The Lair of the White Worm/Chapter 29

SIR NATHANIEL WAS in the library next morning after breakfast when Adam came to him carrying a letter. As he entered the room he said:

“Her ladyship doesn’t lose any time. She has begun work already!”

Sir Nathaniel, who was writing at a table near the window, looked up.

“What is it?” said he.

Adam held him the letter he was carrying. It was in a blazoned envelope.

“Ha!” said Sir Nathaniel, “from Lady Arabella! I expected something of the kind.”

“But,” said Adam, “how could she have known we were here? She didn’t know last night.”

“I don’t think we need trouble about that, Adam. There is much we do not and cannot understand. This is only another mystery. Suffice it that she does now know. It is all the better and safer for us.”

“Better and safer?” replied Adam, amazed.

“Certainly. It is better to know the danger before us; and this is a warning, though it was not intended so. Let me see it. Addressed to Mr. Adam Salton! Then she knows everything. All the better.”

“How,” said Adam with a puzzled look. “How is it all the better?”

“General process of reasoning, my boy; and the experience of some years in the diplomatic world. Just that we are all the safer with a creature that follows its own instincts. This creature is a monster without heart or consideration for anything or anyone. She is not nearly so dangerous in the open as when she has the dark to protect her. Besides, we know, by our own experience of her movements, that for some reason she shuns publicity. Perhaps it is that she knows it won’t interfere in her designs on Caswall—or rather, on Caswall’s estate. In spite of her vast bulk and abnormal strength, she is afraid to attack openly. After all, vast as she is, she is only a snake and with a snake’s nature, which is to keep low and squirm and proceed by stealth and cunning. She will never attack when she can run away, although she knows well that running away would probably be fatal to her. What is the letter about?”

Sir Nathaniel’s voice was calm and self-possessed. When he was engaged in any struggle of wits he was all diplomatist.

“It is asking Mimi and me to tea this afternoon at Diana’s Grove, and hoping that you also will favour her.”

Sir Nathaniel smiled as he answered directly:

“Please ask Mrs. Salton to accept for us all.”

“Accept? To go there? She means some deadly mischief. Surely—surely it would be wiser not.”

“It is an old trick that we learn early in diplomacy, Adam: to fight on ground of your own choice. It is true that she initiated the place on this occasion; but by accepting it we make it ours. Moreover, she will not be able to understand our reason or any reason for our doing so, and her own bad conscience—if she has any bad or good—and her own fears and doubts will play our game for us. No, my dear boy, let us accept, by all means.”

“Must we accept for you too, sir? I am loth that you should run such a risk. Surely you are better out of it.”

“No! It is better that I should be with you. In the first place, it will be less suspicious—you know you are my guests, and it will be better to preserve convention than to break it. In the next place, and the main reason for my going, there will be two of us to protect your wife in case of necessity. As to fear for me, do not count that. In any case, I am not a timorous man. And in this case I should accept all the danger that could be heaped on me.”

Adam said nothing, but he silently held out his hand, which the other shook: no words were necessary.

When it was getting near tea-time, Mimi asked Sir Nathaniel:

“Shall we walk over? It is only a step.”

“No, my dear,” he answered. “We must make a point of going in state. We want all publicity.” She looked at him inquiringly. “Certainly, my dear. In the present circumstances publicity is a part of safety. Do not be surprised if, whilst we are at Diana’s Grove, occasional messages come for you—for all or any of us.”

“I see!” said Mrs. Salton. “You are taking no chances.”

“None, my dear. All I have learned at foreign courts and amongst civilised and uncivilised people is going to be utilised within the next couple of hours.”

“I shall gladly learn,” she said: “it may help me on other occasions.”

“I hope to God it will not!”

Sir Nathaniel’s voice was full of seriousness, which made the look grave also. Somehow it brought to her in a convincing way the awful gravity of the occasion. Before they came to the gate, Sir Nathaniel said to her:

“I have arranged with Adam certain signals which may be necessary if certain eventualities occur. These need be nothing to do with you directly. Only bear in mind that if I ask you or Adam to do anything, please do not lose a second in the doing of it. We shall all try to pass off such moments with an appearance of unconcern. In all probability nothing requiring such care will occur. She will not try force, though she has so much of it to spare. Whatever she may attempt to-day of harm to any of us will be in the way of secret plot. Some other time she may try force, but—if I am able to prognosticate such a thing—not to-day. The messengers who may ask for you or any of us will not be witnesses only: they may help to stave off danger.” Seeing query in her face he went on. “Of what kind the danger may be I know not, and cannot guess. It will doubtless be some ordinary circumstance of triviality; but none the less dangerous on that account. Here we are at the gate. Now, be self-possessed and careful in all matters, however small. To keep your head is half the battle.”

There were quite a lot of servant men in livery in the hall. The doors of the green drawing-room were thrown open, and Lady Arabella came forth and offered them cordial welcome. This having been got over, Lady Arabella went into the other room, where a servant was holding a salver on which was laid a large letter sealed. The instant her back was turned, Sir Nathaniel whispered to Adam:

“Careful! I remember just such a cloud of servants at the Summer Palace in the Kremlin the day the Grand Duke Alexipof was assassinated at the reception given to the Khan of Bokhara.”

With a slight motion of his left hand, he put the matter aside, enjoining silence. At that moment a servant in plain clothes came and bowed to Lady Arabella, saying:

“Tea is served, your ladyship, in the atrium.”

The doors of a suite of rooms were thrown partially open, the farthest of them showing the lines and colours of a Roman villa. Adam, who was acutely watchful and was suspicious of everything, saw on the far side of this newly disclosed room a panelled iron door of the same colour and configuration as the outer door of the inner room where was the well-hole wherein Oolanga had disappeared. Something in the sight alarmed him, and he quietly went forward and stood near the door. He made no movement even of his eyes, but he could see that Sir Nathaniel was watching him intently and, he fancied, with approval.

They all sat near the table spread for tea, Adam still keeping near the door. Lady Arabella had taken Mimi with her, the two men following, and sat facing the iron door. She fanned herself, impressively complaining of heat, and told one of the footmen to throw all the outer doors open. Tea was in progress when Mimi suddenly started up with a look of fright on her face; at the same moment, the men became cognisant of a thick smoke which began to spread through the room—a smoke which made those who experienced it gasp and choke. The men—even the footmen—began to edge uneasily towards the inner door. Lady Arabella alone was unmoved. She sat still in her seat at the table, with a look of unconcern on her face which disturbed all present, except Sir Nathaniel—and later, Adam, so soon as he caught Sir Nathaniel’s eye. Denser and denser grew the smoke, and more acrid its smell. Presently, Mimi, towards whom the draught from the open door wafted the smoke, rose up choking, and ran to the door, which she threw open to its fullest extent, disclosing on the outside of it a curtain of thin silk fixed not to the door but the doorposts. As the door opened more freely the draught from the open door swayed the thin silk towards her, enveloping her in a sort of cloud. In her fright, she tore down the curtain, whichenveloped her from head to foot. Then she ran towards the open outer door, unconscious or heedless of the fact that she could not see where she was going. At this moment, Adam, followed by Sir Nathaniel, rushed forward and joined her—Adam catching her by the upper arm and holding her tight. It was well that he did so, for just before her lay the black orifice of the well-hole, which, of course, she could not see with the silk curtain round her head. The floor was extremely slippery; something like thick oil had been spilled where she had to pass; and close to the edge of the hole her feet shot from under her, and she stumbled forward towards the well-hole.