The Hunchback of Westminster

Finally, as the night began to close in, a heavy step was heard in the whitewashed passage outside, and the wicket door was thrust open.

“Here is tea for two,” cried a gruff voice, “also a letter for José Casteno.” And I hastened to the entrance and received a tray on which stood two coarse mugs of tea and three or four huge slabs of real police-station bread and butter.

Trembling with excitement Casteno seized the letter that had been brought for him and tore open the envelope, on the flap of which was embossed in red the Royal Arms, with the words “Foreign Office” let into the outer circle. Then he unfolded the note, which, in response to a gesture from him, I read over his shoulder.

“Foreign Office, Whitehall, SW.

“Sir, – I am desired by His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to acknowledge your letter of this day’s date and to inform you that the subject-matter thereof has no connection with him in either a personal or official capacity.

“I have the honour to remain, Sir, Your most obedient servant, Reginald Wyke, Assistant Secretary.

“To José Zouche Casteno, The Police Station, Bow Street, WC.”

“What a terrible snub,” I cried, pushing the tray on to the wooden bedstead. “What can it mean?”

“They’ve done us, that’s all,” panted Casteno, his eyes flashing with indignation. “Either they’ve got hold of the manuscripts when they searched St. Bruno’s, or we’ve been sold in some fashion we least expect.”

“Is it Cooper-Nassington?” I hazarded. “Remember, I have had no reply to my telegram!”

“I don’t know,” said the Spaniard, gloomily beginning to pace up and down the cell. “We must wait, I suppose, before we can see. At present we’ve played our cards to the bitter end, and we’ve got nowhere.”

“How about the king?” I queried nervously.

“We can do nothing there until we see what Cooper-Nassington has developed into.” He relapsed into moody reflection. For a few minutes we did not exchange a word, and then, stopping his restless promenade suddenly, he gripped me excitedly by the arm. “I’ve got it,” he cried, “I’ve got it. Deserted by all, we’ll try the Jesuits.”

“And sell England, I suppose,” I answered coldly. “Not a bit of it.”

“Oh no. We shall thus procure even more powerful adherents for England than even Lord Cyril is. We will strike a bargain with them, to side with us.”

“You won’t succeed,” I said.

“I will,” he thundered, and he caught the chain attached to a prisoner’s bell and rung it violently.

“Mind,” I returned impressively, “you do this thing against my better judgment, and when you know for a fact that the Jesuits have been as keen almost to get hold of these documents as we have. Bad as our plight is now, I am sure it will be a thousand times worse after you have entrusted our secrets to these subtle sons of St. Ignatius. Make no mistake. Understand you have been warned, and that you do this thing with your eyes wide open.”

“I understand perfectly,” he rejoined. “But I am at the last ditch. I shall turn now and fight ruffians of the stamp of Cuthbertson with his own weapons. He has insulted me grossly in that last letter of his, penned by an assistant secretary, I see, and I will repay him ‘a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, burning for burning’!” And his hands clenched, and upon his features there glowered a look of diabolical rage.

I would have said more, but just then a police sergeant answered his summons, and at his request brought him a fresh sheet of notepaper and an envelope, as well as pad, pen, ink, and blotting paper. Thereon he sat down once again on the side of the bed and wrote as under:

“Bow Street Police Station, Cell 12,973.

“To The Rev. Father Provincial of the Society of Jesus, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, Berkeley Square, W.

“Rev. Father, – As one who was for some years as a small boy educated at your society’s Stoneyhurst College, I beg to crave your assistance. A friend and I have been arrested on a perfectly frivolous and futile charge for grave purposes of the State, connected with the disappearance of three manuscripts relating to the sacred lake of Tangikano, in which I understand your society has a very real and vital interest. Can you, therefore, make it convenient to come and see me on the matter, or at least send a representative to me who is capable of giving me the best and most disinterested advice at this juncture? If so, words will fail to express my gratitude to you.

“Your distracted servant, José Zouche Casteno.”

“Please have that sent at once,” he said, passing the letter open for the officer to read.

“Any answer?” replied the man, taking the note and preparing to leave.

“Yes; pray tell the constable to wait,” returned Casteno, and the sergeant disappeared, and once more we were alone.

For my own part, I was too disgusted then to wrangle any further with the Spaniard. In a swift comprehensive fashion I realised that it was too late to upbraid, the mischief now was done, and that all I could do was to stand by and fight as best I could for the welfare of my own country independent of any adventurers like Cuthbertson on the one hand or of the Jesuits on the other.

After all, I saw, if I became too vocal, Casteno was in no mood to brook lectures from me. He always had a remedy against me – he could ask to be placed in a separate cell, and then I should be in a worse position than ever. I should know nothing of what he was doing to injure England, nothing at all.

Chapter Twenty Six.

The Words of Father Ganton

The answer to his letter, too, came much sooner than I expected. I don’t believe the note had been despatched half-an-hour before the clatter of several men was heard outside the cell again. The door was thrust open, and the sergeant announced: “A father from the Jesuits’ house in Farm Street.”

It was something more than idle curiosity that prompted me to turn as the Jesuit father entered and to examine his features closely. After all, I was bound to admit to myself, although I had read a lot and had heard a lot about the members of the redoubtable Society of Jesus, I had never hitherto to my knowledge seen one in the flesh. Of course, I had a vague idea of what one of their priests would be like – tall and thin and sleek, pallid, austere, mysterious, with eyes that never looked straight at you, and a voice so carefully modulated that it never failed to give the precise shade of meaning, so precise, indeed, that it left nothing to the imagination at all.

Nevertheless, I welcomed the opportunity of examining one of these cunning ministers of the papacy for myself. With a pardonable touch of egotism, I preferred my own estimate of strangers to other people’s, and I wanted to discover for myself what there was in a Jesuit’s education, discipline, and code of ethics that made them such powerful and resourceful soldiers of the Vatican, while at the same time they were, in practically every country on the globe, objects of such intense suspicion, jealousy, or most active dislike.

“Benedicamus Domino,” said the priest, with a grave salutation to us both as the heavy iron door of the cell closed upon him.

“Deo gratias,” responded Casteno, and at once I saw the effect of his Stoneyhurst training in the way in which he pulled himself together and assumed a bearing of reverent submissiveness I had never known him exhibit to any other person.

As for the Jesuit himself, I admit I was completely astounded at his appearance. As he bent down and fumbled in his pocket for the letter which Casteno had sent to the Father Provincial I had a splendid opportunity of examining his features, for then the light from the high tightly-barred window streamed full upon him.

To my surprise I discovered in this man of fifty, with the square shoulders, the unblinking eye, the clean-shaven mouth that expressed kindness, mirth, as well as iron resolution, none of the littleness I had credited him with. His broad forehead and black hair, now rapidly turning white, showed that he must have studied and studied hard, but not in any narrow sectarian school; his chin and lower jaw, too, were broad and massive but never cruel; while his hands were strong but also frank and free in movement; and his smile, as he searched his pockets through for the letter he had evidently forgotten, was one of the brightest and sunniest things we had seen in our prison-house. Finally, with a half foreign gesture of apology, he gave up his quest.

“I am so sorry,” he said at length, “but I quite forgot to bring with me your letter which the Father Provincial handed to me. As a matter of fact, I must introduce myself too. I am Father Ganton, one of the priests attached to the Farm Street Church of the Immaculate Conception.”

We both of us bowed gravely. And he went on: “Of course, we read your letter with great grief that any Stoneyhurst lad should get into a trouble such as this, but, really, we were astounded that any one of our pupils could make so ludicrous a blunder as you seem to have done about us. You, my son,” turning to Casteno, “must have mixed with many and strange folks since you were under the care of our priests in Lancashire to get the odd and crazy notion into your head that we are conspirators and politicians, and all that silly nonsense some papers delight to print about us. I can assure you both that all that stupid idea that we mix ourselves up in government, or schemes of government, is fudge – mere fudge. We are simply a strong militant Order for the Church of Rome, and, broadly speaking, we don’t care who is in power so long as we are free to practise our religion, and religious interests don’t suffer.”

“Now about those manuscripts I wrote about – the manuscripts that are supposed to relate to the sacred lake of Tangikano,” questioned Casteno. “What about those?”

“You can’t deny you have made most strenuous efforts,” cried I in triumph, “to get hold of those!”

“I don’t know,” said the Jesuit readily. “It all depends, too, what you call ‘strenuous’ efforts. I will tell you quite frankly all we know about them. Centuries ago I understand our Order in Mexico did try to get hold of this sacred lake, but the treasure in it was not the ultimate object. We had had such grievous representations made to us by Catholic missionaries in the district of the evil effect of that heathen practice of casting treasure into that sacred water, with that ceremonial of a pagan pontiff, that we primarily desired to drain the lake right away and only leave in its place barren land. As a matter of fact, few of us nowadays ever gave a thought to the custom, until the other day a well-known dealer in manuscripts came to our house in Farm Street and told us that three most valuable documents affecting the history of our Order in Mexico were about to come under the hammer in London. He asked us to bid for them, knowing that many of our fathers were historians of no mean eminence and that the archives of our society were richly endowed with precious manuscripts that went right back into the twilight of civilised history. Then he gave a hint that they were supposed to relate to the lake, and so after some haggling and discussion we authorised him to bid up to sixty pounds – ”

“Sixty pounds,” echoed Casteno. “Oh, never!”

“Yes; that was as much as we could afford, and as much as we desired to give,” returned Father Ganton. “Doubtless, the man made a great fuss about the commission to frighten other people off and to advertise his own importance; but that, as he will tell you, was our limit. One thing, however, I ought to put right at once, and I hope if either of you gentlemen gets the chance you will do this for the Society of Jesus in England. Had we had any ghost of a suspicion at the time that that dealer came to us that those manuscripts had any diplomatic importance whatever we should not have arranged to offer one penny for them. Our work, as our founder, St. Ignatius, lays down in the first of his spiritual exercises, is the salvation of souls, not the ‘sick hurry, the divided arms, the hearts o’ertaxed, the palsied arms,’ as Matthew Arnold points out, of the man of the world, eager only about fortune. We don’t want, we would not have, any distractions from this object; and I beg you to believe that, and so in your small way help to put public opinion right about the Jesuits of England.”

“One question,” I interrupted earnestly as the priest held out his hand in farewell to us. “Don’t be annoyed, please, if I ask it. I admit it may sound horribly rude, but, indeed, I don’t mean it to be so in that way at all. Why are you Jesuits so heartily disliked, not only in England, but in Italy, in Spain, in France, in Germany, and also in South America?”

The priest turned and looked at me with a frank and sincere expression.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but do you ask that question as a man without any sectarian bias, as one with a genuine desire for information, and to learn only the truth?”

“Indeed I do,” I returned, and I gazed at him straight in the face.

“Well, I will answer it, then,” he responded, “and I will answer it in the way which we Jesuits answer it when we fall to talking about the hostility we read about but really seldom encounter. The point admits of two solutions, and of two solutions alone. One, either we are bad, mischievous people, who deserve expulsion and hatred; or, two, God really did answer that early prayer of our founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, that we should be a persecuted and misunderstood Order as long as time should last, so that we should be always kept united, resolute, and efficient. Now of those two replies you can take your choice. Each one is sufficient in itself – each will give you an excellent and a thoroughly adequate reason – and in both Christian and heathen will find their points of view meet with equal consideration and tolerance!” And with a grave bow to me and a hand that made the sign of the cross over Casteno he turned away and left our cell.