THE UNDERCURRENT
They were still discussing the strange story of Sandys when Lady
Heathcote signaled her feminine guests and they retired to the
drawing-room. Over the coffee the interest persisted and Lord Kipshaven
was not to be denied. If, as it seemed probable, this German spy was
making frequent flights between England and the continent, he must have
some landing field, a hangar, a machine shop with supplies of oil and
fuel. Where in this tight little island could a German airman descend
with a thousand horsepower machine and not be discovered unless with
the connivance of Englishmen? The thing looked bad. If there were
Englishmen in high places in London who could be bought, there were
others, many others, who helped to form the vicious chain which led to
Germany.
“I tell you I believe we’re honeycombed with spies,” he growled. “For
one that we’ve caught and imprisoned or shot, there are dozens in the
very midst of us. If this thing keeps up we’ll all of us be suspecting
one another. How do I know that you, Sandys, you, Rizzio, Byfield
or even Hammersley here isn’t a secret agent of the Germans? What
dinner-table in England is safe when spies are found in the official
family at the War Office?”
Rizzio smiled.
“We, who are about to die, salute you,” he said, raising his liqueur
glass. “And you, Lord Kipshaven, how can we be sure of you?”
“By this token,” said the old man, rising and putting his back to
the fire, “that if I even suspected, I’d shoot any one of you down
here--now, with as little compunction as I’d kill a dog.”
“I’ll have my coffee first,” laughed Byfield, “if you don’t mind.”
“Coffee--then coffin,” said Rizzio.
“Jolly unpleasant conversation this,” remarked Hammersley. “Makes a
chap a bit fidgety.”
“Fidgety!” roared the Earl. “We ought to be fidgety with the Germans
winning east and west and the finest flower of our service already
killed in battle. We need men and still more men. Any able-bodied
fellow under forty who stays at home”--and he glanced meaningly at the
Honorable Cyril--“ought to be put to work mending roads.”
The object of these remarks turned the blank stare of his monocle but
made no reply.
“Yes, I mean you, Cyril,” went on the Earl steadily. “Your mother was
born a Prussian. I knew her well and I think she learned to thank God
that fortune had given her an Englishman for a husband. But the taint
is in you. Your brother has been wounded at the front. His blood is
cleansed. But what of yours? You went to a German university with your
Prussian kinsmen and now openly flaunt your sympathies at a dinner of
British patriots. Speak up. How do you stand? Your friends demand it.”
Hammersley turned his cigarette carefully in its long amber holder.
“Oh, I say, Lord Kipshaven,” he said with a slow smile, “you’re not
spoofing a chap, are you?”
“I was never more in earnest in my life. How do you stand?”
“Haw!” said Hammersley with obvious effort. “I’m British, you know,
and all that sort of thing. How can an Englishman be anything else?
Silly rot--fightin’--that’s what I say. That’s all I say,” he finished
looking calmly for approval from one to the other.
Smiles from Sandys and Rizzio met this inadequacy, but the Earl, after
glaring at him moodily for a moment, uttered a smothered, “Paugh,” and
shrugging a shoulder, turned to Rizzio and Sandys who were discussing a
recent submarine raid.
Hammersley and Byfield sat near each other at the side of the table
away from the others. There was a moment of silence--which Hammersley
improved by blowing smoke rings toward the ceiling. Captain Byfield
watched him a moment and then after a glance in the direction of the
Earl leaned carelessly on an elbow toward Hammersley.
“Any shootin’ at the North?” he asked.
Hammersley’s monocle dropped and the eyes of the two men met.
“Yes. I’m shootin’ the day after tomorrow,” said Hammersley quietly.
Byfield looked away and another long moment of silence followed. Then
the Honorable Cyril after a puff or two took the long amber holder from
his mouth, removed the cigarette and smudged the ash upon the receiver.
“Bally heady cigarettes, these of Algy’s. Don’t happen to have any
’baccy and papers about you, do you, Byfield?”
“Well, rather,” replied the captain. And he pushed a pouch and a
package of cigarette papers along the tablecloth. “It’s a mix of my
own. I hope you’ll like it.”
Hammersley opened the bag and sniffed at its contents.
“Good stuff, that. Virginia, Perique and a bit of Turkish. What?”
Byfield nodded and watched Hammersley as he poured out the tobacco,
rolled the paper and lighted it at the candelabra, inhaling luxuriously.
“Thanks,” he sighed. “Jolly good of you,” and he pushed the pouch back
to Byfield along the table.
“You must come to Scotland some day, old chap,” said the Honorable
Cyril carelessly.
“Delighted. When the war is over,” returned Byfield quietly. “Not until
the war is over.”
“Awf’ly glad to have you any time, you know--awf’ly glad.”
“In case of furlough--I’ll look you up.”
“Do,” said the Honorable Cyril.
Hammersley’s rather bovine gaze passed slowly around the room, and just
over Lord Kipshaven’s head in the mirror over the mantel it met the
dark gaze of John Rizzio. The fraction of a second it paused there and
then he stretched his long legs and rose, stifling a yawn.
“Let’s go in--what?” he said to Byfield.
Byfield got up and at the same time there was a movement at the mantel.
“Don’t be too hard on the chap,” Rizzio was saying in an undertone to
Kipshaven. “You’re singing the ‘Hassgesang.’ He’s harmless--I tell
you--positively harmless.” And then as the others moved toward the
door: “Come, Lady Heathcote won’t mind our tobacco.”
Hammersley led the way, with Byfield and Rizzio at his heels.
Jacqueline Morley had been trying to play the piano, but there was no
heart in the music until she struck up “Tipperary,” when there was a
generous chorus in which the men joined.
Hammersley found Doris with Constance Joyliffe in an alcove. At his
approach Lady Joyliffe retired.
“Handsome, no end,” he murmured to her as he sank beside her.
“Handsome is as handsome does, Cyril,” she said slowly. “If you knew
what I was thinking of, you wouldn’t be so generous.”
“What?”
“Just what everybody is thinking about you--that you’ve got to do
something--enlist to fight--go to France, if only as a chauffeur.
They’d let you do that tomorrow if you’d go.”
“Chauffeur! Me! Not really!”
“Yes, that or something else,” determinedly.
“Why?”
She hesitated a moment and then went on distinctly.
“Because I could never marry a man people talked about as people are
talking about you.”
“Not marry--?” The Honorable Cyril’s face for the first time that
evening showed an expression of concern. “Not marry--me? You can’t mean
that, Doris.”
“I do mean it, Cyril,” she said firmly. “I can’t marry you.”
“Why----?”
“Because to me love is a sacrament. Love of woman--love of country, but
the last is the greater of the two. No man who isn’t a patriot is fit
to be a husband.”
“A patriot----”
She broke in before he could protest. “Yes--a patriot. You’re not a
patriot--that is, if you’re an Englishman. I don’t know you, Cyril. You
puzzle me. You’re lukewarm. Day after day you’ve seen your friends and
mine go off in uniform, but it doesn’t mean anything to you. It doesn’t
mean anything to you that England is in danger and that she needs
every man who can be spared at home to go to the front. You see them
go and the only thing it means to you is that you’re losing club-mates
and sport-mates. Instead of taking the infection of fervor--you go
to Scotland--to shoot--not Germans but--deer! Deer!” she repeated
scathingly.
“But there aren’t any Germans in Scotland--at least none that a chap
could shoot,” he said with a smile.
“Then go where there _are_ Germans to shoot,” she said impetuously. She
put her face to her hands a moment. “Oh, don’t you understand? You’ve
got to prove yourself. You’ve got to make people stop speaking of you
as I’ve heard them speak of you tonight. Here you are in the midst of
friends, people who know you and like you, but what must other people
who don’t know you so well or care so much as we? What must they think
and say of your indifference, of your openly expressed sympathy with
England’s enemies? Even Lady Betty, a kinswoman and one of your truest
friends, has lost patience with you--I had almost said lost confidence
in you.”
Her voice trailed into silence. Hammersley was moving the toe of his
varnished boot along the border of the Aubusson rug.
“I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “Awf’ly sorry.”
“Sorry! Are you? But what are you going to do about it?”
“Do?” he said vaguely. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I’m no bally use, you
know. Wouldn’t be any bally use over there. Make some silly ass mistake
probably. No end of trouble--all around.”
“And you’re willing to sacrifice the goodwill, the affection of your
friends, the respect of the girl you say you love----”
“Oh, I say, Doris. Not that----”
“Yes. I’ve got to tell you. I can’t be unfair to myself. I can’t
respect a man who sees others cheerfully carrying _his_ burdens,
doing _his_ work, accepting _his_ hardships in order that he may
sleep soundly at home far away from the nightmare of shot and shell.
_You_, Cyril, _you_! Is it that--the love of ease? Or is it something
else--something to do with your German kinship--the memory of your
mother. What is it? If you still want me, Cyril, it is my right to
know----”
“Want you, Doris--” his voice went a little lower. “Yes, I want you.
You might know that.”
“Then you must tell me.”
He hesitated and peered at the eyeglass in his fingers.
“I think--it’s because I--” He paused and then crossed his hands and
bowed his head with an air of relinquishment. “Because I think I must
be a”--he almost whispered the word--“a coward.”
Doris Mather gazed at him a long moment of mingled dismay and
incredulity.
“You,” she whispered, “the first sportsman of England--a--a coward.”
He gave a short mirthless laugh.
“Queer, isn’t it, the way a chap feels about such things? I
always hated the idea of being mangled. Awf’ly unpleasant idea
that--’specially in the tummy. In India once I saw a chap----”
“You--a coward!” Doris repeated, wide-eyed. “I don’t believe you.”
He bent his head again.
“I--I’m afraid you’d better,” he said uncertainly.
She rose, still looking at him incredulously, another doubt, a more
dreadful one, winging its flight to and fro across her inner vision.
“Come,” she said in a tone she hardly recognized as her own, “come let
us join the others.”
He stood uncertainly and as she started to go,
“You’ll let me take you home, Doris?” he asked.
She bent her head, and without replying made her way to the group
beyond the alcove.
Hammersley stood a moment watching her diminishing back and then a
curious expression, half of trouble, half of resolution, came into his
eyes.
Then after a quick glance around the curtain he suddenly reached into
his trousers pocket, took something out and scrutinized it carefully by
the light of the lamp. He put it back quickly and setting his monocle
sauntered forth into the room. As he moved to join the group at the
piano John Rizzio met him in the middle of the room.
“Could I have a word with you, Hammersley?” he asked.
“Happy,” said the Honorable Cyril. “Here?”
“In the smoking-room--if you don’t mind?”
Hammersley hesitated a moment and then swung on his heels and led the
way. At the smoking-room door from the hallway Rizzio paused, then
quietly drew the heavy curtains behind them.
Hammersley, standing by the table, followed this action with a kind of
bored curiosity, aware that Rizzio’s dark gaze had never once left him
since they had entered the room. Slowly Hammersley took his hands from
his pockets, reached into his waistcoat for his cigarette case, and as
Rizzio approached, opened and offered it to him.
“Smoke?” he asked carelessly.
“I don’t mind if I do. But I’ve taken a curious liking for rolled
cigarettes. Ah! I thought so.” He opened the tobacco jar and sniffed
at it, searched around the articles on the table, then, “How
disappointing! Nothing but Algy’s dreadful pipes. You don’t happen to
have any rice-papers do you?”
Hammersley was lighting his own cigarette at the brazier.
“No. Sorry,” he replied laconically.
Rizzio leaned beside him against the edge of the table.
“Strange. I thought I saw you making a cigarette in the dining-room.”
Hammersley’s face brightened. “Oh, yes, Byfield. Byfield has
rice-papers.”
“I’d rather have yours,” he said quietly.
The Honorable Cyril looked up.
“Mine, old chap? I thought I told you I hadn’t any.”
Rizzio smiled amiably.
“Then I must have misunderstood you,” he said politely.
“Yes,” said Hammersley and sank into an armchair.
Rizzio did not move and the Honorable Cyril, his head back, was already
blowing smoke rings.
Rizzio suddenly relaxed with a laugh and put his legs over a small
chair near Hammersley’s and folded his arms along its back.
“Do you know, Hammersley,” he said with a laugh, “I sometimes
think that as I grow older my hearing is not as good as it used to
be. Perhaps you’ll say that I cling to my vanishing youth with a
fatuous desperation. I do. Rather silly, isn’t it, because I’m quite
forty-five. But I’ve a curiosity, even in so small a matter, to learn
whether things are as bad with me as I think they are. Now unless
you’re going to add a few more gray hairs to my head by telling
me that I’m losing my sight as well as my hearing, you’ll gratify
my curiosity--an idle curiosity, if you like, but still strangely
important to my peace of mind.”
He paused a moment and looked at Cyril, who was examining him with
frank bewilderment.
“I don’t think I understand,” said Hammersley politely.
“I’ll try to make it clearer. Something has happened tonight that makes
me think that I’m getting either blind or deaf or both. To begin with
I thought you said you had no cigarette papers. If I heard you wrong,
then the burden of proof rests upon my ears--if my eyes are at fault
it’s high time I consulted a specialist, because you know, at the table
in the dining-room when you were sitting with Byfield, quite distinctly
I saw you put a package of Riz-la-Croix into your right-hand trousers
pocket. The color as you know is yellow--a color to which my optic
nerve is peculiarly sensitive.” He laughed again. “I know you’d hardly
go out of your way to make a misstatement on so small a matter, and if
you don’t mind satisfying a foible of my vanity, I wish you’d tell me
whether or not I’m mistaken.”
He stopped and looked at Hammersley who was regarding him with polite,
if puzzled tolerance. Then, as if realizing that something was
required of him Hammersley leaned forward.
“I say, Rizzio. What the deuce is it all about? I’m sorry you’re
gettin’ old an’ all that sort of thing, but I can’t help it. Now can I,
old chap?”
Rizzio’s smile slowly faded and his gaze passed Hammersley and rested
on the brass fender of the fireplace.
“You don’t care to tell me?” he asked.
“What?”
“About that package of rice-papers.”
“Byfield has them.”
“Not that package,” put in Rizzio with a wave of the hand. And then,
leaning forward, in a low tone, “The other.”
Hammersley sat upright a moment, his hands on the chair-arms and then
sank back in his chair with a laugh.
“I say. I can take a joke as well as the next, but--er--what’s the
answer?”
Rizzio rose, his graceful figure dominant.
“I don’t think that sort of thing will do, Hammersley.”
His demeanor was perfectly correct, his hand-wave easy and a well-bred
smile flickered at his lips, but his tone masked a mystery. Hammersley
rose, removing his cigarette with great deliberateness from its holder
and throwing it into the fire.
“If there isn’t anything else you want to see me about--” He took a
step in the direction of the door.
“One moment, please.”
Hammersley paused.
“I think we’d better drop subterfuge. I know why you were here
tonight, why Byfield was here and perhaps you know now why I am here.”
“Can’t imagine, I’m sure,” said Cyril.
“Perhaps you can guess, when I tell you that this party was of my own
choosing--that my plans were made with a view to arranging your meeting
with Captain Byfield in a place known to be above suspicion. I have
been empowered to relieve you of any further responsibility in the
matter in question--in short of the papers themselves.”
“Oh, I say. Vanished youth, cigarette papers and all that. You’re goin’
it a bit thick, Rizzio, old boy.”
Rizzio put a hand into the inside pocket of his evening coat and drew
out a card-case, which he opened under Hammersley’s eyes.
“Look, Hammersley,” he whispered. “Maxwell gave me this! Perhaps you
understand now.”
The Honorable Cyril fixed his eyeglass carefully and stared at the
card-case.
“By Jove,” he muttered, with sudden interest.
“Now you understand?” said Rizzio.
“You!” whispered Hammersley, looking at him. The languor of a moment
before had fallen from him with his dropping monocle.
“Yes, I. Now quick, the papers,” muttered Rizzio, putting the card-case
in his pocket. “Someone may come at any moment.”
For a long space of time Hammersley stood uncertainly peering down at
the pattern in the rug, then he straightened and, crossing the room,
put his back to the fireplace.
“There may be a mistake,” he said firmly. “I can’t risk it.”
Rizzio stood for a moment staring at him as though he had not heard
correctly. Then he crossed over and faced the other man.
“You mean that?”
Hammersley put his hands in his trousers pockets.
“I fancy so.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What I’ve been told to do.”
“My orders supersede yours.”
“H-m. I’m not sure.”
“You can’t doubt my credentials.”
“Hardly that. Er--I think I know best, that’s all.”
Rizzio took a pace or two before the fireplace in front of him, his
brows tangled, his fingers twitching behind his back. Then he stopped
with the air of a man who has reached a decision.
“You understand what this refusal means?”
Hammersley shrugged.
“You realize that it makes you an object of suspicion?” asked the other.
“How? In doing what was expected of me?” said Hammersley easily.
“You are expected to give those papers to me.”
“I can’t.”
Rizzio’s fine face had gone a shade paler under the glossy black of
his hair and his eyes gleamed dangerously under his shaggy brows. He
measured the Honorable Cyril’s six feet two against his own and then
turned away.
“I think I understand,” he said slowly. “Your action leaves me no other
alternative.”
Hammersley, his hands still deep in his pockets, seemed to be thinking
deeply.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Each man according to his lights. You have
your orders. I have mine. They seem to conflict. I’m going to carry
mine out. If that interferes with carrying out yours, I’m not to blame.
It’s what happens in the end that matters,” he finished significantly.
Rizzio thought deeply for a moment.
“You’ll at least let me see them?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I have my own reasons.”
Another pause in which Rizzio gave every appearance of a baffled man.
“You realize that if I gave the alarm and those papers were found on
you----”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because of your card-case.”
“That signifies nothing to anyone but you and me.”
Hammersley smiled.
“I’ll take the risk, Rizzio,” he said finally.
The two men had been so absorbed in their conversation that they had
not heard the drawing of the curtains of the door, but a sound made
them turn and there stood Doris Mather.