第34章

"If ever there was a great cause in the world," he said, "which stands some chance of missing complete success through senseless and low-minded jealousy, it is ours."

"Mr. Fenn!" she exclaimed.

"I mean it," he assured her. "As you know, a chairman must be elected this week, and that chairman, of course, will hold more power in his hand than any emperor of the past or any sovereign of the present. That leader is going to stop the war. He is going to bring peace to the world. It is a mighty post, Miss Abbeway."

"It is indeed," she agreed.

"Yet would you believe," he went on, leaning across the table and neglecting for a moment his dinner, "would you believe, Miss Abbeway, that out of the twenty representatives chosen from the Trades Unions governing the principal industries of Great Britain, there is not a single one who does not consider himself eligible for the post."

Catherine found herself suddenly laughing, while Fenn looked at her in astonishment.

"I cannot help it," she apologised. "Please forgive me. Do not think that I am irreverent. It is not that at all. But for a moment the absurdity of the thing overcame me. I have met some of them, you know - Mr. Cross of Northumberland, Mr. Evans of South Wales - "

"Evans is one of the worst," Fenn interrupted, with some excitement. "There's a man who has only worn a collar for the last few years of his life, who evaded the board-school because he was a pitman's lad, who doesn't even know the names of the countries of Europe, but who still believes that he is a possible candidate. And Cross, too! Well, he washes when he comes to London, but he sleeps in his clothes and they look like it."

"He is very eloquent," Catherine observed.

"Eloquent!" Fenn exclaimed scornfully. "He may be, but who can understand him? He speaks in broad Northumbrian. What is needed in the leader whom they are to elect this week, Miss Abbeway, is a man of some culture and some appearance. Remember that to him is to be confided the greatest task ever given to man. A certain amount of personality he must have - personality and dignity, I should say, to uphold the position."

"There is Mr. Miles Furley," she said thoughtfully. "He is an educated man, is he not?"

"For that very reason unsuitable," Fenn explained eagerly. "He represents no great body of toilers. He is, in reality, only an honorary member of the Council, like yourself and the Bishop, there on account of his outside services."

"I remember, only a few nights ago," she reflected, "I was staying at a country house - Lord Maltenby's, by the bye - Mr. Orden's father. The Prime Minister was there and another Cabinet Minister. They spoke of the Labour Party and its leaderless state. They had no idea, of course, of the great Council which was already secretly formed, but they were unanimous about the necessity for a strong leader. Two people made the same remark, almost with apprehension: `If ever Paul Fiske should materialise, the problem would be solved!'

Fenn assented without enthusiasm.

"After all, though," he reminded her, "a clever writer does not always make a great speaker, nor has he always that personality and distinction which is required in this case. He would come amongst us a stranger, too - a stranger personally, that is to say."

"Not in the broadest sense of the word," Catherine objected.

"Paul Fiske is more than an ordinary literary man. His heart is in tune with what he writes. Those are not merely eloquent words which he offers. There is a note of something above and beyond just phrase-making - a note of sympathetic understanding which amounts to genius."

Her companion stroked his moustache for a moment.

"Fiske goes right to the spot," he admitted, "but the question of the leadership, so far as he is concerned, doesn't come into the sphere of practical politics. It has been suggested, Miss Abbeway, by one or two of the more influential delegates, suggested, too, by a vast number of letters and telegrams which have poured in upon us during the last few days, that I should be elected to this vacant post."

"You?" she exclaimed, a little blankly.

"Can you think of a more suitable person?" he asked, with a faint note of truculence in his tone. "You have seen us all together.

I don't wish to flatter myself, but as regards education, service to the cause, familiarity with public speaking and the number of those I represent - "

"Yes, yes! I see," she interrupted. "Taking the twenty Labour representatives only, Mr. Fenn, I can see nothing against your selection, but I fancied, somehow, that some one outside - the Bishop, for instance - "

"Absolutely out of the question," Fenn declared. "The people would lose faith in the whole thing in a minute. The person who throws down the gage to the Prime Minister must have the direct mandate of the people."

They finished dinner presently. Fenn looked with admiration at the gold, coroneted case from which Catherine helped herself to one of her tiny cigarettes. He himself lit an American cigarette.

"I had meant, Miss Abbeway," he confided, leaning towards her, "to suggest a theatre to you to-night - in fact, I looked at some dress circle seats at the Gaiety with a view to purchasing.

Another matter has cropped up, however. There is a little business for us to do."

"Business?" Catherine repeated.

He produced a folded paper from his pocket and passed it across the table. Catherine read it with a slight frown.

"An order entitling the bearer to search Julian Orden's apartments!" she exclaimed. "We don't want to search them, do we?

Besides, what authority have we?"

"The best," he answered, tapping with his discoloured forefinger the signature at the foot of the, strip of paper.

She examined it with a doubtful frown.

"But how did this come into your possession?" she asked.

He smiled at her in superior fashion.

"By asking for it," he replied bluntly. "And between you and me, Miss Abbeway, there isn't much we might ask for that they'd care to refuse us just now."

"But the police have already searched Mr. Orden's rooms," she reminded him.