hard to trace. Felix cabled again in cypher, asking that the two should be watched, more especially if there was reason to believe that they had followed Tommy’s route. Once more we got out the big map and discussed the possible ways. It seemed to me a land created by Providence for surprises, for the roads followed the valleys, and to the man who travelled light there must be many short cuts through the hills.
I left the Embassy before six o’clock and, crossing the Square engrossed with my own thoughts, ran full into Lumley.
I hope I played my part well, though I could not repress a start of surprise. He wore a grey morning-coat and a white top-hat, and looked the image of benevolent respectability.
‘Ah, Mr Leithen,’ he said, ‘we meet again.’
I murmured something about my regrets at my early departure three days ago, and added the feeble joke that I wished he would hurry on his Twilight of Civilisation, for the burden of it was becoming too much for me.
He looked me in the eyes with all the friendliness in the world. ‘So you have not forgotten our evening’s talk? You owe me something, my friend, for giving you a new interest in your profession.’
‘I owe you much,’ I said, ‘for your hospitality, your advice, and your warnings.’
He was wearing his tinted glasses, and peered quizzically into my face.
‘I am going to make a call in Grosvenor Place,’ he said, ‘and shall beg in return the pleasure of your company. So you know my young friend, Pitt-Heron?’
With an ingenuous countenance I explained that he had been at Oxford with me and that we had common friends.
‘A brilliant young man,’ said Lumley. ‘Like you, he has occasionally cheered an old man’s solitude. And he has spoken of me to you?’
‘Yes,’ I said, lying stoutly. ‘He used to tell me about your collections.’ (If Lumley knew Charles well he would find me out, for the latter would not have crossed the road for all the treasures of the Louvre.)
‘Ah, yes, I have picked up a few things. If ever you should care to see them I should be honoured. You are a connoisseur? Of a sort? You interest me, for I should have thought your taste lay in other directions than the dead things of art. Pitt-Heron is no collector. He loves life better than art, as a young man should. A great traveller, our friend – the Laurence Oliphant or Richard Burton of our day.’
We stopped at a house in Grosvenor Place, and he relinquished my arm. ‘Mr Leithen,’ he said, ‘a word from one who wishes you no ill. You are a friend of Pitt-Heron, but where he goes you cannot follow. Take my advice and keep out of his affairs. You will do no good to him, and you may bring yourself into serious danger. You are a man of sense, a practical man, so I speak to you frankly. But, remember, I do not warn twice.’
He took off his glasses, and his light, wild eyes looked me straight in the face. All benevolence had gone, and something implacable and deadly burned in them. Before I could say a word in reply he shuffled up the steps of the house and was gone.
THAT MEETING WITH Lumley scared me badly, but it also clinched my resolution. The most pacific fellow on earth can be gingered into pugnacity. I had now more than my friendship for Tommy and my sympathy with Pitt-Heron to urge me on. A man had tried to bully me, and that roused all the worst stubbornness of my soul. I was determined to see the game through at any cost.
But I must have an ally if my nerves were to hold out, and my mind turned at once to Tommy’s friend, Chapman. I thought with comfort of the bluff independence of the Labour member. So that night at the House I hunted him out in the smoking-room.
He had been having a row with the young bloods of my party that afternoon and received me ungraciously.
‘I’m about sick of you fellows,’ he growled. (I shall not attempt to reproduce Chapman’s accent. He spoke rich Yorkshire, with a touch of the drawl of the western dales.) ‘They went and spoiled the best speech, though I say it as shouldn’t, which this old place has heard for a twelvemonth. I’ve been workin’ for days at it in the Library. I was tellin’ them how much more bread cost under Protection, and the Jew Hilder-stein started a laugh because I said kilometres for kilo-grammes. It was just a slip o’ the tongue, for I had it right in my notes, and besides, these furrin words don’t matter a curse. Then that young lord as sits for East Claygate gets up and goes out as I was gettin’ into my peroration, and he drops his topper and knocks off old Higgins’s spectacles, and all the idiots laughed. After that I gave it them hot and strong, and got called to order. And then Wattles, him as used to be as good a Socialist as me, replied for the Government and his blamed Board, and said that the Board thought this and the Board thought that, and was blessed if the Board would stir its stumps. Well I mind the day when I was hanging on to the Board’s coat-tails in Hyde Park to keep it from talking treason.’
It took me a long time to get Chapman settled down and anchored to a drink.
‘I want you,’ I said, ‘to tell me about Routh – you know the fellow I mean – the ex-union-leader.’
At that he fairly blazed up.
‘There you are, you Tories,’ he shouted, causing a pale Liberal member on the next sofa to make a hurried exit. ‘You can’t fight fair. You hate the unions, and you rake up any rotten old prejudice to discredit them. You can find out about Routh for yourself, for I’m damned if I help you.’
I saw I could do nothing with Chapman unless I made a clean breast of it, so for the second time that day I told the whole story.
I couldn’t have wished for a better audience. He got wildly excited before I was half through with it. No doubt of the correctness of my evidence ever entered his head, for, like most of his party, he hated anarchism worse than capitalism, and the notion of a highly-capitalised, highly-scientific, highly-undemocratic anarchism fairly revolted his soul. Besides, he adored Tommy Deloraine.
Routh, he told me, had been a young engineer of a superior type, with a job in a big shop at Sheffield. He had professed advanced political views, and, although he had strictly no business to be there, had taken a large part in trade union work, and was treasurer of one big branch. Chapman had met him often at conferences and on platforms, and had been impressed by the fertility and ingenuity of his mind and the boldness of his purpose. He was the leader of the left wing of the movement, and had that gift of half-scientific, half-philosophic jargon which is dear at all times to the hearts of the half-baked. A seat in Parliament had been repeatedly offered him, but he had always declined; wisely, Chapman thought, for he judged him the type which is more effective behind the scenes.
But with all his ability he had not been popular. ‘He was a cold-blooded, sneering devil,’ as Chapman put it, ‘a sort of Parnell. He tyrannised over his followers, and he was the rudest brute I ever met.’
Then followed the catastrophe, in which it became apparent that he had speculated with the funds of the union and had lost a large sum. Chapman, however, was suspicious of these losses, and was inclined to suspect that he had the money all the time in a safe place. A year or two earlier the unions, greatly to the disgust of old-fashioned folk, had been given certain extra-legal privileges, and this man Routh had been one of the chief advocates of the unions’ claims. Now he had the cool effrontery to turn the tables on them, and use those very privileges to justify his action and escape prosecution.
There was nothing to be done. Some of the fellows, said Chapman, swore to wring his neck, but he did not give them the chance. He had disappeared from England, and was generally believed to be living in some foreign capital.
‘What I would give to be even with the swine!’ cried my friend, clenching and unclenching his big fist. ‘But we’re