MISS LISLE TELLS A LONG POINTLESS STORY
Sir John Hampden lived within a stone-throw of the Marble Arch; George
Salt had established himself in Westminster; and about midway between
the two, in the neighbourhood of Pall Mall, a convenient but quite
unostentatious suite of offices had been taken and registered as the
headquarters of the Unity League.
The Unity League was a modern organisation that had come into existence
suddenly, and with no great parade, within a week of that day when
George Salt had forced Hampden to hear what he wished to say, a day now
nearly two years ago. The name was simple and commonplace, and therefore
it aroused neither curiosity nor suspicion; it was explained by the fact
that it had only one object: "By constitutional means to obtain an
adequate representation of the middle and upper classes in Parliament,"
a phrase rendered by the lighter-hearted members colloquially as "To
kick out the Socialists." The Government, quite content to govern
constitutionally (in the wider sense) and to be attacked
constitutionally (in the narrower sense), treated the existence of the
Unity League as a playful ebullition on the part of the milch sections
of society, and raised the minimum income-tax to four and threepence as
a sedative.
At first the existence of the League met with very little response and
no enthusiasm among those for whom it was intended. It had become an
article of faith with the oppressed classes that no propagandism could
ever restore an equitable balance of taxation. Every change must
inevitably tend to be worse than the state before. To ask the working
classes (the phrase lingered; by the demarcation of taxation it meant
just what it conventionally means to-day, and, similarly, it excluded
clerical workers of all grades)--to ask this privileged class which
dominated practically every constituency to throw out their own people
and put in a party whose avowed policy would be to repeal the Employers'
Liability Act (Extended), the Strikes Act, the Unemployed Act, the
Amended Companies Act, the Ecclesiastical Property Act, the infamous
Necessity Act, and a score of other preposterous Acts of Injustice
before they even gave their attention to anything else, had long been
recognised to be grotesque. A League, therefore, which spoke of working
towards freedom on constitutional lines fell flat. The newspapers
noticed it in their various individual fashions, and all but the
Government organs extended to it a welcome of cold despair. The general
reader gathered the impression that he might look for its early demise.
The first revulsion of opinion came when it was understood that Sir John
Hampden had returned to public life as the President of the League. What
his name meant to his contemporaries, how much the League gained from
his association, may be scarcely realised in an age existing under
different and more conflicting conditions. Briefly, his personality
lifted the effort into the plane--not of a national movement, for with
the nation so sharply riven by two irreconcilable interests that was
impossible, but certainly beyond all cavil as to motives and methods.
When it was further known that he was not lending his name
half-heartedly as to a forlorn hope, or returning reluctantly as from a
tardy sense of duty, men began to wonder what might lie behind.
The first public meeting of the newly formed League deepened the
impression. Men and women of the middle and upper classes were invited
to become members. The annual subscription being a guinea, none but
adults were expected. Those of the working class were not invited. If
the subscription seemed large, the audience was asked to remember what
lay at stake, and to compare with it the case of the artisan cheerfully
contributing his sixpence a week to the strike fund of his class. "As a
result there is a Strikes Act now in force," the President reminded
them, "and the artisan no longer pays the cost----"
"No, we do," interjected a listener.
"I ask you to pay it for three years longer; no more, perhaps less,"
replied Hampden with a reassuring smile, and his audience stared.
If the subscription seemed large for an organisation of the kind the
audience was assured that it was by no means all, or even the most, that
would be expected of them. They must be prepared to make some sacrifice
when called upon; the nature he could not indicate at that early stage.
No balance sheet would be published; no detailed reports would be
issued. There would be no dances, no garden-parties, no club houses, no
pretty badges. The President warned them that membership offered no
facilities for gaining a precarious footing in desirable society,
through the medium of tea on the Vicarage lawn, or croquet in the Home
Park. "We are not playing at tin politics nowadays," he caustically
remarked.
That closed the exordium. In a different vein Hampden turned to review
the past, and with the chartered freedom of the man who had prophesied
it all, he traced in broad lines and with masterly force the course of
Conservative ineptitude, Radical pusillanimity, Labour selfishness, and
Socialistic tyranny. What would be the crowning phase of grab
government? History foreshadowed it; common-sense certified it. Before
the dark curtain of that last stupendous act the wealth and wisdom, the
dignity and responsibility of the nation, stood in paralysed expectancy.
There was a telling pause; a dramatic poignant silence hung over the
massed crowd that listened to the one man who could still inspire a
kindling spark of hope. Then, just at the opportune moment, a friendly
challenge gave the effective lead:
"And what does Sir John Hampden offer now?"
"Absolute victory," replied the speaker, with the thrilling energy of
quiet but assured conviction, "and with it the ending of this nightmare
dream of life in which we are living now, when every man in his
half-guilty helplessness shuns his own thoughts, and all are filled with
a new unnatural pain: the shame of being Englishmen. Blink the fact or
not, it is civil war upon which we are now engaged. Votes are the
weapons, and England and her destiny, nothing more or less, are the
stakes. It has frequently been one of the curious features even of the
most desperate civil struggles of the past, that while battles were
raging all around, towns besieged, and thrones falling, commerce was at
the same time being carried on as usual, wordy controversies on trivial
alien subjects were being hotly discussed by opposing sections, as
though their pedantic differences were the most serious matters in the
world, and the ordinary details of everyday life were proceeding as
before. So it is to-day, but civil, social, war is in our midst,
and--again blink it or not--we are losing, and wage it as it is being
waged we shall continue to lose. I am not here to-day to urge the
justice of our cause, to palliate unwise things done, to indulge in
regrets for wise things left undone. One does not discuss diplomacy in
the middle of a battle. I am here to hold out a new hope for the triumph
of our cause, for the revival of an era of justice, for the recovered
respect of nations. I have never been accused of undue optimism, yet
fully weighing my words, I stand on this platform to-night to share with
you my conviction that it is within our power, in three years' time, to
send an overwhelming majority of our reconstructed party into power, to
reduce the income-tax to a sane and normal level, and to recommence the
building up of a treasonably neglected navy."
Another man--perhaps any other man--would have been met by ridicule, but
Hampden's reputation was unique. The one point of emphasis that could
not fail to impress itself upon every listener was that there _was_
something behind all this. It was a point that did not convey itself
half so forcefully in the newspaper reports, so that, as Socialists and
their friends did not attend the meetings (even as members of the
wealthier classes had ignored Socialistic "vapourings" in days gone by),
any menace to the Government that the League might contain was lost on
them for the present. It was the moral of an old fable: the Dog in
Luxury grown slothful and unready.
The subscription deterred few. It was an epoch when everything was,
apparently, being given away for nothing; though never had the
grandfatherly maxim that in business nothing ever is offered without its
price, been so keenly observed. But superficially, to ride in a penny
'bus entitled one to a probable pension for life; to buy a pound of tea
was only the preliminary to being presented with a motor-car or a grand
piano. Fortunes lurked in cigarette boxes, whole libraries sprang
gratuitously from the columns of the daily papers; not only oxen, but
silver spoons inexhaustible were compressed within the covers of each
jar of meat extract, and buried treasure, "Mysterious Millionaires," and
"Have-you-that-ten-pound-note?" men littered the countryside. To be
asked to subscribe a guinea for nothing definite in return, was
therefore a pleasing novelty which took amazingly. So, too, the idea of
participating in some sort of legal revolution which would entail
sacrifices and result in unexpected developments, was found to be
delightfully invigorating. How the movement spread is a matter of
history. Incomes had been reduced wholesale, yet, so great was the
confidence in Hampden's name, that many members sent their subscription
ten times told. When he asked, as he frequently did at the close of a
meeting, for recruits who were willing to devote their whole time unpaid
to the work in various departments, more than could be accepted were
invariably forthcoming. All members proselytised on their own
initiative, but within these there were thousands of quiet and devoted
workers who were in close touch with the office of the League. They
acted on detailed instructions in their methods, and submitted regular
reports of progress and of the state of public feeling in every part of
the kingdom and among every class of the community. To what length the
roll of membership had now extended only two men knew, even
approximately. All that could be used as a guide was the fact that it
was the exception rather than the rule anywhere to find a family among
the classes aimed at, that did not contain at least one member; while
London, within the same indicated limits, had practically gone solid for
membership.
And George Salt? The public knew nothing of him; his name did not appear
in connection with the League, nor did he ever take a place among the
notables upon the platform at its meetings. But the thousands of the
inner ring knew him very well, and few whose business led them to the
offices missed encountering him. He was officially supposed to be a
League secretary to Sir John Hampden, endowed with large discretionary
powers.
At the moment when this chapter opens he was receiving in his office a
representative of the leading Government organ: a daily paper which
purveyed a mixture of fervent demagogism and child-like inconsistency,
for the modest sum of one halfpenny. _The Tocsin_, as it was called, was
widely read by a public who believed every word it contained, with that
simple credulity in what is printed which is one of the most pathetic
features of the semi-illiterate.
Mr Hammet, the representative of _The Tocsin_, had come to find out what
was really behind the remarkable spread of the Unity League. Possibly
members of the Government were beginning to fidget. Salt had seen him
for the purpose of telling him everything else that he cared to know. To
enquirers, the officials of the League were always candid and open, and
laughingly disclaimed any idea of a mysterious secret society. So Salt
admitted that they really hoped for a change of public opinion shortly;
that they based their calculation on the inevitable swing of the
pendulum, and so forth. He allowed it to be drawn easily from him that
they had great faith in party organisation, and that perhaps--between
themselves and not for publication--the Government would be surprised by
a substantial lowering of their majority at the next election, as a
result of quiet, unostentatious "spade work." "As a party we are not
satisfied with the state of things," he said. "We cannot be expected to
be satisfied with it, and we are certainly relying on a stronger
representation in opposition to make our views felt."
"Quite right," said Mr Hammet sympathetically. He closed the note-book
in which he had made a few entries and put it away, to indicate that his
visit was officially at an end, and whatever passed between them now was
simply one private gentleman talking to another, and might be regarded
as sacredly confidential. Salt also relaxed the secretarial manner which
he had taken the pains to acquire, and seemed as though he would be glad
of a little human conversation with a man who knew life and Fleet
Street: which meant, of course, that both were prepared to be
particularly alert.
"I was at one of your meetings the other night--the Albert Hall one,"
remarked the newspaper man casually. "Your Chief fairly took the crowd
with him. No being satisfied with a strong opposition for him! Why, he
went bald-headed for sweeping the country and going in with a couple of
hundred majority or so."
Salt laughed appreciatively. "No good being down-hearted," he replied.
"That was the end of all the old organisations. 'We see no hope for the
future, so you all may as well mark time,' was their attitude, and they
dropped out. 'When anything turns up we intend being ready for it, so
come in now,' we say."
"Seems to take all right too," admitted Mr Hammet. "I was offered a
level dollar by a friend of mine the other day that you had over half a
million members. I took it in a sporting spirit, because I know that
half a million needs a lot of raking in, and I put it at rather less
myself--but, of course, as you are close about it we can never settle
up." Half a million, it may be observed, was everybody's property, as an
estimate on "excellent authority."
"We don't publish figures, as a matter of fact," admitted Salt
half-reluctantly, "but I don't know why there should be any very
particular secret about it----"
"Oh, every office has its cupboards and its skeletons," said Mr Hammet
generously. "But if one could see inside," he added with a knowing look,
"I think that I should win."
"No," exclaimed Salt suddenly. "I don't mind telling you in confidence.
We have passed the half million: passed it last--well, some time ago."
"Lucky for me that it is in confidence," remarked the pressman with a
grimace, "or I should have to pay up. What is the exact figure, then?"
he ventured carelessly.
"No one could quite tell you that," replied Salt, equally off-hand.
"Six hundred thousand?" suggested Mr Hammet.
"Oh, that is a considerable advance,--a hundred thousand," admitted Salt
with transparent disappointment. It is not pleasant when you have
impressed your man to have him expecting too much the next minute.
"I was thinking of the old Buttercup League," said Mr Hammet. "You took
the remains over, lock, stock, and barrel, I believe?"
"Yes, all that would come. Half belonged to your party really, and half
of the remainder were children. What an organisation that was in its
time! A million and a half!" The smart young newspaper man noted Mr
Salt's open admiration for these figures. It convinced him that the
newer League was not yet within measurable distance of half that total.
"And in the end it did--what?" he remarked.
Salt was bound to apologise. "What is there to do, after all?" he
admitted. "What can you do but keep your people together, show them
where their interest lies, and wait?"
"And rake in the shekels?" suggested Mr Hammet airily.
"Oh, that!" agreed Salt a little uneasily. "Of course one has to look
after the finances."
"Ra-ther," agreed Mr Hammet. "Wish I had the job. Do you smoke here as a
general thing?"
"Oh yes," replied Salt, who never did. "Try one of these."
"Fairish cigars. Better than you'd find in the old man's private box up
at our show," was the verdict. "But then we haven't a revenue of half a
million."
"Of course I rely on you not to say anything about our numbers," said
the secretary anxiously.
The visitor made a reassuring gesture, expressive of inviolable secrecy.
"Though I suppose you have to make a return for income-tax purposes," he
mused. "My aunt! what an item you must have!"
"No," replied Salt. "We do not pay anything."
Mr Hammet stared in incredulous surprise. "How do you manage to work
it?" he demanded familiarly. "You don't mean that they have forgotten
you?"
"No; it's quite simple," explained Salt. "Your friends made the funds
and incomes of Trades Unions sacred against claims and taxes of every
kind a few years ago, and we rank as a Trade Union."
"Don't call them my friends, please God," exclaimed Mr Hammet with
ingratiating disloyalty. "I work as in a house of bondage. You don't
publish any balance-sheet, by the way, do you?"
"No, we don't see why we should let every one know how the money is
being spent. No matter how economically things are carried on there are
always some who want to interfere."
"Especially if they sampled your weeds," suggested the visitor
pleasantly. "Pretty snug cribs you must have, but that's not my
business. Between ourselves, what does Sir John draw a year?"
"Nothing," protested Salt eagerly, too eagerly. "As President of the
League he does not receive a penny."
Sharp Mr Hammet, who prided himself upon being a terror for exposures
and on having a record of seven flagrant cases of contempt of court,
read the secretary's eagerness like an open book. "But then there are
Committees, Sub-committees, Executives, Emergency Funds, and what not,"
he pointed out, "and our unpaid League President may be Chairman of one,
and Secretary of another, and Grand Master of a third with a royal
salary from each, eh? Can you assure me----"
"Oh, well; of course," admitted Salt, cornered beyond prevarication,
"that is a private matter that has to do with the officials of the
League alone. But you may take it from me that every one in these
offices earns his salary whatever it may be."
Mr Hammet smiled his polite acquiescence broadly.
"Same here, changing the scene of action to Stonecutter Street," he
commented. "Do you happen to know how Sir John came to start this
affair? Well, Tagg M.P. met Miss Hampden once and wanted to marry her.
He called on Sir John, who received him about as warmly as a shoulder of
Canterbury lamb even before he knew what his business was. When he did
know, he gave such an exhibition of sheet lightning that Tagg, who is
really a very level-headed young fellow in general, completely lost his
nerve and tried to dazzle him into consenting, by offering him a safe
seat in the Huddersfield division and a small place in the Government if
he'd consent to put up as a bracketted Imperialist hyphened Socialist.
Then the old man kicked Tagg out of the house, and swore to do the same
with his Government within three years. At least that's what I heard
about the time, but very likely there isn't a word of truth in it;" a
tolerably safe inference on Mr Hammet's part, as, in point of fact, he
had concocted Mr Tagg's romance on the spur of the moment.
"No," volunteered Salt. "I don't think that that is the true story, or I
should have heard something about it. It's rather curious that you
should have mentioned it. I believe----But it's scarcely worth taking
up your time with."
"Not at all: I mean that I am quite interested," protested Mr Hammet.
"Well--of course it sounds rather absurd in the broad light of day, but
I believe, as a matter of fact, that he was led into founding the League
simply as the result of a dream."
"A dream!" exclaimed Mr Hammet, deeply surprised. "What sort of a
dream?"
"Well, it naturally must have been a rather extraordinary dream to
affect him so strongly. In fact you might perhaps call it a vision."
"A vision!" repeated Mr Hammet, thoroughly absorbed in the mysterious
element thus brought in. "Do I understand that this is Sir John's own
explanation?" Hampden's sudden return to activity had, indeed, from time
to time been a riddle of wide interest.
"Oh no," Salt hastened to correct. "I expect that he would be the last
man to admit it, or to offer any explanation at all. Of course the
history of the world has been changed in every age through dreams and
visions, but that explanation nowadays, in a weighty matter, would run
the risk of being thought trivial and open to ridicule."
"But what do you base your deductions upon, then?" demanded Mr Hammet,
rather fogged by the serious introduction of this new light. "Is Sir
John a believer in clairvoyance?"
"I am afraid that I must not state the real grounds for several reasons,
if you won't think me discourteous," replied Salt firmly. "But this I
may say: that I had occasion to see Sir John late one night, and then he
had not the faintest intention of coming forward. Early the following
morning I saw him again, and by that time the whole affair was cut and
dried. Of course you are at liberty to confirm or contradict the story
just as you like, if you should happen to come across it again."
In a state of conscious bewilderment through which he was powerless to
assert himself, Mr Hammet submitted to polite dismissal. The visible
result of his interview was half a column of peptonised personalities in
_The Tocsin_, rendered still easier of assimilation to the dyspeptic
mind by being well cut up into light paragraphs and garnished with
sub-headings throughout. The unseen result, except to the privileged
eyes of half a dozen people, was a confidential report which found its
way ultimately into the desk of the Home Secretary. The following points
summarised Mr Hammet's deductions.
* * * * *
"The Unity League probably has a membership of half a million. It may be
safely assumed that it does not exceed that figure by a hundred thousand
at the most.
"While largely recruiting by the device of holding out a suggestion of
some indefinite and effective political scheme, the policy of the League
will be that of _laisser faire_, and its influence may be safely
ignored. Very little of its vast income is spent in propagandism or
organisation. On the contrary, there is the certainty that considerable
sums are lying at short notice at the banks, and strong evidence that
equally large sums have been sent out of the country through the agency
of foreign houses.
"Many men of so-called 'good position' enjoy obvious sinecure posts
under the League, and all connected with the organisation appear to draw
salaries disproportionate to their positions, and in some cases wildly
disproportionate.
"The plain inference from the bulk of evidence is that the League is,
and was formed to be, the preserve for a number of extravagant and
incapable unemployed of the so-called upper and upper-middle classes,
who have organised this means of increasing their incomes to balance the
diminution which they have of late years experienced through the
equalising legislation of Socialism. The money sent abroad is doubtless
a reserve for a few of the higher officials to fall back on if future
contingencies drive them out of this country.
"This information has been carefully derived from a variety of sources,
including John Hampden's secretary, a man called Salt. Salt appears to
be a simple, unsuspicious sort of fellow, and with careful handling
might be used as a continual means of securing information in the future
should there be any necessity."
* * * * *
The simple, unsuspicious secretary had dismissed Mr Hammet with scarcely
another thought as soon as that gentleman had departed. In order to fit
himself for the requirements of his new sphere of action, Salt had,
during the past two years, compelled himself to acquire that art of
ready speech which we are told is the most efficient safeguard of our
thoughts. But he hated it. Most of all he despised the necessity of
engaging in such verbal chicane as Mr Hammet's mission demanded. Of that
mission he had the amplest particulars long before the representative of
_The Tocsin_ had passed his threshold. He knew when he was coming, why
he was coming, and the particular points upon which information was
desired. He could have disconcerted Hammet beyond measure by placing
before him a list of all those persons who had been so delicately
sounded, together with an abstract of the results; and finally, he
received as a matter of ordinary routine a copy of the confidential
report three hours before it reached Mr James Tubes. Armies engaged in
active warfare have their Intelligence Departments, and the Secret
Service of the Unity League was remarkably complete and keen.
"My name is Irene Lisle," said the next caller, and there being nothing
particular to say in reply Salt expressed himself by his favourite
medium--silence; but in such a way that Miss Lisle felt encouraged to
continue.
"I have come to you because I am sick of seeing things go on as they
have been going for years, and no one doing anything. I believe that you
_are_ going to do something."
"Why?" demanded Salt with quiet interest. It mattered--it might matter a
great deal--why this unknown Miss Lisle should have been led to form
that conclusion.
"I have a great many friends--some in London, others all over the
country. I have been making enquiries lately, through them and also by
other means. It is generally understood that your membership is about
half a million, and you tacitly assent to that." She took up a scrap of
waste paper that lay before her, and writing on it, passed it across the
desk. "That, however, is my estimate. If I am right, or anything like
it, you are concealing your strength."
Salt took the paper, glanced at it, smiled and shook his head without
committing himself to any expression. But he carefully burned the
fragment with its single row of figures after Miss Lisle had left.
"I have attended your meetings," continued Miss Lisle composedly, "for,
of course, I am a member in the ordinary way. I came once as a matter of
curiosity, or because one's friends were speaking of it, and I came
again because, even then, I was humbled and dispirited at the shameful
part that our country was being made to play before the world. I caught
something, but I did not grasp all--because I am not a man, I suppose. I
saw meeting after meeting of impassive unemotional, black-coated
gentlemen lifted into the undemonstrative white-heat of purposeful
enthusiasm by the suggestion of that new hope which I failed to
understand. At one of the earliest Queen's Hall meetings I particularly
noticed a young man who sat next to me. He was just an ordinary
keen-faced, gentlemanly, well-dressed, athletic-looking youth, who might
have been anything from an upper clerk to a millionaire. He sat through
the meeting without a word or a sign of applause, but when at the finish
twenty volunteers were asked for, to give their whole time to serving
the object of the League, he was the first to reach the platform, with a
happier look on his face, in the stolid English style, than I should
have ever expected to see there. It was beyond me. Then among the
audiences one frequently heard remarks such as 'I believe there's
something behind it all'; 'I really think Hampden has more than an idea';
'It strikes me that we are going to have something livelier than tea and
tennis,' and suggestions of that kind. Some time ago, after a meeting at
Kensington, I was walking home alone when you overtook me. Immediately in
front were two gentlemen who had evidently been to the meeting also, and
they were discussing it. At that moment one said emphatically to the
other: 'I don't know what it is, but that it _is_ something I'll
swear; and if it is I'd give them my last penny sooner than have things
as they are.' Sir John Hampden, who was with you, looked at you
enquiringly, and you shook your head and said, 'Not one of our men.'
'Then I believe it's beginning to take already,' he replied."
Two things occurred to Salt: that Miss Lisle might be a rather sharp
young lady, and that he and Hampden had been unusually careless.
"Anything else?" was all he said.
"It's rather a long wild tale, and it has no particular point,"
explained the lady.
"If you can spare the time," he urged. The long pointless tale might be
a pointer to others beside Miss Lisle.
"I was cycling a little way out in the country recently," narrated Miss
Lisle, "when I found that I required a spanner, or I could not go on. It
was rather a lonely part for so near London, within ten or twelve miles,
I suppose, and there was not a house to be seen. I wheeled my bicycle
along and soon came to a narrow side lane. It had a notice 'Private
Road' up, and I could not see far down it as it wound about very much,
but it seemed to be well used, so I turned into it hoping to find a
house. There was no house, for after a few turns the lane ended
suddenly. It ended, so to speak, in a pair of large double doors--like
those of a coach-house--for before me was a stream crossed by an iron
bridge; immediately beyond that a high wall and the doors. But do you
care for me to go on?"
"If you please," said Salt, and paid the narrative the compliment of a
close and tranquil attention.
"It was rather a peculiar place to come on unexpectedly," continued Miss
Lisle. "It had originally been a powder works, and the old notices
warning intruders had been left standing; as a matter of fact a stranger
would probably still take it to be a powder mill, but one learned
locally that it was the depot and distributing centre of an artificial
manure company with a valuable secret process. Which, of course, made it
less interesting than explosives."
"And less dangerous," suggested Salt, smiling.
"I don't know," shot back Miss Lisle with a glance. "Mark the
precautions. There was the stream almost enclosing this place--the size,
I suppose, of a considerable farm--and in the powder mill days it had
been completely turned into an island by digging a canal or moat at the
narrowest point of the bend. Immediately on the other side of the water
rose the high brick wall topped with iron spikes. The one bridge was the
only way across the stream, the one set of double doors, as high as the
wall, the only way through beyond. Inside was thickly wooded. I don't
suggest wild animals, you know, but savage dogs would not surprise me.
"As I stood there, concluding that I should have to turn back, I heard a
heavy motor coming down the lane. It came on very quickly as though the
driver knew the twisting road perfectly, shot across the bridge, the big
gates fell open apparently of their own accord, and it passed inside. I
had only time to note that it was a large trade vehicle with a square
van-like body, before the gates had closed again."
Miss Lisle paused for a moment, but she had by no means reached the end
of her pointless adventure.
"I had seen no one but the motor driver, but I was mistaken in thinking
that there was no one else to see, for as I stood there undecided a
small door in the large gate was opened and a man came out. He was
obviously the gate-keeper, and in view of the notices I at once
concluded that he was coming to warn me off, so I anticipated him by
asking him if he could lend me a spanner. He muttered rather surlily
that if I waited there he would see, and went back, closing the little
door behind him. I thought that I heard the click of a self-acting lock.
Presently he came back just as unamiable as before and insisted on
screwing up the bolt himself--to get me away the sooner, I suppose. He
absolutely started when I naturally enough offered him sixpence--I
imagine the poor man doesn't get very good wages--and went quite red as
he took it."
"And all ended happily?" remarked Salt tentatively, as though he had
expected that a possible relevance might have been forthcoming after
all.
"Happily but perplexingly," replied Miss Lisle, looking him full in the
face as she unmasked the point of her long pointless story. "For the
surly workman who was embarrassed by sixpence was my gentlemanly
neighbour of the Queen's Hall meeting, and I was curious to know how he
should be serving the object of the League by acting as a gate-keeper to
the Lacon Equalised Superphosphate Company."
Salt laughed quietly and looked back with unmoved composure. "No doubt
many possible explanations will occur to you," he said with very
plausible candour. "The simplest is the true one. Several undertakings
either belong to the League or are closely connected with it, for
increasing its revenue or for other purposes. The Lacon is one of
these."
"And I don't doubt that even the position of doorkeeper is a responsible
one, requiring the intelligence of an educated gentleman to fill it,"
retorted Miss Lisle. "It must certainly be an exacting one. You know
better than I do how many great motor vans pass down that quiet little
lane every hour. They bear the names of different companies, they are
ingeniously different in appearance, and they pass through London by
various roads and by-roads. But they have one unique resemblance: they
are all driven by mechanics who are astonishingly disconcerted by the
offer of stray sixpences and shillings! It is the same at the little
private wharf on the canal a mile away. It was quite a relief to find
that the bargemen were common human bargees!"
Salt still smiled kindly. The slow, silent habit gives the best mask
after all. "And why have you come to me?" he asked.
"Because I _know_ that you are going to do something, and I want to
help. I loathe the way things are being done down there." The nod meant
the stately Palace of Westminster, though it happened to be really in
the direction of Charing Cross, but it was equally appropriate, for the
monuments of the Government, like those of Wren, lay all around. "Who
can go on playing tennis as usual when an ambassador who learned his
diplomacy in a Slaughter-housemen's Union represents us by acting
alternately as a fool and a cad before an astounded Paris? Or have an
interest in bridge when the Sultan of Turkey is contemptuously ordering
us to keep our fleet out of sight of Mitylene and we apologise and obey?
I will be content to address envelopes all day long if it will be of any
use. Surely there are other secret processes down other little lanes? I
will even be the doorkeeper at another artificial manure works if there
is nothing else!"
Salt sat thinking, but from the first he knew that for good or ill some
degree of their confidence must be extended to a woman. It is the common
experience of every movement when it swells beyond two members: or
conspiracies would be much more dangerous to their foes.
"It may be monotonous, perhaps even purposeless as far as you can see,"
he warned. "I do not know yet, and it will not be for you to say."
Miss Lisle flushed with the pleasurable thrill of blind sacrifice. "I
will not question," she replied. "Only if there should be any need you
might find that an ordinary uninteresting middle-class girl with a
slangy style and a muddy complexion could be as devoted as a Flora
Macdonald or a Charlotte Corday."
Salt made a quiet deprecating gesture. "A girl with a fearless truthful
face can be capable of any heroism," he remarked as he began to write.
"Especially when she combines exceptional intelligence with exceptional
discretion. Only," he added as an afterthought, "it may be uncalled-for,
and might be inconvenient in a law-abiding constitutional age."
"I quite understand that now; the conscientious addressing of circulars
shall bound my horizon. Only, please let me be somewhere in it, when it
_does_ come."
"I say, Salt," drawled an immaculately garbed young man, lounging into
the room, "do you happen----"
Miss Lisle, who had been cut off from the door by a screen, rose to
leave.
"Oh, I say, I beg your pardon," exclaimed the young man. "They told me
that you were alone."
"I shall be disengaged in a moment," replied Salt formally. "At ten
o'clock to-morrow morning then, Miss Lisle, please." She bowed and
withdrew, the Honourable Freddy Tantroy, who had lingered rather
helplessly, holding the door as she went out and favouring her with a
criticising glance.
"Always making rotten ass of myself," murmured that gentleman
plaintively. "General Office fault. Engaging lady clerk? Not bad idea,
but you might have gone in for really superior article while you were
about it. Cheaper in the end. Oh, I don't know, though."
"Miss Lisle came with the best of recommendations," said Salt almost
distantly. One might have judged that he had no desire for Mr Tantroy's
society, but that reasons existed why he should not tell him so.
"Yes, I know," nodded Freddy sagely; "they do. Hockey girl, I should
imagine. Face of the pomegranate type, carved by amateur whose hand
slipped when he was doing the mouth. Prefer the pink and pneumatic style
myself. Matter taste."
Salt made no reply. The only possible reply was the one he denied
himself. He occupied the time by burning a scrap of paper with a single
row of figures.
"I say, Salt. I was really coming about something, but I've forgotten
what," announced the honourable youth after a vacuous pause. "Oh, I
remember. That elusive old cheesecake of a hunk of mine. Do you happen
to know where the volatile Sir John is to be unearthed?"
"I imagine that your uncle is in Paris at this moment," replied Salt.
"He is expected back to-morrow."
"Paris!" exclaimed Freddy with some interest. "Good luck at the Pink
Windmill, old boy! Anything in the air, Salt? Projected French landing
at Brighton pier next week? Seriously, don't you think League bit of
gilded fizzle? Expected something with coloured lights long ago."
"I think that we have every reason to be satisfied with the progress,"
replied Salt. "The weight of a great organisation must exercise some
influence in the end."
"Oh yes," retorted Mr Tantroy with a cunning look. "That's the other
face of double-headed Johnny they have stuffed in museums. Well, all in
good time, little Freddy, if you sit quiet." He carried out this
condition literally for a couple of minutes, gazing pensively at a
slender ring he wore. Then: "I'll tell you what, Salt," he continued. "I
wish you'd use benign influence with Sir John. Tired of apeing the
golden ass, and I am thinking of settling down. Want an office here and
absolutely grinding hard work ten to four, and couple of thousand a year
or so until I'm worth more. Fact is, met girl I could absolutely exist
for ever with in gilded bird-cage. Been Vivarium lately?"
"No," replied Salt.
"Oh, well, no good trying my rotten powers description. Must go with me
some night and see. She hangs by her toes to a slack wire eighty-five
feet above the stage and sings:
'Things are strangely upside down, dear boys.
Nowadays.'
No getting away from it, she is positively the most crystallised damson
that ever stepped out of lace-edged box. No fear monotony in home with
girl like that. The very thought of it----! Well, come out and have
drink, Salt?"
"Thanks, no," replied Salt. "I've quite got out of the habit."
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Freddy, aghast. "You better try some of those
newspaper things that Johnnies with funny addresses and members of the
Greek Royal Family write up to say have done them no end. I say, Salt, I
suppose there is spare office in this palatial suite that I could have
if I grappled with the gilded effort?"
"I really don't know that there is." He had not the most shadowy faith
in the Honourable Freddy's perseverance, even in intention, for a week.
To expect any real work from him was out of the question. "We are rather
overcrowded here as it is."
"If I were you, Salt, I should insist upon the old man removing better
premises somewhere. Place seems absolutely congealed with underlings.
Just listen to that in next room: it's like hive of gilded bees. What is
it?"
"Simply routine work going on," said Salt half-impatiently. "Sorry I
can't spare the time to come out with you."
"Oh, that's all right-angled," said Freddy, taking the hint and rising.
"Sorry. Pramp, pramp. You think I shall find Sir John here Friday if I
look in?"
"Yes, here; but desperately busy."
"Er, thanks," drawled Freddy, with just a suggestion of vice. "Perhaps
my uncle will be able to spare me five minutes when he has done with
you."
He drifted languidly through the door and sauntered down the passage. At
the door of the room where the monotonous voice rose and fell in the
ceaseless repetition of short sentences, he paused to light a cigarette.
For perhaps a full minute he remained quite motionless, the cigarette
between his lips, the match pressed ready against the corrugations of
the jewelled box he held.
"Listretton, Fergus, 572 Upper Holloway Road, N.
"Listwell-Phelps, J. Walter, F.R.S., Department of Ethopian Antiquities,
British Museum, W.C.
"Litchit, Miss, Dressmaker, 15 The Grove, Westpoint-on-Sea.
"Little, Rev. H. K., The Vicarage, Lower Skerrington, Dorset.
"Little, Lieutenant-General Sir Alfred Vernon, C.B., V.C., 14a Eaton
Square, S.W.
"Littlejohn, John George, Byryxia, Cole Park, Twickenham."
Freddy Tantroy lit his cigarette and passed on. The prosaic list of new
members dictated to an entering clerk did not interest him. Five names a
minute, three hundred an hour, three thousand a day; an ordinary day,
weeks after any special meeting, and in the flat season of the year. But
it did not interest Mr Tantroy. Immersed in a scheme for taxing baths,
soda-water syphons, and asparagus beds, and further occupied with the
unexpectedly delicate details of withdrawing from India, it did not
interest the Government.
It was only the ordinary routine work of the Unity League.