Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings

  They began, of course, by talking of the fresh disappearances.

  "We've got bets in the Secretariat on who will be the next," she toldhim. "I've put my money on Branting. I don't know why, but I somehowfeel he'll go soon. But some people say it'll be the S.G. himself....Isn't it too awful for their wives, poor things? Poor little MadameChang! They say she's being simply wonderful."

  "Wonderful," repeated Henry. "That's what widows are, isn't it? But isit, I wonder, enough to make one wonderful that one's husband shoulddisappear alive? You see, they may not be dead, these poor delegates;they may exist, hidden away somewhere."

  "Oh, dear, yes, I hope so. Isn't it all too weird? Have you _any_theories, Mr. Beechtree?"

  Henry looked non-committal and said that doubtless every one in Genevahad their private suspicions (often, for that matter, made public),and that he was no exception. He then turned the conversation on toWilbraham's father-in-law, who was staying so privately in Geneva,and they had much fruitful talk on this and other subjects.

  27

  The Assembly, having elected the committee, and listened to a longspeech from a Persian prince about the horrors of modern warfare, anda poem of praise from an eminent Italian Swiss on the beauties of thepoet Dante, whose birthday was approaching, broke up for lunch.

  The committee (which was to be called Committee 9) was to meet at theSecretariat that afternoon and consider what steps should next betaken. It was a rather large committee, because nearly every one hadbeen anxious to be on it. It consisted of delegates from France, GreatBritain, Italy, Norway, Central Africa, Sweden, Belgium, Holland,Spain, Albania, Serbia, Brazil, Chili, Bolivia, Panama, Paraguay,Uruguay, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Greece, Poland, Lithuania, and Haiti.Its sessions were to be in private, in spite of the strongly expressedcontrary desire of Lord John Lester. The chairman was the delegatefor Paraguay. It was expected that he would carefully and skilfullyguide the lines on which the committee should work so that theregrettable suspicions which had accidentally fallen on certain LatinAmericans should be diverted into other and more deserving channels.

  28

  The proceedings of the first meeting of Committee No. 9 can be bestreported in the words of the Assembly Journal for the following day.This journal, with its terse and yet detailed accounts of currenthappenings, its polite yet lucid style, and its red-hot topicality(for it is truly a journal), makes admirable reading for those wholike their literature up-to-date. Those who attend the meetings of theAssembly are, as a matter of fact, excellently well-provided by theenterprise of the Secretariat with literature. A delegated or ajournalist's pigeon-hole is far better than a circulating library.New every morning is the supply, and those who, in their spare hours,like a nice lie down and a nice read (all in two languages) shall havefor their entertainment the Assembly Journal for the day, the VerbatimRecord of the last meetings of the Assembly and Committees, selectedpress opinions of the affair (these are often very entertaining, andjournalists approach them with the additional interest engendered bythe hope that the comments they themselves have sent home to theirpapers may have been selected for quotation: in passing it may beobserved that Henry Beechtree had, in this matter, no luck), and allkinds of documents dealing with every kind of matter--the Traffic inWomen, Children, and Opium, the admission of a new State to theLeague, international disputes, disagreeable telegrams from onecountry about another, the cost of living in Geneva, the organisationof International Statistics, International Health, or InternationalEducation, the Economic Weapon of the League, the status or thefrontiers of a Central European state, the desirability of a greateror a less great publicity, messages from the Esperanto Congress, andso on and so forth; every kind of taste is, in fact, catered for.

  To quote, then, the Journal for the day after the first meeting of theCommittee for Dealing with the Disappearance of Delegates:--

  "Committee No. IX. met yesterday, Wednesday, Sept. 8th, at 3.30 p.m., under the chairmanship of M. Croza (Paraguay).

  "The Chairman pointed out that the agenda before the Committee fell under several heads:--

  "1. Deprecation of baseless suspicions and malicious aspersions.

  "2. Investigation into possible or probable motives for the assaults.

  "3. Consideration of the adoption of precautionary measures to safeguard in future the persons of delegates.

  "4. Organisation of complete house to house search of the city of Geneva by police.

  "5. Consideration of various suspicions based on reason and common sense.

  "In order to carry on these lines of inquiry, five sub-committees were appointed, each of which would report to the plenary committee day by day.

  "All the sittings of the sub-committees would be in private, as the publicity which had been demanded by one of the delegates from Central Africa would vitiate, in this case, the effectiveness of the inquiry.

  "Before the sub-committees separated, several members addressed the committee. M. Gomez (Panama) proposed that special attention should be given to the fact that Geneva at all times, but particularly during the sessions of the Assembly, was a centre of pestilential societies, among whom were to be found in large numbers Socialists, Bolshevists, Freemasons, and Jews. In his opinion, the headquarters of all these societies should be raided. Above all, it should be remembered that the delegates were all brothers in friendship, and as such were above the suspicion of any but the basest minds.

  "M. Chapelle (France) said this was indeed true of the delegates, but that it would be a mistake if the committee should not keep its mind open to all possibilities, and it must be remembered that some of the nations most recently admitted to the League had bands of their fellow-countrymen in Geneva, who were undoubtedly sore in spirit over recent economic and political decisions, and might (without, well understood, the sanction of their delegates) have been guilty of this attack on the personnel of the League by way of revenge.

  "Signor Nelli (Italy) strongly deprecated the suggestion of M. Chapelle as unworthy of the spirit of fraternity between nations which should animate members of the League.

  "After some further discussion of Item 5 of the agenda, it was agreed to leave it to the sub-committee appointed to consider it, and the committee then broke up into five sub-committees."

  The Journal, always discreet, sheltered under the words "furtherdiscussion of Item 5" a good deal of consideration of varioussuspicions based on reason and common sense. Most members of thecommittee, in fact, had their suggestions to make; in committee peoplealways felt they could speak more freely than in the Assembly, and didso. Bolshevist refugees, bands of marauding Poles disbanded fromGeneral Zeligowski's army, Sinn Feiners, Orangemen, Albanians, Turks,unprotected Armenians, Jugo-Slavs, women-traffickers, opium merchants,Greeks, Zionists, emissaries from Frau Krupp, Mormons, Americans,Indians, and hired assassins from _l'Intransigeant_ and the _MorningPost_--all these had their accusers. Finally Mr. Macdermott (Ulster)said he would like to point out what might not be generally known,that there was a very widespread Catholic society of dubious moralsand indomitable fanaticism, which undoubtedly had established a branchin Geneva for the Assembly, and much might be attributable to this.

  It was this suggestion which finally caused the chairman to breakthe committee hastily up into its sub-committees. And, as hasbeen said, none of this discussion found its way into the verywell-edited Journal, though it would appear after some days in the_proc?s-verbaux_.

  29

  After the committee broke up, Fergus Macdermott from Belfast, who wasnot on one of the sub-committees, walked briskly away from theSecretariat, and had tea in company with the young man who representedthe _Morning Post_, and who was an old school-fellow of his. Excitedby his own utterances on the subject of Catholics, Fergus Macdermottsuddenly remembered, while drinking his tea, what day it was.
br />   "My God," he remarked, profoundly moved, to Mr. Garth of the _MorningPost_, "it's the 8th of September."

  "What then?" inquired Mr. Garth, who was an Englishman and knew notdays, except those on which university matches were to be played orraces run or armistices celebrated. "What's the 8th?"

  The blue eyes of Mr. Macdermott gazed at him with a kind of kindlingOrange stare.

  "The 8th," he replied, "is a day we keep in Ulster."

  "Do you? How?"

  "By throwing stones," said Mr. Macdermott, simply and fervently. "Atprocessions, you know. It's a great Catholic day--like August 15th--Iforget why. Some Catholic foolery. The birthday of the Virgin Mary, Ifancy. Anyhow we throw stones.... I wonder will there be anyprocessions here?"

  "You can't throw stones if there are," his more discreet friendadmonished him. "Pull yourself together, Fergus, and don't look sofell. These things simply aren't done outside your maniac country, youknow. Remember where and what you are."

  The wild blue fire still leapt in Mr. Macdermott's Celtic eyes. Hismind obviously still hovered round processions.

  "Of course," he explained, "one couldn't throw stones. Not abroad. Butone might go and look on...."

  "Certainly not. Not if I can prevent you. You'll disgrace the Leagueby shouting: 'To hell with the Pope.' I know you. If a procession isanywhere in the offing, it will make you feel so at home that you'lllose your head entirely. Go and find O'Shane and punch his head if youwant to let off steam. He'll be game, particularly as it's one of hishome festivals too. You're neither of you safe to have loose on theNativity of the B.V.M., if that's what it is."

  Macdermott gazed at the lake with eyes that dreamed of home.

  "It'd be a queer thing," he murmured, "if there wouldn't be aprocession somewhere to-day, even in this godly Protestant city...."

  "Well, in case there should, and to keep you safe, you'd better comeand dine with me at eight at my inn. Don't dress. I must go and sendoff my stuff now. See you later, then."

  Fergus Macdermott, left alone, strolled along towards his own hotel,but when he was half-way to it a clashing of bells struck on his ear,and reminded him that the Catholic Church of Notre Dame was only a fewstreets away. No harm to walk that way, and see if anything was doing.He did so. On the door of the church a notice announced that theprocession in honour of the Nativity of Our Lady would leave thechurch at eight o'clock and pursue a route, which was given in detail.

  "Well, I can't see it," said Fergus Macdermott. "I shall be havingdinner." He went back to his hotel and typed out a manifesto, orpetition, as he called it, for presentation to the Assembly whenquieter times should supervene and make the consideration of generalproblems possible again. The manifesto was on the subject of thetyranny exercised over Ulster by the Southern Free State Government.At the same moment, in his room at the same hotel, Denis O'Shane, theFree State delegate, was typing _his_ manifesto, which was about thetyranny exercised over South Ireland by Ulster.

  At 7.45 Macdermott finished his document, read it through withsatisfaction and remembered that he had to go and dine with Garth. Heleft his hotel with this intention, and could not have said at whatpoint his more profound, his indeed innate intention, which was to goto the Church of Notre Dame, asserted itself. Anyhow, at eighto'clock, there he was in the Place Cornavin, arriving at the outskirtsof the crowd which was watching the white-robed crucifer and acolytesleading the procession out of the open church doors and down thesteps.

  Macdermott, blocked by the crowd, could hardly see. He felt in aninferior position towards this procession, barred from it by a kindlyand reverent crowd of onlookers. In his native city things weredifferent. He had here no moral support for his just contempt ofPopish flummery. He did not want to do anything to the procession,merely to stare it down with the disgust it deserved, but this wasdifficult when he could only see it above bared heads.

  A voice just above him said, in French: "Monsieur cannot see. He wouldget a better view from this window here. I beg of you to come in,monsieur."

  Looking up, Macdermott saw the face of a kindly old woman looking downat him from the first-floor window of the high house behind him.Certainly, he admitted, he could not see, and he would rather like to.He entered the hospitable open door, which led into a shop, andascended a flight of stone steps.

  On the top step, in the darkness of a narrow passage, a chloroformedtowel was flung and held tight over his head and face, and he wasborne to the ground.

  30

  Thus this young Irishman's strong religious convictions, which did himcredit, betrayed him to his doom. But, incomprehensibly, doom in thesense (whatever sense that was) in which it had overtaken hisfellow-delegates, was after all averted. He did not disappear intosilence as they had. On the contrary, the kindly old woman who hadrushed from the front window and bent over him as he lay unconsciouson the stair-head, saw him presently open his eyes and stir, and heardthe faint, bewildered murmur of "to hell with the Pope," which iswhat Orangemen say mechanically when they come to, as others may say,"Where am I?"

  Very soon he sat up, dizzily.

  "I was chloroformed," he said, "by some damned Republican. Where isthe chap? Don't let him make off."

  But he was informed that this person had already disappeared. When theold lady of the house, hearing him fall, had come out and found him,there had been no trace of either his assaulter or of the chloroformedtowel. The kindly old lady was almost inclined to think that monsieurmust have fainted, and fancied the Republican, the chloroform, and theattack.

  Fergus Macdermott, who never either fainted or fancied, assured herthat this was by no means the case.

  "It's part, no doubt," he said, "of this Sinn Fein plot againstdelegates. Why they didn't put it through in my case I can't say. Isuppose they heard you coming.... But what on earth did they _mean_ todo with me? Now, madame, we must promptly descend and make inquiriesas to who was seen to leave your front door just now. There is notime to be lost.... Only I feel so infernally giddy...."

  The inquiries he made resulted in little. Some standers-by had seentwo men leave the house a few minutes since, but had observed nothing,neither what they were like nor where they went. No, it had not beenobserved that they were of South Irish aspect.

  It seemed hopeless to track them. The old lady said that she livedthere alone with her husband, above the shop; but that, of course, anyscoundrel might stray into it while the door stood open, and lurk inambush.

  "How did they guess that the old lady was going to invite me in?"Macdermott wondered. "If they did guess, that is, and if it was reallypart of the anti-delegate campaign. Of course, if not, they may merelyhave guessed she should ask some one (it may be her habit), and hiddenin ambush to rob whoever it might be. But they didn't rob me.... Itcould be that this good old lady was in the plot herself, no less, forall she speaks so civil. But who is to prove that, I ask you? It'squeer and strange...."

  Thus pondering, Fergus Macdermott took a cab and drove to the hotelwhere he was to dine with Garth, the representative of the _MorningPost_. He would be doing Garth a good turn to let him get in with thetale before the other papers; he would be able to wire it homestraight away. The _Morning Post_ deserved that: a sound paper it was,and at times the only one in England that got hold of and stated theTruth. This attack on Macdermott proved conclusively to his mind, whathe and the _Morning Post_ had from the first suspected and said, thatthe Irish Republicans were at the back of the whole business, helped,as usual, by German and Bolshevik money.

  "Ah, this proves it," said Macdermott, his blue eyes very bright inhis white face as he drove along.

  As to the procession, he had forgotten all about it.

  31

  Mademoiselle Bjornsen, substitute delegate for one of the Scandinaviancountries, a doctor of medicine, and a woman of high purpose anddegree, of the type which used to be called, in the old days when itflourished in Great Britain, _feminist_, often walked out in theevening for a purpose which did her great credit. Sh
e was of thosegood and disinterested women who care greatly for the troubles oftheir less fortunate, less well-educated and less well-principledsisters, and who often patrol streets in whatever city they happen tofind themselves, with a view to extending the hand of succour to thoseof their sex who appear to be in error or in need.

  On this evening of the 8th of September, Mlle. Bjornsen was startingout, after her dinner at the H?tel Richemond, on her nightly patrol,when she was joined by Mlle. Binesco from Roumania, a lady whose richand exuberant personality was not, perhaps, wholly in accord with herown more austere temperament, but whom she acknowledged to abound ingood intentions and sisterly pity for the unfortunate of her sex. Forher part, Mlle. Binesco did not regard Mlle. Bjornsen as a verywomanly woman, but respected her integrity and business-like methods,and felt her to be, perhaps, an effective foil to herself. It may beobserved that there are in this world mental females, mental males,and mental neutrals. You may know them by their conversation. Themental females, or womanly women, are apt to talk about clothes,children, domestics, the prices of household commodities, loveaffairs, or personal gossip. Theirs is rather a difficult type ofconversation to join in, as it is above one's head. Mental males, ormanly men, talk about sport, finance, business, animals, crops, or howthings are made. Theirs is also a difficult type of conversation tojoin in, being also above one's head. Male men as a rule, like femalewomen, and vice versa; they do not converse, but each supplies theother with something they lack, so they gravitate together and makehappy marriages. In between these is the No-Man's Land, filled withmental neutrals of both sexes. They talk about all the other things,such as books, jokes, politics, love (as distinct from love affairs),people, places, religion (in which, though they talk more about it,they do not, as a rule, believe so unquestioningly as do the males andthe females, who have never thought about it and are rather shocked ifit is mentioned), plays, music, current fads and scandals, publicpersons and events, newspapers, life, and anything else which turnsup. Their conversation is easy to join in, as it is not above one'shead. They gravitate together, and often marry each other, and arevery happy. If one of them makes a mistake and marries a mental maleor a mental female, the marriage is not happy, for they demandconversation and interest in things in general, and are answered onlyby sex; they tell what they think is a funny story, and meet theabsent eye and mechanical smile of one who is thinking how to turn aheel or a wheel, how to sew a frock or a field, how most cheaply tobuy shoes or shares. And they themselves are thought tiresome, queer,unsympathetic, unwomanly or unmanly, by the more fully sexed partnerthey have been betrayed by love's blindness into taking untothemselves.