When it was Dark

by Guy Thorne

  He spoke with a deep menace in his tone, and at the same time drew his revolver from the hip pocket of his riding-breeches and held it on his knee.

  He began to realise the awful nature of this man's deed more and more poignantly in his presence. True, he was the tool of greater intelligences, and his guilt was not as heavy as theirs. Nevertheless, the Greek was no fool. He had something of an education, and had not done this thing blindly.

  The man crouched against the wall, desperate and hopeless.

  One of the soldiers outside the door moved, and his sabre clanked.

  The sound was decisive. With a broken, husky voice Ionides began his miserable confession.

  How simple the task had been. Wild astonishment at the ease with which the whole thing had been done filled the journalist's brain.

  The tomb, already known to the Greek but not yet reported officially, the slow carving of the inscription at dead of night by Llwellyn, dirt to give it the appearance of age, the new coating of hamra sealing up the inner chamber.

  And yet, so skilfully had the forgeries been committed, chance had aided the forgers, and their secret had been so well preserved that the whole world of experts was deceived.

  In the overpowering relief of the confession, Spence was little interested in the details. But at length they were duly set down and signed by the Greek in the presence of the officer who then signed as a witness.

  By midnight the journalist was far away on the road back to Jerusalem.

  Chapter 30

  In Sir Robert Llwellyn's flat in Bond Street the electric bell suddenly rang, a shrill tinkle in the silence.

  Schuabe, who sat by the window, looked up with a strained, white face.

  Avoiding his glance, Llwellyn rose and went out into the passage. The latch of the door clicked, there was a murmur of voices, and Llwellyn returned, following a third person.

  Schuabe recognised the visitor, and gave a scarcely perceptible shudder as this man entered.

  The man was a thick-set person of medium height, clean shaven. He was dressed in a frock-coat and carried a silk hat, neither new nor smart, yet not seedy or showing any evidences of poverty. The man's face was one to inspire a sensitive or alert person with a sudden disgust and terror for which a name could hardly be found. It was an utterly abominable and black soul that looked out of the sadistic eyes.

  The eyes seemed much older than the rest of the face. They were full of a cold and deliberate cruelty and, worse even than this, such a hideous knowledge of unmentionable crime was there. The lips made a thin, wicked curve which hardly varied in direction, for this man could not smile.

  He belonged to a certain gang who infest the West End of London, bringing terror and ruin to all they meet. These people haunt the bars and music halls of the "pleasure" part of London.

  Constantine Schuabe, in the moment when he saw this man, knew the bitterest moment of his life. "This is Nunc Wallace," he said to Llwellyn, who stood pale and trembling.

  The man looked keenly at his two hosts. Then he sat down in a chair. "Well, gentlemen," he said in correct English, but with a curious lack of life and feeling in his voice -- he spoke as one might think a corpse would speak -- "I'm sorry to say it's all off. It simply can't be done at any price. Even I myself, 'King of the boys' as they call me, confess myself beaten."

  Schuabe gave a sudden start, almost of relief it seemed. He cleared his throat once or twice before he could speak. When the words came at length there was a nauseous eagerness in them. "Why not, Wallace? Surely you and your friends -- it must be something very serious if you cannot manage."

  "Give me a drink, and I'll tell you the reason," said the man. "You see, it is like this. We can generally calculate on 'putting a man through it' if he's anything to do with racing on the Turf. I have seen a man's face kicked liver colour before he died, and no one knew who did it. But this parson is a more difficult thing altogether. Then it has been very much complicated by the fact of his friend coming back.

  "The idea was to get into the chambers on the evening of this man Spence's arrival and see to them both. In fact, we'd arranged everything fairly well. But two nights ago, as I was in the American bar at the Horsecloth, a man touched me on the arm. It was Detective Inspector Melton. He knows everything. 'Nunc,' he says, 'sit down at one of these little tables and have a drink. I want to say a few words to you.' Well, of course I had to. He knows every one of the boys.

  "'Now, look here,' he says straight out, 'some of your crowd have been watching the Reverend Basil Gortre of Lincoln's Inn. Also, you've had a man at Charing Cross waiting for the continental express. Now, I have nothing against you yet, but I'll just tell you this. The people behind you aren't any guarantee for you. It is not as you think. This is a big thing. I'll tell you something more. This Mr. Gortre and this Mr. Spence you're waiting for are guarded night and day by order of the Home Secretary. It is an international affair. You can no more touch them than you can touch the Prince of Wales. Is that clear? If it is not, then you'll come with me at once on suspicion. I can put my finger on Bunny Watson' -- he's my organising pal, gentlemen -- 'inside of an hour.'"

  The unhappy men became aware that Nunc Wallace was looking at them both with a new expression. There was wonder in his cold eyes now, and a sort of fear also. When Schuabe had first sought him with the proposal, there had been none of this. It had seemed ordinary enough to him, the reason for it he did not inquire or seek to know.

  But now there was inquiry in his eyes.

  Both Schuabe and Llwellyn saw it, knew the cause, and shuddered.

  There was a tense silence, and then the creature spoke again, this time to Schuabe. There was a loathsome confidential note in his voice.

  "Now, sir," he said, "you've already paid me well for any little kindness I may have been able to try to do for you. I suppose, now that the job is off I'll not get the rest of the sum agreed upon?"

  Schuabe, without speaking, made a sign to Llwellyn. The big man got up and went to a little nest of mahogany drawers which stood on his writing table. Opening one of them, he took from it a bundle of banknotes.

  He gave them to the assassin. "There, he said. "No doubt you have done all you could. You won't find us ungrateful. But I want to ask you a few questions."

  The man took the banknotes, counted them deliberately, and looked up with a gleam of satisfied greed passing over his face -- the gleam of a pale sunbeam in hell.

  "Ask anything you like, sir," he said. "I'll give you any help I can."

  Already there was a ring almost of patronage in his voice. The word "help" was emphasised.

  "This inspector, who is he exactly? I mean, is he an important person?"

  "He's the man who has charge of all the big things. He goes abroad when one of the big city men bunk to South America. He generally works straight from the Home Office. He's the Government man. To tell the truth, I was surprised to meet him in the Horsecloth. One of the others generally goes there. When he began to talk, I knew there was something important, more than usual."

  "He definitely said that he knew your -- backers?"

  "He did. And what's more, gentlemen, he seemed to know too much altogether about the business. I don't pretend to understand it. I don't know why a young parson and a press reporter are being looked after by Government as if they were continental sovereigns, and the Anarchists were trying to get at them -- no more than I know why two such gentlemen as you are wanting two smaller men seen to. But all's well that ends well. I'm satisfied enough, and I'm extremely glad I got this notice in time to stop it off. But whatever you do, gentlemen, give up any idea of doing those two any harm. You couldn't do it -- couldn't get near them. Somehow or other they know all about it. Be careful. Now I'm off. Good-day, gentlemen. Look after yourselves. I fear there's trouble brewing somewhere, though it won't come through me. They can't prove anything on our side."

  He backed slowly out of the room, into the darkness of the pit whence he came.

&nbs
p; Llwellyn sank heavily into a chair. He covered his face with his hands and moaned.

  "Oh, fool that I was to try anything of the sort!" hissed Schuabe. "I might have known!"

  "What is the state of things, really, do you suppose?" said Llwellyn.

  "Imminent with doom for us!" Schuabe answered in a deep and melancholy voice. "It is all clear to me now. Your woman was set on to you by these men from the first. They are clever men. Sir Michael Manichoe is behind them all. Your woman got the story. Spence has been sent to Palestine to verify it. He will have got a confession from Ionides. The Government has been told. These things have been going on during the last few hours. Spence will have cabled something of his news directly from Jerusalem, perhaps not all. He'll be back today, this afternoon. He'll have left Paris by now, and almost be nearing Amiens. In that train, Llwellyn, lies our death warrant. Nothing can stop it. They will send the news all over the world tonight. It will be announced in London by dinnertime, probably."

  Llwellyn groaned again. His life told heavily. He looked up. His face was green-grey save where, here and there, his fingers had pressed into, and left red marks on the cheeks. "What do you think will be the end?" he said.

  "The end is here," said Schuabe. "What does it matter, the form or manner of it? They may bring in a bill and hang us. They will certainly give us penal servitude for life, but probably we'll be torn in pieces by the mob. There's only one thing left."

  He made an expressive gesture across his throat.

  Llwellyn shuddered. "All is not necessarily at an end," he said. "I'll make a last effort to get away. I still have the clergyman's clothes I wore when I went in disguise to Jerusalem to forge the inscription. There will be time to get out of London before this evening."

  Schuabe gave a mirthless laugh. "All over the continent and America you would be known. There's no getting away nowadays. As for me, I'll go north to my place in Manchester by the midday train. There's just time to catch it. And there I shall die before they can come to me."

  He got up and strode away out of the flat with a set, stern face. Never a passing look did he give to the man he had enriched and damned for ever. Never a gesture of farewell. Already he was as one in the grave.

  Llwellyn, left to himself in the silent, richly furnished flat, fell into hysterical sobbing. His big body shook with the intensity of his unnatural terror. His moans and cries were utterly without dignity or pathos. He was filled with the immense self-pity of the sensualist.

  In the hour of blackness, every moment of physical gratification or sin added its weight to the terrible burden. But perhaps hope was not quite dead. He called on all his courage to make a last attempt at escape.

  He must leave this place at once. He would go first to his house in Upper Berkeley Street, the house of Lady Llwellyn, his wife.

  Something strange and long forgotten moved within him at that word. What might his life have been by her side, a life lived in open honour? What had he done with it all? His great name, his fame, were built up slowly by his long and brilliant work in the world of Biblical archaeology. Yet all the time the lusts of the flesh were deep below the structure, their hammers always tapping -- and now it was all over.

  He drove up to his own door in Upper Berkeley Street, unlocked it, and went up the stairs to his own rooms.

  Though he had not been near them for weeks, he saw -- with how keen a pang of regret -- that they were swept and tidy, ready for his coming at any time.

  He rang the bell in his room.

  Chapter 31

  The door opened softly. A long beam of late winter sunshine which had been pouring in at the opposite window and striking the door with its projection of golden powder suddenly framed, played over, and lighted up the figure of Lady Llwellyn.

  Sir Robert stood in the middle of the pleasant room and looked at her.

  The sunlight showed up the grey pallor of his wife's face, the lines of sorrow and resignation, the faded hair, the thin and bony hands.

  "Kate," he said in a weak voice.

  It was the first time he had called her by her name for many years.

  The tired face lit up with a swift and divine tenderness.

  She made a step forward into the room.

  He was swaying a little, giddy, it seemed.

  She looked him full in the face and saw things she had never seen before. A great horror was on him, a frightful awakening from the long, sensual sloth of his life.

  Moving, working, in that great countenance, generally so impassive, uninfluenced by any emotion -- at least to her long watchings -- except by a moody irritation, she saw Doom, Fate, Tragedy.

  It came to the woman in a sudden wave of illuminating certainty.

  She knew the end had come.

  Yet strangely enough she felt nothing but a quickening of the pulses, a swift embracing pity which was almost a joy in its breaking away of barriers.

  If the end were here, it would be together -- at last together. She loved this cruel, sinning man; this man of purple, fine linen, and the sparkling deadly wines of life.

  "Kate!"

  He said it once more.

  Her manner changed. Shrinking, timidity, fear, fled. In her overpowering rush of protecting love, all the differences of temperament, all the bars which he had forced her to build around her instincts, were swept utterly away.

  She went quickly up to him, folded him in her arms.

  "Robert!" she said, "poor boy, the end has come to it all. I knew it must come some day. Well, we have not been happy. I wonder if you have been happy? No, I don't think so. But now, Robert, you have me to comfort you with my love once more, my poor Robert; once more, as in the old, simple days when we were young."

  She led him to a couch.

  He trembled violently. His decision of movement seemed to have gone. His purpose of flight had for the moment become forgotten.

  And now, into his heart came a remorse and regret so awful, a realisation so sudden and strong, with a pain for which there is no name, that everything before his eyes turned to burning fire.

  The flames of his agony burnt up the veils which had for so long obscured the truth. They shrivelled and vanished.

  Too late, too late, he knew what he had lost.

  The last agony wrenched his brain round again to another and more terrible contemplation.

  His thoughts were in other and outside hands, which pulled his brain from one scene to another.

  For the first time he realised what he had done -- realised, that is, in its entirety, the whole horror and consequences of that action of his which was to kill him now.

  He had not been able to see the magnitude and extent of his crime before -- either at the time when it was proposed to him, except at the first moment of speech, or after its committal.

  His brain and temperament had been wrapped round in the hideous fact of sensuality, deadening and destroying sensation.

  And now, with his wife's thin arms round him, her withered cheek pressed to his, her words of glad love, a martyr's swan song in his ears, he saw, knew, and understood.

  Through the terror of his thoughts her words began to penetrate.

  "I know, Robert -- husband, I know the end is here. But what has happened? Tell me everything, that I may comfort you the more. Tell me, Robert, for the dear Christ's sake!"

  At those words the man stiffened. "For the dear Christ's sake?"

  "For the dear Christ's sake, tell me, Robert!"

  How could he tell this?

  This was his last moment of peace, his last chance of any help or hope.

  He had begun to cling to her, to mingle foolish tears with hers -- while his fired brain ranged all the halls of agony.

  For if he told her -- this gentle Christian lady, to whom he had been so unkind -- then she would never touch him again.

  The last hours -- there was but little time remaining -- would be alone. Alone!

  This new revelation that her love was still his, wonder of mysteri
es! This came at the last moments to aid him.

  A last grace before the running waters closed over him. Was he to give this up?

  The thought of flight lay like a wounded bird in his brain. It crept about it like some paralysed thing. Not yet dead, but inactive. Though he knew how terribly the moments called to him, yet he could not act.

  The myriad agonies he was enduring now, agonies so various and great that he knew Hell had none greater; these, even these were alleviated by the wonder of his wife's love.

  The terrible remorse that was knocking at his heart could not undo that.

  He clung to her.

  "Tell me all about it, Robert. I'll forgive you, whatever you have done. I have long ago forgiven everything in my heart. There are only the words to say."

  She rested her worn, tired head on his shoulder. The sunbeams gave it a glory.

  Again he suffered a terrible agony. She had asked him to tell her all his trouble in a voice full of gentle pleading.

  Whose voice did her voice recall to him? What fatal hour? A coarser voice, a richer voice, trembling, so he had thought, with love for him.

  "Tell me everything, Bob!" It was Gertrude's voice.

  The day of his undoing! The day when his horrid secret was wrested from him by the levers of his own passions. The day which had brought him to this.

  The great fires round his soul had burnt his lust away. There was no more regret or longing for the evil past. All the joys of a sensual life seemed as if they had never been. Now, the pain was the pain of a man, not who knows the worst too soon, but who knows the best too late.

  "I'm waiting, Robert, dear."

  Then he knew he must speak. In rapid words, which seemed to come from a vast distance, he confessed it all.

  He told her how Schuabe had tempted him with a vast fortune; how he was already in the man's power when the temptation came. How his lustful desires had so gripped him; how his life of sin had become like air itself to him.

  He told of the secret visit to Palestine and the forgery which had stirred the world.

  As he spoke, he felt, in some subtle way, that the life and warmth were dying out of the arms which were round him.

  The electric current of devotion which had been flowing from this lady seemed to flicker and die away.