Nicholas Fenn nodded. He lit a very pungent cigarette from a paper packet by his side.
“You and I, Bishop,” he said, “are pacifists in the broadest meaning of the word, but that does not mean that we may not sometimes have to use force to attain our object. We have a department which alone is concerned with the dealing of such matters. It is that department which has undertaken the forwarding and receipt of all communications between ourselves and our friends across the North Sea. Its operations are entirely secret, even from the rest of the Council. It will deal with Julian Orden. It is best for you not to interfere, or even to have cognisance of what is going on.”
“I cannot agree,” the Bishop protested. “An act of unchristian violence would be a flaw in the whole superstructure which we are trying to build up.”
“Let us discuss some other subject,” Fenn proposed.
“Pardon me,” was the firm reply. “I have come here to discuss this one.”
Nicholas Fenn looked down at the table. His expression was not altogether pleasant.
“Your position with us, sir,” he said, “although much appreciated, does not warrant your interference in executive details.”
“Nevertheless,” the Bishop insisted, “you must please treat me reasonably in this matter, Mr. Fenn. Remember I am not altogether extinct as a force amongst your followers. I have three mass meetings to address this week, and there is the sermon next Sunday at Westminster Abbey, at which it has been agreed that I shall strike the first note of warning. I am a helper, I believe, worth considering, and there is no man amongst you who risks what I risk.”
“Exactly what are you asking from me?” Fenn demanded, after a moment’s deliberation.
“I wish to know the whereabouts and condition of Julian Orden.”
“The matter is one which is being dealt with by our secret service department,” Fenn replied, “but I see no reason why I should not give you all reasonable information. The young man in question asked for trouble, and to a certain extent he has found it.”
“I understand,” the Bishop reminded his companion, “that he has very nearly, if not altogether, compromised himself in his efforts to shield Miss Abbeway.”
“That may be so,” Fenn admitted, “but it doesn’t alter the fact that he refuses to return to her the packet which she entrusted to his care.”
“And he is still obdurate?”
“Up to now, absolutely so. Perhaps,” Fenn added, with a slightly malicious smile, “you would like to try what you can do with him yourself?”
The Bishop hesitated.
“Julian Orden,” he said, “is a young man of peculiarly stubborn type, but if I thought that my exhortations would be of any benefit, I would not shrink from trying them, whatever it might cost me.”
“Better have a try, then,” Fenn suggested. “If we do not succeed within the next twenty-four hours, I shall give you an order to see him. I don’t mind confessing,” he went on confidentially, “that the need for the production of that document is urgent, apart from the risk we run of having our plans forestalled if it should fall into the hands of the Government.”
“I presume that Miss Abbeway has already done her best?”
“She has worn herself out with persuasions.”
“Has he himself been told the truth?”
Fenn shook his head.
“From your own knowledge of the young man, do you think that it would be of any use? Even Miss Abbeway is forced to admit that any one less likely to sympathise with our aims it would be impossible to find. At the same time, if we do arrange an interview for you, use any arguments you can think of. To tell you the truth, our whole calculations have been upset by not discovering the packet upon his person. He was on his way to Downing Street when our agents intervened, and we never doubted that he would have it with him. When will it be convenient for you to pay your visit?”
“At any time you send for me,” the Bishop replied. “Meanwhile, Mr. Fenn, before I leave I want to remind you once more of the original purpose of my call upon you.”
Fenn frowned a little peevishly as he rose to usher his visitor out.
“Miss Abbeway has already extorted a foolish promise from us,” he said. “The young man’s safety for the present is not in question.”
The Bishop, more from custom than from any appetite, walked across the Park to the Athenaeum. Mr. Hannaway Wells accosted him in the hall.
“This is a world of rumours,” he remarked with a smile. “I have just heard that Julian Orden, of all men in the world, has been shot as a German spy.”
The Bishop smiled with dignity.
“You may take it from me,” he said gravely, “that the rumour is untrue.”
CHAPTER XI
Table of Contents
Nicholas Fenn, although civilisation had laid a heavy hand upon him during the last few years, was certainly not a man whose outward appearance denoted any advance in either culture or taste. His morning clothes, although he had recently abandoned the habit of dealing at a ready-made emporium, were neither well chosen nor well worn. His evening attire was, if possible, worse. He met Catherine that evening in the lobby of what he believed to be a fashionable grillroom, in a swallow-tailed coat, a badly fitting shirt with a single stud-hole, a black tie, a collar which encircled his neck like a clerical band, and ordinary walking boots. She repressed a little shiver as she shook hands and tried to remember that this was not only the man whom several millions of toilers had chosen to be their representative, but also the duly appointed secretary of the most momentous assemblage of human beings in the world’s history.
“I hope I am not late,” she said. “I really do not care much about dining out, these days, but your message was so insistent.”
“One must have relaxation,” he declared. “The weight of affairs all day long is a terrible strain. Shall we go in?”
They entered the room and stood looking aimlessly about them, Fenn having, naturally enough, failed to realise the necessity of securing a table. A maitre d’hotel, however, recognised Catherine and hastened to their rescue. She conversed with the man for a few minutes in French, while her companion listened admiringly, and finally, at his solicitation, herself ordered the dinner.
“The news, please, Mr. Fenn?” she asked, as soon as the man had withdrawn.
“News?” he repeated. “Oh, let’s leave it alone for a time! One gets sick of shop.”
She raised her eyebrows a little discouragingly. She was dressed with extraordinary simplicity, but the difference in caste between the two supplied a problem for many curious observers.
“Why should we talk of trifles,” she demanded, “when we both have such a great interest in the most wonderful subject in the world?”
“What is the most wonderful subject in the world?” he asked impressively.
“Our cause, of course,” she answered firmly, “the cause of all the peoples—Peace.”
“One labours the whole day long for that,” he grumbled. “When the hour for rest comes, surely one may drop it for a time?”
“Do you feel like that?” she remarked indifferently. “For myself, during these days I have but one thought. There is nothing else in my life. And you, with all those thousands and millions of your fellow creatures toiling, watching and waiting for a sign from you—oh, I can’t imagine how your thoughts can ever wander from them for a moment, how you can ever remember that self even exists! I should like to be trusted, Mr. Fenn, as you are trusted.”
“My work,” he said complacently, “has, I hope, justified that trust.”
“Naturally,” she assented, “and yet the greatest part of it is to come. Tell me about Mr. Orden?”
“There is no change in the fellow’s attitude. I don’t imagine there will be until the last moment. He is just a pig-headed, insufferably conceited Englishman, full of class prejudices to his finger tips.”
“He is nevertheless a man,” she said thoughtfully. “I heard only yesterday th
at he earned considerable distinction even in his brief soldiering.”
“No doubt,” Fenn remarked, without enthusiasm, “he has the bravery of an animal. By the bye, the Bishop dropped in to see me this morning.”
“Really?” she asked. “What did he want?”
“Just a personal call,” was the elaborately careless reply. “He likes to look in for a chat, now and then. He spoke about Orden, too. I persuaded him that if we don’t succeed within the next twenty four hours, it will be his duty to see what he can do.”
“Oh, but that was too bad!” she declared. “You know how he feels his position, poor man. He will simply loathe having to tell Julian—Mr. Orden, I mean that he is connected with—”
“Well, with what, Miss Abbeway?”
“With anything in the nature of a conspiracy. Of course, Mr. Orden wouldn’t understand. How could he? I think it was cruel to bring the Bishop into the matter at all.”
“Nothing,” Fenn pronounced, “is cruel that helps the cause. What will you drink, Miss Abbeway? You’ll have some champagne, won’t you?”
“What a horrible idea!” she exclaimed, smiling at him nevertheless. “Fancy a great Labour leader suggesting such a thing! No, I’ll have some light French wine, thank you.”
Fenn passed the order on to the waiter, a little crestfallen.
“I don’t often drink anything myself,” he said, “but this seemed to me to be something of an occasion.”
“You have some news, then?”
“Not at all. I meant dining with you.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, that?” she murmured. “That is simply a matter of routine. I thought you had some news, or some work.”
“Isn’t it possible, Miss Abbeway,” he pleaded, “that we might have some interests outside our work?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” she answered, with an insolence which was above his head.
“There is no reason why we shouldn’t have,” he persisted.
“You must tell me your tastes,” she suggested. “Are you fond of grand opera, for instance? I adore it. ‘Parsifal’—‘The Ring’?”
“I don’t know much about music,” he admitted. “My sister, who used to live with me, plays the piano.”
“We’ll drop music, then,” she said hastily. “Books? But I remember you once told me that you had never read anything except detective novels, and that you didn’t care for poetry. Sports? I adore tennis and I am rather good at golf.”
“I have never wasted a single moment of my life in games,” he declared proudly.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, you see, that leaves us rather a long way apart, outside our work, doesn’t it?”
“Even if I were prepared to admit that, which I am not,” he replied, “our work itself is surely enough to make up for all other things.”
“You are quite right,” she confessed. “There is nothing else worth thinking about, worth talking about. Tell me—you had an inner Council this afternoon—is anything decided yet about the leadership?”
He sighed a little.
“If ever there was a great cause in the world,” he said, “which stands some chance of missing complete success through senseless and low-minded jealousy, it is ours.”
“Mr. Fenn!” she exclaimed.
“I mean it,” he assured her. “As you know, a chairman must be elected this week, and that chairman, of course, will hold more power in his hand than any emperor of the past or any sovereign of the present. That leader is going to stop the war. He is going to bring peace to the world. It is a mighty post, Miss Abbeway.”
“It is indeed,” she agreed.
“Yet would you believe,” he went on, leaning across the table and neglecting for a moment his dinner, “would you believe, Miss Abbeway, that out of the twenty representatives chosen from the Trades Unions governing the principal industries of Great Britain, there is not a single one who does not consider himself eligible for the post.”
Catherine found herself suddenly laughing, while Fenn looked at her in astonishment.
“I cannot help it,” she apologised. “Please forgive me. Do not think that I am irreverent. It is not that at all. But for a moment the absurdity of the thing overcame me. I have met some of them, you know—Mr. Cross of Northumberland, Mr. Evans of South Wales—”
“Evans is one of the worst,” Fenn interrupted, with some excitement. “There’s a man who has only worn a collar for the last few years of his life, who evaded the board-school because he was a pitman’s lad, who doesn’t even know the names of the countries of Europe, but who still believes that he is a possible candidate. And Cross, too! Well, he washes when he comes to London, but he sleeps in his clothes and they look like it.”
“He is very eloquent,” Catherine observed.
“Eloquent!” Fenn exclaimed scornfully. “He may be, but who can understand him? He speaks in broad Northumbrian. What is needed in the leader whom they are to elect this week, Miss Abbeway, is a man of some culture and some appearance. Remember that to him is to be confided the greatest task ever given to man. A certain amount of personality he must have—personality and dignity, I should say, to uphold the position.”
“There is Mr. Miles Furley,” she said thoughtfully. “He is an educated man, is he not?”
“For that very reason unsuitable,” Fenn explained eagerly. “He represents no great body of toilers. He is, in reality, only an honorary member of the Council, like yourself and the Bishop, there on account of his outside services.”
“I remember, only a few nights ago,” she reflected, “I was staying at a country house—Lord Maltenby’s, by the bye—Mr. Orden’s father. The Prime Minister was there and another Cabinet Minister. They spoke of the Labour Party and its leaderless state. They had no idea, of course, of the great Council which was already secretly formed, but they were unanimous about the necessity for a strong leader. Two people made the same remark, almost with apprehension: `If ever Paul Fiske should materialise, the problem would be solved!’”
Fenn assented without enthusiasm.
“After all, though,” he reminded her, “a clever writer does not always make a great speaker, nor has he always that personality and distinction which is required in this case. He would come amongst us a stranger, too—a stranger personally, that is to say.”
“Not in the broadest sense of the word,” Catherine objected. “Paul Fiske is more than an ordinary literary man. His heart is in tune with what he writes. Those are not merely eloquent words which he offers. There is a note of something above and beyond just phrase-making—a note of sympathetic understanding which amounts to genius.”
Her companion stroked his moustache for a moment.
“Fiske goes right to the spot,” he admitted, “but the question of the leadership, so far as he is concerned, doesn’t come into the sphere of practical politics. It has been suggested, Miss Abbeway, by one or two of the more influential delegates, suggested, too, by a vast number of letters and telegrams which have poured in upon us during the last few days, that I should be elected to this vacant post.”
“You?” she exclaimed, a little blankly.
“Can you think of a more suitable person?” he asked, with a faint note of truculence in his tone. “You have seen us all together. I don’t wish to flatter myself, but as regards education, service to the cause, familiarity with public speaking and the number of those I represent—”
“Yes, yes! I see,” she interrupted. “Taking the twenty Labour representatives only, Mr. Fenn, I can see nothing against your selection, but I fancied, somehow, that some one outside—the Bishop, for instance—”
“Absolutely out of the question,” Fenn declared. “The people would lose faith in the whole thing in a minute. The person who throws down the gage to the Prime Minister must have the direct mandate of the people.”
They finished dinner presently. Fenn looked with admiration at the gold, coroneted case from which C
atherine helped herself to one of her tiny cigarettes. He himself lit an American cigarette.
“I had meant, Miss Abbeway,” he confided, leaning towards her, “to suggest a theatre to you to-night—in fact, I looked at some dress circle seats at the Gaiety with a view to purchasing. Another matter has cropped up, however. There is a little business for us to do.”
“Business?” Catherine repeated.
He produced a folded paper from his pocket and passed it across the table. Catherine read it with a slight frown.
“An order entitling the bearer to search Julian Orden’s apartments!” she exclaimed. “We don’t want to search them, do we? Besides, what authority have we?”
“The best,” he answered, tapping with his discoloured forefinger the signature at the foot of the strip of paper.
She examined it with a doubtful frown.
“But how did this come into your possession?” she asked.
He smiled at her in superior fashion.
“By asking for it,” he replied bluntly. “And between you and me, Miss Abbeway, there isn’t much we might ask for that they’d care to refuse us just now.”
“But the police have already searched Mr. Orden’s rooms,” she reminded him.
“The police have been known to overlook things. Of course, what I am hoping is that amongst Mr. Orden’s papers there may be some indication as to where he has deposited our property.”
“But this has nothing to do with me,” she protested. “I do not like to be concerned in such affairs.”
“But I particularly wish you to accompany me,” he urged. “You are the only one who has seen the packet. It would be better, therefore, if we conducted the search in company.”
Catherine made a little grimace, but she objected no further. She objected very strongly, however, when Fenn tried to take her arm on leaving the place, and she withdrew into her own corner of the taxi immediately they had taken their seats.
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