The Secret of the League: The Story of a Social War

Salt found him sitting in his shirt sleeves in a noble room, furnished in the taste and profusion of a crowded pantechnicon with the most costly specimens of seventeen periods of decorative art. He received him with his usual manner, and that was the manner of a bellicose curmudgeon towards an unwelcome deputation of suppliants. For emphasis, between the frank didactic aphorisms which formed his arguments and his rules of life, he banged with his fist a lapis lazuli table, and lowered his voice in a confidential aside to inform his visitor that three thousand pounds was the figure that the little piece of furniture had cost him, and that in matters of taste he stuck at nothing – an unnecessary piece of information after one had cast an astonished glance around that bizarre room.

In Lomas's future there loomed a knighthood – the consummation in his mind of all earthly ambition and the possible fruit of a lavish charity of the kind that is scarcely the greatest of the three, and his policy was wholly dictated by a fear of endangering his chances. He would have resented the suggestion, in the face of several munificent donations that he had recently made to certain funds, and a gracious acknowledgment which he had received, that the King was not following his career with a personal interest. What, then, was the King's attitude towards the Unity League and its plan of campaign? Had Salt anything to show? It was useless to protest the inviolability of royal neutrality; Lomas only banged the lapis lazuli. That was good enough for outsiders, he retorted: now, between themselves? The strong man who was restrained by diplomatic conventions could make no headway with the strong man who was frankly primitive in his selfishness, and Salt withdrew, baffled, but unperturbed. But the sequel was that before he left his hotel the following day Lomas had waited upon him with full acquiescence to the terms, and the central coal-field was "Content."

The inference might be that at last the intentions of the League must have been disclosed. The reality was nothing of the kind. What had been revealed to these men, then – the largest employers of labour of any class throughout the country – to which they had signified their consent? it may be asked. And the truth was that nothing had been revealed; that even the officers of the League who sounded them were in the dark. In the past, industrial struggles had always been between capital and labour. That vaster encounter, upon which the League was now concentrating its energies, was not to be on such clearly defined lines, and in the strife capital might suffer side by side with labour. Against that contingency the coal influence had now been indemnified in the name of the Unity League and the future Government, and the guarantee had been accepted. It was a far-reaching precaution in the end; it narrowed the issue, and it secured more than neutrality in a quarter where open hostility might have otherwise been proclaimed. It just tended to realise that perfection of detail and completeness of preparation that mark the successful campaign.

But if there was nothing more to learn in the sense that the data upon which the League had based its plans had long since been complete, it was impossible for a thoughtful observer to pass through the land without learning much. Even two years of increasing privilege had left a deeper mark. A lavish policy of "Bread and Circuses" was again depleting the countryside, choking the towns, and destroying the instinct of citizenship, just as it had speeded the decline of another world-power two thousand years before. While wages had remained practically stationary, the leisure of the working man had been appreciably increased, and it was now being discovered that the working man had no way of passing his leisure except in spending money. Betting and drunkenness had increased in direct ratio to the lengthened hours of enforced idleness, and other disquieting indications of how the time was being spent, were brought home to those who moved among the poor. Where the money came from, the books of the great thrift societies at once revealed. There was no longer any necessity for the working man to save; his wages were guaranteed, his risks of sickness and every other adversity were insured against, his old age was pensioned, his children were, if necessary, State-adopted.

Even the Trades Unions had abolished their subscriptions and dissipated their reserves. There was no need of thrift now, for the Government was the working man's savings bank, and had cut out the debit pages of his pass-book. It was almost the Millennium. The only drawback was that, with all this affluence around, the working man found himself very much in the condition of a financial Ancient Mariner. There was a great deal of money being spent on him, and for him, and by him, but he never had any in his pocket. And the working man's wife was even worse off.

Other classes there were which found themselves in the same position, but not by the same process. The rich were taxed up to the eyes, but the rich had obvious means of retrenchment. But the great mass of the middle class had no elastic extravagances upon which they could economise. Even under favourable conditions they were for the most part fulfilling Disraeli's pessimistic dictum: to the generality, manhood had been a struggle. It had passed into a failure. It stood face to face with the certainty of becoming a disaster. Inevitably there were tragedies… So it happened that the one vivid haunting picture that George Salt carried down into later years from this period was not a lurid impression of some blackened earth-gnarled scene of Dantesque desolation, not even a memory of any of the incidents of his own personal triumph, but the sharp details of an episode that lay quite off the high-road of his work.

He was walking along a pretty country lane one evening (for it is a characteristic of many of these unhappy regions that almost to the edge of man's squalid usurpation Nature spreads her most gracious charms) when a sudden thunderstorm drove him to seek the hospitality of a labourer's cottage.

The man who opened the door was not a labourer, although he was shabbily dressed. He looked sombrely at his visitor. "What is it?" he asked, standing in the doorway with no sign of invitation.

"It is raining very heavily," replied Salt. "I should like to shelter, if you will permit me."

The man seemed to notice the downpour, which had now become a continuous stream, for the first time. "I'm very busy," he said churlishly.

"If I might stand just inside your doorway?" suggested Salt.

"No, come in," said the host with an air of sudden resolution. "After all – " He led the way out of the tiny entrance-hall into a room. Salt could not refrain from noticing that although the furniture was meagre, the walls were covered with paintings.

"I am an artist," said the brusque tenant of the cottage, noticing the involuntary glance around. "Come – in return for shelter you shall tell me what you think of these things."

"I am not a critic," replied Salt, stepping from picture to picture, "and it would be presumptuous, therefore, for me to give an opinion on works that I do not understand, although I can recognise them as striking and unconventional."

"Ah," commented the artist. "And that?"

He indicated a portrait with a nod. It was in an earlier, a smoother, and less characteristic style. To the man who was no artist it was a very beautiful painting of a very beautiful girl.

"My dead wife," said the artist, as Salt stood in silent admiration. "I have buried her this afternoon."

The man who had never known or even seen her felt a stab as he looked up at the lovely, smiling face.

"Well," said the painter roughly, "why don't you say how sorry you are, or some platitude of that sort?"

Salt turned away, to leave the other alone meeting the sweet eyes. "Because I cannot say how sorry I am," he replied with gentle pity.

"Oh, my beloved!" he heard the whisper. "Not long, not long."

"You are packing," Salt continued a minute later. "Let me help you – with some."

A heap of straw and shavings littered the floor; boxes and cases stood ready at hand.

"No," replied the man, looking moodily at his preparations. "I have changed my mind. I have to go on a journey to-night, but I shall leave this place as it is and secure the doors and windows instead."

He brought tools, and together they nailed across the cottage windows the stout old-fashioned shutters that secured them. Neither spoke much.

"Come," said the artist, when the melancholy work was complete; "the storm is over. Our roads lie together for a little way." He locked the outer door, and stood lingering reluctantly with his hand upon the key. "A moment," he said, unlocking the door again, and entering. "Only a moment. Wait for me at the gate."

Salt waited as he was directed beside a dripping linden. The storm had indeed passed over, but the sky was low and grey. Little rivulets meandered in changing currents down the garden path; from beneath the narrow lane came the continuous sobbing rush of some unseen swollen water-course. The hand of despair lay heavy across the scene; it seemed as though Nature had wept herself out, but was uncomforted. Salt pictured the lonely man standing before the soulless, smiling creation of his own hand.

The door opened, the lock again creaked mournfully as its rusty bolt was driven home, and without a backward glance the artist came slowly down the walk, twisting the clumsy key aimlessly upon his finger. He stopped at a tangled patch where the anemone struggled vainly among the choking bindweed, and the hyacinths and lupines had been beaten down to earth.

"Her garden!" he said aloud, and a spasm crossed his face. "But now how overgrown." On a thought he dropped the key gently among the luxuriant growth and turned away.

"I will tell you why my wife died," said the artist suddenly, after they had passed round a bend of the road that hid the cottage from their sight. "It should point a moral, and it will not take long."

"It may plead a cause," replied Salt.

"Ah!" exclaimed his companion, looking at him sharply. "Who are you, then?"

"You do not know me, but you may know my business. I am Salt of the Unity League."

"Strange," murmured the other. "Well, then, Mr Salt, my name is Leslie Garnet, and, as I have told you, I am an artist. Ten years ago, at the age of thirty, I came into a small legacy – three hundred pounds a year, to be precise. Up to that time I had been making a somewhat precarious living by illustration; on the strength of my fortune – which, of course, to a successful man in any walk of life would be the merest pittance – I rearranged my plans.

"Black and white work was drudgery to me, and it would never be anything else, because it was not my medium, but it was the only form of pictorial art that earned a livelihood. Pictures had ceased to sell. At the same time I had encouragement for thinking that I could do something worthy of existence in the higher branch of art.

"I don't want to trouble you with views. I made my choice. I determined to live frugally on my income, give up hack work, to the incidental advantage of some other poor struggler, and devote myself wholly to pictures which might possibly bring me some recognition at the end of a lifetime – more probably not – but pictures which would certainly never enrich me. I do not think that the choice was an ignoble one – but, of course, it was purely a personal matter.

"It was very soon afterwards that I got married. Had I thought of that step earlier I might have acted differently. As it was, Hilda would not hear of it. There seemed no need; we were very comfortable on our small income in a tiny way.

"Nine years ago that. You know the course of events. My income was derived from a prudently invested capital, so disposed as to give the highest safe return. Not many years had passed before the Government then in power fixed seven per cent. as the highest rate of interest compatible with commercial morality, and confiscated all above. My fixed system of living was embarrassed by a deduction of fifty pounds a year. The next year an open-minded Chancellor, in need of a few millions to spend on free amusements for the working class, was converted to the principle that two per cent. of immorality still remained, so five was made the maximum, and my small income was thus permanently reduced to two hundred pounds.

"We received this second blow rather blankly, but Hilda would not hear of surrender. As a matter of fact, I soon found out that there was practically no chance of it, and that in throwing up all connections when I did, I had burned my boats. Artists of every kind were turning to illustration work, but half of the magazines were dead. We gave up the flat that had been made pretty and home-like with inexpensive taste, and moved into three dreary rooms.

"You know what the next development would be, perhaps? Yes, the Unearned Incomes Act. And you will understand how it affected me.

"I was assessed in the same class as the Duke of Belgravia and Mr Dives-Keeps, the millionaire, as a gentleman of private income, capable of earning a living, but electing to live in idleness on invested capital not of my own creating. I was married, could not plead 'encumbrances' in any form, well-educated, strong and healthy, and in the prime of life. So I came under 'Schedule B,' and must pay a tax of ten shillings and sixpence in the pound. It was nothing that I might actually work twelve hours every day. Officially I must be living in voluptuous idleness, because the work of my hands did not bring me in an income bearing any appreciable proportion to my private means. The Government that denounced Riches in every form and had come in on the mandate of the poor and needy, recognised no other standard of attainment but Money. Therefore 'Schedule B.'

"Of course the effect of that was overwhelming. I could not afford a studio, I could not afford a model. I could scarcely afford materials. My wife, who had long been delicate, was now really ill, between anxiety and the unaccustomed daily work to which she bound herself. One of the companies from which I derived a portion of my income failed at this time: ruined by foreign competition and home restrictions. In a panic I endeavoured to get work of any kind. I had not the experience necessary for the lowest rungs of commerce; I was unknown in art. Who would employ a broken-down man beginning life at thirty-eight? I was too old.

"I was warned that appeal was useless, but I did appeal before the Commission. It was useless. I learned that mine was a thoroughly bad case from every official point of view, with no redeeming feature: that I was, in fact, a parasite upon the social system; and I narrowly escaped having the assessment raised.

"It was then that we left London and came to this cottage. My wife's health was permanently undermined, and change of air was necessary even to prolong her life. Her native county was recommended; that is why we chose this spot. When I reviewed affairs I found that I had a clear fifty pounds a year. And there, a few miles to the west, where you see that tracery of wheels and scaffolding against the sun, and there, a few miles to the north, where you see that pall of smoke upon the air, there lie hundreds and hundreds of cottages where gross luxury is rampant, where beneath one roof family incomes of ten times mine are free from any tax at all.

"That is enough for you to fill in the detail," continued Garnet bitterly, as he revived the memory of the closing scenes. "Doctors, things that had to be bought, bare existence. What remained of the investments sold for what a forced sale would bring – you know what that means to-day. The end you have seen. And there, Mr Salt, is the story to your hand. Here is the churchyard… Killed, to make a Labour holiday!"

He opened the rustic gate of the hillside churchyard and led the way to a newly-turned mound, where the perfume hung stagnantly from the rain-lashed petals of a great sheaf of Bermuda lilies.

"I remain here," he said quietly, after a few minutes' silence by the grave-side. "Your road lies straight on, along the field path. You can even see the smoke of Thornley from here, lying to your right."

Salt did not reply. Looking intently in the opposite direction, he was locating with a seaman's eye another cloud of smoke that rose above the tree-tops in the valley they had left.

"Your house!" he exclaimed, pointing. "Man!" he cried suddenly, with a flash of intuition, "what are you doing? You fired the straw before we left!"

A sharp report was the only answer. Salt turned too late to arrest his arm, only in time to catch him as he fell. He lowered him – there was nothing else to do – lowered him on to the wet sods that flanked the mound, and knelt by his side so that he might support him somewhat. To one who had been on battle-fields there was no need to wonder what to do. It was a matter not of minutes but of seconds. The mute eyes met his dimly; he heard the single whisper, "Hilda," and then, without a tremor, Garnet, self-murdered, pressed a little more heavily against his arm and lay across the yet unfinished grave of his State-murdered wife.

CHAPTER VIII

TANTROY EARNS HIS WAGE

"I think," observed Salt reflectively, soon after his return, "that you had better take a short holiday now, Miss Lisle."

Miss Lisle looked up from her work – she was not addressing circulars, it may be stated – with an expression not quite devoid of suspicion.

"I will, if you wish me to do so, sir," she replied meekly. "But, personally, I do not require one."

"You have been of great use to us while I was away," he explained kindly, but with official precision, "and now that I am back again you have the opportunity."

Miss Lisle coloured rather rapturously at the formal praise, but the astute young woman did not allow her exaltation to beguile her senses.

"A week's holiday?" she asked.

"I would suggest a fortnight," he replied.

"That would be until the end of June?"

Salt agreed.

"Then nothing is likely to happen before the end of June?"

He laughed frankly. There was no trace of the mystery and restraint, of the electric tension in the air, that forerun portentous events, as we are told, to be noticed about the office of the League.

"A great deal may happen before that time, but nothing, I think I can assure you, that comes within your meaning."

"Is there any particular place that you would like me to go to?"

"Oh, not at all. Forget Trafalgar Chambers and business entirely for the time."

Possibly Miss Lisle had looked for some hidden meaning behind the simple suggestion of a holiday: had anticipated "another secret process down another little lane." At any rate, she did not rejoice at the prospect; on the contrary, she declined it.

"Thank you, sir," she replied, "but unless it is for your convenience, I should prefer to go on addressing circulars."

Salt frowned slightly and smiled slightly, and inwardly admitted to himself that he had probably expected worse things when he had first accepted Miss Lisle's services.

"I am a very plain, straightforward person in all my dealings," he remarked, "and you, outside the strict line of work here, have an oblique vein that taxes the imagination. Further, it carries the sting that with all you generally arrive at the same conclusion as I do, only a little earlier."

"I have a loathsome, repulsive nature, I know," admitted Irene cheerfully. "Trivial, ill-mannered, suspicious. I require strict discipline. That is why I am better here."

"So far I have not been inconvenienced by the two first characteristics. It is a mistake, perhaps, to be over-suspicious."

"Yes," agreed the lady with a level glance. "It only ends in you finding people out, when otherwise you might have gone on believing in them to the last."

Salt had only known Miss Lisle for a few months, and for a third of the period he had not seen her. But he knew that when she showed a disposition to take up his time something more than the amenities of conversation lay behind her words. He remembered that level glance. It foreshadowed another "long pointless tale."

"For instance?" he suggested encouragingly.

"If I left this office locked when I went out to lunch, for instance, and found it still locked but the papers slightly disarranged on my return," she replied.

"Anything more?"

"It is very unpleasant to set traps, of course, but if I put a little dab of typewriter ink on the inner handle of the door when I next went out, and subsequently found a slight stain of a similar colour on my white glove after shaking hands with some one, the suspicion would be deepened."

"I think that the matter is of sufficient importance for you to tell me all you know," he said gravely. "If you hesitate to be definite for fear of making a mistake, I will take pains to verify your suspicions and I will accept all responsibility."

"Then I accuse Mr Tantroy of being a paid spy in the service of the Government."

"Tantroy!" exclaimed Salt with a momentary feeling of incredulity. "Tantroy! It seems impossible, but, after all, it is possible enough. You know, of course, that he has a room here now, and might even think in his inexperience that he was at liberty to come into this office at any time."

"But not to take impressions of my keys and have duplicates made; nor to copy extracts in my absence; nor to open and examine the cipher typewriter."

"Has that been left unlocked?" he demanded sharply.

"No," she replied. "You have the only key that I know of. But it has been unlocked, and I infer that the code has been copied."

For quite three minutes there was silence. Salt was thinking, not idly, but estimating exactly the effect of what had happened. Miss Lisle was waiting, with somewhat rare perception, until he was ready to continue.

"Sooner or later something of the sort was bound to come," he summed up quietly, without a trace of discomfiture. "It is only the personality that is surprising. His interests are identical with ours; he has everything to gain by our success. Why; why on earth?"

"I think that I can explain that in three words," suggested Miss Lisle. "Velma St Saint."

Salt looked enquiringly. He had forgotten the Hon. Freddy's deity for the moment.

"Of the Vivarium," added Irene.

"Oh, the lady who hangs by her toes," he remarked with enlightenment.

"'The World's Greatest Inverted Cantatrice'!" quoted Miss Lisle. "That is her celebrated 'Upside Down' song that the organ is playing in the street below. A few years ago she got a week's engagement at the Elysium at a salary of eighty pounds. She calculated from that that she could afford to spend four thousand a year, and although all theatrical incomes have steadily declined ever since until she only gets ten pounds a week now, she has never been able to make any difference in her style of living… Of course there is a deficit to be made up."

"It is just as well. If it had not been Tantroy it would have been some one abler. Now what has he done, what has he learned?"

"Duplicate keys of this door and of my desk have been made. The lock of the cipher typewriter case is not of an elaborate pattern, and any one bringing a quantity of keys of the right size would probably find one to answer. I don't think that either your desk or the safe has been opened; certainly not since I began to notice. The papers to which he would have access are consequently not highly important."

"Letters?" suggested Salt. "For instance, my letters lying here until you forwarded them. There is a post in at eight o'clock in the morning; others after you have left up to ten at night. There would be every opportunity for abstracting some, opening them at leisure, and then dropping them into the letter-box again a little later."

"No," said Miss Lisle. "I took precautions against that."

"How?" he demanded, and waited very keenly for her answer.

"Simply by arriving here before eight and remaining until ten."

"Thank you." It was all he said, but it did not leave Miss Lisle with the empty feeling that virtue had merely been its own reward.

"Perhaps I ought to add that Mr Tantroy tried to get information from me," she remarked distantly. "He – he came here frequently and wished me to accept presents; boxes of chocolate at first, I think, and jewellery afterwards. It was a mistake he made."