The Hunchback of Westminster

by William Le Queux

visitors, however, wore the same habit, and all hadthe same peculiar way of looking at one, like the members of somebrotherhood that held the same tie very closely in common, and bypractice and method had grown to resemble each other more nearly than domany members of the same families in our great, cheating, bustling worldoutside.

  What could these monks be?

  In vain I looked about the hall in the hope that it would give some clueto their practice or their faith. I could discover nothing to help memore than one would find in the refectory of some large public collegeexcept this same beautiful statue I have spoken of, with its floralofferings and candles. All the same, the expression on this sculpturedwoman's face was not one of benignity or of sweetness at all but of aremote passionless beauty for beauty's sake, as it were--something thathad been wrought without any ethical ideal behind it or hope of moralchange or influence in the beholder. Soon I decided quite finally thatthere was no religious tie at St Bruno's--none at all. Their secret oforganisation was not, I was persuaded, one of a common faith or ofdevotion to a concrete and well-defined Church. They had some otherbond which might be as strong as death, but it had nothing to do withthe hereafter.

  Now was that bond good or evil?

  Abruptly I was aroused from my meditations by the arrival of the Prior,a powerful-looking, hooded figure in a robe of black, whose face atfirst was kept carefully concealed, but who wore around his neck onemark of distinction not possessed by his fellows--a thin chain of gold,at the end of which dangled a compass set around with some goldornamentation, on which was inscribed a well-worn truism: "I pointalways to the north."

  "Welcome, Mr Glynn," he said in a voice which somehow had a familiarring in it but which I could not then recognise. "Our mutual friend,Jose Casteno, has kept us of St Bruno's well posted as to the earnestway in which you have laboured for the rightful recovery of thedocuments relating to the whereabouts of the Lake of Sacred Treasure inTangikano, and I am glad to see you here--to thank you."

  I bowed, and in return murmured something conventional--that thepleasure was mutual. Inwardly I was assailed with one question: "Wherehad I heard that voice before?"

  "You are, of course, quite a free agent," the Prior proceeded, "and anymoment you choose to leave or to set about other business you are atliberty to do so. Personally, however, I hope you will stay with uswhilst we decipher these documents. You are, I understand, quite apalaeographic expert yourself, and it may well happen that yourexperience or your knowledge may prove of infinite value to us."

  "I am quite at your service," I returned coldly.

  "Indeed, the understanding between us is," broke in Jose eagerly, "thathe shall have our full confidence over this matter. I have promised himthat we shall do nothing in the dark. Every step we take shall beaccompanied by him."

  "Quite so, quite so," exclaimed the Prior vaguely, but ratherimpatiently I thought. "But there is much to be done before we can saythat anything wonderful will happen in regard to these discoveries.Now, Mr Glynn," he said, turning to me as though he were anxious tobring an awkward development of the conversation to an end, "shall Ishow you your rooms?"

  But I threw my shoulders back and stood my ground. I was not, I felt, apawn on their chessboard, to be pushed forward as a mere gambit to coverother and more subtle forms of attack. "Excuse me, Prior," I saidfirmly, "but have we not met before?"

  The figure in front of me shook either with merriment or with annoyance,whilst Jose himself averted his face lest there I should discover toomuch.

  "Yes," he said, after a pause, in painfully noncommittal tones; "wehave."

  "Where?" I queried.

  "Can't you recollect?"

  "No; I can't."

  "Think."

  "I have--I cannot."

  The man took a step forward and threw back his hood.

  He was no other than the man whom Casteno had sent me that night toconsult in the House of Commons--John Cooper-Nassington.

  I started back amazed.

  "You, Mr Cooper-Nassington!" I cried. "You here, in this office, andin this house! What on earth, then, can this Order of St Bruno be?"

  An awkward pause followed. We both stood and stared at each other, andneither of us spoke.

  "Well, at all events," said the Honourable Member, at length summoningup a faint smile to his lips, "you can see now for yourself that in thismatter of the manuscripts England is quite safe. I shall do nothing--Ishall tolerate nothing--that will hurt our mother country or herinterests. On the contrary, all of us here are fighting for her, andwill do so until our last breath. We may not have particular faith inunscrupulous office-seekers and popularity-mongers of the type of LordCyril Cuthbertson or that precious but exceedingly foolish ally of his,the Earl of Fotheringay, but we have faith in the righteousness ofBritain's claims and her needs. Hence we are going to see that, as thisLake of Sacred Treasure in Tangikano really belongs to her, it is notsnapped from her by Spain, by the Jesuits, or by a lot of needy foreignadventurers who have begged, borrowed, and stolen all manner ofconcessions from the Mexican Republic, and who even to-day may have gotwind of the existence of these documents and may be moving heaven andearth, and the diabolical powers under the earth, to get hold of them!"

  "That may be so--no doubt it is so," I returned doggedly--"but there hasbeen too much foul play in this hidden treasure hunt, as witness thatmurder in Whitehall Court, to content me or to let me take as gospeleverything you choose to tell me and to treat as wisdom everything youlike to leave untold. I must insist on my rights as an individual inthis matter before we go any further or any deeper into mutualobligations which later all of us may find it difficult to freeourselves from, however much we may desire to do so. To-day I am my ownmaster--I can stay or I can go. My decision now will rest on oneconsideration alone. What is this Order of St Bruno?"

  "I cannot tell you," said the Prior, and his strong face looked out atme without one shadow of hesitancy or fear.

  "Casteno," I went on, turning to the Spaniard, "you are in a differentposition to Mr Cooper-Nassington. You are not an officer of this sect,this institution, this organisation, this brotherhood. You are a plainmember, free to speak or to hold your tongue. I ask you to rememberyour pledge to me--to reveal to me all that it is necessary for me toknow in this business to satisfy my own conscience, and, rememberingthis, to tell me what tie binds these people together."

  "I cannot," he answered, and clasped his hands.

  "Why?" I demanded sternly, pointing an accusing finger at him. "Why doyou refuse? If a man is a monk--a Dominican, a Franciscan, aNorbertine--ay, of any Order you like, even of one of the great silent,enclosed orders like the Trappists or the Cistercians--he does nothesitate to admit his kind and to explain under what rule he lives. Whyshould you people, here in the very heart of a busy modern city likeLondon, not practise the same candour? Why should you cloak yourselvesin mystery, in doubt, in veiled hints, in suspicion? Your reticence isnot meaningless. You have some cause for it. What is the reason of it?Why won't you tell me?"

  "Because we are all alike bound by an oath," he muttered, and he movedaway from me as though the mere acknowledgment of that secret bond hadset up a new barrier, an unseen gulf, between us. "We cannot tellanyone what we have in mind."

  "Still there is one way out of the difficulty," put in the MP, speakingnow with marked care and deliberation, "which, fortunately, rests withyou whether it is acted upon. It is this: While it is quite true wecannot reveal the secrets of our existence to outsiders, no such barrests against any communications or confidences between membersthemselves. Why, therefore, Glynn, don't you apply yourself foradmission to the Order of St Bruno?"

  "Impossible," I cried. "I have no wish to join the Order."

  "Well," said Cooper-Nassington, "I can't pledge the Order, of course--Ihave no power to--but I am almost certain that they would take you in."

  "But for what purpose?" I demanded. "Don't you see we are arguing in acircle and that
we have arrived again at the point why the Orderexists?"

  "I do. But that can't be helped. Will you join?"

  "I don't know," I said lamely after a moment's reflection. "Answer meone question before I decide, and answer it to me with the most solemntruth: Do all the candidates join you in as deep ignorance as I?"

  "All," cried Jose and the Prior in one breath. "That is the essence ofour union--this appalling ignorance of what we commit ourselves to."

  "Then I'll risk it," I cried. "Propose me at once for initiation."

  "And you will stand the tests?"