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I tracked him. All over the shop I tracked him. And last night he trapesed round the town with Levis and Kratzky and a horrid little Calvinist clergyman who must be in it too. I hate Calvinists, don't you?" "Intolerable persons," agreed the delegate from Paraguay. "Well, at last they hared down a trap-door in an archway into the bowels of the earth. I saw them into it.
Franchi, observing the young journalist with approbation, liking his sensitive and polite face, saw it grow suddenly sullen, even spiteful, at the sound of a voice raised in conversation not far from him. "Perhaps you will do me the honour of lunching with me, M. Kratzky. I have a little party coming, including Suliman Bey...."
"I shall keep straight on, whatever alluring avenues open on either side to tempt me. Good luck, Beechtree. Don't scrag honest civil servants or good clergymen on sight. And don't let old Kratzky scrag you. Henry walked alone again. The passage oozed water. The silence was chilly and deep. Against it and far above it, occasional sounds beat, as the world's sounds beat downwards into graves.
Now, I ask you, what would one talk about to Kratzky all that time except some iniquitous intrigue? It's all Kratzky knows about. So, you see, when I began to suspect all this, I took to tracking Wilbraham, following him about. It's been, I can tell you, a most tiring job. Wilbraham is such a very tedious man. A most frightful bore. His very voice makes me sick.... But I followed him.
M. Croza, whose sympathy was all with small republics against major powers, agreed about Kratzky. "You haven't," he suggested, "notes of what has actually passed between Wilbraham and Kratzky on the subject?" "I regret that I have not. I could never get near enough.... But I have evidence of continual meetings, continual lunches and conferences. This I have obtained from Wilbraham's secretary.
Of Charles Wilbraham's villainy he had long been all but sure; of the villainy of M. Kratzky all the world knew; of the villainy of an ammunitions knight and a Calvinist pastor there needed little to convince Henry. But he knew that he must make sure. He must not go to the police, or to the committee, with an unproved tale. He must wait and investigate and prove.
What doings, gentlemen, engage the attentions of M. Kratzky of Russia, that enemy of small republics, Sir John Levis of Pottle and Kett, that enemy of peace, a soi-disant Protestant pastor, the presumed enemy of true religion, and M. Wilbraham of the Secretariat? Mind, gentlemen, I impute nothing. I merely inquire." A murmur of applause broke from the Latin Americans.
Whispers inaudible to Henry passed between the members of the party; then, one by one, the three figures descended through the open trap into the bowels of the earth, and the lid closed upon them. Henry tiptoed forward; should he follow? On the whole no. On the whole he would wait until Wilbraham, his father-in-law, M. Kratzky, and the clergyman emerged.
M. Kratzky had devised a system of espionage so thorough, of penalties so drastic, that few indeed were safe from torture, confinement, or death, and most experienced all three. And here was Charles Wilbraham taking the butcher's blood-stained hand and asking him to lunch. What Mr.
The chief Russian delegate, M. Kratzky, a small, trim little ex-Bolshevik, turned Monarchist by the recent coup d'état, was engaged in a genial conversation with the second French delegate. The only delegates who cut the Russians were the Germans, and among the several delegates who cut the Germans were the Russians, for, as new members, these delegates were jealous one of the other.