The Devil’s Paw by E. Phillips Oppenheim (page 3)

and hastened to their rescue. She conversed with the man for a few minutes in French, while her companion listened admiringly, and finally, at his solicitation, herself ordered the dinner.

“The news, please, Mr. Fenn?” she asked, as soon as the man had withdrawn.

“News?” he repeated. “Oh, let’s leave it alone for a time! One gets sick of shop.”

She raised her eyebrows a little discouragingly. She was dressed with extraordinary simplicity, but the difference in caste between the two supplied a problem for many curious observers.

“Why should we talk of trifles,” she demanded, “when we both have such a great interest in the most wonderful subject in the world?”

“What is the most wonderful subject in the world?” he asked impressively.

“Our cause, of course,” she answered firmly, “the cause of all the peoples – Peace.”

“One labours the whole day long for that,” he grumbled. “When the hour for rest comes, surely one may drop it for a time?”

“Do you feel like that?” she remarked indifferently. “For myself, during these days I have but one thought. There is nothing else in my life. And you, with all those thousands and millions of your fellow creatures toiling, watching and waiting for a sign from you – oh, I can’t imagine how your thoughts can ever wander from them for a moment, how you can ever remember that self even exists! I should like to be trusted, Mr. Fenn, as you are trusted.”

“My work,” he said complacently, “has, I hope, justified that trust.”

“Naturally,” she assented, “and yet the greatest part of it is to come. Tell me about Mr. Orden?”

“There is no change in the fellow’s attitude. I don’t imagine there will be until the last moment. He is just a pig-headed, insufferably conceited Englishman, full of class prejudices to his finger tips.”

“He is nevertheless a man,” she said thoughtfully. “I heard only yesterday that he earned considerable distinction even in his brief soldiering.”

“No doubt,” Fenn remarked, without enthusiasm, “he has the bravery of an animal. By the bye, the Bishop dropped in to see me this morning.”

“Really?” she asked. “What did he want?”

“Just a personal call,” was the elaborately careless reply. “He likes to look in for a chat, now and then. He spoke about Orden, too. I persuaded him that if we don’t succeed within the next twenty four hours, it will be his duty to see what he can do.”

“Oh, but that was too bad!” she declared. “You know how he feels his position, poor man. He will simply loathe having to tell Julian – Mr. Orden, I mean that he is connected with – “

“Well, with what, Miss Abbeway?”

“With anything in the nature of a conspiracy. Of course, Mr. Orden wouldn’t understand. How could he? I think it was cruel to bring the Bishop into the matter at all.”

“Nothing,” Fenn pronounced, “is cruel that helps the cause. What will you drink, Miss Abbeway? You’ll have some champagne, won’t you?”

“What a horrible idea!” she exclaimed, smiling at him nevertheless. “Fancy a great Labour leader suggesting such a thing! No, I’ll have some light French wine, thank you.”

Fenn passed the order on to the waiter, a little crestfallen.

“I don’t often drink anything myself,” he said, “but this seemed to me to be something of an occasion.”

“You have some news, then?”

“Not at all. I meant dining with you.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, that?” she murmured. “That is simply a matter of routine. I thought you had some news, or some work.”

“Isn’t it possible, Miss Abbeway,” he pleaded, “that we might have some interests outside our work?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” she answered, with an insolence which was above his head.

“There is no reason why we shouldn’t have,” he persisted.

“You must tell me your tastes,” she suggested. “Are you fond of grand opera, for instance? I adore it. ‘Parsifal’ – ‘The Ring’?”

“I don’t know much about music,” he admitted. “My sister, who used to live with me, plays the piano.”

“We’ll drop music, then,” she said hastily. “Books? But I remember you once told me that you had never read anything except detective novels, and that you didn’t care for poetry. Sports? I adore tennis and I am rather good at golf.”

“I have never wasted a single moment of my life in games,” he declared proudly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, you see, that leaves us rather a long way apart, outside our work, doesn’t it?”

“Even if I were prepared to admit that, which I am not,” he replied, “our work itself is surely enough to make up for all other things.”

“You are quite right,” she confessed. “There is nothing else worth thinking about, worth talking about. Tell me – you had an inner Council this afternoon – is anything decided yet about the leadership?”

He sighed a little.

“If ever there was a great cause in the world,” he said, “which stands some chance of missing complete success through senseless and low-minded jealousy, it is ours.”

“Mr. Fenn!” she exclaimed.

“I mean it,” he assured her. “As you know, a chairman must be elected this week, and that chairman, of course, will hold more power in his hand than any emperor of the past or any sovereign of the present. That leader is going to stop the war. He is going to bring peace to the world. It is a mighty post, Miss Abbeway.”

“It is indeed,” she agreed.

“Yet would you believe,” he went on, leaning across the table and neglecting for a moment his dinner, “would you believe, Miss Abbeway, that out of the twenty representatives chosen from the Trades Unions governing the principal industries of Great Britain, there is not a single one who does not consider himself eligible for the post.”

Catherine found herself suddenly laughing, while Fenn looked at her in astonishment.

“I cannot help it,” she apologised. “Please forgive me. Do not think that I am irreverent. It is not that at all. But for a moment the absurdity of the thing overcame me. I have met some of them, you know – Mr. Cross of Northumberland, Mr. Evans of South Wales – “

“Evans is one of the worst,” Fenn interrupted, with some excitement. “There’s a man who has only worn a collar for the last few years of his life, who evaded the board-school because he was a pitman’s lad, who doesn’t even know the names of the countries of Europe, but who still believes that he is a possible candidate. And Cross, too! Well, he washes when he comes to London, but he sleeps in his clothes and they look like it.”

“He is very eloquent,” Catherine observed.

“Eloquent!” Fenn exclaimed scornfully. “He may be, but who can understand him? He speaks in broad Northumbrian. What is needed in the leader whom they are to elect this week, Miss Abbeway, is a man of some culture and some appearance. Remember that to him is to be confided the greatest task ever given to man. A certain amount of personality he must have – personality and dignity, I should say, to uphold the position.”

“There is Mr. Miles Furley,” she said thoughtfully. “He is an educated man, is he not?”

“For that very reason unsuitable,” Fenn explained eagerly. “He represents no great body of toilers. He is, in reality, only an honorary member of the Council, like yourself and the Bishop, there on account of his outside services.”

“I remember, only a few nights ago,” she reflected, “I was staying at a country house – Lord Maltenby’s, by the bye – Mr. Orden’s father. The Prime Minister was there and another Cabinet Minister. They spoke of the Labour Party and its leaderless state. They had no idea, of course, of the great Council which was already secretly formed, but they were unanimous about the necessity for a strong leader. Two people made the same remark, almost with apprehension: `If ever Paul Fiske should materialise, the problem would be solved!’

Fenn assented without enthusiasm.

“After all, though,” he reminded her, “a clever writer does not always make a great speaker, nor has he always that personality and distinction which is required in this case. He would come amongst us a stranger, too – a stranger personally, that is to say.”

“Not in the broadest sense of the word,” Catherine objected. “Paul Fiske is more than an ordinary literary man. His heart is in tune with what he writes. Those are not merely eloquent words which he offers. There is a note of something above and beyond just phrase-making – a note of sympathetic understanding which amounts to genius.”

Her companion stroked his moustache for a moment.

“Fiske goes right to the spot,” he admitted, “but the question of the leadership, so far as he is concerned, doesn’t come into the sphere of practical politics. It has been suggested, Miss Abbeway, by one or two of the more influential delegates, suggested, too, by a vast number of letters and telegrams which have poured in upon us during the last few days, that I should be elected to this vacant post.”

“You?” she exclaimed, a little blankly.

“Can you think of a more suitable person?” he asked, with a faint note of truculence in his tone. “You have seen us all together. I don’t wish to flatter myself, but as regards education, service to the cause, familiarity with public speaking and the number of those I represent – “

“Yes, yes! I see,” she interrupted. “Taking the twenty Labour representatives only, Mr. Fenn, I can see nothing against your selection, but I fancied, somehow, that some one outside – the Bishop, for instance – “

“Absolutely out of the question,” Fenn declared. “The people would lose faith in the whole thing in a minute. The person who throws down the gage to the Prime Minister must have the direct mandate of the people.”

They finished dinner presently. Fenn looked with admiration at the gold, coroneted case from which Catherine helped herself to one of her tiny cigarettes. He himself lit an American cigarette.

“I had meant, Miss Abbeway,” he confided, leaning towards her, “to suggest a theatre to you to-night – in fact, I looked at some dress circle seats at the Gaiety with a view to purchasing. Another matter has cropped up, however. There is a little business for us to do.”

“Business?” Catherine repeated.

He produced a folded paper from his pocket and passed it across the table. Catherine read it with a slight frown.

“An order entitling the bearer to search Julian Orden’s apartments!” she exclaimed. “We don’t want to search them, do we? Besides, what authority have we?”

“The best,” he answered, tapping with his discoloured forefinger the signature at the foot of the, strip of paper.

She examined it with a doubtful frown.

“But how did this come into your possession?” she asked.

He smiled at her in superior fashion.

“By asking for it,” he replied bluntly. “And between you and me, Miss Abbeway, there isn’t much we might ask for that they’d care to refuse us just now.”

“But the police have already searched Mr. Orden’s rooms,” she reminded him.

“The police have been known to overlook things. Of course, what I am hoping is that amongst Mr. Orden’s papers there may be some indication as to where he has deposited our property.”

“But this has nothing to do with me,” she protested. “I do not like to be concerned in such affairs.”

“But I particularly wish you to accompany me,” he urged. “You are the only one who has seen the packet. It would be better, therefore, if we conducted the search in company.”

Catherine made a little grimace, but she objected no further. She objected very strongly, however, when Fenn tried to take her arm on leaving the place, and she withdrew into her own corner of the taxi immediately they had taken their seats.

“You must forgive my prejudices, Mr. Fenn,” she said – “my foreign bringing up, perhaps – but I hate being touched.”

“Oh, come!” he remonstrated. “No need to be so stand-offish.”

He tried to hold her hand, an attempt which she skilfully frustrated.

“Really,” she insisted earnestly, “this sort of thing does not amuse me. I avoid it even amongst my own friends.”

“Am I not a friend?” he demanded.

“So far as regards our work, you certainly are,” she admitted. “Outside it, I do not think that we could ever have much to say to one another.”

“Why not?” he objected, a little sharply. “We’re as close together in our work and aims as any two people could be. Perhaps,” he went on, after a moment’s hesitation and a careful glance around, “I ought to take you into my confidence as regards my personal position.”

“I am not inviting anything of the sort,” she observed, with faint but wasted sarcasm.

“You know me, of course,” he went on, “only as the late manager of a firm of timber merchants and the present elected representative of the allied Timber and Shipbuilding Trades Unions. What you do not know” – a queer note of triumph stealing into his tone “is that I am a wealthy man.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I imagined,” she remarked, “that all Labour leaders were like the Apostles – took no thought for such things.”

“One must always keep one’s eye on the main chance; Miss Abbeway,” he protested, “or how would things be when one came to think of marriage, for instance?”

“Where did your money come from?” she asked bluntly.

Her question was framed simply to direct him from a repulsive subject. His embarrassment, however, afforded her food for future thought.

“I have saved money all my life,” he confided eagerly. “An uncle left me a little. Lately I have speculated – successfully. I don’t want to dwell on this. I only wanted you to understand that if I chose I could cut a very different figure – that my wife wouldn’t have to live in a suburb.”

“I really do not see,” was the cold response, “how this concerns me in the least.”

“You, call yourself a Socialist, don’t you, Miss Abbeway?” he demanded. “You’re not allowing the fact that you’re an aristocrat and that I am a self-made man to weigh with you?”

“The accident of birth counts for nothing,” she replied”you must know that those are my principles – but it sometimes happens that birth and environment give one tastes which it is impossible to ignore. Please do not let us pursue this conversation any further, Mr. Fenn. We have had a very pleasant dinner, for which I thank you – and here we are at Mr. Orden’s flat.”

Her companion handed her out a little sulkily, and they ascended in the lift to the fifth floor. The door was opened to them by Julian’s servant. He recognised Catherine and greeted her respectfully. Fenn produced his authority, which the man accepted without comment.

“No news of your master yet?” Catherine asked him.

“None at all, madam,” was the somewhat depressed admission. “I am afraid that something must have happened to him. He was not the kind of gentleman to go away like this and leave no word behind him.”

“Still,” she advised cheerfully, “I shouldn’t despair. More wonderful things have happened than that your master should return home to-morrow or the next day with a perfectly simple explanation of his absence.”

“I should be very glad to see him, madam,” the man replied, as he backed towards the door. “If I can be of any assistance, perhaps you will ring.”

The valet departed, closing the door behind him. Catherine looked around the room into which they had been ushered, with a little frown. It was essentially a man’s sitting room, but it was well and tastefully furnished, and she was astonished at the immense number of books, pamphlets and Reviews which crowded the walls and every available space. The Derby desk still stood open, there was a typewriter on a special stand, and a pile of manuscript paper.

“What on earth,” she murmured, “could Mr. Orden have wanted with a typewriter! I thought journalism was generally done in the offices of a newspaper – the sort of journalism that he used to undertake.”

“Nice little crib, isn’t it?” Fenn remarked, glancing around. “Cosy little place, I call it.”

Something in the man’s expression as be advanced towards her brought all the iciness back to her tone and manner.

“It is a pleasant apartment,” she said, “but I am not at all sure that I like being here, and I certainly dislike our errand. It does not seem credible that, if the police have already searched, we should find the packet here.”

“The police don’t know what to look for,” he reminded her. “We do.”

There was apparently very little delicacy about Mr. Fenn. He drew a chair to the desk and began to look through a pile of papers, making running comments as he did so.

“Hm! Our friend seems to have been quite a collector of old books. I expect second-hand booksellers found him rather a mark. Some fellow here thanking him for a loan. And here’s a tailor’s bill. By Jove, Miss Abbeway, just listen to this! `One dress suit-fourteen guineas!’ That’s the way these fellows who don’t know any better chuck their money about,” he added, swinging around in his chair towards her. “The clothes I have on cost me exactly four pounds fifteen cash, and I guarantee his were no better.”

Catherine frowned impatiently.

“We did not come here, did we, Mr. Fenn, to discuss Mr. Orden’s tailor’s bill? I can see no object at all in going through his correspondence in this way. What you have to search for is a packet wrapped up in thin yellow oilskin, with `Number 17′ on the outside in black ink.”

“Oh, he might have slipped it in anywhere,” Fenn pointed out. “Besides, there’s always a chance that one of his letters may give us a clue as to where he has hidden the document. Come and sit down by the side of me, won’t you, Miss Abbeway? Do!”

“I would rather stand, thank you,” she replied. “You seem to find your present occupation to your taste. I should loathe it!”

“Never think of my own feelings,” Fenn said briskly, “when there’s a job to be done. I wish you’d be a bit more friendly, though, Miss Abbeway. Let me pull that chair up by the side of mine. I like to have you near. You know, I’ve been a bachelor for a good many years,” he went on impressively, “but a little homey place like this always makes me think of things. I’ve nothing against marriage if only a man can be lucky enough to get the right sort of girl, and although advanced thinkers like you and me and some of the others are looking at things differently, nowadays, I wouldn’t mind much which way it was,” he confided, dropping his voice a little and laying his hand upon her arm, “if you could make up your mind – “

She snatched her arm away, and this time even he could not mistake the anger which blazed in her eyes.

“Mr. Fenn,” she exclaimed, “why is it so difficult to make you understand? I detest such liberties as you are permitting yourself. And for the rest, my affections are already engaged.”

“Sounds a bit old-fashioned, that,” he remarked, scowling a little. “Of course, I don’t expect – “

“Never mind what you expect,” she interrupted, “Please go on with this search, if you are going to make one at all. The vulgarity of the whole thing annoys me, and I do not for a moment suppose that the packet is here.”

“It wasn’t on Orden,” he reminded her sullenly.

“Then he must have sent it somewhere for safe keeping,” she replied. “I had already given him cause to do so.”

“If he has, then amongst his correspondence there may be some indication as to where he sent it,” Fenn pointed out, with unabated ill-temper. “If you don’t like the job, and you won’t be friendly, you’d better take the easy-chair and wait till I’m through.”

She sat down, watching him with angry eyes, uncomfortable, unhappy, humiliated. She seemed to have dropped in a few hours from the realms of rarefied and splendid thought to a world of petty deeds. Not one of her companion’s actions was lost upon her. She watched him study with ill-concealed reverence a ducal invitation, saw him read through without hesitation a letter which she felt sure was from Julian’s mother. And then:

The change in the man was so startling, his muttered exclamation – so natural that its profanity never even grated. His eyes seemed to be starting out of his head, his lips were drawn back from his teeth. Blank, unutterable surprise held him, dumb and spellbound, as he stared at a half-sheet of type written notepaper. She herself, amazed at his transformed appearance, found words for the moment impossible. Then a queer change came into his expression. His eyebrows drew closer together, his lips turned malevolently. He pushed the paper underneath a pile of others and turned his head towards her. Their eyes met. There was something like fear in his.

“What is it that you have found?” she cried breathlessly.

“Nothing,” he answered, “nothing of any importance.”

She rose slowly to her feet and came towards him.

“I am your partner in this hateful enterprise,” she reminded him. “Show me that paper which you have just concealed.”

He laid his hand on the lid of the desk, but she caught it and held it open.

“I insist upon seeing it,” she said firmly.

He turned and faced her. There was a most unpleasant light in his eyes.

“And I say that you shall not,” he declared.

There was a brief, intense silence. Each seemed to be measuring the other’s strength. Of the two, Catherine was the more composed. Fenn’s face was still white and strained. His lips were twitching, his manner nervous and jerky. He made a desperate effort to reestablish ordinary relations.

“Look here, Miss Abbeway,” he said, “we don’t need to quarrel about this. That paper I came across has a special interest for me personally. I want to think about it before I say anything to a soul in the world.”

“You can consult with me,” she persisted. “Our aims are the same. We are here for the same purpose.”

“Not altogether,” he objected. “I brought you here as my assistant.”

“Did you?”

“Well, have the truth, then!” he exclaimed. “I brought you here to be alone with you, because I hoped that I might find you a little kinder.”

“I am afraid you have been disappointed, haven’t you?” she asked sweetly.

“I have,” he answered, with unpleasant meaning in his tone, “but we are not out of here yet.”

“You cannot frighten me,” she assured him. “Of course, you are a man – of a sort – and I am a woman, but I do not fancy that you would find, if it came to force, that you would have much of an advantage. However, we are wandering from the point. I claim an equal right with you to see anything which you may discover in Mr. Orden’s papers. I might, indeed, if I chose, claim a prior right:”

“Indeed?” he answered, with an ugly scowl on his face. “Mr. Julian Orden is by way of being a particular friend, eh?”

“As a matter of fact,” Catherine told him, “we are engaged to be married. It isn’t a serious engagement. It was entered into by him in a most chivalrous manner, to save me from the consequences of a very clumsy attempt on my part to get back that packet. But there it is. Every one down at his home believes at the present moment that we are engaged and that I have come up to London to see our Ambassador.”

“If you are engaged,” Fenn sneered, “why hasn’t he told you more of his secrets?”

“Secrets!” she repeated, a little scornfully. “I shouldn’t think he has any. I should imagine his daily life could be investigated without the least fear.”

“You’d imagine wrong, then.”

“But how interesting! You excite my curiosity. And must you continue to hold my wrist?”

“Let me pull down the top of this desk, then.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“I intend to examine those papers.”

With a quick movement he gained a momentary advantage and shut the desk down. The key, however, disturbed by the jerk, fell on to the carpet, and Catherine possessed herself of it. She sprang lightly back from him and pressed the bell.

“D-n you, what are you going to do now?” he demanded.

“You will see,” she replied. “Don’t come any nearer, or you may find that I can be unpleasant.”‘

He shrugged his shoulders and waited. She turned towards the servant who presently appeared.

“Robert,” she said, “will you telephone for me?”

“Certainly, madam,” the man answered.

“Telephone to 1884 Westminster. Say that you are speaking for Miss Abbeway, and ask Mr. Furley, Mr. Cross, or whoever is there, to come at once to this address.”

“Look here, there’s no sense in that,” Fenn interrupted.

“Will you do as I ask, please, Robert?” she persisted.

The man bowed and left the room. Fenn strode sulkily back to the desk.

“Very well, then,” he conceded, “I give in. Give me the key, and I’ll show you the letter.”

“You intend to keep your word?”

“I do,” he assured her.

She held out the key. He took it, opened the desk, searched amongst the little pile of papers, drew out the half-sheet of notepaper, and handed it to her.

“There you are,” he said, “although if you are really engaged to marry Mr. Julian Orden,” he added, with disagreeable emphasis, “I am surprised that he should have kept such a secret from you.”

She ignored him and started to read the letter, glancing first at the address at the top. It was from the British Review, and was dated a few days back:

My dear Orden,

I think it best to let you know, in case you haven’t seen it yourself, that there is a reward of 100 pounds offered by some busybody for the name of the author of the `Paul Fiske’ articles. Your anonymity has been splendidly preserved up till now, but I feel compelled to warn you that a disclosure is imminent. Take my advice and accept it with a good grace. You have established yourself so irrevocably now that the value of your work will not be lessened by the discovery of the fact that you yourself do not belong to the class of whom you have written so brilliantly.

I hope to see you in a few days.

Sincerely,
M. HALKIN.

Even after she had concluded the letter, she still stared at it. She read again the one conclusive sentence – “Your anonymity has been splendidly preserved up till now.” Then she suddenly broke into a laugh which was almost hysterical.

“So this is his hack journalism!” she exclaimed. “Julian Orden – Paul Fiske!”

“I don’t wonder you’re surprised,” Fenn observed. “Fourteen guineas for a dress suit, and he thinks he understands the working man!”

She turned her head slowly and looked at him. There was a strange, repressed fire in her eyes. “You are a very foolish person,” she said. “Your parents, I suppose, were small shopkeepers, or something of the sort, and you were brought up at a board-school and Julian Orden at Eton and Oxford, and yet he understands, and you do not. You see, heart counts, and sympathy, and the flair for understanding. I doubt whether these things are really found where you come from.”

He caught up his hat. His face was very white. His tone shook with anger.

“This is our own fault,” he exclaimed angrily, “for having ever permitted an aristocrat to hold any place in our counsels! Before we move a step further, we’ll purge them of such helpers as you and such false friends as Julian Orden.”

“You very foolish person,” she repeated. “Stop, though. Why all this mystery? Why did you try to keep that letter from me?”

“I conceived it to be for the benefit of our cause,” he said didactically, “that the anonymity – of `Paul Fiske’ should be preserved.”

“Rubbish!” she scoffed. “You were afraid of him. Why, what fools we are! We will tell him the whole truth. We will tell him of our great scheme. We will tell him what we have been working for, these many months. The Bishop shall tell him, and you and I, and Miles Furley, and Cross. He shall hear all about it. He is with us! He must be with us! You shall put him on the Council. Why, there is your great difficulty solved,” she went on, in growing excitement. “There is not a working man in the country who would not rally under `Paul Fiske’s’ banner. There you have your leader. It is he who shall deliver your ultimatum.”

“I’m damned if it is!” Fenn declared, suddenly throwing his hat down and coming towards her furiously. “I’m – “

The door opened. Robert stood there.

“The message, madam,” he began – and then stopped short. She crossed the room towards him.

“Robert,” she said, “I think I have found the way to bring your master back to you. Will you take me downstairs, please, and fetch me a taxi?”

“Certainly, madam!”

She looked back from the threshold.

“I shall telephone to Westminster in a few minutes, Mr. Fenn,” she said. “I hope I shall be in time to stop the others from coming. Perhaps you had better wait here, in case they have already started.”

He made no reply. To Catherine the world had become so wonderful that his existence scarcely counted.

CHAPTER XII

Catherine, notwithstanding her own excitement, found genuine pleasure in the bewildered enthusiasm with which the Bishop received her astounding news. She found him alone in the great, gloomy house which he usually inhabited when in London, at work in a dreary library to which she was admitted after a few minutes’ delay. Naturally, he received her tidings at first almost with incredulity. A heartfelt joy, however, followed upon conviction.

“I always liked Julian,” he declared. “I always believed that he had capacity. Dear me, though,” he went on, with a whimsical little smile, “what a blow for the Earl!”

Catherine laughed.

“Do you remember the evening we all talked about the Labour question? Time seems to have moved so rapidly lately, but it was scarcely a week ago.”

“I remember,” the Bishop acknowledged. “And, my dear young lady,” he went on warmly, “now indeed I feel that I can offer you congratulations which come from my heart.”

She turned a little away.

“Don’t,” she begged. “You would have known very soon, in any case – my engagement to Julian Orden was only a pretence.”

“A pretence?”

“I was desperate,” she explained. “I felt I must have that packet back at any price. I went to his rooms to try and steal it. Well, I was found there. He invented our engagement to help me out.”

“But you went off to London together, the neat day?” the Bishop reminded her.

“It was all part of the game,” she sighed. “What a fool he must have thought me! However, I am glad. I am riotously, madly glad. I am glad for the cause, I am glad for all our sakes. We have a great recruit, Bishop, the greatest we could have. And think! When he knows the truth, there will be no more trouble. He will hand us over the packet. We shall know just where we stand. We shall know at once whether we dare to strike the great blow.”

“I was down at Westminster this afternoon,” the Bishop told her. “The whole mechanism of the Council of Labour seems to be complete. Twenty men control industrial England. They have absolute power. They are waiting only for the missing word. And fancy,” he went on, “to-morrow I was to have visited Julian. I was to have used my persuasions.”

“But we must go to-night!” Catherine exclaimed. “There is no reason why we should waste a single second.”

“I shall be only too pleased,” he assented gladly. “Where is, he?”

Catherine’s face fell.

“I haven’t the least idea,” she confessed. “Don’t you know?”

The Bishop shook his head.

“They were going to send some one with me tomorrow,” he replied, “but in any case Fenn knows. We can get at him.”

She made a little wry face.

“I do not like Mr. Fenn,” she said slowly. “I have disagreed with him. But that does not matter. Perhaps we had better go to the Council rooms. We shall find some of them there, and probably Fenn. I have a taxi waiting.”

They drove presently to Westminster. The ground floor of the great building, which was wholly occupied now by the offices of the different Labour men, was mostly in darkness, but on the top floor was a big room used as a club and restaurant, and also for informal meetings. Six or seven of the twenty-three were there, but not Fenn. Cross, a great brawny Northumbrian, was playing a game of chess with Furley. Others were writing letters. They all turned around at Catherine’s entrance. She held out her hands to them.

“Great news, my friends!” she exclaimed. “Light up the committee room. I want to talk to you.”

Those who were entitled to followed her into the room across the passage. One or two secretaries and a visitor remained outside. Six of them seated themselves at the long table – Phineas Cross, the Northumbrian pitman, Miles Furley, David Sands, representative of a million Yorkshire mill-hands, Thomas Evans, the South Wales miner.

“We got a message from you, Miss Abbeway, a little time ago,” Furley remarked. “It was countermanded, though, just as we were ready to start.”

“Yes!” she assented. “I am sorry. I telephoned from Julian Orden’s rooms. It was there we made the great discovery. Listen, all of you! I have discovered the identity of Paul Fiske.”

There was a little clamour of voices. The interest was indescribable. Paul Fiske was their cult, their master, their undeniable prophet. It was he who had set down in letters of fire the truths which had been struggling for imperfect expression in these men’s minds. It was Paul Fiske who had fired them with enthusiasm for the cause which at first had been very much like a matter of bread and cheese to them. It was Paul Fiske who had formed their minds, who had put the great arguments into their brains, who had armed them from head to foot with potent reasonings. Four very ordinary men, of varying types, sincere men, all of plebeian extraction, all with their faults, yet all united in one purpose, were animated by that same fire of excitement. They hung over the table towards her. She might have been the croupier and they the gamblers who had thrown upon the table their last stake.

“In Julian Orden’s rooms,” she said, “I found a letter from the editor of the British Review, warning him that his anonymity could not be preserved much longer – that before many weeks had passed the world would know that he was Paul Fiske. Here is the letter.”

She passed it around. They studied it, one by one. They were all a little stunned.

“Julian!” Furley exclaimed, in blank amazement. “Why, he’s been pulling my leg for more than a year!”

“The son of an Earl!” Cross gasped.

“Never mind about that. He is a democrat and honest to the backbone,” Catherine declared. “The Bishop will tell you so. He has known him all his life. Think! Julian Orden has no purpose to serve, no selfish interest to further. He has nothing to gain, everything to lose. If he were not sincere, if those words of his, which we all remember, did not come from his heart, where could be the excuse, the reason, for what he stands for? Think what it means to us!”

“He is the man, isn’t he,” Sands asked mysteriously, “whom they are looking after down yonder?”

“I don’t know where ‘down yonder’ is,” Catherine replied, “but you have him in your power somewhere. He left his rooms last Thursday at about a quarter past six, to take that packet to the Foreign Office, or to make arrangements for its being received there. He never reached the Foreign Office. He hasn’t been heard of since. Some of you know where he is. The Bishop and I want to go and find him at once.”

“Fenn and Bright know,” Cross declared. “It’s Bright’s job.”

“Why is Bright in it?” Catherine asked impatiently.

Cross frowned and puckered up his lips, an odd trick of his when he was displeased.

“Bright represents the workers in chemical factories,” he explained. “They say that there isn’t a poison in liquid, solid or gas form, that he doesn’t know all about. Chap who gives me kind of shivers whenever he comes near. He and Fenn run the secret service branch of the Council.”

“If he knows where Mr. Orden is, couldn’t we send for him at once?” Catherine suggested.

“I’ll go,” Furley volunteered.

He was back in a few minutes.

“Fenn and Bright are both out,” he announced, “and their rooms locked up. I rang up Fenn’s house, but he hasn’t been back.”

Catherine stamped her foot. She was on fire with impatience.

“Doesn’t it seem too bad!” she exclaimed. “If we could only get bold of Julian Orden to-night, if the Bishop and I could talk to him for five minutes, we could have this message for which we have been waiting so long.”

The door was suddenly opened. Fenn entered and received a little chorus of welcome. He was wearing a rough black overcoat over his evening clothes, and a black bowler hat. He advanced to the table with a little familiar swagger.

“Mr. Fenn,” the Bishop said, “we have been awaiting your arrival anxiously. Tell us, please, where we can find Mr. Julian Orden.”

Fenn gave vent to a half-choked, ironical laugh.

“If you’d asked me an hour ago,” he said, “I should have told you to try Iris Villa, Acacia Road, Hampstead. I have just come from there.”

“You saw him?” the Bishop enquired.

“That’s just what I did not,” Fenn replied.

“Why not?” Catherine demanded.

“Because he wasn’t there hasn’t been since three o’clock this afternoon.”

“You’ve moved him?” Furley asked eagerly.

“He’s moved himself,” was the grim reply. “He’s escaped.”

During the brief, spellbound silence which followed his announcement, Fenn advanced slowly into the room. It chanced that during their informal discussion, the chair at the head of the table had been left unoccupied. The newcomer hesitated for a single second, then removed his hat, laid it on the floor by his side, and sank into the vacant seat. He glanced somewhat defiantly towards Catherine. He seemed to know quite well from whence the challenge of his words would come.

“You tell us,” Catherine said, mastering her emotion with an effort, “that Julian Orden, whom we now know to be `Paul Fiske’, has escaped. Just what do you mean?”

“I can scarcely reduce my statement to plainer words,” Fenn replied, “but 1 will try. The danger in which we stood through the miscarriage of that packet was appreciated by every one of the Council. Discretionary powers were handed to the small secret service branch which is controlled by Bright and myself. Orden was prevented from reaching the Foreign Office and was rendered for a time incapable. The consideration of our further action with regard to him was to depend upon his attitude. Owing, no doubt, to some slight error in Bright’s treatment. Orden has escaped from the place of safety in which he had been placed. He is now at large, and his story, together with the packet, will probably be in the hands of the Foreign Office some time to-night.”

“Giving them,” Cross remarked grimly, “the chance to get in the first blow – warrants for high treason, eh, against the twenty-three of us?”

“I don’t fear that,” Fenn asserted, “not if we behave like sensible men. My proposal is that we anticipate, that one of us sees the Prime Minister to-morrow morning and lays the whole position before him.”

“Without the terms,” Furley observed.

“I know exactly what they will be,” Fenn pointed out. “The trouble, of course, is that the missing packet contains the signature of the three guarantors. The packet, no doubt, will be in the hands of the Foreign Office by to-morrow. The Prime Minister can verify our statements. We present our ultimatum a little sooner than we intended, but we get our blow in first and we are ready.”

The Bishop leaned forward in his place.

“Forgive me if I intervene for one moment,” he begged. “You say that Julian Orden has escaped. Are we to understand that he is absolutely at liberty and in a normal state of health?”

Fenn hesitated for a single second.

“I have no reason to believe the contrary,” he said.

“Still, it is possible,” the Bishop persisted, “that Julian Orden may not be in a position to forward that document to the Foreign Office for the present? If that is so, I am inclined to think that the Prime Minister would consider your visit a bluff. Certainly, you would have no argument weighty enough to induce him to propose the armistice. No man could act upon your word alone. He would want to see these wonderful proposals in writing, even if he were convinced of the justice of your arguments.”

There was a little murmur of approval. Fenn leaned forward.

“You drive me to a further disclosure,” he declared, after a moment’s hesitation, “one, perhaps, which I ought already to have made. I have arranged for a duplicate of that packet to be prepared and forwarded. I set this matter on foot the moment we heard from Miss Abbeway here of her mishap. The duplicate may reach us at any moment.”

“Then I propose,” the Bishop said, “that we postpone our decision until those papers be received. Remember that up to the present moment the Council have not pledged themselves to take action until they have perused that document.”

“And supposing,” Fenn objected, “that to-morrow morning at eight o’clock, twenty-three of us are marched off to the Tower! Our whole cause may be paralysed, all that we have worked for all these months will be in vain, and this accursed and bloody war may be dragged on until our politicians see fit to make a peace of words.”

“I know Mr. Stenson well,” the Bishop declared, “and I am perfectly convinced that he is too sane-minded a man to dream of taking such a step as you suggest. He, at any rate, if others in his Cabinet are not so prescient, knows what Labour means”

“I agree with the Bishop, for many reasons,” Furley pronounced.

“And I,” Cross echoed.

The sense of the meeting was obvious. Fenn’s unpleasant looking teeth flashed for a moment, and his mouth came together with a little snap.

“This is entirely an informal gathering,” he said. “I shall summon the Council to come together tomorrow at midday.”

“I think that we may sleep in our beds to-night without fear of molestation,” the Bishop remarked, “although if it had been the wish of the meeting, I would have broached the matter to Mr. Stenson,”

“You are an honorary member of the Council,” Fenn declared rudely. “We don’t wish interference. This is a national and international Labour movement.”

“I am a member of the Labour Party of Christ,” the Bishop said quietly.

“And an honoured member of this Executive Council,” Cross intervened. “You’re a bit too glib with your tongue to-night, Fenn.”

“I think of those whom I represent,” was the curt reply. “They are toilers, and they want the toilers to show their power. They don’t want help from the Church. I’ll go even so far,” he added, “as to say that they don’t want help from literature. It’s their own job. They’ve begun it, and they want to finish it.”

“To-morrow’s meeting,” Furley observed, “will show how far you are right in your views. I consider my position, and the Bishop’s, as members of the Labour Party, on a par with your own. I will go further and say that the very soul of our Council is embodied in the teachings and the writings of Paul Fiske, or, as we now know him to be, Julian Orden.”

Fenn rose to his feet. He was trembling with passion.

“This informal meeting is adjourned,” he announced harshly.

Cross himself did not move.

“Adjourned or not it may be, Mr. Fenn,” he said, “but it’s no place of yours to speak for it. You’ve thrust yourself into that chair, but that don’t make you chairman, now or at any other time.”

Fenn choked down the words which had seemed to tremble on his lips. His enemies he knew, but there were others here who might yet be neutral.

“If I have assumed more than I should have done, I am sorry,” he said. “I brought you news which I was in a hurry to deliver. The rest followed.”

The little company rose to their feet and moved towards the door, exchanging whispered comments concerning the news which Catherine had brought. She herself crossed the room and confronted Fenn.

“There is still something to be said about that news,” she declared.

Fenn’s attempt at complete candour was only partially convincing.

“There is not the slightest reason,” he declared, “why anything concerning Julian Orden should be concealed from any member of the Council who desires information. If you will follow me into my private room, Miss Abbeway, and you, Furley, I shall be glad to tell you our exact position. And if the Bishop will accompany you,” he added, turning to the latter, “I shall be honoured.”

Furley made no reply, but, whispering something in Catherine’s ear, took up his hat and left the room. The other two, however, took Fenn at his word, followed him into his room, accepted the chairs which he placed for them, and waited while he spoke through a telephone to the private exchange situated in the building.

“They tell me,” he announced, as he laid down the instrument, “that Bright has this moment returned and is now on his way upstairs.”

Catherine shivered.

“Is Mr. Bright that awful-looking person who came to the last Council meeting?”

“He is probably the person you mean,” Fenn assented. “He takes very little interest in our executive work, but he is one of the most brilliant scientists of this or any other generation. The Government has already given him three laboratories for his experiments, and nearly every gas that is being used at the Front has been prepared according to his formula.”

“A master of horrors,” the Bishop murmured.

“He looks it,” Catherine whispered under her breath.

There was a knock at the door, a moment or two later, and Bright entered. He was a little over medium height, with long and lanky figure, a pronounced stoop, and black, curly hair of coarse quality. His head, which was thrust a little forward, perhaps owing to his short-sightedness, was long, his forehead narrow, his complexion a sort of olive-green. He wore huge, disfiguring spectacles, and he had the protuberant lips of a negro. He greeted Catherine and the Bishop absently and seemed to have a grievance against Fenn.

“What is it you want, Nicholas?” he asked impatiently. “I have some experiments going on in the country and can only spare a minute.”

“The Council has rescinded its instructions with regard to Julian Orden,” Fenn announced, “and is anxious to have him brought before them at once. As you know, we are for the moment powerless in the matter. Will you please explain to Miss Abbeway and the Bishop here just what has been done?”

“It seems a waste of time,” Bright replied ill-naturedly, “but here is the story. Julian Orden left his rooms at a quarter to six on Thursday evening. He walked down to St. James’s Street and turned into the Park. Just as he passed the side door of Marlborough House he was attacked by a sudden faintness.”

“For which, I suppose,” the Bishop interrupted, “you were responsible.”

“I or my deputy,” Bright replied. “It doesn’t matter which. He was fortunate enough to be able to hail a passing taxicab and was driven to my house in Hampstead. He has spent the intervening period, until three o’clock this afternoon, in a small laboratory attached to the premises.”

“A compulsory stay, I presume?” the Bishop ventured.

“A compulsory stay, arranged for under instructions from the Council,” Bright assented, in his hard, rasping voice. “He has been most of the time under the influence of some new form of anaesthetic gas with which I have been experimenting. To-night, however, I must have made a mistake in my calculations. Instead of remaining in a state of coma until midnight, he recovered during my absence and appears to have walked out of the place.”

“You have no idea where he is at the present moment, then?” Catherine asked.

“Not the slightest,” Bright assured her. “I only know that he left the place without hat, gloves, or walking stick. Otherwise, he was fully dressed, and no doubt had plenty of money in his pocket.”

“Is he likely to have any return of the indisposition from which, owing to your efforts, he has been suffering?” the Bishop enquired.

“I should say not,” was the curt answer. “He may find his memory somewhat affected temporarily. He ought to be able to find his way home, though. If not, I suppose you’ll hear of him through the police courts or a hospital. Nothing that we have done,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “is likely to affect his health permanently in the slightest degree.”

“You now know all that there is to be known, Miss Abbeway,” Fenn said. “I agree with you that it is highly desirable that Mr. Orden should be found at once, and if you can suggest any way in which I might be of assistance in discovering his present whereabouts, I shall be only too glad to help. For instance, would you like me to telephone to his rooms?”

Catherine rose to her feet.

“Thank you, Mr. Fenn,” she said, “I don’t think that we will trouble you. Mr. Furley is making enquiries both at Mr. Orden’s rooms and at his clubs.”

“You are perfectly satisfied, so far as I am concerned, I trust?” he persisted, as he opened the door for them.

“Perfectly satisfied,” Catherine replied, looking him in the face, “that you have told us as much as you choose to for the present.”

Fenn closed the door behind Catherine and the Bishop and turned back into the room. Bright laughed at him unpleasantly.

“Love affair not going so strong, eh?”

Fenn threw himself into his chair, took a cigarette from a paper packet, and lit it.

“Blast Julian Orden!” he muttered.

“No objection,” his friend yawned. “What’s wrong now?”

“Haven’t you heard the news? It seems he’s the fellow who has been writing those articles on Socialism and Labour, signing them `Paul Fiske.’ Idealistic rubbish, but of course the Bishop and his lot are raving about him.”

“I’ve read some of his stuff,” Bright admitted, himself lighting a cigarette; “good in its way, but old-fashioned. I’m out for something a little more than that.”

“Stick to the point,” Fenn enjoined morosely. “Now they’ve found out who Julian Orden is, they want him produced. They want to elect him on the Council, make him chairman over all our heads, let him reap the reward of the scheme which our brains have conceived.”

“They want him, eh? That’s awkward.”

“Awkward for us,” Fenn muttered.

“They’d better have him, I suppose,” Bright said, with slow and evil emphasis. “Yes, they’d better have him. We’ll take off our hats, and assure him that it was a mistake.”

“Too late. I’ve told Miss Abbeway and the Bishop that he is at large. You backed me up.”

Bright thrust his long, unpleasant, knobby fingers into his pocket, and produced a crumpled cigarette, which he lit from the end of his companion’s.

“Well,” he demanded, “what do you want?”

“I have come to the conclusion,” Fenn decided, “that it is not in the interests of our cause that Orden should become associated with it in any way.”

“We’ve a good deal of power,” Bright ruminated, “but it seems to me you’re inclined to stretch it. I gather that the others want him delivered up. We can’t act against them.”

“Not if they known,” Fenn answered significantly.

Bright came over to the mantelpiece, leaned his elbow upon it, and hung his extraordinarily unattractive face down towards his companion’s.

“Nicholas,” he said, “I don’t blame you for fencing, but I like plain words. You’ve done well out of this new Party. I haven’t. You’ve no hobby except saving your money. I have. My last two experiments, notwithstanding the Government allowance, have left me drained. I need money as you others need bread. I can live without food or drink, but I can’t be without the means to keep my laboratories going. Do you understand me?”

“I do,” Fenn assented, taking up his hat. “Come, I’ll drive towards Bermondsey with you. We’ll talk on the way.”

CHAPTER XIII

Julian raised himself slightly from his recumbent position at the sound of the opening of the door. He watched Fenn with dull, incurious eyes as the latter crossed the uncarpeted floor of the bare wooden shed, threw off his overcoat, and advanced towards the side of the couch.

“Sit up a little,” the newcomer directed.

Julian shook his head.

“No strength,” he muttered. “If I had, I should wring your damned neck!”

Fenn looked down at him for a moment in silence.

“You take this thing very hardly, Mr. Orden,” he said. “I think that you had better give up this obstinacy. Your friends are getting anxious about you. For many reasons it would be better for you to reappear.”

“There will be a little anxiety on the part of your friends about you,” Julian retorted grimly, “if ever I do get out of this accursed place.”

“You bear malice, I fear, Mr. Orden.”

Julian made no reply. His eyes were fixed upon the door. He turned away with a shudder. Bright had entered. In his hand he was carrying two gas masks. He came over to the side of the couch, and, looking down at Julian, lifted his hand, and felt his pulse. Then, with an abrupt movement, he handed one of the masks to Fenn.

“Look out for yourself,” he advised. “I am going to give him an antidote.”

Bright stepped back and adjusted his own gas mask, while Fenn followed suit. Then the former drew from his pocket what seemed to be a small tube with perforated holes at the top. He leaned over Julian and pressed it. A little cloud of faint mist rushed through the holes; a queer, aromatic perfume, growing stronger every moment, seemed to creep into the farthest corners of the room. In less than ten seconds Julian opened his eyes. In half a minute he was sitting up. His eyes were bright once more, there was colour in his cheeks. Bright spoke to him warningly.

“Mr. Orden,” he enjoined, “sit where you are. Remember I have the other tube in my left hand.”

“You infernal scoundrel!” Julian exclaimed.

“Mr. Bright,” Fenn asserted, “is nothing of the sort. Neither am I. We are both honest men faced with a colossal situation. There is nothing personal in our treatment of you. We have no enmity towards you. You are simply a person who has committed a theft.”

“What puzzles me,” Julian muttered, “is what you expect I am going to do about you, if ever I do escape from your clutches.”

“If you do escape,” Fenn said quietly, “you will view the matter differently. You will find, as a matter of fact, that you are powerless to do anything. You will find a new law and a new order prevailing.”

“German law!” Julian sneered.

“You misjudge us,” Fenn continued. “Both Bright and I are patriotic Englishmen. We are engaged at the present moment in a desperate effort to save our country. You are the man who stands in the way.”

“I never thought,” said Julian, “that I should smile in this place, but you are beginning to amuse me. Why not be more explicit? Why not prove what you say? I might become amenable. I suppose your way of saving the country is to hand it over to the Germans, eh?”

“Our way of saving the country,” Fenn declared, “is to establish peace.”

Julian laughed scornfully.

“I know a little about you, Mr. Fenn,” he said. “I know the sort of peace you would establish, the sort of peace any man would propose who conducts a secret correspondence with Germany.”

Fenn, who had lifted his mask for a moment, slowly rearranged it.

“Mr. Orden,” he said, “we are not going to waste words upon you. You are hopelessly and intolerably prejudiced. Will you tell us where you have concealed the packet you intercepted?”

“Aren’t you almost tired of asking me that question? I’m tired of hearing it,” Julian replied. “I will not.”

“Will you let me try to prove to you,” Fenn begged, “that by the retention of that packet you are doing your country an evil service?”

“If you talked till doomsday,” Julian assured him, “I should not believe a word you said.”

“In that case,” Fenn began slowly, with an evil glitter in his eyes –

“Well, for heaven’s sake finish the thing this time!” Julian interrupted. “I’m sick of playing the laboratory rabbit for you. If you are out for murder, finish the job and have done with it.”

Bright was playing with another tube which he, had withdrawn from his pocket.

“It is my duty to warn you, Mr. Orden,” he said, “that the contents of this little tube of gas, which will reach you with a touch of my fingers, may possibly be fatal and will certainly incapacitate you for life.”

“Why warn me?” Julian scoffed. “You know very well that I haven’t the strength of a cat, or I should wring your neck.”

“We feel ourselves,” Bright continued unctuously, “justified in using this tube, because its first results will be to throw you into a delirium, in the course of which we trust that you will divulge the hiding place of the stolen packet. We use this means in the interests of the country, and such risk as there may be lies on your own head.”

“You’re a canting hypocrite!” Julian declared. “Try your delirium. That packet happens to be in the one place where neither you nor one of your tribe could get at it.”

“It is a serious moment, this, Mr. Orden,” Fenn reminded him. “You are in the prime of life, and there is a scandal connected with your present position which your permanent disappearance would certainly not dissipate. Remember – “

He stopped short. A whistle in the corner of the room was blowing. Bright moved towards it, but at that moment there was the sound of flying footsteps on the wooden stairs outside, and the door was flung open. Catherine, breathless with haste, paused for a moment on the threshold, then came forward with a little cry.

“Julian!” she exclaimed.

He gazed at her, speechless, but with a sudden light in his eyes. She came across the room and dropped on her knees by his couch. The two men fell back. Fenn slipped back between her and the door. They both removed their masks, but they held them ready.

“Oh, how dared they!” she went on. “The beasts! Tell me, are you ill?”

“Weak as a kitten,” he faltered. “They’ve poisoned me with their beastly gases.”

Catherine rose to her feet. She faced the two men, her eyes flashing with anger.

“The Council will require an explanation of this, Mr. Fenn!” she declared passionately. “Barely an hour ago you told us that Mr. Orden had escaped from Hampstead.”

“Julian Orden,” Fenn replied, “has been handed over to our secret service by the unanimous vote of the Council. We have absolute liberty to deal with him as we think fit.”

“Have you liberty to tell lies as to his whereabouts?” Catherine demanded. “You deliberately told the Council he had escaped, yet, entirely owing to Mr. Furley, I find you down here at Bermondsey with him. What were you going to do with him when I came in?”

“Persuade him to restore the packet, if we could,” Fenn answered sullenly.

“Rubbish!” Catherine retorted. “You know very well that he is our friend. You have only to tell him the truth, and your task with him is at an end.”

“Steady!” Julian muttered. “Don’t imagine that I have any sympathy with your little nest of conspirators.”

“That is only because you do not understand,” Catherine assured him. “Listen, and you shall hear the whole truth. I will tell you what is inside that packet and whose signatures you will find there.”

Julian gripped her wrist suddenly. His eyes were filled with a new fear. He was watching the two men, who were whispering together.

“Catherine,” he exclaimed warningly, “look out! These men mean mischief. That devil Bright invents a new poisonous gas every day. Look at Fenn buckling on his mask. Quick! Get out if you can!”

Catherine’s hand touched her bosom. Bright sprang towards her, but he was too late. She raised a little gold whistle to her lips, and its pealing summons rang through the room. Fenn dropped his mask and glanced towards Bright. His face was livid.

“Who’s outside?” he demanded.

“The Bishop and Mr. Furley. Great though my confidence is in you both, I scarcely ventured to come here alone.”

The approaching footsteps were plainly audible. Fenn shrugged his shoulders with a desperate attempt at carelessness.

“I don’t know what is in your mind, Miss Abbeway,” he said. “You can scarcely believe that you, at any rate, were in danger at our hands.”

“I would not trust you a yard,” she replied fiercely. “In any case, it is better that the others should come. Mr. Orden might not believe me. He will at least believe the Bishop.”

“Believe whom?” Julian demanded.

The door was opened. The Bishop and Miles Furley came hastily in. Catherine stepped forward to meet them.

“I was obliged to whistle,” she explained, a little hysterically. “I do not trust either of these men. That fiend Bright has a poisonous gas with him in a pocket cylinder. I am convinced that they meant to murder Julian.”

The two newcomers turned towards the couch and exchanged amazed greetings with Julian. Fenn threw his mask on to the table with an uneasy laugh.

“Miss Abbeway,” he protested, “is inclined to be melodramatic. The gas which Bright has in that cylinder is simply one which would produce a little temporary unconsciousness. We might have used it – we may still use it – but if you others are able to persuade Mr. Orden to restore the packet, our task with him is at an end. We are not his gaolers – or perhaps he would say his torturers – for pleasure. The Council has ordered that we should extort from him the papers you know of and has given us carte blanche as to the means. If you others can persuade him to restore them peaceably, why, do it. We are prepared to wait.”

Julian was still staring from one to the other of his visitors. His expression of blank astonishment had scarcely decreased.

“Bishop,” he said at last, “unless you want to see me go insane before your eyes, please explain. It can’t be possible that you have anything in common with this nest of conspirators.”

The Bishop smiled a little wanly. He laid his hand upon his godson’s shoulder.

“Believe me, I have been no party to your incarceration, Julian,”, he declared, “but if you will listen to me, I will tell you why I think it would be better for you to restore that packet to Miss Abbeway:”

“Tell that blackguard to give me another sniff of his restorative gas,” Julian begged. “These shocks are almost too much for me.”

The Bishop turned interrogatively towards Bright, who once more leaned over Julian with the tube in his hand. Again the little mist, the pungent odour. Julian rose to his feet and sat down again.

“I am listening,” he said.

“First of all,” began the Bishop earnestly, as he seated himself at the end of the couch on which Julian had been lying, “let me try to remove some of your misconceptions. Miss Abbeway is in no sense of the word a German spy. She and I, Mr. Furley here, Mr. Fenn and Mr. Bright, all belong to an organisation leagued together for one purpose – we are determined to end the war.”

“Pacifists!” Julian; muttered.

“An idle word,” the Bishop protested, “because at heart we are all pacifists. There is not one of us who would wilfully choose war instead of peace. The only question is the price we are prepared to pay.”

“Why not leave that to the Government?”

“The Government,” the Bishop replied, “are the agents of the people. The people in this case wish to deal direct.”

“Again why?” Julian demanded.

“Because the Government is composed wholly of politicians, politicians who, in far too many speeches, have pledged themselves to too many definite things. Still, the Government will have its chance.”

“Explain to me,” Julian asked, “why, if you are a patriotic society, you are in secret and illegal communication with Germany?”

“The Germany with whom we are in communication,” the Bishop assured his questioner, “is the Germany who thinks as we do.”

“Then you are on a wild-goose chase,” Julian declared, “because the Germans who think as you do are in a hopeless minority.”

The Bishop’s forefinger was thrust out.

“I have you, Julian,” he said. “That very belief which you have just expressed is our justification, because it is the common belief throughout the country. I can prove to you that you are mistaken – can prove it, with the help of that very packet which is responsible for your incarceration here.”

“Explain,” Julian begged.

“That packet,” the Bishop declared, “contains the peace terms formulated by the Socialist and Labour parties of Germany.”

“Worth precisely the paper it is written on?’ Julian scoffed.

“And ratified,” the Bishop continued emphatically, “by the three great men of Germany, whose signatures are attached to that document – the Kaiser, the Chancellor and Hindenburg.”

Julian was electrified.

“Do you seriously mean,” he asked, “that those signatures are attached to proposals of peace formulated by the Socialist and Labour parties of Germany?”

“I do indeed,” was the confident reply. “If the terms are not what we have been led to expect, or if the signatures are not there, the whole affair is at an end.”

“You are telling me wonderful things, sir,” Julian confessed, after a brief pause.

“I am telling what you will discover yourself to be the truth,” the Bishop insisted. “And, Julian, I am appealing to you not only for the return of that packet, but for your sympathy, your help, your partisanship. You can guess now what has happened. Your anonymity has come to an end. The newly formed Council of Labour, to which we all belong, is eager and anxious to welcome you.”

“Has any one given me away?” Julian asked.

Catherine shook her head.

“The truth was discovered this evening, when your rooms were searched,” she explained.

“What is the constitution of this Council of Labour?” Julian enquired, a little dazed by this revelation.

“It is the very body of men which you yourself foreshadowed,” the Bishop replied eagerly. “Twenty of the members are elected by the Trades Unions and represent the great industries of the Empire; and there are three outsiders – Miss Abbeway, Miles Furley and myself. If you, Julian, had not been so successful in concealing your identity, you would have been the first man to whom the Council would have turned for help. Now that the truth is known, your duty is clear. The glory of ending this war will belong to the people, and it is partly owing to you that the people have grown to realise their strength.”

“My own position at the present moment,” Julian began, a little grimly –

“You have no one to blame for that but yourself,” Catherine interrupted. “If we had known who you were, do you suppose that we should have allowed these men to deal with you in such a manner? Do you suppose that I should not have told you the truth about that packet? However, that is over. You know the truth now. We five are all members of the Council who are sitting practically night and day, waiting – you know what for. Do not keep us in suspense any longer than you can help. Tell us where to find this letter?”

Julian passed his hand over his forehead a little wearily.

“I am confused,” he admitted. “I must think. After all, you are engaged in a conspiracy. Stenson’s Cabinet may not be the strongest on earth, or the most capable, but Stenson himself has carried the burden of this war bravely.”

“If the terms offered,” the Bishop pointed out, “are anything like what we expect, they are better than any which the politicians could ever have mooted, even after years more of bloodshed. It is my opinion that Stenson will welcome them, and that the country, generally speaking, will be entirely in favour of their acceptance.”

“Supposing,” Julian asked, “that you think them reasonable, that you make your demand to the Prime Minister, and he refuses. What then?”

“That,” Fenn intervened, with the officious air of one who has been left out of the conversation far too long, “is where we come in. At our word, every coal pit in England would cease work, every furnace fire would go out, every factory would stand empty. The trains would remain on their sidings, or wherever they might chance to be when the edict was pronounced. The same with the ‘buses and cabs, the same with the Underground. Not a ship would leave any port in the United Kingdom, not a ship would be docked. Forty-eight hours of this would do more harm than a year’s civil war. Forty-eight hours must procure from the Prime Minister absolute submission to our demands. Ours is the greatest power the world has ever evolved. We shall use it for the greatest cause the world has ever known-the cause of peace.”

“This, in a way, was inevitable,” Julian observed. “You remember the conversation, Bishop,” he added, “down at Maltenby?”

“Very well indeed,” the latter acquiesced.

“The country went into slavery,” Julian pronounced, “in August, 1915. That slavery may or may not be good for them. To be frank, I think it depends entirely upon the constitution of your Council. It is so munch to the good, Bishop, that you are there.”

“Our Council, such as it is,” Fenn remarked acidly, “consists of men elected to their position by the votes of a good many millions of their fellow toilers.”

“The people may have chosen wisely,” was the grave reply, “or they may have made mistakes. Such things have been known. By the bye, I suppose that my durance is at an end?”

“It is at an end, whichever way you decide,” Catherine declared. “Now that you know everything, though, you will not hesitate to give up the packet?”

“You shall have it,” he agreed. “I will give it back into your hands.”

“The sooner the better!” Fenn exclaimed eagerly. “And, Mr. Orden, one word.”

Julian was standing amongst them now, very drawn and pale in the dim halo of light thrown down from the hanging lamp. His answering monosyllable was cold and restrained.

“Well?”

“I trust you will understand,” Fenn continued, “that Bright and I were simply carrying out orders. To us you were an enemy. You had betrayed the trust of one of our members. The prompt delivery of that packet meant the salvation of thousands of lives. It meant a cessation of this ghastly world tragedy. We were harsh, perhaps, but we acted according to orders.”

Julian glanced at the hand which Fenn had half extended but made no movement to take it. He leaned a little upon the Bishop’s arm.

“Help me out of this place, sir, will you?” he begged. “As for Fenn and that other brute, what I have to say about them will keep.”

CHAPTER XIV

It was a little more than half an hour later when Julian ascended the steps of his club in Pall Mall and asked the hall porter for letters. Except that he was a little paler than usual and was leaning more heavily upon his stick, there was nothing about his appearance to denote several days of intense strain. There was a shade of curiosity, mingled with surprise, in the commissionaire’s respectful greeting.

“There have been a good many enquiries for you the last few days, sir,” he observed.

“I dare say,” Julian replied. “I was obliged to go out of town unexpectedly.”

He ran through the little pile of letters and selected a bulky envelope addressed to himself in his own handwriting. With this he returned to the taxicab in which the Bishop and Catherine were seated. They gazed with fascinated eyes at the packet which he was carrying and which he at once displayed.

“You see,” he remarked, as he leaned back, “there is nothing so impenetrable in the world as a club of good standing. It beats combination safes hollow. It would have taken all Scotland Yard to have dragged this letter from the rack.”

“That is really – it?” Catherine demanded breathlessly.

“It is the packet,” he assured her, “which you handed to me for safe keeping at Maltenby.”

They drove almost in silence to the Bishop’s house, where it had been arranged that Julian should spend the night. The Bishop left the two together before the fire in his library, while he personally superintended the arrangement of a guest room. Catherine came over and knelt by the side of Julian’s chair.

“Shall I beg forgiveness for the past,” she whispered, “or may I not talk of the future, the glorious future?”

“Is it to be glorious?” he asked a little doubtfully.

“It can be made so,” she answered with fervour, “by you more than by anybody else living. I defy you -you, `Paul Fiske – to impugn our scheme, our aims, the goal towards which we strive. All that we needed was a leader who could lift us up above the localness, the narrow visions of these men. They are in deadly earnest, but they can’t see far enough, and each sees along his own groove. It is true that at the end the same sun shines, but no assembly of people can move together along a dozen different ways and keep the same goal in view.”

He touched the packet.

“We do not yet know the written word here,” he reminded her.

“I do,” she insisted. “My heart tells me. Besides, I have had many hints. There are people in London whose position forces them to remain silent, who understand and know.”

“Foreigners?” Julian asked suspiciously.

“Neutrals, of course, but neutrals of discretion are very useful people. The military party in Germany is making a brave show still, but it is beaten, notwithstanding its victories. The people are gathering together in their millions. Their voice is already being heard. Here we have the proof of it.”

“But even if these proposed terms are as favourable as you say,” Julian objected, “how can you force them upon the English Cabinet? There is America-France. Yours is purely a home demand. A government has other things to think of and consider.”

“France is war-weary to the bone,” she declared. “France will follow England, especially when she knows the contents of that packet. As for America, she came into this after the great sacrifices had been made. She demands nothing more than is to be yielded up. It is not for the sake of visionary ideas, not for diplomatic precedence that the humanitarians of the world are going to hesitate about ending this brutal slaughter.”

He studied her curiously. In the firelight her face seemed to him almost strangely beautiful. She was uplifted by the fervour of her thoughts. The depth in her soft brown eyes was immeasurable; the quiver of her lips, so soft and yet so spiritual, was almost inspiring. Her hand was resting upon his shoulder. She seemed to dwell upon .his expression, to listen eagerly for his words. Yet he realised that in all this there was no personal note. She was the disciple of a holy cause, aflame with purpose.

“It will mean a revolution,” he said thoughtfully.

“A revolution was established two years ago,” she pointed out, “and the people have held their power ever since. I will tell you what I believe to-day,” she went on passionately. “I believe that the very class who was standing the firmest, whose fingers grasp most tightly the sword of warfare, will be most grateful to the people who will wrest the initiative from their and show them the way to an honourable, inevitable peace.”

“When do you propose to break those seals?” he enquired.

“To-morrow evening,” she replied. “There will be a full meeting of the Council. The terms will be read. Then you shall decide.”

“What am I to decide?”

“Whether you will accept the post of spokesman – whether you will be the ambassador who shall approach the Government.”

“But they may not elect me,” he objected.

“They will,” she replied confidently. “It was you who showed them their power. It is you whose inspiration has carried them along: It is you who shall be their representative. Don’t you realise,” she went on, “that it is the very association of such men as yourself and Miles Furley and the Bishop with this movement which will endow it with reality in the eyes of the bourgeoisie of the country and Parliament?”

Their host returned, followed by his butler carrying a tray with refreshments, and the burden of serious things fell away from them. It was only after Catherine had departed, and the two men lingered for a moment near the fire before retiring, that either of them reverted to the great subject which dominated their thoughts.

“You understand, Julian,” the Bishop said, with a shade of anxiety in his tone, “that I am in the same position as yourself so far as regards the proposals which may lie within that envelope? I have joined this movement – or conspiracy, as I suppose it would be called – on the one condition that the terms pronounced there are such as a Christian and a law-loving country, whose children have already made great sacrifices in the cause of freedom, may honourably accept. If they are otherwise, all the weight and influence I may have with the people go into the other scale. I take it that it is so with you?”

“Entirely,” Julian acquiesced. “To be frank with you,” he added, “my doubts are not so much concerning the terms of peace themselves as the power of the German democracy to enforce them.”

“We have relied a good deal,” the Bishop admitted, “upon reports from neutrals.”

Julian smiled a little grimly.

“We have wasted a good many epithets criticising German diplomacy,” he observed, “but she seems to know how to hold most of the neutrals in the hollow of her hand. You know what that Frenchman said? ‘Scratch a neutral and you find a German propaganda agent!'”

The Bishop led the way upstairs. Outside the door of Julian’s room, he laid his hand affectionately upon the young man’s shoulder.

“My godson,” he said, “as yet we have scarcely spoken of this great surprise which you have given us – of Paul Fiske. All that I shall say now is this. I am very proud to know that he is my guest to-night. I am very happy to think that from tomorrow we shall be fellow workers.”

Catherine, while she waited for her tea in the Carlton lounge on the following afternoon, gazed through the drooping palms which sheltered the somewhat secluded table at which she was seated upon a very brilliant scene. It was just five o’clock, and a packed crowd of fashionable Londoners was listening to the strains of a popular band, or as much of it as could be heard above the din of conversation.

“This is all rather amazing, is it not?” she remarked to her companion.

The latter, an attache at a neutral Embassy, dropped his eyeglass and polished it with a silk handkerchief, in the corner of which was embroidered a somewhat conspicuous coronet.

“It makes an interesting study,” he declared. “Berlin now is madly gay, Paris decorous and sober. It remains with London to be normal, – London because its hide is the thickest, its sensibility the least acute, its selfishness the most profound.”

Catherine reflected for a moment.

“I think,” she said, “that a philosophical history of the war will some day, for those who come after us, be extraordinarily interesting. I mean the study of the national temperaments as they were before, as they are now during the war, and as they will be afterwards. There is one thing which will always be noted, and that is the intense dislike which you, perhaps I, certainly the majority of neutrals, feel towards England.”

“It is true,” the young man assented solemnly. “One finds it everywhere.”

“Before the war,” Catherine went on, “it was Germany who was hated everywhere. She pushed her way into the best places at hotels, watering places – Monte Carlo, for instance and the famous spas. Today, all that accumulated dislike seems to be turned upon England. I am not myself a great admirer of this country, and yet I ask myself why?”

“England is smug,” the young man pronounced; “She is callous; she is, without meaning to be, hypocritical. She works herself into a terrible state of indignation about the misdeeds of her neighbours, and she does not realise her own faults. The Germans are overbearing, but one realises that and expects it. Englishmen are irritating. It is certainly true that amongst us remaining neutrals,” he added, dropping his voice a little and looking around to be sure of their isolation, “the sympathy remains with the Central Powers.”

“I have some dear friends in this country, too,” Catherine sighed.

“Naturally – amongst those of your own order. But then there is very little difference between the aristocracies of every race in the world. It is the bourgeoisie which tells, which sets its stamp upon a nation’s character.”

Their tea had arrived, and for a few moments the conversation travelled in lighter channels. The young man, who was a person of some consequence in his own country, spoke easily of the theatres, of mutual friends, of some sport in which he had been engaged. Catherine relapsed into the role which had been her first in life, – the young woman of fashion. As such they attracted no attention save a few admiring glances on the part of passers-by towards Catherine. As the people around them thinned out a little, their conversation became more intimate.

“I shall always feel,” the young man said thoughtfully, “that in these days I have lived very near great things. I have seen and realised what the historians will relate at second-hand. The greatest events move like straws in the wind. A month ago, it seemed as though the Central Powers would lose the war.”

“I suppose,” she observed, “it depends very much upon what you mean by winning it? The terms of peace are scarcely the terms of victory, are they?”

“The terms of peace,” he repeated thoughtfully.

“We happen to know what they are, do we not?” she continued, speaking almost under her breath,”the basic terms, at any rate.”

“You mean,” he said slowly, “the terms put forward by the Socialist Party of Germany to ensure the granting of an armistice?”

“And acceded to,” she reminded him, “by the Kaiser and the two greatest German statesmen.”

He toyed with his teacup, drew a gold cigarette case from his pocket, selected a cigarette, and lit it.

“You would try to make me believe,” he remarked, smiling at his