"I tell you, I don't know where she is," he repeated. "She left this
place to-day--and--she's--not coming--back."
"You mean you turned her out," I suggested.
"Oh, I'm sick of this!" He limped to my chair and caught my wrist in one
hand, bending it back until I had to get up to prevent his breaking my
arm off at the elbow. "As a matter of courtesy I told you she'd gone,
and the best thing you can do is to follow her. You've found time to
meddle with my affairs for a good many months, but I'm tired of it now;
it's got to end. I give you fair warning, Stornaway, that I am
instructing my servants not to admit you, if you come here again; and,
by God! if you try to force your way in, I'll thrash you out with a
crop. Now--_march_!"
My exit was painless, though I will not pretend that it was dignified. I
walked a few yards along the Brompton Road, wondering what to do next.
It was futile to speculate where Mrs. O'Rane was gone; she could not
return to "The Sanctuary," she could not go home to her parents; after
abandoning her husband and being abandoned by her lover within six
months, she could hardly--with her pride and temper--ask a friend to
take her in. Any grandeur with which she had tried to invest her
recklessness and infidelity at our last meeting was sorely draggled. And
she was about thirty--a year or two more, a year or two less--in the
full bloom and beauty of her life, with some hundreds from her father
to pay her hotel bills, debarred by the war even from hiding herself for
a few months abroad. I stood still to wonder where she was at that
moment, how she was facing the future.
Then I turned down Sloane Street and made for the Underground station. I
had meant to go home and, perhaps, to telephone to Dainton, but it could
do no good, and I wanted to hold a council of war with the Oakleighs. In
Sloane Square I met Beresford hobbling along on a stick and made him
turn round and keep me company. In some way I felt that he deserved to
be present. Bertrand was in bed when we reached "The Sanctuary," but I
found George reading a book with his feet up on a sofa, and, when I told
him that my business was urgent, we adjourned upstairs to the scene of
more than one early morning session. I told them as shortly as I could
of my interviews with Dainton, Bannerman and Grayle and left the facts
to sink in. The ensuing silence was broken by Beresford, speaking more
to himself than to the room.
"The cad!" he muttered. "Oh, my God! the cad! And you don't know where
she is now?"
"No. I've given you all the facts."
After the one outburst Beresford remained quiet, and the other three of
us started a rambling debate to decide what we wanted done and what was
practicable. Bertrand acted as chairman and put the questions. We agreed
that for the sake of O'Rane and the Daintons the proceedings should be
stopped, if possible; it was established that Mrs. O'Rane and Grayle
were unlikely to meet again, and, if we could get back to the terms
discussed a few weeks earlier, it was still conceivable that the scandal
might be suppressed.
"But O'Rane doesn't know they've parted," I reminded Bertrand. "Someone
must tell him. I'll go down, if necessary, as I had the news at
first-hand. Of course, if he refuses and says they had their chance and
missed it----"
"He won't refuse," said Bertrand. "You'll go? I believe we can stop it
even now. He's not particularly vindictive--he shewed that the other
night--and he'd sooner spare his wife than punish Grayle." He grimaced
with disfavour. "Stornaway, I've never liked that man, but I didn't
think he was capable of this."
"Nor did she, poor soul!"
We had reached our decision, and, if I had to leave for the country by
an early train, I wanted to get home to bed. George and his uncle were
chewing the cud of my story, and I saw no end to that. I was putting on
my coat, when Beresford begged me to stay a moment longer.
"You're not _leaving_ it at this, are you?" he asked, with a white face.
"Have you anything to suggest?" I asked.
"You're going to let Grayle ride off? Merciful Christ! And I thought
some of you were Sonia's friends!"
He struggled to his feet and in another moment, bumping past me, was
half-way to the door. George sprang from his chair and had one foot
planted solidly in the way before Beresford could reach the handle.
"Here, where are you off to?" he demanded.
"Something's got to be done about Grayle," was the reply.
"What do you mean?" I asked, for Beresford had the voice, the eyes and
the bearing of homicidal mania.
"I'm going to have a word with him," he answered between clenched teeth.
"Let me go!"
There was something pitifully incongruous between the purposeful
language and the emaciated, consumptive speaker. Grayle, for all his
unsound leg, could pluck him up by the ankles and crush in his head
against the wall like the shell of an egg.
"Let's hear some more about it first," I said, taking his arm despite a
quiver and jerk of protest. "I know Grayle fairly well, and, if you're
going to match yourself against him in physical strength, you might just
as well try to knock holes in the side of a battleship with your naked
fists."
Beresford wriggled against my grip.
"I can have a go at _spoiling_ him first," he cried. "After that, I
don't mind what happens."
Their motives were different, but I was vividly reminded of the Cockney
Huish preparing to advance, vitriol jar in hand, against the unerring
rifle of Attwater. I looked over Beresford's head and lifted my eyebrows
at Bertrand, who raised himself in bed and called him twice by name.
"You mustn't do anything hasty," he urged, wagging his forefinger with
great parade of reasonableness. "Any kind of attack on Grayle is bound
to recoil on Sonia, and that's the last thing you want. I assure you
that twenty-four hours after you'd gone for him----"
Beresford shook free of my arm and limped menacingly up to the bed.
"_You_ don't care a curse for her," he cried, "but you pretend to care
for O'Rane. You're going to let Grayle break up O'Rane's life, take away
Sonia from him, throw her out of doors----"
Bertrand spread out his hands with a gesture of bland expostulation.
"My dear boy, we can't prevent it. It's _done_, and any act of private
vengeance will hit David and Sonia hardest of all. Haven't we been
scheming and contriving to prevent the divorce for that very reason? We
all know that it would dish Grayle's political career to be cited as a
co-respondent at the present time; it would keep him out of the Cabinet
or compel him to resign. But I can tell you that it would dish the
O'Ranes very much more completely. Dear boy, when we're hoping to close
down one scandal, for Heaven's sake don't open up another."
If not impressed, Beresford was at least interested and temporarily
checked. He stood reflecting with a scowl on his face and his underlip
thrust forward.
"Is that--brute going to be taken into the Government?" he asked.
"According to the papers there's every possibility," Bertrand answered.
"No one will ever know, but I choose to believe that he tired of Sonia
from the moment when his plans were threatened by the possibility of a
scandal."
Beresford looked at him wonderingly and then turned to me.
"Do you bear that out?" he asked. "I don't know enough of public life
to say if it's true. Do you mean that, if Grayle went into the Divorce
Court, he'd be broken?"
The eagerness of his tone frightened us a little, for we thought that we
had talked him out of danger. Bertrand assumed great determination of
manner.
"Grayle's not going into the Divorce Court, if we can help it," he said.
"Grayle's going to be broken, if I can work it," was the retort.
"But you can't. No one would support you more readily, if it were
possible."
Beresford dropped into his former chair without answering and propped
his chin on his fists. Bertrand watched him uneasily; George came back
from the door and led me away to the window. Tentatively he asked me how
far I thought the threat of proceedings could be used to block Grayle's
path of office.
"I don't know how far you can blackmail a man," George admitted.
"Particularly a man like Grayle. It's only an idea, I've just thought of
it. If we could make him sign an undertaking--something that we could
use against him and that he couldn't turn and use against us. It all
wants the devil of a lot of thinking out.... If Raney doesn't divorce
Sonia now, when the offence is still fresh, I suppose he weakens his
position; he may not be able to get a divorce later, and then our
barrier's kicked to matchwood. I'm not a lawyer; perhaps Bertrand...."
We walked to the bed, where Bertrand was sitting with his eyes on us. I
cannot say whether my friends have been more unfortunate than the
generality, but one has bound himself by a similar undertaking not to
play cards, two more not to enter certain cities, and four or five to
resign certain positions and to live abroad. As a rule, however, a
felony was being compounded, or the offence was one against honour
wherein there was no statute of limitations.
"It's mere bluff, and he'll beat you at that game," Bertrand said
without hesitation. "What Grayle's done is to outrage public opinion,
and the public has a short memory. You could break him now, but in two,
three years' time people would say, 'This is very ancient history, we've
heard _her_ story, but not his; probably he wasn't so much to blame as
she makes out; she couldn't live with one man, so it's conceivable that
she couldn't live with another. But, anyway, it's ancient history.' In
three years' time your man of the world would think none the worse of
him;--and you can't tell how far _she_ may have travelled in three
years. Time's on his side."
"But this is the opportunity of his political life," George persisted.
"In three years' time it may have gone beyond hope of returning."
"But he knows that David wouldn't sacrifice his wife to punish him.
Haven't we talked ourselves hoarse to find a way of stopping the
proceedings? Grayle's a level-headed fellow----"
"Hardly at this moment," I interrupted.
Bertrand looked at me in some surprise.
"Well, discuss it with David," he said unenthusiastically. "If he
agrees, go to Grayle and try your luck. I never like brandishing weapons
that I'm not prepared to use. _I_ tell you it's an empty threat and that
Grayle will see through it. You know, you're all carried away by some
idea of poetic justice, you think you've got a pocket retribution packed
up and ready for him; you imagine that people are punished for their
crimes in this world. I've outgrown that phase."
The superfluous touch of cynicism flicked us all and Beresford most of
all.
"_Some_body's going to punish that man," he cried. "I don't know who and
I don't know how, but it's going to be done. I'll drop everything else
and sacrifice all I've got to it."
Bertrand sighed and lay back on his pillows.
"Grayle's not worth it," he said.
"But Sonia is!" Beresford cried passionately.