THE WHISPER
Robert Llwellyn paid the cabman outside the main gateway which led into
the courtyard, and dismissed him.
The Court Mansions were but a few hundred yards from the British Museum
itself, though he never visited them in the day time. A huge building,
like a great hotel, rose skyward in a square. In the quadrangle in the
centre, which was paved with asphalt, was an ornamental fountain
surrounded by evergreen plants in tubs.
The Professor strode under the archway, his feet echoing in the
stillness, and passed over the open space, which was brilliantly lit
with the hectic radiance of arc lamps. He entered one of the doorways,
and turning to the right of the ground-floor, away from the lift which
was in waiting to convey passengers to the higher storeys, he stopped at
No. 15.
He took a latch-key from his pocket, opened the door, and entered. It
was very warm and close inside, and very silent also. The narrow hall
was lit by a crimson-globed electric lamp. It was heavily carpeted, and
thick curtains of plum-coloured plush, edged with round, fluffy balls of
the same colour, hung over the doors leading into it.
He hung his hat up on a peg, and 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. Gertrude Hunt, or her maid, had, with
characteristic carelessness, forgotten to turn off the switches.
Llwellyn sat down and looked around him. How familiar the place was! The
casual visitor would have recognised at a glance that the occupant of
the room belonged to the dramatic profession.
Photographs abounded everywhere. The satinwood overmantel was crowded
with them in heavy frames of chased silver. Bold enlargements hung on
the crimson walls; they were upright, and stacked in disorderly heaps
upon the grand piano.
All were of one woman--a dark Jewish girl with eyes full of a fixed
fascination, a trained regard of allurement.
The eyes pursued him everywhere; bold and inviting, he was conscious of
their multitude, and moved uneasily.
The dining-table was in a curious litter. Half-empty cups of egg-shell
china stood upon a tray of Japanese lacquer inlaid with ivory and
silver; a cake basket held pink and honey-coloured bon-bons, among which
some cigarette ends had fallen. Two empty bottles, which had held
champagne, stood side by side, cheek by jowl, with a gilt tray, on which
was a miniature methyl lamp and some steel curling tongs.
The arm-chairs were upholstered in pink satin. On one of them was a long
fawn-coloured tailor-made coat, hanging collar downwards over the back.
A handful of silver and a tiny gun-metal cigarette case had dropped out
of a pocket on to the seat of the chair.
The whole place reeked with a well-known perfume--an evil, sickly smell
of ripe lilies and the acrid smoke of Egyptian tobacco. A frilled
dressing jacket covered with yellowish lace lay in a tumbled heap upon
the hearth-rug.
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 vulgarest and most material of Circes held sway among all
this gaudy and lavish disorder. 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 fly 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 motor-car." 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, 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. Silenus was twin to him; he sniffed the perfume
with pleasure; he stretched himself to the heat and warmth like a great
cat. He was an integral part of the _mise-en-scène_--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 to 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 the _Coon of Coons_ 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
grease-paint of the theatre had hardly been removed. She looked, as she
said, worn out.
They chatted for a few moments on indifferent subjects, and she lit a
cigarette. When she took it from her lips, Llwellyn noticed that the end
was crimsoned by the paint upon them.
"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. "Here, have a B. and S. I do hate to hear any
one talk like that. It gives me the hump at once. Now look here, Bob.
You know that I like you better than any one else. We've 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 that 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 some one 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 'oof anyhow? If I'd a thousand at once, 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 M.P.? _He's_
got tons of stuff. Touch him for a bit more."
"Had a letter from him this afternoon," said Llwellyn, "with a demand
for about fourteen thousand that I owe him now. 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 that
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 work, but
he's not going to pay a good many thousands for any help in _that_."
"Let it alone till you find out," she said, with the instinctive dislike
of her class to the prolonged discussion of anything unpleasant. She got
up and rang the bell for her maid and supper.
For some reason Llwellyn could eat nothing. A weight oppressed him--a
presage of danger and disaster. The unspeakable mental torments that the
vicious man who is highly educated undergoes--torments which assail him
in the very act and article of his pleasures--have never been adequately
described. "What a frail structure his honours and positions were," he
thought as the woman chatted of the _coulisses_ and the blackguard news
of the _demi-monde_. His indulgent life had acted on the Professor with
a dire physical effect. His nerves were unstrung and he became
childishly superstitious. The slightest hint of misfortune set his brain
throbbing with a horrid fear. The spectre of overwhelming disaster was
always waiting, and he could not exorcise it.
The 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.
Surely the holy sign of God's pain was never so degraded as now.
Their conversation grew fitful and strained. The woman was physically
tired by her work at the theatre, and the dark cloud of menace crept
more rapidly into the man'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
get home now. If it's a clear night I shall walk home. I'm
depressed--it's liver, I suppose--and I need exercise."
"Have a drink before you go?"
"No, I've had two, and I can't take spirits at this time."
He went out with a perfunctory and uninterested kiss. She came to the
archway with him.
London was now quite silent in its most mysterious and curious hour.
The streets were deserted, but brilliantly lit by the long row of lamps.
They stood talking for a moment or two in the quadrangle.
"Queer!" she said; "queer, isn't it, just now? I walked back from the
Covent Garden ball once at this time. Makes you feel lonesome. Well, so
long, Bob. I shall have a hot bath and go to bed."
The Professor's feet echoed loudly on the flags as he approached the
open space. Never had he seemed to hear the noises of his own progress
so clearly before. It was disconcerting, and emphasised the fact of his
sole movement in this lighted city of the dead.
On the island in the centre of the cross-roads he suddenly caught sight
of a tall policeman standing motionless under a lamp. The fellow seemed
a figure of metal hypnotised by the silence.
Llwellyn walked onwards, when, just as he was passing the Oxford Music
Hall, he became conscious of quick footsteps behind him. He turned
quickly, and a man came up. He was of middle size, with polite, watchful
eyes and clean shaven.
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.
The Professor stared at him in uncontrollable surprise and took the
envelope, opening it under a lamp. This was the note. He recognised the
handwriting at once.
"HOTEL CECIL.
"DEAR LLWELLYN,--Kindly excuse the suddenness of my request and
come down to the Cecil with my valet. I have sent him to meet you.
I want to settle our business to-night, and I am certain that we
shall 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's 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 that you would probably be visiting at Bloomsbury Court
Mansions, so I waited about, hoping to meet you. I brought the _coupé_,
sir, in case we should not be able to get you a cab."
Following the direction of his glance, Llwellyn saw that a small
rubber-tired brougham to seat two people was 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 hotel.
Schuabe had not been established at the Cecil for any length of time.
Though he owned a house in Curzon Street, this was let for a long period
to Miss Mosenthal, his aunt, and he had hitherto lived in chambers at
the Albany.
But he found the life at the hotel more convenient and suited to his
temperament. His suite of rooms was one of the most costly even in that
great river palace of to-day, but such considerations need never enter
into his life.
The utter unquestioned freedom of such a life, its entire liberation
from any restraint or convention, suited him exactly.
Llwellyn had never visited Schuabe in his private apartments before at
any time. As he was driven easily to the meeting he nerved himself for
it, summoning up all his resolution. He swept aside the enervating
influences of the last few hours.
Schuabe was waiting in the large sitting-room with balconies upon which
he could look down upon the embankment and the river. 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 his eyes; the guest had a
sensation of being measured and weighed with some definite purpose.
The greeting was cordial enough. "I am very sorry, Llwellyn, to catch
you suddenly like this," Schuabe said, "but I should 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."
The Professor 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 patchouli odours 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 little round table by the windows.
Schuabe ate little, but watched the other with keen, detective eyes,
talking meanwhile of ordinary, trivial things. Nothing escaped him, the
little gleam of pleasure in Llwellyn's eyes at the freshness of the
caviare, 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 _kümmel_
instead.
The two men faced each other on each side 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 very businesslike.
As he talked the voice seemed to wrap round Llwellyn like steel bands.
There was something relentless and inevitable about it; bars seemed
rising as he spoke.
"I am going to be quite frank with you, Llwellyn," he said, "and you
will find it better to be quite frank with me."
He took a paper from the pocket of his smoking jacket and referred to it
occasionally.
"You owe me now about fourteen thousand pounds?"
"Yes, it is roughly that."
"Please correct me if I am 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 knighthood."
Llwellyn stirred uneasily, and the hand which stretched out for another
cigarette shook a little.
"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 cocotte. But in your position, as the
very mainspring and arm of the Higher Criticism of the Bible, the
revelations which would most certainly be made would ruin you
irreparably. Your official posts would all go at once, your name would
become a public scandal everywhere. In England one may do just what one
likes if only one does not in any way, by reason of position or
attainments, belong to the nation. You _do_ belong to the nation. You
can never defy public opinion. With the ethical point of view I have
nothing personally to do. But to speak plainly, in the eyes of the great
mass of English people you would be stamped as an irredeemably vicious
man, if everything came out. That is what they would call you. 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 Phryne or rides to Richmond in the new
motor-car."
He laughed, a low, contemptuous laugh which stung. Llwellyn's face had
grown pale. His large, white fingers picked uneasily at the table-cloth.
His position was very clearly shown to him, with greater horror and
vividness than ever it had come to him before, even in his moments of
acutest depression.
The overthrow would be indeed utter and complete. With the greedy
imagination of the sensualist he saw himself living in some cheap
foreign town, Bruges perhaps, or Brussels, upon 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. It is best to be plain about these things. What is your
alternative?"
"My alternative, if you accept it, 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, I think, now. This can be arranged with
a specialist easily enough. Even if your health does not 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 will realise that perhaps in the whole
history of the world never was secrecy so important to any man's
safety--I will do as follows. I will wipe off your debt at once. I will
pay you ten thousand pounds in cash this week, and during the year, as
may be agreed upon between us, I will make over forty thousand pounds
more to you. In all fifty thousand pounds, exclusive of your debt."
His voice had not been raised, nor did it show any excitement during
this tremendous proposal. The effect on Llwellyn was very different. He
rose from his chair, trembling with excitement, staring with bloodshot
eyes at the beautiful chiselled face below.
"You--you _mean_ it?" he said huskily.
The millionaire made a single confirmatory gesture.
Then the whole magnitude and splendour of the offer became gradually
plain to him in all its significance.
"I suppose," he said, "that, as the payment is great, the risk is
commensurate."
"There will be none if you do what I shall ask properly. Only two other
men living would do it, and, first and foremost, you will have to guard
against _their_ vigilance."
"Then, in God's name, what do you ask?" Llwellyn almost shouted. The
tension was almost unbearable.
Schuabe rose from his seat. For the first time the Professor saw that he
was terribly agitated. His eyes glowed, the apple in his throat worked
convulsively.
"_You are to change the history of the world!_"
He drew Llwellyn into the very centre of the room, and held him firmly
by the elbows. Tall as the Professor was, Schuabe was taller, and he
bent and whispered into the other's ear for a full five minutes.
There was no sound in the room but the low hissing of his sibilants.
Llwellyn's face became white, and then ashen grey. His whole body seemed
to shrink from his clothes; he trembled terribly.
Then he broke away from his host and ran to the fireplace with an odd,
jerky movement, and sank cowering into an arm-chair, filled with an
unutterable dread.
* * * * *
As morning stole into the room the Professor took a bundle of bills and
acknowledgements from Schuabe and thrust them into the fire with a great
sob of relief.
Then he turned into a bedroom and sank into the deep slumber of absolute
exhaustion.
He did not go to the Museum that day.