When It Was Dark: The Story of a Great Conspiracy

"I'm here to help that," said Basil.

"It's Bob," she answered. "The man that keeps me. I'm afraid of him. He's been away for months, out of England, but he's coming back at once. To-morrow as likely as not, he couldn't say to a day. I had a letter from Brindisi last week. He's been to Palestine, via Alexandria."

A quick premonition took hold of the young man.

"Who is he?" he asked.

She took a photograph from the mantel-shelf and gave it to him. It was one of the Stereoscopic Company's series of "celebrities." Under the portrait was printed – "Sir Robert Llwellyn."

Gortre started violently.

"I know him," he said thickly. "I felt when I met him – What does it all mean?"

He dropped his head into his hands, filled with the old, nameless, unreasoning fear.

She looked steadily at him, wondering at his manner.

There was a tense silence for a time.

In the silence suddenly they heard a sound, clear and distinct. A key was being inserted into the door of the flat.

They waited breathlessly. Gertrude Hunt grew very white. Without any words from her, Basil knew whose fingers were even now upon the handle of the door.

Llwellyn entered. His huge form was dressed in a light grey suit and he carried a straw hat in his hand. His face was burned a deep brown.

He stopped suddenly as he saw Gortre and an ugly look flashed out on the sensual, intellectual face. Some swift intuition seemed to give him the key of the situation or something near it.

"The curate of Dieppe!" he said in a cold, mirthless voice. "And what, Mr. Gortre, may I ask, are you doing here?"

"Miss Hunt has asked me to come and see her," answered Basil.

"Consoling yourself with the Church, Gertie, while your proprietor is away?" Llwellyn said with a sneer.

Then his manner changed suddenly.

He turned to Gortre. "Now then, my man," he snarled, "get out of this place at once. You may not know that I pay the rent and other expenses of this establishment. It is mine. I know all about you. Your reputation has reached me from sources you have little idea of. And I saw you at Dieppe. I don't propose to resume our acquaintance in London; kindly go at once."

Basil looked at the woman. He saw pleading, a terrible entreaty in her eyes. If he left her now, the power of this man, his strength of will, might drag her back for ever into hell. He could see the girl regarded him with terror. There was a great surprise in her face also. The man seemed so strong and purposeful. Even Gortre remembered that he had worn no such indefinable air of confidence and triumph six months ago in France.

"Miss Hunt wants me to stay, sir," he answered quietly, "and so I'm going to stay. But perhaps you had better be given an explanation at once. Miss Hunt is going to leave you to-morrow. She will never see you again."

"And may I ask," the big man answered, "why you have interfered in my private affairs and why you think– for she is going to do nothing of the sort – Miss Hunt is going from here?"

"Simply because the Holy Spirit wills it so," said the clergyman.

Llwellyn looked steadily at him and then at the woman.

Something he saw in their faces told him the truth.

He laughed shortly. "Let me tell you," he said in a voice which quivered with ugly passion, "that in a short time all meddling priests will lose their power over the minds of others for ever. Your Christ, your God, the pale dreamer of the East, shall be revealed to you and all men at last!"

His manner had changed once more. Fierce as it was, there was an intense meaning and power in it. He spoke as one having authority, with also a concentrated hate in his words, so real and bitter that it gave them a certain fineness.

"Yes!" he continued, lifting his arm with a sudden gesture:

"'Far hence He lies
In the lorn Syrian town,
And on His grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down.'"

Gortre answered him:

"You lie and you know you lie! and by the powers given to me I'll tell you so from God Himself. Christ is risen! And as the day follows the night so the Spirit of God remains upon the earth God once visited, and works upon the hearts of men."

"Are you going?" said Llwellyn, stepping towards Gortre.

"No," the young man answered in sharp, angry tones. "It's you that are going, Sir Robert. You know as well as I do that I can do exactly as I like with you if it comes to force. And really I am not at all disinclined to do so, despite my parson's coat. Then you will have your remedy, you know. The newly made knight fighting a clergyman under such very curious circumstances! If this thing is to become open talk, then let us have it so. You can do me no harm. I came here at my vicar's request and Miss Hunt's. You know best if you can stand a scandal of this kind in your position. Now I'm going to use my last argument. Are you going at once or shall I knock you down and kick you out?"

He could not help a note of exultation in his voice, try as he would. He was still a young man, full of power and virility. His life had brought no trace of effeminacy with it. And as he saw this splendid lying intellect, the slave of evil, and rejoicing in it, as he heard the arrogant denial of Christ's Godhead coming sonorously from those polluted lips, a wild longing flared up in him. Like a sudden flame, the impulse to strike a clean, hard blow fired all his blood. The old Oxford days of athletic triumphs on field, flood, and river came back to him.

He measured the man scientifically with his eyes, judging his distance, alert to strike.

But Llwellyn made no further movement of aggression and uttered no word of menace. He did not seem in the least afraid of Gortre or in any way intimidated by him. Indeed, he laughed, a laugh which was very hollow, mirthless, and cold.

"Ah, my boy," he said, "I have a worse harm to work you than you can dream of yet. You will remember me some day. You can't frighten me now. I will go. I want no scandal. Good-bye, Gertrude. You also will remember and regret some day. Good-bye."

He went noiselessly out of the room, still with the strange flickering smile of prescience and fate upon his evil face.

When he had gone, Gertrude fell into a passion of weeping. The strain had been too great. Basil comforted her as well as he could, and before he went promised to see Father Ripon that night and make arrangements that she should quietly disappear the next day to some distant undiscoverable haven.

Then he also went out into the night, through the silent squares of sleeping houses towards the Clergy House of St. Mary's. Once more his nerves were unstrung and the old fears and the sense of waiting – Damocles-like for some blow to fall – poured over him.

Sir Robert walked swiftly to Oxford Street, where he found a cab. He ordered the man to drive him to the Sheridan Club. On the way he stopped at Charing Cross Station and ordered his luggage to be sent home at once to his house in Upper Berkeley Street. He had only been in London two or three hours, having crossed from Calais that afternoon.

He washed when he had arrived at the famous club, and then went up-stairs to the grill-room for some supper. It was the hour when the Sheridan is full of the upper Bohemian world. Great actors and musicians, a judge on his way through town from one watering-place to another, – for it was now the long vacation, – a good many well-known journalists, all sorts and conditions of men. All were eminent in their work, for that was a condition of membership.

Llwellyn was welcomed on all sides, though men noticed that he seemed preoccupied. His healthy appearance was commented on, his face browned, as was supposed, by the sun of the Riviera, his general fitness of manner and carriage.

He took supper by himself at a small table, choosing the menu with his usual extreme care, and more than once summoning the head waiter to conference. Although he kept glancing at his watch, as if expecting an arrival, he made a good meal, mixing his own salad of crisp white lettuce with deliberation.

He had sent a page early on his arrival to find out if Mr. Constantine Schuabe was in the club.

He was standing at the desk in the middle of the room, paying his bill, when the swing-doors were pushed open and Schuabe entered. He was in evening dress and carried a light overcoat on his arm.

Llwellyn gathered up his change and went to meet him. Had there been an attentive observer to mark the meeting of the two men he would have perhaps been a little surprised at the fashion of it.

Although Llwellyn was a six-months' stranger to London, and the meeting between the two men was obviously prearranged, neither of the two men smiled as they shook hands. Both were expectant of each other, pale, almost with some apprehension, it might have been fancied; and though the meeting seemed a relief to each, there was little human kindliness in it.