to get things done abroad. Would you like to look at some of it?"

Mr. Clutterbuck had the courtesy to glance at the yards of double names and dates, but they meant nothing to him. He asked which column one read first, and William Bailey could only find the stupid and would-be enigmatic reply that some read it one way and some read it the other.

"Beaufort equals Rosenberg, or Rosenberg equals Beaufort: it's all the same thing. It's usually French on the left and German on the right," he said quizzically, putting his head on one side. "Middle Ages there, Modern Ages here," he went on, wagging his head symbolically right and left; and then suddenly broke out: "What've you come to see me about? Still hanging fire?"

Mr. Clutterbuck admitted that it was, and Mr. Bailey surveyed him with great kindness. It was evident the crank had no desire to eat up this particular millionaire; he would give him a certificate of pure blood. He smiled at his sister's new acquaintance with deep benediction and at last he said in a knowing tone:

"Look here, Mr. Clutterbuck, I think I can only do one thing for you, but it's a very useful thing. It's just a rule of thumb, and I'm afraid you'll think it something in the dark; but it's no good making any more of it just now than a plain rule of thumb. It's just a plain rule of thumb."

Mr. Clutterbuck groaned inwardly. He was in the fog again. But William Bailey went on quite composed:

"I know a good deal of things," he said, stretching his arms and yawning as he said it.

"Yes, Mr. Bailey, certainly," said Mr. Clutterbuck fervently.

"Well then, if I just tell you a simple little dodge—don't think it too simple—just take it as a tip from me, and I'll see you through. I mean what I say. I don't think I'd do it for anybody else. Try the Anapootra Ruby Mines."

CHAPTER XI

The name of the Anapootra Ruby Mines—that name of power—left Mr. Clutterbuck as blank as ever.

It couldn't be a medicine by the name of it, and if it was an investment, he hadn't come for any advice of that sort. He thought he knew his way about there.

"I don't understand what you mean," he said a little bluntly, for of late his courage had increased with his worries.

"Why," said Mr. Bailey, as though it were the simplest thing in the world, "the Anapootra Ruby Mines. Talk about 'em. Say you're interested in 'em. It'll work marvels."

Mr. Clutterbuck was almost in despair.

"If that's all you got to tell me," he said——

William Bailey put a hand on his shoulder. "Now there you are," he said, "that's just what I was afraid of. I give you a tip—it isn't a tip I'd give anybody else, and it's the very best tip I could give you. And because you don't see why it's a good tip, you're going to reject it."

"No I'm not, Mr. Bailey, really I'm not," said the unfortunate Clutterbuck. "But I don't understand—upon my word I don't understand."

"What's there to understand?" asked William Bailey. "There are the Anapootra Ruby Mines, and you just talk about them; that's easy enough. You bring them up at dinner; you add a postscript when you write a letter: 'By the way, have you heard about the Anapootra Ruby Mines?' Or you open a paper and say to the company: 'It's funny, but I don't see anything about the Anapootra Ruby Mines to-day.' You mayn't see why it will work wonders, but it will. By the way, have you ever seen the name in a paper?"

"I seem to have seen it somewhere," said Mr. Clutterbuck, not liking to confess his ignorance.

"Well, you haven't," replied William Bailey rudely. "You may bet your hat on that. If they'd been in the papers, there'd be nothing to talk about. But you talk about them long enough, and they'll get in the papers all right."

"But I don't see the connection," quavered Mr. Clutterbuck.

"Well, there it is," said William Bailey sighing, "there's the tip. If you try it and let it work, it will do marvels; and then you'll see what I've done."

"But what are they?" persisted Mr. Clutterbuck.

"Oh, ruby mines!" almost shouted William Bailey.

"Yes, certainly, but where?"

"In Anapootra of course," said Bailey.

Mr. Clutterbuck rose to go with a joyless face.

"You come back to me when it begins to work, and I'll see you through," were the last words of William Bailey, and his guest heard them ringing in his ears as he went mournfully to the train.

In The Plâs that very evening he tried it on. They were at their lonely meal, all three, Charlie Fitzgerald, who inwardly wished he had got away, Mrs. Clutterbuck, and the master of the house. They dared not have friends under such a cloud. Mr. Clutterbuck said casually to Mrs. Clutterbuck:

"My dear, do you know anything of the Anapootra Ruby Mines?"

"No," said Mrs. Clutterbuck sharply, and at the same time in a manner that clearly showed she was bored. The City had always wearied her since her husband's success; she hardly thought it quite the thing to speak of it before Charlie Fitzgerald. As for that well-born youth, he remained quite silent and ate with singular rapidity the Mousseline Braganza à la Polignac which he had before him.

"Do you know anything about them?" said Mr. Clutterbuck undaunted, and turning to Charlie Fitzgerald.

His wife issued one of her commanding glances, but he avoided it.

"The—Anapootra—Ruby—Mines?" said Charlie Fitzgerald, hesitating between each syllable. "No, I don't. I know about the Brahmapootra: it's a river."

"Yes," said Mr. Clutterbuck, and this singularly unfruitful conversation ended.

But Charlie Fitzgerald wondered and wondered more deeply what on earth he was to do. His task had been difficult enough already; it was becoming impossible.

Next day he took his bag and was off, but he promised to be home before the end of the week, and he promised still more sincerely, in private to Mr. Clutterbuck, to do everything that could possibly be done, and if he failed, to form some further plan. He was careful not to use any of the cars—he had used them quite enough lately, and the weather was foul. He took the train in the common fashion and drove from Victoria straight to Barnett House. The telephone had prepared them for his visit, and the Duke of Battersea, always the kindest and the warmest of friends to the young men of his rank, took him affectionately into the inner room, and heard all he might have to say.

The Duke of Battersea, now well stricken in years, was of that kind which age matures and perfects.

The bitter struggles of his youth when, in part a foreigner, ill acquainted with our tongue and bewildered by many of our national customs, he had made his entry into English finance, had given him all the wisdom such trials convey, but they had left nothing of that bitterness too often bred in the souls of those who suffer. The failure of the Haymarket Bank would not indeed have checked so tenacious a character, but the undeserved obloquy which he suffered in the few years succeeding that misfortune, and during the period when it was falsely imagined that he had finally failed, might have put him out of touch with the national life and have given him a false and uncharitable estimate of the country of his adoption. So far from permitting any such acidity to warp his soul, Mr. Barnett (as he then was) had but the more faithfully gone forward in the path which destiny offered him, and he had reaped the reward which modern England never fails to give to those of her sons who have preserved, throughout all the vicissitudes of life, a true sense of proportion and a proper balance between material prosperity and the public service.

When he had been raised to the peerage as Lord Lambeth, a vigorous man of fifty years, not only was his public position assured, but that respect for a firm character and a just maintenance of a man's own establishment in the world which should accompany such a position, was deeply founded in the mind of the general public.

The newspapers, through which the great mass of our fellow citizens obtain their information, mentioned him not only continually, but with invariable deference, and often with admiration. His efforts in the House of Lords in favour of Bosnian freedom, and in the particular case of Macchabee Czernwitz, had proclaimed just that disinterested enthusiasm which we love to see applied by our great men to foreign affairs; while, nearer home, the Organ Grinders' Bill, for which he was mainly responsible, was a piece of practical legislation which had obtained general recognition upon both sides of either House.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that when the M'Korio Delta Development Company was taken over by the State, his connection with that gallant experiment in the building of Empire, earned him a permanent fame more valuable than any material reward. He had long ago severed all personal connection with the district, retaining only so many shares as permitted him to sit upon the Board, and it is no little tribute to this great Englishman to point out that after seventeen years, during which it had been impossible to pay a dividend, he was able triumphantly to persuade a united public opinion and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to purchase the concession at par: more, he handed over intact to the Crown not only the delta of the M'Korio River, but Mubu Otowa and the malarial district to the south of Tschè.

It was shortly after this achievement, in the year 1910, that he consented—somewhat reluctantly—to an advance in honour and accepted the Dukedom of Battersea.

The lower rungs of the ladder he had been willing to mount; but a natural reserve had forbidden him hitherto to accede to the most pressing entreaties from either Party. He had indeed kept aloof from party politics, and had subscribed to the funds of the two great organisations only because he thought it his duty to enable men poorer than himself to display their talents in the arena of Parliament and because he justly desired to preserve some power for righteousness with the Executive of the moment.

Even at this late hour, over seventy years of age, and prepared at any moment to answer the Great Summons, he would hardly have followed the advice of his friend the Prime Minister in accepting the honour proposed to him, had not the task been rendered sadly easier to him by one tragic accident: there was no longer an heir to his vast wealth and honourable name. The Master of Kendale (for such was the name of the old Scottish place), the handsome, intelligent boy with the bourbon nose, the wealth of black curls, proud full lips, and brilliant eyes which had lent such life to so many reunions, the child of Lord Lambeth's old age, his Ben-jamin was no more. The young soldier had lost his off stirrup only the summer before while trotting his yeomen on parade before the royal visitors to the Potteries, and when he was picked up he was quite dead; the neck was broken between the second and third cervical vertebræ.

For the old man the blow was terrible. Long widowed, all his hopes had centred upon this only child whom, though not yet of age, he had already begun to train in the great money which he was destined to inherit and control. For a moment he thought of giving up Barnett House—of resigning his affairs. At last he rallied, and the tragedy had this good in it for England, that it permitted him to accept the Dukedom, and perhaps also permitted him to continue, if only as a solace, that active interest in the wider commerce of the Empire wherein his talents were of such fruit and value to his country.

It was in connection with these that the Duke of Battersea had undertaken the management of those Anapootra Ruby Mines, the quiet transference of which to his able management had been the triumph of the last vice royalty. Is it to be wondered at if Fitzgerald, fearing such interests were menaced, went to warn their chief protector?

He was brief and clear. The Ruby Mines were out. They must be well out or old Clutterbuck wouldn't have heard of them, and old Clutterbuck had.

No words of mine are needed to defend the commercial honour of the Duke of Battersea; still less need I waste a moment's effort in an apology for our great Civil Service. It needs men of a very different calibre from Mr. Bailey to throw doubt upon the absolute integrity of our Imperial system; and the last Lieutenant-Governor of Anapootra in particular, deservedly boasting a host of friends, intensely laborious, honourably poor, would have cause for complaint if even an eulogy of him, let alone a defence, were undertaken here. But in order to comprehend the foolish and treasonable agitation Mr. Bailey hoped to raise, it is necessary that I should put down plainly all the circumstances of the venture.

For many centuries the ruby mines of Anapootra had been worked as the property of that native State. And when the administration of the valley was taken over by Great Britain the exploitation of the mines very naturally followed. From April 1 of the year 1905 they had become, along with certain other possessions of the State, a portion of the public domain.

The traditional methods by which their wealth had hitherto been exploited were wholly insufficient. A community of some hundreds of natives, working upon a complex, co-operative system, living in a miserable state of poverty and degradation, had paid, from immemorial time, a fixed percentage of their output to their Sovereign; and the humanitarian faddism of Sir Charles Finchley—whose appointment was one of the few mistakes of Lord Curzon's viceroyalty—had permitted this system to endure during the first few years of our occupation. But it was obvious that so primitive an arrangement could not endure. In 1910 there was but one question before the new Lieutenant-Governor; whether it would be more profitable to establish a direct exploitation of these mines by the Crown, or to concede that exploitation for a term of years to some company which, under expert advice and with long experience of the business, might secure a higher profit to the State. It was only after deep thought and the full consideration of every detail, that the Lieutenant-Governor decided upon the latter course and signed a concession to a private company for a term of fifteen years.

He further determined—and it was the act of a strong man—to avoid the disadvantages of public competition with its accompaniment of ill-informed and often unpatriotic criticism, of questions in the House of Commons, and of all the paraphernalia of ignorance and cant.

He made the concession boldly to a company of his own choice, and though he was not particularly concerned with the persons involved so long as the company itself was in his opinion honest and efficient, he was none the less delighted to learn that so great a financier as the Duke of Battersea had guaranteed its position and security—nay, was himself, in his capacity of the Anglo-Moravian Bank, the principal shareholder in the new venture.

It is ill work excusing any man so talented and honest, so devoted to the public service, as the late Lieutenant-Governor of Anapootra, but the criticism to which he has been subjected makes that task necessary, however painful.

The concession signed was, upon the face of it, just such a document as political puritans at home, ignorant as they are of local conditions, would pounce upon in their desire to vent their ill-informed suspicion of their own countrymen. The rent to be paid by the company was but a quarter of that originally paid by the native workers, and less than a tenth of that which official estimates of the yield under modern methods had contemplated. Moreover, no rent was to be paid before 1915, the fourth year of the concession, and there were to be rebates in case the company should come upon weak pockets or the supply should fall below a certain level in the interval for which the concession was granted. Those of my readers who are acquainted with the details of finance will at once perceive that these advantages were no more than what was necessary to tempt a private venture and the risk of private capital. But if any not acquainted with large financial operations should have lingering doubts, it is enough to add that the Lieutenant-Governor of Anapootra had been so scrupulously careful of the public interest as to resign his post and to terminate a great pro-consular career in order to accept the directorship of the new company where he could overlook its action and check its contributions to the exchequer. He was determined that no sacrifice upon his part should be spared in his zeal for the public fortune.

He did more: he persuaded the chief Government expert upon the mines to throw up his secure place, the prospect of his pension—everything, and to take at a somewhat increased salary the position of Consulting Engineer to the new Company.

He did yet more. He, a man suffering from a grave internal disease,[8] underwent, in the height of the hot season, the long journey to England in order to impress upon the Secretary of State[9] the prime importance of secrecy. He risked what was dearer than life to him—his very honour—for a venture which would ensure riches to England, and would bring enlightenment and modern progress to one far forgotten corner of the Indian world.

In a word, he left nothing undone which a sensitive and scrupulous gentleman should do to preserve the interests of his country, and in all this action he sought no fame, he permitted not a word to appear in the public Press; he went so far—it was quixotic upon his part—as to deny all rumours until the plan was complete. And though the fame of the Anapootra Valley has since widely increased through the lucrative operations of the new company, and the wide dispersion of its shares among the public, its former Lieutenant-Governor has to this day successfully prevented his name from being connected with the history of that great new asset in our commercial system.

Other nations have public servants perhaps better trained in a technical sense than are ours, but no nation can boast a body of men who will thus obscurely and without reward sacrifice themselves wholly in the public service and be content to remain unknown.

There is the whole truth upon the Anapootra Ruby Mines.

The reader who has followed the plain narrative put before him will be able to judge between it and the monstrous assumption upon which Mr. Bailey was prepared to conduct, or at any rate to initiate, his mischievous agitation.

The rapidity with which that agitation developed was embarrassing, even to a man so used to immediate decisions as the Duke of Battersea. To the ex-Lieutenant-Governor, whom his long and faithful public service in the tropics had deprived of digestion and had rendered partially deaf, it was appalling.

It was upon Tuesday afternoon, January 8, 1912, that Mr. Bailey, looking up at the ceiling, had launched the fatal words. It was upon Tuesday evening that Mr. Clutterbuck had repeated them in the presence of Fitzgerald: thanks to the prompt and loyal action of that strong young Irish soul, the Duke knew of them before Wednesday noon.

Forewarned is forearmed:—the malignant plot was at last defeated—but at what a sacrifice of honest ambition and happy lives the reader must learn and curse the name of William Bailey.

Charlie Fitzgerald sat long with the aged Duke—though there was little to say. He received with deference and grateful willingness the suggestion to be of service in a matter where written words were impossible. He made a note of whom he was to visit; how high he was to go in the event of some agency threatening to print the story of the Company; what he was to say to the editor by telephone, and what by letter to the Secretary of State. He proved that afternoon a second son to the old childless man, and when he had dined alone with him, and admired the new Rodin on the stairs, he went off to Scotland in the midnight sleeper to see the ex-Governor before the post should reach him. He was prepared to do all this and more for the Duke of Battersea, and the Duke was a grateful man.

The next morning's post was something of a trial to Mr. Clutterbuck in the absence of his secretary. He had learnt to depend upon that prop altogether, and at any other time he would have allowed all the letters which were not, by the handwriting, the letters of friends to accumulate unopened; but that day, January 10, 1912, that Thursday, he was too anxious to do any such thing. He opened one letter, then another; the third positively stupefied him. It was from his agent in Mickleton, and simply told him that a petition was to be lodged disputing the validity of his election. They had learnt the news upon the Wednesday evening.

Mr. Clutterbuck was an honest man.

The occasions on which it is possible to bring against a man of English lineage the grave accusation of tampering with political morals are very, very rare; still rarer, thank God, are the occasions on which such an accusation can be maintained.

In vain did Mr. Clutterbuck—all his energies on the strain as they used to be in the old days of commerce—minutely examine his experiences of the month before. He could not discover a word or a gesture of his or any act authorised by him, even indirectly, which could have led to so monstrous an accusation. His sense of honour felt the thing keenly, and the agent's letter trembled in the hand that held it. Then, like a clap of thunder, came the memory of the bag of sovereigns and the Bogey Man.

He had been assured and reassured that it was a common practice admitted in all elections: he knew, upon perfectly good evidence, that another Bogey Man had done the same ritual and necessary act for Lord Henfield. It was without a doubt a fixed custom in every election. The sum was small; it was a fair wage for honest work openly done. Nevertheless the memory of the actual metal weighed intolerably upon Mr. Clutterbuck's ill ease.

That had done it! The only other source he could think of was his wife, and he knew her too well to suspect her of any foolish and ill-considered act of charity which might have compromised his chances.

As for the half-sovereign, the wicked little half-sovereign, his lawyer had completely satisfied him. The return of it cleared him wholly. No! It was the Bogey Man, and there was no help for it.

He went in at once to see Mr. Bailey. He forgot to telephone: he was in an agony lest that one friend and stay should be out. But there he found him again, still at his international list, which had now got as far as the "M's," "Montague—Samuel, 1883 (Gladstone)."

This time he did not forget his manners. He met the merchant with great sympathy, and looking at him a little critically, said with good cheer:

"It's begun to work, you see!" He had seen about the petition in the papers.

Mr. Clutterbuck did not even hope to understand. "Oh, Mr. Bailey," he said. "Mr. Bailey, what on earth am I to do?"

To this Mr. Bailey returned the irrelevant reply: "Go on talking about the Anapootra Ruby Mines!" as though that action were a sort of panacea for the disturbed heart of man. It was bitter mockery in the ear of one whose greatest hopes were thus dashed at the end of a long and honourable life.

"I had expected more from you, Mr. Bailey," said Mr. Clutterbuck gravely.

William Bailey was again touched.

"I mean it, Clutterbuck," he said; "I really mean it. All medicines are bitter at first; it's a big business, but it's the right way—I do assure you it's the right way. I suppose you've written about those Ruby Mines—postscripts, eh? A few cards I hope? A word or two to friends in the train? Mentioned them to the servants? They're very useful, servants are! Oh, and by the way, I ought to have told you—the parson. Parsons are splendid; so are doctors. But you can't have done them all yet."

"Mr. Bailey," said Mr. Clutterbuck solemnly, "I haven't opened my lips in the matter; at least," he added, correcting himself, "only to my wife at dinner."

"And Charlie 'Fitzgerald' was there no doubt. My Cousin Charlie?" asked William Bailey pleasantly. "I've just got past him on my list—at least not him, but his grandfather. 'Daniels—Fitzgerald 1838.' Jolly old man his grandfather, but a little greasy—I remember him. He was called Daniels—Daniel Daniels; son of old Moss Daniels, the Dublin sheeny, that came to people's help, you know; you ought to know about the Daniels; very old family; we used to call his wife's drawing-room the lions' den. She was my aunt, you know," he added cheerfully. "Cousin of mine, is Charlie."

"Oh, but Mr. Bailey," groaned Mr. Clutterbuck, leaving all these irrelevancies aside, "what am I to do?"

"Oh, let 'em have it," said William Bailey in the serenity of his dissociation from politics and every other vanity.

"Let 'em unseat me!" shrieked Mr. Clutterbuck.

"You can't help it," said Mr. Bailey, "eh?"

"But they can't prove anything," said his guest. He was excited and defiant. "There's nothing to prove!"

"Oh, come," said Mr. Bailey, "come Mr. Clutterbuck. Don't go on like that. If they're going to unseat you, they're going to unseat you. And what's being unseated? Old Buffle was unseated three times."

"I should die of it!" said Mr. Clutterbuck with a groan.

"No you won't," said Mr. Bailey. "The Lord shall make your enemies your footstool; or, at any rate, His agent on earth will give you a good day's sport with them. Meanwhile you go on with those Ruby Mines. And, wait a minute, there's something to do to keep your mind off it meanwhile: there's a good agency in Fetter Lane; they have a lot of first-rate men. I remember a man called Bevan who did some very good work for an enemy of mine a little time ago. Go and give them a tenner and get them to find out who was behind that petition; though I think I know already. I'll come with you."

The two men went eastward together, Mr. Bailey talking of a thousand improbable things on the way, and they laid the task before the very courteous manager, who assured them it would be the simplest thing in the world. And so it was, for they learnt the same evening that though the petition had been lodged by a large grocer of the name of Hewlett in Mafeking Avenue, the real mover in the affair was a workman resident in a small street off the Crescent, a casual labourer of the name of Seale.

"That's all right," said Mr. Bailey when the news came to them as they sat at dinner together. "You won't find out that way. They been got at. That's a tenner wasted," he added anxiously, "but I'll pay it—I gave the advice. You go back home, and I'll let you know everything I hear within two days."

And Mr. Clutterbuck went home a little, but only a little, comforted; feeling that he had indeed one ally—but what an ally! A man who talked in enigmas, a dilettante with wild theories in which he himself only half believed; a man half ostracised, half tolerated, and wholly despised, but a man in the swim, anyhow: the memory of that consoled Mr. Clutterbuck.

Two days afterwards Charlie Fitzgerald returned. His story was perfectly concise, too concise, alas, for that stricken household. He did not bother them with his visit to the Duke of Battersea and to Scotland—he spoke only of their own business. He had seen Peter Street yet once again. They were sorry, but it had happened from having too many names on the list; some had to wait; they admitted they had postponed Mr. Clutterbuck's name to Paardeberg Day, when there was a batch of thirty to bring out.

"But now there's the Petition," said Charlie Fitzgerald a little awkwardly; "you see under the circumstances——"

"I see," said Mr. Clutterbuck with a grim face.

"Don't take it like that," said Charlie Fitzgerald, "they can't prove anything. It's only a bit of spite."

"That's what I was saying to-day," said Mr. Clutterbuck. And the Anapootra Ruby Mines were forgotten—but Mr. Bailey had not forgotten them!

The horror of the Member—of the still Member for Mickleton, of the Member for Mickleton in the National Party interest—was as deep as hell when he received by post a marked copy of a low Socialist rag, whose name he barely knew, and there under the title "What We Don't Hear," was a jeering allusion to the Anapootra mines, coupled with a laudatory account of himself as the champion of popular rights. Next day a severe but obscure rebuke connecting his name with an unworthy piece of demagogy appeared in the Standard. A little later a fine defence of his courage was included in a letter to the Guardian. Mr. Clutterbuck was in terror of the unknown, and everywhere the dreadful sound of Anapootra haunted him. He walked over the Downs to clear his brain; he sat down in the little inn at Ragman's Corner, where they always gave him a private room and treated him as the chief gentleman of their neighbourhood. He had hardly tasted his glass of sherry when the publican said to him with cheerful respect:

"Well, sir, I see you've started another hare, and I wish you luck, sir. Here's to the People!"

Mr. Clutterbuck turned pale; but when the publican had finished his glass and wiped his mouth with his finger, he did not fail to add:

"Here's to you, sir, and the Putrid Ruby Mines, whatever they may be, and good luck to the lot!"

Oh the agony of an isolated man! Oh, passion of humanity, when it can find no fellow on whom to repose! The violent agitation of youth returned to his aged blood as he went home in the dark January evening, and he almost feared that the belated peasants whom he met so rarely as he hurried home, would each of them whisper as they passed the hateful name of Anapootra; that some evil shape would start from the darkness and scream it in his ear.

For a day or two the agony endured. Visitors and guests, the parson in his weekly visit, the doctor who had come to advise him upon the nature of his port, all in varied tones slyly or gravely, or with astonishment or casually, all brought in the Accursed Thing.

The Times—and he loved them for it—had not printed a word; but the Spectator, keen and breezy as it is, and abreast of every new interest in English life, had published an honourable protest; the editor was sure that a man who was in the forefront of the heroes who had redeemed the Congo would not sully his name by a disreputable agitation against his fellow countrymen; while, in another sphere, the Winning Post, as he knew by a secret peep taken at the bookstall, positively had a cartoon of a vague ghastly thing labelled "The Anapootra Ruby Mines," and a little figure, undoubtedly himself, supporting it with difficulty in the face of a violent gale.

Then after a few days his mood gradually changed. Mr. Clutterbuck began to take a secret pride in his connection with these Gemmiferous Caves of the Orient. There was no doubt at all that for the second time in two months he was a public man; a martyr perhaps in a public cause. Greatness began to apparel him, and side by side with the case of Rex v. Fishmonger and Another, which he understood in a certain fashion, the Anapootra Ruby Mines—still a complete mystery to him—supported his growing fame.

One inept Radical sheet went so far as to suggest that he was the cat's-paw of the wicked men who had perpetrated that fraud upon their country, but the greater part, especially of the Democratic press, nobly maintained his integrity, and said they would see him through to the end.

His new publicity consoled him a crumb, a mere crumb, in the prospect of the dreadful days before him. He sometimes indulged the inward hope that no evidence could unseat a man now so deservedly the darling of a Public cause; in the intervals when this consolation failed him, he fell back upon the memory of his integrity and unblemished if short public life; he had assured and reassured himself as to the Bogey Man, and he was at last at ease upon the bag of gold. The consciousness of his innocence out-weighed the gloomy prophecies of William Bailey, and as the days passed the memory of that gentleman's forecast grew paler and faded away. But the passage of the days brought with it also the time of the election petition; there was a week, five days—four. On the last Monday he sat for an hour or two with Charlie—who was of course to give evidence—they considered every aspect, and could see no loophole for attack. On the morrow they went into Mickleton together, and as they passed at speed through the streets of the borough they seemed to him too silent; even the police he thought—it may have been but fancy—but even the police, he could have sworn, were colder and more formal than of yore.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XII

The court in which the Mickleton election petition was to be heard sat in the Town Hall of that borough, and the first day, Tuesday, was occupied in formalities, but even so the end of the great room set aside for the public was crowded.

The main part of the business was taken the next morning, the proceedings were short—and they proved decisive. After a few unimportant witnesses had been called—their testimony was very inconclusive—Mr. Stephens was heard. To the member's intense relief not a word passed upon the Bogey Man, not a word upon the bag of sovereigns, for the inquiry was conducted with honour, and the conventions of our elections were allowed. When Mr. Clutterbuck heard that his own secretary was to be examined, he could not but feel confident in the result, but the spectacle of one whom he trusted and who was his right hand throughout the struggle being used by the lawyers against himself, was a thing Mr. Clutterbuck very properly resented. He silenced his anger by remembering that justice will have its course.

Charlie Fitzgerald gave his evidence in that simple, direct way which should be a model for us all; he answered every question in few words, neither embellishing nor concealing anything. He admitted the very considerable influence of the Fishmonger Relief Committee, and was proceeding to estimate the ten or twelve thousand it had spent for his employer, when Sir John Compton at once interfered and ruled the evidence out. It had been clearly laid down in three precedents that an independent organisation was free to spend what sums it saw fit so long as those funds did not proceed from the pocket of the candidate or his agent.

The thing seemed settled and Mr. Clutterbuck was breathing again towards the close of that day, when counsel in a tone ominously calm, said shortly:

"Now, Mr. Fitzgerald, will you tell us where you were between half past nine and midnight, of Monday the 6th of November of last year?"

Mr. Fitzgerald remembered the hour and day and all the events with truly remarkable accuracy. He said with perfect frankness that he had spent the evening going in a cab from the Curzon Arms to the Mother Bunch; from the Mother Bunch to the Harvest Home; from the Harvest Home to the Drovers, from the Drovers to the Naked Man; from the Naked Man to the Adam and Eve; and from the Adam and Eve to the Prince of Wales's Feathers; he could not be absolutely certain of the order but it was more or less as he had stated it.

Those in court who did not understand the nature of the confession began to smile, but in a few moments they saw the drift of the examination when counsel put this perfectly plain demand:

"Mr. Fitzgerald, think carefully: did you or did you not offer a glass of whiskey in the Prince of Wales's Feathers to one Alfred Arthur Pound?"

"I offered a glass of whiskey to him and to several gentlemen," said Charlie Fitzgerald openly.

"You offered whiskey to these electors, Mr. Fitzgerald?" said counsel.

"I couldn't see," began Charlie Fitzgerald.

But the Bench at once interrupted. "You are not here, witness, to tell us what you saw or what you did not see. You are here to give us your evidence."

And Charlie Fitzgerald was silent. He was asked further questions. He had given whiskey to various citizens at the Curzon Arms, at the Naked Man, at the Adam and Eve, and in fact at every public-house but one upon the whole of that night. And of the men who could be traced, every one of whom gave evidence upon oath in rapid succession, no less than 72·6 per cent. possessed votes in the constituency.

The finding of the commission was very brief; it could not be otherwise after what they had heard. They emphasised in the strongest possible manner Mr. Clutterbuck's own innocence in the affair. The Bench affirmed in the most flattering and emphatic terms that a more honourable man than Mr. Clutterbuck had not appeared in the arena of our public life.

Fitzgerald also, in spite of what had proved a lamentable imprudence, was heartily and gladly exonerated of any attempt to corrupt that high standard of purity which is the glory of our public life. Sir John Compton was careful to add that no shadow of suspicion rested on Mr. Stephens; he was willing to exonerate Alfred Arthur Pound. But there was no choice offered to a reasonable man, before whom the facts had been presented; though most certainly no one had intended corruption or pressure in any form—that, he hoped, was absent from our public life—yet it was plain that within three weeks of the poll a large number of electors had received a benefit especially defined by statute as illegal and had received it at the hands of one virtually acting (though of course in complete innocence of any unworthy motive) for the gentleman who was candidate for the borough. Even had there been no such statute or definition, the conclusion was plain, and it was their very painful but solemn duty to declare, in accordance with the evidence they had heard—evidence Sir John Compton was careful to point out, which no one had attempted to rebut, and which he, for his part, had very fully believed, that the election was invalid.

Mr. Clutterbuck jumped up wildly:

"Oh my Lord!" he said.

But his counsel pulled him sharply by the coat tail, tearing in so doing, I am sorry to say, the seam by which that appendage is sometimes attached to the upper part of the garment; while Mr. Justice Paisley, who had hitherto been silent, sternly ordered him to be seated.

Once again within six months the Borough of Mickleton was widowed of its proud share in the administration of our land.

Whether it would or would not be disfranchised for a period of years was a matter which little concerned the unhappy man upon whom the blow had fallen. He walked distractedly away at such a pace that it was some hundred yards before Fitzgerald had caught him up and attempted to quiet his perturbation. To his first mood of despair was rapidly being added a second mood of anger and outraged justice, but he was honourable enough not to lay to the poor young man's account the terrible misfortune that had befallen himself. He did not forget all that Fitzgerald had done for him during the critical days of the election, and he was grateful even now for the many services rendered by one without whom his first and ephemeral success would never have been won.

Nevertheless he insisted, as the reader may well imagine, in seeking some relief in the company of William Bailey, and Charlie, after a moment's hesitation, was too wise to dissuade him.

He left his employer at the door in Bruton Street, with an appointment to meet later in the evening, and the broken man was ushered by Zachary into that familiar room, where he waited in a dull agony for his mentor's return.

It was a full half-hour before William Bailey came in. He had been hurriedly told in the hall what visitor he had. He had not troubled to look at the tape at his Club; he was pretty certain of the result, and there was a sort of I-told-you-so look on his face as he greeted Mr. Clutterbuck, which did little to raise that gentleman's spirits.

It was a foolish thing to ask, but Mr. Clutterbuck did ask William Bailey what he was to do.

William Bailey answered without hesitation that he could do nothing. "Unless indeed," he added, "you care to act and to lead from outside; you can still do that. One good meeting by an unseated member can do more against a Government than a dozen questions in the House. D'you care to try? It's risky, you know.... They'll put the whole thing into court and muzzle you; and you'll have to speak before Parliament opens also, because on the first day it'll be called out of order unless there's a really strong press outside."

Mr. Clutterbuck was in a mood for anything. What he was to do, or why, was quite beyond him; but there was to be a meeting and it would hurt those who had hurt him: so much he saw.

"Other men have done it," said William Bailey, citing examples from a less orderly past, "and you can do it if you like."

"I'm willing enough," said Mr. Clutterbuck, setting his teeth. "You mean," he added, brilliantly concealing his ignorance; "you mean, I'm to go on about the mines?"

"That's it," said William Bailey.

"Well," said Mr. Clutterbuck, his head sinking upon his shoulders again, "you'll have to do it, Mr. Bailey. I can't see or think or plan; and I don't know what the Anapootra can do for me or any one, supposing I did——"

"Oh, nonsense," said Mr. Bailey briskly, "a man must do what he can; you can't get your seat again by main force. You can't get the other things you want right off the shelf by helping yourself. You must go on pressing and pressing. It's the only way—it's the one way in which anything gets done. Besides which, it's enough to make any man——"

"You're right there," said Mr. Clutterbuck eagerly; "it's enough to make any man take action. What will you do, Mr. Bailey?"

Mr. Bailey, when he had to form a rapid plan, gave a sort of false impression of rapidity and strength which had deceived many. He mapped out all the dates.

"You know the Directors are going for libel against the Courier?" he said.

Mr. Clutterbuck didn't know it.

"Well, but they are. To-day's Wednesday, and it will be before the courts to-day week, next Wednesday," he said. "Once it's before the courts you'll go to choke if you speak about it; so will any other Johnny except in Parliament; besides which, Parliament meets the same day, and what's more, I'm not at all sure they'd allow it even in Questions, and there won't be any Questions until Wednesday, and by that time, as I say, unless we get steam up outside it'll be out of order. Monday's no good, you can't get people on Monday. It'll take a day to get the posters up, and the advertisements and to dry them. We'll say Saturday—Saturday at eight, in the Jubilee Hall."

"What for?" said his slower minded companion.

"For the meeting of course," said Mr. Bailey in surprise; "for the great meeting of protest by the ex-Member from Mickleton, on the Anapootra Ruby Mines!"

For all Mr. Clutterbuck's determination he was somewhat appalled. "I'm not at all sure that I should speak, well I—I don't know even what or who ..." he began slowly.

"Oh that's all right," cut in William Bailey eager for the fray. "I'll write your speech out, and I'll introduce you on the platform. It's the name we want, and your power in the constituency. They know that. The papers won't dare boycott it, and you'll get the horny-handed in thousands. We'll have a grand time!"

He said it with the irresponsibility of a boy, but that mood is dangerous in a man.

So was it decided that on the next Saturday, before Parliament opened, and before the matter was, to be classical, sub-judice, a great meeting should be held and the ball set rolling by Mr. Clutterbuck, Champion of the People; but the Champion was torn between fear and desire.

Mr. Clutterbuck when he reached the Plâs, was careful to keep the meeting even from his wife. He told it to none but Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was sympathetic and it felt like old times.

Meanwhile, in London, Mr. Bailey had hired the Jubilee Hall, and, if it were necessary for overflow, the Coronation Annex.

The next day he spent some hours with Mr. Clutterbuck, drilling his speech into him with unwearied repetition; and Charlie Fitzgerald, having nothing better to do, called on his dear old friend the Duke of Battersea, and passed with him a most delightful afternoon. Mr. Clutterbuck and Fitzgerald met at Victoria. The merchant and his secretary went home together. And that same evening the Duke of Battersea did what he had to do.

A telephone message to the Prime Minister's house and the assurance of a hearty welcome, made what he had to do easier for him. He found that statesman, still spirited and young in spite of his increasing trouble with the left lung, crouched over the fire, spreading his hands to the blaze. He talked to him of various things: of the session that was about to open, of the plague in Burmah, of Mrs. Kempton's latest book. He said a few words about Mr. Bailey, and casually mentioned the step which that gentleman was apparently about to take.

For a man in such doubtful health (and for one before whom such arduous duties immediately lay) the Prime Minister was quite vivacious in his replies. He differed from the Duke of Battersea with regard to Mrs. Kempton's latest book, and criticised her attitude towards Malthus. He spoke cheerfully of the coming session though he joked a little about the smallness of the majority; he was very grave indeed about the plague in Burmah—and he said nothing at all about Mr. Bailey.

The Duke of Battersea remained not more than twenty minutes. It was his interest to show his sympathy with the Prime Minister's illness rather than to detain him in conversation, and he could understand that the amusing story of Mr. Bailey's fanatical outburst would be touched on lightly or passed in silence by a man who sat in the same Cabinet with Lord Burpham; for after all, Lord Burpham's son, since the Duchess of Drayton's second marriage was stepfather to the girl whom William Bailey's favourite nephew had recently married, and relations of this kind, when they occur in the political life of our democracy, are naturally sacred. For all the shortness of his visit, the Duke of Battersea had learnt what he wanted to know. He did not depend upon the Prime Minister's aid. He re-entered his car with an alternative scheme clear before him, and when he reached home he began to carry it into effect.

In the midst of the room where the Philanthropist and Financier habitually worked, was a large table which had formerly been the property of the Cardinal de Rohan; it had passed into other hands during the misfortunes of the Reinachs[10] some twenty odd years before. Its broad surface supported but a few simple and necessary things: two tall Georgian candlesticks of silver plate, now fitted with electric lamps; a great ink-pot, and by the side of it an electric bell.

The Duke of Battersea spread out a large sheet of paper upon the table before him, made a few notes, re-arranged certain details, was satisfied with his plan, and next, without looking up, stretched forth his hand to touch the electric bell. He was old and some of his movements uncertain. His finger had the misfortune to find not the electric bell but the ink-pot, into which it deeply plunged. A lesser man would have been disturbed at the accident, and a coarser one might have been moved to suck the injured limb. The Duke of Battersea showed no such weakness. He looked up, rubbed his finger on the blotting-pad, made sure of the electric bell, and when it was answered, said in a low voice:

"Mr. Befan."

The servant disappeared, and came back in half an hour with the message:

"Mr. Bevan is not at the Agency, your grace; he is watching the Hampton divorce case, your grace. The Agency says, your grace, will you have Penderton?"

"Certainly not," said the Duke of Battersea, still intent upon the paper before him. "Find out when he will be back."

In a quarter of an hour he was told that the detective was expected home from Hertfordshire at half-past twelve that night.

The duke looked at his watch, compared it with a fine specimen of Toledo clockwork set in a German monstrance upon the mantelpiece, and saw that he had an hour to wait. He made a motion with his hand and was left alone. He was determined to see Bevan and to see him that night, but it was nearly one in the morning before the door opened and the detective appeared.

The detective was a short gentlemanly man with a hare lip and a malformation of the forehead which raised one eyebrow considerably above the other. He did not limp, but when he walked the emphasis was upon the right leg. His ears which were large and prominent did much to counter-balance the pleasing intelligence of his expression. He was not a man whom one would at the first sight, nor at the second, have chosen for the unravelling of difficult problems, but the Duke of Battersea knew far too much of the world to judge by any other standard than that of performance and of practice. And Mr. Bevan had not failed him on two recent occasions when rapid execution had been essential, as it was essential now.

He wasted no words. He described who had to be watched and what evidence if possible had to be gathered. He gave the address in Bruton Street, and as the detective stood respectfully at the door, he named a hundred pounds.

"It's worth a hundred and fifty, your grace," said Mr. Bevan, as he repeated the conditions which were laid down to him.

"Sefen and sixpence," said the Duke with a gentle smile, "if what I have told you already was all indeed"—and having said that he gave time for it to soak in.

Mr. Bevan changed his hat from one hand to the other, then held it in both hands and said he was sure he didn't mean to say more than one should say, and he would certainly leave it to the Duke, who nodded and answered him:

"That is good—that is right. For this reason I make it a hundred; and if he does nothing as you want, you shall see him do, and you shall be a witness."

"I can't make a man do anything worth telling you, my lord," said Mr. Bevan rather surlily.

"Why, then," said the Duke of Battersea, approaching his wrists and opening his hands widely outwards, "how can I either pay?"

Mr. Bevan sighed unpleasantly and was content.

He left the Presence before two o'clock, but such was his intimacy with more than one of the servants that it was half-past two in the morning before he was clear of Barnett House. He did not wait for the tardy advent of the winter dawn; he was home before three; he then and there put on his professional boots, to the soles of which were attached small pads of india-rubber. He secreted upon his person a small revolver, a yet smaller electric lantern, £5 in change in case the hunt should take him far afield, a flask of Scotch whiskey, a box of fusees, some cigarettes such as are smoked by the landed classes, two good cigars, five cheap ones, a little Craven mixture in one side of his tobacco pouch and some peculiarly vile shag in the other. He put on a waistcoat within the lining of which his true name and address were inscribed upon a linen pad, thrust into his breast pocket an envelope bearing a false name and address, and put into a visiting card case certain visiting cards bearing yet a third name and address, that of one Hilling, a commercial traveller in the Seven Sisters Road; others inscribed Mr. John Hilling, Captain 47th Fusiliers, Rochester, he also secreted in various pockets, and a few more in which the same name was played upon in other ways.

The reader will be surprised to hear that after these preparations he put upon his head a billycock hat of the most demonstrative type, and committed the imprudence of wearing a large, made-up blue tie. But genius, however universal, however disciplined and experienced, is human. It is easy to criticise a fault in detail; it is more difficult to reproduce the general plan of the master; and those who may be disposed to ridicule the large made-up tie of Mr. Bevan, or the billycock hat which I have gone so far as to call demonstrative, would do well to ask themselves whether they would have had the learning or the intuition to provide themselves—I mention but one point—with cigarettes such as are smoked by the landed gentry, with Craven mixture upon one side of the tobacco pouch and with a peculiarly vile shag upon the other; yet Mr. Bevan had thought of these things!

A few glasses of hot whiskey and water to prepare him for the ordeal were rapidly swallowed—for Mr. Bevan, like most men of acute intelligence, was a moderate drinker—and he went out into the night. It was a little after four o'clock.

A man of less experience in the ways of the world might have neglected to observe the movements of so wealthy a personage as Mr. Bailey until a later hour in the morning, so universal has the deplorable habit of late rising become among the governing classes of this country. Mr. Bevan knew better. He had seen many a dark deed done between five and seven of a London January morning, nay, in the old days as a member of the Force he could well remember routing out the Alsatians close upon six o'clock, though to be sure on that occasion the Force had been guided to those abandoned premises by the sound of boisterous music and the firing of a rocket through one of the upper windows.

It was not five, then, when Mr. Bevan took his stand opposite the little house in Bruton Street. He had chosen his advantage very well. With a courage and skill which only those who have served in the Metropolitan Police can understand, he hid himself in a corner where a shadow thrown by a buttress put him in complete darkness. He was a short man and yet had to crouch a little, but he was used to discomfort in the prosecution of his duty, and in this attitude, unable even to smoke for fear the light should betray him, he watched for over an hour. At the end of that time rain began to fall. He did not upon that account abandon his post; the tardy winter dawn gleamed at last over the shining roofs of London. With the first hint of daylight the light on his collar, which he had neglected to cover, betrayed him to a policeman of the name of Tooley, who was slowly pacing the street and whistling a mournful air.

As quick as lightning Mr. Bevan was grabbed by both elbows, his face thrust against the rough brick-work, and a natural demand, brief and perhaps somewhat too violent, as to his occupation and intentions was addressed to him by that Civil Servant. To the policeman's astonishment Mr. Bevan's only reply to these manœuvres was what is technically known in the Force as "the shake," and retreating rapidly three steps backward he had the presence of mind to say in a low tone, "I'll pass the order."

With these words he satisfied his colleague in the manner which is usual with our efficient and highly trained body of public guardians, of the nature and legitimacy of his mission. The respective positions of the Duke of Battersea and of Mr. Bailey were quite enough to convince a sober judgment, and policeman Tooley, an active and intelligent man, at once appreciated the situation, but felt bound in duty to add:

"I must keep my eye on you, mind," to which Mr. Bevan cheerfully replied by a nod of the head, and resumed his former post.

At about half-past seven the rain ceased. Eight o'clock struck: no one in the street was stirring. A milkman passed down on foot, leaving his little can at every gate, but carefully refraining from uttering that musical cry, which the upper classes have, very properly, forbidden in the neighbourhood of their town residences. It was a quarter to nine and the whiskey in Mr. Bevan's stomach had long ago grown cold; nay, he felt positively weak for want of breakfast, when the first signs of life appeared in Mr. Bailey's house: these took the form, first of a cat leaping out as though in panic from the area gate, and immediately afterwards the appearance of a young woman's head utterly incomplete in toilet, and, in everything save the sex and youth of its owner, repulsive. Next, two blinds were drawn up in a bedroom on the second floor. The window was thrown open; and for a little while nothing more of real importance occurred.

Within the house, Mr. Bailey's man Zachary had woken his master and had flooded the room with light.

"It is ten o'clock, sir," he said in his customary tone of mingled severity and deference.

"That's a lie," said Mr. Bailey, not moving his head from the pillow, nor withdrawing it by one inch from beneath the bedclothes.

Zachary made no reply. He was accustomed to conversations of this kind. He made an unnecessary noise with the hot water, banged the furniture about, and then before leaving the room said:

"May I go out for the day, sir?" in a tone rather of menace than of inquiry.

"You can go at a quarter past ten—it must be nearly that now," chuckled Mr. Bailey with sleepy humour.

Mr. Bailey's man Zachary was annoyed to have been caught in this trap; he consoled himself by remembering that he might leave the house at once and his master be none the wiser.

"If you're not back by six this evening," said Mr. Bailey good-naturedly, stretching his arms and yawning, "you'll be in the workhouse in a week or two."

"Very good, sir," said Zachary in a more respectful tone than he had yet adopted; he shut the door very softly after him and went tiptoe down the deep carpet of the stairs. For the next ten minutes he was dressing as befitted a man of his temper, and well before ten o'clock he had emerged from the front door in a quiet, sensible frock-coat, a good but not obtrusive top hat, quite new gloves of a deep brown, and a serviceable but neat umbrella. His boots, however, were laced, not buttoned; blacked, not polished.

Mr. Bevan's heart rose with a bound. His long vigil was ended! He permitted Zachary to turn the corner of Bruton Street into Berkeley Square, and then, gauging his pace at much the same as that set by this excellent domestic, he followed.

The error was not only natural, it was inevitable. It was no case for hesitation nor even for rapid decision; but even had such a necessity arisen in Mr. Bevan's mind, his habit of prompt decision would have saved him from even a moment's delay. He had found his quarry and he would hunt it down.

With the sober walk that denotes a man of the world, but now and then twirling his umbrella as though his birth and status gave him a right to despise convention, nay, going once or twice so far as to whistle the bar of a tune, Zachary proceeded northward to the Tube, and turned into that station which takes its name from Bond Street.

The Tubes of London have added yet another problem to the already arduous intellectual task of that great army of detectives which stands between Society and Anarchy. To follow a man in the street, to pursue his cab or his omnibus at the regulation distance advised by Captain Wattlebury, M. Grignan, and other authorities of European reputation, is an easy matter; but once let your man get into the train ahead of you on the Tube, and you have lost him! The Tube necessitates, as all my readers who have engaged in detective work will recognise, a close proximity to the person watched; but Mr. Bevan was equal to the occasion. Fully appreciating the strategical advantage of the stairs, he was at their foot long before the lift had reached the level of the trains, and following Zachary's tall hat through the crush, he sat down in the carriage next to that in which the scent lay, gazing into vacancy and sucking the top of his umbrella. Mr. Bevan watched him narrowly through a contrivance with which all the forces of law and order are familiar: a little book which can be easily held before the face as though one were reading, but which is pierced by a convenient hole through which the right eye can sweep the landscape beyond.

Zachary changed for Hampstead, and so did Mr. Bevan. At the junction he bought a newspaper, the name of which Mr. Bevan, to his great chagrin, was unable to note, as he folded it inside-out and read the lower half of the sheet. At Hampstead, I find it in Mr. Bevan's notes that they alit, and they reached the happy upper world together. Zachary made straight for the Heath. Mr. Bevan, now free to follow him at a discreet distance, did so, but grew fainter and weaker as he walked, for he was in desperate need of food. He hoped and prayed that the chase would turn into a restaurant: his prayer was answered, though in a manner shocking to one who still maintained his respect for rank.

Zachary turned into a little public-house of an unpleasing type, nodded cheerfully to the potman, whom he addressed as "Larky," and ordered—of all things in the world—gin and water!

The accident was a godsend to Mr. Bevan. He noticed that his quarry had at least had the decency to go into the saloon bar; he dashed into the public one, gulped down a glass of beer, bought a handful of biscuits, went out immediately lest he should miss the trail, and was glad to see that his victim yet lingered within.

In twenty minutes or so he came out, his eyes a little watery, and continued his unsuspecting way towards the Heath with the detective after him. But he was not alone! By his side there walked, dressed in a manner that would have appalled the Press itself, a young woman!

The plot thickened. And Mr. Bevan, who had expected a very different occupation to be provided for him, divined at once the possibilities which his discovery contained. He had no need now to fear hunger, anxiety, or lack of matter. It was plain sailing for the whole afternoon. He followed them to the Heath, he saw them seated and embraced behind a clump of thorn and ready to devour a luncheon they had purchased and carried in a paper bag. He would leave them now; he had time to return to the little public-house and to inquire of the potman every detail of the unhappy man's conduct; he was told of his monstrous promise to marry the daughter of the potman's master; of his repeated and lengthy calls; he learnt at full length the whole disgraceful business, and with admirable self-mastery he pretended to no surprise when he heard that the name the visitor was known to the publican and his servant by was "Zachary Hemmings." He waited patiently until the guilty man reappeared with his paramour in her father's home. He waited outside in the advancing dusk until the male offender had reappeared, somewhat unsteadily, and giving every sign of an exhilaration due to something more than requited affection. His hat was not absolutely straight upon his head; his umbrella trailed upon the ground; his face was indolently happy. Zachary did not take the Tube, but as it was now already dark and as he remembered in a fuddled way that his place was in jeopardy, he had the cunning to hail a lonely taximeter which was returning in no good humour after depositing a fare at the Spaniards.

There are in the humbler strata of our national life qualities of courage and immediate decision such as produce a Kitchener, a Milner, or a Macdonald in the higher ranks. A taximeter is the fleetest of all beasts: in Hampstead taximeters are rare. Mr. Bevan had decided in a flash. He dashed up, pulled off his hat, imitating with partial success the speech of a man out of breath with running, and told Zachary at top speed that if he would permit him to share his taximeter back to town he would be saving the life of a young child, of whose sudden accidental fall he had but just heard by telephone. The domestic, though perhaps not naturally warm-hearted, or if warm-hearted, rendered callous by years of exacting labour, was, under the combined influences which he had enjoyed, in a softer—nay, in an effusive mood. He seized Mr. Bevan's hands, swung him into the cab, shouted "Cer'nly!" and putting his head out of the window said to the astonished chauffeur, "Home!"

Before that mechanician had time to reply in suitable terms, Mr. Bevan had whispered through the little hole, "That's all right, Bond Street: tell you where to stop," and they darted away down the hill.

Zachary tried twice to sing, remembered each time that he was in company, smiled vapidly each time, and each time was silent again. But I cannot deny that at Chalk Farm, quite forgetting the child whose unhappy accident was causing an agonised father to be his guest, he insisted on getting out and drinking—a course from which that agonised father made no attempt to dissuade him; he repeated his folly at the Horseshoe.

At the corner of Bond Street the taximeter pulled up abruptly. Mr. Bevan leaped out, and nodding hurriedly at the astonished Zachary who had a vague comprehension that some things were too well known, and other things too mysterious, he gave the number in Bruton Street to the chauffeur and disappeared. The taximeter swept round eight or nine corners, waited perhaps a quarter of an hour behind as many blocks in the traffic, and finally deposited the unhappy Zachary at his master's door.

The noise of the engine attracted that master to the ground floor windows of his study, and Zachary noted with alarm the vision of his face. His confused brain prepared a defence. The sum marked upon the taximeter was four and tuppence: he feared for one idiotic moment that it represented 42s. Recovering from his alarm he remembered to divide it by eight, which is the number of pence per mile commonly charged by these useful vehicles, failed to arrive at a quotient, pressed ten shillings into the chauffeur's hand, and was only too glad to see him depart in the direction of Berkeley Square and of those wealthy regions to the West. The wretched man was fumbling with his latch-key for the keyhole, when he nearly fell forward inwards as the door was suddenly opened by Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Bailey's face was genial, his eyes bright as ever, his whiskers as healthy and florid as though he had but just completed his morning toilet. With his hands in his pockets he looked down on his abashed servitor and said pleasantly:

"How drunk you are to-night, Zachary!" He then added as Zachary's hat fell to the floor: "I hope that's your hat, Zachary, and not mine!"

Zachary said "Yes, sir," with painful clarity of intonation.

"You come in here, Zachary," said Mr. Bailey, opening the door of the study. "I want to talk to you. Sit down in that chair, a long way from the fire."

Zachary did as he was bid: Mr. Bailey shut him in, went to the kitchen stairs and roared down them:

"Jane-bring-me-up-a-cup-of-very-hot-coffee-with-no-sugar-in-it-at-once-I-don't-want-to-be-kept-waiting-in-the-study!" For such was Mr. Bailey's method of delivering an order in person on the rare occasions when he put himself to that inconvenience. The consequence of that method was that hardly had he joined Zachary in the study when Jane appeared, purple in the face, with a large cup of coffee which contained no trace of sugar, and which was extremely hot. The moment she was out of the room Mr. Bailey solemnly dropped a pinch of salt into the coffee and said to his miserable servant:

"Drink that!"

"I do assure you, sir—" said Zachary in tones of increasing sobriety.

"Drink that, you ass," said Mr. Bailey, "do you suppose I don't know what's good for you?"

"Yes, sir, certainly sir," said Zachary humbly. He gulped the coffee down, and when he had done so began: "It's not near seven, sir."

Mr. Bailey put up his hand.

"Now look here, Zachary," he said; "what I want is information. First of all, you came in a taxi' cab."

"Yes, sir, I did, sir," said Zachary. "I'm sure, sir, I wouldn't have——"

"I don't mind your coming home in a pumpkin with six white mice," said Mr. Bailey. "I don't want to know why about anything. What I want is information. Where did you come from?"

"'Ampstead, sir," said Zachary, who but rarely dropped his h's, but thought there were occasions when it was necessary to do so. Then forgetting his master's injunction, he added: "But there was a gentleman, with me, sir."

"Oh," said Mr. Bailey, thoroughly interested. "That's what I wanted—information. You came in a taximeter (that I could see for myself). You came from Hampstead, you came drunk (I'm sure you won't mind my saying that!) and there was a gentleman with you. Now, who was that gentleman?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said the bewildered Zachary.

"Good heavens!" replied Mr. Bailey. "Can't you remember where you met him?"

"It was coming out of my friend's father's house that is to be," said Zachary, with a precision rather of visual concept than of terminology.

"The Hop and Garters?" said Mr. Bailey, with vague reminiscence.

"No, sir," said Zachary, with as much severity as he had power under the conditions to assume. "The Hop Garden, sir; that's the name of the house, the Hop Garden."

"How had you passed your time till then?" asked Mr. Bailey.

Zachary recounted his day in no great detail, and in some fear lest his dignity should suffer as he told the story.

Mr. Bailey mused. To characters so wayward and loose the solid plans whereby great men of affairs achieve their ends are at once inexplicable and tedious. Mr. Bailey had no conception of what was toward. He might even have been ready, had Zachary remembered the circumstance, to believe the story the detective told about a sick child and the necessity for speed. As it was, he was merely bewildered, and was filled with a sort of instinctive muddled conception that somehow or other it had been worth somebody's while to shadow Zachary as far as the top of Bond Street and no further. But why on earth should any one want to shadow Zachary? He thought of burglars, but burglars do not become intimate with servants by exciting their suspicions. He thought of practical jokes; he thought of petty theft, but Zachary assured him he was only ten shillings out, and even then remembered that he had given the ten shillings to the chauffeur.

While he was in this sort of study, making neither head nor tail of the adventure, Zachary volunteered, a little nervously, for he was afraid it might sound like an explanation and not like the "information" his master was after:

"I'm sure he was a gentleman, sir—he knew where you lived."

Mr. Bailey was quite seriously concerned. To men of his intellectual calibre, utterly unworthy to compete with the great directing brains of our masterful time, and capable only of a superficial and purely verbal display, a sense of a force which knows them while they do not know it, is intolerable. Such men are the weak, hunted creatures of our powerful and creative generation—that is, when the hunt is worth the hunter's while. And the hunters—the successful hunters—are the financiers, the statesmen, the owners, the doers—the Hearsts, the Northcliffes, the Clemenceaus, the Roosevelts, the Levi Leiter Juniors—who make us what we are.

Mr. Bailey, who knew so little of reality, knew this at least, and with the instinct of all hunted things, he was troubled. He was much graver when he rose after this conversation and said:

"That's all right, Zachary, you'd better go to bed. Don't eat anything, and drink nothing beyond such cold water as you absolutely require. I'm sure it will be sufficient."

"I thank you humbly, sir," said Zachary. He went out of the room quite sober—such is the effect of coffee with a little salt—and crept up to bed.

Mr. Bailey remained for an hour and more gazing at the fire; then he rang the bell and ordered dinner with the most precise care, choosing just those articles which could be cooked lightly and quickly, insisting to the cook whom he saw in person, that they should follow in a precise order and at precise intervals of time, and adding, as was his invariable custom after each item:

"If you haven't got it, send for it."

At half-past eight this repast was to be ready, and for him alone. He puzzled at Zachary's mysterious adventure for some moments and longer, could make nothing of it, and in order perhaps to relieve his uneasy sense of incapacity, took refuge in reading one evening newspaper after another, and passing upon each some silent, facile, cynical comment as he read.

Meanwhile Mr. Bevan had reported at Barnett House. He was at once admitted.

He found the aged statesman and philanthropist before the Adams chimney-piece, a mass of papers upon a what-not beside him, his telephone mobilised upon the great central table, and a pile of bank-notes standing by the side of it under a paper-weight of bronze representing the Ariadne of Knidos, a bust the poor Master of Kendale had especially admired.

Mr. Bevan stood waiting at the door. The Duke of Battersea with exquisite good breeding waved his aged hand towards a chair, but Mr. Bevan preferred to remain standing, and he was not pressed. He first broke the silence:

"I've done the job proper, my lord—your grace, I mean," he said; "heavy, too."

"I ask you to tell me quite shortly what you have found," said the Duke, without lifting his eyes.

It was almost the same order that Mr. Bailey was giving to his servant at that same moment some two or three hundred yards away, but what a gulf between the two men! The strong and secure architect of his own and of his country's successes, sitting in the splendour of Barnett House, doing, controlling all—and the poor egoist whose feeble good-nature or vanity had been the chief feature of the interview in Bruton Street! Mr. Bevan told his story with precision, described the well-dressed gentleman leaving the house in Bruton Street; his disgraceful adventures in a lower rank; his assumed name of "Zachary Hemmings." The Duke asked the detective whether he were sure Mr. Bailey used that false name. Mr. Bevan said "Quite sure, your grace," and completed his tale with the story of the drunkenness, the taxi, and all the nasty business. When he had done he pulled out the piece of paper which had accompanied him throughout the day and to which he had added a few lines in the Bull and Flummery, on his way from Bond Street to Barnett House.

"I've got it all writ down here, sir—I mean your grace." (The Duke of Battersea made an impatient gesture—he could not bear to have his title insisted upon.) "It's all here," repeated Mr. Bevan with legitimate pride.

"Give it me," said the Duke of Battersea quietly.

Mr. Bevan knew the world as well as a man can under his circumstances; he also was one of the strong girders of our State, not one of its painted ornaments; but when two generals meet the greater conquers. He handed over the paper quite innocently, and before he knew what had happened, the Duke of Battersea had put it in the fire; nay, with a vigour rare at his age and rarer still in men of his worldly possessions, he had thrust it among the coals with the toe of his boot.

Mr. Bevan could not restrain a movement towards it. He was too late to save it, then the reserve which the presence of the Great imposes upon us all recalled him to himself.

This brief episode over—and it did not take thirty seconds—the Duke of Battersea said in a rather louder, more vibrant tone than he had yet used:

"Thank you, Bevan, there iss your money"—he wagged his head towards the table. "You said you would not take it in a cheque; so: but I like to know where my money goes; and how also."

Mr. Bevan opened his mouth to speak.

"It is take it or leaf it," said the Duke of Battersea.

Mr. Bevan took it.

"I do think, sir ..." began Mr. Bevan.

There passed suddenly over the Duke of Battersea's face an expression of such concentration and power as may have passed perhaps over that of another great genius[11] when he planned the Parliamentary fortunes of the Panama Canal and seemed for a moment thwarted. It was an expression of enormous intensity, and Mr. Bevan, putting the notes without counting them into a side pocket of his coat, and keeping his hand upon it, quietly left the room.

When he was gone the Duke of Battersea took a note which he had already written and was keeping against this moment, and sent it round the corner in a cab to the club where he knew that Fitzgerald was waiting upon that critical night before going back to the Plâs. The cab came back immediately with Charles Fitzgerald in it. Here at least was a man who understood haste. He was not even wearing a hat!

The Duke of Battersea rose to receive him—a rare honour, but he knew when to pay honour. He was affectionate to him, put one hand upon his shoulder, and asked him whether he would drink anything, which Fitzgerald very gladly did; and when Fitzgerald had drunk he said:

"Do you think you can bring Mr. Bailey at once here? Ah?"

"He'll be dining now," said Fitzgerald.

"He is dining alone to-night," said the Duke of Battersea, "he is not dining till half-past eight o'clock. It is twenty minutes only past seven o'clock." He knew these things.

He added a number of other details, stuffed with research, concentration, and plan, and Fitzgerald admired all he heard.

Fitzgerald waited a moment. "Mary Smith could get him," he said finally, thinking as he spoke and holding his head to one side. "I'll telephone to her and she'll telephone to him. Then she'll let me know, and I'll go and fetch him. I'm sure he'll come."

He bothered for no formalities but went out at once, for he knew what was wanted.

The time seemed very long to the Duke of Battersea. The moments were important. Fitzgerald was gone but twenty-five minutes, and when he returned the Duke was glad to hear two shambling footsteps accompanying Fitzgerald's own decided step down the marble of the passage.

And sure enough, there came in, half a head above the tall young man, the taller, somewhat hesitating figure with its good-natured face, upon which could now be very palpably read a lack of ease.

The Duke of Battersea put out his hand, but Mr. Bailey was so awkward as to be occupied at that moment in blowing his nose. It was but one of many indications of the man's inward disturbance. Then he sat down, and behind him, without a word of comment or apology, Fitzgerald withdrew and was off to Mr. Clutterbuck's home.

When they were alone the Duke of Battersea said in a very gentle but very decided tone:

"Mr. Bailey, I think we know each other. I want to tell you a story. Will you listen out?"

"Listen what?" said Mr. Bailey, with his irritating verbal quibbles.

"Listen out to me," said the Duke of Battersea, certain of his idiom.

"Would I listen you out?" said Mr. Bailey.

"Yes," said the Duke of Battersea, still thoroughly master of himself.

"Go ahead," said Mr. Bailey. He leant back, put his hands into his pockets as though that drawing-room were the most familiar to him in the world, and surveyed the Duke of Battersea downward through half-shut eyes.

The old man began his tale. The wording of it was perfect, and if here and there a foreign idiom crept into his terse and carefully chosen phrases, Mr. Bailey would murmur a correction. To such impertinences the Duke paid no attention. He told the story of a man who had left home that morning; he gave the precise hour at which he left home, the manner of his dress, and the very lace upon his boots. He told the whole shameful story of the Tube, of the Hop Garden—

"Hop and Garters," said Mr. Bailey quietly.

"So—well then," cried the Duke of Battersea, for one moment visibly angered, "laugh at last and you laugh best." Then he sank back into his own sense of power, recovered English idiom and continued. As he went on to the story of the Heath, and of the luncheon, Mr. Bailey rose and began pacing up and down the room. When the Duke came to the final visit to the public-house, to the name "Zachary Hemming," which he scanned slowly, hardening the gutturals in "Zachary" and filling that word with sting, Mr. Bailey sat down again, and before the Duke had concluded he had covered his face with his hands. But the old man was pitiless. He told the story of the excesses at Chalk Farm, of further excesses at the Horseshoe; he gave the very description of the mysterious stranger, of the taximeter—of all. Then he ceased.

There is always something of the Cad in the Fanatic. A gentleman would have warned the aged Philanthropist of the error under which he laboured. Not so Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Bailey's face was still hidden. A slight movement of the shoulders did not betray his emotion. There was a long interval of silence. Then the Duke said:

"Well, Mr. Bailey, now who laughs at last?"

Mr. Bailey answered never a word.

"Mr. Bailey," continued the Duke, "I will do nothing, but so also you will nothing. No-thing," he added, pronouncing the word quite slowly, "no-thing at all." He wagged his head gently, and permitted the slightest of smiles to greet Mr. Bailey's face as it rose from between his hands. "No-thing at all. That is all is there," he ended.

Mr. Bailey, with bowed head and with an inaudible sigh repeated, but in a lower tone, stunned as it were into repeating the very phrases and accent of his host, "No-thing at all—that is all is there."

And he went out without another word.

In this way the Duke of Battersea secured himself from danger, and he slept that night certain that the meeting would not be held. He had won his battle.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XIII

Next morning Mr. Bailey woke at dawn, a rare thing for him and an unpleasant one. He did not ring his bell: he hoped perhaps for further sleep, but he felt wonderfully wakeful. The morning was fresh; he went and pulled aside the curtain, he threw open the window towards the day, and sniffed the eager air; his mischievous brain was alert and full of plans; he was seeking what he might devour.

In this mood there suddenly recurred to him the night before, and though he was alone he beamed to himself at the recollection of it. He first considered, in that minute manner to which such natures are given, how best he could reply, and in a little while he had decided.

He dressed and went out, ate his breakfast at a little workmen's chop-house in one of the back streets—where he was sufficiently stared at—and then walked smartly northward and eastward towards Mickleton, musing as he went, and with every step he took his plan grew more defined. Of all the men of Mickleton, Mr. Clay, he found, carried most weight. His courage in starting business for a third time, his large number of workmen, the rates he paid, his Swedenborgianism, all counted in the suburb: he had paid Mr. Clay assiduous court for a fortnight, and Mr. Clay was delighted at the honour.

It was half-past nine when he found Mr. Clay in his office, strict and starched as ever, and, as ever, in some incomprehensible hurry to get on to the next affair.

"Clay," he said, "can you lend me the big shed to-night?"

"Yes," said Mr. Clay with the rapidity of decision that had already lost him one fortune and grievously jeopardised two others. "James," he said, turning round smartly, "book that. Mr. Bailey takes the big shed when the men knock off work."

"No, no!" broke in William Bailey, "not when the men knock off work. It's Saturday man! Half-past eight's the hour."

"Oh!" said Mr. Clay promptly. "James, book that: not when the men knock off work, half-past eight. Anything more?" he added, turning to Mr. Bailey as upon a swivel.

"Yes, Clay, certainly," said Mr. Bailey with deliberate hesitation. "Will the men come?"

"Of course they'll come. I'll tell them to come: they'll come anyhow. James," he said, turning round again, "note that the men are to come."

The wretched James noted it.

"Anything more?" said Mr. Clay.

"Yes," said Mr. Bailey, "will you take the chair?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Clay. "James, remind me that I take the chair."

"How shall I remind you?" replied the terrified boy.

"How shall you remind me, you fool? Write it down—book it—make a note of it. Anything more?" he continued.

"No, I think that's about all," said Mr. Bailey. But as he turned to go slowly out Mr. Clay's curiosity got the better of his extremely businesslike habits.

"Mr. Bailey," he said, coughing slightly, "Bailey, I beg your pardon, but what will the meeting be about?"

"Oh, what on earth does that matter?" said Mr. Bailey good-naturedly. "Just a meeting."

"About the unseating of our member?" asked Mr. Clay anxiously.

"Yes," answered Mr. Bailey with jollity, "all sorts of things of that sort."

"I'm your man," said Mr. Clay, "I'm your man. None of that about here: we're free born in Mickleton, we are. Mickleton men," he added, as though Mickleton were an island that had fiercely defended its independence in long and bloody wars—"Mickleton men, Mr. Bailey." Then he nodded, and remembering the true secret of success, began writing rapidly again.

Mr. Bailey sauntered out. He looked about him to find his direction, turned down Mafeking Avenue, and when towards ten o'clock he had reached the agents for the Second Jubilee Hall and the Coronation Annexe, his foolish and disastrous intention was fixed.

He entered abruptly into his business and told the clerk that he must countermand the use of the building for that night. He was willing to pay the £40 for it as though he had hired it, and in case they could get another let at so short a notice, half that sum.

The clerk had been warned by his principal that Mr. Bailey would probably telephone or still more likely call in person that morning, and professed a need to consult the head of the firm before he could give a reply. He was careful to leave Mr. Bailey with a copy of the Times while he went into the principal's private room, and Mr. Bailey, who had not seen that paper for some months, gloomily read a leader upon foreign affairs, in which his warped judgment pretended to detect the hand of the redoubtable and ubiquitous Abraham. He had not been engaged in this fashion for five minutes, when the clerk returned and told him in a firm voice they could not accept his offer.

"How do you mean you can't accept it?" demanded Mr. Bailey in very genuine astonishment and with still more genuine irritation. "You can't refuse it!... you mean you can't accept the £20?" he added a little more gently.

"Yes we can, sir—no I don't, sir," answered the clerk hurriedly and firmly, while his mouth twitched like that of a Colonial Governor in time of crisis. "I mean we can't accept it, sir, it can't be done."

"But it's got to be done," roared Mr. Bailey. "You can't force me to hold my meeting if I don't want to!"

"No, sir, certainly not, sir," said the clerk.

"Then what the hell do you mean?" shouted the blasphemous fellow.

"I mean that we can't take a plain inclusive payment for the loss and disturbance, sir. We can't do it."

"What do you mean?" said Mr. Bailey.

The clerk answered that he must consult his principal again, and Mr. Bailey, restraining himself with a considerable effort, sat down to finish the leader which he was more convinced than ever had proceeded from the pen of the mythical Hebrew. It was a long while before the clerk returned, for it had been necessary to communicate by telephone with the Duke of Battersea, and at such an early hour it was not easy to obtain the philanthropist's reply.

"We'll take your offer, sir," said the clerk.

"Oh you will, will you?" said Mr. Bailey, "then you won't have the chance. I'll hold the meeting just the same. So there!" he added, a little vulgarly, and stalked out.

It is undecided, flighty action of this sort which leads to half the trouble in this world. Mr. Bailey had not the remotest intention of holding the meeting in the original hall. In that his somewhat wayward decision stood firm. With that object he had seen Mr. Clay; and he was wise, for the forces against him were too strong to permit him to call the meeting in the Second Jubilee Hall or even in the Coronation Annexe; they were strong enough to prevent his holding it in any public building. But this sudden rise of temper on his part proved a source of considerable irritation and expense to others, who should not have been made responsible for it.

The conversation that passed over the telephone, between the Duke of Battersea and the agent, was singularly and needlessly acrimonious upon the part of the aged statesman, almost servile upon the part of the agent; both emotions might surely have been spared to two men who at heart knew themselves to be worthy of nobler things, had not Mr. Bailey, by his precipitate ill-temper, destroyed arrangements which would probably have been for his own good, and certainly for that of the community at large. The upshot of the conversation was that the Duke, despairing of understanding the situation, announced his intention of coming himself to Mickleton by noon, and the agent, pleased as he was at the advertisement that such a visit must afford him, would willingly have foregone the honour for the sake of that peace which he feared never to regain.

At noon the motor-car glode up with its tiny strawberry leaf coronet and the dainty arms upon the panels.

The agent came out, was obsequious, deferential, intelligent and full of sympathy, but unfortunately incapable of the rapid perception which was demanded of him. His only reply was that he could not see how he could do it; that he would do everything he could; he would be delighted to withdraw the placards which were even now being got ready to stand outside the hall; he would make what difficulties he could for the admission of the Press—though he very much doubted his power to exclude reporters once the hall was hired. When, in the midst of his excuses, he suddenly let light into his caller's mind by saying:

"And of course everything would be subject to the proprietors."

"Who are then the proprietors?" said the Duke sharply.

"The Anglo-Saxon Exchange," said the agent with that touch of pride which we all feel when we mention any important power with which we have even a distant connection.

The Duke was relieved.

"That I should also have known," he said gently, and then changing his manner altogether he added:

"That is allright, that is allright," separating the first two words and laying stress upon the first syllable of the last, in a manner which still faintly betrayed those difficulties with the English language which he had had the courage and the perseverance to conquer almost completely.