THE PANGS OF THE SUPPRESSED MESSAGE
'By Jove, I thought they would never go!' Hamilton said to Captain
Sarrasin as they moved towards their bedrooms.
'So did I,' Sarrasin declared with a sigh of relief. 'They' whose
absence was so much desired were Sir Rupert Langley and the Dictator.
'Come into my room,' Hamilton said in a low tone. They entered
Hamilton's room, speaking quietly, as if they were burglars. Sarrasin
was lodged on the same corridor a little farther off. The soft electric
light was sending out its pale amber radiance on the corridor and in the
bedroom. Hamilton closed his door.
'Please take a seat, Sarrasin,' he said with elaborate politeness; and
Sarrasin obeyed him and sat down in a luxurious armchair, and then
Hamilton sat down too. This apparently was pure ceremonial, and the
ceremonial was over, for in a moment they both rose to their feet. They
had something to talk about that passed ceremonial.
'What do you think of all this?' Hamilton asked. 'Do you think there is
anything in it?'
'Yes, I'm sure there is. That's a very clever girl, Miss Paulo----'
'Yes, she's very clever,' Hamilton said in an embarrassed sort of
way--'a very clever girl, a splendid girl. But we haven't much to go on,
have we? She can only suspect that this fellow knows Spanish--she can't
be quite sure of it.'
'Many a pretty plot has been found out with no better evidence to start
the discovery. The end of a clue is often the almost invisible tail of a
piece of string. But we have other evidence too.'
'Out with it!' Hamilton said impatiently. In all his various anxieties
he was conscious of one strong anxiety--that Dolores might be justified
in her conjecture and proved not to have made a wild mistake.
'I got a telegram from across the Atlantic to-night,' Sarrasin said,
'that time in the dining-room.'
'Yes--well--I saw you had got something.'
'It came from Denver City.'
'Oh!'
'The home of Professor Flick. See?'
'Yes, yes, to be sure. Well?'
'Well, it tells me that Professor Flick is now in China, and that he
will return home by way of London.'
'By Jove!' Hamilton exclaimed, and he turned pale with excitement. This
was indeed a confirmation of the very worst suspicion that the discovery
of Dolores could possibly have suggested. The man passing himself off as
Professor Flick was not Professor Flick, but undoubtedly a South
American. And he and his accomplice had been for days and nights
domiciled with the Dictator!
'Is your telegram trustworthy?' he asked.
'Perfectly; my message was addressed yesterday to my old friend
Professor Clinton, who is now settled in Denver City, but who used to be
at the University of New Padua, Michigan.'
'What put it into your head to send the message? Had you any suspicion?'
'No, not the least in the world; but somehow my wife began to have a
kind of idea of her own that all was not right. Do you know, Hamilton,
the intuitions of that woman are something marvellous--marvellous, sir!
Her perceptions are something outside herself, something transcendental,
sir. So I telegraphed to my friend Clinton, and here we are, don't you
see?'
'Yes, I see,' Hamilton said, his attention wandering a little from the
transcendental perceptions of Mrs. Sarrasin. 'Why, I wonder, did this
fellow, whoever he is, take the name of a real man?'
'Oh, don't you see? Why, that's plain enough. How else could he ever
have got introductions--introductions that would satisfy anybody? You
see the folk-lore dodge commended itself to my poor simple brother, who
knew the name and reputation of the real Professor Flick, and naturally
thought it was all right. Then there seemed no immediate connection
between my brother and the Dictator; and finally, the real Professor
Flick was in China, and would not be likely to hear about what was going
on until these chaps had done the trick; whereas, if anyone in the
States not in constant communication with the real Flick heard of his
being in London it would seem all right enough--they would assume that
he had taken London first, and not last. I must say, Hamilton, it was a
very pretty plot, and it was devilish near being made a success.'
'We'll foil it now,' Hamilton said, with his teeth clenched.
'Oh, of course we'll foil it now,' Sarrasin said carelessly. 'We should
be pretty simpletons if we couldn't foil the plot now that we have the
threads in our hands.'
'What do you make of it--murder?' Hamilton lowered his voice and almost
shuddered at his own suggestion.
'Murder, of course--the murder of the Dictator, and of everyone who
comes in the way of _that_ murder. If the Dictator gets to Gloria the
game of the ruffians is up--that we know by our advices--and if he is
murdered in England he certainly can't get to Gloria. There you are!'
Nobody, however jealous for the Dictator, could doubt the sympathy and
devotion of Captain Sarrasin to the Dictator and his cause. Yet his cool
and business-like way of discussing the question grated on Hamilton's
ears. Hamilton, perhaps, did not make quite enough of allowance for a
man who had been in so many enterprises as Captain Sarrasin, and who had
got into the way of thinking that his own life and the life of every
other such man is something for which a game is played by the Fates
every day, and which he must be ready to forfeit at any moment.
'The question is, what are we to do?' Hamilton asked sharply.
'Well, these fellows are sure to know that his Excellency leaves
to-morrow, and so the attempt will be made to-night.'
'Suppose we rouse up Sir Rupert--indeed, he is probably not in bed
yet--and send for the local police, and have these ruffians arrested? We
could arrest them ourselves without waiting for the police.'
Sarrasin thought for a little. 'Wouldn't do,' he said. 'We have no
evidence at all against them, except a telegram from an American unknown
to anyone here, and who might be mistaken. Besides, I fancy that if they
are very desperate they have got accomplices who will take good care
that the work is carried out somehow. You see, what they have set their
hearts on is to prevent the Dictator from getting back to Gloria, and
that so simplifies their business for them. I have no doubt that there
is someone hanging about who would manage to do the trick if these two
fellows were put under arrest--all the easier because of the uproar
caused by their arrest. No, we must give the fellows rope enough. We
must let them show what their little game is, and then come down upon
them. After all, _we_ are all right, don't you see?'
Hamilton did not quite see, but he was beginning already to be taken a
good deal with the cool and calculating ways of the stout old Paladin,
for whom life could not possibly devise a new form of danger.
'I fancy you are right,' Hamilton said after a moment of silence.
'Yes, I think I am right,' Sarrasin answered confidently. 'You see, we
have the pull on them, for if their game is simple, ours is simple too.
They want Ericson to die--we mean to keep him alive. You and I don't
care two straws what becomes of our own lives in the row.'
'Not I, by Jove!' Hamilton exclaimed fervently.
'All right; then you see how easy it all is. Well, do you think we ought
to wake up the Dictator? It seems unfair to rattle him up on mere
speculation, but the business _is_ serious.'
'Serious?--yes, I should think it was! Life or death--more than that,
the ruin or the failure of a real cause!'
Hamilton knew that the Dictator had by nature a splendid gift of sleep,
which had stood him in good stead during many an adventure and many a
crisis. But it was qualified by a peculiarity which had to be recognised
and taken into account. If his sleep were once broken in upon, it could
not be put together again for that night. Therefore, his trusty henchman
and valet took good care that his Excellency's slumbers should not if
possible be disturbed. It should be said that mere noise never disturbed
him. He would waken if actually called, but otherwise could sleep in
spite of thunder. Now that he was in quiet civic life, it was easy
enough for him to get as much unbroken sleep as he needed. The
directions which his valet always gave at Paulo's Hotel were, that his
Excellency was to be roused from his sleep if the house were on
fire--not otherwise. Of course all this was perfectly understood by
everybody in Seagate Hall.
'Must we waken him?' Sarrasin asked doubtfully.
'Oh, yes,' Hamilton answered decisively. 'I'll take that responsibility
upon myself.'
'What I was thinking of,' Sarrasin whispered, 'was that if you and I
were to keep close watch he might have his sleep out and no harm could
happen to him.'
'But then we shouldn't get to know, for to-night at least, what the harm
was meant to be, or whose the hand it was to come from. If there really
is any attempt to be made, it will not be made while there is any
suspicion that somebody is on the watch.'
'True,' said Sarrasin, quite convinced and prepared for anything.
'My idea is,' Hamilton said, 'a very simple old chestnut sort of idea,
but it may serve a good turn yet--get his Excellency out of his room,
and one of us get into it. Nothing will be done, of course, until all
the lights are out, and then we shall soon find out whether all this is
a false alarm or not.'
'A capital idea! I'll take his Excellency's place,' Sarrasin said
eagerly.
Hamilton shook his head. 'I have the better claim,' he said.
'Tisn't a question of claim, my dear Hamilton. Of course, if it were, I
should have no claim at all. It is a question of effect--of result--of a
thing to be done, don't you see?'
'Well, what has that to do with the question? I fancy I could see it
through as well as most people,' Hamilton said, flushing a little and
beginning to feel angry. The idea of thinking that there was anybody
alive who could watch over the safety of the Dictator better than he
could! Sarrasin was really carrying things rather too far.
'My dear boy,' the kind old warrior said soothingly, 'I never meant
that. But you know I am an old and trained adventurer, and I have been
in all sorts of dangers and tight places, and I have a notion, my dear
chap, that I am physically a good deal stronger than you, or than most
men, for that matter, and this may come to be a question of strength,
and of disarming and holding on to a fellow when once you have caught
him.'
'You are right,' Hamilton said submissively but disappointed. 'Of
course, I ought to have thought of _that_. I have plenty of nerve, but I
know I am not half as strong as you. All right, Sarrasin, you shall do
the trick this time.'
'It will very likely turn out to be nothing at all,' Sarrasin said, by
way of soothing the young man's sensibilities; 'but even if we have to
look a little foolish in Ericson's eyes to-morrow we shan't much mind.'
'I'll go and rouse him up. I'll bring him along here. He won't enjoy
being disturbed, but we can't help that.'
'Better be disturbed by you than by--some other,' Sarrasin said grimly.
The tone in which he answered, and the words and the grimness of his
face, impressed Hamilton somehow with a new and keener sense of the
seriousness of the occasion.
'Tread lightly,' Sarrasin said, 'speak in low tones, but for your life
not in a whisper--a whisper travels far. Keep your eyes about you, and
find out, if you can, who are stirring. I am going to look in on Mrs.
Sarrasin's room for a moment, and I shall keep my eyes about me, I can
tell you. The more people we have awake and on the alert, the
better--always provided that they are people whose nerves we can trust.
As I tell you, Hamilton, I can trust the nerves of Mrs. Sarrasin. I have
told her to be on the watch--and she will be.'
'I am sure--I am sure,' said Hamilton; and he cut short the encomium by
hurrying on his way to the Dictator's room.
Sarrasin left Hamilton's room and went for a moment or two to let Mrs.
Sarrasin know how things were going. He had left Hamilton's room door
half open. When he was coming out of his wife's room he heard the slow,
cautious step of a man in the corridor on which Hamilton's room opened,
and which was at right angles with that on which Mrs. Sarrasin was
lodged. Could it be Hamilton coming back without having roused the
Dictator? Just as he turned into that corridor he saw someone look into
Hamilton's doorway, push the door farther apart, and then enter the
room. Sarrasin quickly glided into the room after him; the man turned
round--and Sarrasin found himself confronted by Soame Rivers.
'Hello!' Rivers said, with his usual artificiality of careless ease, 'I
thought Hamilton was here. This is his room, ain't it?'
'Yes, certainly, this is his room; he has just gone to look up the
Dictator.'
'Has he gone to waken him up?' Rivers asked, with a shade of alarm
passing over him. For Rivers had been meditating during the last two
hours over his suppressed, telegram, and thinking what a fix he should
have got himself into if any danger really were to threaten the Dictator
and it became known that he, the private secretary of Sir Rupert
Langley, had in Sir Rupert's own house deliberately suppressed the
warning sent to him from the Foreign Office--a warning sent for the
protection of the man who was then Sir Rupert's guest. If anything were
to happen, diplomacy would certainly never further avail itself of the
services of Soame Rivers. Nor would Helena Langley be likely to turn a
favourable eye on Soame Rivers. So, after much consideration, Rivers
thought his best course was to get at Hamilton and let him know of the
warning. Of course he need not exactly say when he had received it, and
Hamilton was such a fool that he could easily be put off, and in any
case the whole thing was probably some absurd scare; but still Rivers
wanted to be out of all responsibility, and was already cursing the
sudden impulse that made him crumple up the telegram and keep it back.
Now, he could not tell why, his mind misgave him when he found Sarrasin
coming into Hamilton's room and heard that Hamilton had gone to arouse
the Dictator.
'We have thought it necessary to waken his Excellency' Sarrasin said
emphatically; and he did not fail to notice the look of alarm that came
over Rivers's face. 'Something wrong here,' Sarrasin thought.
'You don't really suppose there is any danger; isn't it all alarmist
nonsense, don't you think?'
'I hadn't said anything about danger, Mr. Rivers.'
'No. But the truth is, I wanted to see Hamilton about a private message
I got from the Foreign Office, telling me to advise him to look after
the--the--the ex-Dictator--that there was some plot against him; and I'm
sure it's all rubbish--people don't _do_ these things in England, don't
you know?--but I thought I would come round and tell Hamilton all the
same.'
'Hamilton will be here in a moment or two with his Excellency. Hadn't
you better wait and see them?'
'Oh--thanks--no--it will do as well if you will kindly give my message.'
'May I ask what time you got your message?'
'Oh--a little time ago. I feel sure it's all nonsense; but still I
thought I had better tell Hamilton about it all the same.'
'I hope it's all nonsense,' Sarrasin said gravely. 'But we have thought
it right to arouse his Excellency.'
'Oh!' Rivers said anxiously, and slackened in his departure, 'you have
got some news of your own?'
'We have got some news of our own, Mr. Rivers, and we have got some
suspicions of our own. Some of us have our eyes, others of us have our
ears. Others of us get telegrams--and act on them at once.' This was a
thrash deeper even than its author intended.
'You don't really expect that anything is going to happen to-night?'
'I am too old a soldier to expect anything. I keep awake and wait until
it comes.'
'But, Mr. Sarrasin--I beg pardon, Colonel Sarrasin----'
'Captain Sarrasin, if you please.'
'I beg your pardon, Captain Sarrasin. Do you really think there is any
plot against--against--his Excellency?' Rivers had hesitated for a
moment. He hated to call Ericson either 'his Excellency' or 'the
Dictator.' But just now he wanted above all other things to conciliate
Sarrasin, and if possible get him on his side, in case there should come
to be a question concerning the time of the delayed warning.
'I believe it is pretty likely, sir.'
'In this house?'
'In this very house.'
'But, good God! that can't be. Why don't we tell Sir Rupert?'
'Why didn't you tell Sir Rupert?'
'Because I was told not to alarm him for nothing.'
'Exactly; we don't want to alarm him for nothing. We think that we
three--the Dictator, Hamilton, and I--we can manage this little business
for ourselves. Not one of the three of us that hasn't been in many a
worse corner alone before, and now there _are_ three of us--don't you
see?'
'Can't I help?'
'Well, I think if I were you I'd just keep awake,' Sarrasin said. 'Odd
sorts of things may happen. One never knows. Hush! I think I hear our
friends. Will you stay and talk with them?'
'No,' said Rivers emphatically; and he left the room straightway, going
in the opposite direction from the Dictator's room, and turning into the
other corridor before he could have been seen by anyone coming into the
corridor where the Dictator and Hamilton and Sarrasin were lodged.
Soame Rivers went back to his room, and sat there and waited and
watched. His thoughts were far from enviable. He was in the mood of a
man who, from being an utter sceptic, or at least Agnostic, is suddenly
shaken up into a recognition of something supernatural, and does not as
yet know how to make the other fashions of his life fit in with this new
revelation. Selfish as he was, he would not have put off taking action
on the warning he had received from the Foreign Office if he had at the
time believed in the least that there was any possibility of a plot for
political assassination being carried on in an English country-house.
Soame Rivers reasoned, like a realistic novelist, from his own
experiences only. He regarded the notion of such things taking place in
an English country-house as no less an anachronism than the moving
helmet in the 'Castle of Otranto' or the robber-castle in the 'Mysteries
of Udolpho.' Not that we mean to convey the idea that Rivers had read
either of these elaborate masterpieces of old-fashioned fiction--for he
most certainly had not read either of them, and very likely had not even
heard of either. But if he had studied them he would probably have
considered them as quite as much an appurtenance of real life as any
story of a plot for political assassination carried on in an English
country-house. Now, however, it was plain that a warning had been given
which did not come from the fossilised officials of the Foreign Office,
and which impressed so cool an old soldier as Captain Sarrasin with a
sense of serious danger. As far as regarded all the ordinary affairs of
life, Rivers looked down on Sarrasin with a quite unutterable contempt.
Sarrasin was not a man to get in the ordinary way into Soame Rivers's
set; and Rivers despised alike anyone who was not in his set, and anyone
who was pushed, or who pushed himself, into it. He detested
eccentricities of all sorts. He would have instinctively disliked and
dreaded any man whose wife occasionally wore man's clothes and rode
astride. He considered all that sort of thing bad form. He chafed and
groaned and found his pain sometimes almost more than he could bear
under the audacious unconventionalities of Helena Langley. But he knew
that he had to put up with Helena Langley; he knew that she would
consider herself in no way responsible to him for anything she said or
did; and he only dreaded the chance of some hinted, hardly repressible
remonstrance from him provoking her to tell him bluntly that she cared
nothing about his opinion of her conduct. Now, however, as he thought of
Sarrasin, he found that he could not deny Sarrasin's coolness and
courage and judgment, and it comforted him to think that Sarrasin must
always say he had a warning from him, Soame Rivers, before anything had
occurred--if anything was to occur. If anything should occur, the actual
hour of the warning given would hardly be recalled amid so many
circumstances more important. Soame sat in his room and watched with
heavy heart. He felt that he had been playing the part of a traitor,
and, more than that, that he was likely to be found out. Could he
retrieve himself even yet? He knew he was not a coward.