Part 37 (1/2)
”What is in there?” Sir Augustus asked one of the police inspectors.
”It's a particularly bad street, Sir Augustus,” the man answered. ”A sort of great human rabbit-warren or rat's run, as you may say. The houses nearly all communicate through cellars and subterranean pa.s.sages.”
”Shall we go down here?” Sir Augustus asked Joseph.
”I should not advise it, sir,” said the policeman. ”The people are so dirty and degraded and disgusting in their habits that they hardly resemble human beings at all.”
”Never mind that,” Sir Augustus answered. ”Now we have come I wish to see everything, however personally distasteful it may be. I am ashamed gentlemen, to think that I have s.h.i.+rked so obvious a duty as this for so long! I am sorry and ashamed of myself!”
With eyes that were not quite dry the great financier took Joseph by the arm and marched down the alley, followed by the others.
They walked cautiously down the place, which seemed strangely deserted.
Sir Augustus was talking eagerly to Joseph, opening his heart in a way to which he had long been a stranger, when there was a sudden loud report in the air above them.
Looking upwards with startled eyes, they saw that a little coil of blue smoke was floating out of an open window high above them.
A second afterwards Sir Augustus Kirwan sighed twice and fell forward upon his face, dead, shot through the heart.
CHAPTER XXI
WAITING!
Mr. Andrew Levison lived in Jermyn Street. His establishment was comfortable, but modest. A sitting-room, a small dining-room, a bedroom for himself, and one for his man--these, together with the bath-room, completed his suite.
It was a bright morning as he opened his _Daily Wire_ and sat down before the kedjeree and kidneys that his servant had just brought him for breakfast. It was rather late; the Jew had been at a theatrical supper-party the night before until long after midnight. During the party, at which a great many of the stars of the lighter stage had been present, the conversation had turned almost entirely upon the marked slump in theatrical business during Joseph's ministry in London.
One and all of their company were united in their hatred and alarm of this evangelist who bade fair to ruin them.
The whole situation was, moreover, aggravated because of the immense public support Joseph was receiving from some of the most wealthy and influential people in society. There was no getting over this fact. And yet no one had any remedy to suggest.
Lord Ballina and Mimi Addington had also been of the party, and a keen observer might possibly have detected a certain furtive look which pa.s.sed between the actress, the peer, and the theatrical manager. All three, however, held their peace, and contributed little or nothing to the problem of how the situation was to be dealt with.
And now Mr. Levison, as he sat at table, smiled quietly to himself, reflecting that he could very considerably astonish many of his colleagues if it had been possible to do so.
The sitting-room--for Levison did not breakfast in the dining-room--was full of suns.h.i.+ne. A great bowl of sulphur-colored hothouse roses stood on the writing-table. The white panelled walls, hung with rare old j.a.panese color prints, caught and reflected the apricot light of the sun, which poured in through the windows.
The room was carpeted with a fabric from Persia--the veritable peac.o.c.k blue and dark red of Teheran. The armchairs were upholstered in vermilion leather. Everything harmonized and was in taste, and it was with complacency that Levison looked round him and picked up the paper.
Almost the first thing that struck his eye was a paragraph headed ”Movements of Joseph.”
Mr. Levison started, and read with great attention. The paragraph ran as follows:--
”We are able to give our readers exclusive information as to the next move in the vast campaign for the reformation of London which is being undertaken by the teacher known as Joseph, in company with his distinguished colleagues and helpers. One of the most crying evils of the day is undoubtedly the fact that, while one section of the population lives in a splendor and luxury perhaps unparalleled in the history of civilization, another section, and this by far the larger, lives under conditions of squalor so great that it becomes a horror, conditions that can only be hinted at in polite society or in the public prints. The state of the East End of London has long engaged the attention of philanthropists, but very little has been done to ameliorate it in comparison with its crying needs. Sociologists have long since recognized that under present conditions very little can be done until the rich property owners combine and agree to sacrifice a portion of their emoluments in order to improve the condition of the poor. The teacher Joseph has recognized this fact, and is beginning a movement which may be very far-reaching in its consequences. To-day, we understand, a party of wealthy and distinguished gentlemen will be taken by the evangelist to some of the worst parts of the East End there to see for themselves the true condition of affairs. The remarkable personality which is at present the talk of London will indeed have accomplished a greater miracle than any of those strange and unexplained occurrences attributed to him if he can cleanse and purify one half-mile of Stepney or Whitechapel. For our part, we wish Joseph and his helpers every possible success in their endeavors.”
Mr. Levison laid down the paper, and got up from his seat. He walked up and down the room twice, looked at his breakfast, shook his head, and then, going to a sideboard, poured some brandy from a tantalus into a gla.s.s, added a little water with a hand that shook slightly, and drank the mixture off.
So it was to be to-day, then? Mr. Levison had not realized the imminence of his plot. It was one thing to reflect complacently that one had arranged to remove a troublesome intruder from one's path on some unspecified date; it was, as Levison realized now, quite another thing to sit down and wait for the event to happen in an hour or two.