CHAPTER XVI
Mr. William Hayter, in the solitude of his chambers at the Milan Court,was a very altered personage. He extended no welcoming salutation to hismidnight visitor but simply motioned him to a chair.
"Well," he began, "is your task finished that you are in London?"
"My task," Lessingham replied, "might just as well never have beenentered upon. The man you sent me to watch is nothing but an ordinarysport-loving Englishman."
"Really! You have lived as his neighbour for nearly a month, and that isyour impression of him?"
"It is," Lessingham assented. "He has been away sea-fishing, half thetime, but I have searched his house thoroughly."
"Searched his papers, eh?"
"Every one I could find, and hated the job. There are a good many chartsof the coast, but they are all for the use of the fishermen."
"Wonderful!" Hayter scoffed. "My young friend, you may yet finddistinction in some other walk of life. Our secret service, I fancy,will very soon be able to dispense with your energies."
"And I with your secret service," Lessingham agreed heartily. "I daresay there may be some branches of it in which existence is tolerable.That, however, does not apply to the task upon which I have beenengaged."
"You have been completely duped," Hayter told him calmly, "and theinformation you have sent us is valueless. Sir Henry Cranston, insteadof being the type of man whom you have described, is one of the greatestexperts upon coast defense and mine-laying, in the English Admiralty."
Lessingham laughed shortly.
"That," he declared, "is perfectly absurd."
"It is," Hayter repeated, with emphasis, "the precise truth. Sir HenryCranton's fishing excursions are myths. He is simply transferred fromhis fishing boat on to one of a little fleet of so-called mine sweepers,from which he conducts his operations. Nearly every one of the mostimportant towns on the east coast are protected by minefields of hisdesign."
Lessingham was dumbfounded. His companion's manner was singularlyconvincing.
"But how could Sir Henry or any one else keep this a secret?" heprotested. "Even his wife is scarcely on speaking terms with him becauseshe believes him to be an idler, and the whole neighbourhood gossipsover his slackness."
"The whole neighbourhood is easily fooled," Hayter retorted. "There areone or two who know, however."
"There are one or two," Lessingham observed grimly, "who are beginningto suspect me."
"That is a pity," Hayter admitted, "because it will be necessary for youto return to Dreymarsh at once."
"Return to Dreymarsh at once? But Cranston is away. There is nothing forme to do there in his absence."
"He will be back on Wednesday or Thursday night," was the confidentreply. "He will bring with him the plan of his latest defenses of a townon the east coast, which our cruiser squadron purpose to bombard. Wemust have that chart."
Lessingham listened in mute distress.
"Could you possibly get me relieved?" he begged. "The fact is--"
"We could not, and we will not," Hayter interrupted fiercely. "Unlessyou wish me to denounce you at home as a renegade and a coward, you willgo through with the work which has been allotted to you. Your earliermistakes will be forgiven if that chart is in my hands by Friday."
"But how do you know that he will have it?" Lessingham protested."Supposing you are right and he is really responsible for the minefieldsyou speak of, I should think the last thing he would do would be tobring the chart back to Dreymarsh."
"As a matter of fact, that is precisely what he will do," Hayter assuredhis listener. "He is bringing it back for the inspection of one of thecommissioners for the east coast defense, who is to meet him at hishouse. And I wish to warn you, too, Maderstrom, that you will have verylittle time. For some reason or other, Cranston is dissatisfied with thesecrecy under which he has been compelled to work, and has appliedto the Admiralty for recognition of his position. Immediately this isgiven, I gather that his house will be inaccessible to you."
Lessingham sat, his arms folded, his eyes fixed upon the fire. Histhoughts were in a turmoil, yet one thing was hatefully clear. Cranstonwas not the unworthy slacker he had believed him to be. Philippa's wholepoint of view might well be changed by this discovery--especially nowthat Cranston had made up his mind to assert himself for his wife'ssake. There was an icy fear in his heart.
"You understand," Hayter persisted coldly, "what it is you have to do?"
"Perfectly. I shall return by the afternoon train," was the despairingreply.
"If you succeed," Hayter continued, "I shall see that you get the usualacknowledgment, but I will, if you wish it, ask for your transfer toanother branch of the service. I am not questioning your patriotism oryour honour, Maderstrom, but you are not the man for this work."
"You are right," Lessingham said. "I am not."
"It is not my affair," Hayter proceeded, "to enquire too closely intothe means used by our agents in carrying out our designs. That I findyou in London in company with the wife of the man whom you are appointedto watch, may be a fact capable of the most complete and satisfactoryexplanation. I ask no questions. I only remind you that your country,even though it be only your adopted country, demands from you, as fromall others in her service, unswerving loyalty, a loyalty uninfluenced bythe claims of personal sentiment, duty, or honour. Have I said enough?"
"You have said as much as it is wise for you to say," Lessinghamreplied, his voice trembling with suppressed passion.
"That is all, then," the other concluded. "You know where to sendor bring the chart when you have it? If you bring it yourself, itis possible that something which you may regard as a reward, will beoffered to you."
Lessingham rose a little wearily to his feet. His farewell to Hayter wascold and lifeless.
He left the hotel and started on his homeward way, struggling with asense of intolerable depression. The streets through which he passedwere sombre and unlit.
A Zeppelin warning, a few hours before, had driven the people to theirhomes. There was not a chink of light to be seen anywhere. An intenseand gloomy stillness seemed to brood over the deserted thoroughfares.Nightbirds on their way home flitted by like shadows. Policemen lurkedin the shadows of the houses. The few vehicles left crawled about withinsufficient lights. Even the warning horns of the taxicab men soundedfurtive and repressed. Lessingham, as he marched stolidly along, feltcuriously in sympathy with his environment. Hayter's news brought himface to face with that inner problem which had so suddenly become thedominant factor in his life. For the first time he knew what love was.He felt the wonder of it, the far-reaching possibilities, the strangeidealism called so unexpectedly into being. He recognized the vagariesof Philippa's disposition, and yet, during the last few days, he hadconvinced himself that she was beginning to care. Her strained relationswith her husband had been, without a doubt, her first incentive towardsthe acceptance of his proffered devotion. Now he told himself with eagerhopefulness that some portion of it, however minute, must be for his ownsake. The relations between husband and wife, he reminded himself, must,at any rate, have been strained during the last few months, or Cranstonwould never have been able to keep his secret. In his gloomy passagethrough this land of ill omens, however, he shivered a little as hethought of the other possibility--tortured himself with imagining whatmight happen during her revulsion of feeling, if Philippa discovered thetruth. A sense of something greater than he had yet known in life seemedto lift him into some lofty state of aloofness, from which he couldlook down and despise himself, the poor, tired plodder wearing the heavychains of duty. There was a life so much more wonderful, just the otherside of the clouds, a very short distance away, a life of alluring andpassionate happiness. Should he ever find the courage, he wondered, toescape from the treadmill and go in search of it? Duty, for the last twoyears, had taken him by the hand and led him along a pathway of shame.He had never been a hypocrite about the war. He was one of those who hadacknowledged from the first that Germ
any had set forth, with the swordin her hand, on a war of conquest. His own inherited martial spirit hadvaguely approved; he, too, in those earlier days, had felt the sunlightupon his rapier. Later had come the enlightenment, the turbulent wavesof doubt, the nightmare of a nation's awakening conscience, mirrored inhis own soul. It was in a depression shared, perhaps, in a lesserdegree by millions of those whose ranks he had joined, that he felt thispassionate craving for escape into a world which took count of otherthings.
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