CHAPTER THREE SONIA O'RANE (continued 2)

"Come to Hale's," he said, shaking his head. "It's pretty well deserted since the war; everybody's fighting. I can't risk meeting a crowd of people I know and having to pretend nothing's up."

Leaving St. James' Square, we walked through King Street and entered the squat Regency house which had sheltered succeeding generations of London's exquisites for a hundred years. The coffee-room was deserted, and we had a choice of wine, food and service; but I have never eaten a gloomier meal. Every few minutes George would say, "Look here, you know, something's got to be done about this!" and I would reply, "Nothing can be done." Then we would attack a new course. Though we had chosen Hale's to be secure from interruption, I am not sure that we were not both a little relieved at the end of dinner when Vincent Grayle limped in with an evening paper under his arm and asked leave to join us for the short remainder of our meal. I can get on with him at a pinch; George cannot; but we shared a common need for diversion.

"I've just this moment got back from France," Grayle said to explain his late arrival. "I've been having a lively week at G.H.Q., watching the professional soldiers losing the war for us." He summoned a waiter and truculently ordered dinner. "Anything happening in London?" he asked.

"Nothing much," I told him. "What news from the Front?"

"Everybody's very cheery, getting ready for the big push. They all seem quite sure that they're going to break through this time, and there's an amount of ammunition and reserves that really does put you in good heart when you think how the men out there were starving in the first part of the war—thanks to the gang we had running things on this side. Whether we've got the generals is another question; if not, we must make a remarkably big clean sweep, politicians included."

He was evidently preparing one of his usual attacks, and, though I had welcomed the momentary diversion, neither George nor I wanted a political argument at such a time. With a trumped-up apology we went into the morning-room for coffee and liqueurs, leaving Grayle to his opinions and his evening paper.

"We don't seem to have thought out anything very helpful," sighed George, as he threw himself into a chair. "D'you think it's the least good going round to Beresford's place and forcing Sonia to go back?"

"Do you want her to go back, even if you can make her?" I asked once more. "She's been saying for weeks that she regarded her marriage as at an end; now she's proved it. Do you want to send her back on those terms? And does O'Rane want to have her back?"

George covered his face with his hands, shaking his head despairingly from side to side.

"I—don't—know," he groaned. "And this must have bowled poor old Raney over so much that I don't suppose he knows. Ordinarily—but it's absurd to use such a word.... I can only say this; he loved her so much, he loved her for so many years, he believed in her—or in some wonderful idealised conception of her by which he saw every kind of saintly quality where the rest of us only regarded her as a good-natured, but quite heartless, fascinating coquette—he thought of her and dreamed of her, she was so much a part of his life, the big part, the only thing that mattered...." He paused, out of breath. "You'd have said that it would have been like cutting off his arms and legs, if he'd lost her, if she'd died or married Jim Loring or the other fellow she was engaged to.... But I don't know now. When you've given all that love and trust, when you've idealised anyone, and the whole conception crumbles away.... Stornaway, he's extraordinarily frank; I fancy I know more of him than most people. Well, I do know how he loved that strumpet; I don't know, I can't say whether he'd love her still or whether he'd just want to strangle her and then cut his own throat.... But I think it's worth trying. We can at least give him a chance, we can keep his hands off her——" He jumped up, leaving his coffee untasted. "I'm going to have a shot."

"Shall I come with you?" I asked.

He was already half-way to the door.

"I want everyone I can get!" he threw back over his shoulder.

We drove to Sloane Square, and in ten minutes' time I found myself once more mounting the stairs to Beresford's flat. The lower floors were silent and deserted, but, as we climbed higher, I heard voices and the tramp of heavy feet growing louder and more distinct with every yard that we covered. As we rounded the corner of the passage, I stopped with a sickening sense of foreboding, when I found my path blocked by a policeman. For a moment no one spoke, and I fancied that we were being scrutinised with disfavour, even with suspicion. George, however, was too much preoccupied to be daunted.

"Is Mr. Beresford at home, d'you know?" he asked. The constable shook his head. "D'you happen to know where he is? I have to see him on a matter of great urgency. If he's not in, I'll go in and wait till he comes back."

He made a step forward, but the man shewed no sign of yielding.

"Afraid I can't let you by, sir," he said. "No one's allowed in."

I was assailed by a dreadful certainty that we had arrived too late.

"Why not?" I demanded, but my voice quavered too much to be effective.

"Mr. Beresford's been arrested."

"But, in God's name, what for?"

"That's none of my business," was the answer.

George was diving significantly into his trouser-pocket, but I felt that what lay before me was too serious for trifling with half-crowns. I handed the man my card and repeated my request.

"It's not mere curiosity," I said. "If you don't tell me, there are others who will; but I want to save time."

I always have the letters "M.P." printed on my cards to impress government departments, for throughout the public service there is an inherited dread that a question may be asked in the House; the hierarchy from top to bottom makes it the first business of life to avoid such publicity. This instinct of self-preservation, deeply-rooted as a horse's fear of a snake in the grass, led the constable to inform me promptly that Beresford had been arrested for issuing seditious literature; his flat was at the moment being searched.

My own sigh of relief was drowned by a deeper sigh from George.

"When did this take place?" he asked.

"To-day, sir. I can't tell you the time; I've only just come on duty."

"Was there anyone there besides Mr. Beresford? Is there anyone there now?"

"The inspector, sir; and two men."

George thanked him and led me by the arm to the head of the stairs.

"Thank God!" he whispered. "You—you thought so, too; I could see it in your face. Oh, Christ, if they were going to arrest the fellow, why couldn't they have done it sooner? I don't know what to do now. At least—I must go back to 'The Sanctuary' and see what's happened there." He dragged me down stairs and into our taxi at a pace which more than once threatened to break both our necks. "Where the devil can she have gone to, Stornaway? She'd naturally come here. But, when they arrested him ..."

The shrouded lamp over "The Sanctuary" door was unlighted when we arrived; the door was locked against us, and, though I now remembered hearing the key turn when O'Rane shewed us out, the cherished little piece of his beloved childish symbolism was grown painfully familiar.

"Come round to the other door," said George, and we were admitted and ushered into Bertrand's room. "Any news?" he enquired gently.

Someone had drawn the blinds, someone had brought in a tray of food; otherwise the room was unchanged in aspect, and Bertrand seemed not to have moved since I left him stretched in the long wicker chair three hours earlier.

"News?" he repeated, opening his eyes and blinking at us. "David's gone back to Melton. Ah! this is a bad business! Give me a hand up, George; I'm tired. I sometimes think I've lived too long."