A NIGHT AT THE SAVAGE
It was Saturday evening, and Whitlock decided to return to Cromer. At
the conclusion of the inquest, in consequence of a telegram he received
from Beale, he made a sudden resolve. I ventured to suggest that to
return might mean detection by Julian Little. But he only smiled,
saying--
"I shall take good care we do not meet."
I wished to accompany him, but he would not allow it. One of us was
sufficient, he declared; therefore, about eight o'clock I saw him off
from King's Cross, and walked back to Gray's Inn--lonely and puzzled.
Old Mrs Davis had nothing fresh to report; but among my letters I found
an urgent note from Wakeley, the news editor of the _Daily Herald_,
stating that Tewfik Pasha, the Foreign Minister of the Sultan, had
consented to be interviewed regarding the proposal of international
disarmament; that he had appointed a day at the end of next week;
and that "the Chief" had suggested that I should be sent on my first
foreign mission to Constantinople.
In ordinary circumstances such an order would delight any journalist.
Not only was I to be sent so far, on my first engagement abroad, but
I was to be entrusted with a very delicate and important interview,
which I was to sign, and which would, I knew, be quoted in the Press
of the whole world. Any pronouncement of policy by Tewfik Pasha is of
international importance, and he must be a very wooden journalist who
would not be filled with delight at such an opportunity of earning
distinction.
With me, however, it was different. I had no desire to leave London,
and yet there were Wakeley's words--
"I shall be at the office on Sunday night and will have cash ready
for you, also your passport, which I've sent to the Turkish Consulate
for _visé_ for Constantinople. You must leave Charing Cross at nine
on Monday morning at latest, and catch the Orient Express from Ostend
_viâ_ Constanza. I have heard nothing of Little. A wire to the Grand at
Belgrade has been returned. Have you any news of him?"
I read and re-read my travelling orders. At that moment I would have
given anything to remain in England and watch the course of events.
But it was quite out of the question. I could not possibly disobey
the Chief's wishes in this respect. He trusted me and believed in me,
otherwise he would never have entrusted me with such an important
mission. Besides, I was a Bohemian in spirit--a wanderer who desired to
travel and see the world beyond the stifling four-mile radius and the
smug, self-satisfied civilisation enjoyed by our modern England.
True, I had "done" one or two of the Continental capitals as a summer
tourist, and had been driven in Cook's chars-a-bancs to the battlefield
of Waterloo and suchlike historic spots, but it had always been the
dream of my life to see the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, to visit
St Sophia and the Great Bazaar. The capital of His Majesty the Sultan
is, to the majority of Europeans, a closed book. Its beauties are well
known, but few have seen them. Here was surely an opportunity not to be
missed.
And yet when I reflected upon the urgent necessity of my presence in
England just at that moment, and how it might affect my future life, I
felt sorely tempted to write direct to Sir Henry Neave, and ask him to
relieve me of my engagement. On the other hand, however, I reflected
how all my chances of advancement in my profession depended upon the
success of that mission, and how the Chief might view my disinclination
to travel to the Near East. It was he himself who had given me
advancement, and surely I ought to keep faith with him!
It was this reflection that decided me. I was hipped and soured by
Daisy's heartlessness, and a change, perhaps, would do me good. I would
be absent at least a fortnight, and would return refreshed in mind and
body.
So I sent a wire to Whitlock to get on the telephone at ten o'clock
next morning, and then went down to the Savage Club for an hour.
Saturday night is always merry at that smoke-begrimed home of London's
Bohemia--or, at least, the little that is left of Bohemia. In my own
student days in Paris, Bohemia still existed, and across the Seine we
were a merry, careless crowd, who assisted each other and who never
judged a man by his coat. But the Bohemia of Mürger and of Du Maurier
has long ago departed, and in its place there is in London, as also in
Paris, the little coterie of successful men who assemble weekly and
endeavour to sustain its old traditions and unwritten laws.
Save in the case of one or two members of the Savage, the real,
thorough-going, felt-hatted Bohemian does not exist nowadays. Even
the last of the race of original Savages--a charming old gentleman in
broad-brimmed hat and flowing cloak--has become changed, indeed, in
these decadent days of "tubes" and motor 'buses.
Even if one sighs for the free, merry life that is no more--the
life where the successful helped the struggling, and where the
good-fellowship was as genuine to the penniless artist as to the
influential editor--nevertheless Saturday night at the Savage is
still one of the institutions of London, and invitations are eagerly
coveted by some of the highest in the land. The guests at the weekly
house-dinner have ranged from Royal princes down to recently-made
birthday knights, including scientists, explorers, soldiers, lord
mayors, politicians, literary men, doctors--in fact, representative men
in all professions. After the ordinary, plain English dinner the tables
are cleared and a smoking concert is given, the chairman of the evening
keeping order with a huge African club--the Savage club.
On entering, I found the stairs crowded by men who had come out of the
room "to get a breath of air." Within, the tobacco smoke was thick and
the assembled company were laughing hugely at a humorous recitation
given by Mr O'Neil, an actor of the old school, who for many years had
made the Savage his home, and was in consequence one of its best-known
members. The recitation ended, a loud encore compelled him to sing a
song with a rousing chorus, the final lines of which were--
"We'll drink strong beer
To welcome the harvest ho-o-o-ome,
To welcome the harvest home."
Men I knew waved their hands to me, journalists, artists, sculptors,
most of them, all smoking furiously and consuming whisky and soda.
The guest was one of the greatest scientists of the day, a
white-headed, sedate-looking man, who blinked upon the company through
his gold spectacles and who rarely laughed, while the chairman was an
alderman who during the preceding year had been Lord Mayor of London.
The Savages have a partiality for ex-Lord Mayors, and no really
representative gathering is complete without one.
Mr O'Neil was followed by a great naturalist of world-wide fame in
a brief and very humorous lecture upon the common or garden snail,
illustrated by diagrams on the blackboard, which caused great hilarity.
Then came a lightning artist, another recitation, several songs, and
afterwards a selection from a popular play given by an actor who had
recently received a knighthood, and who, in consequence, now considered
the club rather bad form. He patronised it merely because he met
critics there who were of use to him. The whole club were well aware
of this, and despised both him and his conduct, treating him with the
contempt he deserved.
Presently, as I sat at the end of one of the long, crowded tables,
smoking and chatting with Garnett, the news editor of the _Pall Mall_,
Wakeley entered and, greeting me, managed to squeeze himself in at my
side.
"Thought you were in the country, Keene!" he exclaimed. "Got my
letter--eh? When shall you leave?"
"Well, on Monday morning, I suppose."
"Right! I'll wire to-morrow to our man in Constantinople telling him
you are coming. I've never met him, but I believe you'll find him a
decent fellow," he added, lighting his big briar pipe. "He'll put you
up to all the ropes. I only wish I were going out. What a chance!"
"Where are you off to, Keene?" inquired Garnett.
"To see Tewfik Pasha in Constantinople," I replied.
"What, have you given up crime?" he laughed.
"Yes," I answered. "I've become a special."
"Then good luck to you, my dear chap," he said, raising his glass
to me. "That was always my ambition, as it is of every man in Fleet
Street. But it comes to few of us. I'm getting a bit too old, now, and
shall stick in the news-room for ever, I suppose."
"And I, too," admitted Wakeley, who was undoubtedly the smartest
journalist in all London. "I tried to become a special a dozen times
before I went to the _Herald_, but nobody would have me!"
"By Jove! It requires a smart man nowadays to be a special
correspondent!" our colleague of the _Pall Mall_ remarked. "But you,
Keene, are just the fellow."
"You're very kind indeed to say so," I laughed. "I love travelling."
"You'll follow in the footsteps of Julian Little, I suppose--his
assistant in fact--eh?"
"I suppose so," I said, for mention of my friend's name brought before
me all the tangled skein of events which, amid that smoky scene of
good-fellowship and _bonhomie_ I had, for the moment, forgotten.
A well-known variety artiste had at that moment seated himself at the
piano and commenced to play and sing a popular song with a catchy
refrain that had recently taken all London. Therefore, the chairman
brought down the big club heavily, and called us to order in a fierce
voice. And so for the next few moments we were compelled to remain
silent.
The door was closed, and an associate of the Royal Academy had his
back against it, for no Savage enters or leaves the room while a song
or recitation is in progress. Saturday night is the one night in the
week when all are equal, and when the chairman rules. Guests sit meekly
by in wonder at the nicknames bandied about by men whose names are as
household words in the homes of England.
"Oh! by the way," exclaimed Wakeley, turning to me suddenly--when the
song was ended in a thunder of applause and cries of "Give us another,
old man!"--"have you heard from Little? We haven't the slightest notion
where he is. He went to Belgrade, and hasn't been heard of since. I
know he writes to you often when he's away."
"No," I replied. "He hasn't written to me."
"Why, Little's in Cromer," remarked Garnett, who had overheard our
words.
"In Cromer!" cried Wakeley, in a tone of incredibility. "Cromer--here
in Norfolk?"
"Yes. Certainly."
"But he's out somewhere in Servia--went out there because of a crisis
he anticipated. He has a free hand--as you know."
"I don't care for that," Garnett replied. "He was in Cromer three days
ago--I happen to know that as a fact. And a rather curious fact, I
think, when everything is considered."
"Everything!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean?"