SECRET SERVICE
In one of the ultra-fashionable quarters of the brilliant and
overcrowded metropolis which formed the nucleus and centre of everything
notable or progressive in the King’s dominions, there stood a large and
aggressively-handsome house, over-decorated both outside and in, and
implying in its general appearance vulgarity, no less than wealth. These
two things go together very much nowadays; in fact one scarcely ever
sees them apart. The fair, southern city of the sea was not behind other
modern cities in luxury and self-aggrandisement, and there were certain
members of the population who made it their business to show all they
were worth in their domestic and home surroundings. One of the most
flagrant money-exhibitors of this kind was a certain Jew named David
Jost. Jost was the sole proprietor of the most influential newspaper
in the kingdom, and the largest shareholder in three other newspaper
companies, all apparently differing in party views, but all in reality
working into the same hands, and for the same ends. Jost and his
companies virtually governed the Press; and what was euphoniously termed
‘public opinion’ was the opinion of Jost. Should anything by chance
happen to get into his own special journal, or into any of the other
journals connected with Jost, which Jost did not approve of, or which
might be damaging to Jost’s social or financial interests, the editor
in charge was severely censured; if the fault occurred again he was
promptly dismissed. ‘Public opinion’ had to be formed on Jost’s humour;
otherwise it was no opinion at all. A few other newspapers led a
precarious existence in offering a daily feeble opposition to Jost; but
they had not cash enough to carry on the quarrel. Jost secured all the
advertisers, and as a natural consequence of this, could well afford
to be the ‘voice of the people’ ad libitum. He was immensely wealthy,
openly vicious, and utterly unscrupulous; and made brilliant speculative
‘deals’ in the unsuspecting natures of those who were led, by that bland
and cheery demeanour which is generally associated with a large paunch,
to consider him a ‘good fellow’ with his ‘heart in the right place.’
With regard to this last assertion, it may be doubted whether he had a
heart at all, in any place, right or wrong. He was certainly not given
to sentiment. He had married for money, and his wife had died in a
mad-house. He was now anxious to marry again for position; and
while looking round the market for a sufficiently perfect person of
high-breeding, he patronized the theatre largely, and ‘protected’
several ballet-girls and actresses. Everyone knew that his life was
black with villainy and intrigue of the most shameless kind, yet
everyone swore that he was a good man. Such is the value of a limitless
money-bag!
It was very late in the evening of the day following that on which the
King had paid his unexpected visit to The Islands,--and David Jost had
just returned from a comic opera-house, where he had supped in private
with two or three painted heroines of the footlights. He was in an
excellent humour with himself. He had sprung a mine on the public; and
a carefully-concocted rumour of war with a foreign power had sent up
certain stocks and shares in which he had considerable interest. He
smiled, as he thought of the general uneasiness he was creating by a
few headlines in his newspaper; and he enjoyed to the full the tranquil
sense of having flung a bone of discord between two nations, in order to
watch them from his arm-chair fighting like dogs for it tooth and claw,
till one or the other gave in.
“Lutera will have to thank me for this,” he said to himself; “And he
will owe me both a place and a title!”
He sat down at his desk in his warm and luxuriously-furnished
study,--turned over a few letters, and then glanced up at the clock. Its
hands pointed to within a few minutes of midnight. Taking up a copy of
his own newspaper, he frowned slightly, as he saw that a certain leading
article in favour of the Jesuit settlement in the country had not
appeared.
“Crowded out, I suppose, for want of space,” he said; “I must see that
it goes in to-morrow. These Jesuits know a thing or two; and they are
not going to plank down a thousand pounds for nothing. They have paid
for their advertisement, and they must have it. They ought to have had
it to-day. Lutera must warn the King that it will not do to offend the
Church. There’s a lot of loose cash lying idle in the Vatican,--we may
as well have some of it! His Majesty has acted most unwisely in refusing
to grant the religious Orders the land they want. He must be persuaded
to yield it to them by degrees,--in exchange of course for plenty of
cash down, without loss of dignity!”
At that moment the door-bell rang softly, as if it were pulled with
extreme caution. A servant answered it, and at once came to his master’s
room.
“A gentleman to see you, sir, on business,” he said.
Jost looked up.
“On business? At this time of night? Say I cannot see him--tell him to
come again to-morrow!”
The servant withdrew, only to return again with a more urgent statement.
“The gentleman says he must see you, sir; he comes from the Premier.”
“From the Premier?”
“Yes, sir; his business is urgent, he says, and private. He sent in his
card, sir.”
Here he handed over the card in question, a small, unobtrusive bit of
pasteboard, laid in solitary grandeur on a very large silver salver.
David Jost took it up, and scanned it with some curiosity. “‘Pasquin
Leroy’! H’m! Don’t know the name at all. ‘Urgent business; bear
private credentials from the Marquis de Lutera’!” He paused again,
considering,--then turned to the waiting attendant. “Show him in.”.
“Yes, sir!”
Another moment and Pasquin Leroy entered,--but it was an altogether
different Pasquin Leroy to the one that had recently enrolled himself
as an associate of Sergius Thord’s Revolutionary Committee. _That_
particular Pasquin had seemed somewhat of a dreamer and a visionary,
with a peculiar and striking resemblance to the King; _this_ Pasquin
Leroy had all the alertness and sharpness common to a practised
journalist, press-reporter or commercial traveller. Moreover, his
countenance, adorned with a black mustache, and small pointed beard,
wore a cold and concentrated air of business--and he confronted the Jew
millionaire without the slightest embarrassment or apology for having
broken in upon his seclusion at so unseasonable an hour. He used a
pince-nez, and was constantly putting it to his eyes, as though troubled
with short-sightedness.
“I presume your matter cannot wait, sir,” said Jost, surveying him
coolly, without rising from his seat,--“but if it can--”
“It cannot!” returned Leroy, bluntly.
Jost stared.
“So! You come from the Marquis de Lutera?”
“I do.”
“Your credentials?”
Leroy stepped close up to him, and with a sudden movement, which was
somewhat startling, held up his right hand.
“This signet is, I believe, familiar to you,--and it will be enough to
prove that I come on confidential business which cannot be trusted to
writing!”
Jost gazed at the flashing sapphire on the stranger’s hand with a sense
of deadly apprehension. He recognised the Premier’s ring well enough;
and he also knew that it would never have been sent to him in this
mysterious way unless the matter in question was almost too desperate
for whispering within four walls. An uneasy sensation affected him;
he pulled at his collar, looked round the room as though in search of
inspiration, and then finally bringing his small, swine-like eyes to
bear on the neat soldierly figure before him, he said with a careless
air:
“You probably bring news for the Press affecting the present policy?”
“That remains to be seen!” replied Leroy imperturbably; “From a
perfectly impartial standpoint, I should imagine that the present policy
may have to alter considerably!”
Jost recoiled.
“Impossible! It cannot be altered!” he said roughly,--then suddenly
recollecting himself, he assumed his usual indolent equanimity, and
rising slowly, went to a side door in the room and threw it open.
“Step in here,” he said; “We can talk without fear of interruption. Will
you smoke?”
“With pleasure!” replied Leroy, accepting a cigar from the case Jost
extended--then glancing with a slight smile at the broad, squat Jewish
countenance which had, in the last couple of minutes, lost something of
its habitual redness, he added--“I am glad you are disposed to discuss
matters with me in a friendly, as well as in a confidential way. It is
possible my news may not be altogether agreeable to you;--but of course
you would be more willing to suffer personally, than to jeopardise the
honour of Ministers.”
He uttered the last sentence more as a question than a statement.
Jost shifted one foot against the other uneasily.
“I am not so sure of that,” he said after a pause, during which he had
drawn himself up, and had endeavoured to look conscientious; “You see I
have the public to consider! Ministers may fall; statesmen may be thrown
out of office; but the Press is the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever!”
“Except when a great Editor changes his opinions,” said Leroy
tranquilly,--“Which is, of course, always a point of reason
and conscience, as well as of--advantage! In the present case I
think--but--shall we not enter the sanctum of which you have so
obligingly opened the door? We can scarcely be too private when the
King’s name is in question!”
Jost opened his furtive eyes in amazement.
“The King? What the devil has he to do with anything but his women and
his amusements?”
A very close observer might have seen a curious expression flicker over
Pasquin Leroy’s face at these words,--an expression half of laughter,
half of scorn,--but it was slight and evanescent, and his reply was
frigidly courteous.
“I really cannot inform you; but I am afraid his Majesty is departing
somewhat from his customary routine! He is, in fact, taking an active,
instead of a passive part in national affairs.”
“Then he must be warned off the ground!” said Jost irritably; “He is a
Constitutional monarch, and must obey the laws of the Constitution.”
“Precisely!” And Leroy looked carefully at the end of his cigar; “But at
present he appears to have an idea that the laws of the Constitution are
being tampered with by certain other kings;--for example,--the kings of
finance!”
Jost muttered a half-inaudible oath.
“Come this way,” he said impatiently;--“Bad news is best soon over!”
Leroy gave a careless nod of acquiescence,--then glancing round the
room, up at the clock, and down again to Jost’s desk, strewn with
letters and documents of every description, he smiled a little to
himself, and followed the all-powerful editor into the smaller adjoining
apartment. The door closed behind them both, and Jost turned the key in
the lock from within.
For a long time all was very silent. Jost’s valet and confidential
servant, sleepy and tired, waited in the hall to let his master’s
visitor out,--and hearing no sound, ventured to look into the study now
and then,--but to no purpose. He knew the sanctity of that inner chamber
beyond; he knew that when the Premier came to see the great Jost,--as
he often did,--it was in that mysterious further room that business was
transacted, and that it was as much as his place was worth to venture
even to knock at the door. So, yawning heavily, he dozed on his bench
in the hall,--woke with a start and dozed again,--while the clock slowly
ticked away the minutes till with a dull clang the hour struck One. Then
on again went the steady and wearisome tick-tick of the pendulum, for a
quarter of an hour, half an hour,--and three-quarters,--till the
utterly fatigued valet was about to knock down a few walking-sticks and
umbrellas, and make a general noise of reminder to his master as to how
the time was going, when, to his great relief, he heard the inner door
open at last, and the voice of the mysterious visitor ring out in clear,
precise accents.
“Nothing will be done publicly, of course,--unless Parliament insists on
an enquiry!” The speaker came towards the hall, and the valet sprang up
from his bench, and stood ready to show the stranger out.
Jost replied, and his accents were thick and unsteady.
“Enquiry cannot be forced! The Marquis himself can burk any such
attempt.”
“But--if the King should insist?”
“He would be breaking all the rules of custom and precedent,” said
Jost,--“And he would deserve to be dethroned!”
Pasquin Leroy laughed.
“True! Good-night, Mr. Jost! Can I do anything for you in Moscow?” The
two men now came into the full light shed by the great lamp in the hall.
Jost looked darkly red in the face--almost apoplectic; Leroy was as
cool, imperturbable and easy of manner as a practised detective or
professional spy.
“In Moscow,” Jost repeated--“You are going straight to Russia?”
“I think so.”
“I suppose you are in the secret service?”
“Exactly! A curious line of business, too, which the outside world knows
very little of. Ah!--if the excellent people--the masses as we
call them--knew what rogues had the ruling of their affairs in some
countries--not in this country, of course!” he added with a quizzical
smile,--“but in some others, not very far away, I wonder how many
revolutions would break out within six months! Good-night, Mr. Jost!”
“Good-night!” responded Jost briefly. “You will let me know any further
developments?”
“Most assuredly!”
The servant opened the door, and Pasquin Leroy slipped a gold coin worth
a sovereign into his hand, whereupon, of course, the worthy domestic
considered him to be a ‘real gentleman.’ As soon as he had passed into
the street, and the door was shut and barred for the night, Jost bade
his man go to bed, a command which was gladly obeyed; and re-entering
his study, passed all the time till the breaking of dawn in
rummaging out letters and documents from various desks, drawers and
despatch-boxes, and burning them carefully one by one in the open grate.
While thus employed, he had a truly villainous aspect,--each flame he
kindled with each paper seemed to show up a more unpleasing expression
on his countenance, till at last,--when such matter was destroyed as he
had at present determined on,--he drew himself up and stood for a moment
surveying the pile of light black ashes, which was all that was left of
about a hundred or more incriminating paper witnesses to certain matters
in which he had more than a lawful interest.
“It will be difficult now to trace my hand in the scheme!” he said
to himself, frowning heavily, as he considered various uncomfortable
contingencies arising out of his conversation with his late visitor.
“If the thunderbolt falls, it will crush Carl Pérousse--not me. Yes! It
means ruin for him--ruin and disgrace--but for me--well! I shall find
it as easy to damn Pérousse as it has been to support him, for he cannot
involve me without adding tenfold to his own disaster! I think it will
be safe enough for me--possibly not so safe for the Premier. However,
I will write to him to-morrow, just to let him know I received his
messenger.”
In the meantime, while David Jost was thus cogitating unpleasant and
even dangerous possibilities, which were perhaps on the eve of occurring
to himself and certain of his associates in politics and journalism,
Pasquin Leroy was hurrying along the city streets under the light of
a clear, though pallid and waning moon. Few wanderers were abroad;
the police walked their various rounds, and one or two miserable women
passed him, like flying ghosts in the thin air of night. His mind was
in a turmoil of agitation; and the thoughts that were tossing rapidly
through his brain one upon the other, were such as he had never known
before. He had fathomed a depth of rascality and deception, which but a
short month ago, he could scarcely have believed capable of existence.
The cruel injury and loss preparing for thousands of innocent
persons through the self-interested plotting of a few men, was almost
incalculable,--and his blood burned with passionate indignation as he
realized on what a verge of misery, bloodshed, disaster and crime the
unthinking people of the country stood, pushed to the very edge of a
fall by the shameless and unscrupulous designs of a few financiers,
playing their gambling game with the public confidence,--and cheating
nations as callously as they would have cheated their partners at cards.
“Thank God, it is not too late!” he murmured; “Not quite too late to
save the situation!--to rescue the people from long years of undeserved
taxation, loss of trade and general distress! It is a supreme task that
has been given me to accomplish!--but if there is any truth and right
in the laws of the Universe, I shall surely not be misjudged while
accomplishing it!”
He quickened his pace;--and to avoid going up one of the longer
thoroughfares which led to the citadel and palace, he decided to cross
one of the many picturesque bridges, arched over certain inlets from the
sea, and forming canals, where barges and other vessels might be towed
up to the very doors of the warehouses which received their cargoes.
But just as he was about to turn in the necessary direction, he halted
abruptly at sight of two men, standing at the first corner in the way
of his advance, talking earnestly. He recognized them at once as Sergius
Thord and the half-inebriated poet, Paul Zouche. With noiseless step
he moved cautiously into the broad stretch of black shadow cast by the
great façade of a block of buildings which occupied half the length of
the street in which he stood, and so managing to slip into the denser
darkness of a doorway, was able to hear what they were saying. The full,
mellow, and persuasive tone of Thord’s voice had something in it of
reproach.
“You shame yourself, Zouche!” he said; “You shame me; you shame us all!
Man, did God put a light of Genius in your soul merely to be quenched by
the cravings of a bestial body? What associate are you for us? How can
you help us in the fulfilment of our ideal dream? By day you mingle with
litterateurs, scientists, and philosophers,--report has it that you have
even managed to stumble your way into my lady’s boudoir;--but by night
you wander like this,--insensate, furious, warped in soul, muddled
in brain, and only the heart of you alive,--the poor unsatisfied
heart--hungering and crying for what itself makes impossible!”
Zouche broke into a harsh laugh. Turning up his head to the sky, he
thrust back his wild hair, and showed his thin eager face and glittering
eyes, outlined cameo-like by the paling radiance of the moon.
“Well spoken, my Sergius!” he exclaimed. “You always speak well! Your
thoughts are of flame--your speech is of gold; the fire melts the
ore! And then again you have a conscience! That is a strange
possession!--quite useless in these days, like the remains of the tail
we had when we were all happy apes in the primeval forest, pelting the
Megatherium or other such remarkable beasts with cocoanuts! It was a
much better life, Sergius, believe me! A Conscience is merely a mental
Appendicitis! There should be a psychical surgeon with an airy lancet to
cut it out. Not for me!--I was born perfect--without it!”
He laughed again, then with an abrupt change of manner he caught Thord
violently by the arm.
“How can you speak of shame?” he said--“What shame is left in either
man or woman nowadays? Naked to the very skin of foulness, they flaunt
a nudity of vice in every public thoroughfare! Your sentiments, my grand
Sergius, are those of an old world long passed away! You are a reformer,
a lover of truth--a hater of shams--and in the days when the people
loved truth,--and wanted justice,--and fought for both, you would have
been great! But greatness is nowadays judged as ‘madness’--truth as
‘want of tact’--desire for justice is ‘clamour for notoriety.’ Shame?
There is no shame in anything, Sergius, but honesty! That is a disgrace
to the century; for an honest man is always poor, and poverty is the
worst of crimes.” He threw up his arms with a wild gesture,--“The worst
of crimes! Do I not know it!”
Thord took him gently by the shoulder.
“You talk, Zouche, as you always talk, at random, scarcely knowing, and
certainly not half meaning what you say. There is no real reason in your
rages against fate and fortune. Leave the accursed drink, and you may
still win the prize you covet--Fame.”
“Not I!” said Zouche scornfully,--“Fame in its original sense belonged
also to the growing-time of the world--when, proud of youth and the
glow of life, the full-fledged man judged himself immortal. Fame now is
adjudged to the biped-machine who drives a motor-car best,--or to the
fortunate soap-boiler who dines with a king! Poetry is understood to be
the useful rhyme which announces the virtues of pills and boot-blacking!
Mark you, Sergius!--my latest volume was ‘graciously accepted by the
King’! Do you know what that means?”
“No,” replied Thord, a trifle coldly; “And if it were not that I know
your strange vagaries, I should say you wronged your election as one of
us, to send any of your work to a crowned fool!”
Zouche laughed discordantly.
“You would? No, you would not, my Sergius, if you knew the spirit in
which I sent it! A spirit as wild, as reckless, as ranting, as defiant
as ever devil indulged in! The humility of my presentation letter to his
Majesty was beautiful! The reply of the flunkey-secretary was equally
beautiful in smug courtesy: ‘Sir, I am commanded by the King to thank
you for the book of poems you have kindly sent for his acceptance!’ I
say again, Thord, do you know what it means?”
“No; I only wish that instead of talking here, you would let me see you
safely home.”
“Home! I have no home! Since _she_ died--” He paused, and a grey shadow
crossed his face like the hue of approaching sickness or death.
“I killed her, poor child! Of course you know that! I neglected
her,--deserted her--left her to die! Well! She is only one more added
to the list of countless women martyrs who have been tortured out of an
unjust world--and now--now I write verses to her memory!” He shivered as
with cold, still clinging to Thord’s arm. “But I did not tell you what
great good comes of sending a book to the King! It means less to a
writer than to a boot-maker. For the boot-maker can put up a sign:
‘Special Fitter for the ease of His Majesty’s Corns’--but if a poet
should say his verse is ‘accepted’ by a monarch, the shrewd public take
it at once to be bad verse, and will have none of it! That is the case
with my book to-day!”
“Why did you send it?” asked Thord, with grave patience. “Your business
with kings is to warn, not to flatter!”
“Just so!” cried Zouche; “And if His Most Gracious and Glorious had been
pleased to look inside the volume, he would have seen enough to startle
him! It was sent in hate, my Sergius,--not in humility,--just as the
flunkey-secretary’s answer was penned in derision, aping courtesy! How
you look, under this wan sky of night! Reproachful, yet pitying, as the
eyes of Buddha are your eyes, my Sergius! You are a fine fellow--your
brain is a dome decorated with glorious ideals!--and yet you are like
all of us, weak in one point, as Achilles in the heel. One thing could
turn you from man into beast--and that would be if Lotys loved--not
you--she never will love you--but another!”--Thord started back as
though suddenly stabbed, and angrily shook off his companion, who only
laughed again,--a shrill, echoing laugh in which there was a note of
madness and desolation. “Bah!” he exclaimed; “You are a fool after all!
You work for a woman as I did--once! But mark you!--do not kill her--as
I did--once! Be patient! Watch the light shine, even though it does not
illumine your path; be glad that the rose blooms for itself, if not for
you! It will be difficult!--meanwhile you can live on hope--a bitter
fruit to eat; but gnaw it to the last rind, my Sergius! Hope that Lotys
may melt in your fire, as a snowflake in the sun! Come! Now take the
poor poet home,--the drunken child of inspiration--take him home to his
garret in the slums--the poet whose book has been accepted by the King!”
Pulling himself up from his semi-crouching position, he seized Thord’s
arm again more tightly, and began to walk along unsteadily. Presently he
paused, smiling vacantly up at the gradually vanishing stars.
“Lotys speaks to our followers on Saturday,” he said; “You know that?”
Thord bent his head in acquiescence.
“You will be there, of course. I shall be there! What a voice she has!
Whether we believe what she says or not, we must hear,--and hearing, we
must follow. Where shall we drink in the sweet Oracle this time?”
“At the People’s Assembly Rooms,” responded Thord; “But remember,
Zouche, she does not speak till nine o’clock. That means that you will
be unfit to listen!”
“You think so?” responded Zouche airily, and leaning on Thord he
stumbled onward, the two passing close in front of the doorway where
Pasquin Leroy stood concealed. “But I am more ready to understand wisdom
when drunk, than when sober, my Sergius! You do not understand. I am
a human eccentricity--the result of an _amour_ between a fiend and an
angel! Believe me! I will listen to Lotys with all my devil-saintly
soul,--you will listen to her with all your loving, longing heart--and
with us two thus attentive, the opinions of the rest of the audience
will scarcely matter! How the street reels! How the old moon dances! So
did she whirl pallidly when Antony clasped his Egyptian Queen, and lost
Actium! Remember the fate of Antony, Sergius! Kingdoms would have been
seized and controlled by men such as you are, long before now--if there
had not always been a woman in the case--a Cleopatra--or a Lotys!”
Still laughing foolishly, he reeled onwards, Sergius Thord
half-supporting, half-leading him, with grave carefulness and brotherly
compassion. They were soon out of sight; and Pasquin Leroy, leaving his
dark hiding-place, crossed the bridge with an alert step, and mounted a
steep street leading to the citadel. From gaps between the tall leaning
houses a glimpse of the sea, silvered by the dying moonlight, flashed
now and again; and in the silence of the night the low ripple of small
waves against the breakwater could be distinctly heard. A sense of
holy calm impressed him as he paused a moment; and the words of an old
monkish verse came back to him from some far-off depth of memory:
Lord Christ, I would my soul were clear as air,
With only Thy pure radiance falling through!
He caught his breath hard--there was a smarting sense as of tears in his
eyes.
“So proudly throned, and so unloved!” he muttered. “Yet,--has not the
misprisal and miscomprehension been merited? Whose is the blame? Not
with the People, who, despite the prophet’s warning, ‘still put their
trust in princes’--but with the falsity and hollowness of the system!
Sovereignty is like an old ship stuck fast in the docks, and unfit
for sailing the wide seas--crusted with barnacles of custom and
prejudice,--and in every gale of wind pulling and straining at a rusty
chain anchor. But the spirit of Change is in the world; a hurrying
movement that has wings of fire, and might possibly be called
Revolution! It is better that the torch should be lighted from the
Throne than from the slums!”
He went on his way quickly,--till reaching the outer wall of the
citadel, he was challenged by a sentinel, to whom he gave the password
in a low tone. The man drew back, satisfied, and Leroy went on, mounting
from point to point of the cliff, till he reached a private gate leading
into the wide park-lands which skirted the King’s palace. Here stood a
muffled and cloaked figure evidently watching for him; for as soon as
he appeared the gate was noiselessly opened for his admittance, and he
passed in at once. Then he and the person who had awaited his coming,
walked together through the scented woods of pine and rhododendrons, and
talking in low and confidential voices, slowly disappeared.