attack the best form of self-defence. I'm much mistaken if they don't
know something of this business." For it was well known that the
exiled Bolsheviks were vexed at the admission of monarchist Russia to
the League, and might take almost any means (Russians, whether White
or Red, being like that) of showing it.
"An enemy hath done this thing," murmured the gentle voice of Dr.
Silvio Franchi to Lord John Lester, who had walked impatiently out of
the Assembly Hall when the voting began, because he did not believe
that a committee was going to be of the least use in finding his
friends. He turned courteously towards the ex-cardinal, whom he
greatly liked.
"What discord, where all was harmony and brotherhood!" continued Dr.
Franchi sadly.
"Not quite all. Never quite all, even before," corrected Lord John,
who, though an idealist, faced facts. "There were always elements of
... But we were on the way; we were progressing. And now--this."
He waved his hand impatiently at the vociferous Slavs, and then at the
door of the Assembly Hall. "All at one another's throats; all hurling
accusations; all getting telegrams from home about each other; all
playing the fool. And there are some people who say there is no need
for a League of Nations in such a world!"
23
Impatiently Lord John Lester pushed his way through the chattering
crowds in the lobby, and out into the street. He wanted to breathe,
and to get away from the people who regarded the recent disasters
mainly as an excitement, a news story, or a justification for their
international distastes. To him they were pure horror and grief. They
were his friends who had disappeared; it was his League which was
threatened.
Moodily he walked along the paths of the Jardin Anglais; broodingly he
seated himself upon a bench and stared frowning at the _jet d'eau_,
and suspected, against his will, the Spanish and Portuguese Americans.
A large lady in purple, walking on high-heeled shoes as on stilts, and
panting a little from the effort, stopped opposite him.
"Such a favour!" she murmured. "I told my husband it was too much to
ask. But no, he would have it. He made me come and speak to you. I've
left him over there by the fountain." She creaked and sat down on the
bench, and Lord John, who had risen as she addressed him, sat down
too, wondering how most quickly to get away.
"The Union," said the lady; and at that word Lord John bent towards
her more attentively. "Lakeside branches. We're starting them, my
husband and I, in all the lake villages. So important; so necessary.
These villages are terribly behind the times. They simply _live_
in the past. And what a past! Picturesque if you will--but not
progressive--oh, no! So some of us have decided that there _must_ be
a branch of the Union in every lake village. We have brought a little
band of organisers over to Geneva to-day, to attend the Assembly.
But the Assembly is occupied this morning in electing committees.
Necessary, of course; but no mention of the broader principles on
which the League rests can be made until the voting is over. So we are
having a little business meeting in an office off the Rue Croix d'Or.
And when my husband and I caught sight of you he said to me, 'If only
we could get Lord John to come right away now and address a few words
to our little gathering--oh, but really quite a few--its dead bones
would live!' Now, do I ask too much, Lord John?"
"My dear lady," said Lord John, "I'm really sorry, but I simply
haven't the time, I wish you all the luck in the world, but----"
The purple lady profoundly sighed.
"I _told_ my husband so. It was too much to ask. He's a colonel, you
know--an Anglo-Indian--and always goes straight for what he wants,
never hesitating. He _would_ make me ask you; ... but at least we have
your good wishes, Lord John, haven't we?"
"Indeed, yes."
"The motto of our little village branches," she added as she rose, "is
_Si vis pacem, para bellum_. Or, in some villages, _Si vis bellum,
para pacem_. Both so true, aren't they? Now which do you think is the
best?"
Lord John Lester looked down at her in silence, momentarily at a loss
for an answer.
"Really, my dear lady, ... I'm afraid I don't like either at all. In
fact, neither in any way expresses the ideals or principles of the
League."
She looked disappointed.
"Now, you _don't_ say so! But those are the lines we're founding our
branches on. One has to be so careful, don't you think, or a branch
may get on the wrong lines, with all these peace cranks about. And
every branch has its influence. They're ignorant in these lake
villages, but they do mean well, and they're only anxious to learn. If
only you would come and tell our little organising band how we _ought_
to start them!"
Lord John, having taken the lady in, from her topmost purple feathers
to her pin-like heels, decided that, in all probability, she had not
got a League mind. And she and the Anglo-Indian colonel (who probably
had not got this type of mind either, for Anglo-Indian colonels so
exceedingly often have another) were going to start branches of the
League of Nations Union all up the lake, to be so many centres of
noxious, watered-down, meaningless League velleity, of the type which
he, Lord John, found peculiarly repugnant. Perhaps, after all, it
might be his duty to go and say a few wholesome words to the little
organising band assembled in the office off the Rue Croix d'Or. Yes;
it was obviously his duty, and not to be shirked. With a sigh he
looked at his watch. It need not take him more than half an hour, all
told.
"Very well," he said. "If you would find a very few words of any
use----"
She gave a joyful pant.
"You're _too_ good, Lord John! _How_ grateful we shall all be! You
shall tell us _all_ about how we ought to do it, and give us some
really _good_ mottoes!... I remember helping with branches of the
National Service League before the war, and they had such a nice
motto--'The path of duty is the way to safety.' ... _That_ would be a
good Union motto, don't you think? Or '_Festina lente_'--for we
mustn't be impatient, must we? Or, 'Hands across the sea!' For
_nothing_ is so important as keeping our _entente_ with France intact,
is it.... The people of this country will not stand any weakening
... _you_ know.... My husband reads me that out of the paper at
breakfast.... There he is ... Frederick, isn't this good of Lord
John...."
24
Professor Arnold Inglis, that most gentle, high-minded and engaging of
scholars, who most unfittingly represented part of a wild, hot,
uncultured, tropical continent on the League, strolled out after lunch
before the meeting of Committee 9 to see the flowers and fruit in the
market-place. He was sad, because, like his fellow-delegate and
friend, Lord John Lester, he hated this sort of disturbance. Like Lord
John, he resented this violence which was assaulting the calm and
useful progress of the Assembly, and was torn with anxiety for the
fate of the three delegates. He wished he had Lord John with him this
afternoon, that they might discuss the situation, but he had not seen
him since he had left the Assembly that morning, so characteristically
impatient at the prospect of the appointment of Committee 9.
Professor Inglis stood by a fruit-stall and looked down absently at
the lovely mass of brilliant fruit and vegetables that lay on it.
Presently he became aware that some one at his side was pouring forth
a stream of not unbeautiful language in a low, frightened voice.
Looking round, he saw a small, ugly, malaria-yellow woman, gazing at
him with frightened black eyes and clasped hands, and talking rapidly
in a curious blend of ancient and modern Greek. What she appeared to
be saying was:--
"I am persecuted by Turks; I beg you to succour me!"
"But what," said Professor Inglis, also speaking in a blend, but with
more of the ancient tongue in it that had hers, for he was more at
home in classical than in modern Greek, "can I do? Can you not appeal
to the police?"
"I dare not," she replied. "I am in a minority in my house; I am an
unprotected serving-woman, and there are three Turks in the same house
who leave me no peace. Even now one of them is waiting for me with a
stick because I had a misfortune and broke his hookah."
"It is certainly," said the Professor, "a case for the police. If you
do not like to inform them, I will do so myself. Tell me where you
live."
"Just round the corner here, in a house in that passage," she said.
"Come with me and see for yourself, sir, if you doubt my word as to my
sufferings."
Professor Inglis hesitated for a moment, not wishing to be drawn into
city brawls, but when she added, "I appealed to you, sir, because I
have been told how you are always on the side of the unprotected, and
also love the Greeks," his heart melted in him, and he forgot that,
though he did indeed love the ancient Greeks, he did not very much
care for the moderns of that race (such, for example, as M. Lapoulis,
the Greek delegate), and only remembered that here did indeed seem to
be a very Unprotected Minority (towards which persons his heart was
always soft), and that the Minority was a woman, poor, ill-favoured,
and malarial, talking a Greek more ancient than was customary with her
race, and persecuted by Turks, which nation Professor Inglis, in spite
of his League mind, could not induce himself to like. All these things
he recollected as he stood hesitating by the fruit stall, and he
reflected also that, until he had in some degree verified the woman's
tale, he would not care to trouble the already much burdened police
with it; so, with a little sigh, he turned to the poor woman and told
her he would come with her to her house and see for himself, and would
then assist her to take steps to protect herself. She thanked him
profusely, and led the way to the passage which she had mentioned.
25
Chivalry, pity for the unprotected, love of the Greek tongue, dislike
of Turks--by all these quite creditable emotions was Professor Inglis
betrayed, as you may imagine, to his fate.
26
Henry Beechtree, when he left the Assembly Hall, had, for his part,
fish to fry in the Secretariat, and thither he made his rapid way. He
had arranged to meet Miss Doris Wembley, the secretary of Charles
Wilbraham, that morning in her chief's room, and then to lunch with
her.
Henry was getting to know Miss Wembley very well. It seemed to him as
if he had always known her, as, indeed, he had. He knew the things she
would say before she said them. He knew which were the subjects she
would expand on, and which would land her, puzzled and uninterested,
in inward non-comprehension and verbal assent. She was a nice girl, a
jolly girl, an efficient girl, and a very pretty girl. She liked
Henry, whom she thought amusing, shabby, and queer.
They began, of course, by talking of the fresh disappearances.
"We've got bets in the Secretariat on who will be the next," she told
him. "I've put my money on Branting. I don't know why, but I somehow
feel he'll go soon. But some people say it'll be the S.G. himself....
Isn't it too awful for their wives, poor things? Poor little Madame
Chang! They say she's being simply wonderful."
"Wonderful," repeated Henry. "That's what widows are, isn't it? But is
it, I wonder, enough to make one wonderful that one's husband should
disappear alive? You see, they may not be dead, these poor delegates;
they may exist, hidden away somewhere."
"Oh, dear, yes, I hope so. Isn't it all too weird? Have you _any_
theories, Mr. Beechtree?"
Henry looked non-committal and said that doubtless every one in Geneva
had their private suspicions (often, for that matter, made public),
and that he was no exception. He then turned the conversation on to
Wilbraham's father-in-law, who was staying so privately in Geneva,
and they had much fruitful talk on this and other subjects.
27
The Assembly, having elected the committee, and listened to a long
speech from a Persian prince about the horrors of modern warfare, and
a poem of praise from an eminent Italian Swiss on the beauties of the
poet Dante, whose birthday was approaching, broke up for lunch.
The committee (which was to be called Committee 9) was to meet at the
Secretariat that afternoon and consider what steps should next be
taken. It was a rather large committee, because nearly every one had
been anxious to be on it. It consisted of delegates from France, Great
Britain, Italy, Norway, Central Africa, Sweden, Belgium, Holland,
Spain, Albania, Serbia, Brazil, Chili, Bolivia, Panama, Paraguay,
Uruguay, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Greece, Poland, Lithuania, and Haiti.
Its sessions were to be in private, in spite of the strongly expressed
contrary desire of Lord John Lester. The chairman was the delegate
for Paraguay. It was expected that he would carefully and skilfully
guide the lines on which the committee should work so that the
regrettable suspicions which had accidentally fallen on certain Latin
Americans should be diverted into other and more deserving channels.
28
The proceedings of the first meeting of Committee No. 9 can be best
reported in the words of the Assembly Journal for the following day.
This journal, with its terse and yet detailed accounts of current
happenings, its polite yet lucid style, and its red-hot topicality
(for it is truly a journal), makes admirable reading for those who
like their literature up-to-date. Those who attend the meetings of the
Assembly are, as a matter of fact, excellently well-provided by the
enterprise of the Secretariat with literature. A delegated or a
journalist's pigeon-hole is far better than a circulating library.
New every morning is the supply, and those who, in their spare hours,
like a nice lie down and a nice read (all in two languages) shall have
for their entertainment the Assembly Journal for the day, the Verbatim
Record of the last meetings of the Assembly and Committees, selected
press opinions of the affair (these are often very entertaining, and
journalists approach them with the additional interest engendered by
the hope that the comments they themselves have sent home to their
papers may have been selected for quotation: in passing it may be
observed that Henry Beechtree had, in this matter, no luck), and all
kinds of documents dealing with every kind of matter--the Traffic in
Women, Children, and Opium, the admission of a new State to the
League, international disputes, disagreeable telegrams from one
country about another, the cost of living in Geneva, the organisation
of International Statistics, International Health, or International
Education, the Economic Weapon of the League, the status or the
frontiers of a Central European state, the desirability of a greater
or a less great publicity, messages from the Esperanto Congress, and
so on and so forth; every kind of taste is, in fact, catered for.
To quote, then, the Journal for the day after the first meeting of the
Committee for Dealing with the Disappearance of Delegates:--
"Committee No. IX. met yesterday, Wednesday, Sept. 8th, at
3.30 p.m., under the chairmanship of M. Croza (Paraguay).
"The Chairman pointed out that the agenda before the Committee
fell under several heads:--
"1. Deprecation of baseless suspicions and malicious
aspersions.
"2. Investigation into possible or probable motives for the
assaults.
"3. Consideration of the adoption of precautionary measures
to safeguard in future the persons of delegates.
"4. Organisation of complete house to house search of the
city of Geneva by police.
"5. Consideration of various suspicions based on reason and
common sense.
"In order to carry on these lines of inquiry, five
sub-committees were appointed, each of which would report to
the plenary committee day by day.
"All the sittings of the sub-committees would be in private, as
the publicity which had been demanded by one of the delegates
from Central Africa would vitiate, in this case, the
effectiveness of the inquiry.
"Before the sub-committees separated, several members addressed
the committee. M. Gomez (Panama) proposed that special
attention should be given to the fact that Geneva at all times,
but particularly during the sessions of the Assembly, was a
centre of pestilential societies, among whom were to be found
in large numbers Socialists, Bolshevists, Freemasons, and Jews.
In his opinion, the headquarters of all these societies should
be raided. Above all, it should be remembered that the
delegates were all brothers in friendship, and as such were
above the suspicion of any but the basest minds.
"M. Chapelle (France) said this was indeed true of the
delegates, but that it would be a mistake if the committee
should not keep its mind open to all possibilities, and it must
be remembered that some of the nations most recently admitted
to the League had bands of their fellow-countrymen in Geneva,
who were undoubtedly sore in spirit over recent economic and
political decisions, and might (without, well understood, the
sanction of their delegates) have been guilty of this attack on
the personnel of the League by way of revenge.
"Signor Nelli (Italy) strongly deprecated the suggestion of M.
Chapelle as unworthy of the spirit of fraternity between
nations which should animate members of the League.
"After some further discussion of Item 5 of the agenda, it was
agreed to leave it to the sub-committee appointed to consider
it, and the committee then broke up into five sub-committees."
The Journal, always discreet, sheltered under the words "further
discussion of Item 5" a good deal of consideration of various
suspicions based on reason and common sense. Most members of the
committee, in fact, had their suggestions to make; in committee people
always felt they could speak more freely than in the Assembly, and did
so. Bolshevist refugees, bands of marauding Poles disbanded from
General Zeligowski's army, Sinn Feiners, Orangemen, Albanians, Turks,
unprotected Armenians, Jugo-Slavs, women-traffickers, opium merchants,
Greeks, Zionists, emissaries from Frau Krupp, Mormons, Americans,
Indians, and hired assassins from _l'Intransigeant_ and the _Morning
Post_--all these had their accusers. Finally Mr. Macdermott (Ulster)
said he would like to point out what might not be generally known,
that there was a very widespread Catholic society of dubious morals
and indomitable fanaticism, which undoubtedly had established a branch
in Geneva for the Assembly, and much might be attributable to this.
It was this suggestion which finally caused the chairman to break
the committee hastily up into its sub-committees. And, as has
been said, none of this discussion found its way into the very
well-edited Journal, though it would appear after some days in the
_procès-verbaux_.
29
After the committee broke up, Fergus Macdermott from Belfast, who was
not on one of the sub-committees, walked briskly away from the
Secretariat, and had tea in company with the young man who represented
the _Morning Post_, and who was an old school-fellow of his. Excited
by his own utterances on the subject of Catholics, Fergus Macdermott
suddenly remembered, while drinking his tea, what day it was.
"My God," he remarked, profoundly moved, to Mr. Garth of the _Morning
Post_, "it's the 8th of September."
"What then?" inquired Mr. Garth, who was an Englishman and knew not
days, except those on which university matches were to be played or
races run or armistices celebrated. "What's the 8th?"
The blue eyes of Mr. Macdermott gazed at him with a kind of kindling
Orange stare.
"The 8th," he replied, "is a day we keep in Ulster."
"Do you? How?"
"By throwing stones," said Mr. Macdermott, simply and fervently. "At
processions, you know. It's a great Catholic day--like August 15th--I
forget why. Some Catholic foolery. The birthday of the Virgin Mary, I
fancy. Anyhow we throw stones.... I wonder will there be any
processions here?"
"You can't throw stones if there are," his more discreet friend
admonished him. "Pull yourself together, Fergus, and don't look so
fell. These things simply aren't done outside your maniac country, you
know. Remember where and what you are."
The wild blue fire still leapt in Mr. Macdermott's Celtic eyes. His
mind obviously still hovered round processions.
"Of course," he explained, "one couldn't throw stones. Not abroad. But
one might go and look on...."
"Certainly not. Not if I can prevent you. You'll disgrace the League
by shouting: 'To hell with the Pope.' I know you. If a procession is
anywhere in the offing, it will make you feel so at home that you'll
lose your head entirely. Go and find O'Shane and punch his head if you
want to let off steam. He'll be game, particularly as it's one of his
home festivals too. You're neither of you safe to have loose on the
Nativity of the B.V.M., if that's what it is."
Macdermott gazed at the lake with eyes that dreamed of home.
"It'd be a queer thing," he murmured, "if there wouldn't be a
procession somewhere to-day, even in this godly Protestant city...."
"Well, in case there should, and to keep you safe, you'd better come
and dine with me at eight at my inn. Don't dress. I must go and send
off my stuff now. See you later, then."
Fergus Macdermott, left alone, strolled along towards his own hotel,
but when he was half-way to it a clashing of bells struck on his ear,
and reminded him that the Catholic Church of Notre Dame was only a few
streets away. No harm to walk that way, and see if anything was doing.
He did so. On the door of the church a notice announced that the
procession in honour of the Nativity of Our Lady would leave the
church at eight o'clock and pursue a route, which was given in detail.
"Well, I can't see it," said Fergus Macdermott. "I shall be having
dinner." He went back to his hotel and typed out a manifesto, or
petition, as he called it, for presentation to the Assembly when
quieter times should supervene and make the consideration of general
problems possible again. The manifesto was on the subject of the
tyranny exercised over Ulster by the Southern Free State Government.
At the same moment, in his room at the same hotel, Denis O'Shane, the
Free State delegate, was typing _his_ manifesto, which was about the
tyranny exercised over South Ireland by Ulster.
At 7.45 Macdermott finished his document, read it through with
satisfaction and remembered that he had to go and dine with Garth. He
left his hotel with this intention, and could not have said at what
point his more profound, his indeed innate intention, which was to go
to the Church of Notre Dame, asserted itself. Anyhow, at eight
o'clock, there he was in the Place Cornavin, arriving at the outskirts
of the crowd which was watching the white-robed crucifer and acolytes
leading the procession out of the open church doors and down the
steps.
Macdermott, blocked by the crowd, could hardly see. He felt in an
inferior position towards this procession, barred from it by a kindly
and reverent crowd of onlookers. In his native city things were
different. He had here no moral support for his just contempt of
Popish flummery. He did not want to do anything to the procession,
merely to stare it down with the disgust it deserved, but this was
difficult when he could only see it above bared heads.
A voice just above him said, in French: "Monsieur cannot see. He would
get a better view from this window here. I beg of you to come in,
monsieur."
Looking up, Macdermott saw the face of a kindly old woman looking down
at him from the first-floor window of the high house behind him.
Certainly, he admitted, he could not see, and he would rather like to.
He entered the hospitable open door, which led into a shop, and
ascended a flight of stone steps.
On the top step, in the darkness of a narrow passage, a chloroformed
towel was flung and held tight over his head and face, and he was
borne to the ground.
30