chair and remarked, "I would like to second Mr. Wilbraham's suggestion
that we will hear Mr. Cristofero's communication. May I also suggest
that the income of Mr. Wilbraham is between himself and his bankers,
and the sex of Mr. Beechtree between him and his God, and that both
are irrelevant to the business before this committee and need not be
discussed." The committee applauded this, though they felt a keen
interest in both the irrelevant topics. The President called on Signor
Cristofero to address the committee, and beckoned Mr. Wilbraham to a
chair.
The little _soi-disant_ pastor stepped forward. He was a spare, small,
elderly man, with a white face and gentian-blue eyes and a mouth that
could make up as anything. During the last few days it had been a prim
and rather smug button. Now it had relaxed in shrewder, wider lines.
He showed to Committee 9 the face not of the Calvinist pastor but of
the great detective. He spoke the Italian of the Lombardy Alps, the
French of Marseilles, the English of New York, the German of Alsace,
the Russian of Odessa, the Yiddish of the Roman Ghetto, the Serbian of
Dalmatia, the Turkish of the Levant, the Greek of the Dodacenese, and
many other of the world's useful tongues. He addressed the committee
in French, speaking rapidly and clearly, illustrating his story with
those gestures of the hands which in reality (though it is not
commonly admitted) make nothing clearer, but are merely a luxury
indulged in by speakers, who thus elucidate and emphasise their
meaning to themselves and to no one else. However, Signor Cristofero's
words were so admirably clear that his confusing gestures did not
matter.
He had, so he said, been sent for three weeks ago from New York, where
he had been engaged on a piece of work which he had just concluded, by
Mr. Charles Wilbraham, who had requested him to come immediately to
Geneva and investigate this strange matter of the disappearing
delegates. He had not known Mr. Wilbraham, but he had recognised the
importance of this matter. He had arrived incognito, assumed the
costume in which they now saw him, which is one the least calculated
to arouse suspicion in Geneva, and set to work. After careful secret
inquiries and investigations, he had found that the suspicions he had
had from the outset were confirmed. He had long known of a secret
society which was at work to wreck the League of Nations. Its
activities were so multifarious, so skilful, so obscure, and often so
entirely legitimate, that it was impossible to check them. The society
had its agents all over the world, in all countries. Some were paid,
others worked out of good will. This society objected to the League
partly because it was afraid of the decrease of armaments, and
ultimately of wars. Unlikely as this prospect sounded, the society was
taking no chances. Among its members were the directors of armament
firms, inventors, professional soldiers of high rank, War Office
officials, those who hoped to get some advantage for themselves or
their countries out of wars, and those who genuinely thought the
League a dangerous and foolish thing calculated to upset the peace of
the world. Many of its members also objected to the League on all
kinds of other grounds, disliking its humanitarian enterprises, its
interference with nefarious traffickings, such as those in women,
opium, and cocaine. Powerful patent medicine manufacturers were
exasperated by its anti-epidemic efforts; many great financiers
objected to the way it spent its money; some great powers thought they
would be freer in their dealings with smaller powers without it. And
so on and so forth. All over the world, in every department of life,
there were to be found those who, for one reason or another, rightly
or wrongly, reasonably or unreasonably, objected to the League. And so
this society had been formed. It collected its agents as it could, and
employed them as occasion served. It was considered by the society
specially important to prevent the success of this present session of
the Assembly, which had a large and varied agenda before it, including
the renewed discussion of the reduction of armaments, which was, it
was believed, to be pressed with great earnestness by certain
delegates, so that some issue could scarcely be evaded. Besides which,
the society had come to the conclusion that to make, once, a complete
fool of the League Assembly and Council before the world, so that its
constitution would be disintegrated and its achievements would be as
dust before the wind, would deal the prestige of the League such a
heavy blow as permanently to discredit it. To this end, after much
cogitation, the society had got hold of a very brilliant and
accomplished agent indeed; an agent who cared not what he did nor for
what side he fought, so long as he was largely enough paid. To him, to
this unscrupulous and able man, the society had said, "Hold up and
discredit the coming Assembly somehow. The method we leave to you. You
have _carte blanche_ in the matter of money, and you shall be paid an
immense sum for success."
"This man," said Signor Cristofero, "undertook the mission. With
unparalleled skill, scheming and ingenuity, he decoyed and entrapped
member after member of the Assembly, luring each one by some suitable
bait to some spot where there was a trap-door giving on to the
system of underground passages which runs, as is well known to the
authorities, beneath part of Geneva. What the authorities did _not_
know, is the number of trap-door entries to these passages, and where
they ultimately lead. I have been exploring them now for some days.
Last night I conducted Mr. Wilbraham through them, together with his
friends M. Kratzky and Sir John Levis. At a certain point in one of
the tunnels one appears to come up against an earth wall; it seems to
be a cul-de-sac. I made the discovery that it is not a cul-de-sac. The
earth wall is a skilful disguise; it swings back, and the passage
continues. It continues, gentlemen, on and on, far outside the city,
running beside the lake, till it ends at last in a cellar. What
cellar, you demand? Gentlemen, it is the cellar of a château two miles
up the lake. A large and ancient château, inhabited by a former
cardinal of the church. He was retired from this office some years
ago; he said and says it was for heretical opinions expressed in
books. In reality it was less for this (though this too had its
influence in the decision of the Church) than for a plethora of wives.
The wives without the heresies might have been winked at, for the
Church has a wise blind side and knows that its children are but dust;
even (though this is less probable) the heresies without the wives
might have been ignored; but the combination was excessive. The
cardinal had to go. Since then he has been living in this château,
writing vast and abstruse works on theology and enjoying the
loveliness of the scenery, the beauty of his house and garden, the
amenities of such witty and scholarly society as he could collect
around him, and the companionship of a lady whom he inaccurately calls
his niece. His name--gentlemen, many of you know it and him--is
Franchi, Dr. Silvio Franchi. Here, indeed, was a sharp tool ready
to the hands of our society. They send for him; he accepts the
commission; he conceives the ingenious scheme of secretly extending
the underground tunnels to his château and adding trap-door entries to
them in houses and courtyards where he could command the services of
the owners, who were generously paid. One by one he lures the
delegates into these houses, these alleys. Lord Burnley he decoys with
the display of a book of his own, strangely inscribed; that we know.
The baits offered to the other gentlemen and ladies we do not yet know
fully of, though a few have come to my knowledge. We shall doubtless
eventually have the story of each. Anyhow, one after another, and each
in his appropriate manner, the delegates disappear underground. They
are then conveyed by Dr. Franchi's employees either underground all
the way to the château or to an exit close to the lake, whence they
can be secretly embarked by covered boat. By whatever means, they
arrive at the château, and are there accommodated in what is known as
the Keep Wing, which has the appearance of a large, commodious and
many-roomed guest house, but which is as strongly guarded as a prison.
They are not ill-treated; they are made comfortable; often they dine
in company with Dr. Franchi, who enjoys their society and keeps them
well amused. I learnt this yesterday from Dr. Franchi's trusted
servant, a scoundrel of a Roumanian Baptist, who was moved at last by
the persecution of his co-religionists and relatives in Roumania,
touchingly set before him by Mademoiselle the Roumanian delegate, to
give the League a chance. After many years' faithful service this
ruffian betrayed his master and is assisting me to arrest him. The
human heart is truly a strange mixture.
"I have myself, last night, together with the three gentlemen I
mentioned, been along the tunnel as far as the château cellar. We
could not, of course, then enter it, and we returned the way we came.
Dr. Franchi does not know that his secret has been discovered. I have
arranged to call on him, with a detachment of police, to-day, in order
to inform him of it, arrest him, and release the prisoners. That is
all I have to tell you, gentlemen."
44
Murmurs indicative of the utmost interest broke out round the table
directly Signor Cristofero stopped speaking. Interest mingled here and
there with a little disappointment, for many a cherished theory had to
be abandoned or modified. Mr. Macdermott, for instance, had not yet
found a place for Sinn Fein in the plot as at present revealed, nor
Mr. O'Shane for Ulster. The Lithuanian delegate was, to say the least
of it, surprised that the affair was not more largely due to disbanded
Polish soldiers of Zeligowski's army, and the delegates of more than
one nation found it strange that the Germans appeared to be out of
this thing. But, after all, Dr. Franchi had been only the agent; he
might be backed by any one in the world, and doubtless was. Also, he
must have had many ruffians in his employ to do the executive work. So
no doubt really and in the main things were pretty much as each member
of the committee had suspected. The members who looked most gratified
were the Latin Americans, from whom suspicion was now honourably
lifted (though they regretted that Charles Wilbraham was no longer a
suspect), and the Serb-Croat-Slovene delegate, who stared at his
Italian colleague with a rather malicious smile. Had he not always
said that Italians (unless it were Albanians) had done this thing?
The President, after thanking Signor Cristofero much for his highly
interesting and important information, asked if any other gentleman
would like to say anything. The delegate from Bolivia begged to
propose that the committee should accompany Signor Cristofero and the
police on the visit to the château, as they certainly ought to be
present on the occasion. This suggestion was received with universal
acclamation, and it was decided that a steamer should take them all up
to Monet at six-thirty.
A subdued voice from beside the President's chair inquired whether the
press would also be permitted on the expedition. In the excitement,
astonishment, and disappointment of Signor Cristofero's story and the
prospect of such a stimulating lake trip, the correspondent of the
_British Bolshevist_ had temporarily forgotten his (or her, as the
case might be) own troubles.
The inquiry focused the attention of the committee again on Mr.
Beechtree, that dubious, if irrelevant, problem. A smile ran round the
room.
The President said that undoubtedly correspondents would be permitted
to accompany the expedition, for reports of the day's discoveries and
events must as soon as possible be communicated to the press.
45
Mr. Beechtree, feeling uncomfortable under the general interest and in
the intolerable presence of Mr. Wilbraham, slipped away. He wanted
privacy to think, to hide from the fire of eyes. More, he wanted
coffee. And perhaps a raspberry ice-cream soda with it. There was one
place he knew of.... Dashing down to the Paquis, he just caught a
_mouette_ for the Eaux Vives jetty. From there to the ice-cream café
was but a short way. He hurried to it, and soon was enjoying the
comfort of coffee, a raspberry ice-cream soda, and meringues. After
all, there was always that, however bitter a defeat one might suffer
at the hands of life. He also had a cocktail.
He drank, ate, and imbibed through straw, to give himself a little
courage and cheerfulness in the black bitterness of defeat. Black
bitterness it was, for his long-laid scheme of revenge had toppled,
crashing on the top of him, and Charles Wilbraham, eyeing the ruins,
hatefully and superciliously smiled, for ever and always in the
right....
Charles Wilbraham towered, with his hateful rightness, before Henry's
drowsy eyes (how long it was since he had slept!), and he slipped for
a moment into a dream, the straw falling from his mouth.
He woke with a start, hastily ate a meringue, called for his bill,
and looked at his watch. It was nearly six o'clock. In half an hour
the steamer would start for Monet. Well, that at least would be
interesting. Henry was all for getting what joy he could out of this
uneven life.
He walked across the Jardin Anglais, and saw at the pier the party of
pleasure crowding on to a pleasant-looking white steamer called _Jean
Jacques_. Pulling his soft hat over his eyes, Henry slipped in among
the throng, and embarked on what might well prove to be his last
official lake trip. He felt rather shy, for he had become, though in a
minor way, News. Women were News; and women disguised as men were
doubly and trebly News (and Henry felt sure that Charles Wilbraham
would be believed on this point rather than he, who had said it was a
damned lie).
He slipped through the crowd and took up a nonchalant attitude in the
bows, smoking cigarettes and looking at the view.
46
They were a happy and expectant party. The decks hummed with happy and
excited talk. All feuds seemed to be healed by the common interest.
The committee seemed truly a League of Brothers. This is the value of
parties of pleasure. The only people who looked sullen were the group
of policemen, for Swiss policemen habitually wear this air.
From group to group, with M. Kratzky at his elbow, moved Charles
Wilbraham, complacent, proud, triumphant, like a conjurer who has done
a successful trick. "Here is the rabbit, gentlemen," he seemed to be
saying. His colleagues on the Secretariat watched him cynically.
Wilbraham had put this job through very well, but how bad it had been
for him! Emphatically they did not like Wilbraham.
"And the man who really did the trick has forgotten all about it, and
is talking to every one in their own language about the affairs of
their own countries," as Vaga the Spaniard remarked. He had a peculiar
distaste for Charles.
Grattan came up grinning to Henry.
"Hallo, Beechtree. You seem to have provided one of the sensations of
the day. I didn't know you had it in you. I'm sorry your sporting
effort to upset our friend Wilbraham failed."
"So am I," Henry gloomily returned. "He deserves to be upset. And I'm
not even now sure he hadn't a hand in it all.... But of course it's no
use saying so. No one will ever believe it of him now that I've mucked
it so. They'll believe nothing I say.... Did you hear what he said
about me at the committee meeting? I suppose every one has."
"Well, I imagine it's got about more or less. Is it true, by the way?"
"On the contrary, a complete and idiotic lie."
The expressionless detachment of Henry's voice and face moved Grattan
to mirth.
"That's all right, then; I'll put it about. You keep on smiling, old
bean. No one's going to worry, even if it wasn't a lie, you know."
"Wilbraham will worry. He will, no doubt, take steps to have me
excluded from the Press Gallery as a disreputable character. I don't
particularly mind. What I do mind is that it isn't Wilbraham who's
going to get run in for this business, but poor old Franchi. I _like_
Franchi. He's delightful, however many delegates he's kidnapped."
"Oh, the more the better. A jolly old sportsman. My word, what a
brain! Talk of master criminals, ... and to think that I once thought
the Assembly scarcely worth coming for. Live and learn. I shall never
miss another." He called to Garth, who was passing.
"I say, Garth, Beechtree says he's not a lady and that Wilbraham's a
liar. Spread it about, there's a good chap."
Garth nodded. He, like Grattan, believed Wilbraham on this point and
not Henry, but it was more comfortable to take Henry at his own
valuation. After all, if the chap _was_ a woman, whose concern was it
but his own? Rather a caddish trick on Wilbraham's part to have
publicly accused him. Though, to be sure, he had just been by him
publicly accused, so perhaps they were quits. But, poor girl (if she
was a girl), she must be feeling up a tree now. She seemed a nice
enough person, too; a bit of a fool, of course, but then any one who'd
write for the _British Bolshevist_, that pestilential rag, would need
to be either a fool or a knave, or both.
So, on the whole, Henry was not acutely uncomfortable among his
colleagues of the press.
Once Wilbraham passed close to him talking to the second British
delegate, and fixed him with a glassy stare. Henry, refusing to be
embarrassed, put up his monocle and stared back, as if surprised at
the ill-breeding of this person.
So they came to the Monet pier, as the village church clock chimed
seven.
47
The scheme of action had been carefully planned and organised by
Signor Cristofero, with the help of the perfidious Roumanian Baptist
at the château, who now, terrified at his own treachery, only longed
for his master to be removed from the scene. The ex-cardinal, this
Baptist had said, meant to dine that night, as he often did when he
had not company, with his prisoners in the Keep Wing. He would be
there when the detective, the police, the committee, and the press
arrived at the château, and the party would be conducted there at
once, to surprise the host and his guests at meat.
The delegate from Costa Rica had asked the detective if they should
all bring weapons, but Signor Cristofero had said no.
"Quite unnecessary. Franchi does not go armed. He does not go in for
bloodshed, except for some necessary purpose. When he sees he is
trapped, he will throw down his hand with resignation. After all, the
penalty for the abduction without injury, even of many delegates, is
not very heavy. A term of imprisonment, then he will be free again. He
intended, of course, to make his escape from the neighbourhood when he
released his prisoners, and so be beyond reach of capture when the
truth came out. He will be mortified at the failure of his plan--in so
far as it has failed--but for himself he will not very greatly care. I
know Dr. Franchi of old."
So revolvers were only taken by delegates and journalists of those
nations which regard these weapons as a natural part of the human
equipment for facing society.
As they trailed up from the Monet pier through the village, the party
had the innocuous, cheerful, plebeian, only-man-is-vile air of all
large parties of pleasure in beautiful country.
They approached the château by its public drive, which turned off the
road beyond the village. Signor Cristofero knocked on the front door,
which was opened by a villainous looking young man whom the party
presumed to be the repentant Roumanian Baptist, and whom Signor
Cristofero addressed fluently in a tongue even stranger than are most
tongues. The young man replied in the same.
"Dr. Franchi is in the Keep Wing, dining with the delegates," Signor
Cristofero informed his companions. "This man will conduct us there
and admit us. He has the pass keys."
The party, led by the scowling Baptist, trooped into the château like
a party of eager tourists ciceroned by a sulky guide.
They passed through the hall, through the company of dogs who seemed
to like everybody except Henry and the delegate from Haiti, and thence
along a sunny, airy corridor which led up to a nail-studded,
triple-locked oak door, behind an ecclesiastical leather curtain. The
Roumanian produced three keys, unlocked the door, and led the way
along a further passage, this time only lighted by high, small
windows. Here began the Keep Wing. At the farther end of this corridor
was another oak door, this time only once locked. From beyond it came
the sound of cheerful voices raised in talk and laughter. The
Roumanian hung back. He obviously did not desire to lead the way any
farther. After a short, low-toned conversation with Signor Cristofero,
he went back through the triple-locked door.
"He fears his master," the detective remarked, with a shrug. "He is
going to make his escape from the château, lest the other servants
execute vengeance on him. No matter. We are now arrived."
Having with a gesture summoned round him the police, he opened the
door and led the way into the room beyond.
It was a large refectory, with a long table down the middle. At the
near end of it sat Dr. Franchi, with lifted glass; down the sides were
ranged the lost delegates. One of them--perhaps Lord Burnley, who sat
on his host's right--seemed to have been telling an amusing story, for
all at the near end of the table were laughing. Or rather, nearly all:
for, resolute in its gravity, its air of protest, the face of Lord
John Lester, the mainstay of the League, was bent sadly over a dish
of salted almonds.
The ex-cardinal had barely time to look round at the noise of entry
before three policemen seized him firmly and snapped handcuffs on his
wrists.
48
It was a scene the like of which, it is safe to say, had never before
been seen among all the strange scenes which had been enacted along
the shores of that most lovely lake. A strange scene, and a strange
company.
The faces of some thirty delegates, interrupted in their meal, were
turned, with varying expressions, upon the new-comers. Lord John
Lester sprang to his feet, with an impatient cry of "At last!" which
was, however, drowned by the ecstatic croon of Mademoiselle the
delegate for Roumania, "Ah! mon Dieu! Nous sommes sauvés! Un jour de
plus, et nous serions deportées," and a loud cry from Miss Gina
Longfellow, who sprang from her seat at the other end of the table.
"Dio mio! We sure are copped!"
"Arrest the lady also, as an accomplice," remarked Signor Cristofero
quietly.
Dr. Franchi suddenly began to struggle violently, thus engaging the
attention of the police. As suddenly, he ceased to struggle, and said
calmly, "Ebbene. E scappata," and it was apparent that Miss Longfellow
had vanished.
"You will not find her now," said her uncle. "She knows where to hide.
Besides, what has she done, the innocent?"
"The passages are guarded," Signor Cristofero remarked.
"Not, I think, my dear Angelo," said Dr. Franchi, looking at him for
the first time, "the passage she will take.... So, Angelo, this is
your work. I might have guessed. Gentlemen, my only and distinguished
brother."
With a bow he introduced Signor Cristofero to his guests.
The detective smiled grimly at him, and addressed him in the Italian
of the Lombardy Alps.
"This point is mine, I think, Silvio. It is a long war between us, in
which you often score, but this point is mine."
"I grant it you, my dear Angelo, without rancour. Your abilities have
always been so near the level of my own that I can take defeat at your
hands without mortification. You will at least pay me the tribute of
acknowledging the ingenuity and partial success of my scheme."
"That tribute I always pay you, Silvio. But, as has occasionally
happened before, your ingenuity broke down at one point. You yielded
to a whimsical impulse, and sent to the officials of the League a
certain telegram couched in the words of the English version of a
Hebrew psalm. When I heard this, I, remembering your addiction to the
English translation of the psalms, identified you at once.... But this
is no time for conversation. Later, a statement will be demanded of
you. At present my business is to deliver you over to the law, and to
give these gentlemen their liberty."