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Richard Harding Davis >> In the Fog
Produced by Eric Eldred
IN THE FOG
BY
Richard Harding Davis
First published MCMI
CHAPTER I
The Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be
placed on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though
he had received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in "Vanity
Fair."
Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were
to ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save
that particular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the
Grill, that it would sound like boasting.
The Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare's Theatre stood
on the present site of the "Times" office. It has a golden Grill which
Charles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript
of "Tom and Jerry in London," which was bequeathed to it by Pierce
Egan himself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still
use sand to blot the ink.
The Grill enjoys the distinction of having blackballed, without
political prejudice, a Prime Minister of each party. At the same
sitting at which one of these fell, it elected, on account of his
brogue and his bulls, Quiller, Q. C., who was then a penniless
barrister.
When Paul Preval, the French artist who came to London by royal
command to paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales, was made an
honorary member--only foreigners may be honorary members--he said,
as he signed his first wine card, "I would rather see my name on that,
than on a picture in the Louvre."
At which. Quiller remarked, "That is a devil of a compliment, because
the only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been
dead fifty years."
On the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in
the Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of
the fireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table.
At the far end of the room the fire of the grill glows red, and, when
the fat falls, blazes into flame, and at the other there is a broad
bow window of diamond panes, which looks down upon the street. The
four men at the table were strangers to each other, but as they picked
at the grilled bones, and sipped their Scotch and soda, they conversed
with such charming animation that a visitor to the Club, which does
not tolerate visitors, would have counted them as friends of long
acquaintance, certainly not as Englishmen who had met for the first
time, and without the form of an introduction. But it is the etiquette
and tradition of the Grill, that whoever enters it must speak with
whomever he finds there. It is to enforce this rule that there is but
one long table, and whether there are twenty men at it or two, the
waiters, supporting the rule, will place them side by side.
For this reason the four strangers at supper were seated together,
with the candles grouped about them, and the long length of the table
cutting a white path through the outer gloom.
"I repeat," said the gentleman with the black pearl stud, "that the
days for romantic adventure and deeds of foolish daring have passed,
and that the fault lies with ourselves. Voyages to the pole I do not
catalogue as adventures. That African explorer, young Chetney, who
turned up yesterday after he was supposed to have died in Uganda, did
nothing adventurous. He made maps and explored the sources of rivers.
He was in constant danger, but the presence of danger does not
constitute adventure. Were that so, the chemist who studies high
explosives, or who investigates deadly poisons, passes through
adventures daily. No, 'adventures are for the adventurous.' But one no
longer ventures. The spirit of it has died of inertia. We are grown
too practical, too just, above all, too sensible. In this room, for
instance, members of this Club have, at the sword's point, disputed
the proper scanning of one of Pope's couplets. Over so weighty a
matter as spilled Burgundy on a gentleman's cuff, ten men fought
across this table, each with his rapier in one hand and a candle in
the other. All ten were wounded. The question of the spilled Burgundy
concerned but two of them. The eight others engaged because they were
men of 'spirit.' They were, indeed, the first gentlemen of the day.
To-night, were you to spill Burgundy on my cuff, were you even to
insult me grossly, these gentlemen would not consider it incumbent
upon them to kill each other. They would separate us, and to-morrow
morning appear as witnesses against us at Bow Street. We have here
to-night, in the persons of Sir Andrew and myself, an illustration of
how the ways have changed."
The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in
front of the fireplace. He was an elderly and somewhat portly person,
with a kindly, wrinkled countenance, which wore continually a smile of
almost childish confidence and good-nature. It was a face which the
illustrated prints had made intimately familiar. He held a book from
him at arm's-length, as if to adjust his eyesight, and his brows were
knit with interest.
"Now, were this the eighteenth century," continued the gentleman with
the black pearl, "when Sir Andrew left the Club to-night I would have
him bound and gagged and thrown into a sedan chair. The watch would
not interfere, the passers-by would take to their heels, my hired
bullies and ruffians would convey him to some lonely spot where we
would guard him until morning. Nothing would come of it, except added
reputation to myself as a gentleman of adventurous spirit, and
possibly an essay in the 'Tatler,' with stars for names, entitled, let
us say, 'The Budget and the Baronet.'"
"But to what end, sir?" inquired the youngest of the members. "And why
Sir Andrew, of all persons--why should you select him for this
adventure?"
The gentleman with the black pearl shrugged his shoulders.
"It would prevent him speaking in the House to-night. The Navy
Increase Bill," he added gloomily. "It is a Government measure, and
Sir Andrew speaks for it. And so great is his influence and so large
his following that if he does"--the gentleman laughed ruefully--"if he
does, it will go through. Now, had I the spirit of our ancestors," he
exclaimed, "I would bring chloroform from the nearest chemist's and
drug him in that chair. I would tumble his unconscious form into a
hansom cab, and hold him prisoner until daylight. If I did, I would
save the British taxpayer the cost of five more battleships, many
millions of pounds."
The gentlemen again turned, and surveyed the baronet with freshened
interest. The honorary member of the Grill, whose accent already had
betrayed him as an American, laughed softly.
"To look at him now," he said, "one would not guess he was deeply
concerned with the affairs of state."
The others nodded silently.
"He has not lifted his eyes from that book since we first entered,"
added the youngest member. "He surely cannot mean to speak to-night."
"Oh, yes, he will speak," muttered the one with the black pearl
moodily. "During these last hours of the session the House sits late,
but when the Navy bill comes up on its third reading he will be in his
place--and he will pass it."
The fourth member, a stout and florid gentleman of a somewhat sporting
appearance, in a short smoking-jacket and black tie, sighed enviously.
"Fancy one of us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up
within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I 'd be in a
devil of a funk myself. And yet he is as keen over that book he's
reading as though he had nothing before him until bedtime."
"Yes, see how eager he is," whispered the youngest member. "He does
not lift his eyes even now when he cuts the pages. It is probably an
Admiralty Report, or some other weighty work of statistics which bears
upon his speech."
The gentleman with the black pearl laughed morosely.
"The weighty work in which the eminent statesman is so deeply
engrossed," he said, "is called 'The Great Rand Robbery.' It is a
detective novel, for sale at all bookstalls."
The American raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
"'The Great Rand Robbery'?" he repeated incredulously. "What an odd
taste!"
"It is not a taste, it is his vice," returned the gentleman with the
pearl stud. "It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a
stranger, could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr.
Gladstone sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his
in Gaboriau. Since I have been a member of Parliament I have never
seen him in the library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He
brings them even into the sacred precincts of the House, and from the
Government benches reads them concealed inside his hat. Once started
on a tale of murder, robbery, and sudden death, nothing can tear him
from it, not even the call of the division bell, nor of hunger, nor
the prayers of the party Whip. He gave up his country house because
when he journeyed to it in the train he would become so absorbed in
his detective stories that he was invariably carried past his
station." The member of Parliament twisted his pearl stud nervously,
and bit at the edge of his mustache. "If it only were the first pages
of 'The Rand Robbery' that he were reading," he murmured bitterly,
"instead of the last! With such another book as that, I swear I could
hold him here until morning. There would be no need of chloroform to
keep him from the House."
The eyes of all were fastened upon Sir Andrew, and each saw with
fascination that with his forefinger he was now separating the last
two pages of the book. The member of Parliament struck the table
softly with his open palm.
"I would give a hundred pounds," he whispered, "if I could place in
his hands at this moment a new story of Sherlock Holmes--a thousand
pounds," he added wildly--"five thousand pounds!"
The American observed the speaker sharply, as though the words bore to
him some special application, and then at an idea which apparently had
but just come to him, smiled in great embarrassment.
Sir Andrew ceased reading, but, as though still under the influence of
the book, sat looking blankly into the open fire. For. a brief space
no one moved until the baronet withdrew his eyes and, with a sudden
start of recollection, felt anxiously for his watch. He scanned its
face eagerly, and scrambled to his feet.
The voice of the American instantly broke the silence in a high,
nervous accent.
"And yet Sherlock Holmes himself," he cried, "could not decipher the
mystery which to-night baffles the police of London."
At these unexpected words, which carried in them something of the tone
of a challenge, the gentlemen about the table started as suddenly as
though the American had fired a pistol in the air, and Sir Andrew
halted abruptly and stood observing him with grave surprise.
The gentleman with the black pearl was the first to recover.
"Yes, yes," he said eagerly, throwing himself across the table. "A
mystery that baffles the police of London.
"I have heard nothing of it. Tell us at once, pray do--tell us at
once."
The American flushed uncomfortably, and picked uneasily at the
tablecloth.
"No one but the police has heard of it," he murmured, "and they only
through me. It is a remarkable crime, to, which, unfortunately, I am
the only person who can bear witness. Because I am the only witness, I
am, in spite of my immunity as a diplomat, detained in London by the
authorities of Scotland Yard. My name," he said, inclining his head
politely, "is Sears, Lieutenant Ripley Sears of the United States
Navy, at present Naval Attache to the Court of Russia. Had I not been
detained to-day by the police I would have started this morning for
Petersburg."
The gentleman with the black pearl interrupted with so pronounced an
exclamation of excitement and delight that the American stammered and
ceased speaking.
"Do you hear, Sir Andrew!" cried the member of Parliament jubilantly.
"An American diplomat halted by our police because he is the only
witness of a most remarkable crime--_the_ most remarkable crime, I
believe you said, sir," he added, bending eagerly toward the naval
officer, "which has occurred in London in many years."
The American moved his head in assent and glanced at the two other
members. They were looking doubtfully at him, and the face of each
showed that he was greatly perplexed.
Sir Andrew advanced to within the light of the candles and drew a
chair toward him.
"The crime must be exceptional indeed," he said, "to justify the
police in interfering with a representative of a friendly power. If I
were not forced to leave at once, I should take the liberty of asking
you to tell us the details."
The gentleman with the pearl pushed the chair toward Sir Andrew, and
motioned him to be seated.
"You cannot leave us now," he exclaimed. "Mr. Sears is just about to
tell us of this remarkable crime."
He nodded vigorously at the naval officer and the American, after
first glancing doubtfully toward the servants at the far end of the
room, leaned forward across the table. The others drew their chairs
nearer and bent toward him. The baronet glanced irresolutely at his
watch, and with an exclamation of annoyance snapped down the lid.
"They can wait," he muttered. He seated himself quickly and nodded at
Lieutenant Sears.
"If you will be so kind as to begin, sir," he said impatiently.
"Of course," said the American, "you understand that I understand that
I am speaking to gentlemen. The confidences of this Club are
inviolate. Until the police give the facts to the public press, I
must consider you my confederates. You have heard nothing, you know no
one connected with this mystery. Even I must remain anonymous."
The gentlemen seated around him nodded gravely.
"Of course," the baronet assented with eagerness, "of course."
"We will refer to it," said the gentleman with the black pearl, "as
'The Story of the Naval Attache.'"
"I arrived in London two days ago," said the American, "and I engaged
a room at the Bath Hotel. I know very few people in London, and even
the members of our embassy were strangers to me. But in Hong Kong I
had become great pals with an officer in your navy, who has since
retired, and who is now living in a small house in Rutland Gardens
opposite the Knights-bridge barracks. I telegraphed him that I was in
London, and yesterday morning I received a most hearty invitation to
dine with him the same evening at his house. He is a bachelor, so we
dined alone and talked over all our old days on the Asiatic Station,
and of the changes which had come to us since we had last met there.
As I was leaving the next morning for my post at Petersburg, and had
many letters to write, I told him, about ten o'clock, that I must get
back to the hotel, and he sent out his servant to call a hansom.
"For the next quarter of an hour, as we sat talking, we could hear the
cab whistle sounding violently from the doorstep, but apparently with
no result.
"'It cannot be that the cabmen are on strike,' my friend said, as he
rose and walked to the window.
"He pulled back the curtains and at once called to me.
"'You have never seen a London fog, have you?' he asked. 'Well, come
here. This is one of the best, or, rather, one of the worst, of them.'
I joined him at the window, but I could see nothing. Had I not known
that the house looked out upon the street I would have believed that I
was facing a dead wall. I raised the sash and stretched out my head,
but still I could see nothing. Even the light of the street lamps
opposite, and in the upper windows of the barracks, had been smothered
in the yellow mist. The lights of the room in which I stood penetrated
the fog only to the distance of a few inches from my eyes.
"Below me the servant was still sounding his whistle, but I could
afford to wait no longer, and told my friend that I would try and find
the way to my hotel on foot. He objected, but the letters I had to
write were for the Navy Department, and, besides, I had always heard
that to be out in a London fog was the most wonderful experience, and
I was curious to investigate one for myself.
"My friend went with me to his front door, and laid down a course for
me to follow. I was first to walk straight across the street to the
brick wall of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way
along the wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the
sidewalk. They would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of
this street was a row of shops which I was to follow until they joined
the iron railings of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I
reached the gates at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal
course across Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green
Park. At the end of these railings, going east, I would find the
Walsingham, and my own hotel.
"To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend
goodnight and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I
continued upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few
steps further, and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned
in the direction from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint
light cut in the yellow fog. I shouted 'All right,' and the voice of
my friend answered, 'Good luck to you.' The light from his open door
disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow
darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never
known such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of
Behring Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle,
but last night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided
myself along the barrack wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon.
It is as familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as
proper that a fog should spread upon the waters as that steam shall
rise from a kettle. But a fog which springs from the paved streets,
that rolls between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at
half speed, that drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric lights
of the music hall, that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of
place as a tidal wave on Broadway.
"As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were
coming from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each
other I stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But
the third time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had
disappeared, and the further I moved to find it the further I seemed
to be sinking into space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any
moment I might step over a precipice. Since I had set out I had heard
no traffic in the street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I
could only distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians.
Several times I called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered
me, but only to ask me where I thought he was, and then even he was
swallowed up in the silence. Just above me I could make out a jet of
gas which I guessed came from a street lamp, and I moved over to that,
and, while I tried to recover my bearings, kept my hand on the iron
post. Except for this flicker of gas, no larger than the tip of my
finger, I could distinguish nothing about me. For the rest, the mist
hung between me and the world like a damp and heavy blanket.
"I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and
the scrape of a foot moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as some one
stumbled, were the only sounds that reached me.
"I decided that until some one took me in tow I had best remain where
I was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the
lamp, straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near
me some people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even
fancied I could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet,
but I could not make out from which part of the compass the sounds
came. And sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand,
and again, to be floating high in the air above my head. Although I
was surrounded by thousands of householders--13--I was as completely
lost as though I had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert.
There seemed to be no reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I
again set out, and at once bumped against a low iron fence. At first I
believed this to be an area railing, but on following it I found that
it stretched for a long distance, and that it was pierced at regular
intervals with gates. I was standing uncertainly with my hand on one
of these when a square of light suddenly opened in the night, and in
it I saw, as you see a picture thrown by a biograph in a darkened
theatre, a young gentleman in evening dress, and back of him the
lights of a hall. I guessed from its elevation and distance from the
side-walk that this light must come from the door of a house set back
from the street, and I determined to approach it and ask the young man
to tell me where I was. But in fumbling with the lock of the gate I
instinctively bent my head, and when I raised it again the door had
partly closed, leaving only a narrow shaft of light. Whether the young
man had re-entered the house, or had left it I could not tell, but I
hastened to open the gate, and as I stepped forward I found myself
upon an asphalt walk. At the same instant there was the sound of quick
steps upon the path, and some one rushed past me. I called to him, but
he made no reply, and I heard the gate click and the footsteps
hurrying away upon the sidewalk.
"Under other circumstances the young man's rudeness, and his
recklessness in dashing so hurriedly through the mist, would have
struck me as peculiar, but everything was so distorted by the fog that
at the moment I did not consider it. The door was still as he had left
it, partly open. I went up the path, and, after much fumbling, found
the knob of the door-bell and gave it a sharp pull. The bell answered
me from a great depth and distance, but no movement followed from
inside the house, and although I pulled the bell again and again I
could hear nothing save the dripping of the mist about me. I was
anxious to be on my way, but unless I knew where I was going there was
little chance of my making any speed, and I was determined that until
I learned my bearings I would not venture back into the fog. So I
pushed the door open and stepped into the house.
"I found myself in a long and narrow hall, upon which doors opened
from either side. At the end of the hall was a staircase with a
balustrade which ended in a sweeping curve. The balustrade was covered
with heavy Persian rugs, and the walls of the hall were also hung with
them. The door on my left was closed, but the one nearer me on the
right was open, and as I stepped opposite to it I saw that it was a
sort of reception or waiting-room, and that it was empty. The door
below it was also open, and with the idea that I would surely find
some one there, I walked on up the hall. I was in evening dress, and I
felt I did not look like a burglar, so I had no great fear that,
should I encounter one of the inmates of the house, he would shoot me
on sight. The second door in the hall opened into a dining-room. This
was also empty. One person had been dining at the table, but the cloth
had not been cleared away, and a nickering candle showed half-filled
wineglasses and the ashes of cigarettes. The greater part of the room
was in complete darkness.
"By this time I had grown conscious of the fact that I was wandering
about in a strange house, and that, apparently, I was alone in it. The
silence of the place began to try my nerves, and in a sudden,
unexplainable panic I started for the open street. But as I turned, I
saw a man sitting on a bench, which the curve of the balustrade had
hidden from me. His eyes were shut, and he was sleeping soundly.
"The moment before I had been bewildered because I could see no one,
but at sight of this man I was much more bewildered.
"He was a very large man, a giant in height, with long yellow hair
which hung below his shoulders. He was dressed in a red silk shirt
that was belted at the waist and hung outside black velvet trousers
which, in turn, were stuffed into high black boots. I recognized the
costume at once as that of a Russian servant, but what a Russian
servant in his native livery could be doing in a private house in
Knightsbridge was incomprehensible.
"I advanced and touched the man on the shoulder, and after an effort
he awoke, and, on seeing me, sprang to his feet and began bowing
rapidly and making deprecatory gestures. I had picked up enough
Russian in Petersburg to make out that the man was apologizing for
having fallen asleep, and I also was able to explain to him that I
desired to see his master.
"He nodded vigorously, and said, 'Will the Excellency come this way?
The Princess is here.'
"I distinctly made out the word 'princess,' and I was a good deal
embarrassed. I had thought it would be easy enough to explain my
intrusion to a man, but how a woman would look at it was another
matter, and as I followed him down the hall I was somewhat puzzled.