WAITING!
Mr. Andrew Levison lived in Jermyn Street. His establishment was
comfortable, but modest. A sitting-room, a small dining-room, a bedroom
for himself, and one for his man--these, together with the bath-room,
completed his suite.
It was a bright morning as he opened his _Daily Wire_ and sat down
before the kedjeree and kidneys that his servant had just brought him
for breakfast. It was rather late; the Jew had been at a theatrical
supper-party the night before until long after midnight. During the
party, at which a great many of the stars of the lighter stage had been
present, the conversation had turned almost entirely upon the marked
slump in theatrical business during Joseph's ministry in London.
One and all of their company were united in their hatred and alarm of
this evangelist who bade fair to ruin them.
The whole situation was, moreover, aggravated because of the immense
public support Joseph was receiving from some of the most wealthy and
influential people in society. There was no getting over this fact. And
yet no one had any remedy to suggest.
Lord Ballina and Mimi Addington had also been of the party, and a keen
observer might possibly have detected a certain furtive look which
passed between the actress, the peer, and the theatrical manager. All
three, however, held their peace, and contributed little or nothing to
the problem of how the situation was to be dealt with.
And now Mr. Levison, as he sat at table, smiled quietly to himself,
reflecting that he could very considerably astonish many of his
colleagues if it had been possible to do so.
The sitting-room--for Levison did not breakfast in the dining-room--was
full of sunshine. A great bowl of sulphur-colored hothouse roses stood
on the writing-table. The white panelled walls, hung with rare old
Japanese color prints, caught and reflected the apricot light of the
sun, which poured in through the windows.
The room was carpeted with a fabric from Persia--the veritable peacock
blue and dark red of Teheran. The armchairs were upholstered in
vermilion leather. Everything harmonized and was in taste, and it was
with complacency that Levison looked round him and picked up the paper.
Almost the first thing that struck his eye was a paragraph headed
"Movements of Joseph."
Mr. Levison started, and read with great attention. The paragraph ran as
follows:--
"We are able to give our readers exclusive information as to the next
move in the vast campaign for the reformation of London which is being
undertaken by the teacher known as Joseph, in company with his
distinguished colleagues and helpers. One of the most crying evils of
the day is undoubtedly the fact that, while one section of the
population lives in a splendor and luxury perhaps unparalleled in the
history of civilization, another section, and this by far the larger,
lives under conditions of squalor so great that it becomes a horror,
conditions that can only be hinted at in polite society or in the public
prints. The state of the East End of London has long engaged the
attention of philanthropists, but very little has been done to
ameliorate it in comparison with its crying needs. Sociologists have
long since recognized that under present conditions very little can be
done until the rich property owners combine and agree to sacrifice a
portion of their emoluments in order to improve the condition of the
poor. The teacher Joseph has recognized this fact, and is beginning a
movement which may be very far-reaching in its consequences. To-day, we
understand, a party of wealthy and distinguished gentlemen will be taken
by the evangelist to some of the worst parts of the East End there to
see for themselves the true condition of affairs. The remarkable
personality which is at present the talk of London will indeed have
accomplished a greater miracle than any of those strange and unexplained
occurrences attributed to him if he can cleanse and purify one half-mile
of Stepney or Whitechapel. For our part, we wish Joseph and his helpers
every possible success in their endeavors."
Mr. Levison laid down the paper, and got up from his seat. He walked up
and down the room twice, looked at his breakfast, shook his head, and
then, going to a sideboard, poured some brandy from a tantalus into a
glass, added a little water with a hand that shook slightly, and drank
the mixture off.
So it was to be to-day, then? Mr. Levison had not realized the imminence
of his plot. It was one thing to reflect complacently that one had
arranged to remove a troublesome intruder from one's path on some
unspecified date; it was, as Levison realized now, quite another thing
to sit down and wait for the event to happen in an hour or two.
Levison looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. He supposed, though
he did not know with any certainty, that the party to the East End would
hardly start before midday.
"They can't leave much before twelve, I should think, from wherever they
meet," he muttered to himself. "Give them an hour to get down to the
East End, another hour or more, perhaps, for the people"--another and
far less pleasing word almost escaped Mr. Levison's lips--"for the
people I have employed to do what has to be done. Roughly, I suppose
there ought to be some news in the paper between four and five."
The man's face had grown quite white, and his hands began to tremble
more and more. No one had ever seen the self-possessed, genial-mannered
_entrepreneur_ like this. And when he stopped in front of the glass
which hung over the mantel-shelf, he started at the sight of his own
guilty and terrified countenance.
Supposing that something should go wrong! Supposing the man was caught,
and confessed! A thousand horrid apprehensions began to crowd into his
mind, and the sweat came out cold and damp upon his forehead.
There were hours to wait. How should he employ them? The theatre was
closed; there was no particular business claiming his attention at the
moment. And he felt less and less inclined to sit alone in his chambers
waiting. Exercise, he came to the conclusion, a long, brisk walk, was
the only thing that could restore his mental tone.
He rang for his coat and hat, took a stick from the stand in the hall,
and went out into Jermyn Street. For a moment he was undecided as to his
direction. The thought of the Park crossed his mind, but it was
superseded by another and more welcome one. He would walk up to St.
John's Wood--that was a good distance--and he would call on Mimi
Addington, and tell her the news that he had read in the paper. He
smiled maliciously at the idea. Perhaps Lord Ballina might be there,
too; if so, well and good. His fellow conspirators should share his
uneasiness. They were in the thing as much as he was, and he saw no
reason why he should be the only one to suffer. The idea appealed to his
Oriental imagination, and in picturing to himself the probable fears of
his companions when they knew that this was the actual day on which the
assassination was to be attempted, Levison forgot his own, and it was
quite with a jaunty step that he turned into St. James' Street.
Even at the moment when he had realized that the dark deed which he had
instigated was to be attempted on that very day, Levison had felt not
the slightest remorse or compunction. Fear he had felt, the fear of
discovery, but that was all. A criminal is nothing more or less than a
supreme egotist. Levison saw everything in its relation to himself, and
himself alone; never in relation to other people, or to God. Joseph was
ruining his business, therefore he had plotted Joseph's death. He had no
bitter feeling against Joseph whatever, even though the Teacher's advent
and appearance in the theatre had done him such serious harm. Levison
was a philosophic scoundrel, and took things as they came, and wasted no
brain power or mental force in the exercise of personal dislikes.
He arrived at Mimi Addington's house in St. John's Wood a little before
two, not having hurried at all. The actress was at home, and he was at
once shown into the drawing-room, where she was sitting with Lord
Ballina and a friend of his, who was introduced to Levison as Mr. Errol
Smith. Fortunately for Levison's plans, Lord Ballina's friend was on the
point of departure, and shortly went away, leaving the three
conspirators together.
"Well, Andrew, how goes it?" Ballina said, with his vacuous dissipated
little simper. "When are you going to open the theatre again?"
"Well, that depends," Levison answered, with a meaning look. "You know
very well what that depends on!"
He was watching the effect of his words upon Mimi Addington as he spoke,
and saw the hard, cruel eyes glisten with hate at his reference, and the
beautifully shaped mouth harden into a thin line of crimson.
"It's some time now since we had that little talk, Andrew," the woman
said, in a voice that she strove to keep well under control, though
every now and then the hysteria of her hate crept into it and suggested
that which lay, lava-hot, deep down in her heart.
"Well, d'you know, my dear," Levison said, taking out a cigar and
lighting it with great deliberation--"well, d'you know that it's the
little matter that we discussed that I've come up about this afternoon."
"How much longer is that Joseph to be allowed to cumber London?" she
said, with a hissing intake of the breath.
"Well, that all depends," Levison answered, amused with the skill with
which he could play upon her passion. The Jew loved power and the
exercise of it. He gratified himself now by playing on her as if she
were an instrument and noticing how swiftly she responded to his touch.
"Oh, hang it all, Andrew," Lord Ballina said, "don't tease Mimi. If
you've got any news about this business let's have it."
Levison thought he had gone far enough, and took the _Daily Wire_ which
he had brought with him from his pocket.
"Read that," he said, handing it to the young peer.
Ballina read out the paragraph in a monotonous sing-song, with now and
then such observations as suggested themselves to his limited and
vicious intelligence.
"Well," he said, "for the matter of that, Andrew, the papers are full of
the fellow every day, and his goings on. I don't see what news there is
in that, it's only just another of his games. Was that all you came up
to tell us?"
Levison saw the look of scorn that Mimi Addington flashed at the young
man. Her own intelligence was infinitely keener; and though Levison had
not gone into any details about the arrangements he had made, she saw
the significance of the fact in the newspaper immediately.
"What a duffer you are, Bally," she said contemptuously. "Why, it's
perfectly clear of course. What better place could you have for knocking
a Johnny on the head than an East End slum? That's what Andrew means,
and that's what he's come to tell us, isn't it, Andrew?"
"Your brilliant intellect, assisted by your personal dislike, has at
once divined the truth, Mimi," said Levison, leaning back upon the divan
and blowing a blue cloud of smoke up towards the hanging Moorish lamp.
"Why, then," Lord Ballina broke in suddenly--"why, then, it's this
afternoon!" His voice had grown high and thin with excitement, and
Levison saw once more a face from which all the color had ebbed, and
hands that twitched with sudden realization.
Mimi Addington suddenly rose up from her seat with a curiously sinuous
and panther-like movement.
"This afternoon!" she said. "Then I shall sleep happy this night!"
"Oh, come, Mimi," Lord Ballina said, "you needn't go quite so far as
that. As a matter of fact, I--er--confound it, I wish we'd let the chap
alone!"
The woman had sunk back upon the divan. She stretched out one slender,
white hand, covered with flashing rings, and patted Levison upon the
arm.
He shuddered at her touch, scoundrel as he was, but she did not see it.
Ballina was walking up and down the room, his feet making no sound upon
the thick pile of the carpet. He snapped his fingers in an odd,
convulsive fashion.
"I say, you know," he said at length, "I really don't like it. I wish to
Heaven I'd never been mixed up in the affair. Supposing anything gets
out?"
"Well, that's supposing me to be rather a bigger fool than I am,"
Levison answered, though the fear of the other had in some subtle way
affected him, and all his own tremors of the morning were beginning to
revive.
Then there was silence in the room for a time.
Although the morning had been bright and cheerful, the sun had become
obscured shortly after midday, and a heavy gloom of fog above which
thunder had muttered now and then had spread itself high up in the sky.
The oppression in the air had become much more marked during the last
hour, and now, as the three people sat together, they were all
experiencing it to the full.
For a long time nobody spoke at all, and when at length Mimi Addington
made some casual observation, both the men started involuntarily. The
woman's voice also was changed now. It was like the voices of her
companions, loaded with sinister apprehension.
"When do you suppose," Lord Ballina said, in a shaking voice--"when do
you suppose that we shall know if anything has happened, Andrew? Have
you made arrangements with your--er--er--friends to report to you about
it?"
"I'm not mad!" Levison answered shortly. "Hear! Why, if there's anything
to hear you'll hear soon enough----What's that?"
He had started violently, and the perspiration was beginning to run down
his face. A distant rumble of thunder breaking suddenly in upon the
quiet of the room had startled him and betrayed more than anything else
in what a state his nerves were.
"It's only thunder," Mimi replied. "Good Heavens, Andrew, you are enough
to give one the jumps yourself! But if we're to know, how shall we
know?"
"Why, it's very simple," Levison answered. "Don't you see that if
anything has--er--happened, it'll be in the evening papers and in the
streets within three-quarters of an hour from the time it's occurred.
There will be journalists with this man Joseph, of course, there always
are wherever he goes. Well, the papers will be up here by the motors in
half-an-hour after they're issued, and we shall hear the newsboys
shouting it out all over the place."
"There's an old man who sells papers at the corner of Florence Street,
only a few yards away," Mimi Addington broke in quickly. "The boys on
the bicycles come up and supply him with all the new editions as they
come out. I often hear them shouting."
"Then all we've got to do," said Andrew Levison, "is to wait until we
hear that shouting."
They sat waiting--three murderers--and as they sat there a presence
stole into the room, unseen, but very real. The grisly phantom Fear was
among them. Waiting!