When it was Dark

by Guy Thorne

  The other circles -- the lost slaves of pleasure -- knew him well and were content. He came into the night world as a welcome guest. They knew nothing of his work or fame beyond dim whispers of things too uninteresting for them to bother about.

  He turned down the Edgware Road and into quiet Upper Berkeley Street, a big, florid, prosperous-looking man, seeming content with all the world had to offer.

  His house was but a few doors down the street and he went upstairs to dress at once. He intended to dine at home that night.

  His dressing room, out of which a small bedroom opened, was large and luxurious. A clear fire glowed on the hearth; the carpet was soft and thick. The great dressing table with its three-sided mirror was covered with brushes and ivory jars, gleaming brightly in the rays of the electric lights which framed the mirror. A huge wardrobe, full of clothes neatly folded and put away, suggested a man about town, a dandy with many sartorial interests.

  A timid knock fell on the door. It opened and Mrs. Llwellyn came slowly in.

  The Professor's wife was a tall, thin woman. Her untidy clothes hung round her body in unlovely folds. It was in her eyes that one read the secret of this lady. They were large and blue, once beautiful, so one might have fancied. Now the light had faded from them and they were blurred and full of pain.

  She came slowly up to her husband's chair, placing one hand timidly on it.

  "Oh, is that you?" he said, not brutally, but with a complete and utter indifference. "I want dinner at home tonight. I'll be going out about ten to a supper engagement. See about it now. Something light. And tell one of the maids to bring up some hot water."

  "Yes, Robert," she said, and went out with no further word, but sighing a little as she closed the door quietly.

  They had been married fifteen years. For fourteen of them he had hardly spoken to her except in anger at some household accident. On her own private income of six hundred a year she had to do what she could to keep the house going. Robert Llwellyn never gave her anything of the thousand a year which was his salary at the British Museum, and the greater sums he earned by his work outside it.

  The Professor treated the house as a hotel, sleeping there occasionally, breakfasting, and dressing. His private rooms were the only habitable parts of the house. All the rest was old, faded, and without comfort. Mrs. Llwellyn spent most of her life with the two servants in the kitchen.

  She always swept and tidied her husband's rooms herself. That afternoon she had built and coaxed the fire with her own hands.

  She slept in a small room at the top of the house, next to the maids, for company.

  This was her life.

  Over the head of the little iron bedstead of her room hung a great crucifix.

  That was her hope.

  When Llwellyn was rioting in nameless places, she prayed for him during the night. She prayed for him, for herself, and for the two servant girls, very simply -- that Heaven might receive them all some day.

  The maid brought up some dinner for the Professor -- a little soup, a sole, and some camembert.

  He ate slowly, and smoked a short light-brown cigar with his coffee. Then he bathed, put on evening clothes, dressing himself with care and circumspection, and left the house.

  In the Edgware Road he got into a hansom cab and told the man to drive him to Bloomsbury Court Mansions.

  Chapter 5

  Robert Llwellyn paid the cabman outside the main gateway which led into the courtyard, and dismissed him.

  Bloomsbury Court Mansions were but a few hundred yards from the British Museum itself, though he never visited here in the daytime. A huge building, like a great hotel, rose skyward in a square.

  The Professor strode under the archway and entered one of the doorways, and turning to the right of the ground floor. He stopped at No. 15.

  He took a latchkey from his pocket, opened the door, and entered. He stood perfectly silent for a moment in the warm, scented air. He could hear no sound but the ticking of a French clock. The flat was obviously empty; and pulling aside one of the curtains, he went into the dining room.

  The place was full of light. Either Gertrude Hunt or her maid had, with characteristic carelessness, forgotten to turn off the switches. Llwellyn sat down and looked around him. The casual visitor would have recognised at a glance that the occupant of the room belonged to the stage.

  The satinwood overmantel was crowded with photographs in heavy frames of chased silver. Bold enlargements hung on the crimson walls. Theatre programmes and other announcements were stacked in disorderly heaps on the grand piano.

  All were of one woman -- a girl with eyes full of a fixed fascination, a trained regard of allurement.

  The dining table was in a curious litter. Half empty cups of eggshell china stood on a tray of Japanese lacquer inlaid with ivory and silver. A cake basket held pink and honey-coloured bonbons, among which some cigarette ends had fallen. Two empty champagne bottles stood side by side. On a gilt tray was a miniature methyl lamp and some steel curling tongs.

  The whole place reeked with a well-known perfume -- an evil, sickly smell of ripe lilies, mixed with the acrid smoke of Egyptian tobacco.

  The room would have struck an ordinary visitor with a sense of nausea almost like a physical blow. There was something sordidly shameless about it. The most sober-living and innocent-minded man, brought suddenly into such a place, would have known it instantly for what it was, and turned to flee as from a pestilence.

  A week or two before, a picture of this den had appeared in one of the illustrated papers. Underneath the photograph had been printed:

  THE BOUDOIR OF ONE OF LONDON'S POPULAR FAVOURITES. MISS GERTRUDE HUNT AT HOME

  Below had been another picture:

  MISS HUNT IN HER NEW MOTORCAR

  Robert Llwellyn had paid four hundred pounds for the machine.

  The big man seemed to fit into these surroundings as a hand into a glove. In his room at the Museum, or on a platform at the Royal Society, his intellect always animated his face. In such places his personality was eminent, as his work also.

  Here he was changed. He sniffed the perfume with pleasure and stretched himself to the heat and warmth like a great cat. He was an integral part of the scene -- lost, and arrogant of his degradation.

  A key clicked in the lock, there was a rustling of silk, and Gertrude Hunt swept into the room.

  "So you're come on time, then," she said in a deep, musical voice, but spoilt by an unpleasing Cockney twang. "I'm dead tired. The theatre was crammed. I had to sing three of the favourites twice. Get me a brandy and soda, Bob. There's a good boy -- the decanter's in the sideboard."

  She threw off her long cloak and sank into a chair. The sticky greasepaint of the theatre had not been fully removed. She looked, as she said, worn out.

  They chatted for a few moments on indifferent subjects, and she lit a cigarette.

  "Well," she said at length, "somehow or other you must pay those bills I sent on to you. They must be paid. I can't do it. I'm only getting twenty-five pounds from the theatre now, and that's just about enough to pay my drink bill."

  Llwellyn's face clouded. "I'm just about at my last gasp myself," he said. "I'm threatened with bankruptcy as it is."

  "Oh, cheer up!" she cried. "Have a brandy and soda yourself. I do hate to hear anyone talk like that. It gives me the hump at once. Now look here, Bob, you know I like you better than anyone else. We have been pals for seven or eight years now, and I'd rather have you a thousand times than the others. You understand that, don't you?"

  He nodded back at her. His face was pleased at her expression of affection, at the kindness of this dancing girl to the great scholar.

  "But," she continued, "you know me, and you know I can't go on unless I have what I want all the time. And I want a lot, too. If you can't give it me, Bob, it must be someone else -- that's all. Captain Parker's ready to do anything, any time. He's almost a millionaire, you know. Can't you raise any money anyhow? If I had a
thousand pounds now, and another in a week or two, I could manage for a bit. But I must have a river house at Shepperton. That cat, Lulu Wallace, has one, and an electric launch and all. What about your German friend -- the MP? He's got tons of stuff. Touch him for a bit more."

  "I had a letter from him this afternoon," said Llwellyn. "It was a demand for fourteen thousand pounds I owe him. Threatens to sell me up. But there was something which looked brighter at the end of the letter, though I couldn't quite make out what he was driving at."

  "What was that?"

  "The tone of the letter changed. It had been nasty before. He said I could do him a service for which he would not only wipe out the old debt, but for which I could get a lot more money."

  "You'll go to him at once, Bob, won't you?"

  "I suppose I must. There's no way out of it. I can't think, though, how I can do him any service. He's a dabbler, an amateur in my own archaeological work, but he's not going to pay a good many thousands for any help in that."

  "Let it alone till you find out," Gertrude Hunt said. She got up and rang the bell for her maid and supper.

  For some reason Llwellyn could eat nothing. A weight oppressed him -- a portent of danger and disaster. His indulgent life had acted upon him with a dire physical effect. His nerves were unstrung and he became absurdly superstitious. The slightest hint of misfortune set his brain throbbing with a horrid fear. The spectre of overwhelming disaster was always waiting, and he was unable to banish it.

  Two accidental and trivial facts that the knives at his place were crossed, and that he spilt the salt as he was passing it to his mistress, set him crossing himself with nervous rapidity.

  The girl laughed at him, but she was interested nevertheless. For the moment they were on an intellectual level. He explained that the sign of the Cross was said to avert misfortune, and she imitated him clumsily.

  Llwellyn thought nothing of it at the time, but the meaningless travesty came back afterwards when he thought over that eventful night.

  Their conversation grew fitful and strained. Gertrude Hunt was physically tired from her work at the theatre, and the dark cloud of menace crept more rapidly into the archaeologist's brain. The hour grew late. At last Llwellyn rose to go.

  "You'll get the cash somehow, dear, won't you?" she said with tired eagerness.

  "Yes, yes, Gertie," he replied. "I suppose I can get it somehow. I'll go home now. If it's a clear night I'll walk there. I'm depressed -- it's liver, I suppose -- and I need exercise."

  "Have another drink before you go?"

  "No, I have had two, and I can't take spirits at this time."

  He went out with a perfunctory kiss.

  London was now quite silent in its most mysterious and curious hour. The streets were deserted, but brilliantly lit by the long rows of lamps.

  The Professor's feet echoed loudly on the pavement as he approached the open space. Never had he seemed to hear the noises of his own footsteps so clearly before. It was disconcerting, and emphasised the fact of his solitary presence in this lighted city of the dead.

  Llwellyn walked onwards, when just as he was passing the Oxford Music Hall he became conscious of quick footsteps behind him. He turned as a man came up. He was of middle size, with polite, watchful eyes and a clean shaven face.

  The stranger put his hand into the pocket of his neat, unobtrusive black overcoat and drew out a letter.

  "For you, sir," he said in calm, ordinary tones. "Please read it immediately."

  The Professor stared in surprise and took the envelope, opening it under a lamp. He recognised the handwriting at once.

  HOTEL CECIL

  Dear Llwellyn,

  Kindly excuse the suddenness of my request and come down to the Cecil Hotel with my valet. I have sent him to meet you. I want to settle our business tonight, and I am certain we will be able to make some satisfactory arrangement. I know you do not go to bed early.

  Most sincerely yours,

  CONSTANTINE SCHUABE

  "This is a very sudden request," he said to the servant rather doubtfully, but somewhat reassured by the friendly signature of the note. "Why, it is two o'clock in the morning!"

  "Extremely sorry to trouble you, sir," replied the valet civilly, "but my master's strict orders were that I should find you and deliver the note. He told me you would probably be visiting at Bloomsbury Court Mansions, so I waited about, hoping to meet you. I brought the carriage, sir, in case we were not able to get you a cab."

  Following the direction of his glance, Llwellyn saw a small rubber-tired brougham to seat two people coming slowly down the road. The coachman touched his hat as the Professor got in, and turning down Charing Cross Road, in a few minutes they drove rapidly into the courtyard of the Cecil Hotel.

  Schuabe found the life at the hotel convenient and suited to his temperament. His suite of rooms was one of the most costly even in that great river palace, but such considerations never needed to enter his life.

  Llwellyn had not visited Schuabe in his private apartments before. As he was driven to the meeting he nerved himself for what lay ahead. He swept aside the debilitating influences of the last few hours.

  Schuabe was waiting in the large sitting room with balconies from which he could look down on the Embankment and the Thames. It was his favourite among all the rooms of the suite.

  He looked gravely and also a little curiously at the Professor as he entered the room. There was a question in Schuabe's eyes. Robert Llwellyn had a sensation of being measured and weighed with some definite purpose.

  The greeting was cordial enough. "I'm very sorry, Llwellyn, to catch you suddenly like this," Schuabe said, "but I would like to settle the business between us without delay. I have certain proposals to make you, and if we agree upon them there will be much to consider, as the thing is a big one. But before we talk of this, let me offer you something to eat."

  Professor Llwellyn had recovered his hunger. The chill of the night air, the sudden excitement of the summons, and, though he did not realise it, the absence of overpowering perfume in his nostrils, had recalled an appetite.

  The space and air of the huge room, with its high roof, was soothing after Bloomsbury Court Mansions.

  Supper was spread for two on a small round table by the windows. Schuabe ate little, but watched the other with keen eyes, talking meanwhile of ordinary, trivial things. Nothing escaped him: the little gleam of pleasure in Llwellyn's eyes at the freshness of the caviar, the Spanish olives he took with his partridge -- rejecting the smaller French variety. The impassive watchful eyes saw it all.

  It was too late for coffee, Llwellyn said when the man brought it, in a long-handled brass pan from Constantinople, but he took a liqueur instead.

  The two men faced each other on opposite sides of the table. Both were smoking. For a moment there was silence. The critical time was at hand. Then Schuabe spoke. His voice was cold and steady and businesslike. As he talked, the voice seemed to wrap round Llwellyn like steel bands.

  "I am going to be quite frank with you, Llwellyn," Schuabe said, "and you will find it better to be quite frank with me."

  He took a sheet of paper from the pocket of his smoking jacket and referred to it occasionally.

  "You owe me now almost fourteen thousand pounds?"

  "Yes, it is roughly that."

  "Please correct me if I'm wrong in any point. Your salary at the British Museum is a thousand pounds a year, and you make about fifteen hundred more."

  "Yes, about that, but how do you----?"

  "I have made it my business to know everything, Professor. For example, they are about to offer you a knighthood."

  Llwellyn stirred uneasily, and his hand shook a little as it stretched out for another cigarette.

  "I need hardly point out to you," the cold words went on, and a certain sternness began to enforce them, "I need hardly point out that if I were to take certain steps, your position would be utterly ruined."

  "Bankruptcy need not
entirely ruin a man."

  "It would ruin you. You see, I know where the money has gone. Your private tastes are nothing to me, and it is not my business if you choose to spend a fortune on a fashionable prostitute. But in your position, as the very mainspring and arm of Bible scholarship, the revelations which would most certainly be made would ruin you irreparably. Your official posts would all go at once, and your name would become a public scandal everywhere. In the eyes of the great mass of English people you would be stamped as an irredeemably immoral man. That is what they would call you -- if everything came out. At one blow everything -- knighthood, honour, place -- all would flash away. Moreover, you would have to give up the other side of your life. There would be no more suppers with Miss Hunt or rides to Richmond in her new motorcar."

  Schuabe laughed, a low, contemptuous laugh which stung. Llwellyn's face had grown pale. His large, white fingers picked uneasily at the tablecloth.

  His position was now shown to him, with greater horror and vividness than ever it had come to him before, even in his moments of deepest depression.

  The overthrow would indeed be utter and complete. He saw himself living in some cheap foreign town, Bruges perhaps, or Brussels, surviving on his wife's small income, bereft alike of work and pleasure.

  "All you say is true," he murmured as the other made an end. "I am in your power. What is your alternative?"

  "My alternative will mean certain changes to you. First of all, it will be necessary for you to obtain a year's leave from the British Museum. I had thought of asking you to resign your position, but that will not be necessary. Even if your health doesn't really warrant it, a word from me to Sir James Fyfe will manage that. You will have to travel. In return for your services and your absolute secrecy -- though when you hear my proposals you'll realise that perhaps in the whole history of the world secrecy was never so important to any man's safety -- I will do as follows. I will wipe off your debt at once. In addition, I will pay you ten thousand pounds in cash this week. And during the year, as may be agreed on between us, I will make over forty thousand pounds more to you. In all, fifty thousand pounds, exclusive of your debt."