ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
But what is that? A commotion away up the platform, under the clock.
Yes, it is he, the faithful and the valiant! At least it is not he,
but one Baguley, a superannuated police-sergeant, bereft of an eye in
the service of the public peace. He staggers along under the
oppressive burden of a kit bag of portentous dimensions, and twenty
paces behind, sauntering along the platform with the most leisurely
nonchalance in the world, blandly indifferent to the fact that the
London express is due out, is the impressive and slightly pompous bulk
of the fifth conspirator, the great Chief Constable.
There is a tremendous touching of hats along the platform. Even that
true Olympian, the guard of the London express, contrives to dissemble
his legitimate impatience, while Coverdale and his kit bag come aboard
the reserved compartment.
"Cutting it rather fine, weren't you?" said I, with a tremor of relief
in my voice.
"Time enough," said the Chief Constable, subsiding with a growl and a
glower into the left-hand corner.
A shrill blast from the guard, a whistle and a snort from the engine,
and we were irrevocably committed to the untender hands of destiny.
We were an ill-assorted party enough. Fitz the embodiment of masterful
determination, with his black eyes glowing with their inward fire;
Brasset and Jodey as cheerful and almost as _blasé_ as two
undergraduates on their way to attend a point-to-point race meeting;
Coverdale and the humble individual responsible for this narrative,
silent, saturnine and profoundly uncomfortable.
It is true that I was favoured with one fragment of the Chief
Constable's discourse. It was communicated with pregnant brevity ten
miles from Bedford.
"You old fool!" was its context.
"It was Fitz who kept the train for you," I countered weakly.
Whoever was to blame we were fairly in for it now; and to repine was
vain.
"I am glad about your friend O'What's-his-name," said Fitz to Jodey.
"A man of his hands, hey? By the way, I believe you did mention a
revolver."
My relation by marriage grinned an almost disgustingly effusive
affirmative.
"I suppose you fellows have all remembered to bring one?"
Somehow my looks betrayed me.
"You've brought one, Arbuthnot?"
I began to perspire.
"The fact is," said I, "I had a capital .38 Webley, but it appears to
be mislaid."
"That can be easily remedied. I have brought three in case of
emergency."
"How lucky," said I, with insincerity.
We were converging upon the metropolis all too soon.
"I have engaged six bedrooms at Long's Hotel," said Fitz.
"Only five will be necessary," said I, "as O'Mulligan lives in Jermyn
Street."
"You have forgotten Sonia."
It is true that for the moment I had forgotten the cause of all our
woes. Fitz had not, however; indeed, he had forgotten nothing. Not
only did he appear to have everything arranged, but he seemed to have
taken cognisance of the smallest detail.
"I have ordered quite a decent little dinner at Ward's," said he. "You
can always depend upon good plain, solid, old-fashioned English
cooking. They give you the best mulligatawny in London. I must say
myself, that if I have to do a man's work, I like to have a man's meal.
And I think we can depend on some very decent madeira."
"It is very satisfactory to know that," said Coverdale, with his
deepest growl.
"There is nothing like madeira in my opinion," said Fitz, "if you are
going to be busy and you want to keep cool."
"That is something to know," said the Chief Constable, without
enthusiasm.
"I should think it was," said Fitz. "Do you know who gave me the tip?"
The Chief Constable gave a growl in the negative.
"Ferdinand himself. And what that old swine don't know of most things
is not much in the way of knowledge. He once told me he practically
lived on madeira throughout the Austrian campaign; and the night before
Rodova he drank six bottles. He says nothing keeps you so cool and
sharp as madeira."
"Umph," the Chief Constable grunted.
Brasset and Jodey, however, two extremely zealous subalterns in the
Middleshire Yeomanry, were much impressed.
In three taxis we converged upon Long's Hotel; Brasset and Jodey in the
first; the Chief Constable and his kit bag in the second; Fitz and
myself in the third. A very respectable blizzard was raging; the
streets of the metropolis were in a truly horrid condition, wholly
unfit for man or beast; and the atmosphere had the peculiar raw chill
of a thoroughly disagreeable winter's night in London. But at every
yard we slopped precariously through the half-melted slush of the
streets, Fitz seemed to wax more Napoleonic. He was not in any sense
aggressive; there was not a trace of undue mental or moral elevation,
yet he was the possessor of a subtle quality that seemed to render him
equal to any occasion.
"There is just one thing may undo us," he confessed to me.
"Fate?"
"No; to my mind fate is never your master, if you really mean to be
master of it. But there may be a spy. Von Arlenberg is as cunning as
a fox. And if he thinks I may have something to say in the matter, he
will take care that nothing is done without his knowledge. Probably we
are being followed."
To test his grounds for this suspicion, Fitz suddenly ordered the
driver to stop. He thrust his head out of the window, and then an
instant later told our Jehu to drive on.
"Just as I thought," he said. "There is another taxi behind."
My companion became silent.
"Something will have to be done," he said. "It won't do for von
Arlenberg to know too much."
During the remainder of the journey Fitz found not a word to say.
When we came to the quiet family hotel in Bond Street our leader seemed
still preoccupied. Certainly he had grounds for his foreboding. A
fourth taxi drew up behind the three vehicles we had chartered; and I
observed that a man got out of it and, discharging his taxi, entered
the hotel. As he passed me I was careful to note his appearance. He
was a short, sallow, foreign-looking individual, with the collar of his
overcoat turned up; a commonplace creature enough, who on most
occasions would pass without remark.
While we inquired for our rooms, he sat in the lounge unobtrusively.
Save for Fitz's own conviction upon the point, it would never have
occurred to me that we were undergoing a process of espionage.
No sooner had Fitz secured his room, than he said, in a tone
considerably louder than he used as a rule, that he had some business
to see after, and that he would be back in an hour.
The man seated in the lounge could not fail to hear this announcement.
And sure enough, hardly had Fitz passed out of the hotel, when the
fellow rose and also took his leave.
"What is Fitzwaren's game now?" inquired Coverdale.
I refrained from advancing any theory as to the nature of Fitz's game.
For that matter, I had no theory to advance. It was clear enough that
the leader of our enterprise was fully justified in his suspicion, but
what his sagacity would profit him, I was wholly at a loss to divine.
I was convinced that the business that had called him so suddenly into
the sleet-laden darkness of the streets had to do with the man who had
passed out of the hotel upon his heels; yet precisely what that
business was, it was futile to conjecture.
Prior to our departure for Ward's the time hung upon our hands somewhat
heavily. Brasset and Jodey utilised some of it in bestowing even more
pains than usual upon their appearance. In these days it is not
necessary to don powder, ruffles and a brocaded waistcoat for the
purpose of dining at Ward's, but there is an unwritten law which
expects you to wear a white vest at least with your evening clothes.
Even Coverdale and I thought well to comply with this sumptuary law.
We were both past the age when one's tailor is omnipotent; but when in
Rome, those who would be thought men of the world are careful to do
like the Romans.
Four carefully groomed specimens of British manhood greeted Fitz in the
hotel foyer upon his return. It was then five minutes to seven, and
our mentor entered in a perfectly cool and collected manner. He
apologised, perhaps a thought elaborately, for the necessity which had
deprived us of his society. Twenty minutes later he was looking as
spick and span as the rest of us.
While the hotel porter was whistling up the necessary means for our
conveyance to Saint James's Street, I found Fitz at my elbow.
"By the way," said he in a casual undertone, "did you mention to the
others about the fellow who followed us in the taxi?"
The answer was in the negative.
"I'm glad of that. I think it will be wise if you don't. It might
worry them, you know. And there is no need to worry about him now."
"Have you thrown him off the scent?"
"Yes," said Fitz, quietly. "We shall have no more trouble from that
sportsman."
I forbore to allow my curiosity any further rein upon this subject.
Beneath Fitz's cool and cordial tone was a suggestion that he would
thank me to dismiss it. Howbeit, I had no hint as to what had happened
outside in the street, and I was burning to know.
It was a minute past the half-hour when we arrived at Ward's, but the
punctual O'Mulligan was there already. He rejoiced in the name of
Alexander; his freckles were many and he had a shock of red hair. His
nose was of the snub variety; his ears stuck out at right angles; his
eyes were light green; and his jaw was square and massive and the most
magnificently aggressive the mind of man can conceive. Regarded from
the purely æsthetic standpoint, Alexander O'Mulligan might be a subject
for discussion, yet he was as full of "points" as a prize bulldog. He
was not so tall as Coverdale, but every ounce of him was solid muscle;
his chest was deep and spreading, his hands were corded, and he had the
grip of a garotter.
Alexander O'Mulligan shook hands all round with the greatest
comprehensiveness. As he did so he grinned from ear to ear in the
sheer joy of acquaintanceship. Fitz was his first victim and I was his
last, but each of us would as lief shake hands with a gibbon as with
our friend O'Mulligan. The fellow was so abominably hearty. He shook
hands as though it was the thing of all others he loved doing best in
the world.
The dinner was admirable. Whether it was force of example, or the
magnetic presence of Alexander O'Mulligan, I am not prepared to say,
but certainly we did ourselves very well. Upon first entering the
hallowed precincts of Ward's, I had been in no mood to appreciate
"really good old-fashioned English cooking." One would have thought
that only the most _recherché_ of dinners would have tempted us in our
present state of mind. But somehow our new friend O'Mulligan dispensed
an atmosphere of Gargantuan good humour.
Hardly had we come to close quarters with the far-famed mulligatawny,
which was quite appropriate to the conditions prevailing without, when
our latest recruit insisted that one and all must dine with him on the
morrow, and then adjourn to the National Sporting Club, for the purpose
of witnessing "Burns's do with the 'Gunner.'"
If I live to the age of a hundred and twenty, I shall not forget our
little dinner at Ward's. Six commonplace specimens of _les hommes
moyens sensuels_ with lethal weapons in their pockets and anything from
pitch and toss to manslaughter in their hearts! Really, it was the
incongruous carried to the verge of the _bizarre_.
Fitz at the head of the table was gracious to a degree. The fellow was
revealing a whole gamut of unsuspected qualities. His composure, his
half-gay, half-sinister _insouciance_, his alertness, his knowledge,
his faculty for action, which seemed to grow in proportion with the
demands that were made upon it--such an array of qualities was
curiously inconsistent with the heedless waster the world had always
judged him to be.
Now that he had come to grips with fate the real Nevil Fitzwaren was
emerging with considerable potency. As far as "the married man, the
father of the family, and the county member" was concerned, the
fellow's dæmonic power was the cause of his dining quite reasonably
well. As for Coverdale, after swallowing his plate of mulligatawny,
his glance ceased to reproach me. His habitual philosophy and the
old-fashioned English cooking began to walk hand in hand. The
evening's business was quite likely to cost him his billet, but at
least it was sure to be excellent fun. Besides, when he stood fairly
committed to a thing, it was his habit to see it through.
Dinner was conducted in the spirit of leisurely harmony which is due to
the traditions accruing to the shade of John Ward, who left this vale
of tears in 1720. Fitz assured us that there was no hurry. If we got
a move on about nine we should have plenty of time to do our business
with his Excellency.
"You haven't quite explained the orders for the day, my dear fellow,"
said Coverdale, taking a reverential sip of the famous old brandy.