第38章

Catherine, notwithstanding her own excitement, found genuine pleasure in the bewildered enthusiasm with which the Bishop received her astounding news. She found him alone in the great, gloomy house which he usually inhabited when in London, at work in a dreary library to which she was admitted after a few minutes' delay. Naturally, he received her tidings at first almost with incredulity. A heartfelt joy, however, followed upon conviction.

"I always liked Julian," he declared. "I always believed that he had capacity. Dear me, though," he went on, with a whimsical little smile, "what a blow for the Earl!"

Catherine laughed.

"Do you remember the evening we all talked about the Labour question? Time seems to have moved so rapidly lately, but it was scarcely a week ago."

"I remember," the Bishop acknowledged. "And, my dear young lady," he went on warmly, "now indeed I feel that I can offer you congratulations which come from my heart."

She turned a little away.

"Don't," she begged. "You would have known very soon, in any case - my engagement to Julian Orden was only a pretence."

"A pretence?"

"I was desperate," she explained. "I felt I must have that packet back at any price. I went to his rooms to try and steal it.

Well, I was found there. He invented our engagement to help me out."

"But you went off to London together, the neat day?" the Bishop reminded her.

"It was all part of the game," she sighed. "What a fool he must have thought me! However, I am glad. I am riotously, madly glad.

I am glad for the cause, I am glad for all our sakes. We have a great recruit, Bishop, the greatest we could have. And think!

When he knows the truth, there will be no more trouble. He will hand us over the packet. We shall know just where we stand. We shall know at once whether we dare to strike the great blow."

"I was down at Westminster this afternoon," the Bishop told her.

"The whole mechanism of the Council of Labour seems to be complete. Twenty men control industrial England. They have absolute power. They are waiting only for the missing word. And fancy," he went on, "to-morrow I was to have visited Julian. I was to have used my persuasions."

"But we must go to-night!" Catherine exclaimed. "There is no reason why we should waste a single second."

"I shall be only too pleased," he assented gladly. "Where is, he?"

Catherine's face fell.

"I haven't the least idea," she confessed. "Don't you know?"

The Bishop shook his head.

"They were going to send some one with me tomorrow," he replied, "but in any case Fenn knows. We can get at him."

She made a little wry face.

"I do not like Mr. Fenn," she said slowly. "I have disagreed with him. But that does not matter. Perhaps we had better go to the Council rooms. We shall find some of them there, and probably Fenn. I have a taxi waiting."

They drove presently to Westminster. The ground floor of the great building, which was wholly occupied now by the offices of the different Labour men, was mostly in darkness, but on the top floor was a big room used as a club and restaurant, and also for informal meetings. Six or seven of the twenty-three were there, but not Fenn. Cross, a great brawny Northumbrian, was playing a game of chess with Furley. Others were writing letters. They all turned around at Catherine's entrance. She held out her hands to them.

"Great news, my friends!" she exclaimed. "Light up the committee room. I want to talk to you."

Those who were entitled to followed her into the room across the passage. One or two secretaries and a visitor remained outside.

Six of them seated themselves at the long table - Phineas Cross, the Northumbrian pitman, Miles Furley, David Sands, representative of a million Yorkshire mill-hands, Thomas Evans, the South Wales miner.

"We got a message from you, Miss Abbeway, a little time ago,"

Furley remarked. "It was countermanded, though, just as we were ready to start."

"Yes!" she assented. "I am sorry. I telephoned from Julian Orden's rooms. It was there we made the great discovery. Listen, all of you! I have discovered the identity of Paul Fiske."

There was a little clamour of voices. The interest was indescribable. Paul Fiske was their cult, their master, their undeniable prophet. It was he who had set down in letters of fire the truths which had been struggling for imperfect expression in these men's minds. It was Paul Fiske who had fired them with enthusiasm for the cause which at first had been very much like a matter of bread and cheese to them. It was Paul Fiske who had formed their minds, who had put the great arguments into their brains, who had armed them from head to foot with potent reasonings. Four very ordinary men, of varying types, sincere men, all of plebeian extraction, all with their faults, yet all united in one purpose, were animated by that same fire of excitement. They hung over the table towards her. She might have been the croupier and they the gamblers who had thrown upon the table their last stake.

"In Julian Orden's rooms," she said, "I found a letter from the editor of the British Review, warning him that his anonymity could not be preserved much longer - that before many weeks had passed the world would know that he was Paul Fiske. Here is the letter."

She passed it around. They studied it, one by one. They were all a little stunned.

"Julian!" Furley exclaimed, in blank amazement. "Why, he's been pulling my leg for more than a year!"

"The son of an Earl!" Cross gasped.

"Never mind about that. He is a democrat and honest to the backbone," Catherine declared. "The Bishop will tell you so. He has known him all his life. Think! Julian Orden has no purpose to serve, no selfish interest to further. He has nothing to gain, everything to lose. If he were not sincere, if those words of his, which we all remember, did not come from his heart, where could be the excuse, the reason, for what he stands for? Think what it means to us!"

"He is the man, isn't he," Sands asked mysteriously, "whom they are looking after down yonder?"