Mystery at Geneva Part 4

"Well," said Henry, changing the subject, "if we're both going out to lunch, can't we lunch together? I'm Beechtree, of the _British Bolshevist_."

Miss Doris Wembley looked at Beechtree, rather liked him, and said, "Right. But I must finish one letter first."

She proceeded with her efficient, rapid, and noisy labours. She did not need to look at the keyboard, she was like that type of knitter who knits the while she gazes into s.p.a.ce; she had learnt "Now is the time for all good men to come to the help of the party."

Henry, strolling round the room, observing details, had time to speculate absently on the wonderful race of typists. He had in the past known many of them well, and felt towards them a regard untouched by glamour. How, he had often thought, they took life for granted, unquestioning, unwondering, accepting, busy eternally with labours they understood so little, performed so well, rattling out their fusillade of notes that formed words they knew not of, sentences that, uncomprehended, yet did not puzzle them or give them pause, on topics which they knew only as occasioning cascades of words. To them one word was the same, very nearly the same, as another of similar length; words had features, but no souls; did they fail to decipher the features of one of them, another of the same dimensions would do. And what commas they wielded, what colons, what semis, what stops! But efficient they were, all the same, for they were usually approximately right, and always incredibly quick.

Henry knew that those stenographers who had been taken out to Geneva were, in the main, of a more sophisticated order, of a higher intellectual equipment. But Charles Wilbraham's secretary was of the ingenuous type. Probably the more sophisticated would not stay with him. A pretty girl she was, with a round brown face, kind dark eyes, and a wide, sweet, and dimpling mouth. Henry, like every one else, liked a girl to be pretty, but, quite unlike most young men, he preferred her to be witty. The beauty of the dull bored him very soon; Henry had his eccentricities. He did not think that Miss Wembley was going to be amusing, but still, he intended to cultivate her acquaintance.

Henry looked at his watch. It was twelve forty-five. "Can't the rest wait?" he said.

"I'm just on done. It's a re-type I'm doing. I spelt parliament with a small p, and Mr. Wilbraham said he couldn't send it, not even if I rubbed it out with the eraser. He said it would show, and it was to the F.O., who are very particular."

"My G.o.d," Henry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, in a low yet violent tone, and gave a bitter laugh. His eyes gleamed fiercely. "I can imagine," he said, with restraint, "that Mr. Wilbraham might be particular. He _looks_ particular."

"Well, he is, rather. But he's quite right, I suppose. Messy letters look too awful. Some men will sign simply anything. I don't like that.... There, now I've done."

"Come along then," said Henry rapidly.

12

The a.s.sembly met again at four o'clock, and proceeded under the Deputy President with the order of the day. But it was a half-hearted business. No one was really interested in anything except the fate of Dr. Svensen, who, it had transpired from inquiry among the boat-keepers, had not taken a boat on the lake last night.

"Foul play," said the journalist Grattan, hopefully. "Obviously foul play."

"Ask the Bolshevist refugees," the _Times_ correspondent said with a shrug. For he had no opinion of these people, and believed them to be engaged in a continuous plot against the peace of the world, in combination with the Germans. The _Morning Post_ was inclined to agree, but held that O'Shane, the delegate from the Irish Free State, was in it too. Whenever any unpleasant incident occurred, at home or abroad (such as murders, robberies, bank failures, higher income tax, Balkan wars, strikes, troubles in Ireland, or cocaine orgies), the _Times_ said, "Ask the Bolshevists and the Germans," and the _Morning Post_ said, "Ask the Bolshevists and the Germans by all means, but more particularly ask Sinn Fein," just as the _Daily Herald_ said, "Ask the capitalists and Scotland Yard," and some eminent _litterateurs_, "Ask the Jews." We must all have our whipping-boys, our criminal suspects; without them sin and disaster would be too tragically diffused for our comfort. Henry Beechtree's suspect was Charles Wilbraham. He knew that he suspected Charles Wilbraham too readily; Wilbraham could not conceivably have committed all the sins of which Henry was fain to believe him guilty. Henry knew this, and kept a guard on his own over-readiness, lest it should betray him into rash accusation. Information; evidence; that was what he had to collect.

The question was, as an intelligent member of the Secretariat pointed out, who stood to benefit by the disappearance of Svensen from the scenes? Find the motive for a deed, and very shortly you will find the doer. Had Svensen a private enemy? No one knew. Many persons disapproved of the line he was apt to take in public affairs: he wanted to waste money on feeding hungry Russians ("No one is sorrier than my tender-hearted nation for starving persons," the other delegates would say, "but we have no money to send them, and are not Russians always hungry?") and was in an indecent hurry about disarmament, which should be a slow and patient process. ("No one is more anxious than my humane nation for peace," said the delegates, "but there is a dignified caution to be observed.") Yes; many persons disagreed with Svensen as to the management of the affairs of the world; but surely no one would make away with him on that account.

Far more likely did it seem that he had inadvertently stumbled into the lake, after dining well. What an end to so great and good a man!

13

Lord Burnley, the senior British delegate, that distinguished, notable, and engaging figure in the League, had, as has been said earlier, a strange addiction to walking. This afternoon, having parted from his friends outside the a.s.sembly Hall, he started, as was a favourite pastime of his, to walk through the older and more picturesque streets of the city, for which he had a great taste.

As he strolled in his leisurely manner up the Rue de la Cite, stopping now and then to look at its antique and curious shops, he came to a book shop, whose outside shelf was stocked with miscellaneous literature. Lord Burnley, who could seldom pa.s.s an old bookshop without pausing, stopped to glance at the row of paper-backs, and was caught by a familiar large bound book among them. Familiar indeed, for was it not one of his own works? He put on his gla.s.ses and looked closer. Yes: the volume was inscribed _Scepticism as a Basis for Faith_, by George Burnley. And printed on a paper label below the t.i.tle, was the inscription, "Special Edition, recently annotated by the Author."

Strange! Lord Burnley was puzzled. For neither recently nor at any other time was he conscious of having issued a special annotated edition of this work.

For a minute or two he pondered, standing on the pavement. Then, deciding to inquire further into this thing, he stooped his head and shoulders and pa.s.sed under the low lintel into the little dark shop.

14

Henry, having left the a.s.sembly, sent off his message to his newspaper (it was entirely about the disappearance of Dr. Svensen), glanced into his pigeon-hole on his way out, and found there, among various superfluous doc.u.ments, a note addressed to him by the ex-cardinal Franchi, suggesting that, if he should not find himself better employed, he should give the writer his company at dinner at eight o'clock that evening, at his villa at Monet, two miles up the lake. He would find a small electric launch waiting for him at seven-thirty at the Eaux-Vives jetty, in which would be Dr. Franchi's niece, who had been attending the a.s.sembly that afternoon.

"Excellent," thought Henry. "I will go." For he was greatly attracted by Dr. Franchi, and liked also to dine out, and to have a trip up to Monet in a motor launch.

He went back to his indigent rooms in the Allee Pet.i.t Chat, and washed and dressed. (Fortunately, he had at no time a heavy beard, so did not have to shave in the evenings.) Well-dressed he was not, even in his evening clothes, which were a cast-off of his brother's, and not, as evening clothes should be, faultless; but still they pa.s.sed, and Henry always looked rather nice.

"Not a bad face," he reflected, surveying it in the dusty speckled gla.s.s. "A trifle weak perhaps. I _am_ a trifle weak; that is so. But, on the whole, the face of a gentleman and a decent fellow. And not devoid of intelligence.... Interesting, to see one's own face.

Especially in this odd gla.s.s. Now I must be off. Hat, stick, overcoat, scarf--that is everything."

He walked down to the Eaux-Vives jetty, where a smart electric launch did indeed await him, and in it a young lady of handsome appearance, who regarded him with friendly interest and said, in p.r.o.nounced American with an Italian accent, "I'm real pleased to meet you, Mr.

Beechtree. Step right in. We'll start at once."

Henry stepped right in, and sat down by this prepossessing girl.

"I must introduce myself," she said. "My name is Gina Longfellow, and I'm Dr. Franchi's niece."

"What excellent English you talk," said Henry politely.

"American," she corrected him. "My father was a native of Joliet, Ill.

Are you acquainted with the Middle West?"

"I've travelled there," said Henry, and repressed a shudder, for he had found the Middle West deplorable. He preferred South America.

"I am related to the poet," said Miss Longfellow. "That great poet who wrote _Hiawatha_, _Evangeline_, and _The Psalm of Life_. Possibly you came across him out in the States?"

"No," said Henry. "I fancy he was even then dead. You are a descendant of his?"

"A descendant--yes. I remember now; he died, poor nonno.... The lake pleases you, Mr. Beechtree?"

"Indeed, yes. It is very beautiful."

Miss Longfellow's fine dark eyes had a momentary flicker of resentment. Most young men looked at her, but Mr. Beechtree at the lake, with his melancholy brooding eyes. Henry liked handsome young women well enough, but he admired scenery more. The smooth s.h.i.+mmer of the twilight waters, still holding the flash of sunset, the twinkling city of lights they were swiftly leaving behind them at the lake's head, the smaller constellations of the lakeside villages on either hand--these made on Henry, whose aesthetic nerve was sensitive, an unsteadying impression.

Miss Longfellow recalled his attention.

"Do you think the League will last?" she inquired sharply. "Do you like Geneva? Do you think the League will be moved somewhere else?

Isn't it a real pity the French are so obstructionist? Will the Americans come in?"

Henry adjusted his monocle and looked at her in some surprise.

"Well," she said impatiently, "I guess you're used to those questions by now."

"But you've left out the latest," Henry said. "What do you think can have happened to Svensen?"

"Ah, there you have us all guessing," she amiably returned. "Poor Svensen. Who'd have thought it of him?"