When It Was Dark Part 45

Ommaney and Mrs. Armstrong sat perfectly still.

They were paralysed with wonder at the sudden apparition of this famous person, obviously in such urgent hurry and distress.

Then, with the natural instinct of well-bred people, their heads turned away, their eyes fell to their plates, and they began to converse in an undertone upon trivial matters.

Schuabe had risen with a quick, snake-like movement, utterly unlike his general deliberation. In a moment he had crossed the room and taken Llwellyn's arm in a firm grip, looking him steadily in the face with an ominous and warning frown.

That clear, sword-like glance seemed to nerve the big man into more restraint. A wave of artificial composure pa.s.sed over him. He removed his hat and breathed deeply.

Then he spoke in a voice which trembled somewhat, but which nevertheless attained something of control.

"I am really very sorry," he said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile, "to have burst in upon you like this. I didn't know you had friends with you. Please excuse me. But the truth is--the truth is, that I am in rather a hurry to see you. I have an important message for you from--"

he hesitated a single moment before he found the ready lie--"from Lord ----. There are--there is something going on at the House of Commons which--But I will tell you later on. How do you do, Mrs. Armstrong? How are you, Ommaney? Fearfully rushed, of course! We archaeologists are the only people who have leisure nowadays. No, thanks, Schuabe, I lunched before I came. Coffee? Oh, yes; excellent!"

His manner was noticeably forced and unnatural in its artificial geniality. The man, who had now entered with coffee, brought the tray to him, but instead of taking any he half filled an empty cup with k.u.mmel and drank it off.

His hurried explanation hardly deceived the two shrewd people at the table, but at least it made it obvious that he wished to be alone with their host.

There was a little desultory conversation over the coffee, in which Llwellyn took a too easy and hilarious part, and then Mrs. Armstrong got up to go.

Ommaney followed her.

Schuabe walked with them a little way down the corridor. While he was out of the room, Llwellyn walked unsteadily to a sideboard. With shaking hand he mixed himself a large brandy-and-soda. His shaking hands, the intense greed with which he swallowed the mixture, were horrible in their sensual revelation. The mask of pleasantness had gone; the reserve of good manners disappeared.

He stood there naked, as it were--a vast bulk of a man in deadly fear.

Schuabe came back and closed the door silently. He drew Llwellyn to the old spot, right in the centre of the great room. There was a wild question in his eyes which his lips seemed powerless to utter.

"Gertrude!" gasped the big man. "You know she came back to me. I told you at the club that it was all right between us again?"

An immeasurable relief crossed the Jew's face. He pushed his friend away with a snarl of concentrated disgust.

"You come here," he hissed venomously, "and burst into my rooms to tell me of your petty _amours_. Have I not borne with the story of your l.u.s.t and degradation enough? You come here as if the--." He stopped suddenly.

The words died away on his lips.

Llwellyn was transformed.

Even in his terror and agitation an ugly sneer blazed out upon his face.

His nostrils curled with evil laughter. His voice became low and threatening. Something subtly _vulgar_ and _common_ stole into it. It was this last that arrested Schuabe. It was horrible.

"Not quite so fast, my good friend," said Llwellyn. "Wait and hear my story; and, confound you! if you talk to me like that again, I'll kill you! Things are equal now, my Jewish partner--equal between us. If I am in danger, why, so are you; and either you speak civilly or you pay the penalty."

A curious thing happened. The enormous overbearing brutality of the man, his _vitality_, seemed to cow and beat down the master mind.

Schuabe, for the moment, was weak in the hands of his inferior. As yet he had heard nothing of what the other had come to tell; he was conscious only of hands of cold fear knocking at his heart.

He seemed to shrink into himself. For the first and last time in his life, the inherited slavishness in his blood a.s.serted itself.

He had never known such degradation before. The beauty of his face went out like an extinguished candle. His features grew markedly Semitic; he cringed and fawned, as his ancestors had cringed and fawned before fools in power hundreds of years back.

This inexpressibly disgusting change in the distinguished man had its immediate effect upon his companion. It was new and utterly startling.

He had come to lean on Schuabe, to place the threads of a dreadful dilemma in his hand, to rest upon his master mind.

So, for a second or two, in loathsome pantomime the men bowed and salaamed to each other in the centre of the room, not knowing what they did.

It was Sir Robert who pulled himself together first. The fear which was rushing over him in waves gave him back a semblance of control.

"We must not quarrel now," he said in a swift, eager voice. "Listen to me. We are on the brink of terrible things. Gertrude Hunt came back to me, as you know. She told me that she was sick to death of her friends the priests, that the old life called her, that she could not live apart from me. She mocked at her sudden conversion. I thought that it was real. I laughed and mocked with her. I trusted her as I would trust myself."

He paused for a moment, choking down the immense agitation which rose up in his throat and half strangled speech.

Schuabe's eyes, attentive and fixed, were still uncomprehending. Still the Jew did not see whither Llwellyn was leading--could not understand.

"She's gone!" said the big man, all colour fading absolutely from his face. "And, Schuabe, in my mad folly and infatuation, in my incredible foolishness ... _I told her everything_."

A sudden sharp animal moan burst from Schuabe's lips--clear, vibrant, and b.e.s.t.i.a.l in the silence.

His rigidity changed into an extraordinary trembling. It was a temporary palsy which set every separate limb trembling with an independent motion. He waited thus, with an ashen face, to hear more.

Llwellyn, when the irremediable fact had pa.s.sed his lips, when the enormous difficulty of confession was surmounted, proceeded with slight relief:

"This might, you will think, be just possibly without significance for us. It might be a coincidence. _But it is not so, Schuabe._ I know now, as certainly as I can know anything, that she came to me, was sent to me, by the people who have got hold of her. _There has been suspicion for some time_, there must have been. We have been ruined by this woman I trusted."

"But why ... how?"

"Because, Schuabe, as I was walking down Chancery Lane not an hour since I saw Gertrude come out of Lincoln's Inn with the clergyman Gortre. They got into a cab together and drove away. And more: I learn from Lambert, my a.s.sistant at the Museum, that Harold Spence, the journalist, who is a member of his club and a friend of his, _left for Palestine several days ago_."

"I have just heard," whispered Schuabe, "that Sir Michael Manichoe has been buying large parcels of Consols."

"The thing is over. We must----"

"Hush!" said the Jew, menacingly. "All is not lost yet. Perhaps, the strong probability is, that only this Gortre knows yet. Even if anything is known to others, it is only vague, and cannot be substantiated until the man in Palestine gets a letter. Without this woman and Gortre we are safe."

The Professor looked at him and understood. Nor was there any terror in his face, only a faint film of relief.

Five minutes afterwards the two distinguished men, talking easily together, walked through the vestibule of the hotel, down the great courtyard and into the roaring Strand.

A hotel clerk explained the celebrities to a voluble group of American tourists as they went by.

CHAPTER V

BY THE TOWER OF HIPPICUS

Harold Spence was essentially a man of action. His mental and moral health depended for its continuance upon the active prosecution of affairs more than most men's.