There was Lionel Silk, poet and author of White Heat, which had been publicly burned in America, and now cost fourteen guineas a volume. He was a slim, mild-looking man, with a bald circle in the midst of his fair hair, and a round schoolboy’s face that suggested arrested development. He looked out at the world through sleepy, lowered eyelids, and a scarlet cigarette-holder nine inches long jutted defiantly from his mouth.
Otisse, the explorer, was telling stories about China and South America to a group of men, all more or less famous or notorious. One of these was a singer named Adam Steele, “boomed” in the newspapers recently as the “Australian Caruso.” Steele was a large, bounding, energetic man, broad-shouldered and full of vitality. He had a very beautiful voice, and later, no doubt, he would be expected to sing. Lady Groombridge did not invite her guests for nothing.
Steele strolled across the room and seated himself beside Loreto. The singer had some music in his hands, and he turned to Loreto with a pleasant smile.
“I suppose I shall have to sing later on,” he confided, with a humorous grin. “I’m engaged like the extra waiters and the other hirelings. I wonder whether you would mind very much playing some accompaniments for me, Santos? I know you’re a big solo pianist, but the fact is my regular accompanist is ill. Lady Groombridge suggested that you might—”
“That lady’s word is law,” said Loreto, smiling. “Of course, I don’t claim to be an accompanist, and I’m not a very good reader. What have you got there? German Lieder — h’m! Brahms — he’s a bit tricky.”
He took the music and turned the pages quickly.
“Well, I think I can manage this for you all right.”
Steele thanked the other in his quick, impulsive way, and soon the two men were deep in a musical discussion. Loreto’s voice was soft and gravely deliberate; Steele talked excitedly, with animated gesture.
Later, when they rejoined the women, Steele sang and Loreto played indefatigably. Not only did he play the singer’s accompaniments, but he played numerous solos, and was glad afterwards to slip away to a corner of the big room for a quiet cigarette and a rest.
His sister Cleta, who had quite a nice drawing-room voice, exquisitely trained, sang some songs of old Spain, while Loreto listened appreciatively. He was sorry when the girl had finished, and Lionel Silk began to recite — or, rather, chant — some fragments from White Heat.
Seizing a favorable moment, Loreto slipped out and stole along a passage to a cool and empty smoking-room that adjoined the billiard-room.
He had just lit a fresh cigarette when a very tall old man, with white hair and a scholarly stoop, peered in through the doorway and then entered.
“Hullo!” said the old man, genially. “It’s Santos, isn’t it? Loreto Santos? Thought it was. My name’s Frame. Politician, you know.”
He seated himself opposite Loreto and continued in the same snappy, unconventional fashion.
“Couldn’t stand that Silk fellow; slipped out after you. Calls that stuff poetry! Gad! He ought to have been burnt along with his beastly books. Rotten stuff, Santos.”
With fingers that shook ever so slightly he drew out a cigar-case, whilst Loreto looked at him curiously.
At seventy-two years of age, Sir George Frame had a fine old face that still retained traces of an extremely handsome youth. The sputtering match threw a glow about the high and broad forehead, the grey eyes, still keen despite the innumerable fine lines about them, and the firm mouth. Looking at the old man’s face, Loreto understood the other’s popularity in the House, his reputation for shrewd statesmanship and vision.
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Sir George,” he said, with perfect honesty. “I fancy that you are rather more than a mere politician.”
The old man shrugged and dropped his extinguished match into an ashtray.
“I’ve tried hard,” he said. “I’ve tried hard. But the number of fools are infinite, as old Carlyle said. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. You play the piano jolly well, Santos, but the musical number for me is ‘Nunc dimittis’. I’ve had a full life. No regrets. Seventy-three next June, but I’ll never reach it. Shut the door, my boy, will you?”
A little surprised at the abruptness of the request, Loreto nevertheless rose and closed the smoke-room door securely. When he returned to his seat he noticed that Sir George Frame had moved his chair forward until it was much nearer to that of Loreto.
“Particularly wanted to have a talk with you, Santos,” the old man resumed. “Followed your career in the papers, and read your views on crime frustration. Papers got your views wrong, of course, but I understand. You’re quite right. Modern society is the greatest criminal of all. Distribution of wealth notoriously unjust. So-called ‘justice’ a mockery. Organized society makes criminals by the hundred, and then revenges itself upon them — if they’re poor. Big thieves get off and get honors. All wrong. Prevention of crime is the great thing — not punishment.”
He paused for a moment, and looked at the firm ash on his cigar.
“I’m particularly interested in the prevention of crime,” he said, slowly, and in a different tone. “Perhaps you can guess why, Santos?”
His eyes were lifted meaningly to his listener’s face, and in a flash Loreto understood.
“Good God!” he cried. “You were a friend of Lilian Hope! You have not been threatened by—”
“Yes,” said Sir George, grimly, “I am the next on the list.”
He drew a fairly large envelope from his breast pocket and extracted some folded papers. They were dingy and faintly yellow; one edge of the paper was jagged where it had been torn from the book, and Loreto immediately recognized these sheets as pages from Lilian Hope’s fatal diary.
“Poor Lilian!” murmured the old man. “She was a wonderful creature, and I loved her once, though she never treated me too well. I had her picture — kept it for years, but my wife grew jealous. To think that she was in such poverty, and that she died in such a frame of mind!”
There was silence in the room for a moment. The old man’s cigar had gone out, and he threw it away and fumbled for another. Loreto examined the documents.
“She did once appeal to me for money, Santos,” went on the old man. “She never gave me her address, or told me how badly she was situated. She asked me to send her money to the poste restante in a big seaside resort. I wrote a letter enclosing money and asking her to let me know if she wanted more. I had no answer. I only learned a year later that my wife had intercepted the letter, and Lilian never received anything.”
He sighed faintly and dropped his second cigar into the empty grate.
“Life’s a queer thing. Mixture of comic and tragic. Poor Kitty, my wife, was always jealous, and now she’d give a great deal never to have destroyed my letter. I never heard from Lilian again; could never get in touch with her. And now there comes this bolt from the blue — this poor lunatic avenging wrongs that are purely imaginary. One poor mad soul driven on by another who is dead.”
Loreto nodded gravely.
“It is horrible and pitiably tragic,” he said. “I hope you are taking precautions, Sir George?”
The old man chuckled in grim humor.
“Precautions? What — me? My dear Santos, you don’t know me. I’m incapable of such a thing. I’m so absent-minded, I lose glasses, umbrellas, books — anything I happen to be carrying. I can’t even keep a good cigar alight. I get in wrong trains, forget to post letters, and once I delivered the wrong speech to the wrong set of people. I could never think of precautions. Besides, this sort of thing doesn’t worry me. I’ve had a full life, and I’ve had enough.