FOILED
When Mr. Bodery opened the door of the room upon the second floor of the
tall house in the Strand that morning, he found Mr. Morgan seated at the
table surrounded by proof-sheets, with his coat off and shirt-sleeves
tucked up. The subeditor of the _Beacon_ was in reality a good hard
worker in his comfortable way, and there was little harm in his desire
that the world should be aware of his industry.
“Good morning, Morgan,” said the editor, hanging up his hat.
“Morning,” replied the other genially, but without looking up. Before
Mr. Bodery had seated himself, however, the sub-editor laid his hand
with heavy approval upon the odoriferous proof-sheet before him, and
looked up.
“This article of Vellacott's is first-rate,” he said. “By Jove! sir, he
drops on these holy fathers--lets them have it right and left. The way
he has worked out the thing is wonderful, and that method of putting
everything upon supposition is a grand idea. It suggests how the thing
_could_ be done upon the face of it, while the initiated will see
quickly enough that it means to show how the trick was in reality
performed--ha, ha!”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Bodery absently. He was glancing at the pile of
letters that lay upon his desk. There were among them one or two
telegrams, and these he put to one side while he took up each envelope
in succession to examine the address, throwing it down again unopened.
At length he turned again to the telegrams, and picked up the top one.
He was about to tear open the envelope when there was a sharp knock at
the door.
“'M'in!” said Mr. Morgan sharply, and at the same moment the silent door
was thrown open. The diminutive form of the boy stood in the aperture.
“Gentleman to see you, sir,” he said, with great solemnity.
“What name?” asked Mr. Bodery.
“Wouldn't give his name, sir--said you didn't know it, sir.”
Even this small office-boy was allowed his quantum of discretionary
power. It rested with him whether an unknown visitor was admitted or
politely dismissed to a much greater extent than any one suspected. Into
his manner of announcing a person he somehow managed to convey his
opinion as to whether it was worth the editor's time to admit him or
not, and he invariably received Mr. Bodery's “Tell him I'm engaged” with
a little nod of mutual understanding which was intensely comprehensive.
On this occasion, his manner said, “Have him in, have him in my boy, and
you will find it worth your while.”
“Show him in,” said Mr. Bodery.
The nameless gentleman must have been at the door upon the boy's heels,
for no sooner had the words left Mr. Bodery's lips than a tall, dark
form slid into the room. So noiseless and rapid were this gentleman's
movements that there is no other word with which to express his mode of
progression.
He made a low bow, and shot up erect again with startling rapidity. He
then stood quietly waiting until the door had closed behind the small
boy, who, after having punctiliously expectorated upon a silver coin
which had found its way into the palm of his hand, proceeded to slide
down the balustrade upon his waistcoat.
It often occurred that strangers addressed themselves to Mr. Morgan when
ushered into the little back room, under the impression that he was the
editor of the _Beacon_. Not so, however, this tall, clean-shaven person.
He fixed his peculiar light-blue eyes upon Mr. Bodery, and, with a
slight inclination, said suavely--
“This, sir, is, I believe, your printing day?”
“It is, sir, and a busy day with us,” replied the editor, with no great
warmth of manner.
“Would it be possible now,” inquired the stranger conversationally, “at
this late hour, to remove a printed article and substitute another?”
At these words Mr. Morgan ceased making some pencil notes with which he
was occupied, and looked up. He met the stranger's benign glance and,
while still looking at him, deliberately turned over all the
proof-sheets before him, leaving no printed matter exposed to the gaze
of the curious.
Mr. Bodery had in the meantime consulted his watch.
“Yes,” he replied, with dangerous politeness. “There would still be time
to do so if necessary--at the sacrifice of some hundredweight of paper.”
“How marvellously organised your interesting paper must be!”
Dead silence. Most men would have felt embarrassed, but no sign of such
feeling was forthcoming from any of the three. It is possible that the
dark gentleman with the sky-blue eyes wished to establish a sense of
embarrassment with a view to the furtherance of his own ends. If so, his
attempt proved lamentably abortive. Mr. Bodery sat with his plump hands
resting on the table, and looked contemplatively up into the stranger's
face. Mr. Morgan was scribbling pencil notes on a tablet.
“The truth is,” explained the stranger at length, “that a friend of
mine, who is unfortunately ill in bed this morning--”
(Mr. Bodery did not look in the least sympathetic, though he listened
attentively.)
“... has received a telegram from a gentleman who I am told is on the
staff of your journal--Mr. Vellacott. This gentleman wishes to withdraw,
for correction, an article he has sent to you. He states that he will
re-write the article, with certain alterations, in time for next week's
issue.”
Mr. Bodery's face was pleasantly illegible.
“May I see the telegram?” he asked politely.
“Certainly!”
The stranger produced and handed to the editor a pink paper covered with
faint black writing.
“You will see at the foot this--Mr. Vellacott's reason for not wiring to
you direct. He wished my friend to be here before the printers got to
work this morning; but owing to this unfortunate illness--”
“I am afraid you are too late, sir,” interrupted Mr. Bodery briskly.
“The press is at work--”
“My friend instructed me,” interposed the stranger in his turn, “to make
you rather a difficult proposition. If a thousand pounds will compensate
for the loss incurred by the delay of issue, and defray the expense of
paper spoilt--I--I have that amount with me.”
Mr. Bodery did not display the least sign of surprise, merely shaking
his head with a quiet smile. Mr. Morgan, however, laid aside his pencil,
and placed his elbow upon the proof-sheets before him.
The stranger then stepped forward with a sudden change of manner.
“Mr. Bodery,” he said, in a low, concentrated voice, “I will give you
five hundred pounds for a proof copy of Mr. Vellacott's article.”
A dead silence of some moments' duration followed this remark. Mr.
Morgan raised his head and looked across the table at his chief. The
editor made an almost imperceptible motion with his eyebrows in the
direction of the door.
Then Mr. Morgan rose somewhat heavily from his chair, with a hand upon
either arm, after the manner of a man who is beginning to put on weight
rapidly. He went to the door, opened it, and, turning towards the
stranger, said urbanely:
“Sir--the door!”
This kind invitation was not at once accepted.
“You refuse my offers?” said the stranger curtly, without deigning to
notice the sub-editor.
Mr. Bodery had turned his attention to his letters, of which he was
cutting open the envelopes, one by one, with a paper-knife, without,
however, removing the contents. He looked up.
“To-morrow morning,” he said, “you will be able to procure a copy from
any stationer for the trifling sum of sixpence.”
Then the stranger walked slowly past Mr. Morgan out of the room.
“A curse on these Englishmen!” he muttered, as he passed down the narrow
staircase. “If I could only see the article I could tell whether it is
worth resorting to stronger measures or not. However, that is Talma's
business to decide, not mine.”
Mr. Morgan closed the door of the small room and resumed his seat. He
then laughed aloud, but Mr. Bodery did not respond.
“That's one of them,” observed Mr. Morgan comprehensively.
“Yes,” replied the editor, “a dangerous customer. I do not like a
blue-chinned man.”
“I was not much impressed with his diplomatic skill.”
“No; but you must remember that he had difficult cards to play. No doubt
his information was of the scantiest, and--we are not chickens, Morgan.”
“No,” said Mr. Morgan, with a little sigh. He turned to the revision of
the proof-sheets again, while the editor began opening and reading his
telegrams.
“This is a little strong,” exclaimed Mr. Morgan, after a few moments of
silence, broken only by the crackle of paper. “Just listen here:--
“'It simply comes to this--the General of the Society of Jesus is an
autocrat in the worst sense of the word. He holds within his fingers the
wires of a vast machine moving with little friction and no noise. No
farthest corner of the world is entirely beyond its influence; no
political crisis passes that is not hurried on or restrained by its
power. Unrecognised, unseen even, and often undreamt of, the vast
Society does its work. It is not for us who live in a broad-minded,
tolerant age to judge too harshly. It is not for us to say that the
Jesuits are unscrupulous and treacherous. Let us be just and give them
their due. They are undoubtedly earnest in their work, sincere in their
belief, true to their faith. But it is for us to uphold our own
integrity. We are accused--as a nation--of stirring up the seeds of
rebellion, of crime and bloodshed in the heart of another country. Our
denial is considered insufficient; our evidence is ignored. There
remains yet to us one mode of self-defence. After denying the crime (for
crime it is in humane and political sense) we can turn and boldly lay it
upon those whom its results would chiefly benefit: the Roman Catholic
Church in general--the Society of Jesus in particular. We have
endeavoured to show how the followers of Ignatius Loyola could have
brought about the present crisis in France; the extent to which they
would benefit by a religious reaction is patent to the most casual
observer; let the Government of England do the rest.'”
Mr. Bodery was, however, not listening. He was staring vacantly at a
telegram which lay spread out upon the table.
“What is the meaning of this?” he exclaimed huskily.
The sub-editor looked up sharply, with his pen poised in the air. Then
Mr. Bodery read:
“Is Vellacott with you? Fear something wrong. Disappeared from here last
night.”
Mr. Morgan moved in his seat, stretching one arm out, while he pensively
rubbed his clean-shaven chin and looked critically across the table.
“Who is it from?” he asked.
“Sidney Carew, the man he is staying with.”
They remained thus for some moments; the editor looking at the telegram
with a peculiar blank expression in his eyes; Mr. Morgan staring at him
while he rubbed his chin thoughtfully with outspread finger and thumb.
In the lane beneath the window some industrious housekeeper was sweeping
her doorstep with aggravating monotony; otherwise there was no sound.
At length Mr. Morgan rose from his seat and walked slowly to the window.
He stood gazing out upon the smoke-begrimed roofs and crooked chimneys.
Between his lips he held his pen, and his hands were thrust deeply into
his trouser pockets. It was on that spot and in that attitude that he
usually thought out his carefully written weekly article upon “Home
Affairs.” He was still there when the editor touched a small gong which
stood on the table at his side. The silent door instantly opened, and
the supernaturally sharp boy stood on the threshold grimly awaiting his
orders.
“Bradshaw.”
“Yess'r,” replied the boy, closing the door. His inventive mind had
conceived a new and improved method of going downstairs. This was to lie
flat on his back upon the balustrade with a leg dangling on either side.
If the balance was correct, he slid down rapidly and shot out some feet
from the bottom, as he had, from an advantageous point of view on
Blackfriars Bridge, seen sacks of meal shoot from a Thames warehouse
into the barge beneath. If, however, he made a miscalculation, he
inevitably rolled off sideways and landed in a heap on the floor. Either
result appeared to afford him infinite enjoyment and exhilaration. On
this occasion he performed the feat with marked success.
“Guv'nor's goin' on the loose--wants the railway guide,” he confided to
a small friend in the printing interest whom he met as he was returning
with the required volume.
“Suppose you'll be sitten' upstairs now, then,” remarked the
black-fingered one with fine sarcasm. Whereupon there followed a
feint--a desperate lunge to one side, a vigorous bob of the head, and a
resounding bang with the railway guide in the centre of the sarcastic
youth's waistcoat.
Having executed a strategic movement, and a masterly retreat up the
stairs, the small boy leant over the banisters and delivered himself of
the following explanation:
“I 'it yer one that time. Don't do it agin. _Good_ morning, sir.”
Mr. Bodery turned the flimsy leaves impatiently, stopped, looked rapidly
down a column, and, without raising his eyes from the railway guide,
tore a telegraph form from the handle of a drawer at his side. Then he
wrote in a large clear style:
“Will be with you at five o'clock. Invent some excuse for V.'s absence.
On no account give alarm to authorities.”
The sharp boy took the telegram from the editor's hand with an
expression of profound respect upon his wicked features.
“Go down to Banks,” said Mr. Bodery, “ask him to let me have two copies
of the foreign policy article in ten minutes.”
When the silent door was closed, Mr. Morgan wheeled round upon his
heels, and gazed meditatively at his superior.
“Going down to see these people?” he asked, with a jerk of his head
towards the West.
“Yes, I am going by the eleven-fifteen.”
“I have been thinking,” continued the sub-editor, “we may as well keep
the printing-office door locked to-day. That slippery gentleman with the
watery eyes meant business, or I am very much mistaken. I'll just send
upstairs for Bander to go on duty at the shop door to-day as well as
to-morrow; I think we shall have a big sale this week.”
Mr. Bodery rose from his seat and began brushing his faultless hat.
“Yes,” he replied; “do that. It would be very easy to get at the
machinery. Printers are only human!”
“Machinery is ready enough to go wrong when nobody wishes it,” murmured
Mr. Morgan vaguely, as he sat down at the table and began setting the
scattered papers in order.
Mr. Bodery and his colleagues were in the habit of keeping at the office
a small bag, containing the luggage necessary for a few nights in case
of their being suddenly called away. This expedient was due to Christian
Vellacott's forethought.
The editor now proceeded to stuff into his bag sundry morning newspapers
and a large cigar case. Telegraph forms, pen, ink, and foolscap paper
were already there.
“I say, Bodery,” said the sub-editor with grave familiarity, “it seems
to me that you are taking much too serious a view of this matter.
Vellacott is as wide awake as any man, and it always struck me that he
was very well able to take care of himself.”
“I have a wholesome dread of men who use religion as a means of
justification. A fanatic is always dangerous.”
“A sincere fanatic,” suggested the sub-editor.
“Exactly so; and a sincere fanatic in the hands of an agitator is the
very devil. That is whence these fellows got their power. Half of them
are fanatics and the other half hypocrites.”
Mr. Bodery had now completed his preparations, and he held out his plump
hand, which the subeditor grasped.
“I hope,” said the latter, “that you will find Vellacott at the station
to meet you--ha, ha!”
“I hope so.”
“If,” said Mr. Morgan, following the editor to the door--“if he turns up
here, I will wire to Carew and to you, care of the station-master.”