Ambrose Lavendale strolled out of the room, crossed the smoke-room and descended into the restaurant. At a table in a remote corner, seated by himself, the little man who had been guilty of such a breach of good-feeling was studying the menu with a waiter by his side. Lavendale watched him for a moment curiously. Then he turned to speak to one of the maîtres d’hôtel, a short, dark man with a closely-cropped black moustache. ‘I shan’t want my usual table this morning, Jules,’ he announced. ‘I am going to sit in that corner.’ He indicated a vacant table close to the little man whom he had been watching. The maître d’hôtel bowed and ushered him towards it.
‘Just as you like, Mr. Lavendale,’ he said. ‘It isn’t often you care about this side of the room, though.’
Lavendale seated himself at the table he had selected, gave a brief order, and, leaning back, glanced around him. The little man had sent for a newspaper and was reading it eagerly, but for a moment Lavendale’s interest was attracted elsewhere. At the very next table, also alone, also reading a newspaper, was the most striking-looking young woman he had ever seen in his life. Lavendale was neither susceptible nor imaginative. He considered himself a practical, hard-headed person, notwithstanding the fact that he had embraced what was for his country practically a new profession. Nevertheless, he was conscious of what almost amounted to a new interest in life as he studied, a little too eagerly, perhaps, the girl’s features. She was dark, with hair brushed plainly back from a somewhat high and beautifully shaped forehead. Her complexion was pale, her eyes a deep shade of soft brown. Her eyebrows were almost Japanese, fine and silky yet intensely dark. Her mouth, even in repose, seemed full of curves. She appeared to be of medium height and she was undoubtedly graceful, and what made her more interesting still to Lavendale was the fact that, although her manner of doing so was stealthy, she, too, was watching the little man who was now commencing his luncheon.
Lavendale, after a few moments’ reflection, adopted the obvious course. He summoned Jules and inquired the young lady’s name. The man was able at once to give him the desired information.
‘Miss de Freyne, sir,’ he whispered discreetly. ‘She is a writer, I believe. I am not quite sure,’ the man added, ‘whether she is not the agent over here of some French dramatists. I have seen her sometimes with theatrical parties.’
Lavendale nodded and settled down rather ineffectively to his lunch. Before he had finished he had arrived at two conclusions. The first was that Miss de Freyne, although obviously not for the same reason, was as much interested in the stranger as he was; and the second that his first impressions concerning her personality were, if anything, too weak. He ransacked his memory for the names of all the theatrical people whom he knew, and made mental notes of them. It was his firm intention to make her acquaintance before the day was over. Once their eyes met, and, notwithstanding a reasonable amount of savoir faire, for the moment he was almost embarrassed. He found it impossible to glance away, and she returned a regard which he felt in a way was semi-committal, with a queer sort of nonchalant interest in a sense provocative, although it contained nothing of invitation. At the end of the meal Lavendale had come to a decision. He signed his bill, rose from his place and approached the table at which the little man was seated.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I am a stranger to you, but I should like, if I may, to ask you a question.’
Even in that moment’s pause, when the little man laid down his newspaper and was staring up at his questioner in manifest surprise, Lavendale felt that his proceeding had attracted the strongest interest from the young woman seated only a few feet away. She had leaned ever so slightly forward. A coffee-cup with which she had been toying had been noiselessly returned to its saucer. It was genuine interest, this, not curiosity.
‘Say, how’s that?’ the little man exclaimed. ‘Ask me a question? Why, I don’t know as there’d be any harm in that. I’m not promising that I’ll answer it,’
‘I was in the bar a moment ago,’ Lavendale continued, ‘when they were talking of these poisonous gases which the Germans are using. I heard you ask a question and I heard the answer. You were apparently for the first time informed of this new practice of theirs. Will you tell me why, when you heard of it, you laughed?’
The little man nodded his head slowly as though in response to some thought.
‘Sit down, young fellow,’ he invited. ‘Are you an American?’
‘I am,’ Lavendale admitted. ‘My name is Ambrose Lavendale and I was attached to the Embassy here until last August.’
‘That so?’ the other replied with some interest. ‘Well, mine’s Hurn. I don’t know a soul in London and you may be useful to me, so if you like I’ll answer your question. You thought my laugh abominable, I guess?’
‘I did,’ Lavendale assented,—‘we all did. I dare say you heard some of the comments that followed you out!’
‘It was a selfish laugh, perhaps,’ the little man continued thoughtfully, ‘but it was not an inhuman one. Now, sir, I will answer question. I will tell you what that piece of information which I heard at the bar, and which I find in the paper here, means to me and means to the world. Hold tight, young man. I am going to make a statement which, if you are sensible enough to believe it, will take your breath away. If you don’t, you’ll think I’m a lunatic. Are you ready?’
‘Go ahead,’ Lavendale invited. ‘I guess my nerves are in pretty good order.’
Mr. Hurn laid the flat of his hand upon the table and looked upwards at his companion. He spoke very slowly and very distinctly.
‘I can stop the war,’ he declared.
Lavendale smiled at him incredulously—the man was mad!
‘Really?’ he exclaimed. ‘Well, you’ll be the greatest benefactor the world has ever known, if you can.’
The little man, who had arrived at the final stage of his luncheon, helped himself to another pat of butter.
‘You don’t believe me, of course,’ he said, ‘yet it happens that I am speaking the truth. You are thinking, I guess, that I am a pitifully insignificant little unit in this great city, in this raging world. Yet I have spoken the solid truth. I can stop the war, and, if you like, you can help me.’
Lavendale withdrew his eyes from his new acquaintance’s face for a moment and glanced towards the girl. Something that was almost a smile of mutual understanding flashed between them. Doubtless she had overheard some part of their conversation. Lavendale raised his voice a little in order that she might hear more. He felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought that they were establishing a mutual confidence.
‘I’ll help, of course,’ he promised. ‘I what direction are your efforts to be made?’
The little man paused in the act of drinking a glass of water, squinted at his questioner, and set the tumbler down empty.
‘Wondering what sort of a crank you’ve got hold of, eh?’
Lavendale began to be impressed. The little man did not look in the least like a lunatic.
‘Well, it’s rather a sweeping proposition, yours,’ Lavendale remarked.
‘Everything in the world,’ the other reminder him didactically, ‘was impossible before it was done. Your help needn’t be very strenuous. I guess there’s some sort of headquarters in London from which this war is run, eh?’
‘There’s the War Office,’ Lavendale explained
‘Know any one there?’
‘Yes, I know a good many soldiers who have jobs there just now.’
‘Then I guess you can help by saving me time Do you happen to be acquainted with anyone in the Ordnance Department?’
Lavendale reflected for a moment.
‘Yes, I know a man there,’ he admitted. ‘It’s just as well to warn you, though, that they’re absolutely fed up with trying new shells and powder.’
The little man smiled—a queer, reflective smile, filled with some quality of self-appreciation which seemed at once to lift him above the whole world of crazy inventors.
‘Your friend
there now,’ he asked, ‘or will he be taking his British two hours for lunch?’
‘He never leaves the building after he gets there in the morning,’ Lavendale replied.
Mr. Daniel H. Hurn signed his bill and laid down an insignificant tip.
‘You through with your luncheon?’ he Inquired. ‘Right! Then what about taking me along and letting me have a word with your friend?’
‘I don’t mind,’ Lavendale agreed, a little doubtfully, ‘but he hasn’t very much influence.’
Again the other smiled, and again Lavendale was impressed by that mysterious contortion. He glanced towards the adjoining table.
The girl was still watching them closely. Jules, whom she had apparently just summoned, was standing by her side, and Lavendale was convinced that the questions which she was obviously asking, referred to him. He left the room with reluctance and followed his companion through the hall and into a taxi.
‘Not sure whether I told you,’ the latter remarked, as he seated himself, ‘that my name is Hurn—Daniel H. Hurn—and I come from way out west.’
‘Glad to meet you, Mr. Hurn,’ Lavendale murmured mechanically. ‘You are not taking anything with you to show the people at the War Office, then?’
Mr. Hurn shook his head.
‘Not necessary,’ he answered. ‘Bring me face to face with a live man—that’s all I need. That’s all you need to end the war.’
‘I am an American,’ Lavendale reminded him.
Mr. Hurn glanced at his companion curiously. Lavendale, dressed by an English tailor and at home in most of the capitals of Europe, was an unfamiliar type.
‘Shouldn’t have thought it,’ he admitted. ‘This the place?’
Lavendale nodded and paid for the taxi without any protest from his companion, whom he piloted down many corridors until they reached a room in the rear of the building. A boy scout guarded the door. He stood on one side to let Lavendale pass, but glanced at his companion questioningly.
‘Would you mind waiting here just for a moment?’ Lavendale suggested. ‘My friend is in this room, working with several other men. It would be better for me to have a word with him first.’
‘Sure!’ the other agreed. ‘You run the show. I’ll wait.’
Lavendale entered the apartment and approached the desk before which his friend was sitting.
‘Hullo, Reggie!’ he exclaimed.
The young man, who was hard at work, looked up from a sheaf of papers and held out his left hand.
‘How are you, Ambrose? Sit down by the side of me, if you want to talk. We’re up to the eyes here.’
Lavendale leaned over the desk.
‘Look here, old chap,’ he went on, ‘I’ve come on a sort of fool’s errand, perhaps. I’ve got a little American outside. He’s a most unholy-looking object, but he wants a word with some one in the Ordnance Department.’
Merrill shook his head reproachfully.
‘Is this quite fair?’ he protested. ‘We’ve had our morning dose of cranks already.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lavendale said, ‘but you’ve got to deal with one more.’
‘Know anything about him?’
‘Not a thing,’ Lavendale admitted. ‘I’ve talked to him for five minutes, and I have just an idea that yon ought to hear what he has to say.’
Merrill laid down a paperweight upon his documents,
‘Look here, old fellow,’ he said, ‘I’ll take your little pal round to Bembridge, if you say the word, but I warn you, he is as fed up as I am and he’ll be pretty short with him.’
‘I shouldn’t think my man was sensitive,’ Lavendale observed. ‘Anyhow, my trouble’s over if you’ll do that.’
Merrill sighed and closed his desk.
‘This way, then.’
They passed out of the room to where Mr. Daniel H. Hurn was waiting. Merrill seemed a little taken aback as Lavendale briefly introduced them, and his glance towards his friend was significant. However, he led them both down the corridor and knocked at a door at the further end.
‘Is the General disengaged?’ he asked the orderly who opened it.
They were immediately ushered in. Two clerks were seated at a great round table, apparently copying plans. There were models in the room of every form of modern warfare. A tall, thin man in the uniform of a General was examining some new pattern of hand-grenade us they entered.
‘Sir,’ Merrill began, addressing him apologetically, ‘my friend here, Mr. Ambrose Lavendale, who was in the American Embassy for some lime, has brought Mr. Daniel Hurn of Chicago to have a word with you.’
The General dropped his eyeglass and sighed.
‘An invention?’ he asked patiently.
‘Something of the sort,’ Mr. Hurn admitted briskly. ‘Do I understand that you are a General in the British Army?’
‘I am, sir,’ General Bembridge admitted.
‘Very well, then,’ Mr. Hurn proceeded, ‘I am here to tell you this—I can end your war. When you’re through with smiling at me, you’ll probably say “Prove it.” I will prove it. There’s a row of taxicabs down below. Take me outside this city of yours to where there’s a garden and a field beyond. Afterwards we’ll talk business. You’ll want to, right enough. It’ll take about an hour of your time—and I can end the war!’
There was a moment’s silence. The two clerks who had been writing at the table, had turned around. General Bembridge was looking a little curiously at his unusual visitor.
‘Mr. Hurn,’ he said, ‘I will be frank with you. The average number of visitors who present themselves here during the day with devices which will end the war, is twenty. To-day that average has been exceeded. I have already spoken to twenty-four. You make, you see, the twenty-fifth. If we were to go out in taxicabs and watch experiments with every one of them—’
‘Pshaw! I’m not one of those cranks,’ Mr. Hurn interrupted. ‘Read this.’
He handed a half sheet of notepaper across to the General, who adjusted his eyeglass and read. The heading at the top of the notepaper was ‘The Chicago School of Chemical Research,‘ and its contents were brief:
‘Mr. Daniel H. Hurn is a distinguished member of this society. We recommend the attention of the British War Office to any suggestion he may make.’
‘Here’s another,’ Mr. Hurn went on. ‘This is from the greatest firm of steel producers in the world—kind of personal.’
General Bembridge glanced at the historic name which recommended Mr. Hurn to the consideration of the Government. Then he sighed.
‘I am going to-morrow morning at ten o’clock,’ he said, ‘to inspect a battery at Hatton Park, three miles from Hatfield, on the road to Baldock. You can meet me at the lodge gate at a quarter to ten and I will give you a quarter of an hour.’
‘This afternoon would have been better,’ Mr. Hurn observed, buttoning up the letters in his coat, ‘but to-morrow morning it shall be.’
The General waved them away. Merrill glanced curiously at the American as the three men walked down the corridor.
‘Those letters did the trick,’ he remarked. ‘Forgive me if I hurry, Lavendale. Don’t let your friend be a minute late to-morrow morning or he’ll lose his chance.’
‘I’ll see to that,’ Mr. Hurn promised. ‘Guess I can hire some sort of an automobile to take me out there. Good morning, Captain Merrill,’ he added, by way of parting salute, holding out his curiously stained hand. ‘I am much obliged to you for your help, and you can sleep to-night feeling you’ve done more than any man in this great building to save your country.’
Merrill winked at Lavendale as he disappeared within his room. The latter, with the inventor by his side, stepped out into the street.
‘About going down there to-morrow morning—’ he began.
‘Young man,’ Mr. Hurn interrupted impressively, ‘you’ve done your best for me and it’s only right you should have your reward. You may accompany me to this place, wherever it is.’
Lavendale laughed softly,
a laugh which his companion absolutely failed to understand.
‘All right,’ he agreed, ‘I’ll take you down in my car. I’ll be at the hotel at nine o’clock.’
‘At five minutes to ten, if the General is punctual,’ Mr. Hurn promised, ‘you shall see the most wonderful sight you have ever witnessed in your life.’
II
Punctually at nine o’clock on the following morning, Lavendale brought his car to a standstill before the front door of the Milan Hotel. Mr. Hurn, looking, if possible, shabbier and more insignificant than ever, was waiting under the portico. He clambered at once to the seat by Lavendale’s side.
‘Haven’t you any apparatus to bring, or anything?’ the latter inquired.
Mr. Hurn smiled.
‘Not a darned thing!’
Lavendale was puzzled.
‘You mean you’re ready to start with your experiment, just as you are, like this?’
‘Sure!’ the little man answered, ‘and you’d better get her going.’
They started off in silence. Once more Lavendale, as he glanced at the shabby little object by his side, began to lose confidence. As they swung round into Golder’s Green he spoke again.
‘What sort of a show are you going to give us?’ he asked.
Mr. Hurn glanced at his watch.
‘You’ll know inside of an hour,’ he replied.
Lavendale frowned. His protégé‘s appearance that morning was certainly not prepossessing. His collar showed distinct traces of its vicissitudes upon the previous day. His ugly, discoloured hands were ungloved; his boots were of some dull, indescribable material which seemed to have escaped the attentions of the valet; his flannel shirt was of the style and pattern displayed in Strand establishments which cater for the unaesthetic. He had discarded his hat for a black cloth cap and he had developed a habit of muttering to himself. Lavendale pressed the accelerator of his car and increased its pace.
‘I suppose I’ve made a fool of myself,’ he muttered.
They reached the open country and drew up in due time before the lodge gates of what seemed to be a very large estate. There was no sign as yet of the General. Mr. Hurn descended briskly and at once embarked upon a survey of the neighbourhood. Lavendale lit a cigarette and paused to watch the approach of a great limousine car rushing up the hill. It passed them in a cloud of dust,—he stood staring after it. Notwithstanding the closed windows, he had caught a glimpse of a face, of eyes gazing with strained intentness out on to his side of the road—the face of a woman convulsed with urgency—the woman who had played such queer havoc with his thoughts. Almost at the same moment there was a rasping voice in his ear.
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