Part 7

Lord Fairchild, the great capitalist, with his houses in every big city of the world, contrived at length to reach the bank parlour. There was a full meeting of the chairman and governors. A cheerful tone prevailed.

"I sincerely hope we may weather the storm," the chairman said anxiously. "We have had no signal of distress from anyone; but I shall be glad when it is over."

Everybody looked tired and worn out. One or two of the governors had fallen asleep in their chairs. There was a litter of lunch on the table. But very few of those assembled there seemed to care anything for food.

"I calculate that we can last another day," Lord Fairchild said. "By to-morrow I hope we shall have contact with Cape Town again."

Every effort was being made to bring about this desirable consummation. The broken line might be repaired at any moment. News had come from the Mauritius that the broken cable had been fished up, but there was no further information since midnight. Possibly, when contact could be made again, the disaster would prove to be much less than the last message had forecasted.

"It must come," one of the governors sighed. "It must come soon, or Parliament will have to deal with this question. Another two days----"

"I prefer not to think of another two days," Lord Fairchild replied. "If the worst comes to the worst, Government must guarantee our paper. We shall have to issue Treasury bills to make up our deficit. We----"

An excited individual burst without ceremony into the room. His hat was off; his smart frock coat was torn to ribands.

"I am from the office of the East Cable Company," he gasped. "I was told to come here at once. My Lord, I have the most extraordinary news. The great disaster at Johannesburg is--is--is----"

"Get on, man; we are all impatience."

"Is--is no disaster at all. We have verified it. Our agent at Cape Town says he has heard nothing of it. Johannesburg stands where it did. There are four messages through and--well, there has been a cruel fraud, and we are doing our best to get to the bottom of it."

A rousing cheer echoed through the bank parlour. The governors yelled and shook each other by the hand like school-boys. Probably the decorum of that room had never been so grossly violated before.

Lord Fairchild passed into the great office where the public were still pushing and struggling. He stood on a table, his spare and striking figure standing out conspicuously. There were hundreds present who recognised that noble figure.

"Gentlemen," Lord Fairchild cried, "I have just received the most authentic information that Johannesburg stands intact to-day. There has been trickery somewhere, but, thank Heaven, the panic is over."

A perfect yell followed. Men went frantic with delight. When Lord Fairchild said a thing it was accepted as gospel. Hats went high in the air, people shook hands with perfect strangers, there was a rush to pay gold back and take notes instead.

The news spread in the marvellous magnetic way common to the ear of a huge multitude. It ran with lightning speed through the streets. Everybody seemed to know like magic that Lord Fairchild had made a short speech in the Bank of England to the effect that the scare was over. In less than ten minutes the various bank officials were deeply engaged in taking back again the piles of gold they had so recently paid out. The mob roared out patriotic songs, there was a rush in all directions. For the next hour or so the telegraph lines fairly hummed with messages. Within an hour the City had regained much of its usual busy decorum, save for the long stream of people who were getting rid of their gold once more.

With a view to prevent any further exploiting and financial uneasiness on the part of the speculating fraternity, the committee of the Stock Exchange met and formally closed the House till Monday. Under the circumstances the step was an exceedingly wise one.

In the seclusion of the bank parlour Lord Fairchild was closeted with the editor of _The Messenger_. He had come down post haste to the City to vindicate his character. The famous cablegram lay on the table.

"I need not say, my lord," he began, "that I----"

"You need not say anything about yourself," Lord Fairchild said kindly. "We are quite convinced that you have been made a victim. But how?"

"I can only theorise at present," the _Messenger_ editor replied. "And you, gentlemen, will understand, a great newspaper like ours has correspondents everywhere. We also have a special cypher known only to ourselves. Our man at the Cape is absolutely reliable. Now somebody must have stolen our cypher or possessed himself of the key. Cables come to us addressed to 'Bonanza.' Such was the cable that reached us on the day that the Eastern line broke down. Seeing that it was absolutely in order and apparently delivered in the usual way, we used it, under the impression that we had a great piece of news and one that possibly our rivals did not possess.

"There was nothing in the appearance of the cablegram to excite our suspicions, but since the news of its falseness has come through I have had it examined by an expert who reports that the original telegram had been directed to 'Bonan,' and not to 'Bonanza.' The last two letters had been cleverly forged, but under a very strong glass the forgery is clear. Now you can see the trap. I have been to the office of the Cable Company, and, as I expected, I find that a message was sent on the day in question from Cape Town to a registered 'Bonan.' This 'Bonan' turns out to be one James Jones who has an office in Long Lane. Of course that office was taken for the express purpose of getting that message, so that in case the Eastern line broke down the paper could be forced upon us. Unfortunately it was forced upon us with dire results. We find that the message was repeated day by day in the hopes of a breakdown.

"Now, lots of big houses down South cable quotations, lists of prices, finds of gold-dust and the like every day. All these are in cypher, and perhaps a fortnight might pass without any fluctuations, which would mean practically the receipt of an identical message for days. Nothing but a close search of the records could have aroused suspicion. Besides, the line had broken down, and all the energies of the company were devoted to that.

"If any of you gentlemen like to call at the Cable Company's offices and see the scores of duplicate cypher messages, all more or less alike, you will be convinced that the employés there are not in the least at fault. We have been the victims of a clever conspiracy. We can safely leave the rest to the police."

The City was becoming normal again. By four o'clock it was practically deserted. The offices of the various banks were bursting with the repaid gold. Many clerks were closing up the books and looking forward to a good night's rest.

It was almost impossible to believe that these were the same streets of a few hours before.

Meantime, Ericsson and his partner in the inner room of their offices were gloating over a bewildering array of figures; their gains from the gigantic hoax they had played on the public promised to run into millions.

Rejoicing in the sudden turn in affairs, the two guilty men were building castles in the air with their ill-gotten wealth, when heavy footsteps came up from the office stairs; there was a knocking at the door. The two men started up. Their nerves were humming still from the strain of the past day and night.

"Come in," Asherton-Smith cried unsteadily.

A couple of men entered. One of them had a paper in his hand.

"Mr. Asherton-Smith and Mr. Carl Ericsson, _alias_ James Jones," he said, "I have a warrant for your arrest which I will read to you presently. I warn you not to say too much. Your accomplice, Jacob Peters, has been arrested at Cape Town, and I am instructed by cable that he has made a full confession."

The snarling oath died away on Ericsson's lips.

"It's all up," he said hoarsely, "but it was a chance. Curse Peters for a white-livered fool. But for him I should be worth fifty millions."

THE INVISIBLE FORCE.

A Story of What Might Happen in the Days to Come, when Underground London is Tunnelled in all Directions for Electric Railways, if an Explosion Should Take Place in One of the Tubes.

I.

It seemed as if London had solved one of her great problems at last. The communication difficulty was at an end. The first-class ticket-holders no longer struggled to and from business with fourteen fellow-sufferers in a third-class carriage. There were no longer any particularly favoured suburbs, nor were there isolated localities where it took as long getting to the City as an express train takes between London and Swindon. The pleasing paradox of a man living at Brighton because it was nearer to his business than Surbiton had ceased to exist. The tubes had done away with all that.

There were at least a dozen hollow cases running under London in all directions. They were cool and well ventilated, the carriages were brilliantly lighted, the various loops were properly equipped and managed.

All day long the shining funnels and bright platforms were filled with passengers. Towards midnight the traffic grew less, and by half-past one o'clock the last train had departed. The all-night service was not yet.

It was perfectly quiet now along the gleaming core that lay buried under Bond Street and St. James's Street, forming the loop running below the Thames close by Westminster Bridge Road and thence to the crowded Newington and Walworth districts. Here a portion of the roof was under repair.

The core was brilliantly lighted; there was no suggestion of fog or gloom. The general use of electricity had disposed of a good deal of London's murkiness; electric motors were applied now to most manufactories and work-shops. There was just as much gas consumed as ever, but it was principally used for heating and culinary purposes. Electric radiators and cookers had not yet reached the multitude; that was a matter of time.

In the flare of the blue arc lights a dozen men were working on the dome of the core. Something had gone wrong with a water-main overhead, the concrete beyond the steel belt had cracked, and the moisture had corroded the steel plates, so that a long strip of the metal skin had been peeled away, and the friable concrete had fallen on the rails. It had brought part of the crown with it, so that a maze of large and small pipes was exposed to view.

"They look like the reeds of an organ," a raw engineer's apprentice remarked to the foreman. "What are they?"

"Gas mains, water, electric light, telephone, goodness knows what," the foreman replied. "They branch off here, you see."

"Fun to cut them," the apprentice grinned.

The foreman nodded absently. He had once been a mischievous boy, too. The job before him looked a bigger thing than he had expected. It would have to be patched up till a strong gang could be turned on to the work. The raw apprentice was still gazing at the knot of pipes. What fun it would be to cut that water-main and flood the tunnels!

In an hour the scaffolding was done and the _débris_ cleared away. To-morrow night a gang of men would come and make the concrete good and restore the steel rim to the dome. The tube was deserted. It looked like a polished, hollow needle, lighted here and there by points of dazzling light.

It was so quiet and deserted that the falling of a big stone reverberated along the tube with a hollow sound. There was a crack, and a section of piping gave way slightly and pressed down upon one of the electric mains. A tangled skein of telephone wires followed. Under the strain the electric cable parted and snapped. There was a long, sliding, blue flame, and instantly the tube was in darkness. A short circuit had been established somewhere. Not that it mattered, for traffic was absolutely suspended now, and would not be resumed again before daylight. Of course, there were the work-men's very early trains, and the Covent Garden market trains, but they did not run over this section of the line. The whole darkness reeked with the whiff of burning indiarubber. The moments passed on drowsily.

Along one side of Bond Street the big lamps were out. All the lights on one main switch had gone. But it was past one o'clock now, and the thing mattered little. These accidents occurred sometimes in the best regulated districts, and the defect would be made good in the morning.

It was a little awkward, though, for a great State ball was in progress at Buckingham Palace. Supper was over, the magnificent apartments were brilliant with light dresses and gay uniforms. The shimmer and fret of diamonds flashed back to lights dimmer than themselves. There was a slide of feet over the polished floors. Then, as if some unseen force had cut the bottom of creation, light and gaiety ceased to be, and darkness fell like a curtain.

There were a few cries of alarm from the swift suddenness of it. To eyes accustomed to that brilliant glow the gloom was Egyptian. It seemed as if some great catastrophe had happened. But common-sense reasserted itself, and the brilliant gathering knew that the electric light had failed.

There were quick commands, and spots of yellow flame sprang out here and there in the great desert of the night. How faint and feeble, and yellow and flaring, the lights looked! The electrician down below was puzzled, for, so far as he could see, the fuses in the meters were intact. There was no short circuit so far as the Palace was concerned. In all probability there had been an accident at the generating stations; in a few minutes the mischief would be repaired.

But time passed, and there was no welcome return of the flood of crystal light.

"It is a case for all the candles," the Lord Chamberlain remarked; "fortunately the old chandeliers are all fitted. Light the candles."

It was a queer, grotesque scene, with all that wealth of diamonds and glitter of uniforms and gloss of satins, under the dim suggestion of the candles. And yet it was enjoyable from the very novelty of it. Nothing could be more appropriate for the minuet that was in progress.

"I feel like one of my own ancestors," a noble lord remarked. "When they hit upon that class of candle I expect they imagined that the last possibility in the way of lighting had been accomplished. Is it the same outside, Sir George?"

Sir George Egerton laughed. He was fresh from the gardens.

"It's patchwork," he said. "So far as I can judge, London appears to be lighted in sections. I expect there is a pretty bad breakdown. My dear chap, do you mean to say that clock is right?"

"Half-past four, sure enough, and mild for the time of year. Did you notice a kind of rumbling under--Merciful Heavens, what is that?"

II.

There was a sudden splitting crack as if a thousand rifles had been discharged in the ballroom. The floor rose on one side to a perilous angle, considering the slippery nature of its surface. Such a shower of white flakes fell from the ceiling that dark dresses and naval uniforms looked as if their wearers had been out in a snowstorm.

Cracks and fissures started in the walls with pantomimic effect, on all sides could be heard the rattle and splinter of falling glass. A voice suddenly uprose in a piercing scream, a yell proclaimed that one of the great crystal chandeliers was falling. There was a rush and a rustle of skirts, and a quick vision of white, beautiful faces, and with a crash the great pendant came to the floor.

The whole world seemed to be oscillating under frightened feet, the palace was humming and thrumming like a harpstring. The panic was so great, the whole mysterious tragedy so sudden, that the bravest there had to battle for their wits. Save for a few solitary branches of candles, the big room was in darkness.

There were fifteen hundred of England's bravest, and fairest, and best, huddled together in what might be a hideous deathchamber for all they knew to the contrary. Women were clinging in terror to the men, the fine lines of class distinction were broken down. All were poor humanity now in the presence of a common danger.

In a little time the earth ceased to sway and rock, the danger was passing. A little colour was creeping back to the white faces again. Men and women were conscious that they could hear the beating of their own hearts. Nobody broke the silence yet, for speech seemed to be out of place.

"An earthquake," somebody said at length. "An earthquake, beyond doubt, and a pretty bad one at that. That accounts for the failure of the electric light. There will be some bad accidents if the gas mains are disturbed."

The earth grew steady underfoot again, the white flakes ceased to fall. Amongst the men the spirit of adventure was rising; the idea of standing quietly there and doing nothing was out of the question.

Anyway, there could be no further thought of pleasure that night. There were many mothers there, and their uppermost thought was for home. Never, perhaps, in the history of royalty had there been so informal a breaking up of a great function. The King and Queen had retired some little time before--a kindly and thoughtful act under the circumstances. The women were cloaking and shawling hurriedly; they crowded out in search of their carriages with no more order than would have been obtained outside a theatre.

But there were remarkably few carriages in waiting. An idiotic footman who had lost his head in the sudden calamity sobbed out the information that Oxford Street and Bond Street were impassable, and that houses were down in all directions. No vehicles could come that way; the road was destroyed. As to the rest, the man knew nothing; he was frightened out of his life.

There was nothing for it but to walk. It wanted two good hours yet before dawn, but thousands of people seemed to be abroad. For a space of a mile or more there was not a light to be seen. Round Buckingham Palace the atmosphere reeked with a fine irritating dust, and was rendered foul and poisonous by the fumes of coal gas. There must have been a fearful leakage somewhere.

Nobody seemed to know what was the matter, and everybody was asking everybody else. And in the darkness it was very hard to locate the disaster. Generally, it was admitted that London had been visited by a dreadful earthquake. Never were the daylight hours awaited more eagerly.

"The crack of doom," Sir George Egerton remarked to his companion, Lord Barcombe.

They were feeling their way across the park in the direction of the Mall.

"It's like a shuddering romance that I read a little time since. But I must know something about it before I go to bed. Let's try St. James's Street--if there's any St. James's Street left."

"All right," Lord Barcombe agreed, "I hope the clubs are safe. Is it wise to strike a match with all this gas reeking in the air?"

"Anything's better than the gas," Sir George said tersely.

The vesta flared out in a narrow, purple circle. Beyond it was a glimpse of a seat with two or three people huddled on it. They were outcasts and companions in the grip of misfortune, but they were all awake now.

"Can any of you say what's happened?" Lord Barcombe asked.

"The world's come to an end, sir, I believe," was the broken reply. "You may say what you like, but it was a tremendous explosion. I saw a light like all the world ablaze over to the north, and then all the lights went out, and I've been waiting for the last trump to sound ever since."

"Then you didn't investigate?" Lord Barcombe asked.

"Not me, sir. I seem to have struck a bit of solid earth where I am. And then it rained stones and pieces of brick and vestiges of creation. There's the half of a boiler close to you that dropped out of the sky. You stay where you are, sir."

But the two young men pushed on. They reached what appeared to be St. James's Street at length, but only by stumbling and climbing over heaps of _débris_.

The roadway was one mass of broken masonry. The fronts of some of the clubs had been stripped off as if a titanic knife had sliced them. It was like looking into one of the upholsterers' smart shops, where they display rooms completely furnished. There were gaps here and there where houses had collapsed altogether. Seeing that the road had ceased to exist, it seemed impossible that an earthquake could have done this thing. A great light flickered and roared a little way down the road. At an angle a gas main was tilted up like the spout of a teapot, upheaved and snapped from its twin pipes. This had caught fire in some way, so that for a hundred yards or so each way the thoroughfare was illuminated by a huge flare lamp.

It was a thrilling sight focussed in that blue glare. It looked as if London had been utterly destroyed by a siege--as if thousands of well-aimed shells had exploded. Houses looked like tattered banners of brick and mortar. Heavy articles of furniture had been hurled into the street; on the other hand, little gimcrack ornaments still stood on tiny brackets.

A scared-looking policeman came staggering along.

"My man," Lord Barcombe cried, "what has happened?"

The officer pulled himself together and touched his helmet.

"It's dreadful, sir," he sobbed. "There has been an accident in the tubes; and they have been blown all to pieces."

III.

The constable, for the moment, had utterly lost his nerve. He stood there in the great flaring roar of the gas mains with a dazed expression that was pitiful.

"Can you tell us anything about it?" Lord Barcombe asked.

"I was in Piccadilly," was the reply. "Everything was perfectly quiet, and so far as I could see not a soul was in sight. Then I heard a funny rushing sound, just like the tear of an express train through a big, empty station. Yes, it was for all the world like a ghostly express train that you could hear and not see. It came nearer and nearer; the whole earth trembled just as if the train had gone mad in Piccadilly. It rushed past me down St. James's Street, and after that there was an awful smash and a bang, and I was lying on my back in the middle of the road. All the lights that remained went out, and for a minute or two I was _in_ that railway collision. Then, when I got my senses back, I blundered down here because of that big flaring light there; and I can't tell you, gentlemen, any more, except that the tube has blown up."

Of that fact there was no question. There were piles of _débris_ thrown high in one part, and a long deep depression in another like a ruined dyke. A little further on the steel core of the tube lay bare with rugged holes ripped in it.

"Some ghastly electric catastrophe," Sir George Egerton murmured.

It was getting light by this time, and it was possible to form some idea of the magnitude of the disaster. Some of the clubs in St. James's Street still appeared to be intact, but others had suffered terribly. The heaps of tumbled masonry were powdered and glittering with broken glass and a few walls hung perilously over the pavement. And still the gas main roared on until the flame grew from purple to violet, and to straw colour before the coming dawn. If this same thing had happened all along the network of tubes, London would be more or less a hideous ruin.