The Hunchback of Westminster
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that's all. If you do, I can't answer you.If you persist it will inevitably mean that you and I will have to part.In the latter case you will never get any nearer the solution of thatmystery of lot eighty-two--the three manuscripts which were found in theeffects of the dead Father Alphonse Calasanctius--than you are to-night.
"As a matter of fact, I want your aid in deeds, not words. Now, say atonce--are you prepared to trust me, and to help me, and not to bother mefor a lot of utterly needless explanations that will really--take myword for it--leave you in a bigger fog than ever, or do you feel thatyou absolutely must have my confidence or turn up the work now, at once?Speak out quite plainly. Don't be influenced by the thought of cash.Consider the seven-fifty I have handed to you as yours--whateverhappens. Now, bed-rock fact!"
For a moment I reflected. My enthusiasm was stirred by his speech, andin turn I mentally defied Doris, the colonel, and even the weird oldhunchback.
"I am prepared to trust you," I answered, holding out my hand, which heclasped with the firm touch of a straightforward, honest man.
"Then take this letter for me," he said, fumbling in the pocket of hiscassock and producing therefrom a formidable-looking document done upwith big splashes of red legal-looking wax. "Go to the House of Commonswith it, and do not open it until you reach the hall in which Members ofParliament meet any strangers who desire to speak to them. Then readthe instructions you will find therein and--" and all at once he stoppedand looked confused.
"And what?" I queried, rising from my seat and fixing his eyes withmine.
"Well--you will see," he answered, with a strange smile, touching abell, which warned me that our interview was at an end.
CHAPTER FIVE.
INTRODUCES THE HUNCHBACK.
I left St Bruno's and made as hard as my motor would go forWestminster. Under the new rules I knew that the House of Commons didpractically no business at all on Saturdays, so that if I missed theopportunity afforded me that night I realised that I should have to waituntil Monday afternoon before I broke the seal.
Luckily, the streets about that hour were practically free from traffic,and my Panhard went pounding along at a pace which, if it were horriblyillegal, was certainly mightily pleasant and exhilarating so that by thetime I was tearing through Westminster all my doubts as to thestrangeness of my reception by this queer-looking monk had vanished andI was quite keen to put this new mission through with rapidity andsuccess.
Now, as most people are aware, the House of Commons is about the mosteasy place in the world of access if any man or woman has the mostflimsy pretext of business with any one of its six hundred or so solemnand dignified members. I sprang from my car, handed it over to the careof a loafer who quickly hurried up, and simply nodded to the constablesin the entrance. Then I marched up that long passage, peopled with thestatues of dead and gone Parliamentarians, with head erect and heartthat beat high with anticipation at some good and sensationaldevelopment.
As arranged, I stopped in the big hall, where some forty or fiftypersons were waiting either for admission to the strangers' gallery orintent on interviews; and, slipping on to one of the leather-coveredlounges in a corner, I drew the precious missive from my pocket andbroke the heavy seals with which it had been fastened.
As I expected, the package did not all at once yield up its secret. Theouter wrapper, of a stout linen cloth similar to those used by thepost-office for registered envelopes, merely fell off and revealed twoother envelopes, also carefully stamped with red wax. On the top onewas written in printed characters, as though the writer were afraid thathis handwriting might be recognised:
"To John Cooper-Nassington, Esq, MP, St Stephen's, Westminster, SW."
"The Bearer waits."
On the other, to my astonishment, I discovered no less an address thanthis:
_Urgent_. _Private_.
"To the Most Hon. Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, His Majesty's Secretary ofState for Foreign Affairs."
"Only to be delivered by Mr Hugh Glynn in case Mr Cooper-Nassingtonshould decline."
For a second, I confess, I felt too astonished to say, or to do, or evento think of anything at all. I sat, with these big legal-lookingletters in front of me, gazing into space, trying vainly to interpretthe meaning of all these extraordinary manoeuvres on the part of ayouthful Spaniard who might, it was true, be really a most importantenvoy of some far-off foreign state, but equally might be also, and withmore apparent reason it seemed to me, absolutely nobody at all.
For Lord Cyril Cuthbertson, as all England was aware (in common with ourforeign enemies, no matter how big they might be or bullying in tone oraggressive), was the very last man to be trifled with. He it was who,when Lord Garthdown fell, told Germany so sharply to keep out of anAfrican negotiation we had on hand just then or he would apply anEnglish form of the Monroe doctrine to the entire continent of Africaand never allow them to acquire there another foot of space. He hadalso, when the United States raised some futile question aboutboundaries that ought to have been fixed up a century ago, told Americathat he had settled the matter in his own mind; their claim waspreposterous; and that, if they wished to enforce it, they had theremedy common to all nations; but he should advise them to remember thatonce they put foot into European complications they couldn't lift itout. And they, too, I recollect very well, promptly busied themselvesabout troubles elsewhere.
Not a nice man, perhaps--not even a courteous man--but, at all events, aman whom the House and the country feared, and on whom nobody dared playany game or trick.
Yet here was evidently an urgent private communication to him from DonJose Casteno. What was at the bottom of it?--a secret of State or oflife?
Like a man in a dream I arose and approached one of those sturdy,well-fed constables who stand ever at the barriers that mark off thesacred corridors of the House from the vulgar footstep of the unelectpublic.
"Please give that to Mr Cooper-Nassington," I said in a voice that Ithink had not the slightest resemblance to my natural tones.
My mood now was one of absolute indifference. Whatever happened, Irecognised now that I was in for something extraordinary, and I felt Imight as well get it over at once as sit on a lounge in that close,stuffy, noisy hall and speculate about a mystery to which I had no clue.
Even John Cooper-Nassington, millionaire, was no small legislative lionto tackle. In the days when South American industries were booming onthe Stock Exchange he had appeared with the most wonderful options forrailways in the different states--here, there, everywhere--and in threeyears he had emerged from the pit of speculation with hands cleaner andpockets heavier than most. Ever since he had been regarded as a greatauthority on things South American. Whenever Chili and Peru had aset-to, which they did regularly once in two years, or Venezuela grewoffensive to its friends, or Mexico wanted to swell itself a little,John Cooper-Nassington was sent for by one side or the other; yet, alas,his enemies said he had more pleasure in putting down half-a-million topay the expenses of a revolution in which five or six thousand innocentvarlets were burnt or blown into eternity than he had in subsequentlyfloating a costly war loan, three parts of which usually meandered intohis own pocket.
Still, John Cooper-Nassington, when all was said and done, was but apenny pictorial paper kind of Boanerges compared with the quick,Napoleonic qualities of Lord Cyril Cuthbertson who, by the way, had acurious personal resemblance to the First Consul, and was certainly notmore than thirty-five years of age. Nassington, now, was a big,heavy-jawed man of about fifty, with a head and beard of iron-grey hairand a brawny, hairy, massive fist that would have felled a man at ablow; yet, as he suddenly projected himself through the swing doors thatdivided the lobby from the hall to meet me, I saw that he was carryingthe letter I had sent carefully closed in his hands still but that hisface was white and his looks strangely agitated.
"Ah, Mr Glynn," he said as I advanced to meet him, handing him my card,"this is an extraordinary business, isn't it?" And he wrung my handwith a v
igour that suggested a high degree of excitement and nervoustension.
"I am but an ambassador, sir," I replied, falling into step with his,and commencing to pace up and down the corridor that led into thestreet. "I have no knowledge of the contents of the communication whichI handed to you."
"Quite so. Quite so," he returned hurriedly. "I gathered as much fromwhat was said by the writer to me. Still, I am told I can make what useof you I think fit, and, truth to say, that is one of the things thatpuzzle me. Shall I take you with me or shall I send you back?"
"Does that, sir, mean you decline?" I queried, remembering thesuperscription on the other envelope I was treasuring in a secret pocketwithin my vest.
"Good heavens, man, no!" he thundered. "Do you think I am a born foolor idiot, or what? Why, that terrible man Cuthbertson would give fiveyears of his life, or