Home > Authors Index > E. Phillips Oppenheim > Nobody's Man > This page
Nobody's Man, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
||
Book Two - Chapter 10 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ BOOK TWO CHAPTER X Tallente found a distant connection of his waiting for him in his rooms, on his return from the House at about half-past six,--Spencer Williams, a young man who, after a brilliant career at Oxford, had become one of the junior secretaries to the Prime Minister. The young man rose to his feet at Tallente's entrance and hastened to explain his visit. "You'll forgive my waiting, sir," he begged. "Your servant told me that you were dining out and would be home before seven o'clock to change." "Quite right, Spencer," Tallente replied. "Glad to see you. Whisky and soda or cocktail?" The young man chose a whisky and soda, and Tallente followed suit, waving his visitor back into his chair and seating himself opposite. "Get right into the middle of it, please," he enjoined. "To begin with, then, can you break your engagement and come and dine with the Chief?" "Out of the question, even if it were a royal command," was the firm reply. "My engagement is unbreakable." "The Chief will be sorry," Williams said. "So am I. Will you go round to Downing Street and see him afterwards?" "I could," Tallente admitted, "but why? I have nothing to say to him. I can't conceive what he could have to say to me. There are always pressmen loitering about Downing Street, who would place the wrong construction on my visit. You saw all the rubbish they wrote because he and I talked together for a quarter of an hour at Mrs. Van Fosdyke's?" "I know all about that," Williams assented, "but this time, Tallente, there's something in it. The Chief quarrelled with you for the sake of the old gang. Well, he made a bloomer. The old gang aren't worth six-pence. They're rather a hindrance than help to legislation, and when they're wanted they're wobbly, as you saw this afternoon. Lethbridge went into the lobby with you." Tallente smiled a little grimly. "He took particularly good care that I should know that." "Well, there you are," Williams went on. "The Chief's fed up. I can talk to you here freely because I'm not an official person. Can you discuss terms at all for a rapprochement?" "Out of the question!" "You mean that you are too much committed to Dartrey and the Democrats?" "'Committed' to them is scarcely the correct way of putting it," Tallente objected. "Their principles are in the main my principles. They stand for the cause I have championed all my life. Our alliance is a natural, almost an automatic one." "It's all very well, sir," Williams argued, "but Dartrey stands for a Labour Party, pure and simple. You can't govern an Empire by parish council methods." "That is where the Democrats come in," Tallente pointed out. "They have none of the narrower outlook of the Labour Party as you understand it--of any of the late factions of the Labour Party, perhaps I should say. The Democrats possess an international outlook. When they legislate, every class will receive its proper consideration. No class will be privileged. A man will be ranked according to his production." Williams smiled with the faint cynicism of clairvoyant youth. "Sounds a little Utopian, sir," he ventured. "What about Miller?" "Well, what about him?" "Are you going to serve with him?" "Really," Tallente protested, "for a political opponent, or the representative of a political opponent, you're a trifle on the inquisitive side." "It's a matter that you'll have to face sometime or other," the young man asserted. "I happen to know that Dartrey is committed to Miller." "I don't see how you can happen to know anything of the sort," Tallente declared, a little bluntly. "In any case, Spencer, my political association or nonassociation with Miller is entirely my own affair, and you can hook it. Remember me to all your people, and give my love to Muriel." "Nothing doing, eh?" Williams observed, rising reluctantly to his feet. "You have perception," Tallente replied. "The Chief was afraid you might be a little difficult about an interview. Those pressmen are an infernal nuisance, anyway. What about sneaking into Downing Street at about midnight, in a cloak and slouch hat, eh?" "Too much of the cinema about you, young fellow," Tallente scoffed. "Run along now. I have to dress." Tallente held out his hand good-humouredly. His visitor made no immediate motion to take it. "There was just one thing more I was asked to mention, sir," he said. "I will be quite frank if I may. My instructions were not to allude to it if your attitude were in the least conciliatory." "Go on," Tallente bade him curtly. "There has been a rumour going about that some years ago--while the war was on, in fact--you wrote a very wonderful attack upon the trades unions. This attack was so bitter in tone, so damning in some of its facts, and, in short, such a wonderful production, that at the last moment the late Prime Minister used his influence with you to suspend its publication. It was held over, and in the meantime the attitude of the trades unions towards certain phases of the war was modified, and the collapse of Germany followed soon afterwards. Consequently, that article was never published." "You are exceedingly well informed," Tallente admitted. "Pray proceed." "There is in existence," the young man continued, "a signed copy of that article. Its publication at the present moment would probably make your position with the Democratic Party untenable." "Is this a matter of blackmail?" Tallente asked. The young man stiffened. "I am speaking on behalf of the Prime Minister, sir. He desired me to inform you that the signed copy of that article has been offered to him within the last few days." Tallente was silent for several moments. The young man's subtle intimation was a shock in more ways than one. "The manuscript to which you refer," he said at last, "was stolen from my study at Martinhoe under somewhat peculiar conditions." "Perhaps you would like to explain those conditions to Mr. Horlock," Williams suggested. Tallente held open the door. "I shall not seek out your Chief," he said, "but I will tell him the truth about that manuscript if at any time we should come together. In the meantime, I am perfectly in accord with the view which your Chief no doubt holds concerning it. The publication of that article at the present moment would inevitably end my connection with the Democratic Party and probably close my political career. This is a position which I should court rather than submit to blackmail direct or indirect." "My Chief will resent your using such a word, sir," Williams declared. "Your Chief could have avoided it by a judicious use of the waste-paper basket and an exercise of the gift of silence." Tallente retorted, as the young man took his departure. Horlock came face to face with Tallente the following afternoon, in one of the corridors of the House and, scarcely troubling about an invitation, led him forcibly into his private room. He turned his secretary out and locked the door. "A cigar?" he suggested. Tallente shook his head. "I want to see what's doing, in a few minutes," he said. "I can tell you that," Horlock declared. "Nothing at all! I was just off when I happened to see you. You're looking very fit and pleased with yourself. Is it because of that rotten trick you played on us the other day?" "Rotten? I thought it was rather clever of me," Tallente objected. "Perfectly legitimate, I suppose," the other assented grudgingly. "That's the worst of having a tactician in opposition." "You shouldn't have let me get there," was the quick retort. Horlock drew a paper knife slowly down between his fingers. "I sent Williams to you yesterday." "You did. A nice errand for a respectably brought-up young man!" "Chuck that, Tallente." "Why? I didn't misunderstand him, did I?" "Apparently. He told me that you used the word 'blackmail.'" "I don't think the dictionary supplies a milder equivalent." "Tallente," said Horlock with a frown, "we'll finish with this once and for ever. I refused the offer of the manuscript in question." "I am glad to hear it," was the laconic reply. "Leaving that out of the question, then, I suppose there's no chance of your ratting?" "Not the faintest. I rather fancy I've settled down for good." Horlock lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. "No good looking impatient, Tallente," he said. "The door's locked and you know it. You'll have to listen to what I want to say. A few minutes of your time aren't much to ask for." "Go ahead," Tallente acquiesced. "There is only one ambition," Horlock continued, "for an earnest politician. You know what that is as well as I do. Wouldn't you sooner be Prime Minister, supported by a recognised and reputable political party, than try to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for your friends Dartrey, Miller and company?" "So this is the last bid, eh?" Tallente observed. "It's the last bid of all," was the grave answer. "There is nothing more." "And what becomes of you?" "One section of the Press will say that I have shown self-denial and patriotism greater than any man of my generation and that my name will be handed down to history as one of the most single-minded statesmen of the day. Another section will say that I have been forced into a well-deserved retirement and that it will remain a monument to my everlasting disgrace that I brought my party to such straits that it was obliged to compromise with the representative of an untried and unproven conglomeration of fanatics. A third section--" "Oh, chuck it!" Tallente interrupted. "Horlock, I appreciate your offer because I know that there is a large amount of self-denial in it, but I am glad of an opportunity to end all these discussions. My word is passed to Dartrey." "And Miller?" the Prime Minister asked, with calm irony. Tallente felt the sting and frowned irritably. "I have had no discussions of any sort with Miller," he answered. "He has never been represented to me as holding an official position in the party." "If you ever succeed in forming a Democratic Government," Horlock said, "mark my words, you will have to include him." "If ever I accept any one's offer to form a Government," Tallente replied, "it will be on one condition and one condition only, which is that I choose my own Ministers." "If you become the head of the Democratic Party," Horlock pointed out, "you will have to take over their pledges." "I do not agree with you," was the firm reply, "and further, I suggest most respectfully that this discussion is not agreeable to me." An expression of hopelessness crept into Horlock's face. "You're a good fellow, Tallente," he sighed, "and I made a big mistake when I let you go. I did it to please the moderates and you know how they've turned out. There isn't one of them worth a row of pins. If any one ever writes my political biography, they will probably decide that the parting with you was the greatest of my blunders." He rose to his feet, swinging the key upon his finger. "One more word, Tallente," he added. "I want to warn you that so far as your further progress is concerned, there is a snake in the grass somewhere. The manuscript of which Williams spoke to you, and which would of course damn you forever with any party which depended for its existence even indirectly upon the trades unions, was offered to me, without any hint at financial return, on the sole condition that I guaranteed its public production. It is perfectly obvious, therefore, that there is some one stirring who means harm. I speak to you now only as a friend and as a well-wisher. Did I understand Williams to say that the document was stolen from your study at Martinhoe?" "It was stolen," Tallente replied, "by my secretary, Anthony Palliser, who disappeared with it one night in August." "'Disappeared' seems rather a vague term," Horlock remarked. "A trifle melodramatic, I admit," Tallente assented. "So were the circumstances of his--disappearance. I can assure you that I have had the police inspector of fiction asking me curious questions and I am convinced that down in Devonshire I am still an object of suspicion to the local gossips." "I remember reading about the affair at the time," Horlock remarked, as he unlocked the door. "It never occurred to me, though, to connect it with anything of this sort. Surely Palliser was a cut above the ordinary blackmailer?" Tallente shrugged his shoulders. "A confusion of ethics," he said. "I dare say you remember that the young man conspired with my wife to boost me into a peerage behind my back However!--" "One last word, Tallente," Horlock interrupted. "I am not at liberty to tell you from what source the offer as to your article came, but I can tell you this--Palliser was not or did not appear to be connected with it in any way." "But I know who was," Tallente exclaimed, with a sudden lightning-like recollection of that meeting on the railway platform at Woody Bay.--"Miller!" Horlock made no answer. To his visitor, however, the whole affair was now clear. "Miller must have bought the manuscript from Palliser," he said, "when he knew what sort of an offer Dartrey was going to make to me and realised how it would affect him. Horlock, I am not sure, after all, that I don't rather envy you if you decide to drop out of politics. The main road is well enough, but the by-ways are pretty filthy." Horlock remained gravely silent and Tallente passed out of the room, realising that he had finally severed his connection with orthodox English politics. The realisation, however, was rather more of a relief than otherwise. For fifteen years he had been cumbered with precedent in helping to govern by compromise. Now he was for the clean sweep or nothing. He strolled into the House and back into his own committee room, read through the orders of the day and spoke to the Government Whip. It was, as Horlock had assured him, a dead afternoon. There were a sheaf of questions being asked, none of which were of the slightest interest to any one. With a little smile of anticipation upon his lips, he hurried to the telephone. In a few moments he was speaking to Annie, Lady Jane's maid. "Will you give her ladyship a message?" he asked. "Tell her that I am unexpectedly free for an hour or so, and ask if I may come around and see her?" The maid was absent from the telephone for less than a minute. When she returned, her message was brief but satisfactory. Her ladyship would be exceedingly pleased to see Mr. Tallente. _ |
||