It was the clearest warning he had received of the necessity of constant vigilance and attention. The slightest slip would mean the end of all his fine plans; ignominy, failure—for that matter (although they were not so important), imprisonment, unemployment, and starvation. For a space the incident shook him badly. He had small appetite when he reached home at last.
That was nothing very remarkable, but it was hard luck on Mary, who (through motives far too complicated for analysis) had actually condescended to prepare ‘late dinner.’ It would have given the poor soul quite a great deal of pleasure if her husband had shown any interest and pleased surprise at being served with roast mutton and baked potatoes and peas, yes, and a pudding as well. But Pethwick only sat thoughtful and silent throughout the meal. He hardly touched the food on his plate, and he refused pudding altogether. It was enough to annoy a more reasonable woman than Mary; especially as he sat mooning a long time at the table so that Mary could not find compensation in the sideboard cupboard—she could never help herself cold-bloodedly to whisky in the presence of her husband. In the end she flounced out of the house in a huff.
Chapter Seventeen
The Times next day was outspoken in its condemnation of the Peacemaker. Pethwick at breakfast read much the same sentiments as he had read the day before in the evening papers, with the addition of a violent editorial tirade against the insolence of the new letter the Peacemaker had had the impertinence to address to them. That anyone should dream to dictate a policy to the British Empire in a laconic note of three lines was positively unbearable. The Peacemaker must learn that Britons were made of sterner stuff. They would never submit to such high-handed methods.
It was worse still that the Peacemaker should have backed his demand with a further wanton interference with London traffic. He had caused a great deal of inconvenience and perhaps some petty loss. The mere fact that he had done this was sufficient justification for ignoring his letters altogether. There could be no thought of doing anything whatever to meet the demands of someone actually engaged in criminal practices. Nevertheless, if Pethwick had been able to read between the lines he might have found some hope in the irritation which The Times displayed at the dilatory methods of the police. These latter, so The Times declared, ought to have laid the Peacemaker by the heels hours ago. It was a poor testimony to their modern scientific methods that they had not succeeded in tracing him at once. Surely, with the whole body of public opinion behind them, and the advice of the whole scientific world to draw upon should they need it, they should do better than this. But at any rate, The Times understood that the police were engaged in following up various clues which they had discovered. Perhaps at the very time these lines were read an arrest may have been effected, and in a few weeks’ time this mad effort by the Peacemaker would be falling back into the oblivion which characterised similar hopeless attempts at revolution by violence, like the Cato Street conspiracy.
Pethwick read this pious wish with a little smile. He could not imagine anyone discovering him—in that he was like many other criminals. No one would ever commit a crime if he was not confident that he would avoid detection.
And, as a matter of fact Pethwick was safe enough. The police had not the least idea how to set about discovering him. No scientist could suggest how the Klein–Pethwick Effect was caused. No examination of lists of prominent Communists or Pacifists could offer any line of investigation to follow. The task of the police could be compared with looking for a needle in a bundle of hay if one was not quite sure what a needle was like and had doubts as to where the bundle of hay actually was. The police would have to wait in patience for the help of their usual allies—carelessness on the part of the man they were seeking, and ‘information received,’ and blind good fortune.
The one possible loophole centred round Mr. Todd, who had let the Hammer Court office to Dr. Pethwick. It was just possible that he might connect Dr. Pethwick with these outrages—but the possibility seemed much smaller on closer examination than at first sight. For Mr. Todd let offices every day of his life; his encounter with Dr. Pethwick made far more impression on Dr. Pethwick than on Mr. Todd. Furthermore, the Hammer Court office was underground and tucked away in a cul-de-sac. It was quite distant from, and completely out of sight of, the scenes of the Peacemaker outrages. The unscientific mind, even in these days of wireless telephony, found it hard to conceive of a power which could make itself felt through solid earth and stone walls, and without any great preparation and in a room no larger than the average kitchen. Mr. Todd can certainly be excused for not connecting the polished, well-dressed, completely sensible gentleman with the fanatical figure portrayed in Poy’s cartoons.
It was a pity that Pethwick had had the wit to realise all this at the same time as he had the folly to think that humanity could be coerced into doing something for its own good. Pethwick, of course, had fallen into the old error of confounding persons with people, individuals with the mass. He did not appreciate that where a hundred separate individuals might each be relied on to be perfectly sensible when conducting their particular concerns, that same hundred people considered as a mass might be guilty of the most illogical actions.
The Times was in the process of disillusioning him. What irritated him most was the fact that the objective he desired most—the establishment of an international conference determined upon disarmament and not held back by secret instructions or sheer stupidity—was not discussed at all. The possibility was quite ignored. Apart from the usual vague tributes to the blessings of peace the whole attention of the paper was concentrated upon abusing him and his methods, in a way Pethwick had not expected at all. In his vague visualisation of the results of his efforts Pethwick had thought that the attention of the public would be directed upon disarmament, with only the slightest notice taken of himself once the initial surprise had worn off. He was both embarrassed by and annoyed at the publicity he was receiving. And to see it broadly hinted that his sole object was personal publicity, and to see himself compared with a maniac who drops a bomb from the gallery into the crowded stalls of a theatre, simply maddened him. He flung the paper aside testily, caught his wife’s eye, and applied himself guiltily to his breakfast.
When breakfast was over he was vaguely restless. He had decided that there was no need to go up to the office that morning, and the unusual prospect of an idle day before him seemed extraordinarily irksome. He idled about the room; he helped his wife wash up; and then when Mary had gone out shopping and he found himself alone in the house restlessness overcame him. He felt absolutely no temptation to sit down with a book, as he would have loved to do six months ago. Ten minutes after Mary had gone out Pethwick went out too, having spent the ten minutes walking aimlessly from room to room about the house.
At the station bookstall he asked for all the newspapers.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the bookstall attendant unmoved—it is a request which is made to bookstall attendants more often than one would expect. ‘Financial papers as well?’
‘M’m, well—no,’ said Dr. Pethwick.
‘And you don’t want The Times, do you, sir? We delivered that to you this morning. But there’s the Manchester Guardian.’
‘I’ll have that,’ said Pethwick.
With London’s eight other newspapers and the Manchester Guardian under his arm he went back to Launceton Road, and for the first time in his life he set himself to a study of public opinion.
Public opinion in this case seemed to be practically unanimous. Wherever Pethwick turned his eyes, it seemed to him, they encountered cries of rage, frozen into print, like Niagara in winter. These newspapers were all a day behind The Times, for once in a way, because they had no knowledge of the Peacemaker’s third letter, but they made up for it in the violence of their opinions. The expression ‘private property’ cropped up over and over again; the fact that the Peacemaker was interfering with private property appeared to be the measure of his crime—one was left with the impression that i
f the Peacemaker had confined his activities to government concerns he would not have been so guilty—although, as Pethwick assured himself when this occurred to him, there would have been just as much fury evinced if he had held up the Fleet, or tank evolutions on Salisbury Plain; they would have attacked him on the other flank then, for lack of patriotism or something.
As it was one newspaper roundly accused him of being unpatriotic (in a special sense, that is—all the articles condemned him vaguely under that head). This particular article was one of the few which condescended to discuss the one thing the Peacemaker had asked for—an international conference. The Peacemaker must be unpatriotic, argued this article, for if such a conference were to be held—as of course was inconceivable—England would come to it gravely handicapped from the start. As a result of the other Powers at the conference knowing that she was being forced into it, her bargaining power would be terribly limited, so that she would be bound to be worst off.
Pethwick scratched his head at that. He could not imagine what bargaining had to do with the sort of conference he had in mind—which just shows what a simple fellow he was. He knew perfectly well that a disarmament conference with no arrière-pensée at all would settle the whole matter in a week’s discussion, or in three hours, for that matter, if intelligent men were sent there—but even Dr. Pethwick was not so simple as to expect this last. But this ‘bargaining’ suggestion left him puzzled. It was the complete negation of the notion he himself harboured. He tossed the paper aside and turned to the others.
The little illustrated papers were just as bad. They were full of pictures showing the traffic jams in Cannon Street and Cheapside. They published, at the request of the police, the same photographic reproductions of the Peacemaker’s manifesto (they all called it that) as The Times had published the day before. But they gave no hint at all of extending a welcome to a movement which might reduce income tax by half-a-crown in the pound, which was remarkable when considered in conjunction with their repeated references to ‘private property.’
Some of the other papers simply foamed at the mouth. The Times had been studiously moderate in estimating the amount of trouble caused by the Peacemaker’s activities—partly from a simple desire to allay possible public agitation, and partly, it is to be imagined, to show the Peacemaker that he was not as important an individual as he thought he was. But newspapers who never included the word ‘moderation’ in their vocabularies let themselves go—especially as this was August, when every newspaper prays for something to happen, and when newspapers which deal in sensations begin to pine and die. They wrote-up the traffic scenes and the disorder in the City with vast headlines and heavy cross-headings. It was curious that at the same time they declared, in other columns, that the total effect produced was infinitesimal compared with the whole bulk of London traffic. Pethwick was vaguely reminded of the days during the war when he was a boy, when with one breath the newspapers described the difficulties experienced in an offensive, and with the next boldly declared that the enemy was not merely drained of his strength but thoroughly demoralised into the bargain.
Even the more moderate among the newspapers were not encouraging. They deplored the rash action of the Peacemaker, nor would they offer the most cautious approval of his motives. Indeed, they made haste to declare their conviction that the Peacemaker could not possibly be a member of the political parties which they supported. They were most anxious to show that although they had always been steady advocates of disarmament they abhorred this kind of militant peace-making.
Pethwick dropped the last of the papers beside him and fell into thought. He was sick with disappointment. At first it was not his failure that moved him so much as the fact that humanity was exhibiting itself in so deplorable a light. Only later did he begin to think about himself. When Dorothy came back from Norway he would only have this fiasco to show her. He would not be haloed with glory and success. True, he had made a noise in the world, but Pethwick judged that a failure, however noisy, would not re-establish himself in Dorothy’s good opinion. Lordly Ones never fail.
His feelings were wounded, too, by the venomous remarks of the newspapers. It hurt him to be compared with bomb-throwing notoriety-hunters, to have it said of him that he was traitorous and un-English; to have the purity of his motives impugned; to see it hinted broadly that he must be insane.
It was under the stress of all these mixed motives that his expression hardened and his mouth shut tightly. Let them say what they liked, think what they liked. He was going through with it. He would show them what they were up against. He would compel them to take the matter seriously. If they would not act on their own accord after this reminder of what was to their advantage, he would force them to do so. He would intensify his campaign. Already in his mind he had vague ideas as to further uses to which his invention could be put. He began to fill in the details, to make plans.
So engrossed was he that he did not hear Mary’s return. She found him sitting in the armchair with newspapers littered all about him, and she was about to upbraid him when she saw his face. The sound of her voice died away in her throat and she stood with her mouth open in surprise. She had never seen him like this before; his mouth was shut into a hard line, his brows were drawn together. His whole expression was one of ferocious determination. Even his hands were clenched tight. Anything more different from his usual expression of mild abstraction it was difficult to imagine. She was frightened; there was something satanic in the contrast between his pleasant features and the brutal determination they expressed. To Mary’s distorted imagination, that was how Pethwick would look if Pethwick were ever to commit a murder. And Mary realised that there was only one person on earth whom he was likely ever to want to murder—herself. She had a spasm of fright lest by some evil chance Pethwick had discovered that she had been telling lies to Dorothy Laxton. She felt a chilly sensation run down her body and legs.
But that fear was quickly dispelled by Pethwick’s sudden awakening to her presence. He started guiltily. The strange look faded from his face and was replaced by one which might be seen on the face of a child discovered in naughtiness. He was momentarily afraid lest Mary should start making deductions from his attitude, from the newspapers strewn round him.
But Pethwick had known his wife too long in ordinary circumstances to be able to predict her conduct with any certainty in extraordinary ones. He was familiar with her illogical habits of thought, with the way in which the processes of her mind were habitually tangled up. He gave her no credit for flashes of intuition, nor for the very real capacity for putting two and two together which she could display in an emergency. Illogical logic was so foreign both to his make-up and to his training that he had only contempt for it, a tendency to underrate its possibilities. He did not realise how easy it is for a woman, even one as muddled as Mary, to guess at the state of mind of a man with whom she has lived for ten years.
Mary’s first words seemed to dispel any doubts he had regarding whether she had noticed anything strange.
‘What on earth is all this mess?’ asked Mary. She could begin no domestic conversation without a complaint.
‘It’s only to-day’s newspapers,’ said Pethwick, soothingly. ‘I’ll clear them up now.’
‘So I should think. You clear them all up and take them away. I won’t have them cluttering up my house. I can’t think what you wanted them all for.’
Pethwick had what he considered a brilliant inspiration.
‘I only wanted to see what they said about this Peacemaker business,’ he said, with elaborate carelessness. ‘It raises a very interesting problem in physics. It would be an interesting problem to work out what is this method he uses.’
‘Yes,’ said Mary.
She watched his gawky movements as he tried to put the papers together. Her eyes were bright and unwinking.
Chapter Eighteen
Pethwick’s instincts were goading him into action. Perhaps he actually felt that this was the tim
e for words more than deeds, but he was not a man of words. He could not write the long letter to The Times which might have been his best move now. He could not write the pleading disclaimer of all the incorrect motives which had been attributed to him, nor, now that he could be sure of the attention of his audience, could he write the long academic defence of disarmament, humorous, persuasive, convincing, which might save the situation. In his present state of irritation all that was beyond him. He would go on as he had begun. As a hint had not been enough, he must proceed to give indisputable evidence of his power and his determination. Plans and calculations seethed in his mind.
One stray by-product of a scientific training is an ability to use reference books, to dig out the most obscure data from the most unpromising authorities. Dr. Pethwick after lunch went round to the public library to find out things about Paris. His knowledge of the French language was limited to two dozen words; he had never crossed the Channel. But that accusation of being unpatriotic had hurt him, and moreover he was beginning to realise the necessity of convincing other nations besides the English of the desirability of disarmament. Some time soon he must extend his activities to the Continent, and before he could really begin planning this new offensive he must have facts to work upon.
In the reference library the Librarian welcomed him. Dr. Pethwick had a certain reputation for vast learning which extended through the suburb from its focus in the school. There was a good deal of deference in the Librarian’s manner. He found Dr. Pethwick an isolated table with pens and ink and blotting-paper, and made him free of all the shelves of standard reference books which Dr. Pethwick said he wished to consult. Then he withdrew on tiptoe, awed and reverent, while Dr. Pethwick plunged eagerly into this new investigation.