SHOWS THE PULSE OF THE WORLD
Jealousy is the hydra of calamities, the seven-fold death; and things
are only worth what one makes them worth.
Women have always some idea kept in the background. What, I wondered,
was Daisy's?
I telephoned to Marvin at home, and received instructions to keep
an engagement at Hampstead--a meeting upon a question in which the
_Evening Herald_ had taken great interest. Then I lit a pipe and sat
for a long time pondering, thinking of the man who at that moment was
in the wagon-lit of the Orient Express, speeding eastward across Europe.
I read the report of the inquest carefully, trying to discover what
it was which had so suddenly caused a change in the manner of my
well-beloved. But I could discern nothing. True, the story of the
mysterious second woman was told for the first time, with the account
of how she had committed suicide. Yet somehow I did not think it was
that which had caused her such consternation and amazement.
My brain was awhirl. The problem was inscrutable.
I went down to the Savage Club, and in the big picture-hung,
tobacco-mellowed room, half of which is devoted to smoking and half
to eating, I ate my dinner at a table with two friends, journalists
on rival newspapers. One was Day, a reporter on the _Morning Post_,
and the other Melville, of the _Globe_. Both had "done" the inquest at
Barnes that afternoon, and knowing that I had been with Whitlock were
anxious to hear the latest. But I was close and said nothing. Whitlock
knew that I could keep a secret, and for that very reason allowed me to
be present at so many confidential inquiries and investigations.
From eight till nine I sat in a public hall at Hampstead, and at
nine-thirty took my stall at the Oxford Music Hall, waiting for the
appearance of my well-beloved.
The place was packed in every part and thick with tobacco smoke. Not
a seat in the house was unoccupied, and had I not obtained a stall by
telephone I should have been compelled to stand in the lounge.
At last a troupe of clever acrobats concluded their "turn," and Daisy's
number appeared in illuminated figures at the side of the proscenium.
Then the curtain went up, and, as the slim, sweet-faced girl came
dancing on in her smart white motor-coat, cap, and veil, she was
greeted by a hearty round of applause, which showed in what public
favour she was held.
Next moment, when the orchestra struck up, she began to sing "The
Motor Maid," the song that had already taken all London by storm, and
which was being whistled, hummed, and played upon the barrel-organs
everywhere. The whole audience quickly took up the tuneful chorus,
which began--
"This smart little motor maid,
With a dainty kiss she paid."
The song received a loud encore, and in response she reappeared in
a most becoming dress of black chiffon, the short dancing-skirt and
bodice narrowly edged with pale pink, while the corsage was covered
with silver sequins.
The orchestra struck up, and she executed a dance so full of wild
abandon that the packed audience applauded over and over again, until
she concluded with a final high kick, made her bow, and disappeared as
the heavy plush curtains fell together again.
I hung about the stage door to catch sight of her, fearing to approach
her because of old Annie. Then, after seeing her and the faithful old
servant get into a cab and drive off, I returned along Oxford Street to
my chambers.
James Marvin was, like most news editors and sub-editors in London,
a Scotsman. When I entered the large, well-lighted sub-editors' room
of the _Evening Herald_ next morning he had already been there since
half-past seven, seated at his table, littered with piles of telegraph
tape pasted upon slips of "copy-paper," and "flimsies," or sheets of
oiled paper, carbon duplicates of news that had been sent round to all
the other London evening papers.
There he was, busily reading, flinging some upon the floor and tossing
others into the basket before him.
He was a red-moustached, bald-headed man of fifty, rather short, and
when at work always sat in his shirt-sleeves, both summer and winter.
He wore gold pince-nez, and he was acknowledged by every journalist in
London to be--next to Wakeley, of the _Daily Herald_--the smartest news
editor in the kingdom.
He had a keen eye for journalistic sensations and "scoops" both day
and night. A perfect demon for work, he kept the noses of the whole
staff to the grindstone, obtaining every ounce of force our bodies and
brains possessed. If a man became slow or even a trifle elderly, out he
went. Only the smartest of men were required on the up-to-date _Evening
Herald_, with all its American methods and ingenious competitions.
"Late, Keene!" old Marvin snapped as I entered. "I marked you in the
book for an engagement in the City an hour ago. Oh, you needn't trouble
now. Franks has gone. Well," he went on, without glancing up at me,
his big blue crayon slashing out a lot of penny-a-liners' verbiage
from the piece of "flimsy" before him, "and what about that meeting at
Hampstead? Worth anything?"
"Nothing," I replied.
"Let's see! You're doing the Barnes mystery? Anything fresh?"
"There's a bit just come in from the C.N.," remarked Hubbard, a
consumptive-looking, yellow-haired youth, who had recently been
promoted to the rank of an assistant sub-editor, and who was seated at
a table behind which stood a row of seven telegraph tapes, all of which
were clicking together, unrolling yards upon yards of news printed upon
the narrow paper ribbons.
I crossed to his table to ascertain what fresh intelligence the Central
News had circulated.
In the room were five other large writing-tables and five other big
waste-paper baskets, besides that of the news editor, Marvin. At each
sat the assistants, all engaged in the same work of rapidly scanning
the various telegrams and reports, and deciding which was of sufficient
interest to publish in the paper. On most newspapers nowadays the
person known to the public as "The Editor" is merely a figure-head who
arranges the subjects of the leading articles and directs the general
policy of the journal. It is the news editor who "gets up" the paper,
and upon whose shoulders the whole burden of responsibility falls.
Thus the bald-headed Scot, surrounded by his tape instruments, his
telephones, his private wire to the City office--over which come the
Stock Exchange quotations--and his five assistants, held his finger
upon the pulse of the world.
That office never slept. Those clicking tapes went on night and day. An
occurrence in San Francisco would reach the office within twenty-five
minutes, while the paper with the winner of the University boat-race
had been actually printing twenty seconds after the successful crew
had passed the winning-post at Mortlake. On great occasions, too, an
instrument which, covered by a small wooden box, was screwed to a
little table in the corner would be used--the cable instrument direct
from the New York office.
In the collection of news for the _Evening Herald_ no expense was ever
spared. It was the unceasing hustle of which the staff complained. Each
reporter was bound to have the telephone in his private house, and
old Marvin--known in the office as "Joyous Jimmy"--would ring them up
constantly in the middle of the night, when some new idea for a "scoop"
or a good story occurred to him.
The popular legend was that he never slept. One thing is certain--that
long hours never fatigued him, and that he was the first man in the
office in the morning and the last to leave.
The _Daily Herald_ building was a perfect hive of industry, and,
indeed, one of the sights of London: the big square block of offices,
with its central courtyard whence the bundles of papers from the
machine-rooms poured out into the vans, motor cars, and motor cycles;
the six floors of small rooms housing the editorial staff of twenty
different publications in addition to the morning and evening _Herald_.
To the staff the place was known as the "rabbit-warren," for it
consisted of hundreds of different departments, the top floor of
which was given over to the _Evening Herald_. Below were the library,
reference-room, tape-rooms, and news editor's department of one of the
world's greatest and most influential journals, the _Daily Herald_, but
these rooms being insufficient at night, their staff overflowed into
ours from 9 p.m. till about 4 a.m. Therefore our rooms were never left
and our tapes ticked out their messages year in year out--Sundays and
week-days, incessant and never-ending.
Into that big square apartment with its large skylight was concentrated
the whole news of the world day by day, hour by hour--nay, moment by
moment.
The message which the consumptive youth handed to me proved to be a
piece of column tape from the Central News instrument, which stated
that, according to the _Western Evening Express_, at Plymouth,
Inspector Whitlock had, on the previous day, made certain discoveries
at the empty house in Barnes where the young girl had been found
murdered. The report was practically the forged telegram which Whitlock
and myself had read during its transmission on the previous day. There
was, however, no mention of the source of information, even though
it be so true, and evidently in the first place supplied by one well
acquainted with the truth.
I wondered whether Whitlock's inquiries as to the sender of the
mysterious message had been fraught with any result.
"Well," asked Marvin, still without looking up from his blotting-pad,
"anything fresh in that Barnes affair? Shall we make it a feature
to-day?"
"No," I replied. "I'm looking after it again this morning, but there
won't be anything fresh for a day or two. The police know a lot of
things, but don't want them made public."
He raised his head and peered forth at me through his gold-rimmed
glasses--looked at me rather curiously, I thought.
"Do you know any of these things?" he asked.
"Well--some of them," I replied. "Indeed, there's something here which
I suppose the other papers will give," and I handed him the piece of
tape.
"H'm!" he grunted. "Is this true?"
I responded in the affirmative.
"And you knew it yesterday? Why didn't you send it up to us?" he asked,
glaring at me. "We could have made it the feature of the 'special.'"
"Because--well, because Whitlock wouldn't allow it," I replied,
resolved to keep the secret of the message and its mysterious
authorship to myself.
"Whitlock be hanged!" he snarled. "When you get hold of a good thing
publish it, and make an excuse afterwards. A Pressman who keeps his
news to himself isn't any good nowadays. The _Herald's_ a live paper,
and doesn't want to get its London news from Plymouth."
"But I----"
"What's the good of excuses?" he snapped, in his high-pitched voice.
"You knew a good thing and didn't publish it. If the Chief gets to hear
of it there'll be a row. You're not smart, Keene. I once thought you'd
make a good crime investigator, but in this case--a real first-class
sensation--you've failed miserably. What's the good of pottering about
with Whitlock if you don't let us know what he's discovered?"
"But I managed to keep everything back from the other papers and
agencies," I protested.
"And gave us nothing ourselves!" he laughed, with a sneer. "That's what
you call up-to-date journalism? Why, when I was down at Bath thirty
years ago we could do better than that--or we'd have got the sack."
"The confidence Whitlock reposes in me is based upon the fact that I've
never abused it."
"Rot! A 'scoop' like that was worth a couple of hundred pounds, or
more, to the paper. And you could easily have put it right with
him afterwards. Good heavens! If you're going to be so infernally
scrupulous about other people's feelings you'd better throw up
journalism and go in for the church. It would suit you better," he
declared, with a dry laugh. "But," he added, "let's see whether you
can't make a bit of 'copy' to-day. You're getting like Julian Little,
and won't write a line unless absolutely necessary."
"I don't want to give the subs unnecessary work," I replied, laughing,
with an endeavour to treat his grumbling with humour.
"Well, just give 'em a little bit of exercise to-day," he said.
"What's this about the police finding a small portrait of a gentleman,
for instance? Just go and see Whitlock and induce him--pay him if
you like--to let you have the loan of it, and we'll publish it in
to-night's special."
"It might negative the efforts of the police."
"Negative them! Why, my dear Keene, some reader or other may identify
the original and thus greatly assist them. Go along to Scotland Yard
at once, use your best influence with Whitlock, and give him my
compliments. Just get him to lend it to you for half an hour, and take
it along to Park's studio. He'd take a copy of it. That will be a real
good 'scoop' if we publish it to-night."
And he resumed his work with his blue pencil, while I stood staring at
him without replying.
The expression upon his countenance as he had spoken had been very
curious, almost as though he was actually aware of the amazing truth
concerning the portrait.
He wished to publish it in that night's "special"!