“Phineas,” said the Lord Treasurer--“my breeches!”
The attendant, stooping to the august legs, reverentially relieved
them of their small-clothes, and his lordship stood up in his shirt
with his back to the fire. Even so denuded, he could never have
conceived himself as anything less than a hero to his valet--no, not
when, with a comfortable rearward shrug of his shoulders, he lifted
the veil of his unspeakableness to the gratifying warmth.
“Let me see, Phineas,” said the Lord Treasurer. “To-morrow is
Wednesday--the black velvet with the plain falling band, is it not?
Very well. Empty that pocket of its papers, Phineas.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Sir Richard Weston, Baron of Exchequer and Lord High Treasurer to his
Majesty King Charles I., was disrobing for the night in his official
residence off Chancellor’s or Chancery Lane. He was a man of
inflexible routine, who changed his raiment, parcelled out his duties,
and pigeon-holed his correspondence with an unswerving regularity from
which nothing could ever make him deviate but a bribe. He had a suit
of clothes for Monday, a suit for Wednesday, another for Friday, and
so on--a change on every third day; and in the doublet of each suit
was a little pocket below the waist, into which it was his custom to
slip all memoranda of affairs requiring his early attention. This
pocket it was the valet’s duty to explore upon every occasion of
exchange into fresh habiliments.
Now, _system_ has this drawback, that it entices those who practise it
into a confidence in their inability to err, which is in itself an
error. Pigeon-holes are useful things, if one is convinced that every
article in them is docketed under its obvious letter. But, alas! in
actual fact the short cut too often proves itself the longest way
round, and the pigeon has an amazing way of hiding in the unexpected
compartment. He may fail to answer to his own name or his firm’s, and
leave one in the last resort only his subject or his business by which
to trace him--if, indeed, one can identify either under a capital
letter. We have known an orderly man to tear the heart out of a nest
of pigeon-holes from “B” to “Z,” only at length to find what he sought
under “Anonymous.” Yet he remained no less convinced than the
Treasurer that he had eliminated confusion from his category of
affairs. System, in short, may provide against everything but the bad
memory which most trusts to it.
Sir Richard, pleasantly conscious of his calves and upwards, reared
himself on his toes and yawned and sank down again.
“Is aught there, varlet?” he demanded. “Bring me whatsoever it
containeth.”
The man laid down the discarded doublet.
“Naught, my lord,” he said, “but a single scrap of paper.”
“Give it me.”
The servant crossed the room, and presented the memorandum with an
obeisance. The master accepted it, glanced down, and stood suddenly
rigid.
“_Remember Cæsar!_”
That was all--just those two words, written bold in ink in an unknown
hand. “Remember Cæsar!”
Sir Richard was holding the paper in his right hand; dropping the
veil, he brought his left to the front and stood staring in a sort of
stupor. A consciousness as of chill, as of a sense of warmth and
security suddenly and shockingly withdrawn, tingled through his veins.
It was succeeded by a faint thrill of grievance or self-pity. He had
been so exceedingly comfortable and happy a moment ago.
“Remember Cæsar!”--just those two words, no more, but how voluminous
in terrific import! “Remember Cæsar!” Remember the retribution that
always waited on “vaulting ambition.” A vision of a vast Senate-Hall,
of a throng of passionate figures holding aloft blood-stained daggers,
of a silent, prostrate form in their midst, rose before him. “Remember
Cæsar!” Remember Cæsar’s fate: remember what came to befall the
greatest soldier, statesman, jurist of his time--possibly of all time.
A certain flattery in the analogy for an instant restored the colour
to Sir Richard’s cheek. Perhaps the comparison was not so extravagant
a one after all. The position of Lord Treasurer was so exalted, that,
looking down from it, all lesser offices and all lesser men appeared
dwarfed. It needed surely a stupendous intellect to preserve its
equilibrium at that altitude. And yet, such the height, such the fall.
The Treasurer’s momentary heroics came down with an anticipatory
thwack which left him gasping.
If he could only avoid Cæsar’s fate while admitting the soft analogy!
The illustrious Imperator had also, if he remembered rightly, received
_his_ warning, and had ignored it. To ape the foolhardinesses of the
great was surely not to justify one’s relation to them in the best
sense.
A shrill wind blew upon the casement. Its voice had but now awakened a
snug response in the Treasurer’s breast. All in a moment it spoke to
him of the near approach of the Ides of March, and he shivered and
dropped the paper to the floor.
“Phineas,” he said in an agitated voice, “Phineas! How came that into
my pocket?”
The valet, busy about his affairs, approached deferentially but
curiously, and, at a sign from his master, lifted and examined the
billet, and shook his head.
“You don’t know?”
“No, indeed, my lord.”
“How do you read it, man? How do you read it?”
Phineas scratched his poll, and grinned and was silent.
“You are just an intolerable ass,” cried his master. He danced in his
excitement. His dignity was all gone; he was simply a man in a shirt.
“Fetch master secretary!” he cried. “Fetch master comptroller! Rouse
the household, and warn the porter at the gate! Send every one in to
me, here and at once.”
The valet hesitated.
“Do you hear?” shouted Sir Richard. “Why do you wait?”
“It doesn’t come down to your knees, my lord,” said Phineas.
The Treasurer leaped to a press and tore out a robe. “Go!” he screamed
over his shoulder.
In a minute they all came hurrying in--comptroller, secretary, clerks,
grooms, and underlings--in dress or in undress, a motley crew, as the
occasion had found them.
“What is it, my lord?” asked the first, in an astonished voice. He was
a tall, pallid man, so inured to method and routine that a rat behind
the wainscot was enough to throw him into a flutter.
“Master Hugh,” cried the Treasurer--“Master Hugh! I found that in my
pocket when I came to strip--a thing that I had never put there, or
put unconsciously. What do you make of it, my friend? What does it
import?”
They all gathered round the comptroller to read the billet, and,
having examined it, fell apart with grave, inquiring faces.
The comptroller looked up, his lips trembling.
“My lord,” he said, “it can signify but one thing.”
“My assassination?”
“Without doubt, my lord.”
The Treasurer turned pale to the bare dome of his head. He had to the
last hoped to have his worst apprehensions refuted; but it was plain
that only one construction could be put upon the missive.
“How did it reach me?” he said dismally. “How did it get there?”
“Probably, my lord,” ventured the secretary, a sleek, apologetic man,
“it was slipped into your lordship’s hand by one whom your lordship
mistook for a chance importunate suitor, and your lordship accepted
and pouched and forgot it.”
“It may have represented a threat or a friendly warning,” said the
comptroller.
“Your lordship hath many and mighty enemies,” said the secretary, “as
who hath not among the great and influential?”
“Your power, your imperious will, your favour in high places, my
lord,” said the comptroller--“these be all incitements to the envious
and unscrupulous. Without question there is some conspiracy formed
against your life.”
“I could almost suspect you all of collusion in it,” cried the
Treasurer bitterly, “for the relish with which you dispose of me.”
The comptroller murmured distressfully, “O, my lord, my lord!”
Sir Richard broke out, moved beyond endurance:
“What the devil do you all, moaning and croaking? I am not food yet
for your commiseration. The plot may be already forward while you
babble. Look under the bed, Phineas.”
The valet dived, rose, scoured the room, examined into every possible
lurking-place.
“Shall I set a guard, my lord?” inquired the comptroller.
The Treasurer exploded:
“Set a guard when the thief is in! A household of braying jackasses!
Go, dolt, and remedy your oversight. Shut the gates and warn the
porter; beat up every hole and corner first. See that not a soul is
allowed entrance on any pretext whatever. And, hark ye, Master Hugh,
no eye to-night shall be shut on penalty of my high displeasure. An
unwinking vigil, an unwinking vigil, Master Hugh, on the part of all.
See to it. And if any one asks an audience, save of the first
consequence and character, I am indisposed, Master Hugh--I am
indisposed, do you hear?”
He was so, in very truth, as he drove them all out, and locked the
door upon himself, and sank into a seat before the fire. A sickness of
apprehension stirred in his bile and made his face like yellow wax.
This business had given him such a shock as he had never before
experienced. What did it mean--what could it mean? No doubt the
secretary’s theory was the right one: he was incessantly being
importuned by petitioners, and often, to get rid of them, he would
accept their memorials, and pocket and forget all about them. So must
it have been with this paper, thrust into his hand amidst a crowd. It
was merciful chance alone that had restored it to his notice before
too late. But, accepting all that, _why_ was his life threatened? His
heart was full of an emotional complaint and protest against destiny.
He was not an unjust man as things went--certainly not so signally as
to merit this fatal distinction.
He passed a terrible night, shrinking from every shadow, starting at
every sound. Morning when it came only added to his sick perplexity.
What course was he to pursue, fearful of the lurking terror, to
preserve his dignity and his life at once? He dressed in a sort of
mental palsy, crept breakfastless to his library, and sent for the
comptroller’s report. So far, it appeared, the night had passed
without event. No doubt the deed was destined for the open air.
As he stood, trying to deliberate his policy, a visitor, the Earl of
Tullibardine, was announced as craving an audience. His lordship was a
personal friend of his, and beyond suspicion. Reluctantly Sir Richard
gave the order for his admittance.
The nobleman came in breezily, and with much concern expressed over
the report of the Treasurer’s indisposition. “Which,” said he, “maketh
me loth to trouble your lordship on a personal matter, which, saving
the pressure of the occasion, I would forbear. But the business calls
for dispatch, and your lordship had promised me an answer.”
Sir Richard put a hand to his forehead.
“Not well,” he murmured, “and overtaxed. You must pardon me, my lord.
What business?”
“Why,” cried the Earl, “have you forgot how you promised me three days
ago to speak to the King about appointing my kinsman, Robert Cæsar,
to a vacant clerkship of the Rolls, and how, asking me for a
memorandum of the matter, I writ ‘_Remember Cæsar_’ on a slip of
paper and gave it you?”
Sir Richard stood staring a moment, then burst into an uproarious
laugh.