CHAPTER IV. THE TALE OF A DETECTIVE
GABRIEL SYME was not merely a detective who pretended to be a poet;he was really a poet who had become a detective. Nor was his hatred ofanarchy hypocritical. He was one of those who are driven early in lifeinto too conservative an attitude by the bewildering folly of mostrevolutionists. He had not attained it by any tame tradition. Hisrespectability was spontaneous and sudden, a rebellion againstrebellion. He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldestpeople had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked aboutwithout a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walkabout with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art andself-realisation; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hencethe child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with anydrink between the extremes of absinth and cocoa, of both of which hehad a healthy dislike. The more his mother preached a more than Puritanabstinence the more did his father expand into a more thanpagan latitude; and by the time the former had come to enforcingvegetarianism, the latter had pretty well reached the point of defendingcannibalism.
Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy,Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thingleft--sanity. But there was just enough in him of the blood of thesefanatics to make even his protest for common sense a little too fierceto be sensible. His hatred of modern lawlessness had been crowned alsoby an accident. It happened that he was walking in a side street at theinstant of a dynamite outrage. He had been blind and deaf for a moment,and then seen, the smoke clearing, the broken windows and the bleedingfaces. After that he went about as usual--quiet, courteous, rathergentle; but there was a spot on his mind that was not sane. He didnot regard anarchists, as most of us do, as a handful of morbid men,combining ignorance with intellectualism. He regarded them as a huge andpitiless peril, like a Chinese invasion.
He poured perpetually into newspapers and their waste-paper basketsa torrent of tales, verses and violent articles, warning men of thisdeluge of barbaric denial. But he seemed to be getting no nearer hisenemy, and, what was worse, no nearer a living. As he paced the Thamesembankment, bitterly biting a cheap cigar and brooding on the advance ofAnarchy, there was no anarchist with a bomb in his pocket so savage orso solitary as he. Indeed, he always felt that Government stood aloneand desperate, with its back to the wall. He was too quixotic to havecared for it otherwise.
He walked on the Embankment once under a dark red sunset. The red riverreflected the red sky, and they both reflected his anger. The sky,indeed, was so swarthy, and the light on the river relatively solurid, that the water almost seemed of fiercer flame than the sunset itmirrored. It looked like a stream of literal fire winding under the vastcaverns of a subterranean country.
Syme was shabby in those days. He wore an old-fashioned blackchimney-pot hat; he was wrapped in a yet more old-fashioned cloak, blackand ragged; and the combination gave him the look of the early villainsin Dickens and Bulwer Lytton. Also his yellow beard and hair were moreunkempt and leonine than when they appeared long afterwards, cut andpointed, on the lawns of Saffron Park. A long, lean, black cigar, boughtin Soho for twopence, stood out from between his tightened teeth, andaltogether he looked a very satisfactory specimen of the anarchists uponwhom he had vowed a holy war. Perhaps this was why a policeman on theEmbankment spoke to him, and said Good evening.
Syme, at a crisis of his morbid fears for humanity, seemed stung by themere stolidity of the automatic official, a mere bulk of blue in thetwilight.
A good evening is it? he said sharply. You fellows would call the endof the world a good evening. Look at that bloody red sun and that bloodyriver! I tell you that if that were literally human blood, spilt andshining, you would still be standing here as solid as ever, looking outfor some poor harmless tramp whom you could move on. You policemen arecruel to the poor, but I could forgive you even your cruelty if it werenot for your calm.
If we are calm, replied the policeman, it is the calm of organisedresistance.
Eh? said Syme, staring.
The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle, pursued thepoliceman. The composure of an army is the anger of a nation.
Good God, the Board Schools! said Syme. Is this undenominationaleducation?
No, said the policeman sadly, I never had any of those advantages.The Board Schools came after my time. What education I had was veryrough and old-fashioned, I am afraid.
Where did you have it? asked Syme, wondering.
Oh, at Harrow, said the policeman
The class sympathies which, false as they are, are the truest things inso many men, broke out of Syme before he could control them.
But, good Lord, man, he said, you oughtn't to be a policeman!
The policeman sighed and shook his head.
I know, he said solemnly, I know I am not worthy.
But why did you join the police? asked Syme with rude curiosity.
For much the same reason that you abused the police, replied theother. I found that there was a special opening in the servicefor those whose fears for humanity were concerned rather with theaberrations of the scientific intellect than with the normal andexcusable, though excessive, outbreaks of the human will. I trust I makemyself clear.
If you mean that you make your opinion clear, said Syme, I supposeyou do. But as for making yourself clear, it is the last thing you do.How comes a man like you to be talking philosophy in a blue helmet onthe Thames embankment?
You have evidently not heard of the latest development in our policesystem, replied the other. I am not surprised at it. We are keeping itrather dark from the educated class, because that class contains mostof our enemies. But you seem to be exactly in the right frame of mind. Ithink you might almost join us.
Join you in what? asked Syme.
I will tell you, said the policeman slowly. This is the situation:The head of one of our departments, one of the most celebrateddetectives in Europe, has long been of opinion that a purelyintellectual conspiracy would soon threaten the very existence ofcivilisation. He is certain that the scientific and artistic worlds aresilently bound in a crusade against the Family and the State. He has,therefore, formed a special corps of policemen, policemen who are alsophilosophers. It is their business to watch the beginnings of thisconspiracy, not merely in a criminal but in a controversial sense. I ama democrat myself, and I am fully aware of the value of the ordinaryman in matters of ordinary valour or virtue. But it would obviously beundesirable to employ the common policeman in an investigation which isalso a heresy hunt.
Syme's eyes were bright with a sympathetic curiosity.
What do you do, then? he said.
The work of the philosophical policeman, replied the man in blue, isat once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective.The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we goto artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detectivediscovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. Wediscover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We haveto trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at lastto intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime. We were only just intime to prevent the assassination at Hartlepool, and that was entirelydue to the fact that our Mr. Wilks (a smart young fellow) thoroughlyunderstood a triolet.
Do you mean, asked Syme, that there is really as much connectionbetween crime and the modern intellect as all that?
You are not sufficiently democratic, answered the policeman, but youwere right when you said just now that our ordinary treatment of thepoor criminal was a pretty brutal business. I tell you I am sometimessick of my trade when I see how perpetually it means merely a war uponthe ignorant and the desperate. But this new movement of ours is avery different affair. We deny the snobbish English assumption that theuneducated are the dangerous criminals. We remember the Roman Emperors.We remember the great poisoning princes of the Renaissance. We say thatthe dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We say that the mostdangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher.Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; myheart goes out to them. They accept the essential ideal of man; theymerely seek it wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish theproperty to become their property that they may more perfectly respectit. But philosophers dislike property as property; they wish to destroythe very idea of personal possession. Bigamists respect marriage, orthey would not go through the highly ceremonial and even ritualisticformality of bigamy. But philosophers despise marriage as marriage.Murderers respect human life; they merely wish to attain a greaterfulness of human life in themselves by the sacrifice of what seems tothem to be lesser lives. But philosophers hate life itself, their own asmuch as other people's.
Syme struck his hands together.
How true that is, he cried. I have felt it from my boyhood, but nevercould state the verbal antithesis. The common criminal is a bad man, butat least he is, as it were, a conditional good man. He says that if onlya certain obstacle be removed--say a wealthy uncle--he is then preparedto accept the universe and to praise God. He is a reformer, but not ananarchist. He wishes to cleanse the edifice, but not to destroy it. Butthe evil philosopher is not trying to alter things, but to annihilatethem. Yes, the modern world has retained all those parts of police workwhich are really oppressive and ignominious, the harrying of the poor,the spying upon the unfortunate. It has given up its more dignifiedwork, the punishment of powerful traitors in the State and powerfulheresiarchs in the Church. The moderns say we must not punish heretics.My only doubt is whether we have a right to punish anybody else.
But this is absurd! cried the policeman, clasping his hands with anexcitement uncommon in persons of his figure and costume, but it isintolerable! I don't know what you're doing, but you're wasting yourlife. You must, you shall, join our special army against anarchy. Theirarmies are on our frontiers. Their bolt is ready to fall. A moment more,and you may lose the glory of working with us, perhaps the glory ofdying with the last heroes of the world.
It is a chance not to be missed, certainly, assented Syme, but stillI do not quite understand. I know as well as anybody that the modernworld is full of lawless little men and mad little movements. But,beastly as they are, they generally have the one merit of disagreeingwith each other. How can you talk of their leading one army or hurlingone bolt. What is this anarchy?
Do not confuse it, replied the constable, with those chance dynamiteoutbreaks from Russia or from Ireland, which are really the outbreaksof oppressed, if mistaken, men. This is a vast philosophic movement,consisting of an outer and an inner ring. You might even call the outerring the laity and the inner ring the priesthood. I prefer to call theouter ring the innocent section, the inner ring the supremely guiltysection. The outer ring--the main mass of their supporters--are merelyanarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas havedestroyed human happiness. They believe that all the evil results ofhuman crime are the results of the system that has called it crime. Theydo not believe that the crime creates the punishment. They believe thatthe punishment has created the crime. They believe that if a man seducedseven women he would naturally walk away as blameless as the flowers ofspring. They believe that if a man picked a pocket he would naturallyfeel exquisitely good. These I call the innocent section.
Oh! said Syme.
Naturally, therefore, these people talk about 'a happy time coming';'the paradise of the future'; 'mankind freed from the bondage of viceand the bondage of virtue,' and so on. And so also the men of the innercircle speak--the sacred priesthood. They also speak to applaudingcrowds of the happiness of the future, and of mankind freed at last. Butin their mouths--and the policeman lowered his voice--in theirmouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under noillusions; they are too intellectual to think that man upon this earthcan ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they meandeath. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean thatmankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without rightor wrong, they mean the grave.
They have but two objects, to destroy first humanity and thenthemselves. That is why they throw bombs instead of firing pistols. Theinnocent rank and file are disappointed because the bomb has not killedthe king; but the high-priesthood are happy because it has killedsomebody.
How can I join you? asked Syme, with a sort of passion.
I know for a fact that there is a vacancy at the moment, said thepoliceman, as I have the honour to be somewhat in the confidence ofthe chief of whom I have spoken. You should really come and see him. Orrather, I should not say see him, nobody ever sees him; but you can talkto him if you like.
Telephone? inquired Syme, with interest.
No, said the policeman placidly, he has a fancy for always sittingin a pitch-dark room. He says it makes his thoughts brighter. Do comealong.
Somewhat dazed and considerably excited, Syme allowed himself to be ledto a side-door in the long row of buildings of Scotland Yard. Almostbefore he knew what he was doing, he had been passed through the handsof about four intermediate officials, and was suddenly shown into aroom, the abrupt blackness of which startled him like a blaze of light.It was not the ordinary darkness, in which forms can be faintly traced;it was like going suddenly stone-blind.
Are you the new recruit? asked a heavy voice.
And in some strange way, though there was not the shadow of a shapein the gloom, Syme knew two things: first, that it came from a man ofmassive stature; and second, that the man had his back to him.
Are you the new recruit? said the invisible chief, who seemed to haveheard all about it. All right. You are engaged.
Syme, quite swept off his feet, made a feeble fight against thisirrevocable phrase.
I really have no experience, he began.
No one has any experience, said the other, of the Battle ofArmageddon.
But I am really unfit--
You are willing, that is enough, said the unknown.
Well, really, said Syme, I don't know any profession of which merewillingness is the final test.
I do, said the other--martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Goodday.
Thus it was that when Gabriel Syme came out again into the crimson lightof evening, in his shabby black hat and shabby, lawless cloak, he cameout a member of the New Detective Corps for the frustration of the greatconspiracy. Acting under the advice of his friend the policeman (whowas professionally inclined to neatness), he trimmed his hair and beard,bought a good hat, clad himself in an exquisite summer suit of lightblue-grey, with a pale yellow flower in the button-hole, and, in short,became that elegant and rather insupportable person whom Gregory hadfirst encountered in the little garden of Saffron Park. Before hefinally left the police premises his friend provided him with a smallblue card, on which was written, The Last Crusade, and a number,the sign of his official authority. He put this carefully in his upperwaistcoat pocket, lit a cigarette, and went forth to track and fight theenemy in all the drawing-rooms of London. Where his adventure ultimatelyled him we have already seen. At about half-past one on a February nighthe found himself steaming in a small tug up the silent Thames, armedwith swordstick and revolver, the duly elected Thursday of the CentralCouncil of Anarchists.
When Syme stepped out on to the steam-tug he had a singular sensation ofstepping out into something entirely new; not merely into the landscapeof a new land, but even into the landscape of a new planet. This wasmainly due to the insane yet solid decision of that evening, thoughpartly also to an entire change in the weather and the sky since heentered the little tavern some two hours before. Every trace of thepassionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, and a nakedmoon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so strong and full that (by aparadox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, notthe sense of bright moonshine, but rather of a dead daylight.
Over the whole landscape lay a luminous and unnatural discoloration, asof that disastrous twilight which Milton spoke of as shed by the sun ineclipse; so that Syme fell easily into his first thought, that he wasactually on some other and emptier planet, which circled round somesadder star. But the more he felt this glittering desolation in themoonlit land, the more his own chivalric folly glowed in the night likea great fire. Even the common things he carried with him--the food andthe brandy and the loaded pistol--took on exactly that concrete andmaterial poetry which a child feels when he takes a gun upon a journeyor a bun with him to bed. The sword-stick and the brandy-flask,though in themselves only the tools of morbid conspirators, became theexpressions of his own more healthy romance. The sword-stickbecame almost the sword of chivalry, and the brandy the wine of thestirrup-cup. For even the most dehumanised modern fantasies dependon some older and simpler figure; the adventures may be mad, but theadventurer must be sane. The dragon without St. George would not evenbe grotesque. So this inhuman landscape was only imaginative by thepresence of a man really human. To Syme's exaggerative mind the bright,bleak houses and terraces by the Thames looked as empty as the mountainsof the moon. But even the moon is only poetical because there is a manin the moon.
The tug was worked by two men, and with much toil went comparativelyslowly. The clear moon that had lit up Chiswick had gone down by thetime that they passed Battersea, and when they came under the enormousbulk of Westminster day had already begun to break. It broke like thesplitting of great bars of lead, showing bars of silver; and these hadbrightened like white fire when the tug, changing its onward course,turned inward to a large landing stage rather beyond Charing Cross.
The great stones of the Embankment seemed equally dark and gigantic asSyme looked up at them. They were big and black against the huge whitedawn. They made him feel that he was landing on the colossal steps ofsome Egyptian palace; and, indeed, the thing suited his mood, for hewas, in his own mind, mounting to attack the solid thrones of horribleand heathen kings. He leapt out of the boat on to one slimy step, andstood, a dark and slender figure, amid the enormous masonry. The two menin the tug put her off again and turned up stream. They had never spokena word.