E. Phillips Oppenheim - 21 Greatest Spy Thrillers in One Premium Edition (Mystery & Espionage Series)

“Not aggressively,” Norgate replied. “As a matter of fact, I am rather fed up with my own country just now.”

Mr. Selingman sat quite still in his chair. Some signs of a change which came to him occasionally were visible in his face. He was for that moment no longer the huge, overgrown schoolboy bubbling over with the joy and appetite of life. His face seemed to have resolved itself into sterner lines. It was the face of a thinker.

“There are other Englishmen besides you,” Selingman said, “who are a little—what you call ‘fed up’ with your country. You have much common sense. You do not believe that yours is the only country in the world. You like sometimes to hear plain speech from one who knows?”

“Without a doubt,” Norgate assented.

Mr. Selingman stroked his knee with his fat hand.

“You in England,” he continued, “you are too prosperous. Very, very slowly the country is drifting into the hands of the people. A country that is governed entirely by the people goes down, down, down. Your classes are losing their hold and their influence. You have gone from Tory to Whig, from Whig to Liberal, from Liberal to Radical, and soon it will be the Socialists who govern. You know what will come then? Colonies! What do your radicals care about colonies? Institutions! What do they care about institutions? All you who have inherited money, they will bleed. You will become worse than a nation of shop-keepers. You will be an illustration to all the world of the dangers of democracy. So! I go on. I tell you why that comes about. You are in the continent of Europe, and you will not do as Europe does. You are a nation outside. You have believed in yourselves and believed in yourselves, till you think that you are infallible. Before long will come the revolution. It will be a worse revolution than the French Revolution.”

Norgate smiled. “Too much common sense about us, I think, Mr. Selingman, for such happenings,” he declared. “I grant you that the classes are getting the worst of it so far as regards the government of the country, but I can’t quite see the future that you depict.”

“Good Englishman!” Herr Selingman murmured approvingly. “That is your proper attitude. You do not see because you will not see. I tell you that the best thing in all the world would be a little blood-letting. You do not like your Government. Would it not please you to see them humiliated just a little?”

“In what way?”

“Oh! there are ways,” Selingman declared. “A little gentle smack like this,”—his two hands came together with a crash which echoed through the room—“a little smack from Germany would do the business. People would open their eyes and begin to understand. A Radical Government may fill your factories with orders and rob the rich to increase the prosperity of the poor, but it will not keep you a great nation amongst the others.”

Norgate nodded.

“You seem to have studied the question pretty closely,” he remarked.

“I study the subject closely,” Selingman went on, “because my interests are yours. My profits are made in England. I am German born, but I am English, too, in feeling. To me the two nations are one. We are of the same race. That is why I am sorrowful when I see England slipping back. That is why I would like to see her have just a little lesson.”

Selingman paused. Norgate rose to his feet and stood on the hearthrug, with his elbow upon the mantelpiece.

“Twice we have come as far as that, Mr. Selingman,” he pointed out. “England requires a little lesson. You have something in your mind behind that, something which you are half inclined to say to me. Isn’t that so? Why not go on?”

“Because I am not sure of you,” Selingman confessed frankly. “Because you might misunderstand what I say, and we should be friends no longer, and you would say silly things about me and my views. Therefore, I like to keep you for a friend, and I go no further at present. You say that you are a little angry with your country, but you Englishmen are so very prejudiced, so very quick to take offence, so very insular, if I may use the word. I do not know how angry you are with your country. I do not know if your mind is so big and broad that you would be willing to see her suffer a little for her greater good. Ah, but the lady comes at last!”

Mrs. Benedek was accompanied by a tall, middle-aged man, of fair complexion, whom Selingman greeted with marked respect. She turned to Norgate.

“Let me present you,” she said, “to Prince Edward of Lenemaur—Mr. Francis Norgate.”

The two men shook hands.

“I played golf with you once at Woking,” Norgate reminded his new acquaintance.

“I not only remember it,” Prince Edward answered, “but I remember the result. You beat me three up, and we were to have had a return, but you had to leave for Paris on the next day.”

“You will be able to have your return match now,” Mrs. Benedek observed. “Mr. Norgate is going to be in England for some time. Let us play bridge. I have to leave early to-night—I am dining out—and I should like to make a little money.”

They strolled into the bridge-room. Selingman hung behind with Norgate.

“Soon,” he suggested, “we must finish our talk, is it not so? Dine with me to-night. Mrs. Benedek has deserted me. We will eat at the Milan Grill. The cooking there is tolerable, and they have some Rhine wine—but you shall taste it.”

“Thank you,” Norgate assented, “I shall be very pleased.”

They played three or four rubbers. Then Mrs. Benedek glanced at the clock.

“I must go,” she announced. “I am dining at eight o’clock.”

“Stay but for one moment,” Selingman begged. “We will all take a little mixed vermouth together. I shall tell the excellent Horton how to prepare it. Plenty of lemon-peel, and just a dash—but I will not give my secret away.”

He called the steward and whispered some instructions in his ear. While they were waiting for the result, a man came in with an evening paper in his hand. He looked across the room to a table beyond that at which Norgate and his friends were playing.

“Heard the news, Monty?” he asked.

“No! What is it?” was the prompt enquiry.

“Poor old Baring—”

The newcomer stopped short. For the first time he noticed Mrs. Benedek. She half rose from her chair, however, and her eyes were fixed upon him.

“What is it?” she exclaimed. “What has happened?”

There was a moment’s awkward silence. Mrs. Benedek snatched the paper away from the man’s fingers and read the little paragraph out aloud. For a moment she was deathly white.

“What is it?” Selingman demanded.

“Freddy Baring,” she whispered—“Captain Baring—shot himself in his room at the Admiralty this afternoon! Some one telephoned to him. Five minutes later he was found—dead—a bullet wound through his temple!… Give me my chair, please. I think that I am going to faint.”

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Selingman and Norgate dined together that evening in a corner of a large, popular grill-room near the Strand. They were still suffering from the shock of the recent tragedy. They both rather avoided the topic of Baring’s sudden death. Selingman made but one direct allusion to it.

“Only yesterday,” he remarked, “I said to little Bertha—I have known her so long that I call her always Bertha—that this bureau work was bad for Baring. When I was over last, a few months ago, he was the picture of health. Yesterday he looked wild and worried. He was at work with others, they say, at the Admiralty upon some new invention. Poor fellow!”

Norgate, conscious of a curious callousness which even he himself found inexplicable, made some conventional reply only. Selingman began to talk of other matters.