Mrs. Fitz

"It is a hard case," said Coverdale; "and in the circumstances I don't altogether see how you can be blamed if you take reasonable steps to recover your property."

"In other words, Coverdale," said I, "you are prepared to countenance the raid on the Illyrian Embassy?"

The Chief Constable laughed.

"I don't say that exactly. And yet, after all, this is a free country; and if a parcel of damned foreigners bagged my wife, and the law could afford me no redress, I'm afraid, I'm sadly afraid – "

"It would be 'Up Guards and at 'em'?"

"Upon my word, Arbuthnot, I'm not sure it wouldn't!"

"Thank you, Coverdale," said Fitz. "And I take it that both of you will go up to London with me to-morrow."

"What do you ask us precisely to do?"

"Leave the details to me" – Fitz's air was that of a staff officer. "You can trust me not to go out of my way to look for trouble. But it is not much use for one man single-handed to attempt to force his way into the Illyrian Embassy for the purpose of effecting the rescue of the Crown Princess."

"It would be suicidal for one man to attempt it," we agreed.

"What is the minimum of assistance you will require?" said I.

"Half a dozen stout fellows ought to be able to manage it comfortably. There's Coverdale and you and me. If I can enlist three others between now and to-morrow, the thing is as good as done."

Fitz's calm tone of optimism was certainly surprising. The Chief Constable and myself exchanged rather rueful glances. We appeared to have pledged ourselves to a course of action that might have the most serious and far-reaching consequences.

CHAPTER VIII

PREPARATIONS FOR THE CAMPAIGN

One thing was perfectly clear; we were pretty well in a cleft stick. So heartily had we espoused the cause of a much-injured man, that to withhold practical assistance, now it was needed so sorely, was hardly possible. Yet there could be no doubt that discomfiture and perplexity were beginning to play the deuce with the Chief Constable's official placidity. I also, "a married man, a father of a family, and a county member," began to have qualms.

"Three other stout fellows," said Fitz, "who are not afraid of a tight place and who can be trusted with a revolver, are almost a necessity. The trouble is to find them."

On many occasions since, I have had cause to review my conduct in this crisis. Whether it was that of a sane, judicial-minded, law-abiding unit of society I have never been able to determine. Doubtless I erred egregiously. All the same I shall always protest that Nevil Fitzwaren was a much-injured man. Moreover, now that the call to arms had come to him, nature had thought fit to invest him with that occult power that makes a man a leader of others. I could not have believed such a transfiguration to be possible. He seemed suddenly to emerge as the possessor of a steadfastness of purpose and a strength of will which commanded sympathy in almost the same measure that his pathetic helplessness had in the first place aroused it.

"Can you suggest three stout fellows, Arbuthnot? Gentlemen, if possible, and chaps to be trusted. Of course they will have to know the why and wherefore of it all."

Under the spell that Fitz was wielding over me I became the victim of an inspiration. In a flash there came into my mind the three gamesters necessary to complete the partie. They were Jodey, his friend in Jermyn Street, "who had had lessons from Burns," and that much-enduring but thoroughly sound-hearted fellow, the Master of the Crackanthorpe. For an instant I reflected with the Napoleonic gaze of Fitz upon me. And then through sheer human weakness I committed the most signal indiscretion of which a tolerably blameless existence had ever been guilty. I permitted the names of these three champions to cross my lips.

Coverdale turned his sombre eyes upon me. They were devoid of anger, but extremely full of sorrow.

"You old fool!" he said under his breath. "You look like landing us fairly."

"Well," whispered the egregious I, "we can't leave the poor chap in the lurch at this stage of the proceedings, can we?"

"I suppose not; but this business looks like costing me my billet. Let us pray God he don't intend to shoot the ambassador."

"Not he," said I, assuming a cheerfulness I did not feel, in the hope of minimising my lapse from the strait way of prudence. "He is a very sensible fellow and a devilish plucky one."

The immediate result of my indiscretion was that I was urged to summon my relation by marriage, in order that his valuable services might be enlisted. With that end in view, Parkins was sent in search of him. He returned all too soon with the information that he was over at the Hall playing billiards with Lord Brasset.

"Two birds with one stone!" said Fitz, exultantly. "The best thing we can do is to go over and see them."

The Hall is not more than a hundred yards or so from our modest demesne; and at Fitz's behest we set forth in quest of recruits.

"Nice state o' things!" growled Coverdale en route.

In due course we were ushered into Brasset's billiard-room. The owner thereof and my relation by marriage were engaged in a friendly but one-sided game of shilling snooker. The latter, in accordance with his invariable practice of "putting his best leg first" to atone for the lifelong handicap of having been born a younger son, was potting three times the number of balls of his charmingly amiable and courteous opponent.

"Hullo, you fellows," said Brasset. "Take a cue and join us."

The presence in that place of the husband of Mrs. Fitz was wholly unlooked-for, but neither of the players betrayed their surprise. Any surprise they had to display was duly forthcoming later.

Most people who have mixed at all with their fellows are more or less finished dissemblers. But Brasset and Jodey were by no means proof against the extraordinary tale that Fitz had come to unfold.

"Heiress to oldest reigning family in Europe!" exclaimed Brasset, whose perturbation and bewilderment were comic in the extreme. "In that case she had an absolute right to hit me over the head with her crop, even if she did go rather far in overriding Challenger."

As for Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, his countenance was a study.

"Well, I always said she was it," he murmured rapturously.

"Stand by you – ra-ther!" said Brasset. "Only too proud. I've got a beautiful Colt revolver in my bureau. Shot a lion with it in Africa."

"Then you ought to be able to manage an ambassador in Portland Place," said I.

"Ra-ther!"

"It's a go, then?" said Fitz. "I can count on you fellows to give me a hand. We may have to put it across that swine von Arlenberg, although of course he is merely obeying the orders of Ferdinand."

"Yes, of course."

The two recruits to the cause of the Crown Princess beamed joyfully. They took the oath of fealty, which merely assumed the form of promising to dine at Ward's before the event, and promising to sup at the Savoy after it.

The sixth person essential to the success of Fitz's scheme was the unknown sportsman of Jermyn Street, who had had lessons from Burns. Jodey was emphatic in his declaration that his friend, whom he proclaimed as "the amateur middle-weight champion of the United Kingdom," would be only too eager to seize one of the great opportunities of his life. A telegram was immediately concocted for this paladin, who was urged to turn up at Ward's on the morrow at the appointed hour. "Bring a revolver with you. There will be a bit of fun going after dinner," was a clause that the author of the telegram was keenly desirous to insert.

Opinion was divided as to the wisdom of inserting the clause in question. To the shrewd and cautious official mind, as represented by Coverdale, it would be sufficient to urge a sensible and law-abiding citizen to give the proposed dinner party a wide berth. Personally, I was of Coverdale's opinion; Fitz and Brasset "saw nothing out of the way in it," while its author was convinced that so little would the clause in question be likely to deter his friend O'Mulligan, that it would invest a commonplace invitation to dine at Ward's and sup at the Savoy with a sufficient spice of romance to preclude "the best sportsman that ever came out of Ireland" from having a previous engagement.

Youth will be served. Jodey's lucid argument carried weight enough for the telegram to be sent to Jermyn Street in all its pristine integrity. Coverdale looked rueful all the same, and I felt his gaze of grave reproach upon me. The leader of the enterprise, however, was far from sharing the misgivings of the Chief Constable. On the contrary, he felt that the cause of the Princess Sonia had gained three valuable recruits.

Certainly, the demeanour of Brasset and of my relation by marriage left nothing to be desired from the point of view of whole-heartedness. They were only too eager to embrace the opportunity of redressing a notorious wrong. Coverdale and I could by no means rise to their enthusiasm. We were both over forty, and at that time of life the average man cannot evoke that quality, unless it is in the pursuit of a peerage, but in our innermost hearts we were fain to feel that it did them honour.

To Brasset's suggestion that we should dine with him that evening, in order that we might evolve, as far as in us lay, a plan of campaign, we yielded a ready response. Incidentally, it may be well to state that Brasset is unmarried, and that his mother was spending the winter at San Remo.

It was in sore travail of the spirit that I walked back to Dympsfield House, and proceeded to hunt for the weapon which was kept in my dressing-room as a precaution against burglars. Ruefully it was taken from its sanctuary and examined. Then I went in search of the ruler of the household. Having found her pottering about the greenhouse, I broke the news that I was dining out that evening, and that on the morrow duty called me to the metropolis, because I feared that my aged grandmother's chronic bronchitis had taken a turn for the worse.

Both these announcements were accepted with more serenity than the inward monitor had led me to anticipate.

"By all means dine with Reggie Brasset, although I think it is very wrong of him not to ask me. And by all means go to London to-morrow to see poor dear Gran, and" – here it was that the first small fly was disclosed in the ointment – "take me. Now that the weather has gone all to pieces, it is a good time to see the new plays; and I must have at least two new frocks and one of those chinchilla coats that everybody is wearing."

There are occasions when the most reciprocal nature may regard marriage as an overrated institution.

"But, my dear child," I gasped, "did you not promise upon your sacred word of honour that if you had that mare at the beginning of November, you would not want to exceed your dress allowance before the summer?"

"Did I?" said a voice of bland inquiry.

"Did you, mon enfant!"

"But then you see the poor thing has been lame for quite a fortnight."

It was man's work to convince Mrs. Arbuthnot, delicately, tenderly, but quite firmly, that not for a moment could her demands be entertained. How in the end it was contrived I shall not attempt to explain. Who among us is competent to render these hearthrug diplomacies in a just notation? But by some occult means I was able to effect a compromise upon terms which only a sanguine temperament could have hoped for. I was to be permitted to dine with Brasset and play a quiet rubber of bridge, and on the morrow I was to go to town to spend the week-end with my grandmother; in consideration of which benefits, the second party to the contract was to spend the week-end with her admirable parents at Doughty Bridge, Yorks, and become the recipient of a sable stole and an oxidised silver muff chain.

I could not help feeling that such a compact was extremely honourable to the political side of my nature. I had been prepared for pearl earrings or a new opera cloak at the least. There can be little doubt that tolerably regular attendance at the House of Commons during the course of three sessions does not a little to equip a man for the more complex phases of civilised life.

Brasset's impromptu dinner party that evening was a decided success. For this happy result he was not a little indebted to the foresight of his amiable and ever-lamented father. The wine was excellent. Even the Chief Constable, who looked as sombre as a cardinal and as rueful as Don Quixote, swallowed the brown sherry with approbation, toyed with the lighter vintages, sipped the port wine with sage approval, admired the old brandy, and told one of the best stories I have ever heard in my life.

At the conclusion of this masterpiece of refined ribaldry, Brasset gave a peremptory little tap on the table and rose to his feet.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I ask you to drink the health of the Crown Princess of Illyria. May God defend the right! With the toast, I beg to be allowed to couple the name of our friend and neighbour, Mr. Nevil Fitzwaren."

The toast was honoured in due form.

"Thank you, gentlemen." Fitz's reply was made with touching simplicity. "God will defend the right. He always does. But I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for standing by me to see that I get fair play. It's good to be born an Englishman."

"Hear, hear; quite so," said the Chief Constable.

Out of the corner of one rueful eye, however, the head of our constabulary favoured me with a glance that was at once whimsical and lugubrious. The thought was ever present in that official breast that the slightest hitch in a decidedly precarious adventure would be fraught for all concerned in it with consequences which he did not care to contemplate.

CHAPTER IX

ON THE EVE

A calm inquiry into the case rendered it inconceivable that two pillars of the Constitution should commit themselves irrevocably to a scheme of action whose true sphere was the boards of a playhouse or the pages of a lurid romance. By what lapse of the reason had they permitted themselves to drift into a position so ludicrous yet so eminently dangerous? Possibly it was right for irresponsible youth; possibly it was right for men of temperament like the heroic Fitz; but for Lieutenant-Colonel John Chalmers Coverdale, C.M.G., late of His Majesty's Carabineers, and Odo Arbuthnot, Member of Parliament for the Uppingdon Division of Middleshire, it was confessedly an egregious folly.

We were both past the age when such a scheme would have appealed to our high spirits as a superior sort of "rag." Once embarked upon it, who should say whither it might lead? It was impossible to foretell the course of such an adventure. Two such devotees of law and order did well to entertain misgivings, even with the winecup in their hands.

As far as the other side of the picture was concerned, Fitz was fully entitled to regard himself as a much-injured man. It is true that in the first instance he had taken the liberty of contracting a morganatic marriage with a princess in the direct line of succession of a reigning house. But in a country like ours, where the freedom of the subject and the right of the individual to shape his own destiny form the keystone of the arch upon which the fabric of society is raised, it was impossible not to sympathise keenly with Fitz. All freeborn Englishmen could not fail to resent the intervention of an irresponsible third party, who was recklessly determined to violate a tie that had the sanction of God.

Over our cigars, when the servants had left the room, the orders for the morrow were discussed.

"I hope, Fitzwaren," said the Chief Constable, "that you fully realise the extreme gravity of your undertaking. A single error of judgment, a single slip in your mode of procedure, and we are certain to find ourselves very badly landed indeed. Personally, I hope very much that you will leave lethal weapons out of the case. If we carry them we run up against the law; and not only will they prejudice our cause but there is no saying to what they may lead."

"I should like," said I, "to identify myself with these remarks of Coverdale's. I concur entirely."

Fitz removed the cigar from his lips and leaned back in his chair. He seemed to be pondering deeply.

"I respect the opinion of both of you," he said, speaking with a good deal of deliberation after a pause that was somewhat lengthy. "You are quite right in one sense, but in the most important sense of all I am sure you are wrong. I should like everybody who is going into this business to understand clearly that it is most likely to prove extremely serious. We must take every reasonable precaution, because the moment we enter von Arlenberg's house we carry our lives in our hands. I know these Illyrians; as soon as they understand our game they will use no ceremony. Law or no law, they will shoot us like dogs if they think it is necessary. And I can assure you they will think it is necessary, unless we get them with their hands up."

"I don't like lethal weapons," said the Chief Constable.

"I don't like them either," said Fitz, "but if we are to come through with this business, we shall be compelled to carry them." Suddenly his voice sank. "The truth is, this game is so dangerous, that I don't urge anybody to take part in it. Let any man who thinks the cause is good enough follow me with a loaded revolver in his right-hand trouser pocket; and let any man who doesn't keep out of it and I shall be the last to blame him."

In the language there may not have been persuasiveness, but there was a good deal in the tone. Fitz's manner was that of a leader of others; of one who foresaw the risks he incurred; who embraced them deliberately; who having once formed his plan stuck to it whatever it might entail.

Coverdale had seen service in Zululand, the Transvaal, and in Eygpt; Brasset and I had borne a humble share in the recent transactions in South Africa; yet in an unconscious way we were all susceptible to the play of a powerful will and a magnetic personality. Cynics may say it was the wine that turned the scale – the juice of the grape is the fount of many a hardy resolution – but I prefer to think it was the quality of Fitz himself. Retreat at the eleventh hour might have been construed as dishonourable, but men like Coverdale had no need to be fantastically nice upon the point of honour. It was, I think, that Fitz carried conviction. His was the inestimable gift of rising with his theme. Heaven knew! the enterprise was foolhardy, but the man himself was a good one to follow.

All the same, when we adjourned our meeting with the compact that we should assemble at Middleham railway station on the morrow in time to catch the 3.30 to London, I went home in a state of depression. Were I to have been hanged at cock-crow I could not have found my bed more unsympathetic. Most of the night I lay awake in a state of the most unworthy apprehension. The very intangibility of the business of the morrow seemed to make it a nightmare. Had it been a duel, or a definite pitting of one known force against another, it would have seemed less uncomfortable, less sinister. As it was, we did not know precisely to what we stood committed. The thing might prove merely farcical. On the contrary, it might involve battle, murder and sudden death.

A dozen times in the dismal darkness the question was put, by what chain of events had a mildly egoistical hedonist, the husband of a charming lady, the father of a merry blue-eyed daughter, with a reasonable competence and an ambition to excel at golf, come to imperil all these delectable things? Merely at the beck of a wild-living profligate who felt he had been wronged.

Stated as bluntly as this in the high court of reason the whole thing seemed absurd. There was so much to lose and so little to gain. The scheme was preposterous. Nevil Fitzwaren might certainly be the victim of an injustice, but what of Miss Lucinda and her mama? True, Coverdale was also a party to the scheme; but he was by nature adventurous, a seeker after something fresh. To be sure he imperilled his billet, but he was understood to have private means.

"Odo Arbuthnot," said the thin voice of reason at three o'clock in the morning, "you must withdraw from this incredibly foolish and reprehensible proceeding."

Howbeit, the voice of reason never sways us entirely. Accordingly I made a particularly feeble breakfast, wrote a letter to my grandmother in Bolton Street, sped the Madam, looking supremely gay and engaging, on the way to her fond parents at Doughty Bridge, Yorks, read the immortal story of "The Three Bears" to Miss Lucinda for the thousand and first time, carefully overhauled the six-chambered weapon which a professional criminal had yet to put to the test, and in a miserable frame of mind sat down to luncheon in the company of my relation by marriage.

It may be that the holy state of wedlock makes cowards of us all. Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther was certainly not embarrassed by such qualms as these. He was even more serenely magnificent than usual in a suit of grey tweeds aggressively checked and a waistcoat that was conducting a violent quarrel with a Zingari necktie; while his air of hopeful enjoyment of life as it was and as it was going to be, provoked some rather pregnant reflections upon the crime of homicide.

"O'Mulligan's wired. Mad keen. A regular nut."

The well of English undefiled grows more copious with the process of ages. By what mysterious alchemy the quality of mad keenness transforms its possessor into "a regular nut" I was too low-spirited to elucidate.

"Fitz is a game bird, ain't he?" Flamboyant youth heartily poured half a bottle of Worcestershire sauce over its cutlet. "Didn't think he had it in him. Merely shows how you can be deceived."

I groaned in spirit, but plucked up the courage to take a dismal nibble at a piece of toast.

"That chap Coverdale is a bit of a funkstick. Made himself rather an ass about those firearms."

I assented feebly.

"Bet you a pony they want our photographs for the Morning Mirror."

I rose from the table and took a turn in the kitchen garden. When your heart is fairly in your boots, the society of your peers has its drawbacks.

At half-past two, punctual to the minute, the toot of the car was heard at the hall door. Miss Lucinda received a parting salute and an illicit box of chocolates which consoled her immensely for the temporary loss – permanent perhaps in the case of one – of both her parents.

I confess to being one of those weak mortals who on a journey is invariably accompanied by the consciousness of having left something undone or having omitted to pack some unremembered but quite indispensable necessary. Three-fourths of the way to the station I was haunted with this feeling in a more acute form than usual, and then quite suddenly, with a spasm of perverse joy, it occurred to me that I had left the burglar's foe in its secret receptacle.

"Thank God for that!" was the pious hyperbole which ascended to heaven.

At the station we were not the first to arrive on the scene, although there was a full quarter of an hour in hand. Fitz in a fur overcoat of some pretensions bore a look of collected importance which was quite in keeping with the rôle he had to fill.

"Tickets are taken," said he, "and carriage reserved for five."

In front of the bookstall a yellow newsbill displayed the contents of a London evening paper, issued at noon. "The Attempt on the Life of the King of Illyria. Latest Details."

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