Chapter II: Part 2

Suddenly the paper which he held began to rustle with the involuntary tremor of the hand that held it, and an eager excitement shot up like the light of a petroleum-soaked beacon in his dulled eye. He need no longer seek for agitation. He had found, when he least expected it, the answer to his fruitless appeals to the universe to supply him with interest. In the excitement of the moment he poured a liberal dose of whisky into a tumbler, but next minute poured it back. He had to keep his head cool; artificial stimulant only led to subsequent reaction and torpidity of thought. But through the prison bars his spirit grasped hands with the archdeacon’s victim. He would certainly blackmail somebody.

There were two questions to settle. Whom should he blackmail, and what had his victim done? A moment’s incisive thought told him that the second question, as to what the supposed crime had been, was alien and superfluous. The poor man need not have done anything. He need only be told that the events which occurred between, say, August 2 and August 10 of the year before last were known to his persecutor. All else depended on the selection of a suitable victim. If an unsuitable subject was chosen, one whose life (could such be found) was of virtue so monstrously Spartan, that he would not mind the events of August 2 to 10, or those of any other date, being known, it was clearly impossible to proceed. On the other hand, if his life was so voluminous a catalogue of crime that there were terrible affairs in every week of it, a notified period like this would create no particular impression.

Yes, it was the character of the victim that must be studied if the æsthetic blackmailer was to have any fun, for, of course, in the case of Arthur Whately, the mere extraction of two or three hundred pounds (thousands, perhaps, if his prey was wealthy) meant nothing at all. And the largest ingredient in the fun would be the uncertainty as to how the victim would behave, whether he would take proceedings or pay. He must therefore be cast in no iron mould; there would be little sport in writing just one letter and then being sent to join the poor worm so grindingly crushed by the heel of the valiant archdeacon, nor, on the other hand, would there be any zest in the punctual receipts of cheques whenever demanded. He had to think of somebody not too good and not too bad, not too brave and yet not pigeon-livered. For a while his mind hovered, singing like a skylark in the exultation of this absorbing preoccupation, then suddenly it dropped to earth again. There was none so fit as Lord Peebles.

His hand trembled for the pen that was mightier than the sword, and after a few moments’ concentrated thought, he dashed off these cold, cruel lines, which would serve as the basis for attack:

MY LORD,--While congratulating your lordship on the well-deserved
honour which the King has paid you, I feel it my duty to let your
lordship know that the events which took place between August 2 and
August 10 of the year before last are completely in the possession
of the undersigned, and are supported by documentary evidence of
such sort that nobody who saw it could ever doubt its authenticity.
I am prepared to give up to you all such papers as are in my
possession for the sum of £2,000.

I am a poor man, and a desperate one, but am strictly honourable in
all business matters such as this, and on receipt of that sum _in
gold_ I will strictly carry out my obligations. Should your
lordship take no notice of this communication or refuse to comply
with my request, the whole affair will be made public.

I am well aware that I put myself within reach of the law in thus
addressing you, but I would ask your lordship carefully to consider
the results to yourself if you prosecute me. The circumstances of
which I am possessed will then all come out, and while it matters
very little to me whether I pass the next few years in prison or
not, I think that the consequences to you will not be so lightly
regarded by self and family. You have a great deal to lose; I have
nothing.

Kindly communicate with me at Martin’s Library, Wardour Street, by
to-day week at latest. Having no club or settled address at
present, I call there daily for letters and occasional
parcels.--Faithfully yours,

GEORGE LORING.

In obedience to the business-like qualities which had raised him to the position of multi-millionaire his mind instantly went into committee over details. It was but very rarely that he employed his own hand in writing, for his correspondence was entirely dealt with by secretaries and typewriters, but it would be well to disguise his ordinary caligraphy. Or, stop--there was a safer way, and the next minute the Remington typewriter which stood in the corner of the room was opened and gleamed with bared keys. He was no adept at this clattering finger-exercise, but after a few abortive trials he made a clumsy transcript of the letter, and directed an envelope by the same mechanical device.

Already the cautious instincts of the habitual criminal had awoke in him, and after replacing the cover on the typewriter he carefully burned both his manuscript draft and the insane gibberish of his first typed attempts, and opening his window let the blackened ashes float down into the straw-covered roadway. It would never do, again, to let the incriminating document lie among the other letters for post, and he hid it below the shirts in a wardrobe drawer in his bedroom in order to post it himself at some central letter-box next morning after verifying the existence of Martin’s Library. Then, since it was already very late, he went to bed with eager anticipation for the morrow and many morrows.

The next week was full of delightful interests; it passed in a spasm of absorbing moments, and he was astonished and disgusted at himself for not having entered sooner on a course of blackmail. True artist that he was, he did not pay constant visits to Martin’s Library, as soon as it was possible that there might be an answer to his letter, and ask if there was anything for George Loring, but with a higher æstheticism, preferred to taste the delights of suspense, and determined not to make any inquiries till the notified week had elapsed. But he could not avoid haunting Wardour Street, picturing to himself with artistic gusto his official visit to the library. Once only was the flesh too strong, and, though the week of grace had not yet expired, he could not resist the temptation of entering the library.

The shop was empty, and, somewhat to his disappointment, showed no lines of filled and fitted shelves, as he had hoped. He had imagined the smell of leather bindings, bookcases full of venerable volumes of the fathers, a dignified and courtly librarian. Instead, he found a small deal counter, on which were displayed the more odious of penny publications, and a stout old woman of comfortable appearance looked up from her knitting as he entered. But behind her--and his heart beat quicker at the sight--were rows of capacious pigeon-holes, each initialled with a letter of the alphabet. But, even as she asked him in a hoarse, fruity voice what she could do for him, he called on his finer instincts again, and instead of asking if there happened to be anything for George Loring, contented himself with buying “Society Pars” and “Frivol and Fashion.” With these prints in his hand, he left the shop without even looking at letter L.

But after all, perhaps, the commonplace sordidness of the establishment was of greater artistic value than his preconceived idea of it; it was a grimmer affair like this; it was more piquant, more trenchant that white-faced men, trembling and unmanned by the possibility of dreadful disclosures coming to light, should bring their forfeits to this ordinary little establishment, that their unseen and terrible persecutor should ask for letters from a comfortable old lady over a dingy deal counter.

Hardly had he emerged when there drove by a motor in which, of all people, Lord Peebles was sitting, who waved an absent welcome to him. He saw at once how dangerous had been his visit. Supposing he had asked for letters for George Loring and had staggered out of the shop with a scarcely manageable parcel of gold, to encounter such a meeting, it was distinctly within the bounds of possibility that that nobleman would connect him with George Loring. His blood ran cold at the thought, and yet it was a pleasing shiver which at once suggested a further precaution, delightful in the devising. A disguise was imperatively necessary.

He hailed a taxicab and spent an enraptured afternoon. George Loring had probably done this sort of thing before, and it might be supposed that though poor and desperate, he retained from the fruits of his last crime clothes of a flashy and ill-fitting description. Such as he would certainly wear a gaudy check suit and cheap patent leather boots. His tie, of the Brussels carpet type, would assuredly be pinned with something too magnificent to be possibly valuable; detachable cuffs and dicky, a hat with a furrow in it would complete his detestable array. Arthur Whately himself was clean shaven and solidly English in face; a moustache and imperial, therefore, suggesting a Polish conjurer were indicated. These must be of convincing make, incapable of detection; and a visit to an expensive perruquier’s, with a brilliant tale of a fancy-dress ball, made the last visit of a thrilling afternoon. And that night, when the great house in Park Lane was silent, and the electrical apparatus in the fan-room adjusted, a figure, appalling to contemplate, strutted and pirouetted before the big looking-glass in his locked bedroom.

All this, so exquisite to his pleasure-jaded palate, was but the material aspect of his adventure. Far sweeter and more recondite was the psychical honey of it. For, two days after George Loring had sent his letter, Lord Peebles telephoned to know whether Arthur Whately would play golf with him, and though he detested and despised the game, he gave an enthusiastic affirmative, and drove down with him to the Mid-Surrey links at Richmond. Certainly Lord Peebles looked worried and anxious, and the grey streak above his ears seemed to the vigilant eye of his friend to have assumed greater prominence.

“It’s so good of you to ask me to play,” said Whately as they started. “I am a wretched performer, and I know your prowess.”

“Oh, I expect we shall have a very even match, a very even match,” said the other. “And I needed a day off, though it is not Saturday. But there has been some worrying business lately, and I wanted to get into the country and forget all about it. Very worrying business.”

Whately’s eye gleamed secretly; these worries fed his soul.

“Indeed, I am sorry to hear that,” he said.

“Thank you, thank you. A purely private affair. Don’t let us talk of it. Pretty the country looks. What’s that river we are crossing?”

“The River Thames,” said Whately almost tremulously.

“Perhaps,” said Lord Peebles.

He cleared his throat. “The Thames,” he began, and then changed the subject to something amazingly foreign to that topic.

“It is strange how one’s memory plays tricks with one,” he said. “A couple of days ago I was trying--quite idly--to recollect where I spent the early days of August the summer before last, and was totally unable to recall what I had been doing. My wife remembers that we went to Scotland on the 11th, but she, too, has quite forgotten what we did just before. She inclines to think that I was paying some visits without her. Curious!”

Arthur Whately laughed in a sprightly, rallying manner.

“Ah, ah,” he said, “she is probably right, eh? Trust a wife’s memory, my dear fellow, on that sort of point.”

“No doubt she is right,” returned the other, “but it is strange that we can neither of us recollect where I went.”

“Perhaps you never told her,” said Whately gaily. “But come, dismiss those evasive topics. Let the past bury its dead. It is only the present that is truly ours.”

They had arrived at the club-house, and Whately stepped out, followed by the heavier-footed peer. It was almost too good to be true, that by sheer accident he had lighted on days that seemed hard to account for, and, treading on air, he hurried into the dressing-room, where, in momentary privacy, he was forced to indulge in a few toe-pointing capers of delight. And, after all, though the emotions with which he had supplied his friend were of anxious and ominous description, still, emotions after all, of whatever sort, are the salt of life, and here was a new one for him, something with a strong flavour about it. But he could afford to be generous, since he himself was being so richly entertained, and he did not grudge him one pang of the worry and anxiety inseparable from his position.

Arthur Whately’s golf was generally of the most wayward description; he cut balls savagely to point and topped them _ventre à terre_ into cavernous bunkers, while Lord Peebles played a dreadfully steady game, that, as a rule, walked arm-in-arm with bogey round the links. But to-day a strange upset of form took place, for while Lord Peebles seemed unable to hit any ball in the requisite direction or with the requisite force, Arthur Whately, by virtue of the inscrutable laws that govern golf, performed with incredible excellence, and not unnaturally concluded that blackmailing is very good for the eye. Not for years had he felt so keenly the zest and ecstasy of living, and while watching his unfortunate opponent digging his ball out of tussocks of rank grass and eviscerating bunkers, he planned many similar adventures for the future. He felt as if he had awoke at last to his true nature; by accident he was a millionaire and the architect of his own colossal fortune, but by instinct and birth he seemed to be an æsthetic criminal. And the discovery had come upon him, though late, yet not too late. There might be many ecstatic years in store for him yet.

The days of that enchanted week passed slowly, and each moment that brought him nearer Friday morning, when he would don his atrocious disguise and visit Martin’s Library, brought him no nearer any firm conjectures as to what he should find there. It so happened that he met his victim several times in the course of the week, and if, as on the occasion of their golf match, his mental and physical aspect seemed to indicate that he would assuredly lack the courage of the archdeacon and obediently pay his fine, on other occasions he showed a calmness and control that was consistent with more aggressive proceedings. To Whately’s knowledge he transacted during that week a very difficult and intricate financial undertaking that caused certain bankers in Berlin to curse his acumen, and later he won the Mid-Surrey monthly medal, which looked as if his aberration had been only temporary. And the uncertainty and suspense thrilled and fascinated his persecutor.

* * * * *

It was about twelve o’clock on the Friday morning that a dejected four-wheeler stopped opposite Martin’s Library, and the ambulatory population of Wardour Street, accustomed to all manner of eccentricities, looked with wonder at the garish figure that emerged. Two hours before, Arthur Whately had set off from Park Lane with a small portmanteau and had driven to the Charing Cross Hotel, having adjusted moustache and imperial with the aid of a small looking-glass in the cab, and had taken a room for a widower of the name of George Loring, paying for one night’s habitation. There he had effected his change of clothes and left the valise containing the outer garments of Arthur Whately, at present in a state of suspended existence.

He entered the library with a strutting martial air, and, as once before, the comfortable old lady looked up from her knitting and asked how she could serve him.

“I have called for letters and parcels for Mr. George Loring,” said Whately in a falsetto voice, which was the result of diligent practice. But a glance at pigeon-hole L showed him that it was empty....

“Yes, parcel and letter for Mr. George Loring,” said the old dame, “but the parcel was too big to put in the pigeon-hole, let alone lifting it. So I put them together somewhere. Deary me, now, where was it?”

“This is a strange way to conduct a public library,” said Whately, forgetting all about the assumed falsetto, “that the librarian should not know where she has deposited the property of her subscribers. Mr. Martin would be far from pleased. I am pressed for time, madam. Business in the city----”

The old lady turned slowly round and beamed on him.

“And if I wasn’t sitting on it all the time,” she said, “just for safety, as you may say. There, young man, you’ll find it heavy, and there’s sixpence to pay.”

“A most reasonable charge, madam,” said Whately. “And--and can you tell me who left the parcel--what he looked like?”

She nodded at him.

“Such a fur coat I never see,” she said, “and his motor fair stopped the traffic. I didn’t take much account of his face, though I would swear to a beard.”

“A shrewd observer!” said Whately in his most genial tones, and staggering out of the shop with his parcel, deposited it on his own toe as he stepped into the cab. The pain was severe, and for the moment damped his ecstasy and caused him a loss of self-control.

“Charing Cross Hotel, you old idiot!” was his unjustifiable direction to his cabman.

As he drove there he tore open the note. It ran as follows:

“DEAR SIR,--You have me completely in your power, and I send the
money you demand. Kindly forward me at once the documentary
evidence you speak of.

Faithfully yours,

PEEBLES.”

Again he felt vaguely disappointed. The fish had given him less play than he hoped; he had but towed its sulking carcass to land. But, then, he did not know that there followed him, threading the intricacies of traffic close behind him, a taxicab in which was sitting a quiet-looking gentleman with pince-nez. Its destination also appeared to be Charing Cross Hotel.

The hall porter opened the door of his cab, and Whately indicated his parcel.

“Move that into the bureau, if you will be so kind,” he said. “It contains a--a model, a metal model, and is heavy. I am going upstairs to change my clothes, and will be down again in ten minutes.”

Less time than that was sufficient for him to resume the habiliments of Arthur Whately, and stow the apparel of the vanished George Loring in his bag. His imperial and moustache he still wore, for it was his intention to use depilatory measures in the cab which took him back to Park Lane lest the complete transformation might prove too staggering for the hall porter. This time he himself took the parcel, a wooden box, clearly, wrapped up in brown paper, to his cab, put it, not on his own foot, but on the seat opposite, and genially told the driver to take him to Park Lane. Close behind him followed the taxicab containing the gentleman with pince-nez, modest, secluded, and unobserved. And from a few doors off he saw Mr. Arthur Whately, burdened with the parcel he had brought from Wardour Street, stagger into his own house. His business seemed to be not yet finished, for having seen him home he drove back to an office in the City, and was at once taken in to see the head of the firm. His interview lasted about half an hour, and he left behind him when he went a very much astonished gentleman, over whose mobile face a succession of queer secret smiles chased one another like gleams of sunshine on a cloudy day. Excellent business man though he was, he gave for the rest of the day but a tepid attention to his work.

Arthur Whately meantime was closeted with his gold. With the aid of a pair of nail-scissors (for prudence counselled secrecy) he succeeded in raising the lid of the box, and found it packed inside with smooth, discreet little sausages of white paper. A couple of these he unfolded, and from each flowed out a stream of clinking sovereigns. In each were a round hundred, and the little sausages were twenty in number. He put a liberal handful of gold in his pocket; he locked the rest into the safe that stood in the bedroom. And those two thousand pounds were somehow sweeter to him than his whole unnumbered fortune: they seemed to him the reward of a cleverness that was more peculiarly his own than that which had amassed so huge a harvest in South African mines and American options. They were doubly sweet, for they were both the fruit of secret criminal processes and had been wrung by terror out of his friend.

He lunched out that day. His soul basked in the heaven of high animal spirits which had so long been lost to him, and in the stimulus which the last week had brought to him he felt like a peri who had regained Paradise. Perhaps reaction would come, but for the present it held aloof, and in case it did he could always, as he phrased it to himself as he walked lightly down Bond Street, apply the squeezers again to poor Peebles. The vocabulary as well as the spirits of a schoolboy had come back to him; long-forgotten slang tripped off his tongue, and he examined shop-windows with eager enthusiasm. There was a beautiful Charles II. rat-tail spoon in a shop of old silver, and he entered and bought it, paying for it on the spot with fifteen of his newly acquired sovereigns. The purchase gave him more pleasure than any he had made for years: it was the fruit of his splendid stroke of blackmail.

At another shop he bought for five pounds a charming figure of a seagull in Copenhagen china. Lord Peebles had a collection of this pale fabric, and his friend felt it would be a privilege to add to it. That also was paid for in gold, and after he had left each shop a quiet man entered and conferred privately with the proprietor, leaving a companion outside, who strolled after the millionaire.

Returning home, he sent out a number of invitations for a dinner party in ten days’ time. A royal princess had intimated that she would like to dine with him that night, and he included in his invitations Lord and Lady Peebles, both of whom were snobs of “purest ray serene.” Later on he would ask them again to some similar function, for he felt that two such invitations would make full compensation for the anxiety he had caused. He did not regard the bagatelle of gold; that meant nothing to either of them. Then after an hour with his beautiful collection of Greek coins he dressed and went out to dinner.

Lord Peebles was of the party, and the two cut into a table of bridge afterwards, and played for a couple of hours, with luck distinctly against the newly created peer. Generally his losses caused him exquisite agony: being very rich, he could not bear to be ever so little poorer. But to-night he laid down a couple of ten-pound notes with a smile.

“I pay you, my dear Whately,” he said, “fourteen pounds, is it not? I wonder if you can give me six.”

Whately could and did.

“You have had the worst of luck,” he observed genially, “but it’s only a game. By the way, I hope I shall see you and your wife to dinner on the 23rd. I sent you an invitation this evening.”

Lord Peebles took up his change and looked rather carefully at each sovereign in turn, as if to question its genuineness.

“Curious thing,” he said, “each of these sovereigns is marked. There is a small capital ‘P’ scratched on the field in front of St. George.”

He passed one over to Whately, who felt as if some warning whistle had sounded remotely in his ears. But he contrived to speak in his natural voice, and got up.

“I see,” he said; “I wonder what that means. Bates gave me them just before I came out.”

“Indeed,” said Lord Peebles negligently. “Yes, the 23rd would be delightful. Are you going?”

“Yes, I think I shall be off,” said Whately.

He drove back to Park Lane, and without setting the pleasant peal of electric bells in the fan-room, went straight to his bedchamber and got out the box which had thrilled him with such exquisite pangs of pleasure that morning. He stripped the paper off sausage after sausage of gold, until his bed was piled with the precious metal. And on each shining disc the same ominous discovery met his eye: just in front of St. George’s head on every one that he took up was scratched a small capital “P.”

* * * * *

He slept far from well that night, for his mind, spinning madly like a whirling top, came into collision with a series of hard angles of uncomfortable circumstances. He told himself that it was inconceivable that his friend should have suspected him of the odious crime of blackmailing, but his friend evidently when paying the ransom had taken steps to trace its destination, with a view to the apprehension of the criminal. By a most strange coincidence it was he, Arthur Whately, who had supplied him with a clue, though he had had the presence of mind to say that Bates had given him these six pieces of evidence.... Then with a pang of alarm that made him sit bolt upright in bed, he remembered that there were four more of them in the shop where they sold china cats and seagulls, fifteen more in the silversmith’s, where he had bought the Charles II. spoon, and two others in the hair-cutting establishment in St. James’s Street, where he had so lightly purchased a safety-razor and a small indiarubber sponge. At all costs he must repossess himself of these, and how was that to be done? In this short summer night there was scarcely time, even if he had had the tools, to make a series of single-handed burglaries, yet if he did not get those accursed sovereigns back, he was letting the tap of evidence drip and drip and drip. What, again, was the use of those nineteen hundred and odd sovereigns on his bed if he could not put them in circulation without multiplying the evidence already in existence? The suspense of the last week, it is true, had been thrilling and delicious, but it appeared now that there were at least two sorts of suspense, and the other, though quite as thrilling, was not so pleasant. Sinking into an uneasy slumber, he dreamed of skilly.

Haggard and unshaven (in spite of the new safety-razor), he was in Bond Street next morning early, with cheque-book and bank-notes in his pocket. The shop that dealt in old silver was only just open, and he went hurriedly in.

“I am Mr. Whately,” he said, “Mr. Whately, of Park Lane. Dear me, that is a very pretty tankard. A hundred pounds only! Please send it round to me to No. 93. The fact is, a rather curious thing has happened. I bought a Charles II. spoon here yesterday afternoon and paid for it in sovereigns. For certain curious, I may say family, reasons, I very much want those sovereigns back again. There are sentimental associations with them, you understand. Could you kindly let me have them back and take my cheque or bank-notes in exchange?”

The shopman laughed.

“Well, sir, a very curious thing happened here too,” he said brightly. “You had hardly left the shop when a gentleman came in and asked if I could let him have any change for some bank-notes. There were your sovereigns lying in the till, and I gave him them all. I offered him five more as well, but after examining those he said he did not want more than fifteen.”

Arthur Whately couldn’t suppress a slight groan.

“That was very precipitate of you,” he said. “What was the gentleman like? Was it--a stout, dark-faced gentleman with yellowish hair and--and probably a fur coat?”

“No, sir, a clean-shaven gentleman with a sharp sort of face.”

“Not Peebles,” said Whately to himself, as he skimmed out of the shop. “It may still only be a coincidence.”

The shop of Danish china was open, and again he told his lame and unconvincing tale. Here again the fever for gold had run riot yesterday afternoon, and a gentleman with a big moustache had taken five sovereigns and left a bank-note. And his scuttling footsteps took him to the aseptic hairdresser’s.

“I am fighting single-handed against a positive gang of these wretches,” was his bitter comment.

But the aseptic hairdresser’s was still shut, and after ringing several wrong bells belonging to different floors, he gave up in despair and went home to the mocking splendour of No. 93. A fresh-faced stable-boy was just laying down the straw in the street, whistling as he plied his nimble pitchfork. Whately wondered whether he would ever whistle again.

For an hour he sat there lost in a scorching desert of barren thought. Visions of oakum and broad arrows flitted through his disordered mind, and every now and then he came to himself as some fresh circumstance of dawning significance rapped on his brain.

Once he hurried upstairs, remembering that the awful attire of George Loring still lurked in a locked cupboard of his bedroom, and he took the criminal’s coat and stuffed it in the fire in his sitting-room, with the intention of burning all that costume which had seemed so exquisitely humorous. But the coat seemed impervious to flames, and it was not till a quarter of an hour later that he came downstairs again with roasted face. Even then there were trousers and shirt and patent leather boots to get rid of, and trouser buttons and the base metal of his gorgeous tie-pin would be found amid the ashes. And even when it was all done, he would only have destroyed one thread of evidence, leaving a network of imperishable circumstance unimpaired.

Truly there was a dark side to the game on which he had so lightly embarked, which the callous world could not ever so faintly appreciate, or would probably but imperfectly sympathize with even if it did.

But for the sake of saving his sanity he had to occupy himself with something, and after vainly attempting to follow the meaning of a leader in the _Times_, he began reading, purely as a “sad narcotic exercise,” the Agony column. And then he fairly bounded from his seat, as the following met his eye:

“To George Loring. A packet of marked sovereigns, twenty-eight in number, will be forwarded to the above-named at any address or given to a messenger who hands to Mr. Arthur Armstrong (resident for this day only at the Charing Cross Hotel) the sum of £4,000 (four thousand) in bank-notes or bullion.”

He groaned aloud.

“It spells beggary,” he said to himself, “but I must have those sovereigns. But let me see first whether twenty-eight is the full tale of them,” and he snatched up a piece of paper and wrote:

To Lord Peebles 6
Silver Shop 15
Copenhagen China 5
Haircutting place 2
--
28

and at that, in spite of the ruinous expense, his heart bounded high within him. It was wiser not to appear himself (he had, so it struck him, appeared rather too frequently already), and sending for his secretary he scrawled a cheque for £4,000, and bade him have it changed into bank-notes and take it at once to the Charing Cross Hotel. There he would ask for a certain Mr. Arthur Armstrong, who would give him a packet containing twenty-eight marked sovereigns.

“It concerns a widowed aunt of mine,” he added, “and I cannot tell you more. Speed and secrecy are essential to save her from ruin.”

The zealous secretary was back within an hour, and with a sob of relief Whately, when he was alone, opened the packet he brought. Next moment with a hollow groan he spilled the contents all over the table. The sovereigns were marked indeed, but each of them had neatly incised on it, not a “P” but an interrogation mark. Back went the zealous secretary again to explain that these were not the right ones, and, if necessary, to implore Mr. Arthur Armstrong, for the sake of his mother, to give up the others. He was soon home again with the news that Mr. Arthur Armstrong had already quitted the hotel, leaving no address.

* * * * *

Later on that abject day there arrived a note from Lord Peebles, saying that it was doubtful whether he could come to dinner on the 23rd. Events, at present private, might render it impossible. But he would like a game of golf at Richmond next day if Whately was at liberty.

Again this proposal of a recreation detestable in itself and intolerable to one with shaking hand and trembling knees! Yet if Peebles had proposed a game of leap-frog Whately could not be so imprudent as to refuse, for at all costs he must keep up friendly relations. He had half a mind (but not the other half) to tell his friend that it was indeed he who had attempted to blackmail him, for a joke, and that the retaliation was getting beyond one. But it was not certain as yet that a confession was necessary; there was nothing to show that Lord Peebles had identified him with George Loring. It looked like it; it looked uncommonly like it, but what proof had he? Whately, it is true, had given him half a dozen of his own marked sovereigns, and no doubt Peebles knew that he had expended others on Copenhagen china, Charles II. silver and American articles of toilet, but that was all. It certainly was a good deal----

* * * * *

There is no need to dwell on his further anguish. The game of golf was a cruel parody of sport, and Peebles was in his most pompous mood, speaking of the House of Lords as “we.” At other times he spoke with strange persistence of the horrors of English prisons, and mentioned that he had been appointed visitor to Wormwood Scrubs. Whately did not know with any accuracy where that was, but Peebles described exactly how you could get to it. Long-sentence men stayed there.

Another day he would see or think he saw a stranger watching his house. Sometimes a second would join him, and if one was clean-shaven and the other had a moustache, Whately’s heart would leap to his throat and creakingly pulsate there. His appetite failed him; his brushes were full of shed hair; dew suddenly broke out on his forehead. And seven dreadful days passed.

Then the end came.

Lord Peebles telephoned to him asking if he could see him on important business, and of course a welcoming affirmative was given.

“You appear far from well, my dear Whately,” he said, looking anxiously at him, “far from well. A little dieting, do you think, a little regular work, a little abstention from alcohol?”

Whately gave a haggard glance out of the window. It was a foggy morning, and in the roadway he could but faintly distinguish a large black van which had approached noiselessly over the straw and now stood there. At that sight there was no longer any doubt in his mind that Peebles had adopted the ruthless archidiaconal attitude towards blackmailers, and was going to have him arrested. But harassed and unnerved as he was by a succession of sleepless nights and nightmare days, he still despised and refused to parley with the conventional narrowness of his accuser. Yet Lord Peebles still wore his pleased and secret smile, and it was not good manners to look like that in the act of committing a friend to a convict prison. Whately drew himself up and spoke with wonderful steadiness and dignity.

“I see it’s all up!” he said, “and that I shall soon get all the things you so feelingly recommend. But after all I had a perfectly amazing week when I waited for your answer. I don’t deny that you have given me an awful week, too, or that there are many rather cheerless weeks in front of me. It’s no use my attempting to explain; you would never understand. Your soul doesn’t rise above sovereigns.”

Lord Peebles came a step nearer him, looking vexed.

“For those remarks,” he said, “you deserve to be treated as--as you deserve. You don’t seem to realize that I have had a week of the most thrilling enjoyment. You think that nobody has a sense of humour except yourself. That attitude of yours has often annoyed me, for I have a remarkably keen one, and for pure æsthetic pleasure I have just had the week of my life. The fact that it was sugared with revenge hardly enhanced it at all, nor did the fact that whereas you got two thousand pounds out of me, I got four thousand out of you. You have been like a monkey dancing on a hot plate. I have been the hot plate.”

Whately was scarcely listening; with chattering teeth he looked at the huge ominous van in the street, and Lord Peebles followed his gaze.

“You deserve that that van should be Black Maria,” he went on in injured tones, “to take you to Wormwood Scrubs, where I am visitor.”

“Is--isn’t it?” asked Whately.

Lord Peebles peered into the fog.

“The harmless, necessary pantechnicon,” he said.

Then he subsided into a chair and his great bulk began to shake with spasms of ungovernable laughter. And gradually the colour came back to Whately’s face, and shortly after an uncertain smile hovered on his mouth.

“And is it all over?” he asked.

Lord Peebles took a small sausage of sovereigns out of his pocket.

“I brought these along with me,” he said, “please count them; they are all marked, and there are twenty-eight of them. I will exchange them with those you possess marked with an interrogation point.”

“You shall!” said Whately. “God bless you!”

“I was not certain, when I came here,” continued Lord Peebles, disregarding this interruption, “whether I should put you out of your suspense or not, but your haggard and emaciated appearance, my dear fellow, decided me. Besides, I am two thousand pounds to the good, or nearly so, for I owe some small sum to detectives. If I did not have mercy on you, you would probably be too unwell to give your party for the princess on the 23rd, and I should be sorry to miss that. Otherwise I might have let you have a week or so more of excitement. I had several other little notions, little tunes for you to dance to.”

“You shall sit next her,” said Whately with quivering lips.

GENERAL STORIES

THE DANCE ON THE BEEFSTEAK

This Midsummer day, the early hours of which were bathed in so serene a sunshine, has ended in storm and hurly-burly. Only this morning the general outlook was as unclouded as is now the velvet blue of the star-scattered Italian sky, but this evening our very souls are driven like dead leaves before a shrivelling blast. Nature, unsympathetic, indifferent, still holds on her great unruffled courses; the stars wheel, the north wind blows lightly from across the gulf; the little ripples shed themselves in lines of phosphorescent flame; Naples lies a necklace of light on the edge of the sea, the loveliness of the Southern night is undiminished. But Mrs. Mackellar has danced on the beefsteak, and she has dismissed Seraphina.

To the dweller in cities or other light-minded and populous places this may appear but the most farcical of tragedies, worthy of no more than the scoffing laugh of a passer-by. But such do not know Mrs. Mackellar, nor Seraphina, nor life in Alatri. For in Alatri as a rule nothing happens--certainly nothing unpleasant--our lives are as smooth as the halcyon summer seas, and it will, I am afraid, be impossible to give to any but the most imaginative reader an adequate idea of the devastating nature of the catastrophe.... It will be necessary in any case to recount in brief the events of the last twenty-four hours.

Yesterday afternoon we were all _en fête_; Mrs. Mackellar gave a party for two reasons, either of which was amply justifiable. The first was that the engagement of Seraphina her cook to Antonio her man-servant was definitely sanctioned by her, and so made food for public rejoicing; the second that Seraphina had been with her as cook for an entire year. Now in Alatri servants do not, as a rule, stop with Mrs. Mackellar more than a few weeks. Then they leave. There is no dissatisfaction expressed and no public quarrel. They just lose their nerve and go away. But the days had added themselves into weeks, and the weeks into months, and before any of us knew where we were, Seraphina had been a year with Mrs. Mackellar. Hence the party.

There were in fact two parties, for Seraphina and Antonio entertained their friends in the kitchen, while Mrs. Mackellar received on the house-roof. She is an immense Scotchwoman, broad in bosom and in accent, and feels the heat acutely. Consequently when I received an invitation for four o’clock on an afternoon in the middle of June, it was clear that she must have a real desire to celebrate the event.

The Duchess of Alatri--to her more intimate friends, Bianca--came with me by special invitation. Her Grace is a huge white Campagna sheep-dog, so tall that she can, when sitting down, put her chin on an ordinary dining-room table and eat your bread when you are not looking. At rest she resembles a large rug (and as such is not infrequently trodden on), and when in motion she resembles nothing that I have ever seen. Her sole method of progression is a trot; she never walks, and she cannot gallop, but the trot varies from a pace so surprisingly slow that she appears only to be marking time, to that of the passage of an express train. The other day she was investigating interesting smells in the piazza, when out for a walk with me, and so got left behind. I did not miss her till I was some half-mile away, and looking round saw a distant white speck where the road leaves the town. I whistled shrilly on my fingers, and without appreciable interval she was with me. She belongs not, alas, to me, but to an American, who has left the enchanted island for the summer (unless perhaps it is more just to say that he belongs to her), and committed Her Grace to my care. Her passions are being combed, cheese and dancing.

This latter I discovered by a happy accident. For the first afternoon that she was with me she was very sorrowful, and though I ran up the Stars and Stripes on the flagstaff, instead of the Union Jack, wondering if this would give her the thrill of home, she remained dispirited. But shortly before going to bed, hoping in some vague way to cheer her, and being myself futile, I danced round her, snapping my fingers. The effect was magical. The rug shuffled swiftly to its feet, and began gambolling. She jumped in the air, she turned briskly round and round, she took little leaps with her head down like a bucking pony, she upset a small table on which was standing an open tin of biscuits, and scarcely pausing to sweep up the greater part with her tongue she lurched heavily into an oleander-tub on the veranda, snapping the shrub off short. And when, about ten minutes later, I sank into a chair breathless and exhausted, the Duchess was herself again. Only once when passing her old home did she show any desire to remain there, and even then I had but to execute two fantastic steps down the path, when she gave a sort of choking cry, her apology for a bark, and came after me behaving like a rocking-horse.

So Bianca and I went up the steep path to Mrs. Mackellar’s shortly after four yesterday afternoon. She lives in a stucco castle with battlements. There was already a tarantella going on in the kitchen--Seraphina is a notable dancer--and Bianca brightened up. She said, “This is the place for me,” and brushing rudely by me trotted down the back-stairs and I saw her no more. So I went alone to the house-roof.

“All Alatri” was there, perspiring under an Oriental awning, which Mrs. Mackellar had put up for the shelter of her guests. It seemed calculated to concentrate the heat of the sun, and to exclude all air. The German doctor, who has not left the island, even to go to Naples, for nine years, was talking the native dialect to a Swedish painter; the mysterious Russian widow who plays picquet every evening with her man cook was chattering voluble French to a circle of mixed nationality; and Mrs. Mackellar, resplendent in tartan, was treating bewildered listeners to the Peebles speech. The ices had transformed themselves into a delicious fruit-cream, and the sugar was melting like tallow off the cakes. We indulged in the usual topics, the impossibility of leaving Alatri that summer, the promise of a fine vintage, the apocryphal shark three metres long, whose dorsal fin had appeared only a few yards from the shore of the Bagno, the iniquity of servants in general, and the conspicuous virtue of Seraphina.

Mrs. Mackellar, in the democratic spirit that helps to make Alatri so wildly interesting, had added that when the feasting in the kitchen was over, and when no one wanted to eat more ice-cream on the house-top, the party from below should join the party up above, so that we all should be one on this happy occasion.

Accordingly, after a while she leaned over the battlements of her castle, gave a loud war-cry, and up came Seraphina’s party. She led the way with her _promesso_, in a state of high hilarity, and all the servants of all Mrs. Mackellar’s guests brought up the rear. There was no blushing possible, for everybody was scarlet with heat already, and we split off into domestic groups. Francesco sat by me, and began to tell me why nobody went to mass on this name day of St. John the Baptist. This was interesting, but on the other side of me was Seraphina discussing _trousseau_ with her mistress, and the loud arresting Italian of Mrs. Mackellar only permitted me to give half an ear to the story of San Giovanni. However, Francesco could tell me about it again to-morrow, in less distracted conditions, and when the discussion about the _trousseau_ was over (I had gathered several plums, _un tartano di Edinborgo_ being a fine one) I left.

Next morning I had a crisis of affairs. In Alatri, if one has anything whatever that must be done, it, like the grasshopper, becomes a burden. But I had several things that must be done, and I was nearly crushed by the prospect. In the first place breakfast was ready before I was out of bed and I therefore had to postpone shaving till afterwards. This alone would have made a troublesome morning, but this was far from all. On coming down I found two letters that had to be answered, one (and I was sorry for my sins) containing an uncorrected proof, and while I was still prostrate from the blow Francesco came in with household accounts. These, for the sake of morality, I make it a rule to check (Francesco’s addition is always right, mine always wrong), and thus it stood to reason that I should not be able to start down to the sea to bathe till nearly eleven. However, “no Briton’s to be baulked,” and I marched manfully across the thirsty desert of affairs.

An hour in the sea and the consciousness of duty done restored equanimity, and when after lunch Francesco brought me coffee on to the veranda and seemed disposed to linger, I remembered the half-heard story of San Giovanni.

“Tell it me again,” I said, and Francesco told it.

“The signor must know,” he said, “that in Italy there are many unbaptized children, and if San Giovanni came to earth like the other saints on his name-day, he would be furious at such neglect, and burn up the earth with fire. God knows this, and, being unwilling that we should all suffer, he sends San Giovanni to sleep the day before his name-day, so that he sleeps for eight days. Then when he wakes up he says to God, ‘Is not my name-day yet?’ And God replies, ‘O San Giovanni, you have been to sleep and your name-day is over while you slept. It will not come again for another year.’ Thus it is that we do not go to mass on the day of San Giovanni, for where is the use if he be asleep? But the priests say--Ah! has not the Signor heard the news?” he broke off suddenly and excitedly.

“News! I have heard no news.”

“How can I have forgotten? The Signora Mackellar has danced on her beefsteak, and Seraphina is dismissed. So when will she marry Antonio?”

Now the two things a Southern Italian loves best are telling a story and causing a sensation. And it was with the most exquisite enjoyment that Francesco continued, for both were here combined.

“The market boat came in from Naples this morning,” he said, “and on it was a fine beefsteak for the Signora. Salvatore, the carrier, took it up, and it so was that both the Signora and Seraphina were on the house-roof when he came, and the Signora was ordering dinner. And it seems she was angry, so said Salvatore, at the cost of the ice cream yesterday. So he was ordered to bring up the beefsteak, and the Signora smelt it, and said it was not food for dogs. And Salvatore--you know he is a sharp fellow--he replied ‘Indeed it is not food for dogs,’ meaning thereby----”

“Yes, I understand,” I interrupted.

Francesco was getting gesticulative, and he went on with the fire of a prophet.

“Then gave the Signora the beefsteak to Seraphina,” he cried, “and said ‘Smell it thou also.’ And Seraphina, having smelt it, said, ‘Signora, it seems to me very good.’ At that the Signora turned on her like one goaded and cried--‘Thou too art in the plot to cheat me! To-day thou art no more my cook’; and as for the beefsteak--_ecco_! And she threw it down, and danced upon it with both feet together, so that the roof trembled. Also she said many strange words in her own tongue.”

And Francesco, like a true artist, did not linger after making his point, but turned on his heel, resisting even the temptation to talk it all over, and went into the house.

Here was a bolt from the blue! The summer had begun, there would be no fresh visitors to Alatri till the winter, and Seraphina would be out of place all these months. Antonio’s wages would not keep them both, if Seraphina was out of place, and had to pay for her board and lodging with some friend, and who knew whether Mrs. Mackellar’s wrath would not spread like a devouring flood, and overwhelm Antonio also? Nothing was more likely, for I remembered how on the dismissal of Mrs. Mackellar’s last cook, her washing had been withdrawn from its customary manipulator, simply because she was the cook’s cousin by marriage. How then should Seraphina’s _promesso_ escape? Already the smell of the marriage bake-meats was in the air: they were like to eat them with a sauce of sorrow. To attempt to interfere or to reason with Mrs. Mackellar was out of the question. Her nose would go in the air, and she would say “Hoots!” Those who had heard Mrs. Mackellar say “Hoots” seriously, knew what fear was.