"I am in favour of our taking a few more days to consider this matter."
"And I am against any delay," Fenn objected hotly. "I am for immediate action."
"Let me explain where I think we have been a little hasty," Julian continued earnestly. "I gather that the whole correspondence between this body and the Socialist Party in Germany has been carried on by Mr.
Fenn and Freistner. There are other well-known Socialists in Germany, but from not one of these have we received any direct communication.
Furthermore--and I say this without wishing to impugn in any way the care with which I am sure our secretary has transcribed these letters--at a time like this I am forced to remember that I have seen nothing but copies."
Fenn was on his feet in a moment, white with pa.s.sion.
"Do you mean to insinuate that I have altered or forged the letters?" he shouted.
"I have made no insinuations," Julian replied. "At the same time, before we proceed to extremities, I propose that we spend half an hour studying the originals."
"That"s common sense," Cross declared. "There"s no one can object to that. I"m none so much in favour of these typewritten slips myself."
Fenn turned to whisper to Bright. Mr. Stenson rose to his feet. The glare of the unshaded lamp fell upon his strained face. He seemed to have grown older and thinner since his entrance into the room.
"I can neither better nor weaken my cause by remaining," he said. "Only let this be my parting word to you. Upon my soul as an Englishman, I believe that if you send out those telegrams to-night, if you use your hideous and deadly weapon against me and the Government, I believe that you will be guilty of this country"s ruin, as you certainly will of her dishonour. You have the example of Russia before you. And I will tell you this, too, which take into your hearts. There isn"t one of those men who are marching, perhaps to-night, perhaps tomorrow, to a possible death, who would thank you for trying, to save their lives or bodies at the expense of England"s honour. Those about to die would be your sternest critics. I can say no more."
Julian walked with the Premier towards the door.
"Mr. Stenson," he declared, "you have said just what could be said from your point of view, and G.o.d knows, even now, who is in the right! You are looking at the future with a very full knowledge of many things of which we are all ignorant. You have, quite naturally, too, the politician"s hatred of the methods these people propose. I myself am inclined to think that they are a little hasty."
"Orden," Mr. Stenson replied sternly, "I did not come to you to-night as a politician. I have spoken as a man and an Englishman, as I speak to you now. For the love of your country and her honour, use your influence with these people. Stop those telegrams. Work for delay at any cost.
There"s something inexplicable, sinister, about the whole business.
Freistner may be an honest man, but I"ll swear that he hasn"t the influence or the position that these people have been led to believe.
And as for Nicholas Fenn--"
The Prime Minister paused. Julian waited anxiously.
"It is my belief," the former concluded deliberately, "that thirty seconds in the courtyard of the Tower, with his back to the light, would about meet his case."
They parted at the door, and Julian returned to his seat, uneasy and perplexed. Around the Council table voices were raised in anger. Fenn, who was sitting moodily with folded arms, his chair drawn a little back from the table, scowled at him as he took his place. Furley, who had been whispering to the Bishop, turned towards Julian.
"It seems," he announced, "that the originals of most of Freistner"s communications have been destroyed."
"And why not?" Fenn demanded pa.s.sionately. "Why should I keep letters which would lay a rope around my neck any day they were found? You all know as well as I do that we"ve been expecting the police to raid the place ever since we took it."
"I am a late comer," Julian observed, "but surely some of you others have seen the original communications?"
Thomas Evans spoke up from the other end of the table,--a small, st.u.r.dily built man, a great power in South Wales.
"To be frank," he said, "I don"t like these insinuations. Fenn"s been our secretary from the first. He opened the negotiations, and he"s carried them through. We either trust him, or we don"t. I trust him."
"And I"m not saying you"re not right, lad." Cross declared. "I"m for being cautious, but it"s more with the idea that our German friends themselves may be a little too sanguine."
"I will pledge my word," Fenn p.r.o.nounced fiercely, "to the truth of all the facts I have laid before you. Whatever my work may have been, to-day it is completed. I have brought you a people"s peace from Germany. This very Council was formed for the purpose of imposing that peace upon the Government. Are you going to back out now, because a dilettante writer, an aristocrat who never did a stroke of work in his life, casts sneering doubts upon my honesty? I"ve done the work you gave me to do. It"s up to you to finish it, I represent a million working men. So does David Sands there, Evans and Cross, and you others. What does Orden represent?
n.o.body and nothing! Miles Furley? A little band of Socialists who live in their gardens and keep bees! My lord Bishop? Just his congregation from week to week! Yet it"s these outsiders who"ve come in and disturbed us. I"ve had enough of it and them. We"ve wasted the night, but I propose that the telegrams go out at eight o"clock tomorrow morning.
Hands up for it!"
It was a counter-attack which swept everything before it. Every hand in the room except the Bishop"s, Furley"s, Cross"s and Julian"s was raised.
Fenn led the way towards the door.
"We"ve our work to do, chaps," he said. "We"ll leave the others to talk till daylight, if they want to."
CHAPTER XX
Julian and Furley left the place together. They looked for the Bishop but found that he had slipped away.
"To Downing Street, I believe," Furley remarked. "He has some vague idea of suggesting a compromise."
"Compromise!" Julian repeated a little drearily. "How can there be any such thing! There might be delay. I think we ought to have given Stenson a week--time to communicate with America and send a mission to France."
"We are like all theorists," Furley declared moodily, stopping to relight his pipe. "We create and destroy on palter with amazing facility. When it comes to practice, we are funks."
"Are you funking this?" Julian asked bluntly.
"How can any one help it? Theoretically we are right--I am sure of it.
If we leave it to the politicians, this war will go dragging on for G.o.d knows how long. It"s the people who are paying. It"s the people who ought to make the peace. The only thing that bothers me is whether we are doing it the right way. Is Freistner honest? Could he be self-deceived? Is there any chance that he could be playing into the hands of the Pan-Germans?"
"Fenn is the man who has had most to do with him," Julian remarked. "I wouldn"t trust Fenn a yard, but I believe in Freistner."
"So do I," Furley a.s.sented, "but is Fenn"s report of his promises and the strength of his followers entirely honest?"
"That"s the part of the whole thing I don"t like," Julian acknowledged.
"Fenn"s practically the corner stone of this affair. It was he who met Freistner in Amsterdam and started these negotiations, and I"m d.a.m.ned if I like Fenn, or trust him. Did you see the way he looked at Stenson out of the corners of his eyes, like a little ferret? Stenson was at his best, too. I never admired the man more."
"He certainly kept his head," Furley agreed. "His few straight words were to the point, too."
"It wasn"t the occasion for eloquence," Julian declared. "That"ll come next week. I suppose he"ll try and break the Trades Unions. What a chance for an Edmund Burke! It"s all right, I suppose, but I wonder why I"m feeling so d.a.m.ned miserable."
"The fact is," Furley confided, "you and I and the Bishop and Miss Abbeway are all to a certain extent out of place on that Council. We ought to have contented ourselves with having supplied the ideas. When it comes to the practical side, our other instincts revolt. After all, if we believed that by continuing the war we could beat Germany from a military point of view, I suppose we should forget a lot of this admirable reasoning of ours and let it go on."
"It doesn"t seem a fair bargain, though," Julian sighed. "It"s the lives of our men to-day for the freedom of their descendants, if that isn"t frittered away by another race of politicians. It isn"t good enough, Miles."
"Then let"s be thankful it"s going to stop," Furley declared. "We"ve pinned our colours to the mast, Julian. I don"t like Fenn any more than you do, nor do I trust him, but I can"t see, in this instance, that he has anything to gain by not running straight. Besides, he can"t have faked the terms, and that"s the only doc.u.ment that counts. And so good night and to bed," he added, pausing at the street corner, where they parted.
There was something curiously different about the demeanour of Julian"s trusted servant, as he took his master"s coat and hat. Even Julian, engrossed as he was in the happenings of the evening, could scarcely fail to notice it.
"You seem out of sorts to-night, Robert!" he remarked.
The latter, whose manners were usually suave and excellent, answered almost harshly.
"I have enough to make me so, sir--more than enough. I wish to give a week"s notice."