The crimson circle
“How is that for nerve?” asked Derrick.
“I should imagine you’d have something to say to the young lady,” was
the Commissioner’s only comment.
Derrick Yale was very seldom conventional, either in his speech or his
behaviour, but for once he found it difficult to deal with a painful
situation other than in the time-honoured way.
The girl had reached the office a few minutes before him, and she was
taking off her hat when he came in.
“One moment, Miss Drummond,” he said. “I have a few words to say to
you before you continue your work. Why were you away from the office
at lunch time? I particularly asked you to be here.”
“And Mr. Willings particularly asked me to go to lunch,” said Thalia
with an innocent smile, “and as he is a member of the Government, I am
sure you would not have liked me to refuse.”
“How did you come to know Mr. Willings?”
She looked at him up and down with that cool, insolent glance of hers.
“There are many ways one may meet men,” she said. “One may advertise
for them in the matrimonial newspapers, or one may meet them in the
park, or one may be introduced to them. I was introduced to Mr.
Willings.”
“When?”
“This morning,” she said, “at about two o’clock. I sometimes go to
dances at Merros Club,” she explained. “It is the relaxation which my
youth excuses. That is where we became acquainted.”
Yale took some money from his pocket and laid it on the desk.
“There is your week’s wages, Miss Drummond,” he said without heat. “I
shall not require your services after this afternoon.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Aren’t you going to reform me?” she asked him so seriously that he
was taken aback. Then he laughed.
“You’re beyond reformation. There are many things I will excuse, and
had there been a serious shortage in the petty cash, I could have
overlooked that. But I cannot allow you to leave my office when I give
you explicit instructions to stay here.”
She picked up the money and counted it.
“Exactly the sum,” she mocked. “You must be Scottish, Mr. Yale.”
“There is only one way that you could be reformed, Thalia Drummond.”
His voice was very earnest, and he seemed to experience a difficulty
in finding the right words.
“And what is that, pray?”
“For a man to marry you. I’m almost inclined to make the experiment.”
She sat on the edge of the desk and rocked with silent laughter.
“You are funny,” she said at last, “and now I see that you are a true
reformer.” She was solemnity itself now. “Confess, Mr. Yale, that you
only look upon me as an experiment, and that you have no more
affection for me than I have for that aged and decrepit blue-bottle
crawling up the wall.”
“I’m not in love with you, if that is what you mean.”
“I did mean something of the sort,” she said. “No, on the whole, I
think I’ll take my dismissal and my week’s wages, and thank you for
giving me the opportunity of meeting and serving such a brilliant
genius.”
He ended the conversation as though he had made some business proposal
which had been declined, and said something about giving her a
reference, and there the matter ended for him. He went into his
office, and did not even do her the honour of slamming the door after
him.
And yet her dismissal was a serious matter for Thalia. It meant one of
two things. Either that Derrick Yale seriously suspected her--and that
was the gravest possibility to her--or else that her discharge was
only a ruse, part of a deeper plan to bring about her undoing.
On her way home she recalled his reference to Johnson of Mildred
Street. There might be something behind that beyond the revelation of
the fact that he knew she was associated with the Crimson Circle, and
he wanted her to know he knew.
When she reached her flat there was a letter waiting for her, as there
had been on the previous night. The controlling spirit of the Crimson
Circle was an assiduous correspondent as far as she was concerned. In
the privacy of her own room she tore open the envelope.
“You did well,” (the letter ran). “You have carried out my
instructions to the letter. The introduction to Willings was well
managed and, as I promised you, there was no difficulty. I wish you to
know this man thoroughly and discover what are his little weaknesses.
Particularly do I wish to know his attitude of mind and the real
attitude of the Cabinet towards my proposal. The dress you wore at
lunch to-day was not quite good enough. Do not spare expense in the
matter of costume. Derrick Yale is dismissing you this afternoon, but
that need not trouble you, for there is no further need for you to
stay in his office. You are dining to-night with Willings. He is
particularly susceptible to feminine charms. If possible, let him
invite you to his house. He has a collection of ancient swords of
which he is very proud. You will then be able to discover the lay of
the house.”
She looked into the envelope. There were two crisp notes for a hundred
pounds, and as she put them into her little hand-bag her face was very
grave.
Chapter XXXVI.
The Circle Meets
Mr. Raphael Willings was a product of his age. Though he was still
in the early forties, he had pushed himself into Cabinet rank by the
sheer force of his character. To describe him as a popular Minister
would be to stretch the truth beyond permissible bounds. He was
neither popular with his colleagues, nor with the country who, whilst
recognising his remarkable powers and acclaiming him as the greatest
of the parliamentary orators, nevertheless distrusted him. He had
given so many proofs of his insincerity that it was remarkable that he
should have attained to the position he occupied.
But he had a number of followers. Men who were unwavering in their
faith, who could be depended upon to vote steadily at the lift of his
finger, and the Government majority was too small to risk the
exclusion of the Willings’ _bloc_.
Amongst his colleagues he had a bad name. It is not necessary to
particularise the circumstances which produced his reputation, but it
is a notorious fact that he escaped appearing in an unsavoury divorce
case by the skin of his teeth. So unpopular was he that twice Merros
Club and a fashionable night club of which he was a member and an
_habitué_, were raided by the police in the hope of compromising this
flighty politician. The raid had been planned by the wife of one of
his colleagues, and that Willings was not unaware of the fact, was
proved when the newspaper he owned aimed a bitter attack on the lady’s
unfortunate husband, an attack so worded, so framed, that the Minister
retired from public life.
A well-built man inclined to plumpness, slightly bald, there was no
gainsaying his personal charm. He was under the impression that his
introduction to Thalia Drummond had been skilfully manœuvred by
himself. He would have been horrified to know that the lady who
introduced him had received instructions that morning from the Crimson
Circle to bring the introduction about. The Crimson Circle had its
agents in all branches of life and in all classes. There were
book-keepers, there was at least one railway director, there was a
doctor and three _chefs d’hotel_ amongst the hundred who obeyed the
call of the Crimson Circle. They were well paid and their duties were
not onerous. Sometimes, as in this case, they had no more to do than
to bring about an introduction between two people whom the Crimson
Circle desired to meet, but in every case their instructions came to
them in exactly the same form.
The organisation of this great force was extraordinarily complete. In
some uncanny way the chief of the Crimson Circle had smelt penury and
disaster almost as soon as the suffering recipients of these two evil
factors were aware that they were present. One by one they had been
absorbed, each ignorant of the other’s identity, and profoundly
ignorant of their master. He had come to them in strange places and
circumstances. Each had his own function to perform, and generally the
part which was played by the subordinate members of the league was
ludicrously simple and unimportant.
A few members of the Circle had, in a panic, made statements to police
head-quarters, and from them it was learned how simple were some of
the tasks which were given out by the mystery man.
From fear of the tragic consequences of disloyalty, the majority of
the Crimson Circle remained loyal to their unknown chief, and it was a
remarkable tribute to his system of espionage, that when he sent forth
his summons, as he did on the day Derrick Yale lunched with the
Commissioner, calling every member of the Crimson Circle to the first
meeting they had ever held, giving them the most explicit instructions
as to the garb they should wear, and the means they should adopt to
avoid disclosing themselves to their fellows, he omitted the waverers
and the malcontents as though their very thoughts were written plainly
before him.
To Thalia Drummond that meeting will always remain the most vivid and
poignant memory of her association with the Crimson Circle.
The city contains many old churches, but none anterior in date to the
church of St. Agnes on Powder Hill. It had escaped the ravages of the
Great Fire, only to be smothered under by the busy city which had
grown up about it. Enclosed by tall warehouses, so that its squat
steeple was absent from the sky-line, it had a congregation which
might be numbered on the fingers of two hands, although it supported
a vicar who preached punctiliously every week to a congregation which
was practically paid to attend. Once a churchyard had surrounded it,
and the bones of the faithful had been laid to peace within its
shadow, but the avaricious city, grudging so much waste building land,
had passed Acts which had removed the bones to a more salubrious
situation and had covered the place of family vaults with office
buildings.
Entrance to the church was up an alley which led from a side passage
and the figures which slunk along the unlighted way seemed to melt
through the almost invisible doors into a gloom even thicker than the
night.
For in the church of St. Agnes the Crimson Circle held the first and
last meeting of his servitors.
Here, again, his organisation was marvellous. Every member of his
company had received explicit orders telling him to the very minute
when he must arrive, so that no two came together. How he obtained the
keys of the church; what careful manœuvring he must have planned to
bring the hour of meeting and the dispersal between the two periods
when the lane would be patrolled by the City police, Thalia Drummond
could only guess.
She came into the alley-way punctually, went up the two steps to a
door which opened as she approached and was closed immediately she
entered the lobby. There was no light of any kind, save for the faint
light of night which filtered through a stained-glass window.
“Go straight ahead,” whispered a voice. “You will take the end of the
second pew on the right.”
There were other people in the church. She could just distinguish
them, two in each pew, a silent, ghostly congregation, none speaking
to the other. Presently the man who had admitted her came into the
church and walked to the altar rails, and at the first words she knew
that the servants of the Crimson Circle sat in the presence of their
master.
His voice was low and muffled and hollow; she guessed he wore the veil
she had seen over his head the first night she had met him.
“My friends,” he said, and she heard every word, “the time has come
when our society will be dispersed. You have read my offer in the
public press; and you are interested to this extent, that I intend
distributing at least twenty per cent. of the money which the