When It Was Dark: The Story of a Great Conspiracy

After breakfast, the lunch time of most of the world, he found it impossible to settle down to anything. He was not due at the office that night, and the long hours, without the excitement of his work, stretched rather hopelessly before him. He thought of paying calls in the various parts of the West End, where he had friends whom he had rather neglected of late. But he dismissed that idea when it came, for he did not feel as if he could make himself very agreeable to any one.

He wanted a complete change of some sort. He half thought of running down to Brighton, fighting the cold, bracing sea winds on the lawns at Hove, and returning the next day.

He was certainly out of sorts, liverish no doubt, and the solution to his difficulties presented itself to him in the project of a Turkish bath.

He put his correspondence into the pocket of his overcoat, to be read at leisure, and drove to a hammam in Jermyn Street.

The physical warmth, the silence, the dim lights, and Oriental decorations induced a supreme sense of comfort and bien-être. It brought Constantinople back to him in vague reverie.

Perhaps, he thought, the Turkish bath in London is the only easy way to obtain a sudden and absolute change of environment. Nothing else brings detachment so readily, is so instinct with change and the unusual.

In delightful langour he passed from one dim chamber to another, lying prone in the great heat which surrounded him like a cloak. Then the vigorous kneading and massage, the gradual toning and renovating of each joint and muscle, till he stood drenched in aromatic foam, a new, fresh physical personality. The swift dive under the india-rubber curtain left behind the domed, dim places of heat and silence. He plunged through the bottle-green water of the marble pool into the hall, where lounges stood about by small inlaid octagonal tables, and a thin whip of a fountain tinkled among green palms. Wrapped from head to foot in soft white towels, he lay in a dream of contentment, watching the delicate spirals from his Cairene cigarette, and sipping the brown froth of a tiny cup of thick coffee.

At four a slippered attendant brought him a sole and a bottle of yellow wine, and after the light meal he fell once more into a placid, restorative sleep.

And all the while the letter from Jerusalem was in his overcoat pocket, forgotten, hung in the entrance-hall. The thing which was to alter the lives of thousands and ten thousands, that was to bring a cloud over England more dark and menacing than it had ever known, lay there with its stupendous message, its relentless influence, while outside the church bells all over London were tolling for Evensong.

At length, as night was falling, Spence went out into the lighted streets with their sudden roar of welcome. He was immensely refreshed in brain and body. His thoughts moved quickly and well, depression had left him, the activity of his brain was unceasing.

As a rule, especially for the last year or two, Spence was by no means a man given to casual amusements. His work was too absorbing for him to have time or inclination to follow pleasure. But to-night he felt in the humour for relaxation.

He turned into St. James Street, where his club was, intending to find some one who would go to a music-hall with him. There was no one he knew intimately in the smoking-room, but soon after he arrived Lambert, one of the deputy curators from the British Museum, came in. Spence and Lambert had been at Marlborough together.

Spence asked Lambert, who was in evening dress, to be his companion.

"Sorry I can't, old man," he answered; "I've got to dine with my uncle, Sir Michael. It's a bore, of course, but it's policy. The place will be full of High Church bishops, minor Cabinet Ministers, and people of that sort. I only hope old Ripon will be there – he's my uncle's tame vicar, you know; uncle runs an expensive church, like some men run a theatre – for he's always bright and amusing. You're not working to-night, then?"

"No, not to-night. I've been and had a Turkish bath, and I thought I'd wind up a day of mild dissipation by going to the Alhambra."

"Sorry I can't go too – awful bore. I've had a tiring day, too, and a ballet would be refreshing. The governor's been in a state of filthy irritation and nerves for the last fortnight."

"Sir Robert Llwellyn, isn't it?"

"Yes, he's my chief, and a very good fellow too, as a rule. He went away for several months, you know – travelled abroad for his health. When he first came back, three months ago, he looked as fit as a fiddle, and seemed awfully pleased with himself all round. But lately he's been decidedly off colour. He seems worried about something, does hardly any work, and always seems waiting and looking out for a coming event. He bothers me out of my life, always coming into my room and talking about nothing, or speculating upon the possibility of all sorts of new discoveries which will upset every one's theories."

"I met him in Dieppe in the spring. He seemed all right then, just at the beginning of his leave."

"Well, he's certainly not that now, worse luck, and confound him. He interferes with my work no end. Good-bye; sorry I must go."

He passed softly over the heavy carpet of the smoking-room, and Spence was left alone once more.

It was after seven o'clock.

Spence wasn't hungry yet. The light meal in the hammam had satisfied him. He resolved to go to the Empire alone, not because the idea of going seemed very attractive, but because he had planned it and could substitute no other way of spending the evening for the first determination.

So, about nine o'clock, he strolled into the huge, garish music-hall.

He went into the Empire, and already his contentment was beginning to die away again. The day seemed a day of trivialities, a sordid, uneventful day of London gloom, which he had vainly tried to disperse with little futile rockets of amusement.

He sat down in a stall and watched a clever juggler doing wonderful things with billiard balls. After the juggler a coarsely handsome Spanish girl came upon the stage – he remembered her at La Scala, in Paris. She was said to be one of the beauties of Europe, and a king's favourite.

After the Spanish woman there were two men, "brothers" some one. One was disguised as a donkey – a veritable peau de chagrin! – the other as a tramp, and together they did laughable things.

With a sigh he went up-stairs and moved slowly through the thronged promenade. The hard faces of the men and women repelled him. One elderly Jewish-looking person reminded him of a great grey slug. He turned into the American bar at one extremity of the horse-shoe. It was early yet, and the big room, pleasantly cool, was quite empty. A man brought him a long, parti-coloured drink.

He felt the pressure of a packet in his pocket. It was Cyril Hands's letter, he found as he took it out. He thought of young Lambert at the club, a friend of Hands and fellow-worker in the same field, and languidly opened the letter.

Two women came in and sat at a table not far from him as he began to read. He was the only man in the place, and they regarded him with a tense, conscious interest.

They saw him open a bulky envelope with a careless manner. He would look up soon, they expected.

But as they watched they saw a sudden, swift contraction of the brows, a momentous convulsion of every feature. His head bent lower towards the manuscript. They saw that he became very pale.

In a minute or two what had at first seemed a singular paleness became a frightful ashen colour.

"That Johnny's going to be ill," one of the women said to the other.

As she spoke they saw the face change. A lurid excitement burst upon it like a flame. The eyes glowed, the mouth settled into swift purpose.

Spence took up his hat and left the room with quick, decided steps. He threaded his way through the crowd round the circle – like a bed of orchids, surrounded by heavy, poisonous scents – and almost ran into the street.

A cab was waiting. He got into it, and, inspired by his words and appearance, the man drove furiously down dark Garrick Street, and the blazing Strand towards the offices of the Daily Wire.

The great building of dressed stone which stood in the middle of Fleet Street was dark. The advertisement halls and business offices were closed.

Spence paid his man and dived down a long, narrow passage, paved, and with high walls on either side. At the end of the passage he pushed open some battered swing-doors. A commissionaire in a little hutch touched his cap as Spence ran up a broad flight of stone stairs.

The journalist turned down a long corridor with doors on either side. The glass fanlights over the doors showed that all the rooms were brilliantly lit within. The place was very quiet, save for the distant clicking of a typewriter and the thud of a "column-printer" tape machine as the wheel carrier shot back for a new line.

He opened a door with his own name painted on it and went inside. At a very large writing-table, on which stood two shaded electric lights, an elderly man, heavily built and bearded, was writing on small slips of paper. There was another table in the room, a great many books on shelves upon the walls, and a thick carpet. The big man looked up as Spence came in, lifted a cup of tea which was standing by him, and drank a little. He nodded without speaking, and went on with his leading article.

Spence took off his hat and coat, drew the sheets of Hands's letter from his pocket, and went out into the passage. At the extreme end he opened a door, and passing round a red baize screen found himself in Ommaney's room, the centre of the great web of brains and machinery which daily gave the Wire to the world.

Ommaney's room was very large, warm, and bright. It was also extremely tidy. The writing-table had little on it save a great blotting-pad and an inkstand. The books on chairs and shelves were neatly arranged.

The editor sat at a table in the centre of the room, facing several doors which led into various departments of the staff. The chief sub-editor, a short, alert person, spectacled and Jewish in aspect, stood by Ommaney's side as Spence came in. He had proof of page three in his hand – that portion of the paper which consisted of news which had accumulated through the day. He was submitting it to the editor, so that the whole sheet might be finally "passed for press" and "go to the foundry," where the type would be pressed into papier-mâché moulds, from which the final curved plates for the roller machines would be cast.

"Not at all a bad make-up, Levita," Ommaney said, as he initialled the margin in blue pencil. The sub-editor hurried from the room.

Ommaney was slim and pale, carefully dressed, and of medium height. He did not look very old. His moustache was golden and carefully tended, his pale, honey-coloured hair waved over a high, white forehead.

"I shall want an hour," Spence said. "I've just got what may be the most stupendous news any newspaper has ever published."

The editor looked up quickly. A flash of interest passed over his pale, immobile face and was gone. He knew that if Spence spoke like this the occasion was momentous.

He looked at his watch. "Is it news for to-night's paper?" he said.

"No," answered Spence. "I'm the only man in England, I think, who has it yet. We shall gain nothing by printing to-night. But we must settle on a course of action at once. That won't wait. You'll understand when I explain."