"I understand it all, Harold," he said, "and you needn't tell me any more. I can sympathise with you, but I have much to tell you -- news, or at least theories, which you'll be astounded to hear. Listen carefully to me. I believe you and I are going to unearth the most wicked conspiracy in the world's history. Pull yourself together and follow me with all your power. All hope is not yet gone."
Basil saw, with some relief, the set and attentive face before him, a face more like the old Harold Spence. As he began to tell his story, suddenly it was as though scales fell from his eyes. Gertrude Hunt. She might know something that she had not yet revealed to anyone. Was it possible that Sir Robert Llwellyn had confided in her a confession of his involvement in this terrible deception, in a moment of unguarded intimacy?
Chapter 21
Sir Michael Manichoe, Father Ripon, and Harold Spence were sitting in Sir Michael's own study in his London house in Berkeley Square. A small circular table with the remains of a simple meal showed that they had dined there, without formality, more of necessity than pleasure.
A grim resolution, something of horror, a great expectation looked out of their eyes.
Sir Michael glanced at his watch. "Gortre ought to be here shortly," he said. "It won't take him long to get here from Victoria. The train must be in already."
Father Ripon nodded, without speaking.
There was another interval of silence.
Then Spence spoke. "Of course it is only a chance," he said. "Gertrude Hunt may very likely be able to give us no information whatever. One can hardly suppose that Llwellyn would confide in her."
"Not fully," said Father Ripon. "But there will be letters probably. I feel sure that Gortre will come back with some contributory evidence, at all events. We must go to work slowly, and with the greatest care."
"The greatest possible care," repeated Sir Michael. "On the shoulders of us four people hangs an incredible burden. We must do nothing until we are sure. But ever since Basil Gortre's suspicions have been known to me, ever since Constantine Schuabe asked you that curious question in the train, Ripon, everything becomes clear at once. The only difficulty is the difficulty of believing in such colossal wickedness, coupled with such supreme daring."
"It is hard," said Father Ripon, "but probably our minds have been dazzled with the consequences, the size of the fraud. Apart from this question of size, it may be that there is no more danger or difficulty for Llwellyn and Schuabe in doing such gigantic evil than in doing evil on a smaller scale."
"Perhaps the size of the operation blinds people to----" Spence was continuing, when the door opened and the butler showed Basil into the room.
He wore a heavy black cloak and carried a Paisley travelling rug on his arm.
The three waiting men jumped to their feet, with an unspoken question on their lips.
Basil was slightly flushed from his ride through the keen, frosty air of the evening. His manner was brisk, hopeful.
"The interview with Miss Hunt was excessively painful, as I had anticipated," he began. "I have been able to get no direct absolute confirmation of our suspicions. On the other hand, what I have heard establishes something and has made me morally certain that we're on the right track. I think there can be no doubt about that. Again, there's a strong possibility that we'll know more shortly."
"Have you had anything to eat?" asked Sir Michael.
"No, sir, and I'm hungry after my journey. I'll have some of this cold beef, and tell you everything that's happened while I eat."
He sat down, began his meal, and told his story in detail.
"I found Miss Hunt," he said, "in her little cottage by the coastguard watch house, looking over the sea. Of course, as you know, she's known as Mrs. Hunt in the village. Only the rector there knows her story. She's made herself very much loved in Eastworld, even in the short time she's been there. I asked her, first of all, about her life in general. Then, without in any way indicating the object of my visit, I led the conversation up to the subject of the Palestine discovery.
"Of course she'd heard of it, and knew all the details. The country rector had preached on it, and the whole village, so it seems, was in a ferment for a week or so. Miss Hunt is a woman with a good brain, and she saw at once what it would mean to her. Her own words were infinitely moving. She told me that when she first realised what the news meant or would mean, she had a black time of terror and struggle.
"'When I first heard the news I went out on the sands,' she said, 'and walked for miles. Then when I was tired out I sat down and cried, to think that there would never be any Jesus anymore to save poor girls. It seemed so empty and terrible, and I'd only been trying to be good such a short time. I went to evensong when I got back. The bell was tolling just as usual. As I sat there I saw that it couldn't be true that Jesus was just a good man, and not God. I wondered at myself for doubting, seeing what He'd done for me. If the paper was right, then why was it I was so happy, happier than ever before in my life -- even though I'm going to die soon? Why was it I could go away and leave Bob and the old life? Why was it I could see Jesus in my walks, hear the wind praying -- feel everything was speaking of Him?'
"That's the substance of what she said, though there was much more. I wish I could tell you adequately of the deep conviction in her voice and eyes. One doesn't often see it, except in very old people. She told me that in both Church and the Dissenting chapels -- there are two -- the whole thing died away in a marvellous manner. Everyone came to the services just the same as usual, and life went on in unbroken placidity.
"The fishermen, who compose the whole population of the village, absolutely refused to believe or discuss the thing. So utterly different from townspeople. They simply felt and knew intuitively that the statements made in the papers must be untrue. So without argument or worry they ignored it. Miss Hunt said the church has been fuller than ever before, the people coming as a sort of stubborn protest against any attack on the faith of their fathers.
"After this, I began to speak of our suspicions as delicately as possible. It was horribly difficult. I was afraid of awakening old longings and recalling that man's influence. I was relieved to find she took it very well indeed. Her feelings towards the man have undergone a complete change. She fears him, not because he has yet an influence over her, but with a hearty fear and horror of the life she was living with him. When I told her what we thought, she said that from what she knew of Llwellyn, he wouldn't stop even at such wickedness as this. She said he only cared for two things, and kept them quite distinct. When he's working he throws his whole heart into what he's doing, and he'll let no obstacle stand in his way. He wants to constantly assure himself of his own pre-eminence in his Museum studies. He must be first at any cost.
"When his work is over he dismisses it absolutely from his thoughts, and lives entirely for gross, material pleasures. The man seems to pursue these with an overwhelming eagerness. I gather he must be one of the coldest and most calculating pleasure seekers that breathes. The actual points I have gathered are these, and I think you'll see that they're extremely important. Llwellyn was enormously in debt to Schuabe. Suddenly, Miss Hunt tells me, when Llwellyn's financial position got to be very shaky, Schuabe forgave him the old debts and paid him a large sum of money.
"Llwellyn then paid the girl generously, and told her the money had come from Schuabe. It wasn't a loan from Schuabe this time, he said to her, but a payment for some work he was about to do. He also impressed the necessity of silence on her. While away, he wrote several times to her -- once from Alexandria, from one or two places on the Continent, and twice from the German hotel, the Sabîl, in Jerusalem."
There was a sudden murmur from the men who were listening to Basil's narrative. He had long since forgotten to eat and was leaning forward on the table. He paused for a moment, drank a glass of water, and concluded:
"This then is all I know at present, but it gives us a basis. We now know Sir Robert Llwellyn was staying privately in Jerusalem.
Miss Hunt was instructed to write to him under the name of the Reverend Robert Lake, and she did so, thinking his incognito was assumed owing to the kind of pleasures he was pursuing, and especially because of his recent knighthood. In a week's time Miss Hunt has asked me to go down to Eastworld again, as she has hopes of remembering more facts that can be used as evidence."
"This is of great importance, Gortre," said Sir Michael. "We now have something definite to go on."
"I'll start again for Jerusalem without loss of a day," said Spence, his whole face lighting up and hardening at the thought of active occupation.
"I was going to suggest it, Mr. Spence," said Sir Michael. "You will do what is necessary better than any of us, and your departure will attract less notice. You will of course draw on me for any money that may be necessary. No financial considerations must stand in the way. We're working for the peace and happiness of millions. We're in very deep waters."
Father Ripon gave a long sigh. Then, in an instant, his face hardened and flushed till it was almost unrecognisable. The others started back from him in amazement. He began to tremble violently. Then he spoke.
"God forgive me," he said in a thick, husky voice. "God forgive me! But when I think of those two men, devils that they are, devils, when I regard the broken lives, the suicides, the fearful mass of crime, I----"
His voice failed him. The frightful wrath and anger took him and shook this tall, black-robed figure like a reed. It twisted him with a physical convulsion inexpressibly painful to witness.
For near a minute Father Ripon stood among them like this, and they were rigid with sympathy, with alarm.
Then, with a heavy sob, he turned and fell on his knees in silent prayer.
Chapter 22
The little village of Eastworld is set on a low headland by the sea, remote from towns and any haunt of men. The white cottages of the fisher folk, an inn, a chapel, the church, and a low block of coastguard buildings, are the only buildings there. Below the headland there are miles upon miles of utterly lonely sands which edge the sea in a great yellow scimitar as far as the eye can carry, from east to west.
Hardly any human footsteps ever disturb the vast smoothness of the sands, for the fisher folk sail up the mouth of a sluggish tidal river to reach the village. All day long the melancholy seabirds call to each other over the wastes, and away on the skyline, or so it seems to anyone walking on the sands, the great white breakers roll and boom for ever.
Over the flat expanses, with no obstacle to slacken or impede its progress, the tide rushes with furious haste -- as fast, so the fisher folks tell, as a good horse in full gallop.
It was the beginning of the winter afternoon on the day after Basil had visited Eastworld. There was little wind, but the sky hung low in cold and menacing clouds, cheerless and gloomy.
A single figure moved slowly through these forbidding solitudes. It was Gertrude Hunt. She wore a simple coat and skirt of grey tweed, a tam-o'-shanter cap of crimson wool, and carried a walking cane.
She had come alone to resolve a problem out there between the sea and sky, with no human help or sympathy to aid her.
The strong, passionate face was paler than before and worn by suffering. Yet as she strode along, there was a wild beauty in her appearance which seemed to harmonise with the very spirit and meaning of the place, although the face had lost the old jaunty hardihood. Qualities in it which had before spoken of an impudent self-sufficiency now were changed to quiet purpose. There was an appeal for pity in the eyes which had once been bright with shamelessness and sin.
The woman was thinking deeply. Her head was bowed as she walked, the lips set close together.
Mr. Gortre's visit moved her deeply. When she heard his story, something within her, an intuition beyond calm reason, told her instantly of its truth. She could not have said why she knew this, but she was utterly certain.
Her long connection with Bob Llwellyn left no traces of affection now. As she often knelt in the little windy church on the headland and listened to the rector, an old friend of Father Ripon's, reading prayers, she looked back on her past life as someone in sunlight remembers a horrid nightmare of the night past. She but rarely allowed her thoughts to dwell on the former partner of her sin, but when she did so, it was with a sense of shrinking and dislike.
As the new Light filled her life, she endeavoured to think of the man with Christian charity and sometimes to pray that his heart also might be touched. But perhaps this was the most difficult of all the duties she set herself. She had no illusions about the past, realised his kindness to her, and also knew that she had been at least as bad as he. But now there seemed a great gulf between them which she never cared to pass even in thought.
Her repentance was so sincere and deep, her mourning for her misspent life so genuine, that it never allowed her the least iota of spiritual pride -- the snare of weaker penitents when they have turned from evil courses. Yet, try as she would, she could never manage to really identify her hopes and prayers with Bob Llwellyn in any vivid way.
And now the young clergyman from St. Mary's, the actual instrument of her own salvation as she regarded him, had come to her with this story in which she recognised the truth.
In sad and eloquent words he had painted for her what the great fraud meant to thousands. He told of upright and godly men stricken down because their faith was not strong enough to bear the blow. There was the curate at Wigan who had shot himself, and left a heart-breaking letter of mad mockery behind. There were other cases of suicide.
There was also the surging tide of crime, rising ever higher and higher as the clergy lost their influence in the slums of London and the great towns. He told her of Harold Spence, explaining he was a journalist friend, a good man who had overcome his temptations with the aid of faith and trust in Jesus. And he described his own return to Lincoln's Inn, the disorder, and Harold's miserable story.
She could picture it all so well, that side of life. She knew its every detail. And, moreover, Mr. Gortre had said that the evil was growing and spreading each day, each hour. Men were becoming reckless; the hosts of evil triumphed on every side.
The thought which came to her as Mr. Gortre gradually unfolded the object of his visit was startling. She herself might perhaps prove to be the pivot on which these great events were turning. It was possible that by her words, that by means of her help, the dark conspiracy might be unveiled and the world freed from its burden. She herself might be able to do all this, a kind of thank offering for the miraculous change God had wrought in her life.
Yet, when it was all summed up, how little she had to tell Mr. Gortre after all. True, her memories of things said by Bob in the past seemed to be of some value. They seemed to confirm what he and his friends suspected. But still it was very little. Could she provide another key to open this dark door?
She had asked Mr. Gortre to come to her again in a week, wanting more time to recall any scrap of things she had heard back in Bloomsbury Court Mansion.
In that time, she said, she might have some further information for him. And now she was out here, alone on the sands, to ask her soul and God what she was to do.
The clouds fell lower, a cutting wind began to moan and cry over the sand, which was swept up and swirled in her face. And still she went on with a bitterness and chill as of death in her heart.
She knew her power over her former lover. Knew her power well. He would be as wax in her hands, and it had always been so. From the very first she had done what she liked with him. There had always been an undercurrent of contempt in her thoughts that a man could be led so easily, could be made the puppet of his own passion. Nor did she doubt that her power still remained. She felt sure of that.
Even in her seclusion, some news of Bob's frantic attempts to find her had reached her. Her beauty still remained, heightened indeed by the slow complaint from which she was suffering. He knew nothing of that. And, as for the rest -- the rouge pot, the belladonna -- well, they were stil
l available, though she had thought to have done with them for ever.
The idea began to emerge from the mist, as it were, and to take form and colour. She thought definitely of it, though with horror; looked it in the face, though shuddering as she did so.
It resolved itself into a statement, a formula, which rang and dinned itself repeatedly into her consciousness like the ominous strokes of a bell heard through the turmoil of the gathering storm.
"If I go back to Bob and pretend I'm tired of being good, he'll tell me what he's done."
Over and over again she repeated the sentence to herself. It glowed in her brain, and burnt it like letters of heated wire. She looked up at the leaden canopy which held the wind, and it flashed out at her in letters of violet lightning. The wind carved it in the sand.
"If I go back to Bob and pretend I'm tired of being good, he'll tell me what he's done."
Could she do this thing for the sake of Mr. Gortre, for the sake of the world? What did it mean exactly? She would be sinning terribly once more, going back to the old life. It was possible she might never be able to break away again after achieving her purpose. Surely one did not twice escape hell. It would mean sinning a deadly sin in order to help others. Ought she to do that? Was that right?
The wind plucked at her, shrieking.
Could she do this thing?
She would only be sinning with her body, not with her heart, and Jesus would know why she did it. Would He cast her out for this?
The struggle went on in her brain. If she went back it might mean utter damnation, even though she discovered what she wanted to find out. She had been a Christian so short a time, and she knew very little of the truth about these matters.
Suddenly she saw the thing, as she fancied, and indeed said half aloud to herself, "It is better that one person, especially one that's been as bad as I have, should go to hell than hundreds and thousands of others."
And then her decision was taken.
The light died out of her face, the hope also. She became old in a sudden moment.