Scarcely had the words been uttered, when Saul Hartz was troubled to perceive the look of horror in the eyes of his lieutenant. “Forgive me, Gage!” It was almost the air of a schoolboy. “You’re not thinking of yourself, I know that of course, but you must, you simply must, trust the man at the wheel, as you always have trusted him, eh?”
For both, the silence that followed was full of pain. And of a sudden it was ended by half audible words. “I offer my resignation not because I want to, not because I ought to, but because a power not myself....” Unable to complete a sentence that grew more lame as it went on, the editor of the Planet lurched awkwardly out of the room.
XV
RUFFLED in temper, chafed in spirit, the Colossus sought distraction in his morning’s mail. For the most part his letters were not exciting. But the bonne bouche was still held in reserve. The registered envelope heavily sealed with black wax and ominously edged with a mourning border, which had first caught his attention, he was careful to keep back until all the others had been opened. Finally, as its turn came, he felt a queer little thrill of anticipation as he took it in his fingers.
The emotion it aroused was not wholly agreeable. Nay; it was so odd as to be a little unpleasant. What could such a portentous thing contain? Before breaking the seal he examined it closely. But externals told nothing beyond what was to be deduced from the outside of the envelope, which bore the postmark Charing Cross.
From the inside he took a single sheet of plain note paper. On it were typewritten the following words:
“To the World’s Mischief Maker
“You are required to attend a special meeting of the Council of Seven. Time and place will be communicated to you in due course. Meanwhile you are advised to put your affairs in order.”
There was no signature to this document. It revealed nothing beyond these trite sentences, so cryptic and so bald, which might mean so little or so much.
To Saul Hartz, however, this message implied a great deal. It was his boast, and no idle one, that he was the best informed man in Europe. The wonderful organization of which he was the mainspring, the controlling spirit, gave him facilities for knowing what was taking place behind the scenes, not in England nor in Europe only, but in every land of the habitable globe. Many portentous and significant things, the aftermath of the recent world upheaval, which were only hinted at in senates and chancellories or vaguely guessed at by private individuals and the public at large were matters of common form to Saul Hartz. No man alive had a deeper insight into hidden things. And for that reason the shock he now received would hardly have been felt by a person of average information or experience.