The Angel

"Why, it's very simple," Levison answered. "Don't you see that if anything has – er – happened, it'll be in the evening papers and in the streets within three-quarters of an hour from the time it's occurred. There will be journalists with this man Joseph, of course, there always are wherever he goes. Well, the papers will be up here by the motors in half-an-hour after they're issued, and we shall hear the newsboys shouting it out all over the place."

"There's an old man who sells papers at the corner of Florence Street, only a few yards away," Mimi Addington broke in quickly. "The boys on the bicycles come up and supply him with all the new editions as they come out. I often hear them shouting."

"Then all we've got to do," said Andrew Levison, "is to wait until we hear that shouting."

They sat waiting – three murderers – and as they sat there a presence stole into the room, unseen, but very real. The grisly phantom Fear was among them. Waiting!

CHAPTER XXII

THE HOUSE DESOLATE

The echo of the shot which had struck down Sir Augustus Kirwan had hardly died away when two of the police inspectors, accompanied by Eric Black, rushed into one of the open doorways of the court. Their feet could be heard thundering up the rickety, wooden stairs of the old house, as Joseph and Sir Thomas Ducaine knelt, horror-struck, by the side of the dead man, while the others crowded round in uncontrollable dismay.

Joseph himself seemed absolutely stunned for a moment. And it was Sir Thomas's firm and capable hands which were moving rapidly over Sir Augustus' chest, endeavoring to test the movement of the heart.

The young Duke of Dover was talking rapidly and in an undertone with the police inspector, and pointing upwards to the black, unglazed window-hole from which the smoke of the shot was still eddying out.

The whole series of events had occurred in a mere flash of time, with an astonishing swiftness which seemed to outstrip or to numb the lightning operations of thought itself.

There they stood in a group, stiffened and frozen into momentary immobility. The tall figure of Joseph bent over the empty shell which lay upon the ground; the others clustered round, with wan faces of horror. The peer had his right hand upon the shoulder of the inspector and his left extended to the black and silent orifice above. And still the thunder of the feet of Eric Black and his companions could be heard as they raced upwards towards the room of the assassin.

Then suddenly, as if the noise of the shot, which now must have been fired for at least thirty-five or forty seconds, had awakened a sleeping population, a murmur arose like the murmur of a hive of bees suddenly disturbed.

It arose, grew louder and louder, resolved itself into tumultuous and divided voices, and then, from every doorway, the foul, mocking, and unclean denizens of the worst slum in London came pouring, trotting, and slouching out of their lairs.

The air was immediately filled with a horrid clamor, and to the keen, attentive ears of, at any rate, the Duke and the policeman, there seemed something ungenuine in the sound – that is to say, it was not the instinctive product of real surprise, but as though the people who had suddenly appeared out of what had seemed silence and desolation were well aware that this was going to happen.

Of this Joseph and Sir Thomas Ducaine, who were lifting the portly body of the great financier, saw and understood nothing at all.

Just as Joseph and Sir Thomas, assisted by the others, were supporting the limp figure in their arms, the remaining inspector lifted his whistle to his lips and blew a loud and piercing call.

At the sound, the horrid crowd which surrounded the little group of death suddenly grew silent. They knew that ominous summons very well; it was in their blood to know it, for to many of them it had been a note of doom.

The silence continued for a very short time, and was only broken in one significant and instinctive way.

A tall, thin man, with a face which was a sheer wedge of sin and bestial impulse, suddenly pressed to the front of the crowd, where his eyes fell upon Joseph.

The inspector heard him say, in a quick, vibrating voice to some one at his side whom the inspector could not see —

"The wrong bloke!"

The whistle had its effect, and in a space of time which would have suggested to any one who had thought of it that the police arrangements for guarding the distinguished company which had ventured into these dark places were more complete than that company itself had any idea of, several uniformed constables came hurrying into the court.

The crowd of slum-dwellers melted away as a small piece of ice in the sun, and, save that the doors and low windows of the surrounding houses were now thronged with interested faces, the group in the middle of the place was free of interruption.

Three stalwart constables lifted up the body and bore it away. Joseph and the rest of his friends filed in a horror-struck procession.

The Teacher's head was bowed. His thin, white hands were clasped in front of him, and the tears were rolling down his cheeks.

Hampson was at his side, and as he looked up at his old comrade once more he was thrilled to the very marrow, even as he had been thrilled on that strange eventful afternoon when the two great beams of wood had fallen from on high and struck down Joseph Bethune in the form of a cross.

For what Hampson now saw in his quick, imaginative brain, accustomed as it was to constant artistic images of the past, when Jesus walked in Jerusalem, was now the tall, bowed figure of the Saviour with wrists bound in front of Him, moving towards the shameful death which was to save and regenerate mankind.

Another scene in the Via Dolorosa!

It was now the middle of the afternoon. With magic celerity, even in that poverty-stricken district, carriages were found, and an ambulance brought from an adjacent police-station.

Then, through the crowded streets of the East, the long and busy thoroughfares of Fleet Street and the Strand, into the wide and spacious district where the rich dwell, the sad procession took its way.

And of all the crowds of busy humans that moved and ran about their business, no one suspected what these vehicles might mean. They passed through the busiest centres of the Modern Babylon without an indication or word of the true import of their passage.

Only Eric Black, who had come back disheartened with the two police-officers from a hurried yet interminable search among the huge and fetid warrens of the murder-hole, was speeding towards the office of the Evening Wire– the afternoon edition of the great daily – his heart full of pity and terror, while yet his keen journalistic brain was weaving burning words and sentences with which to announce what had happened to London.

The cortège arrived at last at the great house in Berkeley Square.

The day, which had begun brightly enough, was as if the elements in London were sympathetic to the tragedy in which one of her foremost citizens had perished. They were now beginning to throw a heavy and thunderous gloom over the City.

Swiftly, while the frightened and white-faced servants stood speechless in the hall, the body of Sir Augustus Kirwan was borne into the library, and the family physician sent for at once. One of the police inspectors remained in the house; the other hurried off to Scotland Yard to give his version of the affair, though by now all the district in which the murder had occurred was being thoroughly searched, and guarded on all sides by special police, who had been summoned by telephone from various parts of the metropolis.

Marjorie Kirwan was away upon a short visit to some friends. Lady Kirwan was, fortunately, out when the body of her husband was brought into the house.

In a very few minutes the doctor arrived, and after a brief examination, announced what all present knew only too well – that the baronet had been shot through the heart, and that the death had been painless and instantaneous.

The blinds in front of the house were all pulled down, and the butler was interrogated as to the whereabouts of Lady Kirwan by The Duke and Sir Thomas Ducaine.

"I'm sure I have no idea, my lord and Sir Thomas," said the faithful old fellow, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, "where my lady has gone. I know that she went out shortly after lunch, on foot. She said that she did not wish for the motor-brougham or a carriage. Sometimes of an afternoon my lady likes to go out on foot, for the sake of a little exercise; and the day being fine, it must have tempted her."

"Her maid will know, perhaps," Sir Thomas replied.

"I'm afraid not, sir," the butler answered, "for I know that Mrs. Summers has my lady's permission to visit her relatives at Camberwell this afternoon."

"Then," Sir Thomas replied, "where is Miss Lys?"

"I can answer that," Joseph replied sadly. "She is working up in Bloomsbury, at the house of the Brotherhood."

"She must be sent for at once," Sir Thomas answered. "Indeed, in a few minutes, I will go for Mary myself, and break this terrible news to her. It will be a frightful blow to my poor girl; but she is so strong and self-reliant that she will be invaluable to receive Lady Kirwan when she returns, and to break this awful news, as only a woman, and such a woman as Mary is, could possibly do."

For a moment the young man's face lit up with love and tenderness, even in the presence of death, as he thought of the sweet and noble lady who had already given some of the best years of her life to the healing of sorrow, and who alone, in this great crisis, cost her what it might, could be depended upon to help the widow through the dark hours that lay before.

Now it happened that Lady Kirwan had indeed not gone very far. A few streets away from Berkeley Square there was a quiet little shop which was kept by a society of ladies who had interested themselves in the revival of fine lace manufacture in England. Girls were being taught all over the country to produce gossamer fabrics as beautiful as anything made in the hamlets around Ghent and Brussels or in the Beguinage at Bruges. Lady Kirwan was a patroness of the movement, and on this afternoon she had walked round to discuss the question of profit-sharing with the lady who was in charge of the establishment.

Lady Kirwan liked to carry her own latchkey when she went out on little excursions of this sort, when there was no groom to run up the steps and open the front door. She had taken her key with her on this afternoon, and after doing the business for which she had set out, returned homewards in a peculiarly happy state of mind, which even the heavy atmosphere and lowering approach of thunder failed to disturb.

The lace business was going well, and the poor girls all over the country would have a substantial bonus added to their earnings. And other more important things contributed to the kindly woman's sense of goodwill. Mary's engagement to Sir Thomas Ducaine was in itself a cause for immense congratulation. Despite all Mary's stupid ways – as Lady Kirwan was accustomed to call them – in spite of all the wasted years in the hospital, the girl had, nevertheless, captured one of the most eligible young men in London, and her wedding would be one of the greatest events in the modern history of the family of Lys. Marjorie also seemed to be more than a little attracted by the young Duke of Dover. He was a peer of very ancient lineage, upright, an honorable gentleman, and very well liked in society. That he was not rich made no difference whatever. The Kirwans' own enormous wealth would be lavished at the disposal of the young couple. And, finally, at a great political reception a few nights ago, the Prime Minister had taken Lady Kirwan into supper, and had told her, without any possibility of mistake, that in a week or two more the great services of Sir Augustus to the Government, and the financial weight exerted at a critical moment, which had forced a foreign Power to modify its demands, were to receive high recognition, and that the baronetcy was to be exchanged for the rank of viscount.

As Lady Kirwan, smiling and stately, ascended the steps of her house in Berkeley Square, and took from her reticule the tiny Bramah key which unlocked the massive portal, she felt she had not a care in the world, and was a woman blessed indeed.

"We must get rid of this Joseph fellow now," she thought, as she inserted the key. "He has played his part well enough in bringing Mary and Thomas together; but I don't think it will be advisable, even though he is a fashionable pet at present, to have very much to do with him. I never cared very much for the man, and it is awkward to have him about the house. One can always send him a cheque now and then for his good works!"

The door swung open, and she entered the hall. At the moment there was nobody there – a fact which she noted for a future word of remonstrance, as a footman was always supposed to sit there at all times. But from the farther end of the hall, from the library, the door of which was a little ajar, her quick ear detected a murmur of voices in the silence.

She took a step or two forward, when suddenly Sir Thomas Ducaine came striding quickly and softly out of the library, the door closing quietly behind him.

"Ah, Tom, my dear boy!" Lady Kirwan said. "So you are all back, then? I do hope you're not fatigued by those terrible places that you've all been to see. Horrible it must have been? Don't forget that you are dining with us to-night. Mary has promised to leave her nonsense up at Bloomsbury and be home in time, so we shall have a pleasant family dinner. Where is Augustus? Is he in the library?"

Then Lady Kirwan noticed something strange in the young man's face. The color had all ebbed from it; it was white with a horrid, ghastly whiteness, that absolutely colorless white one sees on the under side of a turbot or a sole.

"Good gracious!" she said, with slightly faltering voice. "Are you ill, Tom? Why, what is the matter? Has anything happened?"

The young man's brain was whirling. Lady Kirwan's sudden and unexpected appearance had driven all his plans and self-control to the winds. He shook with fear and agitation. He tried to speak twice, but the words rattled in his mouth with a hollow sound.

The current of fear ran from him to the tall and gracious dame who stood before him, and flashed backwards and forwards between the two like a shuttle – in the loom of Fate.

"What is it?" she said, in a high-pitched voice. "Tell me at once!"

As she spoke the hall suddenly became filled with silent servants – servants whose faces were covered with tears, and who stood trembling around the vast, luxurious place.

The dame's eyes swept round in one swift survey. Then, suddenly, she drew herself to her full height.

"Where is Augustus?" she said in a low, vibrating voice that thrilled the heart of every person there with pain. "Where is my husband?"

"Sir Augustus, my dear Lady Kirwan," Sir Thomas began to gasp, with tears running down his cheeks – "Sir Augustus is very ill; but – "

He got no further, Lady Kirwan began to move quickly, as if some dread instinct had told her the truth, towards the library door.

"No, no, dear Lady Kirwan," Sir Thomas said – "don't go!"

She brushed him aside as if he had been a straw in her path, and the terrified group of people saw her burst upon the great white-painted door which led to the chamber of death.

There was a silence, an agonized silence of several seconds, and then what all expected and waited for came.

A terrible cry of anguish pealed out into the house, a cry so wild and despairing that the very walls seemed to shudder in fearful sympathy.

A cry, repeated thrice, and then a choking gurgle, which in its turn gave way to a deep contralto voice of menace.

Inside the library Lady Kirwan reeled by the long table upon which the still form of the man she loved lay hushed for ever in death. One arm was thrown around the rigid, waxen face, the left was outstretched with accusing finger, and pointing at Joseph the evangelist.

"It is you!" the terrible voice pealed out. "It is you, false prophet, liar, murderer, who have brought a good man to his end! It was you who killed my dear, dear nephew Lluellyn upon the hills of our race! It is you – who have come into a happy household with lying wiles and sneers and signs and tokens of your master Satan, whom you serve – who have murdered my beloved! May the curse of God rest upon you! May you wither and die and go to your own place and your own master – you, who have killed my dear one!"

Then there was a momentary silence, once more the high despairing wail of a mind distraught, a low, shuddering sigh, and a heavy thud, as Lady Kirwan fell upon the floor in a deep and merciful swoon.

As Sir Thomas, who had hitherto stood motionless in the middle of the hall, turned and went swiftly back into the library, the Teacher came out with bowed head, and passed silently to the front door. No one assisted him as he opened it and disappeared.

How he arrived at the old house in Bloomsbury, Joseph never knew. Whether on foot, or whether in some vehicle, he was unable to say, on thinking over the events afterwards. Nor did any one see him enter the house. The mystery was never solved.

With bowed head, he mounted the stairs towards the long common-room where his friends and disciples were wont to gather together.

Opening the door, he entered. By a dying fire, with a white, strained face, stood Hampson, who had only accompanied the funeral carriage up to a certain point in its progress towards Berkeley Square, and, urged by some inexplicable impulse, had descended from his carriage during a block in the traffic, and made straight for the headquarters of the Brotherhood.

As Joseph entered, the little journalist gave a great sigh of relief. "At last," he said – "at last!"

"My friend, and my more than brother," the Teacher answered, in a voice broken with emotion, "where is our dear sister – where is Mary?"

"The Lord came to Mary," Hampson answered in a deep and awe-stricken voice, "and she has obeyed His command. I came here, knowing that the brethren were all out upon their business, save only our dear Mary, who was waiting for two poor women who were to come and be relieved. As I entered the square I saw the women coming away with glad, bright faces – they were women I had known in the past, and whom I myself had recommended to Mary. I entered the house, and I found our sister in the room upon the right-hand side of the hall. I was about to greet her, and hoped to be able to break the terrible news to her, when I saw that her face was raised, her eyes were closed, her hands were clasped before her, as if in prayer. She seemed to be listening, and I waited. Suddenly her eyes opened, her hands fell, and she came back to the world, seeing me standing before her."

"Brother," she said, and her face was like the face of an angel, "brother, there is one who needs me, needs my help and comfort in the hour of tribulation and sorrow. God has sent a message to me, and I go to her."

"With that she left the room and went swiftly away."

"Without doubt," Joseph answered, "God has summoned her to bring consolation to the widow."

Hampson began a series of eager inquiries as to what had occurred in Berkeley Square, as to what would happen, and what action would be taken – a string of excited questions running one into the other, which showed how terribly the good fellow was unstrung.

The Teacher checked the rapid flow of words with a single gesture.

"Brother," he said, "do you stay here and rest, and say no word to any man of what has happened. For me, there yet remains something to be done. I know not what; but this I do know – once more the message of the Holy Spirit is about to come to me, and I am to receive directions from on High."

Hampson watched the Teacher as he slowly left the room. At the door Joseph turned and smiled faintly at his old and valued friend; and as he did so, the journalist saw, with the old inexpressible thrill that light upon the countenance which only came at the supreme moments when Heavenly direction was vouchsafed to Joseph.

Upon her wrist Mimi Addington wore a little jewelled watch set in a thin bracelet of aluminium studded with rubies.

She lifted her wrist almost to her eyes to mark the time. It was as though the power of eyesight was obscured.

Lord Ballina was walking, almost trotting, rapidly up and down the room – one has seen a captive wolf thus in its cage.

Andrew Levison sat upon the couch, his head supported upon his hands, one foot stretched a little in front of him, and the boot tapping with ceaseless, regular movement upon the heavy Persian rug.

"William is waiting at the garden gate to bring in the paper directly it arrives," Mimi Addington said.

No one answered her. Lord Ballina went up and down the room. Andrew Levison's foot, in its polished boot, went tap, tap, tap, as if it were part of a machine.

Then they heard it – the hoarse, raucous cry – "Evenin' Special! Slum Tragedy! 'Orrid Murder!" The words penetrated with a singular distinctness into the tent-like Eastern room, with all its warmth and perfume.

Three sharp cries of relief and excitement were simultaneously uttered as the three people stood up in a horrid tableau vivant of fear and expectation.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty seconds. "Oh, why does he not come?" And then the door opens quietly, and a discreet manservant brings in a folded pink paper upon a silver tray.

Mimi tears it open as the man withdraws, with a low and almost animal snarl of triumph. Her eyes blaze out like emeralds. The beautiful red lips are parted; hot breath pants out between them. Then she turns suddenly white as linen. The paper falls from her hands, the life fades from her face and eyes, the strength of movement from her limbs, and she giggles feebly, as one bereft of reason.

Lord Ballina snatches up the paper, scans it with rapid eyes, and then turns to Levison.

"They have killed the wrong man!" he says, with a terrible oath. "They've murdered Sir Augustus Kirwan, and Joseph has gone free!"

Levison staggered towards him, leant on him, and read the shocking news for himself.

Lord Ballina began to weep noisily, like a frightened girl.

"It's all up with us," he said; "it's all up with us! This is the end of all of it, the hand of God is in it; we're done – lost, lost! There is no forgiveness!"

Even as he said this the hangings which covered the noiseless outside door were parted suddenly. Joseph himself stood there with one hand raised above his head, and said unto them —

"Peace be unto you all in this household! Peace be unto you!"

The words, spoken in the Teacher's deep and musical voice, rang out in the tented room like a trumpet.

The three conspirators were struck by them as if by some terrible crushing physical force.

With dilated eyes and faces, which were scarcely human in their terror, they crouched before the terrible apparition.

In that moment all remembrance of what they had just learnt from the newspaper was blotted from their minds; they only thought that here was one veritably risen from the dead, or come in spirit to denounce them.

The woman was the first to succumb. With a low, whimpering moan she fell in a tumbled heap upon the floor. Neither the Jew nor the younger man moved a finger to help her. They crouched trembling against the opposite wall, and stared at the tall figure of the man they had tried to murder.

Joseph stood looking upon them. His face was no index whatever to his thoughts. In whatever spirit he had come they could define nothing of it from his face, though the words which he had uttered as he appeared from behind the hangings rang in their ears with a deep and ironical mockery as if the bell of doom was tolling for them.

Once more Joseph raised his hands.

"Peace be unto you," he said again, as if blessing them. And then he asked very gravely and calmly: "Why are you afraid of me?"

Again there was silence, until at last Levison, the Jew, with a tremendous and heroic effort of self-control, pulled himself a little together and essayed to speak.

"Do not prolong this scene, sir," he said, in a cracked, dry voice, which seemed to come from a vast distance. "Have your men in at once and take us away. It will be better so. You have won the game, and we must pay the penalty. I suppose you have captured the men who made the attempt upon your life, and" – here Levison remembered, with an added throb of horror, how another had suffered in place of his intended victim – "and who, unfortunately, killed another person in mistake for you. So be it. We are ready to go."