The Under-Secretary

Chapter Twenty.
Throws Light on the Past

Finding that his visitor was determined to travel back to London at once, Dudley gave orders for the dog-cart to be brought round to the servants’ entrance, for Cator had expressed the strongest desire that his visit should remain unknown.

“Among your guests are several persons who have wintered in Rome, with whom I am on friendly terms. Just now I’m too much occupied to meet them. You’ll quite understand,” he said.

“Perfectly, my dear sir,” replied the Under-secretary, mixing another glass of whiskey for each of them. “In this matter I shall be perfectly silent. From me not a soul will know that you have been in England.”

Dudley’s spirits had risen, for he imagined that he had successfully evaded the man’s inquiries and by that means had staved off the threatened exposure and ruin.

“From what I’ve explained you will readily recognise how extremely critical is the present situation, and the urgent necessity that exists for a firm and defiant policy on our part. But until I discover the truth the chief is utterly unable to move, lest he should precipitate events and cause the bursting of the war-cloud.”

“Exactly. I see it all quite plainly,” Dudley answered. “I trust you will experience little difficulty in discovering the man for whom you are searching. I need not say how extremely anxious I shall be to see the strange matter elucidated, so that the mystery may once and for all be cleared up.”

“I am working unceasingly towards that end, Mr Chisholm,” answered Cator with a meaning look in his quick grey eyes, as he drained his glass and rose. “And now I have only to apologise for intruding upon you at such an unearthly hour.”

“Apology is quite unnecessary,” Dudley assured him. “It appears that the matter personally concerns me in some extraordinary manner.”

“Yes,” replied the chief of the secret service. “So it seems. But we shall know more later, I hope. My staff are on the alert everywhere. As every confidential agent that England possesses on the Continent is at work endeavouring to unravel the mystery of Mayne Lennox, I am very hopeful of success. And success will allow England to make a counter-stroke that will paralyse our enemies and ‘frustrate their knavish tricks,’ to quote a suppressed line from the National Anthem.”

“I wish you every luck,” said the Under-Secretary, shaking the other’s thin and chilly hand. “As I can’t persuade you to remain the night, I hope you’ll have a comfortable journey up to town.”

“Not very comfortable, I anticipate,” the captain laughed, surveying himself. “I’m in an awful state – aren’t I? It was so late when I got to Shrewsbury that I couldn’t get a conveyance anywhere, so in desperation I tramped over here.”

“Well, Barton shall drive you back; you’ll have plenty of time for your train. When do you return to the Continent?”

“Perhaps at once – by the eleven from Charing Cross. It all depends upon a telegram which I shall receive on arrival in town. My future movements are extremely uncertain. They always are. From one hour to another I never know in which direction I shall be hurrying.”

Chisholm had heard of this man’s rapidity of movement. Indeed, it was whispered in his own circle in the Foreign Office that Archie Cator would often retire to his bachelor rooms in Rome, and cause his man, Jewell, to give out that his master was indisposed, and confined to his bed; though, as a matter of fact, the chief of the Confidential Intelligence Department would be flying across to Berlin, Vienna, or Petersburg on a swift and secret mission. He lived two lives so completely that his ingenuity surpassed comprehension. In Rome, only his servant and the Ambassador knew the truth. Even at that moment the diplomatic circle in the Eternal City believed their popular member, Captain Archie Cator of the British Embassy, to be suffering from one of his acute and periodical attacks of the rheumatic gout which so often prostrated him.

Dudley himself conducted his distinguished visitor down several stone corridors into the servants’ quarters. In the courtyard outside stood Barton with the dog-cart, the light of the lamps showing that the snow was still thawing into thick slush.

“Good-bye,” cried the captain airily, when he had swung himself into the trap and turned up the collar of his shabby overcoat.

“Good-bye, and good luck!” exclaimed the owner of Wroxeter, with a warmth that was far from being heart-felt. Then the trap turned, and disappeared swiftly through the old arched gateway into the black winter’s night.

Dudley, full of conflicting thoughts, paced slowly back through the echoing corridors until he reached the ancient banqueting hall, where the dancing had not long since been in progress. But all was silence, and on opening the door he found the place in darkness. The gaiety had ended, and his guests had retired. He crossed the great, gloomy hall, distinguished by its ghostly-looking stands of armour, on which the light from the corridor shone in gleaming patches, and, passing down another corridor of the rambling old place, entered the smoking-room, where half a dozen men were taking their whiskey and gossiping as was their habit before going to bed.

“Hulloa, Dudley!” cried one man as he entered. “We’ve been looking for you for an hour past. We wanted you to take a hand at whist.”

“I had some little matters to attend to, so I slipped away,” his host explained. “I know you will forgive me.”

“Of course,” the man laughed, pulling forward a chair, into which Chisholm sank wearily. When he had allowed a servant to hand him some refreshment he joined? in the discussion which his entrance had interrupted. As it was incumbent upon him to spend an hour with his guests, he did so, but of the conversation he scarcely had any idea, for his mind was full of grave thoughts, and he spoke mechanically, heartily wishing that the men would retire, and leave him at liberty to return to his study.

At last they all bade him good-night. As soon as they were gone he walked slowly to that old room in which he knew he would remain undisturbed. He threw himself down in the cosy-corner beside the blazing logs, where he sat staring fixedly at the dancing flames.

For a long time he remained immovable, his face hard and drawn, his eyes wide open and fixed, until of a sudden he passed his hand slowly across his brow, sighed heavily, and at last allowed bitter words to escape from his white lips.

“My God!” he exclaimed in wild despair; “it’s all over. That man Cator has discovered the clue which must sooner or later reveal the hideous truth. If it were any other person except him there might be just a chance of misleading the chase. But no secret is safe from him and his army of confidential agents. Ruin – nothing but ruin is before me! What can I do?”

He rose and paced the room quickly with unequal steps. His face was blanched, his eyes were fixed, his clenched hands trembled.

“Ah!” he cried bitterly to himself, “it would have been best to have resigned and gone abroad months ago, while there was yet time. Under another name I might have contrived to conceal my identity in one or other of the colonies, where they do not inquire too closely into a man’s antecedents. But, alas! it is now too late. My movements are evidently watched, and I am under suspicion, owing to the discovery of my connection with that scoundrel Lennox. To resign my appointment is impossible. I can only remain and face the ruin, shame, and ignominy that are inevitable. I have sinned before God, and before man!” he cried wildly, his face upturned, his clenched hands held trembling above his head in blank despair. “For me there is no forgiveness – none! – none! My only means of escape is suicide,” he gasped with bated breath. “A few drops of liquid in a wine-glass full of innocent water, and all will be over – all the anguish, all the fever. No, it is not difficult – not at all,” and he laughed a hard, dry, sarcastic laugh. “And a final drastic step of that sort is far preferable to shame and ruin.”

He was silent for some time. His lips were still moving as he stood there in the centre of the room, but no sound came from them. In the awful agony he suffered he spoke to himself and heard words that were unuttered. The possibility which he had suspected and dreaded during so many dark weeks was now becoming horribly realised. His secret sin would before long be revealed in all its true hideousness, and he, England’s rising statesman, the man of whom so much was prophesied, the man who was trusted by the Prime Minister, who held such a brilliant and responsible position, and who was envied by all the lesser fry in the House, would be rudely cast forth as unfit and unworthy, his name, honoured for generations, rendered odious.

Truly his position was graver and more precarious than that of ninety-nine out of a hundred men. Condemnation was at hand. Cator, now that he knew the name of Mayne Lennox, would not be long in laying bare the whole of the facts.

And then?

He thought it all over, sighing heavily and clenching his hands in wild despair. To no single person could he look for assistance, for he dared not confide in any one. He could only suffer alone, and pay the penalty for his sin.

How little the world knows of the inner life of its greatest men! The popular favourite, the chosen of fortune in the various walks of life, is too often an undeserving man, the skeleton in whose cupboard could not bear the light of day. Fortune never chooses the best men for the best places. Dishonesty grows fat, while virtue dies of starvation. The public are prone to envy the men who are popular, who are “boomed” by the newspapers, and whose doings are chronicled daily with the same assiduity as the movements of the Sovereign himself, yet in many cases these very men, as did Dudley Chisholm, shrink from the fierce light always beating upon them. They loathe the plaudits of the multitude, because of the inner voice of conscience that tells them they are charlatans and shams; and they are always promising themselves that one day, when they see a fitting opportunity, they will retire into private life.

In every public assembly, from the smallest parish council up to Westminster itself, there are prominent members who live in daily fear of exposure. Although looked upon by the world as self-denying, upright citizens, they are, nevertheless, leading a life of awful tension and constant anxiety, knowing that their enemies may at any moment reveal the truth.

Thus it was with Dudley Chisholm. That he was a man well fitted for the responsible post he occupied in the Government could not be denied, and that he had carefully and assiduously carried out the duties of his office was patent to all. Yet the past – that dark, grim past which had caused him to travel in the unfrequented tracks of the Far East – had never ceased to haunt him, until now he could plainly see that the end was very near. Exposure could not be long delayed.

The turret-clock chimed the hour slowly, and its bells aroused him.

“No,” he cried hoarsely to himself, “no, it would not be just! Before taking the final step I must place things in order – I must go out of office with all the honour and dignity of the Chisholms,” he added with a short and bitter laugh. “Out of office!” he repeated hoarsely to himself, “out of office – and out of the world!”

Chapter Twenty One.
Sows Seeds of Suspicion

Chisholm with uneven steps walked back to the big writing-table, turned up the reading-lamp and, seating himself, began to put the many official papers quickly in order, signing some, destroying others, and now and then making marginal notes on those to be returned to the Foreign Office. Many of the more unimportant documents he consigned to the waste-paper basket, but the others he arranged carefully, sorted them, and placed them in several of the large official envelopes upon which the address was printed, together with the bold words “On Her Majesty’s Service.”

The light of hope had died from his well-cut features. His countenance was changed, grey, anxious, with dark haggard eyes and trembling lips. When, at last, he had finished, he rose again with a strange smile of bitterness. He crossed to the portion of the book-lined wall that was merely imitation, opened it, and with the key upon his chain took from the small safe concealed there the envelope secured by the black seal, and the small piece of folded paper which contained the lock of fair hair – his most cherished possession.

He opened the paper and stood with the golden curl in the palm of his hand, gazing upon it long and earnestly.

“Hers!” he moaned in a voice that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “If she were here I wonder what would be her advice? I might long ago have confided in her, told her all, and asked her help. She would have given it. Yes, she was my friend, and would have sacrificed her very life to save me. But it is all over. I am alone – utterly alone.”

Tears stood in his eyes as he raised the love-token slowly and reverently to his lips. Then he spoke again:

“For me there only remains the punishment of Heaven. And yet in those days how childishly happy we were – how perfect was our love! Is it an actual reality that I’m standing here to-night for the last time, or is it a dream? No,” he added, his teeth clenched in firmness, “it’s no dream. The end has come!”

The stillness of the night remained unbroken for a long time, for he continued to stand beside the table with the fair curl in his nervous hand. Many times he had been sorely tempted to destroy it, and put an end to all the thoughts of the past that it conjured up. And yet he had grown to regard it as a talisman, and actually dare not cast it from him.

“Little lock of hair,” he said at last in a choking voice, his eyes fixed upon it, “throughout these years you have formed the single link that has connected me with those blissful days of fervent love. You are the only souvenir I possess of her, and you, emblem of her, fragile, exquisite, tender, were my faithful companion through those long journeys in far-off lands. In days of peril you have rested near my heart; you have been my talisman; you have, sweet and silent friend, cheered me often, telling me that even though long absent I was not forgotten. Yes – yes!” he exclaimed wildly; “you are part of her – actually part of her!” and again he kissed the lock of hair in a burst of uncontrollable feeling.

Suddenly he drew himself up. His manner instantly changed, as the stern reality again forced itself upon him.

“Ah!” he sighed, “those days are long spent, and to me happiness can never return – never. My sin has risen against me; my one false step debars me from the pleasures of the world.” His chin was sunk upon his breast, and he stood staring at the little curl, deep in reverie. At last, without another word, he raised it again to his hot, parched lips, and then folded it carefully in its wrapping.

The envelope he broke open, took out the small piece of transparent paper, and spread it upon a piece of white foolscap in order to read it with greater ease. Slowly he pondered over every one of the almost microscopic words written there. As he read, his heavy brows were knit, as though some of the words puzzled him.

He took a pencil from the inkstand and with it traced a kind of geometrical diagram of several straight lines upon the blotting-pad.

These lines were similar to those he had traced with his stick in the dust when standing at the stile on that steep path in the lonely coppice near Godalming.

Now and then he referred to the small document in the crabbed handwriting, and afterwards examined his diagram, as though to make certain of its correct proportions. Then, resting his chin upon his hands, he sat staring at the paper as it lay upon the blotting-pad within the zone of mellow lamplight.

“It seems quite feasible,” he said at last, speaking aloud. “Would that the suggestion were only true! But unfortunately it is merely a vague and ridiculous idea – a fantastic chimera of the imagination, after all. No,” he added resolutely, “the hope is utterly false and misleading. It will not bear a second thought.”

With sad reluctance he refolded the piece of transparent paper, replaced it in the envelope, and put it back in the safe without resealing it. But from the same unlocked drawer he took a formidable-looking blue envelope, together with a tiny paper folded oblong, and sealed securely with white wax. The paper contained a powdered substance.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary carried them both back to his writing-table, and laid them before him. Upon the envelope was written in a bold legal hand, doubly underlined: “The Last Will and Testament of Dudley Waldegrave Chisholm, Esquire (Copy).”

He smiled bitterly as he glanced at the superscription, then drew out the document and spread it before him, reading through clause after clause quite calmly.

There were four pages of foolscap, engrossed with the usual legal margin and bound together with green silk. By it the Castle of Wroxeter and his extensive property in Shropshire were disposed of in a dozen words. The document was only lengthy by reason of the various bequests to old servants of the family and annuities to certain needy cousins. With the exception of the Castle and certain lands, the bulk of the great estate was, by that will, bequeathed to a well-known London hospital.

Some words escaped him when, after completing its examination, during which he found nothing he wished to be altered, he refolded it. He then sealed it in another envelope and wrote in a big, bold hand: “My Will – Dudley Chisholm.”

As the names of his solicitors, Messrs Tarrant and Drew, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, were appended to the document, there was no necessity for him to superscribe them.

“All is entirely in order,” he murmured hoarsely. “And now I have to decide whether to await my doom, or take time by the forelock.” As he spoke thus, his nervous hand toyed with the little paper packet before him.

The room was in semi-darkness, for the logs had burned down and their red glow threw no light. At that moment the turret-clock struck a deep note, which echoed far away across the silent Severn.

A strange look was in his eyes. The fire of insanity was burning there. As he glanced around in a strained and peculiar manner, he noticed upon a side table the whiskey, some soda-water, and a glass, all of which Riggs, according to custom, had placed there ready to his hand.

Without hesitation he crossed to it, resolved on the last desperate step. He drew from the syphon until the glass was half-full. Then he added some whiskey, returned with it to his seat, and placed it upon the table.

With care he opened the little packet that had been hoarded since the days of his journey in Central Asia, disclosing a small quantity of some yellowish powder, which he emptied into the glass, stirring it with the ivory paper-knife until all became dissolved. Then he sank into his chair with the tumbler set before him.

He held it up to the light, examining it critically, with a sad smile playing about his thin white lips. Presently he put it down, and with both hands pushed the hair wearily from his fevered forehead.

“Shall I write to Claudia?” he asked himself in a hoarse voice, scarcely louder than a whisper. “Shall I leave her a letter confessing all and asking forgiveness?”

For a long time he pondered over the suggestion that had thus come to him.

“No,” he said at last, “it would be useless, and my sin would only cause my memory to be more hateful. Ah, no!” he murmured; “to leave the world in silence is far the best. The coroner’s jury will return a verdict to the effect that I was of unsound mind. Juries don’t return verdicts of felo-de-se nowadays. The time of stakes and cross-roads has passed.”

And he laughed harshly again, for now that he had placed all his affairs in order a strange carelessness in regard to existence had come upon him.

“To-morrow, when I am found, the papers – those same papers that have boomed me, as they term it – will discover in my end a startling sensation. All sorts of ridiculous rumours will be afloat. Parliament will gossip when it meets; but in a week my very name will be forgotten. One memorial alone will remain of me, my name engraved upon the tablet in the house of the Royal Geographical Society as its gold-medallist. And nothing else – absolutely nothing.”

Again he paused. After a few minutes had passed he stretched out his trembling hand and took the glass.

“What will the world say of me, I wonder?” he exclaimed in a hoarse tone. “Will they declare that I was a coward?”

“Yes,” came an answering voice, low, but quite distinct within the old brown room, “the world will surely say that Dudley Chisholm was a coward —a coward!”

He sprang to his feet in alarm, dashing the glass down on the table, and, turning quickly to the spot whence the answer had come, found himself face to face with an intruder who had evidently been concealed behind the heavy curtains of dark red velvet before the window, and who had heard everything and witnessed all his agony.

The figure was lithe and of middle stature – the figure of a woman in a plain dark dress standing back in the deep shadow.

At the first moment he could not distinguish the features; but when he had rushed forward a few paces, fierce resentment in his heart because his actions had been overlooked, he suddenly became aware of the women’s identity.

It was Muriel Mortimer.

Since he had locked the door behind him as soon as he had entered the room, she must have been concealed behind the heavy curtains which were drawn across the deep recess of the old diamond-paned window.

“You!” he gasped, white-faced and haggard. “You! Miss Mortimer! To what cause, pray, do I owe this nocturnal visit to my study?” he demanded in a stern and angry voice.

“The reason of my presence here was the wish to find a novel to read in bed, Mr Chisholm,” she answered with extraordinary firmness. “Its result has been to save you from an ignominious death.”

Erect, almost defiant, she stood before him. Her face in the heavy shadow was as pale as his own, for she perceived his desperate mood and recognised the improbability of being able to grapple with the situation. He intended to end his life, while she, on her part, was just as determined that he should live.

“You have been in this room the whole time?” he demanded, speaking quite unceremoniously.

“Yes.”

“You have heard my words, and witnessed all my actions?”

“I have.”

“You know, then, that I intend to drink the contents of that glass and end my life?” he said, looking straight at her.

“That was your intention, but it is my duty towards you, and towards humanity, to prevent such a catastrophe.”

“Then you really intend to prevent me?”

“That certainly is my intention,” she answered. Her clear eyes were upon him, and beneath her steady gaze he shrank and trembled.

“And if I live you will remain as witness of my agony, and of my degradation?” he said. “If I live you will gossip, and tell them of all that has escaped my lips, of my despair – of my contemplated suicide!”

“I have seen all, and I have heard all,” the girl answered. “But no word of it will pass my lips. With me your secret is sacred.”

“But how came you here at this hour?” he demanded in a fiercer tone.

“As I’ve already told you, I came to get a book before retiring, and the moment I had entered you came in. Because I feared to be discovered I hid behind the curtains.”

“You came here to spy upon me?” he cried angrily. “Come, confess the truth!”

The curious thought had crossed his mind that she had been sent there by Claudia.

“I chanced to be present here entirely by accident,” she answered. “But by good fortune I have been able to rescue you from death.”

He bowed to her with stiff politeness, for he suspected her of eavesdropping. He felt that he disliked her, and in no half-hearted fashion. Besides, he recollected the prophetic warning of the colonel. It was more than strange that he should discover her there, in that room where his valuable papers were lodged. He scented mystery in her action, and fiercely resented this unwarrantable intrusion upon his privacy.

“My own behaviour is my own affair, Miss Mortimer,” he said in a determined voice.

“Yes, all but suicide,” she assented. “That is an affair which concerns your friends.”

“Of whom you are scarcely one,” he observed meaningly.

“No,” she replied, stretching forth her hand until it rested upon his arm. “You entirely misunderstand me, Mr Chisholm. As in this affair you have already involuntarily confided in me, I beg of you to rely upon my discretion and secrecy, and to allow me to become your friend.”