Part 14
The blushing victor had much of this kind of thing to endure in the first few days of his return to town. He was in no sense a cynic, for his eyes looked steadily towards the future, but even he was aware that the most rejoicing voices were those which would have been still louder had the cat jumped the other way.
Watching the cat jump, that art, too, was ever important. Truly wonderful was the effect now wrought upon the Mother of Parliaments. The Slippery One had brought off the biggest thing since the Famous Lie in the middle of that prehistoric period of the Great War which had founded the fortune of more than one grave and reverend parliamentarian and had reduced the country to the verge of ruin. This new stroke of daring had been so cunningly timed that its success was said to be a masterpiece of strategy, a triumph of tactical insight by those who would have been the first to brand its failure, from whatever cause, as a lapse into premature senility on the part of a mind outwardly strong and vigorous.
Mr. Wilberforce Williams shared to the full in the congratulations showered upon his brilliant lieutenant. Some of the more volatile friends of the moment tried to draw the prime minister as to the date of the General Election which now was going to be a matter of such vital concern to the world at large. But Mr. Wilberforce Williams lay low and said Nuffin. He knew Nuffin. It almost seemed in point of fact that Nuffinness had been permanently emblazoned upon his politely specious countenance.
In many dovecotes there was, all the same, a mighty flutter. On the side of the angels, amid honorable and right honorable gentlemen all over the House, there was much anticipatory preening of feathers. The plain English of the matter was the country would not stand for a buccaneering war with China. Also there was now a second vital consideration to face. Endor with foolhardy courage had made the curbing of the U. P. the first plank in his platform, yet the result had justified him. The whole country was now alive to the extreme peril of the Newspaper Ring and it was in a mood for action.
Said the pundits, it would need a new constitution to do it. But the super-pundits didn’t think so. Or even granting that such was the case, there would be no difficulty. Since the U. P. had taken the affairs of the nation in hand, a new constitution could be delivered every morning with the punctuality of the _Planet_, the _Mercury_ or the U. P. Milk in U. P. germ-proof bottles.
John Endor was Home Secretary now. A man not yet forty, with only a few years’ experience of parliamentary life, his rise had been singularly rapid. Without being called upon to serve an apprenticeship in a minor office, at one leap he had reached the Cabinet. True, it was almost the worst Cabinet that had ever misgoverned the country, but at its head was a man of great abilities. And this man, faced with a terrible menace to the world’s peace, was bent upon the only remedy. Come what might, Saul Hartz, “the secret power behind the throne of antichrist,” in the picturesque phrase of John Endor--the prime minister himself preferred the saponaceous to the picturesque--must at all costs be broken.
To this end Mr. Williams, with discreet assistance from the Crown lawyers, set himself to devise a Bill. His task was not light, for directly or indirectly almost every salaried official, not to say every wage-earning person in the Island, was now affiliated to the Ring. The measure was on lines long familiar in America, but in “free” Britain it was something new.
The Wilberforce Williams Anti-Trust Law was designed for the castration of the U. P. For that reason it was doubtful if it would ever find its way to the statute book. But as its sponsor mildly said, “There is no harm in trying.” From the first, the prime minister was extremely modest about this measure. For one thing, personal modesty was the prime minister’s long suit. On the Front Bench, on the platform, at the dinner table, on the golf course, at an evening party, he had always been so modest as to seem apologetic, not to say deprecatory. “Really, my dear sir--to think that I--of all people--should be asked to form a government--why, my dear sir--you know as well as I do--that the idea is positively--ah--ludicrous.”
Wilberforce Williams had raised self-effacement to a fine art, yet somehow he had got there just the same. While the Really Great Talents slept, the Slippery One had climbed upwards in the night. And once in office, although the fact was by no means clear to the world at large, he was there “for keeps.” He had got in, nobody quite knew how. With equal truth that formula applied to the question of his getting out.
If Mr. Williams said little as to the prospects of his Bill, as to its character he was reticence itself. The most accomplished Cat-Jumpers, herded in solid phalanx, tier upon tier, on both sides of the House could get hardly a word out of him. Slippery Sam was not exactly beloved, but since the Blackhampton Election his stock as a political entity had risen. To have spiked the U. P. batteries so neatly at such a fateful moment clearly meant that W. W. had known how to read the skies. Every professional legislator now began to feel in his bones that one of the much dread periodical reactions was at hand.
Could it be that the power of the U. P. was on the wane? It had promised the Millennium and was doing its best to deliver the goods, but it was so like human nature to be in rather a hurry in these little matters. The price of all commodities, “hot air” excepted, was at an immoral height; unemployment, starvation, suppressed communism were rife on every hand; taxation was cruel, the depreciation of securities went on and on; an all-pervading sense of disaster struck ever nearer the surface. The Millennium was surely coming, all the morning and evening journals said so, but in the meantime life for the ordinary rate-payer was growing impossible. Yet, said the noble army of Cat-Jumpers, with Blackhampton East now before their eyes, the hour of deliverance is near. Hence, the Anti-Trust Law! Hence, Down with the U. P.! Hence, the pyramids!
In the present condition of Denmark it was unwise to take anything for granted, but one fact was clear. The country was in bonds, but a recent event had shown that it was possible for its chains to be shed.
If deliverance was to come, however, it was now felt that the task would devolve upon one man. John Endor, in the opinion of the insiders, was that man. His recent victory was a torch. It focused every eye in the world of politics upon him. No one else could have won that battle, at any rate in just that way; and it became at once a talisman for all the spirits by nature free, whom the degrading conditions of modern political life were galling beyond endurance.
All things were possible now for John Endor. The dragon which was crushing the life out of the nation was not invulnerable. And one of the very few daily newspapers outside the Ring which had any authority, crystallized the feeling now uppermost in every perceptive mind when it came out one evening with its famous cartoon “The New Perseus.”
XLI
Married life could not have begun more hopefully for John and Helen. They started housekeeping in a tiny but charming house in Brompton Square, the lease of which they had been able to acquire on reasonable terms. It was great fun assembling their modest household gods. These had to accord strictly with their means; therefore, a case for taste and discretion. But these were happy days. A high faith in each other had been confirmed by the ordeal through which they had just passed. Reputation was in a measure theirs before the Blackhampton election; but it was now enhanced, consolidated by a resounding victory which filled the mouth of the world.
It was glorious to be young, to be strong, to be one in dedication to a great task. Much would be demanded of them. They must prepare to live laboriously. Yet a vista had opened before their eyes. Inspiration came to them hour by hour. During the first few weeks of marriage it seemed to John Endor that God was in His Heaven after all.
For both this was a time of growth. And yet, as always, somewhere in the mind of Endor lurked a pre-vision of things to come. A dark shadow was seldom absent from his thoughts. Had it been possible, he would have blotted from his life some recent, brief, but horribly poignant passages. To none, however, is it given to undo the past. In a moment of weakness he had sunk to the level of an unclean foe. He was pledged now to return felon stroke for felon stroke. If he could but efface that hour of moral failure what would he not give!
He dare not tell Helen his secret. By locking away deep in his heart the memory of a tragic lapse he tried to stifle it. But he was never allowed to forget that it was there. Well he knew that the enemy would not yield to dictation from anybody. Saul Hartz, upheld by the power that had carried him so far, would dare the Council of Seven to its worst.
John Endor saw all that with fatal clearness. And soon there fell on him a black despair. “O ye of little faith!” was the cry torn from him in secret as each morning he opened his letters. The recoil of a famous victory was far-reaching, as each day’s post brought evidence. On every side, from quarters diverse and unexpected, squires came forth with a demand for this bold knight to lead them out to battle with the grisly monster in whose toils the country groaned.
The hour was ripe. One of his power, his inward vision, might lead them anywhere. He was beginning to make all the world see, as a Bright or a Gladstone would have done, to what a pass the nation had been brought. He had underrated the moral fiber of his countrymen. In a moment of blindness he had allowed himself to despair of the State--of that State in which he so fully believed that he was ready to make almost any sacrifice, in order to serve it.
What should he do? Saul Hartz was still Saul Hartz, a being of volcanic will. And that will had now become a creative force which seemed to transcend that of men. In the mind of John Endor it was a symbol. Here for one wrought upon by the fires of imagination was the embodiment of the spirit that denied. But if there was a God in the world, and the first weeks of marriage, a time of rare happiness and sanity, had taught him that surely there must be, He must be left to deal with this monster in His own way, at His own time. If Endor himself and the secret society to which he was pledged usurped terrible functions which his conscience could never approve, they, too, must sink to the level of the thing they sought to destroy.
John Endor knew now that he was on the horns of an inescapable dilemma. The body of fanatics and visionaries whose will he had sworn to do would not be in the least likely to release him from his vows. It was not the way of such a camarilla. Once a member, always a member. Before God he would have to assume full responsibility for its acts. And that knowledge was a viper in his breast. How could he hope to keep every nerve braced for the fight with such a horror eating out his very life!
A little consideration of a state of affairs which hardly bore thinking about brought home to John Endor that there could be only one course for him now. At all costs, he must cut loose from this _Vehmgericht_. Likely enough it could only be done at the price of life itself. But done it must be.
XLII
Minds there are of a psychic quality which seem to anticipate events. John Endor had this sort of mind. It hardly surprised him, therefore, when, on the morning after his resolve had been made, he found among his letters one summoning him to a meeting of the Council of Seven. His inner consciousness, it almost seemed, had grown aware that some such ukase was on its way.
The time and place appointed were the Sunday following at an old house in Kent. Roland Holles was the owner of the house. And in the name of the Society, he urged upon Endor in a private note the supreme importance of the occasion. In no circumstances must he fail to appear.
It so happened that Endor had another week-end engagement. But with everything at stake, there was but one thing to do. The prior engagement, of importance in its way, simply had to be broken. Helen, therefore, had to go to Cloudesley alone; she had, moreover, to make the best excuses she could for the eleventh hour default of her eminent husband. And this was the more unfortunate because a number of political and social big-wigs were foregathering at this famous week-end trysting place in the Midlands in the hope of meeting the new Home Secretary.
The odd circumstances of the case forbade any explanation. And in the face of Endor’s general evasiveness, it needed all the clear-headed loyalty of a newly married wife to avert a first rift in the lute. Beyond a few vague reasons which bore no analysis, this sudden and unpardonable desertion had to be left undefended. Not a hint could be given of the tragic coil in which he was involved. It was indeed a test of Helen’s faith to go forth alone among strangers with a hastily improvised excuse for the nonappearance of her husband.
On Sunday morning Endor motored down into Kent. He was in a state of mental darkness as great perhaps as any through which he had yet passed. Bitterly he realized his folly. He was in a terrible morass. Now that he was his true self, he saw that this Society, to which he was bound by a most solemn oath of allegiance, was itself a menace to the world. No matter what the abuses it set out to destroy, to a mind of perfect balance it hardly admitted of question that the nostrum was at least as bad as the disease.
During a two hours’ journey into the Weald of Kent, he gave furious thought to the problem before him. At all hazards he must free himself from the toils of those whom he now felt to be inimical to society itself. But was it possible to get free? From the note of urgency in the summons it was clear that great decisions were about to be taken. And by the oath that bound him he would have to accept a full share of responsibility for those decisions whatever they might be.
Busshe Court was Endor’s destination. A wonderful old house, set in the very heart of “the garden of England,” this first visit must have interested him deeply had it taken place at another time. In the half-light of a winter noon the place had an air of medieval romance and mystery. Before a low stone portico stood the owner of the house, who, without a hat and in a suit of country tweeds, looked a typical and singularly handsome English squire. Common report said that Roland Holles wore more than one large bee in his bonnet. So it might be, yet there was no denying the picturesque force, the rather sinister attraction, of a rare personality.
Endor met with a cordial welcome. The company differed from the one gathered at Rose Carburton’s eight weeks before. No women were there. Reckoning Endor and his host, the company assembled at the luncheon with which the proceedings began consisted of seven men. Lien Weng and Bandar Ali, representative of the immemorial East, were of the number; and in the persons of George Hierons, Felix de Tournel and Amadeo Negretti, there were also represented America, France and Italy.
The talk at table in English was grave and copious and informed. In agreeable contrast to the rather embarrassed restraint of eight weeks before, when women were of the company, there was now the freedom usually to be found among men of a like way of thought. The presence of servants in the room acted as a check, it was true. Until they retired it was impossible to approach the real business of that gathering, but the talk, spontaneous and yet weighty, sustained, moreover, by choice fare, did not flag.
Endor himself, an accomplished man of the world, felt before this meal was half through that the men about him had a depth of thought, a play of ideas, a range, an authority beyond any he had met with. Had he had a mind at ease it would have been a delightful experience. Here it almost seemed, in the stimulus of the hour, was gathered the salt of the earth. Yet, in spite of the talk, the wine and the food, not for an instant could he forget the terrible problem which confronted him.
At the end of the meal, as soon as coffee and cigars had been handed, the servants left the room. The host, thereupon, called at once upon Lien Weng formally to constitute the Court and open the session. This proved a quite simple proceeding. These men, all more or less familiar with the world of high affairs, well understood the valuable art of dispensing with preliminaries. So easy of manner was the President and so adept were his methods that Endor to his deep chagrin allowed himself to be taken by surprise. With sharp annoyance he grew aware that the business was actually under way before he had even begun to attempt to define his own position.
It was not a moment for hesitation. At the risk of discourtesy Endor sprang to his feet. “I am truly sorry to interrupt,” he said to Lien Weng, “but before these proceedings are carried a step farther, please allow me to say this. I have come here, not to transact business, but to sever my connection with this Society.”
The speech, brief as it was, had the effect of a thunderbolt. Every face around the table was anxious, startled, incredulous. Lien Weng, alone, kept a perfect impassiveness. He lifted his right hand delicately and without a glance at the others, he said in his sweet, cooing voice, “Sir, that is impossible. Believe me, sir, it is quite--quite--quite impossible.”
Endor had foreseen even this blunt and final non possumus. It did not deter him, therefore, from stating fully his attitude. He admitted frankly that he had entered into his vows at a time of mental and moral overthrow; but now that his mind was established once more on the plane of reason, he was not prepared to go on with a thing that had lost the sanction of his conscience.
“I fear you cannot be allowed to withdraw, sir,” said Lien Weng, softly. “Your vows were made on the clear understanding that on no grounds conceivable must they ever be broken. Once a member of the Society of the Friends of Peace, always a member.”
An undercurrent of stern approval from those seated round the table drove the plain words home.
“All that you say, sir, I recognized at the time,” said Endor. “So much I freely own. But as I now wish to make clear, owing to a cause which in a measure was physical I was then suffering from an eclipse of the moral judgment.”
Lien Weng shook his head gently. There was a brief pause. And then with the peculiar amenity of a deep mind at grips with destiny itself, he went on as if nothing had occurred, to expound the position the Society had now reached in the matter of Saul Hartz and the Universal Press.
XLIII
Endor, from the first, had felt that he would not be able to get free. And now, his protest made, his own position fully disclosed, he saw that for the time being, at any rate, there was nothing more that he could do.
In the moments that immediately followed, a mind cruelly torn became a house divided against itself. One part of his brain, wherein lurked the eternal verities, assured him that this illicit assembly, this Council of Seven, was no place for John Endor. And yet in another part of his ethos, an influence, alien, but of extreme potency, was also at work. The cold logic of the matter was that on the issue that had been raised Lien Weng and his associates were perfectly right. In a matter of this kind, no man could be permitted to forswear allegiance. That was only just and fair. And it was reasonable that one who did so must pay a full penalty. The question of questions now for John Endor, or at least for the political part of a mind-at-war, was how, when, in what fashion must the penalty be paid?
If, following at once upon his protest he withdrew from the deliberations of the Council, he put himself irrevocably out of court. On the other hand, if he stayed where he was and bore a part in its transactions, he would be committed by implication to any act upon which it might decide. The problem for a man faced with such a far-reaching issue was almost insoluble, but, after a moment of intense emotion, some deep instinct of policy called upon him to remain.
The hour which followed in the beautiful but smoke-laden Busshe Court dining room had an entrancing interest for John Endor. Nothing could have been more severely business-like than the methods of the Council of Seven. In a few words, chosen with much skill, Lien Weng made everything quite clear.
Saul Hartz had ignored the recommendations of the Society of the Friends of Peace and the period of grace had now expired. And, in accordance with the rules, by which all present were under a solemn pact to abide, this man, a direct menace to the peace of the world, must die.
The Seven differed in one instance from the body which had adjudicated recently in the matter of William Garland, the notorious Labor Leader, who had chosen also to defy the Society. D’Alvarez, better known as El Santo, upon whom had devolved the task of doing Garland to death, had carried it out successfully. He had therefore been granted from these deliberations the release, which by the laws of the Society, he was entitled to claim. In his stead appeared the Society’s most recent and not least important recruit, John Endor.
So much, in a brief summary, Lien Weng made clear. It now remained for the seven men sitting round the table to devise a means of doing Saul Hartz to death. In such cases the practice was, under a veil of strict secrecy to draw lots as to who must bear this terrible burden.
The procedure was for each member of the Council to write his name on a slip of paper, fold it up and place it in a small black velvet bag. After this receptacle had been shaken by all in turn, the last comer to the deliberations of the Council was allowed to draw one name from the bag. It was then shaken again by the six members whose names remained, and then the person whose name had been drawn was required to take from the bag a second slip of paper. Upon this was to be found the name of him who in accordance with the Society’s rules must do its will.
As soon as Lien Weng had explained what the procedure was and before any part of it could be set in motion, John Endor rose a second time to speak. He now addressed himself mainly to George Hierons the American, and to his own countryman, Roland Holles. In the stress of the moment he did not hesitate to appeal to them as fellow members of the Anglo-Saxon world, men of his own race and blood, white men, men of western training and ideas to whom such proceedings as these must be subversive in the last degree.
The appeal, brief as it was, had all the cogency of an orator finely skilled in the art of appealing to the emotions. Speaking with absolute conviction, his words, it was clear, made a considerable impression upon those to whom they were addressed. The Frenchman and the Italian also felt their impact, but Lien Weng and Bandar Ali could not conceal a deep resentment in spite of the mask of calm politeness with which they tried to cover it.
“Believing as we do,” were Endor’s final words, “that this man, Saul Hartz, is the incarnation of evil and that he is a threat to the future of mankind, I am now convinced that the only true way of removing this dark shadow is to set in apposition to it the idea of God. Eight weeks ago, when I took my vow, for the moment I had lost my vision of the Eternal. It has now returned to me and I see that, as at present constituted, the Society of the Friends of Peace, albeit inspired by the highest of all human motives, cannot hope to achieve its aim.”