'Lovelace here seems to think it is.'
`Please forget I said that.' Lovelace was feeling the awkwardness of his position, 'Look here, Penn, you'll naturally want to talk this thing over with miss Lorne. Don't let's stand on ceremony. Ring for your car to be sent round and it can take me back to New York at once.
'Thanks, but I'd rather you didn't go yet. I've still got something l want to say to you.'
The girl picked up a log and threw it on the fire. As she dusted her hands,' she said thoughtfully 'It is obvious Christopher has told you about the Millers’ of God. Don't you think that the end really justifies the means in the work they're doing?'
'To a certain extent,' Lovelace agreed uneasily, 'but l find it hard to stomach the actual fact of killing some fellow who, however blood guilty he may be in theory, considers himself a perfectly innocent business man going about his normal job.'
Valerie Lorne spoke with sudden fervour. 'I expected the infidels considered themselves innocent when they turned Our Lord's sepulchre into a Mohammedan: mosque, yet thousands of Christians gave their lives to recapture the Holy Land. This, too, is a Crusade!`
Perhaps, but surely that was different, It was a war like any other, There was no question of stealthy assassination. Still, this really isn't my business. Your fiancé seems determined to carry theory into practice and you, apparently, agree that he's right to do so,'
'I've very little option,' she said slowly. `I don't know how long you have known him, but Christopher Penn is Christopher Penn. He told me this might occur when we became engaged, although neither of us thought it likely then. Now it's happened I mustn’t allow my personal feelings to interfere with well what he considers to be his duty.
Lovelace was several years older than either of the others. He sensed the young man's feeling that he had pledged himself to a horrid business and the girl's loyal acceptance of the fact; yet her abhorrence of it. He felt that he must make some effort to straighten out this tangle, so he said: `Is there some very unpleasant penalty to be faced if you decided to back out, Penn?'
'No, none. The society is very elastic and there's very little mystery about it. No passwords or secret signs, or that sort of bunkum. Most of us are even rather ashamed of the name under which it's run, but it had to be called something. There are no oaths of secrecy, so we can speak of it quite freely to anyone we like, although of course we never do, except to people we feel we can absolutely trust. Even if our judgment were at fault, and somebody broke a confidence one of us made to him, it couldn't do much damage. You see, we have no offices or fixed meeting places: nearly all our communications are carried by word of mouth and as most of us are wealthy people we travel frequently so there's no difficulty in passing on suggestions or decisions from one part of the world to another. There are no penalties for anyone who ceases to be an active member, either. If I refused to do this job it'd just be put up to someone else. But conviction and well, honour if you like are tighter bonds than any oath., and I could never respect myself again if I ratted on the others now.'
`You see, Sir Anthony, that's Christopher,' Valerie smiled for the first time, giving a queer little twist to her mouth. 'Difficult chap for a girl to love, isn't he? The most pig headed, quixotic fool between Panama and Alaska I should say but I happen to like him.: Anyhow, I'm afraid there's nothing to be done except for his friends to help him as far as they can.'
Lovelace cast an eye on the decanter. 'D'you mind if I mix myself a drink?' He wanted time to think up another argument.
Please do. I'm so sorry I forgot to ask you, I so rarely drink anything myself, you see,' Christopher said apologetically.
While he measured out the whisky with careful deliberation Lovelace's brain was working overtime. The boy was a fanatic and the girl was in love with him. Pretty hard on her but, by Jove, she was behaving magnificently. Where the devil had he met her? Somewhere in the past but that didn't matter now. She had hypnotized herself into an active sympathy with this society of madmen; but were they mad or terribly, logically sane? Anyhow, she didn't want him to become a murderer for all her talk about Crusades. He wasn't liking the idea either now it had taken concrete form. Probably doubted his ability to carry the job through. Case of the spirit being willing but the flesh being weak. Perhaps he could be scared into chucking it. That seemed the only line to try. Tumbler in hand, Lovelace turned back towards his host.
`Ever seen an execution?'
`No. Why?'
`I have, several. Saw a Chinese coolie's head chopped off once. He took it pretty stolidly, but an Armenian spy in the pay of the Greeks who had to face a Turkish firing party didn't take it half so well. Neither did a young Spaniard who was hanged during the South American trouble. I can hear his screaming now as they fixed the noose round his neck. To look at he was rather like you.'
`Why are you telling me this?'
'Only because it may happen to you one cold grey morning. On an empty tummy perhaps, when dreams are unsatisfactory fare. The police must know something of your organization by this time, and if they get you after you've done this job you'll see the inside of the death cell for certain.'
Christopher shrugged a little contemptuously. `The police! Their job is to keep ordinary crime in check but they're up against an utterly different proposition in the Millers of God, No one of us ever commits a second crime. Each of us is a completely reputable person, who has other activities to cover his operations and other equally unsuspected people to assist in his getaway. None of the deaths we are responsible for has any apparent motive, so there is never any case for the police to formulate against us. We're completely outside their natural orbit so we haven't a thing to fear from their attentions,'
`I see. Well, would you care to give us some particulars as to how you propose to set about this er killing
With an ether pistol discharging a deadly gas from some special shells. It's silent, painless, and practically instantaneous. All our executions are carried out that, way, although whenever possible we arrange things afterwards to look as though death had been caused by an accident. I received the pistol and shells yesterday With my instructions.'
Lovelace's tanned face looked very grave, He was still seeking a way to divert the younger man from his terrible purpose as he inquired : 'Where will you try and get Benyon on in his home?'
'Benyon Christopher exclaimed. 'But it's not him
I should never be called on to execute a man I know that would be too awful. It was only just because I did know him I was asked to give him his warning before I left the States.'
'This this job means your going abroad then? said Valerie,
'Yes. To Paris first where I shall receive my final instructions from one of our people. After that I don't know. I was told to get my passport visaed for all countries bordering on the Mediterranean, or the Red Sea. and Abyssinia, though; so it looks as if they may be sending me to the seat of the war.'
`But, darling!' Valerie protested, `you would be absolutely lost in a place like Abyssinia. You know how impractical you are and you don't speak a single foreign language except French.'
He nodded gloomily. `I know, sweet. I've never been farther east than Rome, even as a tourist and I'll be horribly handicapped if I have to go on to Asia Minor or Eritrea or Abyssinia itself. That's just what's worrying me at the moment.'
A hint of amusement showed in Lovelace's brown eyes. `So that's it, eh? That's why you got me out here. When you heard that I was a pretty useful linguist, and had been in Abyssinia before, you hoped to rope me in as your assistant in the chase.'
`Yes,' Christopher confessed quite frankly, `that was my idea. When I heard you talking in the Club this evening it almost seemed as though God had sent you there specially to help me.'