by J. C. Snaith
CHAPTER X
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
But what is that? A commotion away up the platform, under the clock.Yes, it is he, the faithful and the valiant! At least it is not he,but one Baguley, a superannuated police-sergeant, bereft of an eye inthe service of the public peace. He staggers along under theoppressive burden of a kit bag of portentous dimensions, and twentypaces behind, sauntering along the platform with the most leisurelynonchalance in the world, blandly indifferent to the fact that theLondon express is due out, is the impressive and slightly pompous bulkof the fifth conspirator, the great Chief Constable.
There is a tremendous touching of hats along the platform. Even thattrue Olympian, the guard of the London express, contrives to dissemblehis legitimate impatience, while Coverdale and his kit bag come aboardthe reserved compartment.
"Cutting it rather fine, weren't you?" said I, with a tremor of reliefin my voice.
"Time enough," said the Chief Constable, subsiding with a growl and aglower into the left-hand corner.
A shrill blast from the guard, a whistle and a snort from the engine,and we were irrevocably committed to the untender hands of destiny.
We were an ill-assorted party enough. Fitz the embodiment of masterfuldetermination, with his black eyes glowing with their inward fire;Brasset and Jodey as cheerful and almost as _blase_ as twoundergraduates on their way to attend a point-to-point race meeting;Coverdale and the humble individual responsible for this narrative,silent, saturnine and profoundly uncomfortable.
It is true that I was favoured with one fragment of the ChiefConstable's discourse. It was communicated with pregnant brevity tenmiles from Bedford.
"You old fool!" was its context.
"It was Fitz who kept the train for you," I countered weakly.
Whoever was to blame we were fairly in for it now; and to repine wasvain.
"I am glad about your friend O'What's-his-name," said Fitz to Jodey."A man of his hands, hey? By the way, I believe you did mention arevolver."
My relation by marriage grinned an almost disgustingly effusiveaffirmative.
"I suppose you fellows have all remembered to bring one?"
Somehow my looks betrayed me.
"You've brought one, Arbuthnot?"
I began to perspire.
"The fact is," said I, "I had a capital .38 Webley, but it appears tobe mislaid."
"That can be easily remedied. I have brought three in case ofemergency."
"How lucky," said I, with insincerity.
We were converging upon the metropolis all too soon.
"I have engaged six bedrooms at Long's Hotel," said Fitz.
"Only five will be necessary," said I, "as O'Mulligan lives in JermynStreet."
"You have forgotten Sonia."
It is true that for the moment I had forgotten the cause of all ourwoes. Fitz had not, however; indeed, he had forgotten nothing. Notonly did he appear to have everything arranged, but he seemed to havetaken cognisance of the smallest detail.
"I have ordered quite a decent little dinner at Ward's," said he. "Youcan always depend upon good plain, solid, old-fashioned Englishcooking. They give you the best mulligatawny in London. I must saymyself, that if I have to do a man's work, I like to have a man's meal.And I think we can depend on some very decent madeira."
"It is very satisfactory to know that," said Coverdale, with hisdeepest growl.
"There is nothing like madeira in my opinion," said Fitz, "if you aregoing to be busy and you want to keep cool."
"That is something to know," said the Chief Constable, withoutenthusiasm.
"I should think it was," said Fitz. "Do you know who gave me the tip?"
The Chief Constable gave a growl in the negative.
"Ferdinand himself. And what that old swine don't know of most thingsis not much in the way of knowledge. He once told me he practicallylived on madeira throughout the Austrian campaign; and the night beforeRodova he drank six bottles. He says nothing keeps you so cool andsharp as madeira."
"Umph," the Chief Constable grunted.
Brasset and Jodey, however, two extremely zealous subalterns in theMiddleshire Yeomanry, were much impressed.
In three taxis we converged upon Long's Hotel; Brasset and Jodey in thefirst; the Chief Constable and his kit bag in the second; Fitz andmyself in the third. A very respectable blizzard was raging; thestreets of the metropolis were in a truly horrid condition, whollyunfit for man or beast; and the atmosphere had the peculiar raw chillof a thoroughly disagreeable winter's night in London. But at everyyard we slopped precariously through the half-melted slush of thestreets, Fitz seemed to wax more Napoleonic. He was not in any senseaggressive; there was not a trace of undue mental or moral elevation,yet he was the possessor of a subtle quality that seemed to render himequal to any occasion.
"There is just one thing may undo us," he confessed to me.
"Fate?"
"No; to my mind fate is never your master, if you really mean to bemaster of it. But there may be a spy. Von Arlenberg is as cunning asa fox. And if he thinks I may have something to say in the matter, hewill take care that nothing is done without his knowledge. Probably weare being followed."
To test his grounds for this suspicion, Fitz suddenly ordered thedriver to stop. He thrust his head out of the window, and then aninstant later told our Jehu to drive on.
"Just as I thought," he said. "There is another taxi behind."
My companion became silent.
"Something will have to be done," he said. "It won't do for vonArlenberg to know too much."
During the remainder of the journey Fitz found not a word to say.
When we came to the quiet family hotel in Bond Street our leader seemedstill preoccupied. Certainly he had grounds for his foreboding. Afourth taxi drew up behind the three vehicles we had chartered; and Iobserved that a man got out of it and, discharging his taxi, enteredthe hotel. As he passed me I was careful to note his appearance. Hewas a short, sallow, foreign-looking individual, with the collar of hisovercoat turned up; a commonplace creature enough, who on mostoccasions would pass without remark.
While we inquired for our rooms, he sat in the lounge unobtrusively.Save for Fitz's own conviction upon the point, it would never haveoccurred to me that we were undergoing a process of espionage.
No sooner had Fitz secured his room, than he said, in a toneconsiderably louder than he used as a rule, that he had some businessto see after, and that he would be back in an hour.
The man seated in the lounge could not fail to hear this announcement.And sure enough, hardly had Fitz passed out of the hotel, when thefellow rose and also took his leave.
"What is Fitzwaren's game now?" inquired Coverdale.
I refrained from advancing any theory as to the nature of Fitz's game.For that matter, I had no theory to advance. It was clear enough thatthe leader of our enterprise was fully justified in his suspicion, butwhat his sagacity would profit him, I was wholly at a loss to divine.I was convinced that the business that had called him so suddenly intothe sleet-laden darkness of the streets had to do with the man who hadpassed out of the hotel upon his heels; yet precisely what thatbusiness was, it was futile to conjecture.
Prior to our departure for Ward's the time hung upon our hands somewhatheavily. Brasset and Jodey utilised some of it in bestowing even morepains than usual upon their appearance. In these days it is notnecessary to don powder, ruffles and a brocaded waistcoat for thepurpose of dining at Ward's, but there is an unwritten law whichexpects you to wear a white vest at least with your evening clothes.Even Coverdale and I thought well to comply with this sumptuary law.We were both past the age when one's tailor is omnipotent; but when inRome, those who would be thought men of the world are careful to dolike the Romans.
Four carefully groomed specimens of British manhood greeted Fitz in thehotel foyer upon his return. It was then five minutes to seven, andour mentor entered in a perfectly cool and collected manner
. Heapologised, perhaps a thought elaborately, for the necessity which haddeprived us of his society. Twenty minutes later he was looking asspick and span as the rest of us.
While the hotel porter was whistling up the necessary means for ourconveyance to Saint James's Street, I found Fitz at my elbow.
"By the way," said he in a casual undertone, "did you mention to theothers about the fellow who followed us in the taxi?"
The answer was in the negative.
"I'm glad of that. I think it will be wise if you don't. It mightworry them, you know. And there is no need to worry about him now."
"Have you thrown him off the scent?"
"Yes," said Fitz, quietly. "We shall have no more trouble from thatsportsman."
I forbore to allow my curiosity any further rein upon this subject.Beneath Fitz's cool and cordial tone was a suggestion that he wouldthank me to dismiss it. Howbeit, I had no hint as to what had happenedoutside in the street, and I was burning to know.
It was a minute past the half-hour when we arrived at Ward's, but thepunctual O'Mulligan was there already. He rejoiced in the name ofAlexander; his freckles were many and he had a shock of red hair. Hisnose was of the snub variety; his ears stuck out at right angles; hiseyes were light green; and his jaw was square and massive and the mostmagnificently aggressive the mind of man can conceive. Regarded fromthe purely aesthetic standpoint, Alexander O'Mulligan might be a subjectfor discussion, yet he was as full of "points" as a prize bulldog. Hewas not so tall as Coverdale, but every ounce of him was solid muscle;his chest was deep and spreading, his hands were corded, and he had thegrip of a garotter.
Alexander O'Mulligan shook hands all round with the greatestcomprehensiveness. As he did so he grinned from ear to ear in thesheer joy of acquaintanceship. Fitz was his first victim and I was hislast, but each of us would as lief shake hands with a gibbon as withour friend O'Mulligan. The fellow was so abominably hearty. He shookhands as though it was the thing of all others he loved doing best inthe world.
The dinner was admirable. Whether it was force of example, or themagnetic presence of Alexander O'Mulligan, I am not prepared to say,but certainly we did ourselves very well. Upon first entering thehallowed precincts of Ward's, I had been in no mood to appreciate"really good old-fashioned English cooking." One would have thoughtthat only the most _recherche_ of dinners would have tempted us in ourpresent state of mind. But somehow our new friend O'Mulligan dispensedan atmosphere of Gargantuan good humour.
Hardly had we come to close quarters with the far-famed mulligatawny,which was quite appropriate to the conditions prevailing without, whenour latest recruit insisted that one and all must dine with him on themorrow, and then adjourn to the National Sporting Club, for the purposeof witnessing "Burns's do with the 'Gunner.'"
If I live to the age of a hundred and twenty, I shall not forget ourlittle dinner at Ward's. Six commonplace specimens of _les hommesmoyens sensuels_ with lethal weapons in their pockets and anything frompitch and toss to manslaughter in their hearts! Really, it was theincongruous carried to the verge of the _bizarre_.
Fitz at the head of the table was gracious to a degree. The fellow wasrevealing a whole gamut of unsuspected qualities. His composure, hishalf-gay, half-sinister _insouciance_, his alertness, his knowledge,his faculty for action, which seemed to grow in proportion with thedemands that were made upon it--such an array of qualities wascuriously inconsistent with the heedless waster the world had alwaysjudged him to be.
Now that he had come to grips with fate the real Nevil Fitzwaren wasemerging with considerable potency. As far as "the married man, thefather of the family, and the county member" was concerned, thefellow's daemonic power was the cause of his dining quite reasonablywell. As for Coverdale, after swallowing his plate of mulligatawny,his glance ceased to reproach me. His habitual philosophy and theold-fashioned English cooking began to walk hand in hand. Theevening's business was quite likely to cost him his billet, but atleast it was sure to be excellent fun. Besides, when he stood fairlycommitted to a thing, it was his habit to see it through.
Dinner was conducted in the spirit of leisurely harmony which is due tothe traditions accruing to the shade of John Ward, who left this valeof tears in 1720. Fitz assured us that there was no hurry. If we gota move on about nine we should have plenty of time to do our businesswith his Excellency.
"You haven't quite explained the orders for the day, my dear fellow,"said Coverdale, taking a reverential sip of the famous old brandy.