Part 28 (2/2)
Doria laughed.
”Only the summer thunder on the mountains, signor,” he answered.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SUDDEN RETURN TO ENGLAND
A successful detective needs, above all else, the power to see both sides of any problem as it affects those involved in it. Nine times out of ten there is but one side; yet men have often gone to the gallows because their fellow men failed in this particular--followed the line of least resistance and pursued the obvious and patent conclusions to an end only logical upon a false premise.
Peter Ganns did not lack this perspicuity. It was visible in his big face to any student of physiognomy. He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes were grave--never ironical, never satirical, but always set in a stern, not unkindly expression. They were watchful yet tolerant--the eyes of one versed in the weakness as well as the n.o.bility of human nature. He could measure the average, modest intelligence of his fellow creatures as well as estimate the heights of genius to which man's intellect may sometimes attain. His own unusual powers, centred in sound judgment of character and wide experience of the human comedy, had set the seal in his eyes while graving something like a smile upon his full, Egyptian lips.
He sat next day and spoke to Albert Redmayne on a little gallery that extended from the dining-room of the villa and overhung the lake. Here, for half an hour, he talked and listened until Jenny should be ready for him.
The elder expounded his simple philosophy.
”I was long out of heart with G.o.d, while striving to keep my faith in man, Peter,” he declared. ”But now I see more clearly and believe that it is only by faith in our Maker that we can understand ourselves. 'Better' is ever the enemy of 'good,' and 'best' is a golden word only to be used for martyrs and heroes.”
”Men do their best for two things, Albert,” replied Mr. Ganns. ”For love and for hate; and without these tremendous incitements not the least or greatest among us can reach the limit of his powers.”
”True, and perhaps that explains the present European att.i.tude. The war has left us incapable of any supreme activity. Enthusiasm is dead; consequently the enthusiasm of good-will lacks from our councils and we drift, without any great guiding hand upon the tiller of destiny. Heart and brains are at odds, groping on different roads instead of advancing together by the one and only road. We see no great men. There are, of course, leaders, great by contrast with those they lead; but history will declare us a generation of dwarfs and show how, for once, man stood at a crisis of his destiny when those mighty enough to face it failed to appear.
Now that is a situation unparalleled in my knowledge of the past.
Until now, the hour has always brought the man.”
”We drift, as you say,” answered Ganns, dusting his white waistcoat.
”We are suffering from a sort of universal sh.e.l.l shock, Albert; and from my angle of observation I perceive how closely crime depends upon nerves. Indifference in the educated takes the shape of lawlessness in the ma.s.ses; and the breakdown of our economical laws provokes to fury and despair. Our equilibrium is gone in every direction. For example the balance between work and recreation has been destroyed. This restless condition will take a decade of years to control, and the present craving for that excitement, to which we were painfully accustomed during the years of war, is leaving a marked and dangerous brand on the minds of the rising generation.
From this restlessness to criminal methods of satisfying it is but a step.
”We are sick; our state is pathological. What we need is a renewal of the discipline that enabled us to confront and conquer in the past struggle. We must drill our nerves, Albert, and strive to restore a balanced and healthy outlook for those destined to run the world in future. Men are not by nature lawless. They are rational beings in the lump; but civilization, depending as it does on creed and greed, has made no steps as yet, through education, to arrest our superst.i.tion and selfishness.”
”Once let the light of good-will in upon this chaos and we should see order beginning to return,” declared Mr. Redmayne. ”The problem is how to promote good-will, my dear friend. This should be the great and primal concern of religion; for what, after all, is the basis of all morality? Surely to love our neighbour as ourself.”
They set the world right together and their thoughts drifted into a region of benignant aspirations. Then came Jenny and presently the detective followed her into a garden of flowers behind Villa Pianezzo.
”Giuseppe and Mr. Brendon have gone to the hills,” she said. ”And now I am ready to talk to you, Mr. Ganns. Don't fear to hurt me. I am beyond hurting. I have suffered more in the past year than I should have thought it possible to suffer and keep sane.”
He looked at her beautiful face intently. It was certainly sad enough, but to his eye, beneath the lines of sorrow, lay an anxiety that concerned neither the past nor the future, but the immediate present. She was apparently unhappy in her new life.
”Show me the silkworms,” he said.
They entered the lofty shed rising above a thicket behind the villa--a shuttered apartment where twilight reigned. The place was fitted with shelves to the ceiling and between the caterpillar trays tall branches of brushwood ascended to the roof. Out of the cool gloom of this silent chamber there glimmered, as it seemed, a thousand little lamps dotted everywhere on the sticks and walls and ceiling. Not a place where a worm could climb or spin was unadorned, for the oval, s.h.i.+ning coc.o.o.ns, scattered like small, ripe fruit upon the twigs, made a delicate light on every side through the sombre dusk. Mr. Redmayne's silkworms were descended, through countless generations, from those historic eggs stolen by Nestorian pilgrims from China, and carried thence secretly in hollow canes to Constantinople some thirteen hundred years before.
The caterpillars had nearly all done their work and completed their silken cases; but a couple of hundred, fat, white monsters, each some three inches long, still remained in the trays, and they fastened greedily on fresh mulberry leaves that Jenny brought them.
Others were but beginning their shrouds. They had sketched them and appeared to be busily weaving in the preliminary bag made of transparent and glittering filament. A few of the creatures began to turn yellow, though as yet they had not devoured their last meal.
Jenny picked them up and held them to the morning light.
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