Chapter Eight
A tall, lean man of about sixty years of age, of dignified appearance, came out of a house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead, and walked slowly in the direction of the station at Swiss Cottage.
He was a very aristocratic-looking person; you might have taken him for a retired ambassador, except for the fact that retired ambassadors do not live in the neighbourhood of Finchley Road. At the first glance you might have thought he was an Englishman, with his clear complexion, his short, pointed beard. A closer inspection revealed the distinguishing traits of the foreigner. But even then you would have been inclined to put him down as a Frenchman, rather than a Spaniard.
Ferdinand Contraras, such was his name, was one of the principal leaders of the world-wide anarchist movement. A man of learning and education, he had worked it out to his own satisfaction that anarchy was the cure for all social evils. A man of considerable wealth, he had devoted the greater portion of his possessions to the spreading of this particular propaganda. His zeal in the great cause burnt him with a consuming fire.
One is confronted with these anomalies in all countries – men of family and refinement, reaching out sincere hands to the proletariat, and welcoming them into a common brotherhood.
Mirabeau led the French Revolution in its first steps, an aristocrat of the first water. Tolstoi, equally an aristocrat, preached very subversive doctrines.
Ferdinand Contraras, from conviction, sentimentality, or some other equally compelling motives, hated his own order, and devoted himself heart and soul to the service of the masses as against the classes. He had spent much more than half his very considerable fortune on the necessary propaganda of his principles. From the house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue he, in conjunction with a few other enthusiastic spirits, controlled the policy which was directed to upset an old and effete world and construct a new and perfect one on the ruins of the old.
He waited outside the station for quite five minutes, tapping his stick impatiently the while. He was, by temperament, a very impatient and autocratic person, like most people who aspire to sovereign power.
The burly and imposing figure of Luçue appeared through the gloom of the station. The two men shook hands. Contraras grumbled a little.
“My friend, punctuality was never your very special virtue. You were to be at my house by a quarter-past six. It is now a quarter to seven, half an hour late, and I am meeting you at the station. It would take another five minutes to get to my house.”
“That would mean I should be quite thirty-five minutes late, eh?” queried Luçue in his usual easy, genial fashion. He had the greatest respect for the great leader, Ferdinand Contraras; he fully recognised his single-mindedness, his devotion to the cause. But he was also aware of his little weaknesses of temper, his proneness to take offence at trifles. “I am honestly very sorry I have kept you waiting, but it was impossible to get away before.”
Luçue surveyed the neighbourhood around him with some contempt, and added: “Besides, if you will live in an out-of-the-way spot like this, you can’t blame your friends if they find it a bit difficult to get to you.”
Luçue himself lived in lodgings in a mean street in Soho. In spite of his reverence for his chief, he did not quite relish the fact that Contraras was living in a lordly pleasure house, that he fared every day on the daintiest food, and was very particular as to vintages. Contraras, in spite of his sacrifices to the great cause, was not exactly practising what he preached.
Luçue himself was poor. Hence, perhaps, these profound meditations. It would not be going too far to say that Luçue was already anticipating the day when Contraras would be required, under the new dispensation, to hand over the remainder of his wealth for the common benefit.
But things had not got so far as this at the moment. Law and order were still in the ascendant, and anarchy had not yet got its foot into the stirrup, much less was it mounted in the saddle.
The two men walked up to the house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, where Contraras lived in some sort of state. A butler opened the door, a footman hovered in the background. There would be a dinner of many courses, there would be wines of the first quality. For the leader of the great anarchist movement did himself and his friends very well. Poor Contraras! He often failed to notice the envious eyes of his friends, the humble friends who left his hospitable house to return to their dingy lodgings in Soho, or the mean streets off Tottenham Court Road.
He took Luçue into his private sitting-room. A decanter of whiskey, soda-water, and glasses were ready on the table, placed there by the thoughtful butler. In the best of all possible worlds there would be no butlers thought Luçue grimly, as he helped himself at his host’s invitation.
“What of Guy Rossett?” asked Contraras abruptly, when the two men were seated. “He knows a great deal. He knows too much.”
“My section is dealing with his affair,” replied Luçue smoothly. “Violet Hargrave and Andres Moreno are over in Spain, as of course you know.”
Contraras grunted. He was not in a very good mood to-night; he had not yet forgiven Luçue for his lack of punctuality.
“Violet Hargrave I know, of course, a friend and protégée of our staunch old comrade Jaques. Moreno I know nothing about. Who is he, what is he?”
Luçue explained. Moreno was a journalist, his father pure Spanish, his mother an Englishwoman. His principles were sound. He was a revolutionary heart and soul.
Contraras was still in the grunting stage. He helped himself to another whiskey.
“You are a judge of men, Luçue; you seldom make mistakes,” he said, in rather a grudging voice.
“I don’t quite like the idea of the English mother. You have thought that all out?”
“Quite,” was the swift reply. “Moreno comes to us with settled convictions. He is, like yourself, a philosophical anarchist.”
It certainly said a good deal for Moreno’s powers of persuasion that he had succeeded in convincing the suspicious Luçue of his sincerity.
The gong sounded for dinner. Contraras kept to his gentlemanly habits; his house was ordered in orthodox fashion. His wife, a faded-looking woman, who had once been a beauty, sat at the head of the table. His daughter, a comely, dark-eyed girl, his only child, faced the guest. Neither wife nor daughter had the slightest sympathy with the peculiar views of the head of the household. As a matter of fact, they thought he was just a trifle insane on this one particular point.
They detested the strange-looking men, some of them in very shabby raiment, who came to this well-appointed house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, to partake of their chief’s hospitality and drink his choice wines. They marvelled between themselves at the blindness of Contraras. Could he not see that these shabby creatures hated him for his wealth, for the hospitality which they regarded as a form of ostentation?
Several times both mother and daughter had tried to point this out to him.
“Live in a little forty-pound-a-year house, without a maid, with Inez and me to scrub and cook, and they might believe in you,” his wife had remarked bitterly on one occasion when her nerves had been more than usually upset by the intrusion of some very shabby looking guests. “Of course, now they reckon you up at your true value. You are making the best of the present order of things, getting the best you can out of it. Bah! What do you expect if your dreams come to pass? They will not leave you a sixpence, these wretches whom you have put into power. They will strip you at once.”
The visionary had smiled condescendingly. He had a poor opinion of the mental capacity of women. They had no initiative, no foresight.
But he was very tolerant to the weaker vessel. He patted the faded cheek of his once beautiful wife, a daughter of the old Spanish nobility. He was a kind husband, a fond father.
“You do not understand these difficult matters, my dear,” he replied in his loftiest tones. “The world will always be governed by brains, whether under a just or an unjust régime.” He tapped his broad forehead significantly. “When it comes to brains, Ferdinand Contraras will not be found wanting.”
Madame shrugged her shoulders and glanced at her pretty daughter, who made a signal of assent. Certainly, Contraras, great as was his power in anarchist circles, was not held in high esteem in his own family.
Towards Luçue the two women did not exhibit the same signs of aversion which they usually displayed to the other guests. The reason was obvious. He was a self-seeking, grasping fellow. He loved the flesh-pots, the good things of life. If he got into power with his chief, they would take the best for themselves and let their poor dupes feed on the husks. The difference between the two men was that Contraras was troubled with an almost ridiculous sentimentality. Luçue, big, genial, and humorous, was as callous as any human being could be. And he, moreover, had no conscience.
The meal was finished. Although in a way Luçue despised his chief’s ostentatious mode of living, he was very fond of good wine and food. There might come a time when, through Contraras’ brains, he would be in a similar position. The two men adjourned to the private sitting-room, where the great man produced some special brandy and choice cigars.
“Drink, my friend,” said the host genially. “We shall think none the less wisely because we take an excellent glass of brandy and smoke an equally excellent cigar.”
Luçue assented, but after a brief pause he spoke a little bluntly.
“You will not think I am taking a liberty, my good comrade, if I say a few words to you. We have a difficult team to drive. Many of our brotherhood, most, alas, are very poor. Exception is taken by some of them to your mode of living. They think the great Contraras should bring himself more on a level with his less fortunate brethren.”
Contraras frowned. By nature he was more autocratic than the most despotic monarch who even subjugated a docile people. But he recognised that Luçue’s words conveyed a warning.
“What would they have? My wife has said the same thing to me, and at the time I fancied it was the foolish babbling of a woman. Now I see that there was some wisdom in her remarks.”
“Equality is our watchword,” observed Luçue with a rather subtle smile.
“Of course,” agreed Contraras smoothly. “That is our aim, our goal. But, under present conditions, we cannot practise it. I have, as you know, given the greater portion of my money to the cause. I have proved my sincerity. You will say I have left some for myself. True, but that is a wise policy. I live here in a certain sort of comfort. The position I keep up helps me to remain unsuspected. Nobody will think I am such a fool as to embrace anarchy. With these trappings, I can work better for the cause than if I hid myself in a back street in Soho.”
Luçue agreed. The chief had a long head. Luçue might envy, but he could not refrain from admiring him.
Contraras broke away from the embarrassing topic of inequality in fortune. He spoke brusquely.
“To return to this Englishman, Rossett. You think you can settle his hash?”
Luçue nodded his big head. “It is settled, as I told you. I am working in conjunction with Alvedero and Zorrilta.”
“No two better men, they are staunch to the core, true sons of Spain,” said Contraras approvingly. “One thing I would love to know, Luçue. Who supplied Rossett with his information?”
“That I am also keen to know. There are always traitors in every camp. Perhaps some day I may find out.”
The two men talked till it was time for Luçue to catch his train. Contraras walked with him to the station.
The chief wrung him by the hand. “If you ever find that traitor, no half measures, you understand.”
Luçue smiled a grim smile. “You can never accuse me of sentimentality. The penalty for every traitor is death.”
Chapter Nine
It had been a very hot August day. The old-world town of Fonterrabia had glowed in the torrid heat. With the sinking of the sun had come a sudden breath of comparative coolness.
In a small room facing the sea, in the obscure little café “The Concho” there sat four people. They were respectively, Zorrilta, Jaime Alvedero, two of the most trusted lieutenants of the great Contraras – Contraras who directed his world-wide campaign from the safe and sheltered precincts of Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead – Andres Moreno, journalist, trusted agent of the English Secret Service, ostensibly sworn anarchist, and lastly Violet Hargrave, now domiciled in Spain in the interests of the brotherhood, in England a somewhat well-known member of the semi-smart set.
Moreno, as we know, was the son of a purely Spanish father and an English mother. Violet Hargrave was not greatly given to confidences. But the pair had been thrown much together. In spite of their mixed nationality, Spain was, to a great extent, a foreign land to them.
Violet had been born in Spain and lived there up to the age of ten, but her memories of the country were faint and fragmentary. Moreno had been born in England, brought up and educated there. He spoke Spanish perfectly since his father had taught him the language, and conversed in it with him from childhood. In that father’s company he had made some dozen trips to what was really his native country, he had visited every important town – Barcelona, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Segovia, not to mention Madrid.
Still, they were both more English than foreign, and there was an unconscious sympathy between them arising from this fact. Moreno’s heart ached for the familiar haunts of Fleet Street, for the restaurants where the odour of garlic was not always greatly in evidence. And Violet sighed for the elegant flat in Mount Street, with its perfect appointments. She had grown to loathe this sun-baked Biscayan coast.
Being thrown so much in each other’s society, caution had been a little relaxed on the woman’s side – Moreno had never for a moment relaxed his. Violet Hargrave was still an enigma to him. He was not prepared to trust her in the smallest degree. But in his peculiar position he could trust nobody.
One day she had been very confidential. It had been after a good dinner, followed by one or two potent liqueurs. On such an occasion even the most cautious woman of the world may find her tongue loosened.
She had confided to Moreno a considerable portion of her family history. Her father, a ne’er-do-well, a soldier of fortune – she frankly gave this description of her male parent – had fallen in love with and married her Spanish mother, a beautiful young girl, a professional dancer, not, however, occupying a Very high position in her profession.
It peeped through the narrative, told in a rather staccato fashion, that her father had lived chiefly on his wife’s small earnings, that he did no regular work, but acted as her agent. When she was ten years of age, her mother died, and her father was thrown on his own resources.
They had come to London. James Wheeler, such was her father’s name, had at once sought out a rich financier known in business circles as Mr Jackson. His real name was Juan Jaques, he was a Spaniard, and he had at one time been desperately in love with her mother.
For the sake of that old affection, he had befriended the derelict father and the helpless child. He had set Wheeler on his legs, so far as it was possible to help such a weak and incapable creature. But Wheeler was addicted to drink and was cursed with a feeble constitution. In a few years, the drink carried him off. Violet, at the age of eighteen, was left alone in the world. Her mother, no doubt, had relatives in Spain, but she knew nothing of them. Of her father’s relations, if he had any, she had never heard him speak.
Whatever the failings of the moneylender in certain directions, he behaved with rare generosity and tenderness to the daughter of his old sweetheart. He advanced money to secure her a good education. He did his best to secure for her eligible posts.
Still, on the whole, she had experienced a rough time. She could do a little of everything fairly, but nothing very well. She had tried the concert hall, the stage, and been a failure on both. She had not even inherited her mother’s talent for dancing.
But poor old Jaques was always patient and kind. He kept her going with an allowance that might be called handsome. At the back of his mind he felt pretty sure that Violet would prove a winner in the end.
She had been very seedy. Jaques had summoned her to his private room, thrust a hundred pounds worth of notes into her hand, and ordered her to take herself off to the most expensive hotel in Scarborough, to pick up health and strength. They would map out together some fresh plan of campaign when she came back.
At the expensive hotel in Scarborough, she met Jack Hargrave, a personable young fellow, who seemed to have plenty of money, and was of good family.
At that time Violet was a very thrifty young woman – she learned expensive habits later on – she reckoned that she would stay at Scarborough for a fortnight, and return with a handsome balance out of the hundred pounds. Then the kind Jaques, to whom she was genuinely grateful, would not have to put his hand in his pocket for some little time.
She met Jack Hargrave, who was staying at the same hotel. He fell violently in love with her, with her blonde prettiness. At the end of the first week he proposed.
Violet was attracted by him, perhaps a little bit in love. She accepted him on the spot, and went off the next morning to London to consult Jaques, in whom she placed her full confidence.
There was here a little break in the story, as told to Moreno. Evidently her guardian approved. She married Jack Hargrave, and they had taken the flat in Mount Street, of which she was still the tenant.
Here Moreno had interrupted. “You say that Jack Hargrave was well-off. How did he make his money? Flats in Mount Street are not run on credit.”
“Oh, don’t you know? It was Jaques who put him into good things in the City, out of friendship for me.”
“But, one moment,” pursued Moreno. “He was well-off when he met you. How was he making money when our good old friend Jaques had not appeared on the scene?”
Violet, under the influence of the liqueurs, was a little off her guard.
“Oh, don’t be silly. Jack was a very expert bridge-player.”
Moreno nodded. “I think I understand. We won’t go into details. Under his instructions, you became a very expert bridge-player too. It used to be whispered that you were just a little bit too lucky.”
Violet Hargrave admitted that many rumours had been flying about, and that the flat in Mount Street had become a little suspect.
“And how did you get into this?” had been Moreno’s next question.
Violet had been very frank. “It was dear old Jaques who drew me into it. You know I have told you how grateful I was to him, how indebted. When he asked me, could I refuse, after all the benefits he had showered upon me?”
“Impossible,” said Moreno in his quiet, easy tones. He added, after a pause, “I wonder if your heart is in it?”
She flashed at him a swift glance of interrogation. “I wonder if yours is?”
Moreno smiled. They were then each suspecting the other, on account of their mixed parentage.
“Absolutely,” he answered in a tone of deep conviction. “I am nine-tenths Spaniard, one-tenth Englishman. You are one-tenth Spaniard and nine-tenths Englishwoman. I very much doubt if your heart is in it.”
Violet spoke in a low, hard voice. And she also felt there was need of caution.
“I have lived a very hard life, depending upon charity, generous charity I admit, for many years. I think I do not love the present order of things. I am really an anarchist; I think I may truly say my heart is in it.”
Moreno accepted her statement. She was still an enigma to him. She had spoken of Jaques with a genuine sense of gratitude, she had alluded to her late husband in terms of sincere affection. The woman had her sentimental moments.
Then he remembered that she was the daughter of a drunken and derelict father – this much she had told him. Her mother was a Spanish dancer of unknown origin. Out of this peculiar blend, was it possible to fashion an honest woman. Moreno doubted it.
He remembered the night in the flat at Mount Street, when she had vindictively declared that Guy Rossett had to be got out of the way.
He had looked at the still very pretty woman, her fair cheeks just a little flushed with the after results of the good dinner. She had, perhaps, her good points, but was she not an absolute degenerate? Daughter of the wastrel father and the Spanish dancer!
He had been very sympathetic through the recital. He had helped her on with an encouraging word or two in the pauses of her narrative, for at times she had evidently pulled herself up with the recollection that she was being too frank. But he had learned a good deal about Violet’s past.
He still had his suspicions. Perhaps another dinner or two might get more out of her.
The four conspirators sat in the little room facing the sea. Violet Hargrave, by the way, was dressed in a peasant costume.
Alvedero spoke in his deep voice. “I think, for the present, we will make Fonterrabia our headquarters. It is a quiet little town, and, for the moment, not suspect.”
The Deputy-Governor of Navarre assented. They could do great things from this comparatively obscure quarter.
Alvedero spoke again. “Now, first, there is the question of Guy Rossett. Contraras and Luçue are agreed that he should be removed speedily.”
Moreno hastened to corroborate. He knew that Violet Hargrave was watching him narrowly. “The sooner the better,” he said heartily. “He knows too much.”
“A great deal too much!” burst in Zorrilta angrily. “The question is, where did he get his information from? Some traitor, of course.” Moreno glanced at Violet Hargrave. He had his suspicions of her, but not a muscle of her countenance moved. His suspicions of her then were not confirmed. But Violet said nothing in reply to Zorrilta’s angry outburst.
There came a diversion. Father Gonzalo passed the window of the small sitting-room. His hawklike eye peered through the window.
“Dios!” cried Zorrilta, jumping up. “That accursed priest again! He roves about here like an evil spirit.”
“Who is he, this priest?” cried Moreno eagerly. He had seen the lean figure of the father passing the window, and had noted the keen, inquisitive glance.
Zorrilta explained what he had learned from the intelligent fisherman Somoza. Father Gonzalo was a Jesuit, not attached to the Church of Santa Gadea. He was suspected of being a spy in the pay of the Government.
Moreno rose. “Shall I go and sample this gentleman?” he said. “I can play the rôle of the devout Catholic very well.”
Zorrilta and Alvedero grinned. They were both nominal Catholics, but their religion did not trouble them very much. They were pleased with the enterprising spirit of their new recruit.
“Go my friend, come back and report to us.” Moreno, well pleased, strode out, and soon overtook the priest, who was walking leisurely.
“Good evening, Father,” he said pleasantly. He also added a few Spanish words which were a password.
When he heard those magic words, the priest’s lean, ascetic face changed at once.
“You are one of us?” he asked briefly.
“Of course. My name is Moreno. I am attached to the English Secret Service, and I am helping your Government to beat the anarchists.”
“Good,” said Father Gonzalo. “Those people I saw you with in the little sitting-room at the ‘Concha,’ I know the two well, Zorrilta and Alvedero; the woman I do not know. I take it they are all anarchists. You are joining up with them for your own purposes.”
“Precisely,” answered Moreno. “Keep your eyes open too. This is, at present, the headquarters of the conspiracy.”
“My son, good night,” said the wily Jesuit in his most paternal tones. “We shall meet again. You have, of course, made a good excuse for leaving your friends, and running after me.”
Moreno smiled. “When I return I shall give the best report of you, a report that I trust will disarm suspicion. But it is as well to put you on your guard. You have a very keen enemy here, one Carlos Somoza, a fisherman. Conciliate him, if you can.” The Jesuit’s dark eyes flashed. “I know him. The dirty dog. I will be on my guard. I will go to Santa Gadea, and pray for my sins.”
The unctuous priest stole away. Moreno watched his departure with a contemptuous smile. He did not seem a very valiant member of the church militant.
Moreno joined his companions. He addressed them in his usual easy fashion.
“Couldn’t get much out of him. I should say he was quite a harmless old chap, full of good works. He seemed very concerned that I should be drinking at a place like the ‘Concha.’ He gave me some very good advice. I don’t think he has brains enough to be a spy.”
The other two men laughed. Moreno had carried the affair off so well that they believed him implicitly.
Then Alvedero spoke seriously.
“This affair of Guy Rossett was very pressing.” He turned to Moreno and Violet Hargrave. “I daresay you know that Luçue has delegated this matter to me, as being on the spot.”
The two members of this conclave of four bowed; they had gathered this much before they left England.
“Yesterday, however, I had instructions from our great leader, Contraras,” pursued Alvedero; he uttered the name of his chief in accents of profound reverence. “The affair of Guy Rossett has, for the moment, sunk into comparative insignificance. There is bigger game afoot.”
“Ah!” breathed Moreno eagerly. True to his histrionic instinct, he was playing the rôle of enthusiast very well.
Violet Hargrave, who was never very enthusiastic, thought it well to imitate him, and leaned forward as if eager to catch the next words from the great man’s lips.
Alvedero spoke slowly. “As you know, in difficult times, we have to proceed with great caution – I cannot divulge all that Contraras has entrusted me with to-day. To-morrow Valerie Delmonte will be over here! We will meet at the same place and the same hour.”
He paused, and then lifted his hands to the low roof of the mean sitting-room in which the four were assembled.
“The brain of that man is stupendous, gigantic,” he cried, in tones of the deepest admiration. “My friends, he has planned a great coup, and Valerie Delmonte is going to carry it out! She is devoted, she is fearless, she will not blench. To-morrow at this hour and this place I will take you into the secret; it is possible one of you may be called upon to assist.”
A few minutes later the meeting broke up. There would be an exciting day to-morrow, thought Moreno, as he strolled away.