Chapter XXX: A Night at the Savage

It was Saturday evening, and Whitlock decided to return to Cromer. At the conclusion of the inquest, in consequence of a telegram he received from Beale, he made a sudden resolve. I ventured to suggest that to return might mean detection by Julian Little. But he only smiled, saying--

"I shall take good care we do not meet."

I wished to accompany him, but he would not allow it. One of us was sufficient, he declared; therefore, about eight o'clock I saw him off from King's Cross, and walked back to Gray's Inn--lonely and puzzled.

Old Mrs Davis had nothing fresh to report; but among my letters I found an urgent note from Wakeley, the news editor of the _Daily Herald_, stating that Tewfik Pasha, the Foreign Minister of the Sultan, had consented to be interviewed regarding the proposal of international disarmament; that he had appointed a day at the end of next week; and that "the Chief" had suggested that I should be sent on my first foreign mission to Constantinople.

In ordinary circumstances such an order would delight any journalist. Not only was I to be sent so far, on my first engagement abroad, but I was to be entrusted with a very delicate and important interview, which I was to sign, and which would, I knew, be quoted in the Press of the whole world. Any pronouncement of policy by Tewfik Pasha is of international importance, and he must be a very wooden journalist who would not be filled with delight at such an opportunity of earning distinction.

With me, however, it was different. I had no desire to leave London, and yet there were Wakeley's words--

"I shall be at the office on Sunday night and will have cash ready for you, also your passport, which I've sent to the Turkish Consulate for _visé_ for Constantinople. You must leave Charing Cross at nine on Monday morning at latest, and catch the Orient Express from Ostend _viâ_ Constanza. I have heard nothing of Little. A wire to the Grand at Belgrade has been returned. Have you any news of him?"

I read and re-read my travelling orders. At that moment I would have given anything to remain in England and watch the course of events. But it was quite out of the question. I could not possibly disobey the Chief's wishes in this respect. He trusted me and believed in me, otherwise he would never have entrusted me with such an important mission. Besides, I was a Bohemian in spirit--a wanderer who desired to travel and see the world beyond the stifling four-mile radius and the smug, self-satisfied civilisation enjoyed by our modern England.

True, I had "done" one or two of the Continental capitals as a summer tourist, and had been driven in Cook's chars-a-bancs to the battlefield of Waterloo and suchlike historic spots, but it had always been the dream of my life to see the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, to visit St Sophia and the Great Bazaar. The capital of His Majesty the Sultan is, to the majority of Europeans, a closed book. Its beauties are well known, but few have seen them. Here was surely an opportunity not to be missed.

And yet when I reflected upon the urgent necessity of my presence in England just at that moment, and how it might affect my future life, I felt sorely tempted to write direct to Sir Henry Neave, and ask him to relieve me of my engagement. On the other hand, however, I reflected how all my chances of advancement in my profession depended upon the success of that mission, and how the Chief might view my disinclination to travel to the Near East. It was he himself who had given me advancement, and surely I ought to keep faith with him!

It was this reflection that decided me. I was hipped and soured by Daisy's heartlessness, and a change, perhaps, would do me good. I would be absent at least a fortnight, and would return refreshed in mind and body.

So I sent a wire to Whitlock to get on the telephone at ten o'clock next morning, and then went down to the Savage Club for an hour.

Saturday night is always merry at that smoke-begrimed home of London's Bohemia--or, at least, the little that is left of Bohemia. In my own student days in Paris, Bohemia still existed, and across the Seine we were a merry, careless crowd, who assisted each other and who never judged a man by his coat. But the Bohemia of Mürger and of Du Maurier has long ago departed, and in its place there is in London, as also in Paris, the little coterie of successful men who assemble weekly and endeavour to sustain its old traditions and unwritten laws.

Save in the case of one or two members of the Savage, the real, thorough-going, felt-hatted Bohemian does not exist nowadays. Even the last of the race of original Savages--a charming old gentleman in broad-brimmed hat and flowing cloak--has become changed, indeed, in these decadent days of "tubes" and motor 'buses.

Even if one sighs for the free, merry life that is no more--the life where the successful helped the struggling, and where the good-fellowship was as genuine to the penniless artist as to the influential editor--nevertheless Saturday night at the Savage is still one of the institutions of London, and invitations are eagerly coveted by some of the highest in the land. The guests at the weekly house-dinner have ranged from Royal princes down to recently-made birthday knights, including scientists, explorers, soldiers, lord mayors, politicians, literary men, doctors--in fact, representative men in all professions. After the ordinary, plain English dinner the tables are cleared and a smoking concert is given, the chairman of the evening keeping order with a huge African club--the Savage club.

On entering, I found the stairs crowded by men who had come out of the room "to get a breath of air." Within, the tobacco smoke was thick and the assembled company were laughing hugely at a humorous recitation given by Mr O'Neil, an actor of the old school, who for many years had made the Savage his home, and was in consequence one of its best-known members. The recitation ended, a loud encore compelled him to sing a song with a rousing chorus, the final lines of which were--

"We'll drink strong beer
To welcome the harvest ho-o-o-ome,
To welcome the harvest home."

Men I knew waved their hands to me, journalists, artists, sculptors, most of them, all smoking furiously and consuming whisky and soda.

The guest was one of the greatest scientists of the day, a white-headed, sedate-looking man, who blinked upon the company through his gold spectacles and who rarely laughed, while the chairman was an alderman who during the preceding year had been Lord Mayor of London. The Savages have a partiality for ex-Lord Mayors, and no really representative gathering is complete without one.

Mr O'Neil was followed by a great naturalist of world-wide fame in a brief and very humorous lecture upon the common or garden snail, illustrated by diagrams on the blackboard, which caused great hilarity. Then came a lightning artist, another recitation, several songs, and afterwards a selection from a popular play given by an actor who had recently received a knighthood, and who, in consequence, now considered the club rather bad form. He patronised it merely because he met critics there who were of use to him. The whole club were well aware of this, and despised both him and his conduct, treating him with the contempt he deserved.

Presently, as I sat at the end of one of the long, crowded tables, smoking and chatting with Garnett, the news editor of the _Pall Mall_, Wakeley entered and, greeting me, managed to squeeze himself in at my side.

"Thought you were in the country, Keene!" he exclaimed. "Got my letter--eh? When shall you leave?"

"Well, on Monday morning, I suppose."

"Right! I'll wire to-morrow to our man in Constantinople telling him you are coming. I've never met him, but I believe you'll find him a decent fellow," he added, lighting his big briar pipe. "He'll put you up to all the ropes. I only wish I were going out. What a chance!"

"Where are you off to, Keene?" inquired Garnett.

"To see Tewfik Pasha in Constantinople," I replied.

"What, have you given up crime?" he laughed.

"Yes," I answered. "I've become a special."

"Then good luck to you, my dear chap," he said, raising his glass to me. "That was always my ambition, as it is of every man in Fleet Street. But it comes to few of us. I'm getting a bit too old, now, and shall stick in the news-room for ever, I suppose."

"And I, too," admitted Wakeley, who was undoubtedly the smartest journalist in all London. "I tried to become a special a dozen times before I went to the _Herald_, but nobody would have me!"

"By Jove! It requires a smart man nowadays to be a special correspondent!" our colleague of the _Pall Mall_ remarked. "But you, Keene, are just the fellow."

"You're very kind indeed to say so," I laughed. "I love travelling."

"You'll follow in the footsteps of Julian Little, I suppose--his assistant in fact--eh?"

"I suppose so," I said, for mention of my friend's name brought before me all the tangled skein of events which, amid that smoky scene of good-fellowship and _bonhomie_ I had, for the moment, forgotten.

A well-known variety artiste had at that moment seated himself at the piano and commenced to play and sing a popular song with a catchy refrain that had recently taken all London. Therefore, the chairman brought down the big club heavily, and called us to order in a fierce voice. And so for the next few moments we were compelled to remain silent.

The door was closed, and an associate of the Royal Academy had his back against it, for no Savage enters or leaves the room while a song or recitation is in progress. Saturday night is the one night in the week when all are equal, and when the chairman rules. Guests sit meekly by in wonder at the nicknames bandied about by men whose names are as household words in the homes of England.

"Oh! by the way," exclaimed Wakeley, turning to me suddenly--when the song was ended in a thunder of applause and cries of "Give us another, old man!"--"have you heard from Little? We haven't the slightest notion where he is. He went to Belgrade, and hasn't been heard of since. I know he writes to you often when he's away."

"No," I replied. "He hasn't written to me."

"Why, Little's in Cromer," remarked Garnett, who had overheard our words.

"In Cromer!" cried Wakeley, in a tone of incredibility. "Cromer--here in Norfolk?"

"Yes. Certainly."

"But he's out somewhere in Servia--went out there because of a crisis he anticipated. He has a free hand--as you know."

"I don't care for that," Garnett replied. "He was in Cromer three days ago--I happen to know that as a fact. And a rather curious fact, I think, when everything is considered."

"Everything!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean?"