THE ORDERS FOR THE DAY
"The orders for the day don't need much explanation," said Fitz. "Merely see that there are six cartridges in your revolver; keep it in your trouser pocket with your hand on it, and then follow the man from Cook's."
"Like all schemes of the first magnitude," said I, "it appears to be simplicity itself."
"It is this confounded revolver business," said Coverdale, "that I should like to see dispensed with. It might so easily land us in serious trouble."
"It is far more likely to land us out of serious trouble," said Fitz. "But this I can promise: they will not be produced except in the last resort."
It was clear that the question of the revolvers had made Coverdale as uneasy as it had made me; but the only thing to be done now was to pin implicit faith upon the saneness of Fitz's judgment. Certainly he had aroused respect. His method of communicating to Alexander O'Mulligan the nature of the cause, and the need for absolute obedience to the word of command, appeared to kindle awe and admiration in equal parts in the breast of the middle-weight champion of the United Kingdom.
"Do exactly as you are told, O'Mulligan, and do nothing without orders, unless they begin to shoot, and then you begin to shoot too. By the way, Arbuthnot, did I understand you to say you had forgotten to bring a revolver?"
I admitted the impeachment.
"I have several spare ones in my overcoat"—the tone of reproof was delicate. "Is there any one else who has forgotten to provide himself with one?"
"There is also a spare one at my rooms round the corner," said Alexander O'Mulligan, with an air of modest pride.
Fitz honoured the new recruit with a nod of curt approval. In any assembly of law-breakers the Bayard from Jermyn Street would be sure of a hearty welcome. His face had expanded to the most moonlike proportions, which the freckles and the prominent ears set off fantastically; and in the green eyes was a look of genuine ecstasy, beside which the emotion in those of Brasset and Jodey was mere hopeful expectation.
Fitz took out his watch and studied it with the air of the Man of Destiny.
"Fourteen minutes to nine," said he. "At nine o'clock I shall drive alone to No. 300 Portland Place, in a taxi. At four minutes past nine Coverdale and Arbuthnot will follow. They will ask for the Ambassador, Coverdale giving the name of General Drago, and Arbuthnot the name of Count Alexis Zbynska. You will be shown into a waiting-room while your names are taken in to his Excellency. If he is in, he will receive you; if he is not, Grindberg, or one of the other secretaries, or one of the Attachés will have a word with you. Keep your mufflers up to your ears and have the collars of your overcoats turned up. If von Arlenberg is not in, say you will wait for him. You can use Illyrian, or French, or broken English. Of course your object, in any case, will be to gain time and keep in the house until you receive further instructions. Am I clear?"
"Reasonably clear," said Coverdale. "If we gain access to the house we are not to leave it until we hear from you?"
"That is so."
"And what about Alec and Brasset and me?" The earnestness of my relation by marriage was wistful.
"O'Mulligan will leave four minutes after Coverdale and Arbuthnot. He will merely give his name as Captain Forbes, who desires to fix an appointment with von Arlenberg upon a private matter of importance. He won't be able to fix it; but they will send a chap to talk to you, O'Mulligan. You must be very long-winded and you must use your best English, and you must waste as much time as you can. Understand?"
O'Mulligan beamed like a seraph.
"And Brasset and me?" said the pleading voice.
"Brasset will leave four minutes after O'Mulligan. He will be Mr. Bonser, a messenger from the Foreign Office, with a letter for von Arlenberg. Here you are, Brasset, here is the letter for von Arlenberg."
With a matter-of-factness which was really inimitable, Fitz tossed across the tablecloth the missive in question, copiously daubed with red sealing-wax.
"Brasset," said Fitz, "you will be careful not to give this most important letter into the keeping of anybody save and except his Excellency, Baron von Arlenberg, Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to his Majesty the King of Illyria, at the Court of Saint James."
"I hope the superscription is correct," said I, misguidedly.
Fitz looked me down with the eye of a Frederick. The sympathy of the table was with him entirely.
"Somebody will want to take it to the Ambassador," said Fitz. "But Brasset, your instructions are that you deliver this document to his Excellency in person."
With an air of reverence, Brasset inserted the letter with its portentous red seal in his cigar-case. The most exacting of ministers could not have desired a more trustworthy or a more eminently discreet custodian for an epoch-making document than the Master of the Crackanthorpe.
"How shall I know old von Thingamy when I see him?" inquired the messenger from the Foreign Office.
"You won't see him," said Fitz. "But you must make it appear that you want to see him particularly."
"But if I should happen to see him?"
The Master of the Crackanthorpe was awed into silence by a Napoleonic gesture.
"Where do I come in?" said the pleading voice from the wilderness.
"You come in, Vane-Anstruther," said Fitz to my relation by marriage, "four minutes after Brasset. You are Lieutenant von Wildengarth-Mergle from Blaenau, with a letter of introduction to the Illyrian Ambassador. Here is your card, and you can give it to anybody you like."
The recipient was immensely gratified by the card of Lieutenant von Wildengarth-Mergle of the Ninth Regiment of Hussars when it was bestowed upon him. His manner of disposing of it was precisely similar to that adopted by Brasset in the case of the letter from the Foreign Office. His bearing also was modelled obviously upon that of that ornament of high diplomacy.
"I assume," said I, "that we are all to bluff our way into the Illyrian Embassy; and once we are there we are to take care to stay until we are advised further?"
"That is so."
"But let us assume for a moment that we get no advice?"
"If I do not come to you by ten minutes to ten, or you are not sent for by then, you are all to leave any ante-room you may be in, and you are to walk straight up the central staircase, taking notice of nobody. If they try to stop you, merely say you wish to see the Ambassador."
"And if they use force?"
"Make use of it yourself, with as much noise as you can. And if you still fail to hear from me, then will be the time to think about retirement. Does everybody understand?"
Everybody did apparently.
"It is seven minutes to nine. Time we began to collect our taxis."
Fitz rose from the table, and in a body we went in search of our coats and hats. For my fellow conspirators I cannot speak, but my heart was beating in the absurdest manner, and my veins were tingling. There was that sense of exaltation in them which is generally reserved for a quick twenty minutes over the grass.
"Give me that revolver," said I.
As Fitz smuggled the weapon into my hand, I could feel my pulses leaping immorally. This sensation may have been due to my having dined at Ward's; although doubtless it is more scientific to ascribe it to some primeval instinct which has resisted civilisation's ravages upon human nature.
As I stealthily inserted the weapon into the pocket of my trousers, I stole a covert glance at the solemn visage of the Chief Constable. The great man was smiling benignly at his thoughts, and smoking a big cigar with an air of Homeric enjoyment.
As Fitz, tall-hatted and fur-coated, picked his way delicately down the slush-covered steps to where his taxi awaited him, he turned to offer a word of final instruction to his followers.
"Coverdale and Arbuthnot 9.4; O'Mulligan 9.8; Brasset 9.12; Vane-Anstruther 9.16. If you hear nothing in the meantime, at 9.50 you go upstairs."
"Righto," we chorussed, as Fitz boarded his chariot with a self-possession that was even touched with languor.
We watched him turn into Piccadilly, and then proceeded solemnly to invest ourselves in coats and mufflers. Four minutes is not a long space of time, yet it is quite possible for it to seem an age. Before the hall clock pointed to 9.4, one might have had a double molar drawn, or one's head cut off by the guillotine.
"300 Portland Place," said the Chief Constable in tones which somehow seemed astonishingly loud, while I squeezed as far as possible into the far corner of the vehicle for the better accommodation of my stalwart companion.
"Dirty night," said the Chief Constable. "Not fit for a dog to be out. Have the glass down?"
It may have been an overwrought fancy, but I thought I perceived a slight, but unmistakable tremor in the voice of the head of the Middleshire Constabulary.
"Not for me, thanks," said I. "These things are so stuffy."
The head of the Middleshire Constabulary agreed with me. The impression may have been due to a disordered fancy, but I thought I detected a note of embarrassment in the Chief Constable's laugh.
From Saint James's Street to Portland Place is not far, and this evening we seemed to accomplish the journey in a very short time. Having dismissed our taxi at the door of the Ambassador's imposing residence, we each looked to the other to ring his Excellency's door-bell.
"General," said I, "you are my senior, and I feel that your Illyrian, or your French, or your broken English or any other language in which you may be moved to indulge, will carry more weight than mine."
"Oh, do you! By the way; I have forgotten my name."
"General Drago."
"And yours?"
"Count Alexis Zbynska."
"Well, here goes."
The gallant warrior gave a mighty tug at the bell. This met with no attention; but at the second assault on the ambassadorial door-bell, the massive portal was swung back, slowly and solemnly, by a gorgeous menial. In the immediate background there were others.
"I am General Drago, and I wish to see the Ambassador." The Chief Constable's precision of phrase was really majestic.
The stalwart Illyrian, who seemed to be quite seven feet high from the crown of his wig to the soles of his silk stockings, bowed and led the way within.
When we had crossed his Excellency's threshold, and just as a gorgeous interior had unfolded itself to our respectful gaze, a very urbane-looking personage in evening clothes and a pair of white kid gloves took charge of us. He led us through a spacious hall containing pillars of white marble, whence we passed into a waiting-room, immediately to the right of a distinctly imposing alabaster staircase. In this apartment the light was dim and religious, and the atmosphere had a chill solemnity. Our friend of the white kid gloves presented us with a slip of paper apiece, and indicated an inkstand on the table.
"Write our names in Illyrian," I whispered to my fellow conspirator. "They will carry more weight."
The Chief Constable inscribed his own name on the slip of paper very laboriously, in the Illyrian character. When he had accomplished this feat, I proceeded as well as in me lay, and with a deliberation quite equal to his own, to commit to paper the name of the Herr Graf Alexis von Zbynska. I was beset with much misgiving as to the correct manner of spelling it, and therefore had recourse to a number of superfluous flourishes in order to conceal my ignorance as far as possible.
When the gentleman of the white kid gloves had solemnly borne away the slips of paper, the Chief Constable proceeded to remove a bead of honest perspiration from his manly forehead.
"Of all the cursed crackbrained schemes!" he muttered. "What does the madman expect us to do now!"
"Say as little and waste as much time as we can," said I, "and at ten minutes to ten, if we are still alive, we are to make our way up that staircase."
The head of the Middleshire Constabulary subsided into incoherence mingled with profanity.
The gentleman of the white kid gloves had closed the door upon us. The gloom and the silence of the room was terribly oppressive. With ticking nerves, I made a survey of its contents. The furniture appeared to consist of a large table with massive legs, half a dozen chairs covered in red leather, a full-length portrait in oils, by Bruffenhauser, of his Illyrian Majesty, Ferdinand the Twelfth, in which the victor of Rodova appeared in full regalia in a gilt frame, a really magnificent-looking old gentleman; while on a separate table at the far end of the room was the Almanach de Gotha.
It began to seem that our suspense was going to last for ever. Not a sound penetrated to us from beyond the closed door. At last Coverdale took out his watch.
"Is it ten minutes to ten yet?" I inquired anxiously.
"No; it still wants a couple of minutes to half-past nine."
To be condemned to support such tension for a whole twenty minutes longer was to place a term upon eternity.
"Hadn't we better open the door," said I, "so that we can hear if anything happens?"
My fellow conspirator concurred.
I opened the door accordingly and looked out in the direction, of the alabaster staircase. A man was descending it in a rather languid manner. There was something curiously familiar about his appearance. As soon as he saw me standing at the foot of the stairs he quickened his pace. It was clear that he wished to speak to me.
"Keep cool," he said, and to my half-joyful bewilderment I recognised the voice of Fitz. "You and Coverdale had better leave your overcoats in that room and go up. Go into the first room on the left on the first floor!"
With a coolness that was almost incredible, Fitz sauntered away across the wide vestibule with his hands in his pockets, while I returned to Coverdale with this latest command.
We obeyed it with a sense of relief. Anything was better than to sit counting the seconds in that funereal waiting-room. Divested of our overcoats, we went forth up the staircase, doing our best to appear quite at ease, as though there was nothing in the least unusual in the situation.
Half-way up we were confronted with two men coming down. They looked at us with quiet intentness and seemed inclined to speak. Coverdale passed on with set gaze and rigid facial muscles, an art in which, like so many of his countrymen, he is greatly accomplished. His "Speak-to-me-if-you-dare" expression stood us in excellent stead. The two men passed down the stairs without venturing to address us, and we went up.
The first room on the left, on the first floor, was a larger and more cheerful apartment than the one from which we had come. It was better lit; there was a bright fire, and it was furnished with taste, after the fashion of a drawing-room. There were books, photographs, and a piano.
The room was empty, but we had been in it scarcely a minute when a servant entered to offer us coffee. We did not disdain the ambassadorial bounty. Excellent coffee it was.
We were toying with this refreshment when a stealthy rustle apprised us that we were also about to receive the indulgence of feminine society. A young woman, tall and graceful, fair to the eye and charmingly gowned, came into the room with a sheet of music in her hand. The presence of a pair of total strangers did not embarrass her.
"Do you like Schubert?" said she, with a delightful foreign intonation.
"I think Schubert is charming," said I, with heartiness and promptitude.
The lady flashed her teeth in a rare smile and sat down at the piano. I arranged her music with a care that was rather elaborate.
It was not Schubert, however, that she began to play, but a haunting little "Impromptu" of Schumann's. Her playing was good to listen to, for her touch was highly educated; also it was fascinating to watch her movements, since she was an extremely graceful and vivid work of nature.
Very assiduously I turned over her music. The occupation in itself was pleasant; also it seemed to give some sort of sanction to our unlawful presence. Coverdale, with his hands tucked deep in his pockets, appeared to listen most critically to the lady's playing; although, as I have heard him declare himself, the only form of music that appeals to him is "a really good brass band."
In the course of the performance of Schumann's "Impromptu" the audience of the fair pianist gained in number and authority. Like the famous Pied Piper of Hamelin, the thrilling delicacy of her touch began to entice quaint beasts from their lair. Alexander O'Mulligan sauntered into the drawing-room at about the fourth bar. He wore his most seraphic grin, and his ears were spread to catch the most illusive chords of melody. He gave Coverdale a jovial nod and winked at me. It was clear that the amateur middle-weight champion of Great Britain was enjoying himself immensely.
Hardly had Alexander O'Mulligan advised us of his genial presence, when Brasset and my relation by marriage came in upon tiptoe. The sight of us all with an unknown lady discoursing Schumann for our benefit was doubtless as reassuring as it was unexpected. In the emotion of the moment Jodey gave the amateur middle-weight champion a fraternal dig in the ribs.
However, our party could not be considered complete without the presence of the chief gamester. The "Impromptu" had run its course and the gracious lady at the piano had been prevailed upon to play something of Brahms', when the master mind, whose arrival we were nervously awaiting, appeared once more upon the scene. Fitz came into the room looking every inch the Man of Destiny.