ON THE EVE
A calm inquiry into the case rendered it inconceivable that two pillars
of the Constitution should commit themselves irrevocably to a scheme of
action whose true sphere was the boards of a playhouse or the pages of
a lurid romance. By what lapse of the reason had they permitted
themselves to drift into a position so ludicrous yet so eminently
dangerous? Possibly it was right for irresponsible youth; possibly it
was right for men of temperament like the heroic Fitz; but for
Lieutenant-Colonel John Chalmers Coverdale, C.M.G., late of His
Majesty's Carabineers, and Odo Arbuthnot, Member of Parliament for the
Uppingdon Division of Middleshire, it was confessedly an egregious
folly.
We were both past the age when such a scheme would have appealed to our
high spirits as a superior sort of "rag." Once embarked upon it, who
should say whither it might lead? It was impossible to foretell the
course of such an adventure. Two such devotees of law and order did
well to entertain misgivings, even with the winecup in their hands.
As far as the other side of the picture was concerned, Fitz was fully
entitled to regard himself as a much-injured man. It is true that in
the first instance he had taken the liberty of contracting a morganatic
marriage with a princess in the direct line of succession of a reigning
house. But in a country like ours, where the freedom of the subject
and the right of the individual to shape his own destiny form the
keystone of the arch upon which the fabric of society is raised, it was
impossible not to sympathise keenly with Fitz. All freeborn Englishmen
could not fail to resent the intervention of an irresponsible third
party, who was recklessly determined to violate a tie that had the
sanction of God.
Over our cigars, when the servants had left the room, the orders for
the morrow were discussed.
"I hope, Fitzwaren," said the Chief Constable, "that you fully realise
the extreme gravity of your undertaking. A single error of judgment, a
single slip in your mode of procedure, and we are certain to find
ourselves very badly landed indeed. Personally, I hope very much that
you will leave lethal weapons out of the case. If we carry them we run
up against the law; and not only will they prejudice our cause but
there is no saying to what they may lead."
"I should like," said I, "to identify myself with these remarks of
Coverdale's. I concur entirely."
Fitz removed the cigar from his lips and leaned back in his chair. He
seemed to be pondering deeply.
"I respect the opinion of both of you," he said, speaking with a good
deal of deliberation after a pause that was somewhat lengthy. "You are
quite right in one sense, but in the most important sense of all I am
sure you are wrong. I should like everybody who is going into this
business to understand clearly that it is most likely to prove
extremely serious. We must take every reasonable precaution, because
the moment we enter von Arlenberg's house we carry our lives in our
hands. I know these Illyrians; as soon as they understand our game
they will use no ceremony. Law or no law, they will shoot us like dogs
if they think it is necessary. And I can assure you they will think it
is necessary, unless we get them with their hands up."
"I don't like lethal weapons," said the Chief Constable.
"I don't like them either," said Fitz, "but if we are to come through
with this business, we shall be compelled to carry them." Suddenly his
voice sank. "The truth is, this game is so dangerous, that I don't
urge anybody to take part in it. Let any man who thinks the cause is
good enough follow me with a loaded revolver in his right-hand trouser
pocket; and let any man who doesn't keep out of it and I shall be the
last to blame him."
In the language there may not have been persuasiveness, but there was a
good deal in the tone. Fitz's manner was that of a leader of others;
of one who foresaw the risks he incurred; who embraced them
deliberately; who having once formed his plan stuck to it whatever it
might entail.
Coverdale had seen service in Zululand, the Transvaal, and in Eygpt;
Brasset and I had borne a humble share in the recent transactions in
South Africa; yet in an unconscious way we were all susceptible to the
play of a powerful will and a magnetic personality. Cynics may say it
was the wine that turned the scale--the juice of the grape is the fount
of many a hardy resolution--but I prefer to think it was the quality of
Fitz himself. Retreat at the eleventh hour might have been construed
as dishonourable, but men like Coverdale had no need to be
fantastically nice upon the point of honour. It was, I think, that
Fitz carried conviction. His was the inestimable gift of rising with
his theme. Heaven knew! the enterprise was foolhardy, but the man
himself was a good one to follow.
All the same, when we adjourned our meeting with the compact that we
should assemble at Middleham railway station on the morrow in time to
catch the 3.30 to London, I went home in a state of depression. Were I
to have been hanged at cock-crow I could not have found my bed more
unsympathetic. Most of the night I lay awake in a state of the most
unworthy apprehension. The very intangibility of the business of the
morrow seemed to make it a nightmare. Had it been a duel, or a
definite pitting of one known force against another, it would have
seemed less uncomfortable, less sinister. As it was, we did not know
precisely to what we stood committed. The thing might prove merely
farcical. On the contrary, it might involve battle, murder and sudden
death.
A dozen times in the dismal darkness the question was put, by what
chain of events had a mildly egoistical hedonist, the husband of a
charming lady, the father of a merry blue-eyed daughter, with a
reasonable competence and an ambition to excel at golf, come to imperil
all these delectable things? Merely at the beck of a wild-living
profligate who felt he had been wronged.
Stated as bluntly as this in the high court of reason the whole thing
seemed absurd. There was so much to lose and so little to gain. The
scheme was preposterous. Nevil Fitzwaren might certainly be the victim
of an injustice, but what of Miss Lucinda and her mama? True,
Coverdale was also a party to the scheme; but he was by nature
adventurous, a seeker after something fresh. To be sure he imperilled
his billet, but he was understood to have private means.
"Odo Arbuthnot," said the thin voice of reason at three o'clock in the
morning, "you must withdraw from this incredibly foolish and
reprehensible proceeding."
Howbeit, the voice of reason never sways us entirely. Accordingly I
made a particularly feeble breakfast, wrote a letter to my grandmother
in Bolton Street, sped the Madam, looking supremely gay and engaging,
on the way to her fond parents at Doughty Bridge, Yorks, read the
immortal story of "The Three Bears" to Miss Lucinda for the thousand
and first time, carefully overhauled the six-chambered weapon which a
professional criminal had yet to put to the test, and in a miserable
frame of mind sat down to luncheon in the company of my relation by
marriage.
It may be that the holy state of wedlock makes cowards of us all.
Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther was certainly not embarrassed by
such qualms as these. He was even more serenely magnificent than usual
in a suit of grey tweeds aggressively checked and a waistcoat that was
conducting a violent quarrel with a Zingari necktie; while his air of
hopeful enjoyment of life as it was and as it was going to be, provoked
some rather pregnant reflections upon the crime of homicide.
"O'Mulligan's wired. Mad keen. A regular nut."
The well of English undefiled grows more copious with the process of
ages. By what mysterious alchemy the quality of mad keenness
transforms its possessor into "a regular nut" I was too low-spirited to
elucidate.
"Fitz is a game bird, ain't he?" Flamboyant youth heartily poured half
a bottle of Worcestershire sauce over its cutlet. "Didn't think he had
it in him. Merely shows how you can be deceived."
I groaned in spirit, but plucked up the courage to take a dismal nibble
at a piece of toast.
"That chap Coverdale is a bit of a funkstick. Made himself rather an
ass about those firearms."
I assented feebly.
"Bet you a pony they want our photographs for the _Morning Mirror_."
I rose from the table and took a turn in the kitchen garden. When your
heart is fairly in your boots, the society of your peers has its
drawbacks.
At half-past two, punctual to the minute, the toot of the car was heard
at the hall door. Miss Lucinda received a parting salute and an
illicit box of chocolates which consoled her immensely for the
temporary loss--permanent perhaps in the case of one--of both her
parents.
I confess to being one of those weak mortals who on a journey is
invariably accompanied by the consciousness of having left something
undone or having omitted to pack some unremembered but quite
indispensable necessary. Three-fourths of the way to the station I was
haunted with this feeling in a more acute form than usual, and then
quite suddenly, with a spasm of perverse joy, it occurred to me that I
had left the burglar's foe in its secret receptacle.
"Thank God for that!" was the pious hyperbole which ascended to heaven.
At the station we were not the first to arrive on the scene, although
there was a full quarter of an hour in hand. Fitz in a fur overcoat of
some pretensions bore a look of collected importance which was quite in
keeping with the _rôle_ he had to fill.
"Tickets are taken," said he, "and carriage reserved for five."
In front of the bookstall a yellow newsbill displayed the contents of a
London evening paper, issued at noon. "The Attempt on the Life of the
King of Illyria. Latest Details."
"Clumsy fools," said the son-in-law of Ferdinand the Twelfth, gloomily.
"They seem to have bungled the business badly, but they bungle
everything in Illyria."
"His Excellency, the Ambassador, would appear to be an exception to the
general rule."
Fitz bestowed upon me a murderous glower.
Brasset arrived full five minutes in advance of the London express.
Pink and cherubic, his recent perplexity had yielded to an omnipresent
look of peace. His well-groomed air suggested that he took a simple
pleasure in being alive.
The question, however, for the four conspirators assembled on the
Middleham platform was, what had happened to the Chief Constable? Was
it conceivable that the noble Brutus had left us in the lurch?
Remembering my own travail of the spirit, which still endured, it
seemed most natural and becoming to my partial judgment, that one so
wise had repented of his folly at the eleventh hour.
Howbeit, my lips were sealed upon these illicit thoughts. Fitz himself
suspected no treachery. He ushered us into the reserved compartment
with immense dignity, and retained the left-hand corner seat, with the
back to the engine, for the missing warrior.
"Coverdale is cutting it fine," I ventured to remark.
"There is a minute yet," said Fitz, with an insouciance which, to use a
much-abused expression, was Napoleonic.
A porter who suffered from rickets put in his head.
"All London, gentlemen?"
"Yes," said Fitz, introducing a shilling to a grimy but willing palm.
"And just see that the station-master keeps the train a few minutes for
Colonel Coverdale."
"Agen the regulations, you know, sir," said the porter, with polite
misgiving.
"Against what regulations?" said the undefeated Fitz.
"The Company's."
"Against the Company's regulations! Who the devil are the Company that
_they_ should have regulations?"
This was a poser for the porter, who made a rather ineffectual apology
for such a piece of assumption on the part of the Company. But the
station-master's bell was ringing, and I, peering wildly through the
window, in the vain hope that my mentor, my hope, my stand-by might
after all appear, could see never a sign of Lieutenant-Colonel John
Chalmers Coverdale, C.M.G., late of His Majesty's Carabineers.