Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings

  The conversation was of all manner of things. They spoke, of course,of the League.

  "It has a great future," said Dr. Franchi, "by saying which I by nomeans wish to underrate its present."

  "Rather capitalist in tendency, perhaps?" the correspondent of the_British Bolshevist_ suggested. "A little too much in the hands of themajor states?" But he did not really care.

  "You misjudge it," Dr. Franchi said. "It is a very fair associationof equal states. A true democracy: little brothers and great, handin hand. Oh, it will do great things; is, indeed, doing great thingsnow. One cannot afford to be cynical about such an attempt. Anythingwhich encourages the nations to take an interest in one another'sconcerns----"

  "There has surely," said Henry, still rather apathetically voicing hispaper, "always been too much of that already. Hence wars. Nationsshould keep themselves to themselves. International impertinence ...it's a great evil. Live and let live."

  "You don't then agree that we should attempt a world-cosmogony? Thatthe nations should be as brothers, and concern themselves with oneanother's famines, one another's revolutions, one another's frontiers?But why this curious insistence on the nation as a unit? Why selectnationality, rather than the ego, the family, the township, theprovince, the continent, the hemisphere, the planet, the solar system,or even the universe? Isn't it just a little arbitrary, this stress welay on nationalism, patriotism, love of one particular country, of theterritories united fortuitously under one particular government? Whatis a government, that we should regard it as a connecting link? Whatis a race, that queer, far-flung thing whose boundaries march withthose of no nation? And when we say we love a country, do we mean itssoil, the people under its government, or the scattered peopleseverywhere sharing some of the same blood and talking approximatelythe same tongue? What, in fact, is this _patriotism_, this love ofcountry, that we all feel, and that we nearly all exalt as if it werea virtue? We don't praise egoism, or pride of family, or love of aparticular town or province, in the same way. What magic is there inthe ring that embraces a country, that we admire it as precious metaland call the other rings foolish or base? You will admit that it is aqueer convention."

  "All conventions are queer, I think," Henry said indifferently. "Butthere they are. One accepts them. It is less trouble."

  "It makes more trouble in the end, my young friend.... I will tell youone thing from my heart. If the League of Nations should fail, shouldgo to pieces, it will be from excess of this patriotism. Every countryout for its own hand. That has always been the trouble with the world,since we were hordes of savages grouped in tribes one against theother--as, indeed, we still are."

  "Well, zio mio," said Miss Longfellow breezily, "if you don't look outfor number one, no one else will, you may be dead sure. And _then_where are you? In the soup, sure thing. Nel zuppo!" She gave a gay,chiming, cuckooish laugh. A cheerful girl, thought Henry.

  "Viva the League of Nations!" she cried, and drank brightly of hermarsala.

  Dr. Franchi, with an indulgent smile for youthful exuberance, dranktoo.

  "The hope for the world," he said. "You don't drink this toast, Mr.Beechtree?"

  "My paper," said Henry, "believes that such hope for the world asthere may be lies elsewhere."

  "Ah, your paper. And you yourself?"

  "I? I see no hope for the world. No hope, that is to say, that it willever be an appreciably better world than it is at present. Before thatoccurs, I imagine that it will have broken its string, as it were, anddashed off into space, and so an end."

  "And my hopes for it are two--an extension of country-love intoworld-love, and a purified version of the Christian faith."

  "Purified...." Henry recollected that Dr. Franchi was a modernist anda heretic. "A queer word," he mused. "I am not sure that I know whatit means."

  "Ah. You are orthodox Catholic, no doubt. You admit no possibleimpurities in the faith."

  "I have never thought about it. I do not even know what an impurityis. One thing does not seem to me much more pure than another, and notmuch more odd. For my part, I accept the teaching of the Churchwholesale. It seems simpler."

  "Until you come to think about it," said the ex-cardinal. "Then itceases to be simple, and becomes difficult and elaborate to a highdegree. Too difficult for a simple soul like myself. For my part, Ihave been expelled from the bosom of my mother the Church, and am now,having completed immense replies to the decree Lamentabili Sane and tothe encyclical Pascendi Gregis, writing a History of the Doctrine ofTransubstantiation. Does the topic interest you?"

  "I am no theologian," said Henry. "And I have been told that if oneinquires too closely into these mysteries, faith wilts. I should notlike that. So I do not inquire. It is better so. I should not wish tobe an atheist. I have known an atheist whom I have very greatlydisliked."

  The thought of this person shadowed his brow faintly with a scowl, notunobserved by his host and hostess. "But," he added, "he became aworse thing; he is now an atheist turned Catholic...."

  "There I am with you," the ex-cardinal agreed. "About the Catholicconvert there is often a quite peculiar lack of distinction.... But wewill not talk about these."

  16

  They were now eating fruit. Melon, apricots, pears, walnuts, figs, andfat purple grapes. The night ever deepened into a greater loveliness.In the steep, sweet garden below the terrace nightingales sang.

  "On such a night as this," said Dr. Franchi, cracking a walnut, "it isdifficult to be an atheist."

  "Why so?" asked Henry dreamily, biting a ripe black fig, and wishingthat the ex-cardinal had not thought it necessary to give so lovelyand familiar an opening phrase so tedious an end.

  "Don't tell me," he added quickly, repenting his thoughtless question."What nightingales! What figs! And what apricocks!" (for so he alwayscalled this fruit). He hated to talk about atheists, and about how Godhad fashioned so beautiful a world. It might be so, but the world, onsuch a night, was enough in itself.

  Dr. Franchi's keen, gentle eyes, the eyes of a shrewd weigher of men,observed him and his distastes.

  "An ?sthete," he judged. "God has given him intuition rather thanreason. And not very much even of that. He might easily be misled,this youth."

  Aloud he said, "All I meant was that

  "'Holy joy about the earth is shed, And Holiness upon the deep,'

  as one of your Edwardian poets has sung. That was a gifted generation:may it rest in peace. For I think it mostly perished in thatcalamitous war we had.... But your Georgians--they too are a giftedgeneration, is it not so?"

  "You mean by Georgians those persons who are now flourishing underthe sovereignty of King George the Fifth of England? Such as myself?I do not really know. How could it be that gifts go in generations?A generation, surely, is merely chronological. Gifts are sporadic.No, I find no generation, as such, gifted. Except, of course, withthe gifts common to all humanity.... People speak of the Victorians,and endow them with special qualities, evil or good. They wereall black recently; now they are being white-washed--or ratherenamelled. I think they had no qualities, as a generation (or ratheras several generations, which, of course, they were); men and womenthen were, in the main, the same as men and women to-day, I seenothing but individuals. The rest is all the fantasy of the foolish,who love to generalise, till they cannot see the trees for the wood.Generalisations make me dizzy. I see nothing but the separate trees.There _is_ nothing else...."

  Dreamily Henry wandered on, happy and fluent with wine and figs. Aripe black fig, gaping to show its scarlet maw--what could be morelovely, and more luscious to the palate?

  As to Miss Longfellow, she was eating her dessert so rapidly and withsuch relish that she had no time for conversation. All she contributedto it was, between bites, a cheerful nod now and then at Henry to showthat she agreed with him.

  "Yours," said Dr. Franchi, "is not, perhaps, the most natural view oflife. It is more natural to see people in large groups, with definitecharacteristic markings, according to
period, age, nationality, sex,or what not. Also, such a view has its truth, though, like all truths,it may be over-stressed.... But here comes our coffee. After we havedrunk it, Gina will leave us perhaps and you and I will smoke ourcigars and have a little talk on political questions, and mattersoutside a woman's interests. Our Italian women do not take the sameinterest in affairs which your English women do."

  "No," Miss Longfellow readily agreed. "We don't like the New Womanover here. Perhaps Mr. Beechtree admires her though."

  "The New Woman?" Henry doubtfully queried. "Is there a new woman? Idon't know the phrase, except from old Victorian _Punch_ Pictures....Thank you, yes; a little cherry brandy."

  "Ah, is the woman question, then, over in your country--died out?Fought to a finish, perhaps, with honours to the victorious sex?"

  "The woman question, sir? What woman question? I know no more of womanquestions than of man questions, I am afraid. There is an infinity ofquestions you may ask about all human beings. People ask them all thetime. Personally, I don't; it is less trouble not to. There peopleare; you can take them or leave them, for what they're worth. Why askquestions about them? There is never a satisfactory answer."

  "A rather difficult youth to talk to," the ex-cardinal reflected. "Hefails to follow up, or, apparently, even to understand, any of theusual conversational gambits. Is he very ignorant, or merelyperverse?"

  As to Miss Longfellow, she gave Henry up as being not quite all there,and anyhow a bloodless kind of creature, who took very little noticeof her. So she went indoors and played the piano.

  "I am failing," thought Henry. "She does not like me. I am not beingintelligent. They will talk of things above my head, things I cannotunderstand."

  Apathy held him, drinking cherry brandy under the moon, and he couldnot care. Woman question? Man question? What was all this prating?

  17

  "And now," said Dr. Franchi, as he enjoyed a cigar and Henry acigarette and both their liqueurs, "let us talk of this mysteriousbusiness of poor Svensen."

  "Yes, do let's," said Henry, for this was much more in his line.

  "I may misjudge you, Mr. Beechtree, but I have made a guess that youentertain certain suspicions in this matter. Is that the case? Ah, Isee I am right. No, tell me nothing you do not wish. In fact, tell menothing at all. It would be, at this point, indiscreet. Instead, letus go through all the possible alternatives." He paused, and puffed athis cigar for a while in thoughtful silence.

  "First of all," he presently resumed, "poor Svensen may have met withan accident. He may have fallen into the lake and have been drowned.But this we will set aside as improbable. Geneva is seldom quitedeserted at night, and he would have attracted attention. Besideswhich, I have heard that he is an excellent swimmer. No; an improbablecontingency. What remains? Foul play. Some person or persons haveattacked him in a deserted spot and either murdered or kidnapped him.But who? And for what purpose? Robbery? Personal enmity? Revenge? Oran impersonal motive, such as a desire, for some reason, to damage andretard the doings of the Assembly? It might be any of these.... Let usfor a moment take the hypothesis that it is the last. To whom, then,might such a desire be attributed? Unfortunately, my dear Mr.Beechtree, to many different persons."

  "But more to some than to others," Henry brightly pointed out.

  "Certainly more to some than to others. More to the Poles than to theLithuanians, for instance, for is it not to the Polish interest tohold up the proceedings of the Assembly while the present violation ofthe Lithuanian frontier by Polish hordes continues? Well they knowthat any inquiry into that matter set on foot by the League would endin their discomfiture. Every day that they can retard the appointmentof a committee of inquiry is to the good, from their point of view.

  "Again, take Russia. The question of the persecution of the Bolsheviksis to be brought up in the Assembly early. Naturally the Russiandelegation are not anxious for the exposure of their governmentalmethods which would accompany this. And then there are the Bolshevikrefugees themselves--a murderous gang, who would readily dispose of anyone, from mere habit. Nor can Argentine be supposed to be anxious forthe inquiry into her dispute with Paraguay which the Paraguay delegationintend to bring forward. The Argentine delegation may well have ordersto delay this inquiry as long as possible, in order that the dispute mayarrange itself domestically, in Argentine interests, without theintervention of the League. There is, too, the Graeco-Turkish war, whichboth the Greeks and the Turks desire to carry on in peace. There arealso several questions of humanitarian legislation, which by no meansall the members of the League desire to see proceeded with--the trafficin women, for instance, and that in certain drugs. And what about theIrish delegates? Are they not both, for their different reasons, fullof anger and discontent against Great Britain and against Europe ingeneral, and may they not well intend, in the determined manner of theirrace, to hold up the association of nations at the pistol's mouth, so tospeak, until it considers their grievances and adjudicates in theirfavour? And then we must not exclude from suspicion the natives ofthis city and canton. Calvinists are, in my experience, capable ofany malicious crime. A dour, jealous, unpleasant people. They might(and often have they done so) perpetrate any wickedness in the name ofthe curious God they worship."

  "Indeed, yes," said Henry. "How confusing it all is, to be sure! Butyou haven't mentioned the biggest stumbling-block of all,sir--disarmament."

  "Ah, yes; disarmament. As you say, the most tremendous issue of all.And it is, as every one knows, going to be, during this session of theLeague, decisively dealt with by the Council. Many a nation, militantfrom terror, from avarice, from arrogance, or from habit, many apolitical faction, and many a big business, has a vital interest inhindering disarmament discussions. You think then, that----"

  "I will tell you," said Henry, leaning forward eagerly and loweringhis rather high voice, "what I think. I think that there are those notfar from us who have a great deal of money in armaments, and who getnervy whenever the subject comes up. There are things that I know....I came out here knowing them, and meaning to speak when the time came.Not because it was my duty, which is why (I understand) most peopleexpose others, but because I had a very great desire to. There is someone towards whom I feel a dislike--a very great dislike; I may sayhate. He deserves it. He is a most disagreeable person, and has doneme, personally, a great injury"--(Henry was feeling the expansiveinfluence of the cherry brandy)--"and naturally I wish to do him onein my turn. I have wished it for several years; to be exact, since theyear 1919. I have waited and watched. I have always known him to bedetestable, but until recently I thought that he was also detestablyand invariably in the right--or, anyhow, that he could not be provedin the wrong. Lately I learnt something that altered this opinion. Idiscovered a thing about him which would, if it were known (havingregard to the position he occupies), utterly shame and discredit him.I am now, I have a feeling, on the track of discovering yet anotherand a worse thing--that he has done away with the elected President ofthe Assembly, in order to wreck the proceedings so that the armamentquestion should not come up."

  "The armament question?"

  Henry gazed at the ex-cardinal with the wide, ferocious stare of theslightly intoxicated.

  "What would you say if I told you that a certain highly placedofficial on the League of Nations Secretariat has enormous sums ofmoney invested in an armaments business? That he derives nearly allhis income from it? That he is the son-in-law of the head of thebusiness, and has in it vast sums which increase at every rumour ofwar and which would dwindle away if any extensive disarmament schemeshould ever really be seriously contemplated by the nations? That hisfather-in-law, this munitions prince, is even now in Geneva, privatelyvisiting his daughter and son-in-law and holding a watching brief onthe Assembly proceedings? I ask you, what would the League staff sayof one of their members of which this should be revealed? Would he beregarded as a fit incumbent of the office he holds? Wouldn't he bedismissed, kicked out as incompetent--as unscrupulous, I m
ean," Henryamended quickly. His voice had risen in a shrill and tremblingcrescendo of dislike.

  Dr. Franchi, leaning placidly back in his chair, his delicate fingersstroking a large Persian cat on his knee, shrewdly watched him.

  "I had better say," he observed, in his temperate and calming manner,"that I believe I know to whom you allude. I have guessed, since I sawyou this morning when a certain individual was speaking near you, thatyou took no favourable view of him. And now I perceive that you arejustified. You will be doubly justified if we can prove, what I amtrying to agree with you is not improbable, that he has indeed made awaywith this unfortunate Svensen. I am tempted to share your view of thisunpleasing person. Among other things he is a Catholic convert; as tothese we have already exchanged our views.... Do you know what I think?This; that Svensen's will not be the only disappearance at Geneva. Forwhat would be the use of getting rid of one man only, however prominent?The Assembly, after the first shock, would proceed with its doings. Butwhat if man after man were to disappear? What if the whole fabric ofAssembly, Council, and Committees should be disintegrated, till no onecould have thoughts for anything but the mysterious disappearances andhow to solve the riddle, and how, still more, to preserve each onehimself from a like fate? Could any work be continued in suchcircumstances, in such an atmosphere? No. The Assembly wouldbecome merely a collection of bewildered and nervous individualsturning themselves into amateur detectives, and, incidentally, thelaughing-stock of the world. The League might never recover suchprestige as it has, after such a disastrous session. Mark my words;there will be further attempts on the persons of prominent delegates.Whether they will be successful attempts or not is a question. Who isresponsible for them is another question. You say (and I am half withyou) our friend of the Secretariat, who had better be nameless until wecan bring him to book. Others will say other things. Many will besuspected. Notably, no doubt, the Spanish Americans, who lend themselvesreadily to such suspicions; they have that air, and human life isbelieved not to be unduly sacred to them. Besides, they never got onwith Svensen, who is reported to have alluded to them not infrequentlyas 'those damned Red Indians.' The Scandinavian temperament and theirsare so different. I do not even feel sure myself that they are notimplicated. The initiation of the affair by our Secretariat friendwould not, in fact, preclude their participation in it. I had nearlysaid, show me a Spanish-American, still worse a Portuguese, and I willshow you a scoundrel. Nearly, but not quite, for it is a mistake to saysuch things of one's brothers in the League. Besides, I like them. Theyare pleasing, amusing fellows, and do not rasp one's nerves like theGermans and many others. One can forgive them much; indeed, one has to.Many people, again, would be glad to put responsibility on the Germans.An unfortunate race, for nothing is so unfortunate as to be unloved. Wemust discover the truth, Mr. Beechtree. You have a line of inquiry tofollow?"