“That created a difficulty for some time. Smith’s way out of it is disingenuous, but it has worked. The white missionary is barred, but native Protestant converts will be admitted freely, and a church will be built. Religion is accepted but not secular education. There will be a church, but there will be no school. As for the Catholics, Smith appears to do what he likes. The priests will ask to be transferred to another island—a sphere of greater usefulness. They came here enthusiastic, but they’ve grown slack and they’ve done themselves too well. Smith knows something perhaps, and could write a letter if necessary, and they know that he could. At any rate there are to be no more Catholics in Faloo. That was a point which told tremendously with Lechworthy. Of course, we know that in a very short time there will be no more Protestants either. We know what happens to the Protestant convert when the white man is away and there is neither moral support nor public opinion to back him.”
“If you had worked on that,” said Mast, “you might have separated Smith and Lechworthy.”
“It might have been tried,” said Sir John.
“It was, and it failed. You see, Sweetling, Smith had been ready for it. The line taken was that the true religion must prevail, whether by the native convert or by the white missionary. The idea of the first Protestant church in Faloo had a glamour about it for Lechworthy. A site is chosen already for that church, and a rough plan sketched out. And I have not the least doubt that it will actually be built. Smith knows what he’s about. I found I had come up against real faith, and with that one cannot argue. And even if I had succeeded, what was the use? So soon as the business partnership comes into being, we lose our hold on Smith, and the position becomes intolerable. He can charge us anything he likes for the goods he supplies. He can refuse to supply us altogether. He can refuse to carry our mail. And certainly he would no longer risk his popularity by standing between us and those of the natives, who, with good reason, hate us. The game’s up. Rien ne va plus.”
“The position is certainly very grave,” said Sir John. “What about the Snowflake?”
“Was to have left yesterday afternoon. Lechworthy asked me if I had any letters to send, but I had none. The delay was caused because Smith had not had time to finish some papers that Lechworthy wanted to send on. Lechworthy himself sent, amongst others, letters to his editor and to his political chief. They will catch a steamer at the nearest port on the route. Then the Snowflake returns to Faloo, to take up Lechworthy and his niece. Those letters are on their way now, and you can imagine the kind of letters that the astonished visitor to Faloo is likely to write. This island has become too public for us.”
“If those letters arrive, that must be so,” said Sir John. “Well, I deprecate any interference with private letters, of course, but there are exceptional cases. Here are we, a body of men, who, from mistakes and misunderstandings, are anxious to retire from the world. Without our invitation and against our wishes this vulgar wealthy manufacturer intrudes himself here, and proposes to make the place intolerable for us. We had a right to see that those letters were not sent. It seems to me, Dr Pryce, that you might have gone on board the Snowflake and, one way or another, managed that.”
“Then you’re wrong, Sweetling. If I could have done it, it would have meant only a temporary postponement of our troubles, but it was not possible. I went to the King’s house as a suspected man. Smith, in a flurried moment, let me see that he suspected me—he thought I meant to kill Miss Auriol, or at any rate to allow her to die. Lechworthy did not suspect me at all; if I had wished to join the Snowflake for this preliminary trip he would have arranged it; he is really absurdly grateful to me. But even he would have thought my desertion of the patient queer, for he wishes her to be still under a doctor’s care. Smith would have gone further, and would have sent a message to the skipper. Do you think a suspected man is going to have a chance to fool with the mail that’s entrusted to a sober Scotch skipper?” Here he looked steadily at Sir John. “Why, he’d have as good a chance of scuttling the ship, and he’d have no chance of that. Suspected people don’t have chances.”
“This is most disappointing,” said Mast, peevishly. “I had felt confident that Dr Pryce would pull us through. And what has he done? Nothing.”
“And what would you have done, you silly boozer?”