3
Thrale’s “higher forces” had shown their hand.
The humble and rotund instrument of their choice had served his purpose, and he was probably the first man in London to receive the news—a delicate acknowledgment, perhaps, of his services.
The telegram was addressed to the firm, but as neither of the heads of the house had arrived, Gosling opened it according to precedent.
“Gosh!” was his sole exclamation, but the tone of it stirred the interest of Flack, who turned to see his colleague’s rather protuberant blue eyes staring with a fishy glare at a flimsy sheet of paper which visibly trembled in the hold of two clusters of fat fingers.
Flack lifted his spectacles and holding them on a level with his eyebrows, said, “Bad news?”
Gosling sat down, and in the fever of the moment wiped his forehead with his snuff handkerchief, then discovered his mistake and laid the handkerchief carelessly on the desk. This infringement of his invariable practice produced even more effect upon Flack than the staring eyes and wavering fingers. Gosling might be guilty of mild histrionics, but not of such a touch as this. The utter neglect of decency exhibited by the display of that shameful bandanna could only portend calamity.
“Lord’s sakes, man, what’s the matter?” asked Flack, still taking an observation under his spectacles.
“It’s come, Flack,” said Gosling feebly. “It’s in Scotland. Our Mr Stewart died of it in Dundee this mornin’.”
Flack rose from his seat and grabbed the telegram, which was brief and pregnant. “Stewart died suddenly five a.m. Feared plague. Macfie.”
“Tchah!” said Flack, still staring at the telegram. “‘Feared plague.’ Lost their ’eads, that’s what they’ve done. Pull yourself together, man. I don’t believe a word of it.”
Gosling swallowed elaborately, discovered his bandanna on the desk and hastily pocketed it. “Might ’a been ’eart-disease, d’you think?” he said eagerly.
“We-el,” remarked Flack, “I never ’eard as ’is ’eart was affected, did you?”
Gosling held out his hand for the telegram, and made a further elaborate study of it, without, however, discovering any hitherto unsuspected evidence relating to the unsoundness of Stewart’s heart.
“It says ‘feared,’ of course,” he remarked at last. “Macfie wouldn’t have said feared if ’e’d been sure.”
“They’d ’ardly have mentioned plague in a telegram if they ’adn’t been pretty certain, though,” argued Flack.
Gosling was so upset that he had to go out and get a nip of brandy, a thing he had not done since the morning after Blanche was born.
The partners looked grave when they heard the news from Dundee, and London generally looked very grave indeed, when they read the full details an hour later in the Evening Chronicle.
Stewart, it appeared, had come straight through from Berlin to London via Flushing and Port Victoria, and on landing in England he had managed to escape quarantine. His was not an isolated case. For some weeks it had been possible for British subjects to get past the officials. There was nothing in the regulations to allow such an evasion of the order, but it could be managed occasionally. Stewart had been told to spare no expense.
The Evening Chronicle, although it made the most of its opportunity in contents bill and headlines, said that there was no cause for alarm, that these things were managed better in Great Britain than on the Continent; that the case had been isolated from the first moment the plague was recognized (about five hours before death), that the body had been burned, and that the most extensive and elaborate process of disinfection was being carried out—even the sleeping coach in which Stewart had travelled from London to Dundee twelve hours before, had been identified and burned also.
London still looked grave, but was nevertheless a little inclined to congratulate itself on the thoroughness of British methods. “We’ll never get it in England, you see if we do,” was the remark chiefly in vogue among the great Gosling family.
But twelve hours or so too late, England was beginning to regret that the Government had been defeated. It was rumoured that the Premier had broken down, had immediately resigned his office, and would not seek re-election as a private member.
This rumour was definitely confirmed in the later editions of the evening papers. Mr Brampton had been summoned to Buckingham Palace and was forming a temporary ministry which was to take office. In the circumstances it was deemed inadvisable to plunge the country into a general election at that moment.