CHAPTER VII
THE COMPACT
The next evening, as Baron Kolár raised himself on the arm of a valet into the trap which was to carry him to his meeting with Dr Burton, Langler remembered that some matters were going forward at Swandale which demanded his personal managing, and he asked me to go with him.
It was a fine autumn twilight when we set out, a sound of singing following us from the house and laughter from knots on the lawn, and we had a very pleasant ride. At Swandale Langler talked with John, with Jane, saw this and that with his own eyes, the water-cress at the rill under wire, the patch of reaped corn, for now poppies lay low, over the fields of the land the corn-shocks were leant together in lots, and all smelt well of harvest.
Langler wished to return to Goodford on foot, and we were presently trudging back through Ritching.
That something was on his mind I had felt sure; and this proved to be so, for as we drew nigh to Ritching church he said: "I have decided, Arthur, to speak with Dr Burton to-night, since, if this good man runs his rather rash head into any danger, I do not wish to have to reproach myself with too shrinking and nice a silence on my part."
"But danger of what nature?" I asked.
"Its nature is unguessable," he answered; "but of the danger itself one can't, I think, have any doubt. We know, for instance, that Dr Burton is 'another Max Dees,' and we know that Max Dees is, for some reason or other, in durance. Now, of Max Dees we have two further pieces of knowledge: first, that his imprisonment has features resembling the disappearance of Robinson; and secondly, that he, like Dr Burton, is a 'union of Becket and Savonarola.' Well, now, with regard to the vanishing of Robinson, Emily has let fall the view that it was motived by his 'beauty'; and though this reason for the disappearance of a man seems even ridiculous, still we have promised ourselves not wholly to ignore her instincts in this matter. If, then, she may somehow be right, the reason for the disappearance of Max Dees may somehow be found in the fact that he, too, is 'beautiful'; or it may be found in the second fact known of him, that he is a 'union of Becket and Savonarola': we don't know: but we know that he is imprisoned, and that in some respects he resembles Dr Burton. As to who is the gaoler of Max Dees, I am really no more in any doubt. The word 'Kolár' fits very well into the blurred space on the missive brought us by the wren; and the man himself, you remember, made no effort to blind our eyes when asked about the matter, even going out of his way to assure us that the other two Gregors are 'harmless, nice fellows.' What a beast that man is! Yet how great a strength of soul is his! Imagine, Arthur (if he is, in truth, the gaoler of Dees), his astonishment at hearing that name on my lips! How utter at this moment must be his loss to understand by what marvel I could ever have learned that name. I expected at least to see him start, to look abashed a little. But no; his eyes rested serenely on my face: he seemed to be sorry for me, to deplore my indiscretion. Here, then, is a man mighty in mass and stature, all self-assured, whose will, whether it be bent upon good or upon ill, is hardly to be withstood. Such a person is, apart from special considerations, inherently formidable; but how if this person be found trying to convert another to enmity against the Church, and at the same time be found striking up a friendship with a churchman who in certain particulars resembles another churchman imprisoned in his castle? Certainly, one's mind can't reject a notion of danger; and it has appeared to me that I ought not to hold my peace in the matter, in spite of the outré warning of the card which Baron Kolár has been kind enough to forward me."
We had now arrived before Ritching church, which stands well back from the village street in a large piece of land—"park" one may call it—well timbered and dark. The building itself is big, modern, and ugly—one of those churches with huge roofs, red bricks, red shingles, which rather suggest the cult of some latter-day Moloch than of the Carpenter. It is built, however, over some old vaults in which repose generations of the Hampshire branch of the Bellasis family, once of Goodford, now extinct.
We got into the grounds by a gateway in a wall of rubble before the church, and thence, by a path which winds inward through the park some quarter of a mile towards the vicarage, passed on to the vicarage garden. The night was now dark, and we found the house in darkness.