“And now,” said Dr. Franchi, as he enjoyed a cigar and Henry a cigarette and both their liqueurs, “let us talk of this mysterious business of poor Svensen.”
“Yes, do let's,” said Henry, for this was much more in his line.
“I may misjudge you, Mr. Beechtree, but I have made a guess that you entertain certain suspicions in this matter. Is that the case? Ah, I see I am right. No, tell me nothing you do not wish. In fact, tell me nothing at all. It would be, at this point, indiscreet. Instead, let us go through all the possible alternatives.” He paused, and puffed at his cigar for a while in thoughtful silence.
“First of all,” he presently resumed, “poor Svensen may have met with an accident. He may have fallen into the lake and have been drowned. But this we will set aside as improbable. Geneva is seldom quite deserted at night, and he would have attracted attention. Besides which, I have heard that he is an excellent swimmer. No; an improbable contingency. What remains? Foul play. Some person or persons have attacked him in a deserted spot and either murdered or kidnapped him. But who? And for what purpose? Robbery? Personal enmity? Revenge? Or an impersonal motive, such as a desire, for some reason, to damage and retard the doings of the Assembly? It might be any of these.... Let us for a moment take the hypothesis that it is the last. To whom, then, might such a desire be attributed? Unfortunately, my dear Mr. Beechtree, to many different persons.”
“But more to some than to others,” Henry brightly pointed out.
“Certainly more to some than to others. More to the Poles than to the Lithuanians, for instance, for is it not to the Polish interest to hold up the proceedings of the Assembly while the present violation of the Lithuanian frontier by Polish hordes continues? Well they know that any inquiry into that matter set on foot by the League would end in their discomfiture. Every day that they can retard the appointment of a committee of inquiry is to the good, from their point of view.
“Again, take Russia. The question of the persecution of the Bolsheviks is to be brought up in the Assembly early. Naturally the Russian delegation are not anxious for the exposure of their governmental methods which would accompany this. And then there are the Bolshevik refugees themselves—a murderous gang, who would readily dispose of any one, from mere habit. Nor can Argentine be supposed to be anxious for the inquiry into her dispute with Paraguay which the Paraguay delegation intend to bring forward. The Argentine delegation may well have orders to delay this inquiry as long as possible, in order that the dispute may arrange itself domestically, in Argentine interests, without the intervention of the League. There is, too, the Graeco-Turkish war, which both the Greeks and the Turks desire to carry on in peace. There are also several questions of humanitarian legislation, which by no means all the members of the League desire to see proceeded with—the traffic in women, for instance, and that in certain drugs. And what about the Irish delegates? Are they not both, for their different reasons, full of anger and discontent against Great Britain and against Europe in general, and may they not well intend, in the determined manner of their race, to hold up the association of nations at the pistol's mouth, so to speak, until it considers their grievances and adjudicates in their favour? And then we must not exclude from suspicion the natives of this city and canton. Calvinists are, in my experience, capable of any malicious crime. A dour, jealous, unpleasant people. They might (and often have they done so) perpetrate any wickedness in the name of the curious God they worship.”
“Indeed, yes,” said Henry. “How confusing it all is, to be sure! But you haven't mentioned the biggest stumbling-block of all, sir—disarmament.”
“Ah, yes; disarmament. As you say, the most tremendous issue of all. And it is, as every one knows, going to be, during this session of the League, decisively dealt with by the Council. Many a nation, militant from terror, from avarice, from arrogance, or from habit, many a political faction, and many a big business, has a vital interest in hindering disarmament discussions. You think then, that——”
“I will tell you,” said Henry, leaning forward eagerly and lowering his rather high voice, “what I think. I think that there are those not far from us who have a great deal of money in armaments, and who get nervy whenever the subject comes up. There are things that I know.... I came out here knowing them, and meaning to speak when the time came. Not because it was my duty, which is why (I understand) most people expose others, but because I had a very great desire to. There is some one towards whom I feel a dislike—a very great dislike; I may say hate. He deserves it. He is a most disagreeable person, and has done me, personally, a great injury”—(Henry was feeling the expansive influence of the cherry brandy)—“and naturally I wish to do him one in my turn. I have wished it for several years; to be exact, since the year 1919. I have waited and watched. I have always known him to be detestable, but until recently I thought that he was also detestably and invariably in the right—or, anyhow, that he could not be proved in the wrong. Lately I learnt something that altered this opinion. I discovered a thing about him which would, if it were known (having regard to the position he occupies), utterly shame and discredit him. I am now, I have a feeling, on the track of discovering yet another and a worse thing—that he has done away with the elected President of the Assembly, in order to wreck the proceedings so that the armament question should not come up.”
“The armament question?”
Henry gazed at the ex-cardinal with the wide, ferocious stare of the slightly intoxicated.
“What would you say if I told you that a certain highly placed official on the League of Nations Secretariat has enormous sums of money invested in an armaments business? That he derives nearly all his income from it? That he is the son-in-law of the head of the business, and has in it vast sums which increase at every rumour of war and which would dwindle away if any extensive disarmament scheme should ever really be seriously contemplated by the nations? That his father-in-law, this munitions prince, is even now in Geneva, privately visiting his daughter and son-in-law and holding a watching brief on the Assembly proceedings? I ask you, what would the League staff say of one of their members of which this should be revealed? Would he be regarded as a fit incumbent of the office he holds? Wouldn't he be dismissed, kicked out as incompetent—as unscrupulous, I mean,” Henry amended quickly. His voice had risen in a shrill and trembling crescendo of dislike.
Dr. Franchi, leaning placidly back in his chair, his delicate fingers stroking a large Persian cat on his knee, shrewdly watched him.
“I had better say,” he observed, in his temperate and calming manner, “that I believe I know to whom you allude. I have guessed, since I saw you this morning when a certain individual was speaking near you, that you took no favourable view of him. And now I perceive that you are justified. You will be doubly justified if we can prove, what I am trying to agree with you is not improbable, that he has indeed made away with this unfortunate Svensen. I am tempted to share your view of this unpleasing person. Among other things he is a Catholic convert; as to these we have already exchanged our views.... Do you know what I think? This; that Svensen's will not be the only disappearance at Geneva. For what would be the use of getting rid of one man only, however prominent? The Assembly, after the first shock, would proceed with its doings. But what if man after man were to disappear? What if the whole fabric of Assembly, Council, and Committees should be disintegrated, till no one could have thoughts for anything but the mysterious disappearances and how to solve the riddle, and how, still more, to preserve each one himself from a like fate? Could any work be continued in such circumstances, in such an atmosphere? No. The Assembly would become merely a collection of bewildered and nervous individuals turning themselves into amateur detectives, and, incidentally, the laughing-stock of the world. The League might never recover such prestige as it has, after such a disastrous session. Mark my words; there will be further attempts on the persons of prominent delegates. Whether they will be successful attempts or not is a question. Who is responsible for them is another question. You say (and I am half with you) our friend of the Secretariat, who had better be nameless until we can bring him to book. Others will say other things. Many will be suspected. Notably, no doubt, the Spanish Americans, who lend themselves readily to such suspicions; they have that air, and human life is believed not to be unduly sacred to them. Besides, they never got on with Svensen, who is reported to have alluded to them not infrequently as ‘those damned Red Indians.’ The Scandinavian temperament and theirs are so different. I do not even feel sure myself that they are not implicated. The initiation of the affair by our Secretariat friend would not, in fact, preclude their participation in it. I had nearly said, show me a Spanish-American, still worse a Portuguese, and I will show you a scoundrel. Nearly, but not quite, for it is a mistake to say such things of one's brothers in the League. Besides, I like them. They are pleasing, amusing fellows, and do not rasp one's nerves like the Germans and many others. One can forgive them much; indeed, one has to. Many people, again, would be glad to put responsibility on the Germans. An unfortunate race, for nothing is so unfortunate as to be unloved. We must discover the truth, Mr. Beechtree. You have a line of inquiry to follow?”
“I am making friends with the fellow's secretary,” said Henry. “She likes me, I may say. And she talks quite a lot. She would not consciously betray her chief's confidence, though she does not like him; but all the same I get many clues from her.... Oh, my God——!”
The ejaculation, which was made under his breath, was shocked involuntarily out of him by the sight of Dr. Franchi's Persian cat extracting with its paw from a bowl that stood on the terrace balustrade a large gold-fish and devouring it.
After the first glance Henry looked away, leaning back in his chair, momentarily overcome with a feeling of nausea, which made his face glisten white and damp, and caused the sweat to break hotly on his brow, while the lake swayed and darkened before his eyes. It was a feeling to which he was unfortunately subject when he saw the smaller of God's creatures suffering these mischances at the hands of their larger brethren. His nerves were not strong, and he had an excessive dislike of witnessing unpleasant sights.
“You don't feel well?” Dr. Franchi solicitously inquired.
“The gold-fish,” his guest murmured. “Eaten alive ... what an end!”
Dr. Franchi's delicate, dark Latin brows rose.
“The gold-fish? Ah, my wicked Pellico.... I cannot keep him from the bowl, the rascal. I regret that he so upset you. But the sensibility of gold-fish is not great, surely? As the peasants say, non son chretiani loro!”
“Forgive me. To see a live fish devoured ... it took me unawares.... I shall be all right soon....”
As from a great distance Henry, still fighting the sensation of nausea, was half aware of the ex-cardinal's piercing eyes fixed on him with extraordinary intensity.
“I am all right now,” said Henry. “A momentary faintness—quite absurd.... I expect gold-fish do not really feel either emotion or pain. They say that fish do not feel hooks. Or worms, either.... They say all sorts of comforting things about this distressing world, don't they. One should try to believe them all....”
“You are,” said Dr. Franchi quietly, “if I may say so, a decidedly unusual young man.”
“Indeed, no,” said Henry. “But I have encroached on you long enough. I must go.”
