he said.

"Yes, I certainly do; you must make every effort to get hold of the boy.

We must think out a plan; I hope he"s an a.s.s. At present he"s a problem."

"I"ll find him out if I can get hold of him, but I don"t quite see how we"re going to make any money out of it."

"Do you remember," said Sturtevant slowly, "that dear lady I took to your rooms when I first came up?"

"Little beast! yes."

"I"ve seen her since then; she lives in Bear Street off Leicester Square, just behind the Alhambra. Now doesn"t the diffused white light of your intelligence supply the rest?"

"No, I confess----"

"Listen then. You must tell Father Gray that you are supporting yourself by coaching, and that you are working in the East End. He knows about those defence articles in the _Church Chimes_. Somehow or other he must be got to think you"re steady and trustworthy. Then you go about with this young lord he"s got and get well hold of him: you can be very charming when you like. From what I have heard of his father, Lord Ringwood, he"s been brought up strictly. You must, therefore, take him about a little--Empire, Jimmies, that sort of thing; show him life, till he begins to long to go a little further, and to make sheep"s-eyes at the painted ladies in the stalls. Meanwhile I shall get hold of the Bear Street girl and promise her a fiver if she"ll help us. One night you and Calvert dine out (give fizz and Benedictine after, it"s exciting), and when you get back to your rooms you find Marie as "Mrs. Holmes" waiting to see you. Then I send you a telegram, and you apologise and go out, promising to be back in half an hour. Come round to the Temple, where I shall be waiting. We"ll arrange with Marie that she shall have half an hour to make Calvert cuddle her. Then I come in--the outraged husband!--and kick up the devil"s own row, swearing I"ll get a divorce.

In the middle enter Mr. Gobion again. You persuade Marie and me to leave. Then you soothe the ruffled boy, promising to try and arrange the matter. You go out, consult with me, and touch him for a cheque to square matters. I should think we might work a "thou" almost."

Gobion lay back in his chair, overwhelmed by the brilliancy of the idea.

"Won-der-ful! you"re a master simply. It ought to be put on the market in one pound shares; and I thought you a mere decadent story writer."

Sturtevant smiled. "Don"t say decadent," he said, "it"s a misnomer now.

The public thinks decadence is the state of being different from Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, while the aesthete----"

"_Please_ don"t begin to lecture on the utter."

"Do you object to the utter then?"

"I object to the utterer."

"I am silent. The surly word makes the curst squirm."

"That"s worthy of Condamine."

Very soon they both got bored again, when the excitement of the plotting had evanesced. It was a consequence of their diseased mental state, this constant overpowering _ennui_. Sturtevant went to the piano and began to chant--

"There was a young fellow of Magdalen Whose tutor accused him of dagdalen, And of stretching his credit; He wouldn"t have said it Had the youth been a peer or a lagdalen."

"I hope our lagdalen will be profitable; if we do well we might go down to the Riviera for a week or two."

"That wouldn"t be bad at all, the sunny South! I think I"ll go west now to the War Office and get Bobby Burness to come out for some lunch. Do you remember him? little Pemmy man. He got a clerkship by interest.

Spends his time round the west now looking out for a moneyed female.

Jolly berth he"s got, just puts his name in the south-east corner of a few papers, and trots off to the park for the rest of the mornin"."

As he went down the Strand he thought over Sturtevant"s plan. It was a good deal nearer the wind than he had dared to go before; however, the thing was certain, something had to be done to raise money. He was not a man who could live on thirty shillings a week, for, even though they failed to amuse him, he could not go without the "extras" of life. He did not, for instance, particularly care for k.u.mmell with his coffee, but it was as much a necessity to him as a clean shirt.

The morality of Sturtevant"s scheme did not trouble him in the least; the danger was the thing he thought of. His head bubbled with details and scenic arrangements, rapidly falling into order as he thought. His mind was masterly in its grasp of salient points, in its suggestions of detail. Naturally, as he plotted and studied his part, this orderly marshalling of ideas induced a sense of freedom from danger. With a clearer view of incident came a confusion of outline.

He had just got to Trafalgar Square when he started to feel a hand placed on his shoulder, and looking round saw Father Gray and his victim. In the first shock of surprise he reeled as if struck, and a flash of deadly fear pa.s.sed over his face, but so instantaneously that it would have been almost impossible for a stranger to have seen it.

Though he had recovered this first feeling of terror in a moment, hard as he was, he could never have prevented it. It was the inevitable cowardice of evil, the most horrid kind of fear. Then almost immediately came a great flood of exaltation dominating all other sensation.

"This _is_ jolly," said Father Gray, "we were just coming to see you.

This is my friend, Lord Frederick Calvert. How are you getting on? Well!

Oh, I"m so glad. You did excellent service for us in the _Church Chimes_; that Protestant paper was dreadfully venomous. Now, what do you say to the hotel and lunch?"

"I should like it of all things. Where are you staying?"

"At the Charing Cross, just over the road."

"Right you are. If you will go on I will join you in a moment; I just want to go to the post."

He went to the office at the corner, and sent off a wire to Sturtevant, not being able to resist elevenpence-halfpennyworth of epigram.

"Everything comes to him who can"t wait. Keep away from my rooms, have met our worthy friends.--G."

The lunch party was bright and enjoyable. Lord Frederick did not talk much, but Gobion did, and the clergyman treated him most affectionately, paying the greatest attention to his remarks. The young fellow, who was aching to see a little life, and taste some of the joys. .h.i.therto forbidden, looked on Gobion as a being from another world, charmed and fascinated by his manner and conversation. He hoped that perhaps he might be able to make him the excuse for a little more freedom.

At the end of the meal a waiter came up with a telegram in his hand, "Rrreverrend Grray, sir?" he said. The clergyman read the flimsy pink paper, his face growing very serious as he did so.

"My dear Lord Frederick," he said, "I am so very sorry. My great friend Stanley, of the C.B.S., is dying up in Scotland and asking for me. I must leave you for a day or two, I fear. Do you mind? Gobion, perhaps, would not mind keeping you company a little."

Both men showed the deepest sympathy, saying that they could manage very well, while both were inwardly rejoicing. There were the elements of farce in the situation.

They got him off late in the afternoon. "G.o.d proposes, and man is disposed of," said Gobion as the train left the station. Lord Frederick laughed. "And now, my dear sir," he said, "I place myself entirely in your hands. To speak quite frankly, I"ve never had such a chance of a rag before, and I want to make the most of it."

"I too should like a rag," said Gobion. "We _will_ rag, and take no thought for the morrow beyond staying up to welcome its arrival. We"d better go and dress first; I"ll call at the hotel when I"m ready."

When he had put the other down at Charing Cross he went on in the hansom to the "Temple," bursting in on Sturtevant, whom he found with the female conspirator sitting on his knee. "Arrange the coup for to-morrow evening at nine," he said; "I"m off now to take him round the halls."

He rushed out again and dressed as quickly as he could, putting two or three sovereigns in his pocket for emergencies, though he intended his friend should pay all expenses.

They went at first to The Princes, and had, as Gobion told Sturtevant next morning, "a dinner regardless, my dear boy, simply regardless.

Never done so well before." Lord Frederick insisted on paying, explaining that as he had asked Gobion to accompany him, all the expenses would be his.

They got on very well together. The n.o.bleman was ingenuous and gentlemanly, and Gobion, who appreciated these things to the full, almost felt compunction at what he proposed to do. They afterwards went to the Alhambra, taking a box, and Gobion pointed out various people as celebrities in literature and art, making himself a charming companion by his clever commentaries on the crowd.

Being extremely young and innocent, Lord Frederick was of course a confirmed cynic, and he enjoyed the malice of Gobion"s remarks, especially as he was always unmercifully snubbed at home when he tried to be caustic.

On this particular evening it happened that no one of any note was in the place except Moro de Minter, the comic journalist, but, nothing daunted, Gobion pointed out various obvious bank clerks and actors "resting" as the leading lights of London journalism. The poor boy believed it all; he was very ingenuous; indeed, he laughed twice, once almost loudly, at one of Little Hich"s songs!

They parted late, Lord Frederick a little tipsy, swearing eternal friendship, and Gobion promised to take him to a well-known night club in Soho the following evening.

Progress was reported to Sturtevant next morning over breakfast, and he gave Gobion some valuable hints as to detail. As the evening drew on both of them got rather nervous and excited--the coup was so big, and the chances of failure so many.

They discussed the final arrangements with an affected disregard for danger, sprinkling cheap cynicism as a sort of intellectual pepper to disguise the too strong taste of the undertaking.

"Pan is dead," said Sturtevant, filling up the inevitable tumbler. "Long live Pannikin! And now to play your part; the curtain is going up and the critics are in the stalls. Go out and prosper."

They dined this time at the Trocadero, Gobion thinking that the music would help in producing the necessary high spirits in Calvert, and at the close of the meal he proposed an adjournment to his rooms, as it was yet too early for the night club. When they mounted the stairs a light showed from under the door. "Hallo," said Gobion, "there"s someone here"; and meeting Mrs. Daily on the landing, she said Mrs. Holmes was waiting to see him.