Part 9

Impatient with himself he switched off the light and got into bed. But never had he felt so little like sleep. Something was afoot in this old house. Just what it was he could not say, and yet he was sure it concerned him intimately. His mind was a nest of fancies. The second glass of port might have been a mistake, or the oysters might have upset him, for by some means, the room in which he lay was now alive with the evil spirit of the Middle Ages. Who knew what black arts, what latent devilries lurked behind its tapestry? Would this ancient bed in which he felt so uncomfortable be let down into a secret vault wherein a _Vehmgericht_ was assembled? Would these mysterious walls recede to disclose a Secret Council in session? Lying impotently there, his mind grew morbid. He was almost tempted to ring for his servant that he might have company.

What was in the wind? Downstairs in the library something was afoot. The frigid politeness of his fellow guests returned to him with new meaning. All these people, men and women alike, nobly and variously gifted as they were, had a taint of fanaticism. It was idle to deny that he was lying in the midst of danger.

A man of less force might have been tempted to blame his own folly in lying there at all. But Saul Hartz neither repined nor looked back. All experience was good. This was a real adventure. Besides having at last fallen foul of this precious Society, soon or late he would have to face it. So far as he was concerned, it might as well be now. He knew the grim record of the Council of Seven, but he would not swerve an inch from the course already prescribed for himself. It should not be easy to terrorize Saul Hartz. And even if life itself was the stake, was life, after all, such a very great matter?

Lying there, with sleep far from his pillow, he sought to arrange his mind and put his affairs in order. He felt it likely that he would never leave that room alive, but the premonition did not lessen his scorn of others. For that remorseless mind there could be no hereafter. The position he took up was that of a philosopher known to the recent past: “He knew there had been one ice age, and he believed there was going to be another.” A bundle of primal instincts, he merely followed his appetites.

Saul Hartz had an appetite for power. Up till the very moment of entering that room he had considered himself beyond good and evil. But as he lay, waves of thought leaped upon him from those walls. Conspiracy was in the air. Certain forces meant to break him. And how easy to achieve. A drop of poison in a cup of coffee, a knife, or a pistol shot, a knock on the head in the dark, a push, neatly timed, onto a live rail of the Underground, and all would be over. So far as the Colossus was concerned, that would be the end. Let it be so. After all, he had read the Riddle of the Sphinx. Knowing all, there was nothing to know.

He pressed a button of his devil’s machine, and wheat rose five shillings a bushel in Europe; he pressed another button, and half a continent was removed from the comity of nations. But what did it matter? In the sight of Saul Hartz the planet Earth was but a grain of sand on the tideway of eternity. Organic life was a negation of a negation, yet from the first, he had been ready to pay a full price for supreme power. But now it had come to him, it wrought no appeasement of the cosmic sense. Man he was and man he must remain.

It was probable that he was entering upon his last hours, but he made no oblation to a God in which he did not believe. Pursuing the laws of reason with remorseless logic, he had made of himself a god. At the dawn of consciousness he had seen the self in pictures, till now, at the threshold of the night of time, he saw himself as antichrist. His brain, as he had always known, was adapted just a little better to the modern one-hell-of-a-muss than that of any other adventurous insect. It enabled him to get, with a minimum of effort, all the things he sought in the material world. They did not bring happiness, but he did not look for it. Such an abortion as man had no claims to beatitude. For man in his very nature was a hybrid, a contradiction, a grotesque in whom the elements must be ever at war. Let him never seek peace on earth, and as far as heaven was concerned, granting that it existed, what a place of exquisite boredom it must be!

Long hours the Colossus lay searching his heart and then, finally, he drew the bedclothes over his head and decided to go down fighting. To go down fighting--that would be the ultimate bliss for one who made no terms with life. After all, the lust for power was greater than the will to live.

Lying there, hour after hour, in the uncanny silence of that room, the conviction had grown until now it enfolded him like the arms of a woman, that the sleep upon which he was about to enter would be his last. This brief but intense review of experience had pierced him so deeply that it began to seem certain that the end was now near.

At last, he fell into a doze. But hardly had consciousness left him, when, with a violent start, he awoke. Somebody had entered the room. The electric light next the door had been switched on. He sat up in bed to confront a face drawn and haggard, and a pair of eyes somber, ruthless, terrible.

They were the eyes of John Endor.

XXVI

For a space of ten seconds or so, the two men stared at one another. And then Saul Hartz, once more the human animal, took himself strongly in hand.

Automatically his fists clenched. A revolver ... a knife ... a corrosive acid ... unless he sprang at once he would not be given a chance to get one in before the _Vehmgericht_ put up his number!

“I beg your pardon!” The intruder’s polite voice came not an instant too soon. “If I have disturbed you I am sorry. I thought this was my room. It must be next door.”

“An easy mistake to make in the dark.” Almost at once Saul Hartz was in full command of the situation.

Endor prepared to withdraw.

“Off to bed late, aren’t you? What’s the time?” The Colossus looked at his watch. “Nearly a quarter to four.”

Surprise flashed across Endor’s dark face. “So late!” he said.

“Given up to high-brow talk down below, eh?” Hartz’s cold laugh did not try to conceal the sneer behind it. “Setting the affairs of the universe in order, I daresay.”

The answer of John Endor was icy, venomous, slow. “Of the _Planet_ at any rate.”

“So!” said the Colossus. “One guessed your program was ambitious. Maybe you’ll find the affairs of the _Planet_ a pretty tough problem, my friend.” And there was a challenge in his voice and in his eyes.

Endor’s face grew darker. “No doubt,” he said aloofly. And then, without another word, he turned abruptly and lurched a little unsteadily out of the room. As he did so he switched off the light.

The Colossus was able to get an hour or two of troubled sleep. But it was disturbed by bad dreams. Take it altogether it was perhaps the least agreeable night he had ever spent. The arrival of his servant at eight o’clock with tea and shaving water came as a real relief. Never had daylight been quite so welcome. But it was a prelude to a day of tedium broken now and then by moments of acute embarrassment. The other men continued to keep him at arm’s length, and he was at no pains to disguise that he fully reciprocated their feelings. Besides, much of their time seemed to be passed in anxious conclave, of which, although conducted in secret with all the privacy of closed doors, he was not slow to guess the nature.

As far as the women were concerned, he did not get on much better. His hostess, a creature of rare accomplishment and charm, was not at all at ease in her brief and fragmentary conversations with him. By the others he was frankly bored. They belonged to the pure milk of the intellectual. Disdaining the feminine arts altogether, they had that rather distressing mental acuteness of which men of equal or superior caliber are apt to fight very shy.

It occurred to Saul Hartz, as soon as luncheon was over, that his wisest course in the circumstances would be to return at once to town. Sorely was he tempted to this, but to begin with there was no Sunday train, and even if a motor could be obtained, the journey was considerably more than a hundred miles. It would be an affront, moreover, to the hostess, although perhaps the Colossus was the last man in the world with whom a consideration of that kind was likely to weigh.

But when all was said, what really enabled Saul Hartz to face another day of Doe Hill was the situation itself. The feeling obsessed him that something was about to happen. And whatever the something might be, he was not the man to shirk it.

The day wore on, however, and nothing occurred. Grim faces, hostile looks were on every hand, but they did not culminate in any overt act. And the hostess with her immense social experience was able to ease the tension a little. But the Colossus provided a rare test for her powers. He seldom opened his heart to a woman. And with bitter enemies on every side, he retired very much into his shell. Howbeit, even he could not resist the allure of Rose Carburton. She was so very much a woman of the world that in the course of the day, as the crown of many attempts, she made some impact upon a reserve that was indeed formidable.

After tea, while she was showing him a rare collection of miniatures, it suddenly occurred to Saul Hartz that through the medium of this woman there might be a hope of getting a line as to the Society’s attitude towards himself. Some hint, also, might be forthcoming of the course it was likely to follow.

Characteristically, he began by asking point blank if she were a member of it. She fenced adroitly, with infinite wit in the use of the foils, but he pressed her hard. He meant to have the truth; and the sense of its importance her dexterity confessed nerved him to tear it from her. Force of reasoning took it captive in the end, not that the penetration of a Solomon was called for in the process.

“And what, pray, do you think you are going to achieve with your mumbo jumbo?” he asked, suddenly spinning the button off his foil. “It is wrong in ethics, it stands outside the law, it is an affront to religion, it is opposed to the deepest instincts of the human race.”

Mrs. Carburton said cautiously that the rules of the Society did not permit its case to be argued. But its members sincerely believed that by fearless coöperative action they could do permanent good to the world.

Saul Hartz took leave to doubt it. And to kill a man because one did not happen to agree with his opinions, gloss it over as one might, was simple murder.

“But does it kill people?” said Mrs. Carburton, with a slow and steady widening of fine gray eyes.

Was this real innocence? Or did she merely think him a fool? His stern eyes questioned her candid ones, but they told him nothing.

“In effect,” said Saul Hartz brutally, “this Society is a murder club. Barely a fortnight ago the unfortunate Garland was done to death by it.”

“A coroner’s jury,” said Rose Carburton, “declared William Garland’s death to be from an unknown cause.”

“The cause is not unknown to the Council of Seven.”

“I do not belong to the Council,” said Rose Carburton simply. “No woman does. But speaking as an ordinary member of society--we’ll dispense with the ‘the’--from the bottom of my heart I rejoice that a man so infamous as William Garland is no longer able to do harm to his fellow creatures.”

“Infamous is a strong word.”

“No man ever won a better right to it than William Garland.”

“You can only know that by hearsay--even granting, as one may--that Garland was a thoroughly ‘bad hat.’”

Rose Carburton smiled faintly and shook a mournful head. “On the contrary, William Garland had a trial long, full and fair, if ever man had. Evidence was collected and most carefully weighed, and it was proven beyond a doubt that Garland’s aim was to set class against class. By making the world no place for honest and peaceful folk to live in, he hoped to become a sort of glorified Trotzky or Lenin.”

“And on these vague grounds a fortuitous body of persons takes upon itself to murder him.”

“That is a matter in which one is only too glad to remain in ignorance,” said Rose Carburton. “But at least one realizes,” she fervently added, “that the world is a sweeter and cleaner place now that Garland is no longer in it.”

“It may be so,” said Saul Hartz sternly. “On that point I offer no opinion. But who and what, pray, is this Society, that it should arrogate to itself the right to take these extreme measures?”

“It is composed,” said Rose Carburton, “of the ablest, the most disinterested, the most humane minds of all countries, and, as I understand, it has one object in view and one object alone--to conserve by every means in its power the peace of the world.”

Saul Hartz laughed contemptuously. “As though by carrying on a private vendetta, it can do anything of the kind.”

“It does not aim at reprisal. Personal animus has no place in the scheme. In sum it is the last resort, the Final Court of Appeal of the Weak against the Strong.”

“Sheer anarchy,” said Saul Hartz. “It is subversive of every law of God and Man.”

Rose Carburton held her ground bravely. “It is a heroic attempt to adjust the balance of power. Certain minds in the world of public affairs--and it is only one world among many--are now in full control of the wires which hold society together. These minds stand for negation. At the beck of private ambition of an ignoble kind, they are prepared to override all that is human, all that is divine. So long as they can fill the world with war and the rumor of war they thrive. In the end, of course, Fate itself will deal with them, but only at an awful cost to the helpless and the innocent. Had society had the power in 1912 to remove Wilhelm II and the small group of men around him, it is almost certain that the cataclysm which has so nearly destroyed the civilization of the West would have been averted.”

Saul Hartz took leave to doubt it.

XXVII

Dinner that evening was again a cheerless meal. It was hard to say why. All that wealth, discriminating taste, the social arts could devise was there in profusion. There was an absence of ceremony. Taken as individuals nothing could have exceeded the personal attraction of those who graced the famous Doe Hill mahogany, but in a subtle way and for some hidden reason they refused to coalesce.

Some of the foremost minds of the world had come together. On a normal occasion the talk of such people must have been copious, salt, full of marrow; this evening it was tentative, halting, spineless; the hearts and minds of the speakers were too plainly not in it.

A skeleton was at the feast. Of that fact Saul Hartz was fully aware. From the moment of arrival the previous day a deadly sense of being in the enemy’s camp had oppressed him. All that had happened since, outwardly unimportant though it was, had ministered to it. Each one of these people, even the hostess herself seemed, so far as possible, to avoid him. They were forever looking the other way; even in moments of unavoidable intercourse he felt an odd constraint. And this evening, in spite of the _mise en scene_, an almost positive sense of disharmony reached a climax. Course by course the conversation waned. By the time the meal was at an end, silence hung like a pall over the whole table.

When the ladies left the room, the eight men who remained were conscious of a momentary lifting of the cloud. But they stayed only a short time circulating the decanters. A move was made once more to that wonderful room, the library, whose walls had been furnished so liberally with the world’s wisdom, for the most part in bindings choice and rare. The somber magnificence of the drawn curtains, the soft radiance of the candelabra, the glow from the open hearth, lent to the scene an austere dignity that was felt by all. Coffee and cigars, and even the fine liqueurs which were promptly dispensed, came almost as a desecration to such a sacramental atmosphere.

Less than five minutes after the servants had gone, Lien Weng gave a quiet signal. The American, George Hierons, and the Frenchman de Tournel rose abruptly from their chairs and proceeded at once to lock the two doors of the room. With a ceremonious bow they handed the keys to Lien Weng.

The Chinaman turned to face Saul Hartz. “Sir, the Court is now constituted,” he said without a trace of emotion. His English was perfect, but there was a curiously soft inflection in the low voice.

Saul Hartz, defiance in his air, merely shrugged contemptuous shoulders. Every sense keenly strung, he had been apprised by this overt act even before it came.

“My good friends have done me the honor,” Lien Weng continued in a voice whose timbre was persuasion itself, “to invite me to conduct these wholly informal proceedings.”

“And you might add ‘wholly illegal’ while you are about it,” said the Colossus with a sudden gust of anger.

Lien Weng raised a finger with a gravity verging upon the pontifical. “Legal--illegal--are words--words. This Court--this Council of Seven deals only with realities.”

“Golf balls a shilling!” In order to express an utter contempt the Colossus spat in the fire.

“Words--phrases!” The courtesy of a very old civilization rooted in an immemorial past was in the deep smile of Lien Weng. “I ask you, sir, to believe that as far as this world is concerned we are about to deal with a matter of life and death.”

Another gust of rage swept Saul Hartz. “About to murder me, eh?” he said savagely, “as you murdered Garland the other day, not to mention Kornileff the Russian, and Yamotoga the Jap, and heaven knows who besides!”

When the Colossus had spoken he got up from his chair.

“Be seated, pray,” said Lien Weng with his priest’s smile. “It will be more agreeable for all if you stay as you were.”

“If you intend to stick a knife in me and put me underneath that”--Saul Hartz pointed to the yawning Tudor fireplace which might easily have concealed a chasm--“get through with it at once. I’m not in a mood for cat and mouse.”

Lien Weng certainly looked feline enough as he narrowed his eyes and yet distended their pupils. His subtle face was luminous with meaning. “You will be unwise,” he said simply, “not to hear all that is said to you. It is not our wish to go to the extreme. Sir, your case has received much consideration. It is our prayer that we may deal with it in the way of wisdom. I will not add in the way of mercy and justice, for ‘mercy,’ ‘justice,’ those too are words, and the Council of Seven deals only with things. And yet its every act is governed by the ideals we serve. This Council is pledged to do the will of the Time-Spirit with as little suffering or unhappiness to the object of its attentions as may consist with the high and noble aim it has in view.”

Saul Hartz, still standing, folded his arms defiantly. But the cold force of the speaker was not without effect. In spite of a bitter and deep hostility the Colossus was obliged to abate his anger to the point of listening to every word spoken by this remarkable man.

“Sir,” continued the President of the Council with the same icy politeness, “you will do well to know just what it is that has constituted you the enemy of the human race. In the fewest possible words I shall hope to make that clear to you. A man of truly remarkable gifts, a man of creative imagination in the world of common affairs, you have so adapted your brain to the new order evolved by modern civilization that you have gained control of the sinister machine which evokes, creates, molds and directs public opinion. That is a feat of which our Society makes no complaint. But having acquired by the exercise of your genius this stupendous power in the physical world, you are proved to be totally lacking, as was Napoleon, your prototype before you, in any true or vital sense of the awful responsibility such a gift confers upon you.”

Each word of this speech Saul Hartz followed with care. But as the gravamen of the charge was unfolded, he took up Lien Weng sharply.

“By what authority,” he interposed violently, “are you and your fellow fanatics”--he cast a glance of savage contempt at the pale, tense faces around him--“constituted your brother’s keeper?”

“By that same authority,” said Lien Weng, “which confers upon you the power you wield.”

“Whatever power I may wield,” said Saul Hartz, “has the sanction of the law.”

“Of what law?”

“The law implicit in the usages of all civilized communities.”

“Sir, there we join issue.”

Lien Weng looked solemnly at the others. With an oriental gravity that raised the act to the plane of ritual, he took a signet ring from the first finger of his right hand, for no apparent reason pressed it to his lips and then put it back again. “No law,” he went on in the same unchanging voice, “of man’s contrivance can be effective unless there lies behind the moral power to enforce it.”

“I agree.”

“Perhaps you do not realize that you and your friends, the members of this infamous International Newspaper Ring, are no longer to be permitted to carry out the policy for which you stand.”

“What is the policy for which we stand?”

“Giantism--world-power--in other words, enslavement and spoliation of the weak.”

“Arrant nonsense!”

“We shall gain nothing,” said Lien Weng “by bandying words. It has taken the Society of the Friends of Peace many months to reach a conclusion in this case of yours; and it has done so only after complete investigation of all the salient facts. Understand, sir, that all its verdicts are based upon reason, and that once moved to action it pursues an undeviating, a relentless course.”

Saul Hartz made a gesture of contempt. “You are an illegal body. At best you are a murder club. You stand outside the law.”

“Not outside the moral law. Take the case of the teeming, helpless millions of my Chinese compatriots for whom I speak, of those millions of unlucky creatures who know themselves impotent to deal with the marvelous physical forces now controlled by the western mind. For months, through the agency of your terrible engine the Universal Press, you have been inciting your Government to shatter Peking. For months, to this end you have been organizing public opinion by means of false news and distorted facts. Once the die is cast the yellow and black races are powerless to cope with the airships, the poison gases, the high explosives, the dread magics the civilization of the West is able to hurl upon them. Not a month ago you caused to be wiped out of existence, by means of bombs rained from the clouds, a native village in the heart of Africa. Not a year ago a similar thing occurred in Afghanistan in Upper India.”

“You would hold me responsible for that?”

“Indirectly--yes. Or to look nearer home, consider the case of Ireland.”

“The example is not altogether well chosen,” Saul Hartz spoke with a scorn he did not try to conceal. “If your precious Society will condescend to read our newspapers, it will see that we are committed to a policy of conciliation.”

“Ireland and her affairs have long been a political cat’s-paw for the Newspaper Ring, the secret power which sways the destinies of mankind.”

“Cheap generalizations,” said Saul Hartz, contemptuously.

“The Society does not share your view. By the light of what has happened since, it now sees that Ireland and her affairs were a card played with Luciferian skill to precipitate the world catastrophe. A masterstroke of policy on the part of antichrist, no doubt. The scheme was crowned with every success. By the irony of fate, however, that catastrophe has made it possible to restore the moral law to the world.”

“Of which your Society is the embodiment, I presume?”

“That is so,” Lien Weng bowed gravely. “It is based entirely on the moral idea.”