The Socialist

Lord Hayle took up the card.

"By Jove!" he said. "James Fabian Rose! Why, that's the great Socialist Johnny, isn't it, father? The man who writes plays and lectures, and is on the County Council and all that. I think we had him down at Oxford once, and I am not sure that we did not drive him out of the town."

"That is the man," the bishop answered; "one of the most brilliant intellects and unscrupulous characters in London to-day. It is not too much to say, Gerald, that this man is a perfect danger and menace to society, and to our – our order."

"Then what has he come to see you for, father?"

"Goodness only knows!" said the bishop. "I certainly shall not see him."

The butler was an old and privileged family servant. He had said nothing while this dialogue was in progress. Now he turned to his master.

"If you will allow me to say so, my lord," he said, "I think the gentleman should be seen. I don't think that it is an ordinary visit at all. It bears no indication of being an ordinary visit at all."

The bishop snapped his fingers once or twice.

"Oh, well, Parker," he said, "show him in, show him in; but explain that I have only three minutes, and that I am very busy. Gerald, you might as well wait. It might be interesting for you to see this creature."

In half a minute the butler opened the door and showed in the man with the face as white as linen, the mustard-coloured beard and moustache, and the keen lamp-like eyes.

Rose was dressed in his usual lounge suit, cut with about as much regard to convention as a ham sandwich. His tall figure bent forwards in eagerness, and he was certainly a disreputable note in this stronghold of aristocracy. Yet, nevertheless, his personality blazed out in the room as if some one had lit a Roman candle in the library.

The bishop rose, stately, portly, splendid.

"Mr. Rose," he said, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? I am rather pressed for time."

"Something very important, indeed, my lord," the Socialist answered, in quick, incisive accents. "I should not have intruded upon you unless I had something most special to say."

"I understand that, Mr. Rose," the bishop replied, though the courteous smile with which he said it robbed his remark of something of its sting. "You and I, Mr. Rose, represent two quite different points of view, do we not?"

"I suppose we do," said the great Socialist, with a sudden vigour and amusement in his eyes; "but that is not what I have come here for to-night. May I ask, my lord," he said, looking towards Lord Camborne's son, "may I ask if this is Lord Hayle?"

"That is my name, Mr. Rose," the young man replied, rather startled at the sudden question.

"Oh, thank you," Rose said. "I have come here specially to see you to-night."

There was a moment's pause.

"Your business, Mr. Rose?" said the bishop once more.

"Is this," Rose rejoined. "The Duke of Paddington has sent me with a very special message to his friend, Lord Hayle. If Lord Hayle was not in London, his grace asked me to see Lord Camborne."

The bishop started violently. "My dear Mr. Rose," he said, in a deep voice, "what is all this? What is all this? The Duke of Paddington! Do you mean to say – "

"The Duke of Paddington, my lord," Rose answered, a subtle mockery becoming somewhat apparent in his voice, "the Duke of Paddington has been discovered!"

"Good Lord!" Lord Hayle shouted out suddenly, in the high-pitched voice of almost uncontrollable excitement. "You have found dear old John! Where is John, Mr. Rose?"

There was something so spontaneous and sincere in the young man's voice that the Socialist turned with a certain brightness and pleasure to the young man.

"Oh, sir!" he said, "the duke is lying at my house in Westminster. He has been kidnapped by criminal ruffians, and, I am sorry to say, has been tortured in order that large sums of money might be extorted from him. The doctors are with him now, and no serious injury has been done, but he is especially anxious to see you. I have a cab waiting, if you care to come at once."

"I'll have my coat on in a moment," Lord Hayle replied, and left the room.

The bishop went up to James Fabian Rose.

"Sir," he said, "our difference of opinion in social economics and political affairs shall not prevent me from gripping you very heartily by the hand."

CHAPTER XIII

NEW FRIENDS: NEW IDEAS

It was three days after the strange and dramatic rescue of the Duke of Paddington, and he lay in a bright, cheerful bedroom in James Fabian Rose's house in Westminster. Providence had guided Rose and his companions to the underground cellar in the nick of time. The relentless ruffians who had captured the duke had been as good as their word. They had treated him with indescribable ferocity, though into the details of the horrors in the foundation of the old house it is not necessary to go.

When the police inspectors had brought him up from the deepest hole of all, he was unconscious, and had immediately been taken away to Rose's own house in a horse ambulance which had been summoned from the police headquarters of the district.

The actual discovery had been very simple. Directly the Inspector of Police recognised the man known as "Sidney," he had rushed after him, followed by the others. As it happened, for some time the police had been very anxious to discover the exact whereabouts of this particular ex-convict, to track him to his lair. It was obvious that when the man turned and bolted down the stairs there was something he wished to conceal, and, though there was no actual charge against him at the moment, the policeman had experience enough to know that something illegal was afoot. They had dashed into the kitchen to find it tenanted only by the old Jewish woman, but the door leading into the smaller kitchen was open, and Sidney was leaning over the trap-door in the floor pulling up another member of the gang who had been down in the pit with the victim.

The man's design had obviously been to get his comrade up, close the trap-door, and push the tub over it before the policemen could enter the kitchen. In all probability there would then have been no discovery at all, though the ruffian himself was by no means sure that the party were not in some way or other upon the track of the actual offence he had committed in kidnapping the duke. His guilty conscience had betrayed him.

When the scoundrel had been caught and handcuffed, and the duke had been discovered and carried up into the kitchen the man relapsed into a sullen silence. He had gathered at once from the remarks made by his captors that they were quite unaware of the identity of the prisoner. It did not, in fact, occur to any of the party, even to the police, to connect this insensible figure, half-clothed – the face covered with grime and dirt – with the missing peer.

"We will get the poor fellow off to the hospital at once, sir," Inspector Green had said to Rose. "These devils have been working some horrible thing upon him. I expect he is one of their pals who has given them away. I have seen some black things, but this is about as bad as any of them. I should not wonder" – he turned round with his face like a flint, and a voice that cut like a whip – "I should not wonder if this was a swinging job for you, Sidney O'Connor!"

"He certainly shall not go to the hospital," said Rose. "Not that they won't look after him thoroughly there; but I could not allow anybody whom I discovered myself in such a plight as this to do so. He must go to my house, and my wife and Miss Marriott will nurse him."

"Well, sir," said the officer, "it is only a very little distance farther to your house from here than to Charing Cross Hospital, and I will send the ambulance there if you really wish it. It's very kind of you, Mr. Rose."

"Certainly I do," Rose answered. "It is a duty, of course."

"And I," said Mary Marriott, "will drive back at once if a cab can be found for me, to tell Mrs. Rose that they are bringing this poor man."

"That will be very kind of you, Miss Marriott," Rose answered. "I am sorry that our expedition has come to so unpleasant and dramatic an end, for I do not suppose any of us would care to go on now?"

"No, indeed," said both the clergyman and the journalist in answer, and in a few minutes Mary's first experience of the dark under-currents of London life was at an end.

When the duke was comfortably installed in Rose's house the doctor pronounced him suffering from shocks and extreme weakness.

"He will be all right in a few days," he said. "He must now have absolute rest and nourishment. The actual harm inflicted upon him by the scoundrels with whom he was found is very slight. There are the merest superficial burns, and the cuts are trivial. It is the weakness and shock that are the most serious. The young man has a splendid constitution. He's as strong as an ox."

The doctor went away, leaving minute directions for the treatment of the patient.

The duke was in a semi-conscious condition. He realised dimly that he was out of the horrible place where he had lain for, so it seemed to him, an eternity. He knew that, somehow or other, he had been rescued, that he was now lying in a comfortable bed. A new life seemed slowly coming back into his veins as the meat jelly dissolved in his mouth. The horror was ended at last!

He had fallen at length into a deep slumber.

The party assembled in the drawing-room, discussing the extraordinary events of the morning, and Mrs. Rose was told every detail. The police and the County Council inspector were not there, but the chief inspector had promised to report later as to anything that should be learned of the truth of the mystery.

"Well," said Mr. Goodrick, with a little chuckle, "I went out this morning because I wanted to watch Miss Marriott, and because I am interested in the great experiment we are making with her. I had seen all that sort of thing before I knew Miss Marriott; in fact, I began my journalistic career by writing of such places as we have been among; but I never expected that I was going to get a journalistic scoop. This will make a fine column in to-morrow's paper. The junior members of my staff will be jealous of their editor-in-chief going out and bringing in copy! They will regard it as an infringement of their rights!" He chuckled once more, and rubbed his hands together, all the true pressman's delight at exclusive news glowing in his eyes.