But now there was inquiry in his eyes.
Both Schuabe and Llwellyn saw it, knew the cause, and shuddered.
There was a tense silence, and then the creature spoke again. There was a loathsome confidential note in his voice.
"Now, gentlemen," he said, "you"ve already paid me well for any little kindness I may have been able to try to do for you. I suppose, now that the little job is "off," I shall not get the rest of the sum agreed upon?"
Schuabe, without speaking, made a sign to Llwellyn. The big man got up, went to a little nest of mahogany drawers which stood on his writing-table, and opening one of them, took from it a bundle of notes.
He gave them to the a.s.sa.s.sin. "There, Nunc," he said; "no doubt you"ve done all you could. You won"t find us ungrateful. But I want to ask you a few questions."
The man took the notes, counted them deliberately, and then looked up with a gleam of satisfied greed pa.s.sing over his face--the gleam of a pale sunbeam in h.e.l.l.
"Ask anything you like, sir," he said; "I"ll give you any help I can."
Already there was a ring almost of patronage in his voice. The word "help" was slightly emphasised.
"This inspector, who is he exactly? I mean, is he an important person?"
"He is the man who has charge of all the big things. He goes abroad when one of the big city men bunk to South America. He generally works straight from the Home Office; he"s the Government man. To tell the truth, I was surprised to meet _him_ in the Horsecloth. One of the others generally goes there. When _he_ began to talk, I knew that there was something important, more than usual."
"He definitely said that he knew your--backers?"
"Yes, he did; and what"s more, gentlemen, he seemed to know too much altogether about the business. I don"t pretend to understand it. _I_ don"t know why a young parson and a press reporter are being looked after by Government as if they were continental sovereigns and the Anarchists were trying to get at them--no more than I know why two such gentlemen as you are wanting two smaller men put through it. But all"s well that ends well. _I"m_ satisfied enough, and I"m extremely glad that I got this notice in time to stop it off. But whatever you do, gentlemen, give up any idea of doing those two any harm. You couldn"t do it--couldn"t get near them. Give it up, gentlemen. Somehow or other, they know all about it. Be careful. Now I"m off. Good-day, gentlemen.
Look after yourselves. I fear there is trouble brewing somewhere, though it won"t come through _me_. They can"t _prove_ anything on our side."
He went slowly out of the room, back into the darkness of the pit whence he came, to the dark which mercifully hides such as he from the gaze of dwellers under the heavens.
Only the police of London know all about these men, and their imaginations are not, perhaps, strong enough to let the horror of contact remain with them.
When he had gone, Llwellyn sank heavily into a chair. He covered his face with his hands and moaned.
"Oh, fool that I was to try anything of the sort!" hissed Schuabe. "I might have known!"
"What is the state of things, really, do you suppose?" said Llwellyn.
"Imminent with doom for us!" Schuabe answered in a deep and melancholy voice. "It is all clear to me now. Your woman was set on to you by these men from the first. They are clever men. Michael Manichoe is behind them all. She got the story. Spence has been sent to verify it. He has got everything from Ionides. The Government has been told. These things have been going on during the last few hours. Spence has cabled something of his news, perhaps not all. He will be back to-day, this afternoon. He will have left Paris by now, and almost be nearing Amiens. In that train, Llwellyn, lies our death-warrant. Nothing can stop it. They will send the news all over the world to-night. It will be announced in London by dinner-time, probably."
Llwellyn groaned again. In this supreme hour of torture the sensualist was nearer collapse than the ascetic. His life told heavily. He looked up. His face was green-grey save where, here and there, his fingers had pressed into, and left red marks upon, the cheeks, which had lost their firmness and begun to be pendulous and flabby.
"What do you think must be the end?" he said.
"The end is here," said Schuabe. "What matters the form or manner of it?
They may bring in a bill and hang us, they will certainly give us penal servitude for life, but probably we shall be torn in pieces by the mob.
There is only one thing left."
He made an expressive gesture. Llwellyn shuddered.
"All is not necessarily at an end," he said. "I shall make a last effort to get away. I have still got the clergyman"s clothes I wore when I went to Jerusalem. There will be time to get out of London before this evening."
"All over the continent and America you would be known. There is no getting away nowadays. As for me, I shall go down to my place in Manchester by the mid-day train. There is just time to catch it. And there I shall die before they can come to me."
He got up and strode away out of the flat with a set, stern face. Never a pa.s.sing look did he give to the man he had enriched and d.a.m.ned for ever. Never a gesture of farewell.
Already he was as one in the grave. Llwellyn, left to himself in the silent, richly furnished flat, fell into hysterical sobbing.
His big body shook with the vehemence of his unnatural terror. His moans and cries were utterly without dignity or pathos. He was filled with the immense self-pity of the sensualist.
It is the added torture which comes to the evil-liver.
In the hour of blackness, every moment of physical gratification or sin adds its weight to the terrible burden which must be borne.
This man felt that he was lost. Perhaps all hope was not quite dead. He called on all his courage to make a last attempt at escape.
He must leave this place at once. He would go first to his house in Upper Berkeley Street, Lady Llwellyn"s house! His wife.
Something strange and long forgotten moved within him at that word. What might not his life have been by her side, a life lived in open honour!
What had he done with it all? His great name, his fame, were built up slowly by his long and brilliant work. Yet all the time that fair edifice was being undermined by secret workers. The l.u.s.ts of the flesh were deep below the structure, their hammers were always slowly tapping--and now it was all over.
He drove up to his own door, unlocked it, and went up the stairs to his own rooms.
Though he had not been near them for weeks, he saw--with how keen a pang of regret--that they were swept and tidy, ready for his coming at any time.
He rang the bell.
CHAPTER VIII
DEATH COMING WITH ONE GRACE
The door opened softly. A long beam of late winter sunshine which had been pouring in at the opposite window and striking the door with its projection of golden powder suddenly framed, played over, and lighted up the figure of Lady Llwellyn.
Sir Robert stood in the middle of the pleasant room and looked at her.
The sunlight showed up the grey pallor of her face, the lines of sorrow and resignation, the faded hair, the thin and bony hands.
"Kate," he said in a weak voice.
It was the first time he had called her by her name for many years.
The tired face lit up with a swift and divine tenderness.
She made a step forward into the room.
He was swaying a little, giddy, it seemed.