LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“A Little Old Man, shrewd and withered,”

“A Soft, Seal-Like Head was seen driving across the shining Flood,”

“He dabbed at the Reply Form, fuming and sputtering,”

“‘I desire to be put into communication with this,’”

“‘This is a Pleasantry, Mr Balm,’ he said,”

“A Little Monkey-Like Figure of a Man balancing on a Window-sill,”

“The Young Lady gave a scream which ‘shivered to the Stars,’”

“‘Look, Sir,’ he said, ‘Them Cushions where She sat!’”

PROLOGUE

Gilead Balm had most things to recommend him—youth, comeliness, a bright intelligence, an excellent heart, a flawless digestion; best of all, an indestructible capacity for interesting himself in the affairs of the world into which he was born. He was fresh, fair, shapely, and of that graceful height which, as representing the classic perfection of symmetry, disposes the vision at the most reasonable level for contemplating the true stature of things, and their relative, mundane, proportions. His eyes were calm and fearless, his voice soft, his courtesy unimpeachable. If he had a weakness, it was for seeing two sides to a question, one or the other of which was apt to tickle his sense of humour. But humour, after all, is the saving grace of mankind, and, without it, there may be much achievement but little charity.

With all these advantages, pleasantly worn at the age of twenty-four, Gilead lacked, in the world’s eyes, the crowning advantage of an income. Or, at least, such an one as he enjoyed was far from adequately representing the value of his qualities. He was, in fact, a second division clerk (higher grade) to the Charity Commissioners at Whitehall, on a salary of two hundred and fifty pounds a year, and to that, barring promotion, he must look for his living. He was an orphan; his parents had died—fortunately after launching him on his career—insolvent; he had no negotiable prospects, so far as he knew, actual or problematic. But nature had endowed him to his content; and if, at times, some dream of affluence would come to disturb him, its motif was as far removed from an unworthy lust of gain, as his soul was from the ambitions and appetites of the majority of his fellows. Yet, what of vulgar acquisitiveness lacked in him was supplied somewhat by the spirit of the romantic quest. His bright soul would occasionally covet a larger scope for its experiences, and, to that

end, the means—the only earthly means—to their enlargement. If he ever thought of money, it was as the golden key to the complex heart of the world.

It was his custom, during the luncheon hour, to read the Daily Post. All government clerks read the Daily Post, because it is the organ of the élite. Gilead differed from the most, however, in that he read the Daily Post wholly and solely for the sake of its front page advertisements; and he was wise. Leading articles will be prejudiced, reporters unscrupulous, foreign telegrams will illustrate the art of political selection. Only in the calling of wares, the births, deaths and marriages, the cries of the Agony Column, does Nature speak in unequivocal terms. It was upon the Agony Column of the Daily Post that Gilead was wont to whet his appetite for the emotional truths of life.

We all know this Agony Column. It is unique amongst its Daily fellows—more stirring, more motley, more shrill with the personal note than any other. It is not that its ciphers are more elegantly cryptic, that its moneylenders are more large-hearted and open-handed in a princely unsuspecting sort of way, that its private enquiry agencies are more distinguished, or its face-creams more modish than those to be found quoted in other Agony Columns—though, to be sure, a certain aroma of exclusiveness might be claimed for the sellers of wares advertised under the ægis of an aristocratic name. It is its perpetual undaunted appeals to the rich and benevolent, or to the fashionable and needy, which make it wholly singular among its class. Reading and pondering these day by day, Gilead came to the conclusion that the Daily Post was not so much the organ of the Tariff, or of any other reformers, as the organ of benevolence pure and simple. How otherwise could this persistent cry for help be maintained in it? There must be some response to justify its clamour.

He seldom read further than that first page. Its matter perennially fascinated and haunted him. He would have liked to trace every one of those essentially human cries to its source, and, according to its motive, still it, or give it cause to howl on a different note. And, if he had wealth, he would do it, he told himself. To play the Haroun Alraschid to suffering worth, to alleviate misery and expose imposture, by way of the countless channels offered by a popular ‘Daily’—what a rare purpose it would give to unmitigated opulence! And what an interest! No picture-galleries, no free-libraries, no lifting of international Cups for ostentation’s sake; but just an unnoticed pursuit of the individual submerged one, and his quiet resuscitation and well-comforted dismissal.

But there was another, and even more attractive side to the picture; and that was the mysteries his quest would penetrate, and of which the Agony Column of the Daily Post afforded some potential examples. How might not one gratify here one’s loving-kindness and one’s romanticism in a breath! The imaginative prospect was quite captivating to Gilead.

He divided the advertisements, generally, into five classes, Cosmetic, Private Enquiry, Situations (which revealed some others of the oddest), Nondescript (including anything from “Remember the Cats,” to a request to some titled lady to act as godmother to a gentleman’s child, or a suggestion that a third lady should join two others in arranging, and paying for, a series of painful experiments on human subjects), and, last and most numerous of all, Requests for Loans. Many of these found Gilead doubtful. While the appeals, from clergymen and others, on behalf of poor parishes, ruined homes, unemployed labour and so forth, affected him so sensibly that he would have liked to be able to answer every one of them with help proportionate to the needs it voiced, there were certain piteous entreaties for cash which left him cold. They smacked too much of the cunning and versatility of the professional mendicant; somehow they seemed a little shy of the inquisition of those clear contemplative eyes of his under their level brows. At the best they were couched in

that key which argued, if not a constitutional absence, at least a temporary surrender of pride and self-respect. But he was no Pharisee, and very remote from judging wrung poverty by the standards of comfort and a competence. The question was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and to the pursuit of that he would have rejoiced to devote whatever fortune the Fates might allot him.

And, perhaps because his aspirations were so singular in a very ordinary world, taken with the fact that his temperament was even a curiously calm and virginal one, the Fates, who are a rather spinstery and spiteful triplet on the whole, were moved to do the unexpected thing by him—and in a very handsome and appropriate manner—by causing Messrs Plover, Stone and Company, the respectable solicitors, to insert an advertisement in the Agony Column of that very Daily Post, inviting the next-of-kin of the late Mr Lemuel Lamb to call upon them and hear of something considerably to his advantage.

Gilead read the advertisement in due course, and considered it with characteristic sobriety and an even pulse. “If,” he thought, “there is anything out of the common in this, I shall not forget my pledge to the Quest.”

He finished his chop placidly, recalling some traits of the departed Lemuel, who, he could little doubt (though with a philosophic reservation for contingencies) had been his sole surviving relative on the mother’s side. He remembered, with a certain easy gratification, how this disregarded uncle of his, from being a scapegrace and rather impossible waster, had been reported—from Australia, whither he had withdrawn—a reformed character of late years, which he had devoted to the amassing of a considerable fortune made out of stock—but whether soup or sheep Gilead did not know. Nor did he care in the least. All money was dirty stuff in the making. The moral of acquisition was in the cleansing of the hands that followed.

He brushed a crumb or two from his waistcoat, paid his bill, and returned to Whitehall to request a short leave of absence. None might have guessed from his exterior the issues which turned upon that petition.

It is not my purpose to recount the details of the interview which followed, or the processes by which identification was secured, and a claim substantiated. Suffice it to say that ‘Loquacious Lemuel,’ as he was known in the land of his adoption, had turned his natural predatory instincts to phenomenal profit during the few years that opportunity had allotted him for their full play, and had then, in a mood of magnificent atonement, bequeathed the whole of his gigantic fortune to the credulous brother-in-law in England whom he had once been instrumental in impoverishing, and whose sole heir Gilead remained by will. The young man—to jump formalities, and eschew all bewildering calculations of figures—entered upon his new world rich, in the stereotyped phrase, beyond the dreams of avarice—as if avarice ever had any dreams worth mentioning but of orts and candle-ends. But he faced his position with a clear brain, and a full appreciation of the ten thousand rapacities and importunities it would invite. As to that his plans were quite decided. He would employ a confidential

secretary, and some subordinate agents and amanuenses, and to them entrust the active business of philanthropy, while he himself would stand in the background (the unconfessed one, the “nominis umbra,” like Junius) to direct operations, and give his personal attention to such cases as seemed to offer scope for the romantic quest.

He advertised, somewhat in the following terms: “Private Secretary wanted by a gentleman of means. Good salary offered to one willing to devote himself wholly to the interests of his employer. Address, in the first instance—” here followed the number of a house in Victoria Street, a suite of rooms in which Gilead had already furnished and turned into a central bureau for his operations. The result gave him food for thought. He received seven hundred and forty-nine replies, one hundred and sixty-eight of which were delivered on the date of the advertisement. He recognized at once his single incapacity for dealing with that vast stack of correspondence, and put on his hat and went to see Mr Plover in Arundel Street.

Mr Plover’s appearance and expression needed, perhaps, the assurance of his firm’s time-honoured reputation to make them convincing. He was a slack-lipped, beautifully white-whiskered old gentleman, wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez, which, being near the tip of his nose, were wont occasionally to topple over and get in the way of his speech. One had to put some force upon oneself to read legal profundity in features which seemed to betray even an excess of amiable vacuity. But one knew that the antiquity of the firm and its weighty connexions stood behind, and so one resigned oneself, like Longfellow’s good Christian, to a pious confidence in the things which “are not what they seem.”

Mr Plover applied to the difficulties of this immensely important new client that Napoleonic method which resolves all complexities by annihilation.

“Seven hundred and forty-nine!” said he. “Dear, dear! Now, take my advice, and make a bonfire of the lot, and start afresh.”

“Would that be fair?” said Gilead.

“Only one can succeed, you know,” said Mr Plover. “Make it the seven hundred and fiftieth.”

He sat back in his chair, tilted his head, and his glasses lost their balance. “Seven hundred and fiftieth,” he mumbled crookedly behind their lenses.

“Yes?” said Gilead, calmly inquisitorial.

“I venture to think I know the very man for your purpose,” said Mr Plover, smiling, with the glasses in place once more.

“Yes?” said Gilead again.

“His name is Nestle,” said the lawyer—“Herbert Nestle. He is a man of immense industry and capacity, and at present out of a situation.”

“What was his last?” asked the client.

“He was conveyancing clerk,” said Mr Plover, “to Broker and Borrodaile, since in liquidation. There was some question of trust funds, and Nestle was scandalously misused. A man with clean hands—he has my strong personal recommendation, Mr Balm, if that counts for anything with you.”

“It settles a difficulty,” said Gilead, rising.

He left Mr Plover preparing to draw out and sign several folio pages of cheques, a task, deputed to him by his partners, which he greatly enjoyed, and executed with the minutest care and precision, ruling all the cross lines.

CHAPTER I. THE QUEST OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

Mr Herbert Nestle, knocking confidently and entering softly, laid the morning’s Daily Post before his Chief, who had just entered and was pulling off his gloves.

“Anything especial?” asked Gilead.

“I have thumb-marked one,” said the secretary, “which seemed to me perhaps worth your personal attention.”

The Bureau—known as Lamb’s Agency—was already in working order, and daily settling into its pace. Its operations so far had seemed wholly to justify its existence, and its founder was satisfied. During this first month of its being some score of deserving cases had been helped, and almost as many shams exposed. The world was happier and cleaner by that measure; and, for the future, professional cadgers promised to grow shy of risking the inquisition of a body so merciless in its penetration, behind which stood a force so mysterious in its origin, and having, apparently, such inexhaustible funds at its disposal.

Gilead kept his little private office on the floor above the Agency, and from that shrouded adytum issued the motive power to the mechanism below. There he sat, or thence departed, unheard, unapproachable, an enigmatic, formidable figure to his employés, holding vast destinies in the hollow of his hand. No one of them, saving the privileged secretary, was permitted to apply to him on general grounds; and to his rare appearances in the offices was accorded, particularly by the two lady typewriters, a hushed deference almost religious in its character. Much of this was due, no doubt, to the halo of countless gold which surrounded him; but indeed Gilead’s charm of person, serene, passionless, clear-eyed as an angel’s, and as coldly beautiful, had at least its influence on the flutterings of susceptible hearts.

His establishment comprised, in addition to the secretary and the two ladies, half a dozen correspondents or book-keepers, and as many active agents, sound men and sagacious, whose business it was to visit and report upon the cases. To them was entrusted the investigation of the ‘Oh, please do help!’ petitions—the five, or fifteen, or fifty, or five-hundred pound loan-requests, for the saving of a home, or the buying of a business, or the stocking of a fashionable millinery, or the settling of debts incurred through Bridge or speculation, or the enabling a sporting curate to purchase a motor-bicycle, or the shipping of a promising family to Canada, or the feeding of a clergyman’s sick aunt on jellies and port wine. The plaints (many from titled lips) soon became susceptible to classification, and were found generally weakest on the side which betrayed the most agonized “derangement of epitaphs” and the most fervent ejaculations. The result in all ways was instructive, as much in its revelation of the systematic fraud which battened on timid uninvestigating charity, as

of the pitiful flimsiness of the bulwark which stood between the light of social respectability, with a name and a number on its door, on the one side, and the outer darkness, with its obliteration of all personality, on the other. Gilead’s heart often grew sick, as this dissected stuff of craft and misery, of shamefulness and shamelessness, was submitted to his judgment. But his comfort lay in the sanitary acumen of his Bureau, and so long as that continued to work unimpaired, he had no intention of taking his hand from the lever.

The month, so far as his individual quest was concerned, had proved a dull one, void of romantic incitement. He received, therefore, his secretary’s statement with some quickening of interest. Quiet and unemotional in his decisions, he had satisfied himself that Mr Plover’s eulogium on this man had been justified. He found him acute, resourceful, penetrative, energetic, humane—such a coadjutor as he could most have desired. Nestle virtually managed the agency on its practical side, and possessed his chief’s full confidence. His features and unjarring personality were pleasant things moreover to his master, who was habitually fastidious in the matters of conduct and appearance. The secretary was a very good-looking young man, in a fair boyish way, and so gentle in voice and manner that one might never have guessed the spirit of determination which underlay that soft exterior. In suggestion he was subordinate angel to the other, though somewhat older, and far more full of worldly wisdom. But the only visible mundane feature about him was his spectacles.

Gilead sat down in his padded office-chair, and crossing his legs easily, consulted the paper lying on the desk before him.

“Indeed, Nestle?” he said. “Which is it?”

The secretary, bending respectfully over, ran a fresh white-nailed finger down the Agony Column, and stopped it at a three-line advertisement:—

“Lady (young) a victim to persecution, seeks honourable employment to extricate her from pressing difficulties. Good typewriter and linguist. Address Viatrix, Rufus Cottage, Knight’s Hill, West Norwood.”

Gilead read and considered, his hand thoughtfully caressing his chin. Then he looked up.

“You think it promising?” he said.

The secretary, withdrawn a little, deferred to his employer.

“If I am right, sir, in interpreting your mood.”

Gilead reflected.

“There has been a monotony, I admit, hitherto,” he said. “You differentiate this, somehow, from the others?”

“It is, if I may use the expression, sir, manly—no cringing. There are tokens of culture; and the hint of persecution, the mystery, puts it in another category. Certainly it is a lady—and young.”

“You have misread me, Nestle,” said his master, “if you can hint that as an objection. I should be a useless agent in this business were I constitutionally susceptible. The sex has never more than an abstract attraction for me, and any desire I may have to possess it is limited to its idealised presentments in art.”

He returned to the advertisement, frowning a little, while the secretary murmured an apology. Presently he looked up, with decision.

“I will undertake,” he said, “this case in person. You will of course allow no hint of the fact to escape you.”

“Of course, Mr Balm.”

They spent the subsequent hour or two in discussing the business of the Bureau, and at two o’clock Gilead, having lunched lightly at Victoria Station, took a train thence for West Norwood.