The Masquerader Part 35

"Loder?" he said, doubtfully. "Loder?" Then his face changed. "Good G.o.d!" he exclaimed, "what a relief!"

The words were so intense, so spontaneous and unexpected, that Loder took a step back.

Chilcote laughed discordantly, and lifted a shaky hand to protect his eyes from the light.

"It's--it's all right, Loder! It's all right! It's only that I--that I had a beastly dream. But, for Heaven's sake, shut that window!"

He s.h.i.+vered involuntarily and pushed the lock of damp hair from his forehead with a weak touch of his old irritability.

In silence Loder moved back to the window and shut it. He was affected more than he would own even to himself by the obvious change in Chilcote. He had seen him moody, restless, nervously excited; but never before had he seen him entirely demoralized. With a dull feeling of impotence and disgust he stood by the closed window, looking unseeingly at the roofs of the opposite houses.

But Chilcote had followed his movements restlessly; and now, as he watched him, a flicker of excitement crossed his face. "G.o.d! Loder,"

he said, again, "'twas a relief to see you! I dreamed I was in h.e.l.l--a horrible h.e.l.l, worse than the one they preach about."

He laughed to rea.s.sure himself, but his voice shook pitiably.

Loder, who had come to fight, stood silent and inert.

"It was horrible--beastly," Chilcote went on. "There was no fire and brimstone, but there was something worse. It was a great ironic scheme of punishment by which every man was chained to his own vice--by which the thing he had gone to pieces over, instead of being denied him, was made compulsory. You can't imagine it." He s.h.i.+vered nervously and his voice rose. "Fancy being satiated beyond the limit of satiety, being driven and dogged by the thing you had run after all your life!"

He paused excitedly, and in the pause Loder found resolution. He shut his ears to the panic in Chilcote's voice, he closed his consciousness to the sight of his shaken face. With a surge of determination he rallied his theories. After all, he had himself and his own interests to claim his thought. At the moment Chilcote was a wreck, with no desire towards rehabilitation; but there was no guarantee that in an hour or two he might not have regained control over himself, and with it the inclination that had prompted his letter of the day before. No; he had himself to look to. The survival of the fittest was the true, the only principle. Chilcote had had intellect, education, opportunity, and Chilcote had deliberately cast them aside. Fortifying himself in the knowledge, he turned from the window and moved slowly back to the bed.

"Look here," he began, "you wrote for me last night--" His voice was hard; he had come to fight.

Chilcote glanced up quickly. His mouth was drawn and there was anew anxiety in his eyes. "Loder!" he exclaimed, quickly. "Loder, come here!

Come nearer!"

Reluctantly Loder obeyed. Stepping closer to the side of the bed, he bent down.

The other put up his hand and caught his arm. His fingers trembled and jerked. "I say, Loder," he said, suddenly, "I--I've had such a beastly night--my nerves, you know--"

With a quick, involuntary disgust Loder drew back. "Don't you think we might shove that aside?" he asked.

But Chilcote's gaze had wandered from his face and strayed to the dressing-table; there it moved feverishly from one object to another.

"Loder," he exclaimed, "do you see--can you see if there's a tube of tabloids on the mantel-shelf--or on the dressing-table?" He lifted himself nervously on his elbow and his eyes wandered uneasily about the room. "I--I had a beastly night; my nerves are horribly jarred; and I thought--I think--" He stopped.

With his increasing consciousness his nervous collapse became more marked. At the first moment of waking, the relief of an unexpected presence had surmounted everything else; but now, as one by one his faculties stirred, his wretched condition became patent. With a new sense of perturbation Loder made his next attack.

"Chilcote--" he began, sternly.

But again Chilcote caught his arm, plucking at the coat-sleeve. "Where is it?" he said. "Where is the tube of tabloids--the sedative? I'm--I'm obliged to take something when my nerves go wrong--" In his weakness and nervous tremor he forgot that Loder was the sharer of his secret. Even in his extremity his fear of detection clung to him limply--the lies that had become second nature slipped from him without effort. Then suddenly a fresh panic seized him; his fingers tightened spasmodically, his eyes ceased to rove about the room and settled on his companion's face. "Can you see it, Loder?" he cried. "I can't--the light's in my eyes. Can you see it? Can you see the tube?" He lifted himself higher, an agony of apprehension in his face.

Loder pushed him back upon the pillow. He was striving hard to keep his own mind cool, to steer his own course straight through the chaos that confronted him. "Chilcote," he began once more, "you sent for me last night, and I came the first thing this morning to tell you--" But there he stopped.

With an excitement that lent him strength, Chilcote pushed aside his hands. "G.o.d!" he said, suddenly, "suppose 'twas lost--suppose 'twas gone!" The imaginary possibility gripped him. He sat up, his face livid, drops of perspiration showing on his forehead, his whole shattered system trembling before his thought.

At the sight, Loder set his lips. "The tube is on the mantel-shelf," he said, in a cold, abrupt voice.

A groan of relief fell from Chilcote and the muscles of his face relaxed. For a moment he lay back with closed eyes; then the desire that tortured him stirred afresh. He lifted his eyelids and looked at his companion. "Hand it to me," he said, quickly. "Give it to me. Give it to me, Loder. Quick as you can! There's a gla.s.s on the table and some whiskey and water. The tabloids dissolve, you know--" In his new excitement he held out his hand.

But Loder stayed motionless. He had come to fight, to demand, to plead--if need be--for the one hour for which he had lived; the hour that was to satisfy all labor, all endeavor, all ambition. With dogged persistence he made one more essay.

"Chilcote, you wrote last night to recall me--" Once again he paused, checked by a new interruption. Sitting up again, Chilcote struck out suddenly with his left hand in a rush of his old irritability.

"d.a.m.n you!" he cried, suddenly, "what are you talking about? Look at me! Get me the stuff. I tell you it's imperative." In his excitement his breath failed and he coughed. At the effort his whole frame was shaken.

Loder walked to the dressing-table, then back to the bed. A deep agitation was at work in his mind.

Again Chilcote's lips parted. "Loder," he said, faintly--"Loder, I must--I must have it. It's imperative." Once more he attempted to lift himself, but the effort was futile.

Again Loder turned away.

"Loder--for G.o.d's sake--"

With a fierce gesture the other turned on him. "Good heavens! man--"

he began. Then unaccountably his voice changed. The suggestion that had been hovering in his mind took sudden and definite shape. "All right!"

he said, in a lower voice. "All right! Stay as you are."

He crossed to where the empty tumbler stood and hastily mixed the whiskey and water; then crossing to the mantel-piece where lay the small gla.s.s tube containing the tightly packed tabloids, he paused and glanced once more towards the bed. "How many?" he said, laconically.

Chilcote lifted his head. His face was pitiably drawn, but the feverish brightness in his eyes had increased. "Five," he said, sharply. "Five.

Do you hear, Loder?"

"Five?" Involuntarily Loder lowered the hand that held the tube.

From previous confidences of Chilcote's he knew the amount of morphia contained in each tabloid, and realized that five tabloids, if not an absolutely dangerous, was at least an excessive dose, even for one accustomed to the drug. For a moment his resolution failed; then the dominant-note of his nature--the unconscious, fundamental egotism on which his character was based--a.s.serted itself beyond denial. It might be reprehensible, it might even be criminal to accede to such a request, made by a man in such a condition of body and mind; yet the laws of the universe demanded self-a.s.sertion--prompted every human mind to desire, to grasp, and to hold. With a perception swifter than any he had experienced, he realized the certain respite to be gained by yielding to his impulse. He looked at Chilcote with his haggard, anxious expression, his eager, restless eyes; and a vision of himself followed sharp upon his glance. A vision of the untiring labor of the past ten days, of the slowly kindling ambition, of the supremacy all but gained. Then, as the picture completed itself, he lifted his hand with an abrupt movement and dropped the five tabloids one after another into the gla.s.s.

XXV

Having taken a definite step in any direction, it was not in Loder's nature to wish it retraced. His face was set, but set with determination, when he closed the outer door of his own rooms and pa.s.sed quietly down the stairs and out into the silent court. The thought of Chilcote, his pitiable condition, his sordid environments, were things that required a firm will to drive into the background of the imagination; but a whole inferno of such visions would not have daunted Loder on that morning as, un.o.bserved by any eyes, he left the little court-yard with its gra.s.s, its trees, its pavement--all so distastefully familiar--and pa.s.sed down the Strand towards life and action.

As he walked, his steps increased in speed and vigor. Now, for the first time, he fully appreciated the great mental strain that he had undergone in the past ten days--the unnatural tension; the suppressed, but perpetual, sense of impending recall; the consequently high pressure at which work, and even existence, had been carried on. And as he hurried forward the natural reaction to this state of things came upon him in a flood of security and confidence--a strong realization of the temporary respite and freedom for which no price would have seemed too high. The moment for which he had unconsciously lived ever since Chilcote's first memorable proposition was within reach at last--safeguarded by his own action.

The walk from Clifford's Inn to Grosvenor Square was long enough to dispel any excitement that his interview had aroused; and long before the well-known house came into view he felt sufficiently braced mentally and physically to seek Eve in the morning-room--where he instinctively felt she would still be waiting for him.

Thus he encountered and overpa.s.sed the obstacle that had so nearly threatened ruin; and, with the singleness of purpose that always distinguished him, he was able, once having pa.s.sed it, to dismiss it altogether from his mind. From the moment of his return to Chilcote's house no misgiving as to his own action, no shadow of doubt, rose to trouble his mind. His feelings on the matter were quite simple. He had inordinately desired a certain opportunity; one factor had arisen to debar that opportunity, and he, claiming the right of strength, had set the barrier aside. In the simplicity of the reasoning lay its power to convince; and were a tonic needed to brace him for his task, he was provided with one in the masterful sense of a difficulty set at nought.

For the man who has fought and conquered one obstacle feels strong to vanquish a score.

It was on this day, at the rea.s.sembling of Parliament, that Fraide's great blow was to be struck. In the ten days since the affair of the caravans had been reported from Persia public feeling had run high, and it was upon the pivot of this incident that Loder's attack was to turn; for, as Lakely was fond of remarking, "In the scales of public opinion, one dead Englishman has more weight than the whole Eastern Question!" It had been arranged that, following the customary procedure, Loder was to rise after questions at the morning sitting and ask leave to move the adjournment of the House on a definite matter of urgent public importance; upon which--leave having been granted by the rising of forty members in his support--the way was to lie open for his definite attack at the evening sitting. And it was with a mind attuned to this plan of action that he retired to the study immediately he had breakfasted, and settled to a final revision of his speech before an early party conference should compel him to leave the house. But here again circ.u.mstances were destined to change his programme. Scarcely had he sorted his notes and drawn his chair to Chilcote's desk than Renwick entered the room with the same air of important haste that he had shown on a previous occasion.

"A letter from Mr. Fraide, sir. But there's no answer," he said, with unusual brevity.

Loder waited till he had left the room, then he tore the letter open. He read:

"MY DEAR CHILCOTE,--Lakely is the recipient of special and very vital news from Meshed--unofficial, but none the less alarming. Acts of Russian aggression towards British traders are reported to be rapidly increasing, and it is stated that the authority of the Consulate is treated with contempt. Pending a possible confirmation of this, I would suggest that you keep an open mind on the subject of to-night's speech.