"I am making friends with the fellow's secretary," said Henry. "Shelikes me, I may say. And she talks quite a lot. She would notconsciously betray her chief's confidence, though she does not likehim; but all the same I get many clues from her.... Oh, my God----!"
The ejaculation, which was made under his breath, was shockedinvoluntarily out of him by the sight of Dr. Franchi's Persian catextracting with its paw from a bowl that stood on the terracebalustrade a large gold-fish and devouring it.
After the first glance Henry looked away, leaning back in his chair,momentarily overcome with a feeling of nausea, which made his faceglisten white and damp, and caused the sweat to break hotly on hisbrow, while the lake swayed and darkened before his eyes. It was afeeling to which he was unfortunately subject when he saw the smallerof God's creatures suffering these mischances at the hands of theirlarger brethren. His nerves were not strong, and he had an excessivedislike of witnessing unpleasant sights.
"You don't feel well?" Dr. Franchi solicitously inquired.
"The gold-fish," his guest murmured. "Eaten alive ... what an end!"
Dr. Franchi's delicate, dark Latin brows rose.
"The gold-fish? Ah, my wicked Pellico.... I cannot keep him from thebowl, the rascal. I regret that he so upset you. But the sensibilityof gold-fish is not great, surely? As the peasants say, non sonchretiani loro!"
"Forgive me. To see a live fish devoured ... it took me unawares.... Ishall be all right soon...."
As from a great distance Henry, still fighting the sensation ofnausea, was half aware of the ex-cardinal's piercing eyes fixed on himwith extraordinary intensity.
"I am all right now," said Henry. "A momentary faintness--quiteabsurd.... I expect gold-fish do not really feel either emotion orpain. They say that fish do not feel hooks. Or worms, either.... Theysay all sorts of comforting things about this distressing world, don'tthey. One should try to believe them all...."
"You are," said Dr. Franchi quietly, "if I may say so, a decidedlyunusual young man."
"Indeed, no," said Henry. "But I have encroached on you long enough. Imust go."
18
The motor-launch churned its foaming path down the moonlit lake. Henrysat in the stern, trailing his fingers in cool, phosphorescent water,happy, drowsy, and well fed. What a delightful evening! What acharming old man! What a divine way of being taken home! And now hehad the warm, encouraged feeling of not pursuing a lone trail, for theex-cardinal's last words to him had been: "Coraggio! Follow everyclue; push home every piece of evidence. Between us we will yet laythis enemy of the public good by the heel."
The very thought that they would yet do that flushed Henry's cheek andkindled his eye.
Assuredly the wicked should not always flourish like the bay tree. "Iwent by, and lo he was not," thought Henry, quoting the queer messagereceived by the President before the first session of the Assembly.
The launch dashed up to the Quai du Seujet, and Henry presenteda franc to the pilot, and stepped off, trying to emulate thisgentleman's air of never having visited such a low wharf before. "Youhave brought me rather too far," he said. "But I will walk back."
But, now he came to think of it, Dr. Franchi's man must obviouslyknow where he lived, so camouflage was unavailing. He had intended(only, lost in thought, he had let the moment pass) to be set downat the Paquis, as if he had been staying on the Quai du Mont Blancor thereabouts. But he had said nothing, and, without doubt orhesitation, this disagreeable chauffeur (or whatever an electriclaunch man was called) had made for the Quai du Seujet and drawn upat it, as if he knew, as doubtless he did, that Henry's lodging wasin one of the squalid alleys off it.
It could not be helped. Things do get about; Henry knew that of old.However, to maintain the effect of his words to the man, he started towalk away from the St. Gervais quarter towards the Mont Blanc bridge,until the launch was foaming on its homeward way. Then he retraced hissteps.
As he passed the end of the bridge, he saw a well-known andcharacteristic figure, small, trim, elegant, the colour of ivory,clad in faultless evening dress, beneath an equally faultless lightcoat, standing by the parapet. Some one was with him, talking tohim--an equally characteristic figure, less well known to the worldat large, but not less well known to Henry.
Henry stopped abruptly, and stood in the shadow of a newspaper kiosk.He was not in the least surprised. Any hour of the day or night didfor Charles Wilbraham to talk to the great. He would leave a dinner atthe same time as the most important person present, in order toaccompany him on his way. He would waylay cabinet ministers instreets, bishops (though himself not of their faith) in closes, androyal personages incognito. He would impede their progress, or walkdelicately beside them, talking softly, respectfully, with thatperfect propriety of diction and address which he had always atcommand.
"Soapy Sam," muttered Henry from behind the kiosk.
The two on the bridge moved on. They came towards Henry, strollingslowly and talking. The well-known personage was apparently telling anamusing story, for Charles was all attention and all smiles.
"As Chang was saying to me the other night," Henry prospectively andunctuously quoted Charles.
They left the bridge, and turned along the Quai du Mont Blanc.Charles's rather high laugh sounded above the current of their talk.
They paused at the Hotel des Bergues. The eminent person mounted itssteps; Charles accompanied him up the steps and inside. Probably theeminent person wished, by calling on some one there, to shake offCharles before going to his own hotel. But he had not shaken offCharles, who was of a tenacious habit.
"Calling on the Latin Americans," Henry commented. "Wants to have adrink and a chat without Charles. Won't get it, poor chap. Well, Ishall sleuth around till they come out. I'm going to trail Charleshome to his bed, if it takes all night."
He settled himself on the parapet of the Quai and watched the hotelentrance. He did not have to wait long. In some minutes Charles cameout alone. He looked, thought Henry, observing him furtively fromunder his pulled down hat brim, a little less elated than he hadappeared five minutes earlier. His self-esteem had suffered some blow,thought Henry, who knew Charles's mentality. Mentality: that was theword one used about Charles, as if he had been a German during thelate war (Germans having, as all readers of newspapers will remember,mentalities).
Charles walked rapidly across the bridge, towards the road that led tohis own ch?let, a mile out of the town. Henry, keeping his distance,hurried after him, through the steep, silent, sleeping city, up on tothe dusty, tram-lined, residential road above it, till Charles stoppedat a villa gate and let himself in.
Then Henry turned back, and tramped drowsily down the dusty roadbeneath the moonless sky, and down through the steep, sleeping city,and across the Pont des Bergues, and so to the Quai du Seujet and theAll?e Petit Chat, which lay dense and black and warm in shadow, andwas full of miawling cats, strange sounds, and queer acrid smells. Thedrainage system of the St. Gervais quarter was crude.
In the stifling bedroom of his crazy tenement, Henry undressed andsleepily tumbled into bed as the city clock struck two.
In the dawn, below the miawling of lean cats and the yelping of dogs,he heard the lapping and shuffling of water, and thought of boats andbeating oars.
19
To what cold seas of inchoate regret, of passionate agnosticism as tothe world's meanings, if any, does one too often wake, and know notwhy! Henry, on some mornings, would wake humming (as the queer phrasegoes) with prosperity, and spring, warm and alive, to welcome the newday. On other mornings it would be as if he shivered perplexed on thebrink of a fathomless abyss, and life engulfed him like chill waters,and he would strive, defensively, to divest himself of himself and bebut as one of millions of the ant-like creatures that scurry over theearth's face, of no more significance to himself than were the myriadothers. He could just achieve this state of impersonality while he layin bed. But when he got up, stood on the floor, looked at the world nolonger from beyond its
rim but from within its coils, he became againenmeshed, a creature crying "I, I, I," a child wanting Pears' soap andnever getting it, a pilgrim here on earth and stranger. Then the seasof desolation would swamp him and he would sink and sink, tumbled intheir bitter waves.
In such a mood of causeless sorrow he woke late on the morning afterhe had dined with Dr. Franchi. To keep it at arms' length he lay andstared at his crazy, broken shutters, off which the old paint flaked,and thought of the infinite strangeness of all life, a pastime whichvery often engaged him. Then he thought of some one whom he verygreatly loved, and was refreshed by that thought; and, indeed, to loveand be loved very greatly is the one stake to cling to in thesetroubled seas, the one unfailing life-buoy. Then, turning his mindinto practical channels, he thought of hate, and of Charles Wilbraham,and of how best to strive that day to compass him about with ruin.
So meditating, he splashed himself from head to foot with cold water,dressed, and sallied forth from his squalid abode to the nearest caf?.Coffee and rolls and the Swiss morning papers and the clear jolly airof the September morning put heart into him, as he sat outside thecaf? by the lake. Opening his paper, he read of "Femme coup?e enmorceaux" and "L'Affaire Svensen," and then a large heading,"Disparition de Lord Burnley." Henry started. Here was news indeed.And he had failed to get hold of it for his paper. Lord Burnley, itseemed, had been strolling alone about the city in the late afternoon;many people had seen him in the Rue de la Cit? and the neighbourhood.He had even been observed to enter a bookshop. The rest was silence.From that bookshop he had not been seen to emerge. The bookselleraffirmed that he had left after spending a few minutes in the shop. Nofurther information was to hand.
"_Cherchez la femme_," one comic paper had the audacity to remark, ?propos l'affaire Svensen and Burnley. Even Svensen and Burnley, sopure-hearted, so public-spirited, so League-minded, were not immunefrom such ill-bred aspersions.
20
The elegant and scholarly Spaniard, Luiz Vaga, strolled by. He wore acanary-coloured waistcoat and walked like a fastidious and gracefulbullfinch. He stopped beside Henry's breakfast-table, cocked his headon one side, and said, "Hallo. Good-morning. Heard the latest news?"
Henry admitted that he had heard no news later than that in themorning press.
"Chang's gone now," said Vaga. "Gone to join Svensen and Burnley. Iregret to say that he was last seen, late last night, paying a call onmy fellow-countrymen from South America at Les Bergues hotel. Serioussuspicion rests on these gentlemen, for poor Chang has not been heardof since."
"Somehow," Henry said thoughtfully, "I am not surprised. L'addition,s'il vous pla?t. No, I cannot say I am surprised. I rather thoughtthat there would be more disappearances very shortly. Burnley andChang. A good haul.... Who saw him going into the Bergues?"
"Our friend Wilbraham, who was out late with him last night. And theBergues people don't deny it. But they say he left again, soon aftermidnight. The hall porter, who has, it is presumed, been corrupted,confirms this. But he never returned to his hotel. Poor Burnley andChang! Two good talkers, scholars, and charming fellows. There arefew such, in this vulgar age. It is taking the best, this unseenhand that strikes down our delegates in their prime. So many couldbe spared.... But God's will must be done. These South Americans areits very fitting tools, for they don't care what they do, recklessfellows. Mind you, I don't accuse them. Personally I should be moreinclined to suspect the Zionists, or the Bolshevik refugees, or yourIrishmen, or some of the Unprotected Minorities, or the Poles, orthe Anti-Vivisection League, who are very fierce. But, for choice,the Poles; anyhow as regards Burnley. There were certain words oncepublicly spoken by Burnley to the Polish delegation about GeneralZeligowsky which have rankled ever since. Zeligowsky has many wilddisbanded soldiers at his command.... However--Chang, anyhow, wentto see the South Americans, and has not emerged. There we are."
"There we are," Henry thoughtfully agreed, as they strolled over thePont du Mont Blanc. "And what, then, is Wilbraham's explanation of theaffair Chang?"
Vaga shrugged his shoulders.
"Our friend Wilbraham is too discreet to make allegations. He merelystates the fact--that he saw Chang into the Bergues between twelve andone and left him there.... I gather that he accompanied him into thehotel, but did not stay there long himself. I can detect a slightacrimony in his manner on the subject, and deduce from it that he wasnot perhaps encouraged by Dr. Chang or his hosts to linger. I flattermyself I know Wilbraham's mentality fairly well--if one may bepermitted that rather opprobrious word."
"Yes, indeed," Henry said. "It is precisely what Wilbraham has. I knowit well."
"In that case, I believe if you had heard Wilbraham on this matter ofhis call at Les Bergues that you would agree with me that hisimportance suffered there some trifling eclipse."
"There may be other reasons," said Henry, "in this case, for themanner you speak of.... But I won't say any more now." He bit off thestream of libel that had risen to his lips and armed himself in acareful silence, while the Spaniard cocked an inquiring dark eye athis brooding profile.
In the Jardin Anglais they overtook Dr. Franchi and his niece, makingtheir way to the Assembly Hall. The ex-cardinal was greatly moved."Poor Dr. Chang," he lamented, "and Burnley too, of all men! A wit, ascholar, a philosopher, a metaphysician, a theologian, a man ofaffairs. In fine, a man one could talk to. What a mind! I am greatlyattached to Lord Burnley. They must be found, gentlemen. Alive or(unthinkable thought) dead, they must be found. The Assembly must donothing else until this sinister mystery is unravelled. We must employdetectives. We must follow every clue."
Miss Longfellow said, "My! Isn't it all quite too terribly sinister!Don't you think so, Mr. Beechtree?"
Henry said he did.
21
They reached the Assembly Hall. The lobby, buzzing with delegates,Secretariat, journalists, Genevan syndics, and excitement, was like astartled hive. The delegates from Cuba, Chili, Bolivia, and Paraguay,temporarily at one, were informing the eager throng who crowded roundthem that Dr. Chang had left the Bergues hotel, after a chat and awhisky with the delegate from Paraguay, at twelve-thirty precisely.The delegate from Paraguay had gone out with him and had left him onthe Pont des Bergues. He had said that he was going to cross thisbridge and stroll round the old _cit?_ before going to bed, as hegreatly admired the picturesque night aspect of these ancientstreets and houses that clustered round the cathedral. He had then,presumably, made his way to this old, tortuous and unsafe maze ofstreets, so full of dark archways, trap-doors, cellars, windingstairways, evil smells, and obscure alleys. ("These alleys," as alocal guide-book coldly puts it, "are not well inhabited, but thevisitor may safely go through those of houses 5 and 17." Had Dr.Chang, perhaps, been through, part of the way through, numbers 4 or 16instead?)
"That's right; put it on the _cit?_," muttered Grattan, who was fondof this part of Geneva, for he often dined there, and who admired therepresentatives of the South American states as hopeful agents ofcrime and mystery.
No evidence, it seemed, was forthcoming that any one had seen Dr.Chang in the _cit?_, but then, as the delegate from Paraguay remarked,even the inhabitants of the _cit?_ must sleep sometimes.
Police and detectives had early been put to work to search thecathedral quarter. Systematically they were making inquiries in it,street by street, house by house. Systematically, too, others weremaking inquiries in the old St. Gervais quarter.
"But police detective work is never any good," as Henry, a well-readperson in some respects, remarked. "It is well known that one requiresnon-constabulary talent."