On the rack in the railway carriage immediately opposite Clovis was a
solidly wrought travelling-bag, with a carefully written label, on
which was inscribed, "J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near
Slowborough." Immediately below the rack sat the human embodiment of
the label, a solid, sedate individual, sedately dressed, sedately
conversational. Even without his conversation (which was addressed to
a friend seated by his side, and touched chiefly on such topics as the
backwardness of Roman hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the
Rectory), one could have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and
mental outlook of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed unwilling
to leave anything to the imagination of a casual observer, and his talk
grew presently personal and introspective.
"I don't know how it is," he told his friend, "I'm not much over forty,
but I seem to have settled down into a deep groove of elderly
middle-age. My sister shows the same tendency. We like everything to
be exactly in its accustomed place; we like things to happen exactly at
their appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly,
punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It distresses
and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to take a very trifling
matter, a thrush has built its nest year after year in the catkin-tree
on the lawn; this year, for no obvious reason, it is building in the
ivy on the garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think
we both feel that the change is unnecessary, and just a little
irritating."
"Perhaps," said the friend, "it is a different thrush."
"We have suspected that," said J. P. Huddle, "and I think it gives us
even more cause for annoyance. We don't feel that we want a change of
thrush at our time of life; and yet, as I have said, we have scarcely
reached an age when these things should make themselves seriously felt."
"What you want," said the friend, "is an Unrest-cure."
"An Unrest-cure? I've never heard of such a thing."
"You've heard of Rest-cures for people who've broken down under stress
of too much worry and strenuous living; well, you're suffering from
overmuch repose and placidity, and you need the opposite kind of
treatment."
"But where would one go for such a thing?"
"Well, you might stand as an Orange candidate for Kilkenny, or do a
course of district visiting in one of the Apache quarters of Paris, or
give lectures in Berlin to prove that most of Wagner's music was
written by Gambetta; and there's always the interior of Morocco to
travel in. But, to be really effective, the Unrest-cure ought to be
tried in the home. How you would do it I haven't the faintest idea."
It was at this point in the conversation that Clovis became galvanized
into alert attention. After all, his two days' visit to an elderly
relative at Slowborough did not promise much excitement. Before the
train had stopped he had decorated his sinister shirt-cuff with the
inscription, "J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough."
* * * * *
Two mornings later Mr. Huddle broke in on his sister's privacy as she
sat reading Country Life in the morning room. It was her day and hour
and place for reading Country Life, and the intrusion was absolutely
irregular; but he bore in his hand a telegram, and in that household
telegrams were recognized as happening by the hand of God. This
particular telegram partook of the nature of a thunderbolt. "Bishop
examining confirmation class in neighbourhood unable stay rectory on
account measles invokes your hospitality sending secretary arrange."
"I scarcely know the Bishop; I've only spoken to him once," exclaimed
J. P. Huddle, with the exculpating air of one who realizes too late the
indiscretion of speaking to strange Bishops. Miss Huddle was the first
to rally; she disliked thunderbolts as fervently as her brother did,
but the womanly instinct in her told her that thunderbolts must be fed.
"We can curry the cold duck," she said. It was not the appointed day
for curry, but the little orange envelope involved a certain departure
from rule and custom. Her brother said nothing, but his eyes thanked
her for being brave.
"A young gentleman to see you," announced the parlour-maid.
"The secretary!" murmured the Huddles in unison; they instantly
stiffened into a demeanour which proclaimed that, though they held all
strangers to be guilty, they were willing to hear anything they might
have to say in their defence. The young gentleman, who came into the
room with a certain elegant haughtiness, was not at all Huddle's idea
of a bishop's secretary; he had not supposed that the episcopal
establishment could have afforded such an expensively upholstered
article when there were so many other claims on its resources. The
face was fleetingly familiar; if he had bestowed more attention on the
fellow-traveller sitting opposite him in the railway carriage two days
before he might have recognized Clovis in his present visitor.
"You are the Bishop's secretary?" asked Huddle, becoming consciously
deferential.
"His confidential secretary," answered Clovis. "You may call me
Stanislaus; my other name doesn't matter. The Bishop and Colonel
Alberti may be here to lunch. I shall be here in any case."
It sounded rather like the programme of a Royal visit.
"The Bishop is examining a confirmation class in the neighbourhood,
isn't he?" asked Miss Huddle.
"Ostensibly," was the dark reply, followed by a request for a
large-scale map of the locality.
Clovis was still immersed in a seemingly profound study of the map when
another telegram arrived. It was addressed to "Prince Stanislaus, care
of Huddle, The Warren, etc." Clovis glanced at the contents and
announced: "The Bishop and Alberti won't be here till late in the
afternoon." Then he returned to his scrutiny of the map.
The luncheon was not a very festive function. The princely secretary
ate and drank with fair appetite, but severely discouraged
conversation. At the finish of the meal he broke suddenly into a
radiant smile, thanked his hostess for a charming repast, and kissed
her hand with deferential rapture.
Miss Huddle was unable to decide in her mind whether the action
savoured of Louis Quatorzian courtliness or the reprehensible Roman
attitude towards the Sabine women. It was not her day for having a
headache, but she felt that the circumstances excused her, and retired
to her room to have as much headache as was possible before the
Bishop's arrival. Clovis, having asked the way to the nearest
telegraph office, disappeared presently down the carriage drive. Mr.
Huddle met him in the hall some two hours later, and asked when the
Bishop would arrive.
"He is in the library with Alberti," was the reply.
"But why wasn't I told? I never knew he had come!" exclaimed Huddle.
"No one knows he is here," said Clovis; "the quieter we can keep
matters the better. And on no account disturb him in the library.
Those are his orders."
"But what is all this mystery about? And who is Alberti? And isn't
the Bishop going to have tea?"
"The Bishop is out for blood, not tea."
"Blood!" gasped Huddle, who did not find that the thunderbolt improved
on acquaintance.
"To-night is going to be a great night in the history of Christendom,"
said Clovis. "We are going to massacre every Jew in the neighbourhood."
"To massacre the Jews!" said Huddle indignantly. "Do you mean to tell
me there's a general rising against them?"
"No, it's the Bishop's own idea. He's in there arranging all the
details now."
"But--the Bishop is such a tolerant, humane man."
"That is precisely what will heighten the effect of his action. The
sensation will be enormous."
That at least Huddle could believe.
"He will be hanged!" he exclaimed with conviction.
"A motor is waiting to carry him to the coast, where a steam yacht is
in readiness."
"But there aren't thirty Jews in the whole neighbourhood," protested
Huddle, whose brain, under the repeated shocks of the day, was
operating with the uncertainty of a telegraph wire during earthquake
disturbances.
"We have twenty-six on our list," said Clovis, referring to a bundle of
notes. "We shall be able to deal with them all the more thoroughly."
"Do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence against a man
like Sir Leon Birberry," stammered Huddle; "he's one of the most
respected men in the country."
"He's down on our list," said Clovis carelessly; "after all, we've got
men we can trust to do our job, so we shan't have to rely on local
assistance. And we've got some Boy-scouts helping us as auxiliaries."
"Boy-scouts!"
"Yes; when they understood there was real killing to be done they were
even keener than the men."
"This thing will be a blot on the Twentieth Century!"
"And your house will be the blotting-pad. Have you realized that half
the papers of Europe and the United States will publish pictures of it?
By the way, I've sent some photographs of you and your sister, that I
found in the library, to the MATIN and DIE WOCHE; I hope you don't
mind. Also a sketch of the staircase; most of the killing will
probably be done on the staircase."
The emotions that were surging in J. P. Huddle's brain were almost too
intense to be disclosed in speech, but he managed to gasp out: "There
aren't any Jews in this house."
"Not at present," said Clovis.
"I shall go to the police," shouted Huddle with sudden energy.
"In the shrubbery," said Clovis, "are posted ten men who have orders to
fire on anyone who leaves the house without my signal of permission.
Another armed picquet is in ambush near the front gate. The Boy-scouts
watch the back premises."
At this moment the cheerful hoot of a motor-horn was heard from the
drive. Huddle rushed to the hall door with the feeling of a man half
awakened from a nightmare, and beheld Sir Leon Birberry, who had driven
himself over in his car. "I got your telegram," he said, "what's up?"
Telegram? It seemed to be a day of telegrams.
"Come here at once. Urgent. James Huddle," was the purport of the
message displayed before Huddle's bewildered eyes.
"I see it all!" he exclaimed suddenly in a voice shaken with agitation,
and with a look of agony in the direction of the shrubbery he hauled
the astonished Birberry into the house. Tea had just been laid in the
hall, but the now thoroughly panic-stricken Huddle dragged his
protesting guest upstairs, and in a few minutes' time the entire
household had been summoned to that region of momentary safety. Clovis
alone graced the tea-table with his presence; the fanatics in the
library were evidently too immersed in their monstrous machinations to
dally with the solace of teacup and hot toast. Once the youth rose, in
answer to the summons of the front-door bell, and admitted Mr. Paul
Isaacs, shoemaker and parish councillor, who had also received a
pressing invitation to The Warren. With an atrocious assumption of
courtesy, which a Borgia could hardly have outdone, the secretary
escorted this new captive of his net to the head of the stairway, where
his involuntary host awaited him.
And then ensued a long ghastly vigil of watching and waiting. Once or
twice Clovis left the house to stroll across to the shrubbery,
returning always to the library, for the purpose evidently of making a
brief report. Once he took in the letters from the evening postman,
and brought them to the top of the stairs with punctilious politeness.
After his next absence he came half-way up the stairs to make an
announcement.
"The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the postman. I've
had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see. Another time I
shall do better."
The housemaid, who was engaged to be married to the evening postman,
gave way to clamorous grief.
"Remember that your mistress has a headache," said J. P. Huddle. (Miss
Huddle's headache was worse.)
Clovis hastened downstairs, and after a short visit to the library
returned with another message:
"The Bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a headache. He is
issuing orders that as far as possible no firearms shall be used near
the house; any killing that is necessary on the premises will be done
with cold steel. The Bishop does not see why a man should not be a
gentleman as well as a Christian."
That was the last they saw of Clovis; it was nearly seven o'clock, and
his elderly relative liked him to dress for dinner. But, though he had
left them for ever, the lurking suggestion of his presence haunted the
lower regions of the house during the long hours of the wakeful night,
and every creak of the stairway, every rustle of wind through the
shrubbery, was fraught with horrible meaning. At about seven next
morning the gardener's boy and the early postman finally convinced the
watchers that the Twentieth Century was still unblotted.
"I don't suppose," mused Clovis, as an early train bore him townwards,
"that they will be in the least grateful for the Unrest-cure."