"It's all come so suddenly, don't you know? that one is quite bewildered
and stupid. First a divorce and then an idea of stopping it and now an
idea of not stopping it.... All of you have known about it so much
longer.... By the way, why did you never tell us, Mr. Stornaway? I'm not
reproaching you, of course, but as Sonia's mother----"
"I thought about it a great many times," I answered. "Our lips were
really sealed by O'Rane. As long as he hoped to get her back, we wanted
to spare you all knowledge of it; we wanted to make it easier for her by
keeping down the number of people who _did_ know."
"You didn't think that I could help to persuade her?"
Lady Dainton might say that she was not reproaching me, but her voice
was the embodiment of reproach directed not only at me or the Oakleighs
or O'Rane himself, but at our whole sex for presuming to interfere
between mother and daughter. I could see that she was confident of her
power to restore peace, if only we had not ignored her until it was too
late. My nerves were in tatters, I could feel the blood rushing to my
head and in my turn I began to grow impatient with her, not for myself
or my sex, but for her daughter. If ever the sins of the fathers were
visited on the children, poor Sonia O'Rane was being punished for the
lax indulgence and pretentious ambition of her mother; had she once been
checked or chidden, had she been allowed to marry some man in her own
walk of life instead of being fed with flattery and encouraged to look
for what her mother considered a "good match," I should have been spared
many months of worry and my present extremely painful interview.
"With great respect, I don't think anyone could have persuaded her," I
said. "She started with a preposterous but sincere belief that her
husband was unfaithful to her, their life was fantastically impossible,
both had strong wills, O'Rane was culpably trustful and Grayle was a man
who had been uniformly successful, as it is called, with women. You had
all the ingredients of disaster there, though it's always a big thing
for a woman to compound them. Once she'd done it, there was no recalling
her. I've seen her twice since, Lady Dainton; no power on earth would
have sent her back to her husband, even if she'd wanted to go."
She finished her meal in silence, only shrugging her shoulders gently as
if to suggest that, however wrong I might be, there was no profit in
discussing the past. Dainton kept asking me what I thought O'Rane would
do and what we must insist on his doing; I retaliated each time by
asking him whether he wanted a divorce or not; and there was never any
answer.
I had warned O'Rane that I was coming, but he stiffened perceptibly when
the Daintons came in with me. In a moment, however, he was calm,
dispassionate and lifeless as I had always found him since the
estrangement began. And then for the third time, with the knowledge that
our nerves were raw and quivering, I had to tell him of my visit to
Milford Square and my meeting with Bannerman and Grayle. We talked as if
we were solicitors attending a consultation with counsel, treating
O'Rane, and O'Rane treating himself, as the lay client.
"I saw she wasn't coming back to me," he explained, "so I thought the
kindest thing was to let her lead her new life unembarrassed by ties
with me. I _could_ have let her bring the petition, I suppose, but I
rather draw the line at that. I didn't see, however much I loved her,
why I should get up and lie and say I'd been disloyal to her."
The Daintons looked at me, as though they wanted me to be spokesman, and
I reminded O'Rane of his offer to stay proceedings, if his wife and
Grayle separated.
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled mirthlessly.
"It started as blackmail, I'm afraid. Afterwards I _did_ want to spare
her, if I could---- I hoped she'd come back to me. When she refused ..."
"I was telling Lady Dainton," I said, "that, if you don't expect her to
come back, you probably ought--in the interests of you both--to let the
proceedings take their course. I know you don't like the idea of it,--we
none of us do--but you wouldn't like the idea of her being tied in any
way for the rest of her life. Of course, this isn't a thing that you can
decide offhand, but, when you consider it, there's one factor you musn't
leave out, and that is Grayle."
O'Rane raised his head slowly.
"He doesn't come in now."
"To this extent he does," I said. "If he's cited as co-respondent at the
present time, he'll have to retire from public life. You and Dainton and
I know that quite positively----"
"I don't _much_ mind _who_ retires from public life," he interrupted
with a thin-lipped smile.
"But that man's quite capable of quarrelling with your wife--well, not
to put too fine a point on it--to get rid of her, to avoid a scandal, to
accept your terms. I believe he'd have accepted them that night. I
confess I can't make up my own mind what to do...."
O'Rane's head drooped forward for a moment; then he raised it and faced
us.
"I can't decide anything, either," he said. "My brain seems to have gone
to pulp."
One glance at him was enough. I got up, and he did the same. The
Daintons looked at each other and at me, refusing to move, as though
they could force a decision by staying there. I shook my head and opened
the door into the Cloisters.
"But--before we go----" began Lady Dainton, half-rising.
"The difficulty is that we don't know what we want," I pointed out.
Sir Roger became stammeringly urgent.
"We _do_ know!" he cried. "We want to avoid a scandal, we want to keep
our poor Sonia from--you know, all the talk and the papers----"
"But after that?" I asked.
Lady Dainton slipped her hand through her husband's arm and led him
through the door. I said good-bye to O'Rane, but he insisted on
accompanying us to my car and, when the Daintons were out of ear-shot,
enquired whether the news had been a great blow to them.
"I ask, because I should have thought they _must_ have had some
suspicion of it," he said. "People here don't _say_ anything to me, of
course, but I'm sure they know. There's a sort of bed-side manner about
them; you notice these things, if you're blind; it's as if you were
calling on a fellow in hospital, when he's had his leg off, and you're
being awfully bright and not seeing any difference.... Is it being
discussed in London?"
"I'm afraid it is."
He walked with his face averted.
"What do they say?" he asked, steadily enough.
"That she's living with Grayle and that you're going to divorce her."
O'Rane's pace slackened.
"H'm. The first part's no longer true, the second part isn't true yet.
Stornaway, you've been uncommon kind to me; d'you feel disposed to throw
good money after bad and help me a bit more? We've been discussing
what's the _best_ thing to do and how we ought to treat Grayle and that
sort of thing, but so far we haven't taken Sonia into account much. I
want you to find her for me. Do anything you like and, when you've
found her, discuss with her what _she_ wants done. I'll--generally
speaking, you may tell her I'll do anything. If I drop the petition now
and some time later on she wants to be free again,--I don't like it, but
I suppose it can be managed; these things have been done before.... As
for Grayle----" He shook his head wearily. "I feel our tariff of
punishment in this world is so inadequate. You can hang a man who
commits a murder, but you can't hang him twice, when he murders two
people. He's broken up our two lives pretty much,--and I dare say we
weren't the first; if I could make him suffer as much as I'd suffered
through him, we still couldn't cry 'quits.' If he loved Sonia--God in
Heaven! we all make mistakes! Think how ridiculously _few_ people we
have to choose from before we marry! We may _think_ it's the real thing
and afterwards find we were wrong; I was prepared to think that with
them, and if she was going to be happier with him...." He stopped
abruptly and gripped my arm with fingers of steel. "Do you honestly
think he behaved like this, because he was afraid of having his
prospects injured by the scandal?"
"That's Bertrand's view," I answered. "He's a very fair ruffian, you
know. He would always have an intrigue with a woman, if he thought there
was anything to be got out of it; it doesn't require a great stretch of
imagination to assume the converse."
We were approaching Big Gate, and he pulled gently at my arm to stop me.
"If that's true, we _can't_ leave it where it is," he sighed. "Grayle
can't have it both ways. If he doesn't resign his seat in a week, I
shall go on with the proceedings."
"But if you decide to go on in any event?"
"Well, he's no worse off. He'll be in private life then with no
political career to bother about."
"And if he refuses and you find you can't enforce the threat? I mean, if
your wife asks you not to?"
"I shall find some other way of breaking him. This is not a time for
thinking about niceties of law."
"He's not the man to surrender easily," I warned O'Rane.
"I don't know that I am," he answered, and the muscles of his cheeks
twitched. "Well, my solicitors are in communication with his----"
"But _if_ he refuses to be bluffed?" I persisted.
"We'll try some other means," he repeated. "Will you be kind enough to
convey my message--you're sure to see him at the House----"
"We're at some pains to avoid each other," I said.
"But you could meet him for my sake--just to give him the message?"
O'Rane begged.
I assented without more reluctance than was unavoidable and said
good-bye. We drove in silence to Crowley Court, Sir Roger staring with
troubled brown eyes out of one window and Lady Dainton, set and
unrevealing, out of the other. At the door she offered me tea, but for a
hundred reasons I wanted to get away as soon as possible.
"For the present I suppose we can do nothing," she said, as we shook
hands. "I rely on you to tell us when you have any news." For the first
time she was unable to keep an expression of physical exhaustion out of
her eyes. "I don't know what any of you are doing, of course; what steps
are being taken to find Sonia."
"I'm making myself personally responsible," I promised her.
Then I drove back to London and arranged with George to dine with me at
the Club. After a restless night he had called at eighteen of the
likeliest hotels in the hope of arriving at news of Mrs. O'Rane for the
comfort of her husband and parents. Someone of the same surname was
staying at the Grosvenor, but it was not Sonia. I described my visits to
Crowley Court and Melton, and we concerted a plan for tracking her to
her hiding-place.
Two years and a quarter in the government service had made George more
of a "handy-man" than I have ever met before or since. He knew the right
official in every department for hurrying through the most diverse
business for the largest number of friends. If news were required of a
prisoner-of-war, if cigars were wanted out of bond for the use of a
neutral Legation, if a German governess had to be repatriated, a
passport obtained, naturalisation papers taken out, export permits
secured, George would triumph in the quickest possible time over the
greatest possible obstacles. It was absurd, he told me, to advertise or
insert cryptic messages in the "agony" column of the "Times"; absurder
still to employ detectives. For what other purpose did Hugh Mannerly and
the Alien Control Department exist? He telephoned to the Home Office
forthwith, but Mr. Mannerly had praetermitted his control of aliens in
the interests of dinner.
"I'll get on to him to-morrow," he promised. "We'll have every hotel and
boarding house in London searched for her; and, if she's not in town,
we'll go to work in the country. It will take a day or two, but Hugh
Mannerly is unfailing and perfectly discreet."
After my tribute to George and his to Mannerly, I am sorry to record
that the first three days of the hunt were blank. It was ascertained,
indeed, that Mrs. O'Rane had stayed at the Grosvenor for the night, and
that her address was fully inscribed in the Visitors' Book. ("Damned
fool I was not to call for the book!" George exclaimed. "I felt certain
it must be her and then, when they said it wasn't, I felt equally
certain that it couldn't be.") Where she had gone from the hotel no one
knew.
"She's staying with friends somewhere in town," George decided, "or else
she's gone out of London. I'll get Mannerly to work again outside. I've
spoken to a friend of mine in the Permit Office, so she can't leave the
country, and I've found out from Raney that she banks with Philpott's in
Victoria Street. Mannerly's told the manager to watch the account and
report all lodgements and drawings; if she deals by post, we may find
out whereabouts she is and, if she comes to the bank in person, we can
arrange for the manager to keep her there till we arrive."
I confess that, however efficient George might be, I found him a little
high-handed.
"I'm the complete bureaucrat," he assented grimly, polishing his pipe
on the sleeve of his uniform. "And I may tell you that, when I consider
the opportunities for oppression afforded by the public service, I'm
amazed at my own moderation. Anyone would start a revolution to-morrow,
if he knew the black conspiracy against personal liberty which a few
thousand of us are carrying out."
Once again, after being promised the full sinister support of all the
conspirators, I feel ungracious in having to record that the utmost
efforts of Mr. Hugh Mannerly failed to produce any result. His
department, let me say, was admirably organised, and a ridiculously
short time passed before I was informed that no one giving the name of
Sonia O'Rane or Mrs. David O'Rane was registered in any hotel or
licensed lodging-house throughout England, Scotland or Wales. The
manager of the Victoria Street branch of Philpott's Bank, with a
disregard for the confidential relations between a bank and its
customers which would have amazed me in peace-time, stated that Mrs.
O'Rane had personally cashed a cheque for twenty pounds three days
before, that her balance--unusually large, I imagined, for her--was one
hundred and eighty-seven pounds fourteen shillings and five pence, that
no lodgements had been made since the beginning of the month, but that
he would promptly report all future transactions so long as Mr. Mannerly
desired him to do so.
"I telegraphed to Dainton, after I'd been to see Hugh," George told me.
"As we haven't struck oil so far, I thought it would be useful to apply
a little more pressure. I imagine Sonia must be living now solely on her
father's allowance, so I suggested that he should stop it and see what
happened when she'd exhausted her present funds. It's funny about Hugh;
he's usually so good.... A nuisance, too, because time's so important.
You see Lloyd-George is getting out his Ministry? About two-thirds of
the offices seem to be allocated with some certainty."
"Have they found a place for Grayle yet?" I asked.
"He's mentioned for all sorts of places," was the answer.
I felt that the Government might not want to include Grayle until he had
cleared himself. People were still asking vaguely whether it was true
about Grayle, but no one could find flesh wherewith to clothe the bones
of the scandal. Grayle himself had not crossed my path since our warm
parting in Milford Square; indeed, everyone who button-holed me to
discuss appointments or ask my view of the rumour admitted by
implication that he had not seen Grayle. Someone--I cannot remember
who--told me that he had left London on one of the surprise visits to
G.H.Q., which with Grayle played the same part as the old "diplomatic
chill" of other days. As the government of the country and the conduct
of the war were at a standstill, as members of both houses were flocking
back to Westminster from all quarters to join in the scramble for
office, I found this explanation unconvincing.
I was soon to find it baseless. In fulfilment of my promise, I sent a
note by hand to Grayle's house, asking him to meet me on urgent business
at a time and place to be arranged by him. My messenger, who had been
instructed to enquire whether Grayle was at home, reported that he had
received my note with his own hands and had replied that there was no
answer.
3
As Grayle would not come to see me, I had to go and see Grayle.
I did not want to call in Milford Square unattended,--for Grayle had
said in his haste that he would thrash me out of the house with a crop,
and I knew that he would only disappoint me from motives of prudence.
Had he been accessible, I should have liked to have George at hand to
ring the bell and, if necessary, to send for the police; and, if
prudence so far triumphed over natural impulse as to allow Grayle to
discuss terms, George would once more be a useful witness to balance
Bannerman.
Failing George, I was at a loss to know whom to invite, for Bertrand
was too old to be embroiled in such an undertaking. Beresford, of
course, was in the secret and I was wondering whether he would really
conduce to the harmony of debate, when his card was brought in with a
request for five minutes' conversation on private business.
"I came to see if you'd had any news of Sonia," he began, as the door
closed. "I've been on the look-out so far as my leg would let me. You
see, in the old days, when we were together so much, I knew something of
her haunts and habits. I haven't found a trace. At least, not of her."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He pulled forward a deed-box and rested his leg on it, smiling grimly to
himself.
"Do you remember the first and only time you honoured me with a call?"
he asked. "It was to say that the authorities were watching my articles
very closely, one night when Sonia came to see me, and you _naturally_
assumed----"
"Appearances were against you," I said, "and it was criminally foolish,
anyway."
"Well, well!" He smiled with sardonic indulgence. "We won't waste time
on that. Appearances have been pretty consistently against me before
_and_ after, until the night when O'Rane tried to strangle me. Has it
ever occurred to you that appearances were _fabricated_ against me? We
know that Grayle let you all think--and Sonia, too, but she'd lost her
head.... I find that the thing goes much further back. I never told you
about my exploits when you were in America, did I?" he went on, nursing
his injured leg. "The first time they imprisoned me? There isn't much to
tell, but it's illuminating. I'd been writing for weeks in the
'Watchman'--all above board and over my own name. You, no doubt, would
call it pernicious stuff--or you would have then; people are coming
round to my views a bit more now--I just told the truth...." His eyes
suddenly flashed, reviving my sense that I was dealing with a man who
might any day be certified insane. "The whole truth and nothing but the
truth! The magistrate nearly choked when bits of my articles were read
aloud in court.... Well, all copy has to be in by Tuesday morning, we go
to press on Thursday, and the paper comes out on Friday. I had my usual
two sets of proofs delivered on the Wednesday; I corrected one and sent
it back, the other I tore in two and threw into the waste-paper basket.
The next day----"
"Where did this take place?" I interrupted.
"At 'The Sanctuary.' Didn't I say that? The next day, when our
housekeeper opened the office, he found an assortment of the police with
the usual warrants to search the place and confiscate anything that took
their fancy. By the time they'd taken our ledgers, our subscribers'
register, our letter-books, file copies and the whole of that week's
issue, there wasn't much for the delivery vans, when they turned up at
nine, and literally nothing at all for the editor and me at half-past
ten except two nice, kind gentlemen who put us under immediate arrest.
Quick work, wasn't it? You'd have thought that not a soul outside that
office could have known for certain that I was even writing that week,
still less that I'd written anything stronger than the usual articles. I
suspected at the time, but I couldn't bring myself to believe that
Grayle would go to that length to get me out of the way; I knew it bored
him to see Sonia talking to me, but he had a fair slice of her time, and
I didn't think then that he was more than flirting with her. Well, that
was the first step."
He paused to beg a cigarette.
"Go on," I said, as I threw over my case.
"Well, that broke down, because I did a hunger-strike, and they had to
let me out. There was another misfire about the army----"
"I heard about that," I interrupted.
"About the misfire? I wonder if you did--the early part, I mean. Do you
know that I attested in the old voluntary days? Ah, I thought not. I
kept that to myself--for fear of seeming patriotic," he added with a
sneer. "Well, when the Derby recruiting scheme came on, there was enough
hanky-panky to sicken you. I don't need to tell you that I'm not in love
with war or the idea of driving people out like sheep to be slaughtered,
but, if you have it, let it hit all classes alike. From the very first,
anyone who was strong enough to resist could be sure of getting off. The
miners said they'd strike, if anyone tried to conscribe _them_; the
Civil Service decided for itself that no one could get on without it.
Well, I thought this wanted shewing up, so I went along to Great
Scotland Yard to collect evidence at first hand. I got it right enough.
The first men I saw were a hulking lot with a crowd of papers in their
hands to declare that they were indispensable to the satisfactory
working of their departments--people like that young sot
Maitland;--they'd been forbidden even to attest till that day, but the
numbers weren't keeping up, so they were turned on to keep things going.
(I believe the police and the Merchant Marine were dragged in, too, just
to give the thing a fillip.) The doctors hardly troubled to look at me
before I was rejected; which was a pity, because I wanted copy about the
medical examination; but rejected I was, fair and square, with a
certificate and, I suppose, some record on their books. In time the
Military Service Bill was passed, and I found myself called up. Now, it
may have been an honest blunder.... It's certainly a damned odd
coincidence."
As he paused to laugh, I was more than ever struck by his likeness to a
grinning skull with a wig on it.
"But the coincidences were only just beginning," he went on. "It was a
coincidence that someone should have been nosing round among my
papers--I don't know who it was, I hardly ever lock anything, least of
all my own front door. But I _thought_ one night that things looked
unusual. I have my own taste in untidiness. Then someone let out to
O'Rane that I was being watched once more. (If I didn't seem grateful
that night, it was because you were devilishly in the way and weren't
telling me anything I didn't know before.) Then came another warrant,
another search and another arrest. By one of these _curious_
coincidences it was all on the day when O'Rane was due back at Melton,
the day when, by one last coincidence, Grayle got back from France
earlier than he'd been expected." Beresford raised his hand and brought
it resoundingly down on the table. "I can prove nothing!" he cried. "I
only say that this succession of coincidences--it's queer. And, if I was
a nuisance to Grayle in the early days, he found me very useful later
on. My God! what would I not do to get level with that man! Thank the
Lord! there's no Christian forgiveness about me. I'll leave that to
people with more time on their hands. I've a great deal to get through
in a very short space and I'd like to do him in once for myself and
three times for Sonia. Is O'Rane taking any steps?"
"There are limits to _his_ powers of forgiveness," I answered
reassuringly. "I'm calling on Grayle to-night to suggest that he should
retire from the House."
The same light of fanatical hatred came into Beresford's eyes.
"I'd give something to be there!" he cried.
I looked at him and resumed the train of thought which his entrance had
interrupted. I knew that he could control himself, if he tried, but I
did not know whether he would try.
"I was thinking of asking you, when you came in," I said. "You're in the
secret, and I don't want to admit anyone else. You know what happens!
Everyone tells everyone else on condition that it doesn't go any
farther. But can you be trusted to behave yourself? I want you as a
witness, and you may have to call for help, if Grayle tries to fulfil
his promise of thrashing me out of the house. But you're not to speak,
you're not to attempt any violence, you're not to bring even an umbrella
with you. Frankly, you see, I'm not inviting you for your amusement, but
for my convenience."