The Hunchback of Westminster

With a muffled curse Naylor turned on his heel and despatched a messenger for the cab he had mentioned. Then he summoned two or three other constables, handed them certain documents, and whispered to them quickly certain instructions. Afterwards a four-wheeler drove up, and giving our words that we would make no effort to escape, the three of us stepped inside, and began that long and tedious journey to Bow Street.

The most weary rides, however, come to an end some time – and so did this. At length the police station was reached, and we all walked boldly into the charge office, where the warrant was read over to us, to which we made no reply, of course; and, pending our formal remand by a magistrate, I begged and obtained permission that we should be both placed in the same cell. In answer to the usual question: Did we wish to communicate with any legal advisers or friends? both Casteno and I said: “Yes.” After a whispered consultation we decided on this plan of action. I sent this telegram:

“Cooper-Nassington, House of Commons, SW.

“Casteno and I have been arrested on extraordinary charge of robbery with violence, and lodged at Bow Street. Please see hunchback and explain error, and do your best to secure our immediate release. – Hugh Glynn.”

“It will not, then, be my fault if the round-table conference fails to come off,” I reasoned. But at the bottom of my heart, I own, I felt strangely disturbed at the turn affairs had taken. I could not rid myself of some curious suspicion that Lord Fotheringay and his friends had got some new trick to work, and that, after all, we might be now, quite unconsciously, riding for a nasty fall.

Casteno himself elected to appeal to Lord Cyril, and after we had been both searched and had all our valuables taken from us he was permitted to take a sheet of notepaper and to write as follows: —

“Bow Street Police Station.

“Dear Lord Cyril, – The matter is too serious for me to stand on any ceremony with you, and, therefore, I write quite straightforwardly to you, to report what you will doubtless hear in the course of your official duties – that Mr Hugh Glynn, the Secret Investigator, and myself have been arrested, and are now detained at the above address on some trumped-up charge of stealing certain manuscripts from my father on Worcester Racecourse.

“This action of the authorities, of course, quite precludes all chance of our meeting you and Colonel and Miss Napier and Lord Fotheringay at Stanton Street to-night. I put it to you now quite pointedly whether it is to the welfare of England that this interview should not take place?

“I suggest that you see the Home Secretary and get this action quashed. Otherwise, please regard our offer to treat with you as withdrawn, and, if necessary, we shall appeal to His Majesty the King himself, to see that there is no party jugglery with so vital a national issue as this recovery of the sacred lake of Tangikano. As to the charge of theft and assault, that, of course, is absurd, and must fail.

“Yours obediently, José Zouche Casteno.”

This note was read very carefully by the officers in charge of the station. But they had evidently received some secret instructions about us, for they pretended to treat it quite as an ordinary and commonplace communication, and permitted Casteno himself to enclose it in an envelope and hand it to a constable to carry to the Foreign Office.

Then we were conducted to a cell and left to our own devices, and for a time we kept ourselves lively enough, speculating on what would be the issue of the strong commanding line we had taken.

But as hour after hour slipped by and we received no sign from the outer world our hearts began to sink within us. Maybe, too, the atmosphere of that small, tightly-barred cell, with its narrow walls and depressing suggestions, had its baneful effect upon us. At all events, a sensation of fear seemed to seize us. We felt caged – bound – removed from the live, throbbing world of action to which we had grown so accustomed, and then, thus deprived of movement, we insensibly began to languish. All at once we realised what freedom really means – that it yields of itself a thousand pleasures, as a fish is surrounded by the unconscious sustenances of the sea.

Finally, as the night began to close in, a heavy step was heard in the whitewashed passage outside, and the wicket door was thrust open.

“Here is tea for two,” cried a gruff voice, “also a letter for José Casteno.” And I hastened to the entrance and received a tray on which stood two coarse mugs of tea and three or four huge slabs of real police-station bread and butter.

Trembling with excitement Casteno seized the letter that had been brought for him and tore open the envelope, on the flap of which was embossed in red the Royal Arms, with the words “Foreign Office” let into the outer circle. Then he unfolded the note, which, in response to a gesture from him, I read over his shoulder.

“Foreign Office, Whitehall, SW.

“Sir, – I am desired by His Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to acknowledge your letter of this day’s date and to inform you that the subject-matter thereof has no connection with him in either a personal or official capacity.

“I have the honour to remain, Sir, Your most obedient servant, Reginald Wyke, Assistant Secretary.

“To José Zouche Casteno, The Police Station, Bow Street, WC.”

“What a terrible snub,” I cried, pushing the tray on to the wooden bedstead. “What can it mean?”

“They’ve done us, that’s all,” panted Casteno, his eyes flashing with indignation. “Either they’ve got hold of the manuscripts when they searched St. Bruno’s, or we’ve been sold in some fashion we least expect.”

“Is it Cooper-Nassington?” I hazarded. “Remember, I have had no reply to my telegram!”

“I don’t know,” said the Spaniard, gloomily beginning to pace up and down the cell. “We must wait, I suppose, before we can see. At present we’ve played our cards to the bitter end, and we’ve got nowhere.”

“How about the king?” I queried nervously.

“We can do nothing there until we see what Cooper-Nassington has developed into.” He relapsed into moody reflection. For a few minutes we did not exchange a word, and then, stopping his restless promenade suddenly, he gripped me excitedly by the arm. “I’ve got it,” he cried, “I’ve got it. Deserted by all, we’ll try the Jesuits.”

“And sell England, I suppose,” I answered coldly. “Not a bit of it.”

“Oh no. We shall thus procure even more powerful adherents for England than even Lord Cyril is. We will strike a bargain with them, to side with us.”

“You won’t succeed,” I said.

“I will,” he thundered, and he caught the chain attached to a prisoner’s bell and rung it violently.

“Mind,” I returned impressively, “you do this thing against my better judgment, and when you know for a fact that the Jesuits have been as keen almost to get hold of these documents as we have. Bad as our plight is now, I am sure it will be a thousand times worse after you have entrusted our secrets to these subtle sons of St. Ignatius. Make no mistake. Understand you have been warned, and that you do this thing with your eyes wide open.”

“I understand perfectly,” he rejoined. “But I am at the last ditch. I shall turn now and fight ruffians of the stamp of Cuthbertson with his own weapons. He has insulted me grossly in that last letter of his, penned by an assistant secretary, I see, and I will repay him ‘a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, burning for burning’!” And his hands clenched, and upon his features there glowered a look of diabolical rage.

I would have said more, but just then a police sergeant answered his summons, and at his request brought him a fresh sheet of notepaper and an envelope, as well as pad, pen, ink, and blotting paper. Thereon he sat down once again on the side of the bed and wrote as under:

“Bow Street Police Station, Cell 12,973.

“To The Rev. Father Provincial of the Society of Jesus, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, Berkeley Square, W.

“Rev. Father, – As one who was for some years as a small boy educated at your society’s Stoneyhurst College, I beg to crave your assistance. A friend and I have been arrested on a perfectly frivolous and futile charge for grave purposes of the State, connected with the disappearance of three manuscripts relating to the sacred lake of Tangikano, in which I understand your society has a very real and vital interest. Can you, therefore, make it convenient to come and see me on the matter, or at least send a representative to me who is capable of giving me the best and most disinterested advice at this juncture? If so, words will fail to express my gratitude to you.

“Your distracted servant, José Zouche Casteno.”

“Please have that sent at once,” he said, passing the letter open for the officer to read.

“Any answer?” replied the man, taking the note and preparing to leave.

“Yes; pray tell the constable to wait,” returned Casteno, and the sergeant disappeared, and once more we were alone.

For my own part, I was too disgusted then to wrangle any further with the Spaniard. In a swift comprehensive fashion I realised that it was too late to upbraid, the mischief now was done, and that all I could do was to stand by and fight as best I could for the welfare of my own country independent of any adventurers like Cuthbertson on the one hand or of the Jesuits on the other.

After all, I saw, if I became too vocal, Casteno was in no mood to brook lectures from me. He always had a remedy against me – he could ask to be placed in a separate cell, and then I should be in a worse position than ever. I should know nothing of what he was doing to injure England, nothing at all.

Chapter Twenty Six.

The Words of Father Ganton

The answer to his letter, too, came much sooner than I expected. I don’t believe the note had been despatched half-an-hour before the clatter of several men was heard outside the cell again. The door was thrust open, and the sergeant announced: “A father from the Jesuits’ house in Farm Street.”

It was something more than idle curiosity that prompted me to turn as the Jesuit father entered and to examine his features closely. After all, I was bound to admit to myself, although I had read a lot and had heard a lot about the members of the redoubtable Society of Jesus, I had never hitherto to my knowledge seen one in the flesh. Of course, I had a vague idea of what one of their priests would be like – tall and thin and sleek, pallid, austere, mysterious, with eyes that never looked straight at you, and a voice so carefully modulated that it never failed to give the precise shade of meaning, so precise, indeed, that it left nothing to the imagination at all.

Nevertheless, I welcomed the opportunity of examining one of these cunning ministers of the papacy for myself. With a pardonable touch of egotism, I preferred my own estimate of strangers to other people’s, and I wanted to discover for myself what there was in a Jesuit’s education, discipline, and code of ethics that made them such powerful and resourceful soldiers of the Vatican, while at the same time they were, in practically every country on the globe, objects of such intense suspicion, jealousy, or most active dislike.

“Benedicamus Domino,” said the priest, with a grave salutation to us both as the heavy iron door of the cell closed upon him.

“Deo gratias,” responded Casteno, and at once I saw the effect of his Stoneyhurst training in the way in which he pulled himself together and assumed a bearing of reverent submissiveness I had never known him exhibit to any other person.

As for the Jesuit himself, I admit I was completely astounded at his appearance. As he bent down and fumbled in his pocket for the letter which Casteno had sent to the Father Provincial I had a splendid opportunity of examining his features, for then the light from the high tightly-barred window streamed full upon him.

To my surprise I discovered in this man of fifty, with the square shoulders, the unblinking eye, the clean-shaven mouth that expressed kindness, mirth, as well as iron resolution, none of the littleness I had credited him with. His broad forehead and black hair, now rapidly turning white, showed that he must have studied and studied hard, but not in any narrow sectarian school; his chin and lower jaw, too, were broad and massive but never cruel; while his hands were strong but also frank and free in movement; and his smile, as he searched his pockets through for the letter he had evidently forgotten, was one of the brightest and sunniest things we had seen in our prison-house. Finally, with a half foreign gesture of apology, he gave up his quest.

“I am so sorry,” he said at length, “but I quite forgot to bring with me your letter which the Father Provincial handed to me. As a matter of fact, I must introduce myself too. I am Father Ganton, one of the priests attached to the Farm Street Church of the Immaculate Conception.”

We both of us bowed gravely. And he went on: “Of course, we read your letter with great grief that any Stoneyhurst lad should get into a trouble such as this, but, really, we were astounded that any one of our pupils could make so ludicrous a blunder as you seem to have done about us. You, my son,” turning to Casteno, “must have mixed with many and strange folks since you were under the care of our priests in Lancashire to get the odd and crazy notion into your head that we are conspirators and politicians, and all that silly nonsense some papers delight to print about us. I can assure you both that all that stupid idea that we mix ourselves up in government, or schemes of government, is fudge – mere fudge. We are simply a strong militant Order for the Church of Rome, and, broadly speaking, we don’t care who is in power so long as we are free to practise our religion, and religious interests don’t suffer.”

“Now about those manuscripts I wrote about – the manuscripts that are supposed to relate to the sacred lake of Tangikano,” questioned Casteno. “What about those?”

“You can’t deny you have made most strenuous efforts,” cried I in triumph, “to get hold of those!”

“I don’t know,” said the Jesuit readily. “It all depends, too, what you call ‘strenuous’ efforts. I will tell you quite frankly all we know about them. Centuries ago I understand our Order in Mexico did try to get hold of this sacred lake, but the treasure in it was not the ultimate object. We had had such grievous representations made to us by Catholic missionaries in the district of the evil effect of that heathen practice of casting treasure into that sacred water, with that ceremonial of a pagan pontiff, that we primarily desired to drain the lake right away and only leave in its place barren land. As a matter of fact, few of us nowadays ever gave a thought to the custom, until the other day a well-known dealer in manuscripts came to our house in Farm Street and told us that three most valuable documents affecting the history of our Order in Mexico were about to come under the hammer in London. He asked us to bid for them, knowing that many of our fathers were historians of no mean eminence and that the archives of our society were richly endowed with precious manuscripts that went right back into the twilight of civilised history. Then he gave a hint that they were supposed to relate to the lake, and so after some haggling and discussion we authorised him to bid up to sixty pounds – ”

“Sixty pounds,” echoed Casteno. “Oh, never!”

“Yes; that was as much as we could afford, and as much as we desired to give,” returned Father Ganton. “Doubtless, the man made a great fuss about the commission to frighten other people off and to advertise his own importance; but that, as he will tell you, was our limit. One thing, however, I ought to put right at once, and I hope if either of you gentlemen gets the chance you will do this for the Society of Jesus in England. Had we had any ghost of a suspicion at the time that that dealer came to us that those manuscripts had any diplomatic importance whatever we should not have arranged to offer one penny for them. Our work, as our founder, St. Ignatius, lays down in the first of his spiritual exercises, is the salvation of souls, not the ‘sick hurry, the divided arms, the hearts o’ertaxed, the palsied arms,’ as Matthew Arnold points out, of the man of the world, eager only about fortune. We don’t want, we would not have, any distractions from this object; and I beg you to believe that, and so in your small way help to put public opinion right about the Jesuits of England.”

“One question,” I interrupted earnestly as the priest held out his hand in farewell to us. “Don’t be annoyed, please, if I ask it. I admit it may sound horribly rude, but, indeed, I don’t mean it to be so in that way at all. Why are you Jesuits so heartily disliked, not only in England, but in Italy, in Spain, in France, in Germany, and also in South America?”

The priest turned and looked at me with a frank and sincere expression.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but do you ask that question as a man without any sectarian bias, as one with a genuine desire for information, and to learn only the truth?”

“Indeed I do,” I returned, and I gazed at him straight in the face.

“Well, I will answer it, then,” he responded, “and I will answer it in the way which we Jesuits answer it when we fall to talking about the hostility we read about but really seldom encounter. The point admits of two solutions, and of two solutions alone. One, either we are bad, mischievous people, who deserve expulsion and hatred; or, two, God really did answer that early prayer of our founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, that we should be a persecuted and misunderstood Order as long as time should last, so that we should be always kept united, resolute, and efficient. Now of those two replies you can take your choice. Each one is sufficient in itself – each will give you an excellent and a thoroughly adequate reason – and in both Christian and heathen will find their points of view meet with equal consideration and tolerance!” And with a grave bow to me and a hand that made the sign of the cross over Casteno he turned away and left our cell.

For some minutes afterwards we neither of us uttered a word. Both sat and looked at each other, and I am sure I don’t know who was the more puzzled or confounded.

“That rules the Jesuits out,” I said at length, kicking the bedstead viciously with my foot.

“Quite,” said Casteno. “Unfortunately, it also limits our possibilities of assistance.” Then after a pause he added: “I wonder if Miss Napier will hear of the hole we are in!”

“Why?” I queried fiercely, flushing rosy crimson, for deep in my heart, alas! all my thoughts were still of her.

“Oh! nothing,” he answered.

“That’s rubbish,” I interposed rudely. “You meant something. What was it?”

“Only this: Miss Napier is the kind of champion we want just now,” said Casteno humbly. “You see, we can’t get about for ourselves. We’re cornered. We need somebody with brain and charm to approach people in high places!”

“What about Cooper-Nassington,” I said sternly. “You sent me to him. You relied on him. Look at the result!”

“You forget, though, that he may be in prison like ourselves! Remember, Naylor had a warrant to search St. Bruno’s. Well, as likely as not, he had orders to take up some of the leaders of the Order too. Indeed, at a pinch, they might have arrested the lot of them.”

That was quite possible. I saw it immediately the Spaniard had spoken, and I did not attempt to controvert it.

“We shall have to wait, that’s all,” said Casteno at length, with something uncommonly like a groan.

And wait we did – but certainly not as long as we expected – for just when ten o’clock was about to strike we caught the sounds of a loud scuffling in the corridor, a burst of jovial laughter, and the next second the door of our cell was flung violently open, and two people literally raced into our prison – no other than Doris herself and Cooper-Nassington.

“Joy! joy!” cried the burly legislator, waving a pile of documents and newspapers. “Lord Cyril has suddenly resigned from the Government, and my old friend the Marquis of Penarth has taken his place; more than that, I’ve put the whole matter of the sacred lake before the marquis, and not only have I got an order from the Home Office for the immediate release of both of you, but I’ve arranged such terms that England will win – win at every point.”

And, laughing and crying with excitement, Doris sprang to my arms.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

At the Present Moment

Overjoyed at this news, the four of us swept out of the police station. Even the inspectors and sergeants seemed to catch some of our enthusiasm, or was it the sight of Mr Cooper-Nassington and of the order from the Home Secretary that brought about so miraculous a change in their manner towards us? At all events, they led us quite in triumph out into Bow Street, and from thence, at a word from the Member of Parliament, we took our way to the Hotel Cecil, where, in a private room where a delightful supper had been spread, we found Colonel Napier awaiting us, apparently none the worse in temper or appearance for his bewildering experiences on the racecourse at Worcester.

Then, as we discussed the meal, with many a merry jest and many a toast in the best champagne the hotel could produce, all the news poured about us like an avalanche.

“First,” said Cooper-Nassington, who by unanimous request had taken the head of the table, with Doris and I on his right hand and Casteno on his left and the colonel to the front of him, “you are both, no doubt, literally dying to know how Lord Cyril came to tumble from his pinnacle as Foreign Secretary in a day as it were. Well, don’t trouble to look at the papers. They are full of lies, as usual. They pretend it is failing health, that the strain of European complications has been too much for him, that he’s threatened with softening of the brain; but all that is really nonsense. I got at the great man myself, and I made him resign!” And, swelling with pride and importance, the Member of Parliament rose and gazed delightedly upon us.

“You actually did!” we cried in a breath; but he waved our dissent aside.

“Yes; I contrived it all,” he went on. “As a matter of fact, I did it by bluff, sheer bluff; but I knew my man, and I knew where to hit him. He had tried to crush us, and I recognised that the time had come when, if we didn’t wish to be totally exterminated, we must fall upon him and demolish him.”

And we both nodded, recalling that cruel letter of his to José.

The Member of Parliament paused for a moment theatrically, and then went on in a more grave and earnest tone. At the bottom we could see he was really profoundly touched by the turn events had taken and by our own good fortune, but, British like, he sought to hide it by a jocularity and levity he was very far, indeed, from feeling.

“I got a private interview with him at the Foreign Office this afternoon,” he said, “just after he had announced to a delighted House all about the wonderful discovery he had made of documents that proved that the sacred lake belonged to England, and that a mission would be despatched forthwith to take possession of it. This he did on the strength of the forged manuscripts which Naylor found in the safe when he searched St. Bruno’s from top to bottom. ‘Cuthbertson,’ I began very firmly, ‘you’ve been fooled, fooled completely. Those are not the documents you want at all. They are forgeries, as your experts will rapidly discover; forgeries made by the hunchback’s good-for-nothing second son.’ He stormed and he raved, and he sent for old Peter Zouche and his son Paul, who, of course, had to admit the truth of what I said, and then he lost nerve completely, begged my pardon, and tried to come to terms with me. ‘Let me have the real things,’ he pleaded, ‘and I’ll release your friends. I’ll give you a share of the credit of the discovery, and at the first opportunity I have I’ll find you a snug place in the Government.’

“Now,” proceeded the Member of Parliament, “tempting as those terms were, I refused them. For one thing, I knew my man, and I knew he was but a pinchbeck, unstable, untruthful kind of genius. For another, I realised that, as Foreign Secretary, he was a terrible danger to England, so I stuck to the line I had marked out for myself, without any thought or hope of my own advancement. ‘You’ve got to resign,’ I returned – ‘nothing else will satisfy me or save you from the ridicule I have arranged to pour upon you. I have prepared a careful account of the whole business as we know it from the inside, ay, even of the way you must have helped Fotheringay to send those sham nurses, and to-morrow I shall telegraph it to every newspaper of importance. I will swear an affidavit of its truth, and join the opposition, and between us we will contrive to literally laugh you out of power.’ A terrible scene, of course, followed. He grew abusive, he tried more bribes, he threatened to have me flung into prison like yourselves – there wasn’t, in fact, a trick or a dodge which a man in his powerful position could resort to that he didn’t in turn practise on me.