Paris,
March 4, 1901. — Madame Despard. Asphyxiated. This also was regarded as suicide till certain information came to hands of French police. Of Madame Despard nothing good can be said. She was a notorious ‘dealer in souls’.
Paris,
March 4, 1902 (exactly a year later). — Monsieur Gabriel Lanfin, Minister of Communication. Found shot in his brougham in the Bois de Boulogne. His coachman was arrested but eventually discharged. The man swore he heard no shot or cry from his master. It was raining at the time, and there were few pedestrians in the Bois.
(Here followed ten other cases, all on a par with those quoted above, including the cases of Trelovitch and le Blois.)
It was undoubtedly a great story.
The Editor-in-Chief, seated in his office, read it over again and said, “Very good indeed.”
The reporter — whose name was Smith — read it over and grew pleasantly warm at the consequences of his achievement.
The Foreign Secretary read it in bed as he sipped his morning tea, and frowningly wondered if he had said too much.
The chief of the French police read it — translated and telegraphed — in Le Temps, and furiously cursed the talkative Englishman who was upsetting his plans.
In Madrid, at the Cafe de la Paix, in the Place of the Sun, Manfred, cynical, smiling, and sarcastic, read extracts to three men — two pleasantly amused, the other heavy-jowled and pasty of face, with the fear of death in his eyes.
Chapter II
The Faithful Commons
Somebody — was it Mr Gladstone? — placed it on record that there is nothing quite so dangerous, quite so ferocious, quite so terrifying as a mad sheep. Similarly, as we know, there is no person quite so indiscreet, quite so foolishly talkative, quite so amazingly gauche, as the diplomat who for some reason or other has run off the rails.
There comes a moment to the man who has trained himself to guard his tongue in the Councils of Nations, who has been schooled to walk warily amongst pitfalls digged cunningly by friendly Powers, when the practice and precept of many years are forgotten, and he behaves humanly. Why this should be has never been discovered by ordinary people, although the psychological minority who can generally explain the mental processes of their fellows, have doubtless very adequate and convincing reasons for these acts of disbalancement.
Sir Philip Ramon was a man of peculiar temperament.
I doubt whether anything in the wide world would have arrested his purpose once his mind had been made up. He was a man of strong character, a firm, square-jawed, big-mouthed man, with that shade of blue in his eyes that one looks for in peculiarly heartless criminals, and particularly famous generals. And yet Sir Philip Ramon feared, as few men imagined he feared, the consequence of the task he had set himself.
There are thousands of men who are physically heroes and morally poltroons, men who would laugh at death — and live in terror of personal embarrassments. Coroner’s courts listen daily to the tale of such men’s lives — and deaths.
The Foreign Secretary reversed these qualities. Good animal men would unhesitatingly describe the Minister as a coward, for he feared pain and he feared death.
“If this thing is worrying you so much,” the Premier said kindly — it was at the Cabinet Council two days following the publication of the Megaphone’s story— “why don’t you drop the Bill? After all, there are matters of greater importance to occupy the time of the House, and we are getting near the end of the session.”
An approving murmur went round the table.
“We have every excuse for dropping it. There must be a horrible slaughtering of the innocents — Braithewaite’s Unemployed Bill must go; and what the country will say to that, Heaven only knows.”
“No, no!” The Foreign Secretary brought his fist down on the table with a crash. “It shall go through; of that I am determined. We are breaking faith with the Cortes, we are breaking faith with France, we are breaking faith with every country in the Union. I have promised the passage of this measure — and we must go through with it, even though there are a thousand ‘Just Men’, and a thousand threats.”
The Premier shrugged his shoulders.
“Forgive me for saying so, Ramon,” said Bolton, the Solicitor, “but I can’t help feeling you were rather indiscreet to give particulars to the Press as you did. Yes, I know we were agreed that you should have a free hand to deal with the matter as you wished, but somehow I did not think you would have been quite so — what shall I say? — candid.”
“My discretion in the matter, Sir George, is not a subject that I care to discuss,” replied Ramon stiffly.
Later, as he walked across Palace Yard with the youthful-looking Chancellor, Mr Solicitor-General, smarting under the rebuff, said, a propos of nothing, “Silly old ass.” And the youthful guardian of Britain’s finances smiled.
“If the truth be told,” he said, “Ramon is in a most awful funk. The story of the Four Just Men is in all the clubs, and a man I met at the Carlton at lunch has rather convinced me that there is really something to be feared. He was quite serious about it — he’s just returned from South America and has seen some of the work done by these men.”
“What was that?”
“A president or something of one of these rotten little republics…about eight months ago — you’ll see it in the list…They hanged him…most extraordinary thing in the world. They took him out of bed in the middle of the night, gagged him, blindfolded him, carried him to the public jail, gained admission, and hanged him on the public gallows — and escaped!”
Mr Solicitor saw the difficulties of such proceedings, and was about to ask for further information when an undersecretary buttonholed the Chancellor and bore him off. “Absurd,” muttered Mr Solicitor crossly.
There were cheers for the Secretary for Foreign Affairs as his brougham swept through the crowd that lined the approaches to the House. He was in no wise exalted, for popularity was not a possession he craved. He knew instinctively that the cheers were called forth by the public’s appreciation of his peril; and the knowledge chilled and irritated him. He would have liked to think that the people scoffed at the existence of this mysterious four — it would have given him some peace of mind had he been able to think the people have rejected the idea.
For although popularity or unpopularity was outside his scheme of essentials, yet he had an unswerving faith in the brute instincts of the mob. He was surrounded in the lobby of the House with a crowd of eager men of his party, some quizzical, some anxious, all clamouring for the latest information — all slightly in fear of the acid-tongued Minister.
“Look here, Sir Philip” — it was the stout, tactless member for West Brondesbury— “what is all this we hear about threatenin’ letters? Surely you’re not goin’ to take notice of things of that sort — why, I get two or three every day of my life.”
The Minister strode impatiently away from the group, but Tester — the member — caught his arm.
“Look here—” he began.
“Go to the devil,” said the Foreign Secretary plainly, and walked quickly to his room.
“Beastly temper that man’s got, to be sure,” said the honourable member despairingly. “Fact is, old Ramon’s in a blue funk. The idea of making a song about threatenin’ letters! Why, I get — —”
A group of