On the rack in the railway carriage immediately opposite
Clovis was a solidly wrought travelling bag, with a
carefully written label, on which was inscribed, “J. P.
Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough.”
Immediately below the rack sat the human embodiment of the
label, a solid, sedate individual, sedately dressed,
sedately conversational. Even without his conversation
(which was addressed to a friend seated by his side, and
touched chiefly on such topics as the backwardness of Roman
hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the Rectory), one
could have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and
mental outlook of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed
unwilling to leave anything to the imagination of a casual
observer, and his talk grew presently personal and
introspective.
“I don't know how it is,” he told his friend, “I'm not
much over forty, but I seem to have settled down into a deep
groove of elderly middle-age. My sister shows the same
tendency. We like everything to be exactly in its
accustomed place; we like things to happen exactly at their
appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly,
punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It
distresses and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to
take a very trifling matter, a thrush has built its nest
year after year in the catkin-tree on the lawn; this year,
for no obvious reason, it is building in the ivy on the
garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think
we both feel that the change is unnecessary, and just a
little irritating.”
“Perhaps,” said the friend, “it is a different
thrush.”
“We have suspected that,” said J. P. Huddle, “and I
think it gives us even more cause for annoyance. We don't
feel that we want a change of thrush at our time of life;
and yet, as I have said, we have scarcely reached an age
when these things should make themselves seriously felt.”
“What you want,” said the friend, “is an Unrest-cure.”
“An Unrest-cure? I've never heard of such a thing.”
“You've heard of Rest-cures for people who've broken down
under stress of too much worry and strenuous living; well,
you're suffering from overmuch repose and placidity, and you
need the opposite kind of treatment.”
“But where would one go for such a thing?”
“Well, you might stand as an Orange candidate for
Kilkenny, or do a course of district visiting in one of the
Apache quarters of Paris, or give lectures in Berlin to
prove that most of Wagner's music was written by Gambetta;
and there's always the interior of Morocco to travel in.
But, to be really effective, the Unrest-cure ought to be
tried in the home. How you would do it I haven't the
faintest idea.”
It was at this point in the conversation that Clovis
became galvanized into alert attention. After all, his two
days' visit to an elderly relative at Slowborough did not
promise much excitement. Before the train had stopped he
had decorated his sinister shirt-cuff with the inscription,
“J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough.”
*
Two mornings later Mr. Huddle broke in on his sister's
privacy as she sat reading Country Life in the morning room.
It was her day and hour and place for reading Country Life,
and the intrusion was absolutely irregular; but he bore in
his hand a telegram, and in that household telegrams were
recognized as happening by the hand of God. This particular
telegram partook of the nature of a thunderbolt. “Bishop
examining confirmation class in neighbourhood unable stay
rectory on account measles invokes your hospitality sending
secretary arrange.”
“I scarcely know the Bishop; I've only spoken to him
once,” exclaimed J. P. Huddle, with the exculpating air of
one who realizes too late the indiscretion of speaking to
strange Bishops. Miss Huddle was the first to rally; she
disliked thunderbolts as fervently as her brother did, but
the womanly instinct in her told her that thunderbolts must
be fed.
“We can curry the cold duck,” she said. It was not the
appointed day for curry, but the little orange envelope
involved a certain departure from rule and custom. Her
brother said nothing, but his eyes thanked her for being
brave.
“A young gentleman to see you,” announced the
parlour-maid.
“The secretary!” murmured the Huddles in unison; they
instantly stiffened into a demeanour which proclaimed that,
though they held all strangers to be guilty, they were
willing to hear anything they might have to say in their
defence. The young gentleman, who came into the room with a
certain elegant haughtiness, was not at all Huddle's idea of
a bishop's secretary; he had not supposed that the episcopal
establishment could have afforded such an expensively
upholstered article when there were so many other claims on
its resources. The face was fleetingly familiar; if he had
bestowed more attention on the fellow-traveller sitting
opposite him in the railway carriage two days before he
might have recognized Clovis in his present visitor.
“You are the Bishop's secretary?” asked Huddle, becoming
consciously deferential.
“His confidential secretary,” answered Clovis. “You may
call me Stanislaus; my other name doesn't matter. The
Bishop and Colonel Alberti may be here to lunch. I shall be
here in any case.”
It sounded rather like the programme of a Royal visit.
“The Bishop is examining a confirmation class in the
neighbourhood, isn't he?” asked Miss Huddle.
“Ostensibly,” was the dark reply, followed by a request
for a large-scale map of the locality.
Clovis was still immersed in a seemingly profound study of
the map when another telegram arrived. It was addressed to
“Prince Stanislaus, care of Huddle, The Warren, etc.”
Clovis glanced at the contents and announced: “The Bishop
and Alberti won't be here till late in the afternoon.” Then
he returned to his scrutiny of the map.
The luncheon was not a very festive function. The
princely secretary ate and drank with fair appetite, but
severely discouraged conversation. At the finish of the
meal he broke suddenly into a radiant smile, thanked his
hostess for a charming repast, and kissed her hand with
deferential rapture. Miss Huddle was unable to decide in
her mind whether the action savoured of Louis Quatorzian
courtliness or the reprehensible Roman attitude towards the
Sabine women. It was not her day for having a headache, but
she felt that the circumstances excused her, and retired to
her room to have as much headache as was possible before the
Bishop's arrival. Clovis, having asked the way to the
nearest telegraph office, disappeared presently down the
carriage drive. Mr. Huddle met him in the hall some two
hours later, and asked when the Bishop would arrive.
“He is in the library with Alberti,” was the reply.
“But why wasn't I told? I never knew he had come!”
exclaimed Huddle.
“No one knows he is here,” said Clovis; “the quieter we
can keep matters the better. And on no account disturb him
in the library. Those are his orders.”
“But what is all this mystery about? And who is Alberti?
And isn't the Bishop going to have tea?”
“The Bishop is out for blood, not tea.”
“Blood!” gasped Huddle, who did not find that the
thunderbolt improved on acquaintance.
“Tonight is going to be a great night in the history of
Christendom,” said Clovis. “We are going to massacre every
Jew in the neighbourhood.”
“To massacre the Jews!” said Huddle indignantly. “Do
you mean to tell me there's a general rising against them?”
“No, it's the Bishop's own idea. He's in there arranging
all the details now.”
“But---the Bishop is such a tolerant, humane man.”
“That is precisely what will heighten the effect of his
action. The sensation will be enormous.”
That at least Huddle could believe.
“He will be hanged!” he exclaimed with conviction.
“A motor is waiting to carry him to the coast, where a
steam yacht is in readiness.”
“But there aren't thirty Jews in the whole
neighbourhood,” protested Huddle, whose brain, under the
repeated shocks of the day, was operating with the
uncertainty of a telegraph wire during earthquake
disturbances.
“We have twenty-six on our list,” said Clovis, referring
to a bundle of notes. “We shall be able to deal with them
all the more thoroughly.”
“Do you mean to tell me that you are meditating violence
against a man like Sir Leon Birberry,” stammered Huddle;
“he's one of the most respected men in the country.”
“He's down on our list,” said Clovis carelessly; “after
all, we've got men we can trust to do our job, so we shan't
have to rely on local assistance. And we've got some
Boy-scouts helping us as auxiliaries.”
“Boy-scouts!”
“Yes; when they understood there was real killing to be
done they were even keener than the men.”
“This thing will be a blot on the Twentieth Century!”
“And your house will be the blotting-pad. Have you
realized that half the papers of Europe and the United
States will publish pictures of it? By the way, I've sent
some photographs of you and your sister, that I found in the
library, to the Matin and Die Woche; I hope you don't
mind. Also a sketch of the staircase; most of the killing
will probably be done on the staircase.”
The emotions that were surging in J. P. Huddle's brain
were almost too intense to be disclosed in speech, but he
managed to gasp out: “There aren't any Jews in this
house.”
“Not at present,” said Clovis.
“I shall go to the police,” shouted Huddle with sudden
energy.
“In the shrubbery,” said Clovis, “are posted ten men,
who have orders to fire on any one who leaves the house
without my signal of permission. Another armed picquet is
in ambush near the front gate. The Boy-scouts watch the
back premises.”
At this moment the cheerful hoot of a motor-horn was heard
from the drive. Huddle rushed to the hall door with the
feeling of a man half-awakened from a nightmare, and beheld
Sir Leon Birberry, who had driven himself over in his car.
“I got your telegram,” he said; “what's up?”
Telegram? It seemed to be a day of telegrams.
“Come here at once. Urgent. James Huddle,” was the
purport of the message displayed before Huddle's bewildered
eyes.
“I see it all!” he exclaimed suddenly in a voice shaken
with agitation, and with a look of agony in the direction of
the shrubbery he hauled the astonished Birberry into the
house. Tea had just been laid in the hall, but the now
thoroughly panic-stricken Huddle dragged his protesting
guest upstairs, and in a few minutes' time the entire
household had been summoned to that region of momentary
safety. Clovis alone graced the tea-table with his
presence; the fanatics in the library were evidently too
immersed in their monstrous machinations to dally with the
solace of teacup and hot toast. Once the youth rose, in
answer to the summons of the front-door bell, and admitted
Mr. Paul Isaacs, shoemaker and parish councillor, who had
also received a pressing invitation to The Warren. With an
atrocious assumption of courtesy, which a Borgia could
hardly have outdone, the secretary escorted this new captive
of his net to the head of the stairway, where his
involuntary host awaited him.
And then ensued a long ghastly vigil of watching and
waiting. Once or twice Clovis left the house to stroll
across to the shrubbery, returning always to the library,
for the purpose evidently of making a brief report. Once he
took in the letters from the evening postman, and brought
them to the top of the stairs with punctilious politeness.
After his next absence he came half-way up the stairs to
make an announcement.
“The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the
postman. I've had very little practice in this sort of
thing, you see. Another time I shall do better.”
The housemaid, who was engaged to be married to the
evening postman, gave way to clamorous grief.
“Remember that your mistress has a headache,” said J. P.
Huddle. (Miss Huddle's headache was worse.)
Clovis hastened downstairs, and after a short visit to the
library returned with another message:
“The Bishop is sorry to hear that Miss Huddle has a
headache. He is issuing orders that as far as possible no
firearms shall be used near the house; any killing that is
necessary on the premises will be done with cold steel. The
Bishop does not see why a man should not be a gentleman as
well as a Christian.”
That was the last they saw of Clovis; it was nearly seven
o'clock, and his elderly relative liked him to dress for
dinner. But, though he had left them for ever, the lurking
suggestion of his presence haunted the lower regions of the
house during the long hours of the wakeful night, and every
creak of the stairway, every rustle of wind through the
shrubbery, was fraught with horrible meaning. At about
seven next morning the gardener's boy and the early postman
finally convinced the watchers that the Twentieth Century
was still unblotted.
“I don't suppose,” mused Clovis, as an early train bore
him townwards, “that they will be in the least grateful for
the Unrest-cure.”