The Yellow Dove/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
THE UNDERCURRENT
THEY were still discussing the strange story of Sandys when Lady Heathcote signaled her feminine guests and they retired to the drawing-room. Over the coffee the interest persisted and Lord Kipshaven was not to be denied. If, as it seemed probable, this German spy was making frequent flights between England and the continent, he must have some landing field, a hangar, a machine shop with supplies of oil and fuel. Where in this tight little island could a German airman descend with a thousand horsepower machine and not be discovered unless with the connivance of Englishmen? The thing looked bad. If there were Englishmen in high places in London who could be bought, there were others, many others, who helped to form the vicious chain which led to Germany.
“I tell you I believe we’re honeycombed with spies,” he growled. “For one that we’ve caught and imprisoned or shot, there are dozens in the very midst of us. If this thing keeps up we’ll all of us be suspecting one another. How do I know that you, Sandys, you, Rizzio, Byfield or even Hammersley here isn’t a secret agent of the Germans? What dinner-table in England is safe when spies are found in the official family at the War Office?”
Rizzio smiled.
“We, who are about to die, salute you,” he said, raising his liqueur glass. “And you, Lord Kipshaven, how can we be sure of you?”
“By this token,” said the old man, rising and putting his back to the fire, “that if I even suspected, I’d shoot any one of you down here—now, with as little compunction as I’d kill a dog.”
“I’ll have my coffee first,” laughed Byfield, “if you don’t mind.”
“Coffee—then coffin,” said Rizzio.
“Jolly unpleasant conversation this,” remarked Hammersley. “Makes a chap a bit fidgety.”
“Fidgety!” roared the Earl. “We ought to be fidgety with the Germans winning east and west and the finest flower of our service already killed in battle. We need men and still more men. Any able-bodied fellow under forty who stays at home”—and he glanced meaningly at the Honorable Cyril—“ought to be put to work mending roads.”
The object of these remarks turned the blank stare of his monocle but made no reply.
“Yes, I mean you, Cyril,” went on the Earl steadily. “Your mother was born a Prussian. I knew her well and I think she learned to thank God that fortune had given her an Englishman for a husband. But the taint is in you. Your brother has been wounded at the front. His blood is cleansed. But what of yours? You went to a German university with your Prussian kinsmen and now openly flaunt your sympathies at a dinner of British patriots. Speak up. How do you stand? Your friends demand it.”
Hammersley turned his cigarette carefully in its long amber holder.
“Oh, I say, Lord Kipshaven,” he said with a slow smile, “you’re not spoofing a chap, are you?”
“I was never more in earnest in my life. How do you stand?”
“Haw!” said Hammersley with obvious effort. “I’m British, you know, and all that sort of thing. How can an Englishman be anything else? Silly rot—fightin’—that’s what I say. That’s all I say,” he finished looking calmly for approval from one to the other.
Smiles from Sandys and Rizzio met this inadequacy, but the Earl, after glaring at him moodily for a moment, uttered a smothered, “Paugh,” and shrugging a shoulder, turned to Rizzio and Sandys who were discussing a recent submarine raid.
Hammersley and Byfield sat near each other at the side of the table away from the others. There was a moment of silence—which Hammersley improved by blowing smoke rings toward the ceiling. Captain Byfield watched him a moment and then after a glance in the direction of the Earl leaned carelessly on an elbow toward Hammersley.
“Any shootin’ at the North?” he asked.
Hammersley’s monocle dropped and the eyes of the two men met.
“Yes. I’m shootin’ the day after tomorrow,” said Hammersley quietly. Byfield looked away and another long moment of silence followed. Then the Honorable Cyril after a puff or two took the long amber holder from his mouth, removed the cigarette and smudged the ash upon the receiver.
“Bally heady cigarettes, these of Algy’s. Don’t happen to have any ’baccy and papers about you, do you, Byfield?”
“Well, rather,” replied the captain. And he pushed a pouch and a package of cigarette papers along the tablecloth. “It’s a mix of my own. I hope you’ll like it.”
Hammersley opened the bag and sniffed at its contents.
“Good stuff, that. Virginia, Perique and a bit of Turkish. What?”
Byfield nodded and watched Hammersley as he poured out the tobacco, rolled the paper and lighted it at the candelabra, inhaling luxuriously.
“Thanks,” he sighed. “Jolly good of you,” and he pushed the pouch back to Byfield along the table.
“You must come to Scotland some day, old chap,” said the Honorable Cyril carelessly.
“Delighted. When the war is over,” returned Byfield quietly. “Not until the war is over.”
“Awf’ly glad to have you any time, you know—awf’ly glad.”
“In case of furlough—I’ll look you up.”
“Do,” said the Honorable Cyril.
Hammersley’s rather bovine gaze passed slowly around the room, and just over Lord Kipshaven’s head in the mirror over the mantel it met the dark gaze of John Rizzio. The fraction of a second it paused there and then he stretched his long legs and rose, stifling a yawn.
“Let’s go in—what?” he said to Byfield.
Byfield got up and at the same time there was a movement at the mantel.
“Don’t be too hard on the chap,” Rizzio was saying in an undertone to Kipshaven. “You’re singing the ‘Hassgesang.’ He’s harmless—I tell you—positively harmless.” And then as the others moved toward the door: “Come, Lady Heathcote won’t mind our tobacco.”
Hammersley led the way, with Byfield and Rizzio at his heels. Jacqueline Morley had been trying to play the piano, but there was no heart in the music until she struck up “Tipperary,” when there was a generous chorus in which the men joined.
Hammersley found Doris with Constance Joyliffe in an alcove. At his approach Lady Joyliffe retired.
“Handsome, no end,” he murmured to her as he sank beside her.
“Handsome is as handsome does, Cyril,” she said slowly. “If you knew what I was thinking of, you wouldn’t be so generous.”
“What?”
“Just what everybody is thinking about you—that you’ve got to do something—enlist to fight—go to France, if only as a chauffeur. They’d let you do that tomorrow if you’d go.”
“Chauffeur! Me! Not really!”
“Yes, that or something else,” determinedly.
“Why?”
She hesitated a moment and then went on distinctly.
“Because I could never marry a man people talked about as people are talking about you.”
“Not marry—?” The Honorable Cyril’s face for the first time that evening showed an expression of concern. “Not marry—me? You can’t mean that, Doris.”
“I do mean it, Cyril,” she said firmly. “I can’t marry you.”
“Why?”
“Because to me love is a sacrament. Love of woman—love of country, but the last is the greater of the two. No man who isn’t a patriot is fit to be a husband.”
“A patriot”
She broke in before he could protest. “Yes—a patriot. You’re not a patriot—that is, if you’re an Englishman. I don’t know you, Cyril. You puzzle me. You’re lukewarm. Day after day you’ve seen your friends and mine go off in uniform, but it doesn’t mean anything to you. It doesn’t mean anything to you that England is in danger and that she needs every man who can be spared at home to go to the front. You see them go and the only thing it means to you is that you’re losing club-mates and sport-mates. Instead of taking the infection of fervor—you go to Scotland—to shoot—not Germans but—deer! Deer!” she repeated scathingly.
“But there aren’t any Germans in Scotland—at least none that a chap could shoot,” he said with a smile.
“Then go where there are Germans to shoot,” she said impetuously. She put her face to her hands a moment. “Oh, don’t you understand? You’ve got to prove yourself. You’ve got to make people stop speaking of you as I’ve heard them speak of you tonight. Here you are in the midst of friends, people who know you and like you, but what must other people who don’t know you so well or care so much as we? What must they think and say of your indifference, of your openly expressed sympathy with England’s enemies? Even Lady Betty, a kinswoman and one of your truest friends, has lost patience with you—I had almost said lost confidence in you.”
Her voice trailed into silence. Hammersley was moving the toe of his varnished boot along the border of the Aubusson rug.
“I’m sorry,” he said slowly. “Awf’ly sorry.”
“Sorry! Are you? But what are you going to do about it?”
“Do?” he said vaguely. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I’m no bally use, you know. Wouldn’t be any bally use over there. Make some silly ass mistake probably. No end of trouble—all around.”
“And you’re willing to sacrifice the goodwill, the affection of your friends, the respect of the girl you say you love”
“Oh, I say, Doris. Not that”
“Yes. I’ve got to tell you. I can’t be unfair to myself. I can’t respect a man who sees others cheerfully carrying his burdens, doing his work, accepting his hardships in order that he may sleep soundly at home far away from the nightmare of shot and shell. You, Cyril, you! Is it that—the love of ease? Or is it something else—something to do with your German kinship—the memory of your mother. What is it? If you still want me, Cyril, it is my right to know”
“Want you, Doris—” his voice went a little lower. “Yes, I want you. You might know that.”
“Then you must tell me.”
He hesitated and peered at the eyeglass in his fingers.
“I think—it’s because I—” He paused and then crossed his hands and bowed his head with an air of relinquishment. “Because I think I must be a”—he almost whispered the word—“a coward.”
Doris Mather gazed at him a long moment of mingled dismay and incredulity.
“You,” she whispered, “the first sportsman of England—a—a coward.”
He gave a short mirthless laugh.
“Queer, isn’t it, the way a chap feels about such things? I always hated the idea of being mangled. Awf’ly unpleasant idea that—’specially in the tummy. In India once I saw a chap”
“You—a coward!” Doris repeated, wide-eyed. “I don’t believe you.”
He bent his head again.
“I—I’m afraid you’d better,” he said uncertainly. She rose, still looking at him incredulously, another doubt, a more dreadful one, winging its flight to and fro across her inner vision.
“Come,” she said in a tone she hardly recognized as her own, “come let us join the others.”
He stood uncertainly and as she started to go,
“You’ll let me take you home, Doris?” he asked.
She bent her head, and without replying made her way to the group beyond the alcove.
Hammersley stood a moment watching her diminishing back and then a curious expression, half of trouble, half of resolution, came into his eyes.
Then after a quick glance around the curtain he suddenly reached into his trousers pocket, took something out and scrutinized it carefully by the light of the lamp. He put it back quickly and setting his monocle sauntered forth into the room. As he moved to join the group at the piano John Rizzio met him in the middle of the room.
“Could I have a word with you, Hammersley?” he asked.
“Happy,” said the Honorable Cyril. “Here?”
“In the smoking-room—if you don’t mind?”
Hammersley hesitated a moment and then swung on his heels and led the way. At the smoking-room door from the hallway Rizzio paused, then quietly drew the heavy curtains behind them.
Hammersley, standing by the table, followed this action with a kind of bored curiosity, aware that Rizzio’s dark gaze had never once left him since they had entered the room. Slowly Hammersley took his hands from his pockets, reached into his waistcoat for his cigarette case, and as Rizzio approached, opened and offered it to him.
“Smoke?” he asked carelessly.
“I don’t mind if I do. But I’ve taken a curious liking for rolled cigarettes. Ah! I thought so.” He opened the tobacco jar and sniffed at it, searched around the articles on the table, then, “How disappointing! Nothing but Algy’s dreadful pipes. You don’t happen to have any rice-papers do you?”
Hammersley was lighting his own cigarette at the brazier.
“No. Sorry,” he replied laconically.
Rizzio leaned beside him against the edge of the table.
“Strange. I thought I saw you making a cigarette in the dining-room.”
Hammersley’s face brightened. “Oh, yes, Byfield. Byfield has rice-papers.”
“I’d rather have yours,” he said quietly.
The Honorable Cyril looked up.
“Mine, old chap? I thought I told you I hadn’t any.”
Rizzio smiled amiably.
“Then I must have misunderstood you,” he said politely.
“Yes,” said Hammersley and sank into an armchair.
Rizzio did not move and the Honorable Cyril, his head back, was already blowing smoke rings.
Rizzio suddenly relaxed with a laugh and put his legs over a small chair near Hammersley’s and folded his arms along its back.
“Do you know, Hammersley,” he said with a laugh, “I sometimes think that as I grow older my hearing is not as good as it used to be. Perhaps you’ll say that I cling to my vanishing youth with a fatuous desperation. I do. Rather silly, isn’t it, because I’m quite forty-five. But I’ve a curiosity, even in so small a matter, to learn whether things are as bad with me as I think they are. Now unless you’re going to add a few more gray hairs to my head by telling me that I’m losing my sight as well as my hearing, you’ll gratify my curiosity—an idle curiosity, if you like, but still strangely important to my peace of mind.”
He paused a moment and looked at Cyril, who was examining him with frank bewilderment.
“I don’t think I understand,” said Hammersley politely.
“I’ll try to make it clearer. Something has happened tonight that makes me think that I’m getting either blind or deaf or both. To begin with I thought you said you had no cigarette papers. If I heard you wrong, then the burden of proof rests upon my ears—if my eyes are at fault it’s high time I consulted a specialist, because you know, at the table in the dining-room when you were sitting with Byfield, quite distinctly I saw you put a package of Riz-la-Croix into your right-hand trousers pocket. The color as you know is yellow—a color to which my optic nerve is peculiarly sensitive.” He laughed again. “I know you’d hardly go out of your way to make a misstatement on so small a matter, and if you don’t mind satisfying a foible of my vanity, I wish you’d tell me whether or not I’m mistaken.”
He stopped and looked at Hammersley who was regarding him with polite, if puzzled tolerance. Then, as if realizing that something was required of him Hammersley leaned forward.
“I say, Rizzio. What the deuce is it all about? I’m sorry you’re gettin’ old an’ all that sort of thing, but I can’t help it. Now can I, old chap?”
Rizzio’s smile slowly faded and his gaze passed Hammersley and rested on the brass fender of the fireplace.
“You don’t care to tell me?” he asked.
“What?”
“About that package of rice-papers.”
“Byfield has them.”
“Not that package,” put in Rizzio with a wave of the hand. And then, leaning forward, in a low tone, “The other.”
Hammersley sat upright a moment, his hands on the chair-arms and then sank back in his chair with a laugh.
“I say. I can take a joke as well as the next, but—er—what’s the answer?”
Rizzio rose, his graceful figure dominant.
“I don’t think that sort of thing will do, Hammersley.”
His demeanor was perfectly correct, his hand-wave easy and a well-bred smile flickered at his lips, but his tone masked a mystery. Hammersley rose, removing his cigarette with great deliberateness from its holder and throwing it into the fire.
“If there isn’t anything else you want to see me about—” He took a step in the direction of the door.
“One moment, please.”
Hammersley paused.
“I think we’d better drop subterfuge. I know why you were here tonight, why Byfield was here and perhaps you know now why I am here.”
“Can’t imagine, I’m sure,” said Cyril.
“Perhaps you can guess, when I tell you that this party was of my own choosing—that my plans were made with a view to arranging your meeting with Captain Byfield in a place known to be above suspicion. I have been empowered to relieve you of any further responsibility in the matter in question—in short of the papers themselves.”
“Oh, I say. Vanished youth, cigarette papers and all that. You’re goin’ it a bit thick, Rizzio, old boy.”
Rizzio put a hand into the inside pocket of his evening coat and drew out a card-case, which he opened under Hammersley’s eyes.
“Look, Hammersley,” he whispered. “Maxwell gave me this! Perhaps you understand now.”
The Honorable Cyril fixed his eyeglass carefully and stared at the card-case.
“By Jove,” he muttered, with sudden interest.
“Now you understand?” said Rizzio.
“You!” whispered Hammersley, looking at him. The languor of a moment before had fallen from him with his dropping monocle.
“Yes, I. Now quick, the papers,” muttered Rizzio, putting the card-case in his pocket. “Someone may come at any moment.”
For a long space of time Hammersley stood uncertainly peering down at the pattern in the rug, then he straightened and, crossing the room, put his back to the fireplace.
“There may be a mistake,” he said firmly. “I can’t risk it.”
Rizzio stood for a moment staring at him as though he had not heard correctly. Then he crossed over and faced the other man.
“You mean that?”
Hammersley put his hands in his trousers pockets.
“I fancy so.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What I’ve been told to do.”
“My orders supersede yours.”
“H-m. I’m not sure.”
“You can’t doubt my credentials.”
“Hardly that. Er—I think I know best, that’s all.”
Rizzio took a pace or two before the fireplace in front of him, his brows tangled, his fingers twitching behind his back. Then he stopped with the air of a man who has reached a decision.
“You understand what this refusal means?”
Hammersley shrugged.
“You realize that it makes you an object of suspicion?” asked the other.
“How? In doing what was expected of me?” said Hammersley easily.
“You are expected to give those papers to me.”
“I can’t.”
Rizzio’s fine face had gone a shade paler under the glossy black of his hair and his eyes gleamed dangerously under his shaggy brows. He measured the Honorable Cyril’s six feet two against his own and then turned away.
“I think I understand,” he said slowly. “Your action leaves me no other alternative.”
Hammersley, his hands still deep in his pockets, seemed to be thinking deeply.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Each man according to his lights. You have your orders. I have mine. They seem to conflict. I’m going to carry mine out. If that interferes with carrying out yours, I’m not to blame. It’s what happens in the end that matters,” he finished significantly.
Rizzio thought deeply for a moment.
“You’ll at least let me see them?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I have my own reasons.”
Another pause in which Rizzio gave every appearance of a baffled man.
“You realize that if I gave the alarm and those papers were found on you”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because of your card-case.”
“That signifies nothing to anyone but you and me.”
Hammersley smiled.
“I’ll take the risk, Rizzio,” he said finally.
The two men had been so absorbed in their conversation that they had not heard the drawing of the curtains of the door, but a sound made them turn and there stood Doris Mather.