by Guy Thorne
But at this moment Spence did not feel inclined to open the packet. It could wait. He was not in the humour for it now. It would be too tantalising to read of those deep skies like a hard, hollow turquoise, of the flaming white sun, the white mosques and minarets throwing purple shadows round the cypress and olive trees.
And now, after the chill of his bath and the rasping torture of shaving in winter, he must light all the gas jets as he sat down to his late breakfast in his sitting room.
He opened The Wire and glanced at his own work of the night before. How lifeless it seemed.
There were one or two invitations among his letters, two books sent by a young publisher, a friend of his, asking if he could get them "noticed" in The Wire, and a syllabus of some winter lectures to be given at Oxford House. His name was there. He was to lecture in January on "The Brotherhood of the Knights of St. John".
After breakfast, the lunchtime of most of the world, he found it impossible to settle down to anything. He was not due at the office that night, and the long hours, without the excitement of his work, stretched rather hopelessly before him. He thought of paying calls in the various parts of the West End where he had friends whom he had rather neglected of late. But he dismissed that idea when it came, for he did not feel as if he could make himself very agreeable to anyone.
He wanted a complete change of some sort. He half thought of taking the train down to Brighton, fighting the cold, bracing winter sea winds on the lawns at Hove, and returning the next day.
He was certainly out of sorts, and the solution to his difficulties presented itself to him in the prospect of a Turkish bath.
He put his correspondence into the pocket of his overcoat, to be read at leisure, and took a cab to a bath in Jermyn Street.
The physical warmth, the silence, the dim lights and Oriental decorations, induced a supreme sense of comfort that brought Constantinople back to him in vague reverie.
Perhaps, he thought, a Turkish bath in London was the only easy way to obtain a sudden and absolute change of environment. Nothing else brought detachment so readily, was so instinct with change and the unusual.
And all the while the letter from Jerusalem was in his overcoat pocket, forgotten, hung in the entrance hall, while the church bells all over London were tolling for Evensong.
At length, as night was falling, Spence went out into the lighted streets with their sudden roar of welcome. He was immensely refreshed in brain and body. His thoughts moved quickly and well, depression had left him, the activity of his brain was unceasing.
He turned into St. James Street where his club was, intending to find someone who would go to a music hall with him. There was no one he knew intimately in the smoking room, but soon after he arrived, Lambert, one of the deputy curators from the British Museum, came in. Spence and Lambert had been at Marlborough together.
Spence asked Lambert, who was in evening dress, to be his companion.
"Sorry, I can't, old man," he answered. "I have got to dine with my uncle, Sir Michael. It's a bore, of course, but it's policy. The place will be full of bishops, minor Cabinet Ministers, and people of that sort. I only hope old Ripon will be there -- he's my uncle's tame vicar, you know. Uncle runs a church like some men run a theatre -- for he's always bright and amusing. You're not working tonight, then?"
"No, not tonight. I have just come from a Turkish bath, and I thought I would wind up a day of mild dissipation by going to the Empire."
"Sorry I can't go -- awful bore. I have had a tiring day, too, and a ballet would be refreshing. The governor's been in a state of filthy irritation and nerves for the last fortnight."
"Sir Robert Llwellyn, the famous archaeologist, isn't it?"
"Yes, he's my chief at the Museum, and a very good fellow too, as a rule. He went away for several months, you know -- travelled abroad for his health. When he first came back he looked as fit as a fiddle, and seemed awfully pleased with himself all round. But lately he's been decidedly off colour. He seems worried about something; does hardly any work, and always seems waiting and looking out for a coming event. He bothers me out of my life, always coming into my room and talking about nothing, or speculating on the possibility of all sorts of new discoveries which will upset everyone's theories."
Spence said, "I met him in Dieppe in the spring. He seemed all right then, just at the beginning of his leave."
"Well, he's certainly not that now, worse luck. And confound him, he interferes with my work no end. Goodbye; sorry I must go."
Lambert passed softly over the heavy carpet of the smoking room, and Spence was left alone once more.
It was after seven o'clock.
Spence resolved to go to the Empire, not because the idea of going alone seemed particularly attractive, but because he had planned it and could think of no other way of spending the evening.
So about nine o'clock he strolled into the huge, garish music hall. Already his contentment was beginning to die away. The day seemed a day of trivialities, a sordid, uneventful day of London gloom, which he had vainly tried to disperse with little futile rockets of amusement.
He sat down in a stall and watched a juggler doing wonderful things with billiard balls. After the juggler a handsome Spanish girl came onto the stage -- he remembered her at La Scala, in Paris. She was said to be one of the beauties of Europe, and a king's favourite.
After the Spanish woman there were two men, "brothers" someone. One was disguised as a donkey, the other as a tramp, and together they did what some in the theatre obviously thought were laughable things.
With a sigh he went upstairs and moved slowly through the thronged promenade. The hard faces of the men and women repelled him. He turned into the American bar at one extremity of the horseshoe. It was early yet, and the big room, pleasantly cool, was almost empty. A man brought him a long, coloured drink.
He felt the pressure of a packet in his pocket. It was Cyril Hands's letter he realised, as he took it out. He thought of young Lambert at the club, a friend of Hands and fellow-worker in the same field, and slowly opened the package.
Two women came in and sat at a table not far from him as he began to read. He was the only man in the place, and they regarded him with a tense, conscious interest.
They saw him open a bulky envelope in a casual manner. He would look up soon, they expected.
But as they watched they saw a sudden, swift contraction of the brows, a momentous convulsion of every feature. His head bent lower towards the papers. They saw him become pale.
In a minute or two, what had at first seemed a singular paleness became a frightful ashen colour.
"That Johnny's going to be ill," one of the women said to the other.
As she spoke they saw the face change. A shocking animation burst on it like a flame. The eyes glowed, the mouth settled into swift purpose.
Chapter 13
Spence took up his hat and left the room with quick, decided steps. He threaded his way through the crowd and almost ran into the street.
A cab was waiting. He got into it, and inspired by his words and appearance the man drove furiously down dark Garrick Street and the blazing Strand towards the offices of The Daily Wire.
The great building of dressed stone which stood in the middle of Fleet Street was dark. The advertisement halls and business offices were closed.
Spence paid his man and dived down a long, narrow passage, with high walls on either side. At the end of the passage he pushed open some battered swing doors. A commissionaire in a little hutch touched his cap as Spence ran up a broad flight of stone stairs.
The journalist turned down a long corridor with doors on either side. The glass fanlights over the doors showed that all the rooms were brilliantly lit within. The place was quiet, save for the distant clicking of a typewriter and the thud of a column-printer tape machine receiving messages from around the world as the wheel carrier shot back for a new line.
He opened a door with his own name painted on it and went i
nside. At a large writing table, on which stood two shaded electric lights, Folliott Farmer, an elderly man, heavily built and bearded, was writing on small slips of paper.
The big man looked up as Spence came in, lifted a cup of tea which was standing by him and drank a little. He nodded without speaking, and continued preparing his leading article.
Spence took off his hat and coat, drew the sheets of Hands's letter from his pocket, and went out into the passage. At the extreme end he opened a door, and passing round a red baize screen found himself in Ommaney's room, the centre of the great web of brains and machinery which daily gave The Wire to the world.
Ommaney's room was large, warm, and bright. It was also extremely tidy. The writing table had little on it save a great blotting pad and an inkstand. The books on the shelves were neatly arranged.
The editor sat at a table in the centre of the room, facing several doors which led into various departments of the staff. The chief sub-editor, a short, alert person, stood by Ommaney's side as Spence came in. He had the proof of the third page in his hand, the portion of the paper which consisted of news accumulated through the day. He was submitting it to the editor, so the whole sheet might be finally passed for press and go to the foundry where the type would be pressed into moulds, from which the final curved plates for the roller machines would be cast.
"Not at all a bad make-up," Ommaney said, as he initialled the margin in blue pencil. The sub-editor hurried from the room.
"I need an hour," Spence said. "I have just got what may be the most stupendous news any newspaper has ever published."
Ommaney looked up quickly. A flash of interest passed over his pale, immobile face and was gone. He knew that if Spence spoke like this, the occasion was momentous.
He looked at his watch. "Is it news for tonight's paper?" he asked.
"No," said Spence. "I'm the only man in England, I think, who has it yet. We'll gain nothing by printing tonight. But we must settle on a course of action at once. It won't wait. You'll understand when I explain."
The editor nodded. On the writing table was a mahogany stand about a foot square. A circle was described on it, and all round the circle, like the figures on the face of a clock, were little ivory tablets an inch long, with a name printed on each. In the centre of the circle a vulcanite handle moved a steel bar working on a pivot. Ommaney turned the handle till the end of the bar rested over the tablet marked:
COMPOSING ROOM
He picked up the receiver and transmitter of a telephone and asked one or two questions.
When he had communicated with several other rooms in this way, Ommaney turned to Spence.
"All right," he said, "I can give you an hour now. Things are fairly easy tonight."
He got up from the writing table and sat down by the fire. Spence took a chair opposite, feeling dazed. He was trembling, his face was pale, yet above and beyond this agitation there was fear in his eyes.
"It is a discovery in Palestine -- at Jerusalem," he said in a low, vibrating voice, spreading out the thin, crackling sheets of foreign notepaper on his knee and arranging them in order. "Do you know Cyril Hands, the agent of the Palestine Exploring Society?"
"Yes, quite well by reputation," said Ommaney, "and I have met him once or twice. Very sound man."
"These papers are from him. They seem to be of tremendous importance, of a significance I can hardly grasp yet."
"What is the nature of them?" asked the editor, rising from his chair, powerfully affected by Spence's manner.
Spence put his hand up to his throat, pulling at his collar; the apple moved up and down convulsively. "The Tomb!" he gasped. "The Holy Tomb!"
"What do you mean?" asked Ommaney. "Another supposed burial place of Christ -- like the Times business, when they found the Gordon Tomb, and Canon MacColl wrote such a lot?"
His face fell a little. This, though interesting enough, and fine "news copy," was less than he hoped.
"No, no," cried Spence, getting his voice back at last and speaking like a man in acute physical pain. "A new tomb has been found. There's an inscription in Greek, written by Joseph of Arimathea, and there are other traces."
His voice failed him.
"Go on, man, go on!" said the editor.
"The inscription ... tells that Joseph ... took the body of Jesus ... from his own garden tomb.... He hid it in this place.... The disciples never knew. It is a confession."
Ommaney was as white as Spence now.
"There are other contributory proofs," Spence continued. "Hands says it is certain. All the details are here. Read----"
Ommaney stared fixedly at his lieutenant. "Then, if this is true, Spence," he whispered, "it means----"
"That Christ never rose from the dead, that Christianity is all a lie." Spence slipped back in his chair a little and looked ready to faint,
While Ommaney read through Hands' papers and examined the drawings and a photograph, Spence sat nervously in his chair.
The editor finished at last. "Pull yourself together, Spence," he said sharply. "This is no time for sentiment. I know your beliefs, though I don't share them, and I can sympathise with you. But keep yourself off all private thoughts now. We must be extremely careful what we're doing. Now listen carefully to me."
The keen voice roused Spence. He made a tremendous effort at self-control.
"It seems," Ommaney went on, "that we alone know of this discovery. Hands says the secretary of the Palestine Exploring Society won't receive the news for another week. He seems stunned, and no wonder. In about a fortnight his detailed papers will probably be published. I see he's already telegraphed privately for Dr. Schmöulder, the German expert. Of course you and I are hardly competent to judge the value of this communication. To me -- speaking as a layman -- it seems extremely clear. But we must of course see a specialist before publishing anything. If this news is true -- and I would give all I am worth if it were not, though I am no Christian -- of course you realise that the future history of the world is changed? I hold in my hand something that will come to millions and millions of people as an utter extinction of hope and light. It is impossible to say what will happen...."
His voice faltered as an awful picture of crime and chaos grew in his brain.
Both men felt that mere words were utterly unable to express the horrors they saw dawning.
"We don't know the truth yet," said Spence, at length.
"No," answered Ommaney. "I'm not going to speculate on it either. I'm only just beginning to understand what we're dealing with. One man's brain cannot hold all this. So let me ask you to regard this matter for the present simply from the standpoint of the paper, and through it, of course, from the standpoint of public policy in----"
He broke off suddenly, for there was a knock at the door. A commissionaire entered with a telegram. It was for Spence. He opened the envelope, read the contents with a groan, and passed it to the editor.
The telegram was from Hands.
SCHMOULDER ENTIRELY CONFIRMS DISCOVERY, IS COMMUNICATING FIRST INSTANCE WITH KAISER PRIVATELY, FULLER DETAILS IN MAIL, CONFER OMMANEY, MAKE STATEMENT TO SECRETARY SOCIETY, USE WIRE MEDIUM PUBLICITY, LEAVE ALL TO YOU, SEE PRIME MINISTER, SEND OUT LLWELLYN ON BEHALF GOVERNMENT IMMEDIATELY, MEANWHILE SUGGEST ATTITUDE SUSPENDED DECISION, PERSONALLY FEAR LITTLE DOUBT. HANDS
"We must act at once," said Ommaney. "We have a fearful responsibility now. It is not too much to say that everything depends on us. Have you got any of that brandy left? My head throbs like an engine."
A sub-editor who came in and was briefly dismissed, told his colleagues that something was going on in the editor's room of an extraordinary nature. "The chief was actually drinking a peg, and his hand shook like a leaf."
Ommaney drank the spirits -- he was an absolute teetotaller as a rule, though not pledged in any way to abstinence -- and it revived him.
"Now let's try and think," he said, taking a cigarette and walking up and down the room.
Spence lit a match.
As he did so, he gave a sudden, sharp, unnatural chuckle. He was lighting the match, when the Light of the World -- the whole great world! -- was flickering into darkness.
Ommaney saw him and interpreted the thought. He pulled him up at once with a few sharp words, for he could see Spence was close to panic.
"From a news point of view," Ommaney continued, "we hold all the cards. No one else knows what we know. I'm certain that the German papers will publish nothing for a day or two. The Emperor will tell them nothing, and they can have no other source of information, as I gather from this telegram. Dr. Schmöulder will not say anything until he has instructions from Potsdam. That means I need not publish anything in tomorrow's paper. It will relieve me of a great responsibility. We'll be first in the field, but I'll still have a few hours to consult with others."
He pressed a bell on the table. "Tell Mr. Jones I wish to see him," he told the boy who answered the summons.
A young man came in, the editor of the personal column.
"Is the Prime Minister in town, Mr. Jones?" Ommaney asked.
"Yes, sir, he's here for three more days."
"I'll send a message now," said Ommaney, "asking for an interview in an hour's time. I know he'll see me. He knows I wouldn't call at this hour unless the matter was of national importance. As you know, we're very much in the confidence of the Cabinet just now. I dare not wait till tomorrow." He rapidly wrote a note and sent for Mr. Folliott Farmer.
The big-bearded man from Spence's room entered, smoking a briar pipe.
"Mr. Farmer," said Ommaney, "I suppose you have finished your leader?"
"Sent it upstairs ten minutes ago," said the big man.
"Then I want you to do me a favour. The matter is so important that I don't like to trust anyone else. I want you to take a cab to Downing Street at once, as quickly as you can go. Take this letter for the Prime Minister. It is making an appointment for me in an hour's time. He must read it himself at once -- take my card. One of the secretaries will try and put you off, of course. This is irregular, but it is of international importance. The Prime Minister must see the note. Bring me back the answer as rapidly as you can."
The elderly man -- his name was a household word as a political writer all over England and the Continent -- nodded without speaking, took the letter, and left the room. He knew Ommaney, and realised that if he was making a messenger boy of him, Folliott Farmer, the matter was of supreme importance.
