IN THE FOG


By Richard Harding Davis


[Illustration: 01 I cannot tell you how much I have to thank you for]


[Illustration: 02 The four strangers at supper were seated together]




IN THE FOG




CHAPTER I


The Grill is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be
placed on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he
had received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in "Vanity Fair."

Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were
to ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that
particular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the Grill,
that it would sound like boasting.

The Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare's Theatre stood
on the present site of the "Times" office. It has a golden Grill which
Charles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript
of "Tom and Jerry in London," which was bequeathed to it by Pierce Egan
himself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still use
sand to blot the ink.

The Grill enjoys the distinction of having blackballed, without
political prejudice, a Prime Minister of each party. At the same sitting
at which one of these fell, it elected, on account of his brogue and his
bulls, Quiller, Q. C., who was then a penniless barrister.

When Paul Preval, the French artist who came to London by royal command
to paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales, was made an honorary
member--only foreigners may be honorary members--he said, as he signed
his first wine card, "I would rather see my name on that, than on a
picture in the Louvre."

At which. Quiller remarked, "That is a devil of a compliment, because
the only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been
dead fifty years."

On the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in
the Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of the
fireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table. At
the far end of the room the fire of the grill glows red, and, when the
fat falls, blazes into flame, and at the other there is a broad bow
window of diamond panes, which looks down upon the street. The four men
at the table were strangers to each other, but as they picked at the
grilled bones, and sipped their Scotch and soda, they conversed with
such charming animation that a visitor to the Club, which does
not tolerate visitors, would have counted them as friends of long
acquaintance, certainly not as Englishmen who had met for the first
time, and without the form of an introduction. But it is the etiquette
and tradition of the Grill, that whoever enters it must speak with
whomever he finds there. It is to enforce this rule that there is but
one long table, and whether there are twenty men at it or two, the
waiters, supporting the rule, will place them side by side.

For this reason the four strangers at supper were seated together, with
the candles grouped about them, and the long length of the table cutting
a white path through the outer gloom.

"I repeat," said the gentleman with the black pearl stud, "that the days
for romantic adventure and deeds of foolish daring have passed, and that
the fault lies with ourselves. Voyages to the pole I do not catalogue
as adventures. That African explorer, young Chetney, who turned up
yesterday after he was supposed to have died in Uganda, did nothing
adventurous. He made maps and explored the sources of rivers. He was
in constant danger, but the presence of danger does not constitute
adventure. Were that so, the chemist who studies high explosives, or
who investigates deadly poisons, passes through adventures daily. No,
'adventures are for the adventurous.' But one no longer ventures. The
spirit of it has died of inertia. We are grown too practical, too just,
above all, too sensible. In this room, for instance, members of this
Club have, at the sword's point, disputed the proper scanning of one
of Pope's couplets. Over so weighty a matter as spilled Burgundy on a
gentleman's cuff, ten men fought across this table, each with his
rapier in one hand and a candle in the other. All ten were wounded. The
question of the spilled Burgundy concerned but two of them. The eight
others engaged because they were men of 'spirit.' They were, indeed, the
first gentlemen of the day. To-night, were you to spill Burgundy on
my cuff, were you even to insult me grossly, these gentlemen would not
consider it incumbent upon them to kill each other. They would separate
us, and to-morrow morning appear as witnesses against us at Bow Street.
We have here to-night, in the persons of Sir Andrew and myself, an
illustration of how the ways have changed."

The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in
front of the fireplace. He was an elderly and somewhat portly person,
with a kindly, wrinkled countenance, which wore continually a smile
of almost childish confidence and good-nature. It was a face which the
illustrated prints had made intimately familiar. He held a book from him
at arm's-length, as if to adjust his eyesight, and his brows were knit
with interest.

[Illustration: 03 The men around the table turned]

"Now, were this the eighteenth century," continued the gentleman with
the black pearl, "when Sir Andrew left the Club to-night I would have
him bound and gagged and thrown into a sedan chair. The watch would not
interfere, the passers-by would take to their heels, my hired bullies
and ruffians would convey him to some lonely spot where we would guard
him until morning. Nothing would come of it, except added reputation to
myself as a gentleman of adventurous spirit, and possibly an essay in
the 'Tatler,' with stars for names, entitled, let us say, 'The Budget
and the Baronet.'"

"But to what end, sir?" inquired the youngest of the members. "And
why Sir Andrew, of all persons--why should you select him for this
adventure?"

The gentleman with the black pearl shrugged his shoulders.

"It would prevent him speaking in the House to-night. The Navy Increase
Bill," he added gloomily. "It is a Government measure, and Sir Andrew
speaks for it. And so great is his influence and so large his following
that if he does"--the gentleman laughed ruefully--"if he does, it will
go through. Now, had I the spirit of our ancestors," he exclaimed, "I
would bring chloroform from the nearest chemist's and drug him in that
chair. I would tumble his unconscious form into a hansom cab, and hold
him prisoner until daylight. If I did, I would save the British taxpayer
the cost of five more battleships, many millions of pounds."

[Illustration: 04 I would tumble his unconscious form into a hansom cab]

The gentlemen again turned, and surveyed the baronet with freshened
interest. The honorary member of the Grill, whose accent already had
betrayed him as an American, laughed softly.

"To look at him now," he said, "one would not guess he was deeply
concerned with the affairs of state."

The others nodded silently.

"He has not lifted his eyes from that book since we first entered,"
added the youngest member. "He surely cannot mean to speak to-night."

"Oh, yes, he will speak," muttered the one with the black pearl moodily.
"During these last hours of the session the House sits late, but when
the Navy bill comes up on its third reading he will be in his place--and
he will pass it."

The fourth member, a stout and florid gentleman of a somewhat sporting
appearance, in a short smoking-jacket and black tie, sighed enviously.

"Fancy one of us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up
within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I 'd be in a devil
of a funk myself. And yet he is as keen over that book he's reading as
though he had nothing before him until bedtime."

"Yes, see how eager he is," whispered the youngest member. "He does
not lift his eyes even now when he cuts the pages. It is probably an
Admiralty Report, or some other weighty work of statistics which bears
upon his speech."

The gentleman with the black pearl laughed morosely.

"The weighty work in which the eminent statesman is so deeply
engrossed," he said, "is called 'The Great Rand Robbery.' It is a
detective novel, for sale at all bookstalls."

The American raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

"'The Great Rand Robbery'?" he repeated incredulously. "What an odd
taste!"

"It is not a taste, it is his vice," returned the gentleman with the
pearl stud. "It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a
stranger, could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr.
Gladstone sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his in
Gaboriau. Since I have been a member of Parliament I have never seen him
in the library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He brings them
even into the sacred precincts of the House, and from the Government
benches reads them concealed inside his hat. Once started on a tale of
murder, robbery, and sudden death, nothing can tear him from it, not
even the call of the division bell, nor of hunger, nor the prayers of
the party Whip. He gave up his country house because when he journeyed
to it in the train he would become so absorbed in his detective
stories that he was invariably carried past his station." The member of
Parliament twisted his pearl stud nervously, and bit at the edge of his
mustache. "If it only were the first pages of 'The Rand Robbery' that
he were reading," he murmured bitterly, "instead of the last! With such
another book as that, I swear I could hold him here until morning. There
would be no need of chloroform to keep him from the House."

The eyes of all were fastened upon Sir Andrew, and each saw with
fascination that with his forefinger he was now separating the last two
pages of the book. The member of Parliament struck the table softly with
his open palm.

"I would give a hundred pounds," he whispered, "if I could place in his
hands at this moment a new story of Sherlock Holmes--a thousand pounds,"
he added wildly--"five thousand pounds!"

The American observed the speaker sharply, as though the words bore to
him some special application, and then at an idea which apparently had
but just come to him, smiled in great embarrassment.

Sir Andrew ceased reading, but, as though still under the influence of
the book, sat looking blankly into the open fire. For a brief space no
one moved until the baronet withdrew his eyes and, with a sudden start
of recollection, felt anxiously for his watch. He scanned its face
eagerly, and scrambled to his feet.

The voice of the American instantly broke the silence in a high, nervous
accent.

"And yet Sherlock Holmes himself," he cried, "could not decipher the
mystery which to-night baffles the police of London."

At these unexpected words, which carried in them something of the tone
of a challenge, the gentlemen about the table started as suddenly as
though the American had fired a pistol in the air, and Sir Andrew halted
abruptly and stood observing him with grave surprise.

The gentleman with the black pearl was the first to recover.

"Yes, yes," he said eagerly, throwing himself across the table. "A
mystery that baffles the police of London.

[Illustration: 05 "My name," he said, "is Sears."]

"I have heard nothing of it. Tell us at once, pray do--tell us at once."

The American flushed uncomfortably, and picked uneasily at the
tablecloth.

"No one but the police has heard of it," he murmured, "and they only
through me. It is a remarkable crime, to, which, unfortunately, I am the
only person who can bear witness. Because I am the only witness, I
am, in spite of my immunity as a diplomat, detained in London by the
authorities of Scotland Yard. My name," he said, inclining his head
politely, "is Sears, Lieutenant Ripley Sears of the United States Navy,
at present Naval Attache to the Court of Russia. Had I not been detained
to-day by the police I would have started this morning for Petersburg."

The gentleman with the black pearl interrupted with so pronounced an
exclamation of excitement and delight that the American stammered and
ceased speaking.

"Do you hear, Sir Andrew!" cried the member of Parliament jubilantly.
"An American diplomat halted by our police because he is the only
witness of a most remarkable crime--_the_ most remarkable crime, I
believe you said, sir," he added, bending eagerly toward the naval
officer, "which has occurred in London in many years."

The American moved his head in assent and glanced at the two other
members. They were looking doubtfully at him, and the face of each
showed that he was greatly perplexed.

Sir Andrew advanced to within the light of the candles and drew a chair
toward him.

"The crime must be exceptional indeed," he said, "to justify the police
in interfering with a representative of a friendly power. If I were not
forced to leave at once, I should take the liberty of asking you to tell
us the details."

The gentleman with the pearl pushed the chair toward Sir Andrew, and
motioned him to be seated.

"You cannot leave us now," he exclaimed. "Mr. Sears is just about to
tell us of this remarkable crime."

He nodded vigorously at the naval officer and the American, after first
glancing doubtfully toward the servants at the far end of the room,
leaned forward across the table. The others drew their chairs nearer and
bent toward him. The baronet glanced irresolutely at his watch, and with
an exclamation of annoyance snapped down the lid. "They can wait," he
muttered. He seated himself quickly and nodded at Lieutenant Sears.

"If you will be so kind as to begin, sir," he said impatiently.

"Of course," said the American, "you understand that I understand that
I am speaking to gentlemen. The confidences of this Club are inviolate.
Until the police give the facts to the public press, I must consider you
my confederates. You have heard nothing, you know no one connected with
this mystery. Even I must remain anonymous."

The gentlemen seated around him nodded gravely.

"Of course," the baronet assented with eagerness, "of course."

"We will refer to it," said the gentleman with the black pearl, "as 'The
Story of the Naval Attache.'"

"I arrived in London two days ago," said the American, "and I engaged a
room at the Bath Hotel. I know very few people in London, and even the
members of our embassy were strangers to me. But in Hong Kong I had
become great pals with an officer in your navy, who has since retired,
and who is now living in a small house in Rutland Gardens opposite the
Knights-bridge barracks. I telegraphed him that I was in London, and
yesterday morning I received a most hearty invitation to dine with him
the same evening at his house. He is a bachelor, so we dined alone and
talked over all our old days on the Asiatic Station, and of the changes
which had come to us since we had last met there. As I was leaving the
next morning for my post at Petersburg, and had many letters to write,
I told him, about ten o'clock, that I must get back to the hotel, and he
sent out his servant to call a hansom.

"For the next quarter of an hour, as we sat talking, we could hear the
cab whistle sounding violently from the doorstep, but apparently with no
result.

"'It cannot be that the cabmen are on strike,' my friend said, as he
rose and walked to the window.

"He pulled back the curtains and at once called to me.

"'You have never seen a London fog, have you?' he asked. 'Well, come
here. This is one of the best, or, rather, one of the worst, of them.' I
joined him at the window, but I could see nothing. Had I not known that
the house looked out upon the street I would have believed that I was
facing a dead wall. I raised the sash and stretched out my head, but
still I could see nothing. Even the light of the street lamps opposite,
and in the upper windows of the barracks, had been smothered in the
yellow mist. The lights of the room in which I stood penetrated the fog
only to the distance of a few inches from my eyes.

"Below me the servant was still sounding his whistle, but I could afford
to wait no longer, and told my friend that I would try and find the way
to my hotel on foot. He objected, but the letters I had to write were
for the Navy Department, and, besides, I had always heard that to be out
in a London fog was the most wonderful experience, and I was curious to
investigate one for myself.

"My friend went with me to his front door, and laid down a course for me
to follow. I was first to walk straight across the street to the brick
wall of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way along the
wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the sidewalk. They
would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of this street was
a row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings
of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates
at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course across
Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end
of these railings, going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my own
hotel.

"To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend
goodnight and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I
continued upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few
steps further, and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned
in the direction from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint
light cut in the yellow fog. I shouted 'All right,' and the voice of
my friend answered, 'Good luck to you.' The light from his open door
disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow
darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known
such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring
Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last
night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself
along the barrack wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as
familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that
a fog should spread upon the waters as that steam shall rise from a
kettle. But a fog which springs from the paved streets, that rolls
between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at half speed, that
drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric lights of the music hall,
that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of place as a tidal wave on
Broadway.

"As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were
coming from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each
other I stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But
the third time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had
disappeared, and the further I moved to find it the further I seemed
to be sinking into space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any
moment I might step over a precipice. Since I had set out I had heard
no traffic in the street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I
could only distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians. Several
times I called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered me, but only
to ask me where I thought he was, and then even he was swallowed up in
the silence. Just above me I could make out a jet of gas which I guessed
came from a street lamp, and I moved over to that, and, while I tried
to recover my bearings, kept my hand on the iron post. Except for this
flicker of gas, no larger than the tip of my finger, I could distinguish
nothing about me. For the rest, the mist hung between me and the world
like a damp and heavy blanket.

"I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and
the scrape of a foot moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as some one
stumbled, were the only sounds that reached me.

"I decided that until some one took me in tow I had best remain where
I was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the lamp,
straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near me some
people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even fancied I
could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet, but I could
not make out from which part of the compass the sounds came. And
sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand, and again, to
be floating high in the air above my head. Although I was surrounded by
thousands of householders--13--I was as completely lost as though I
had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There seemed to be no
reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I again set out, and at once
bumped against a low iron fence. At first I believed this to be an
area railing, but on following it I found that it stretched for a long
distance, and that it was pierced at regular intervals with gates. I was
standing uncertainly with my hand on one of these when a square of light
suddenly opened in the night, and in it I saw, as you see a picture
thrown by a biograph in a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in
evening dress, and back of him the lights of a hall. I guessed from its
elevation and distance from the side-walk that this light must come
from the door of a house set back from the street, and I determined
to approach it and ask the young man to tell me where I was. But in
fumbling with the lock of the gate I instinctively bent my head, and
when I raised it again the door had partly closed, leaving only a narrow
shaft of light. Whether the young man had re-entered the house, or had
left it I could not tell, but I hastened to open the gate, and as I
stepped forward I found myself upon an asphalt walk. At the same instant
there was the sound of quick steps upon the path, and some one rushed
past me. I called to him, but he made no reply, and I heard the gate
click and the footsteps hurrying away upon the sidewalk.

[Illustration: 06 A square of light suddenly opened in the night]

"Under other circumstances the young man's rudeness, and his
recklessness in dashing so hurriedly through the mist, would have struck
me as peculiar, but everything was so distorted by the fog that at the
moment I did not consider it. The door was still as he had left it,
partly open. I went up the path, and, after much fumbling, found the
knob of the door-bell and gave it a sharp pull. The bell answered me
from a great depth and distance, but no movement followed from inside
the house, and although I pulled the bell again and again I could hear
nothing save the dripping of the mist about me. I was anxious to be on
my way, but unless I knew where I was going there was little chance
of my making any speed, and I was determined that until I learned my
bearings I would not venture back into the fog. So I pushed the door
open and stepped into the house.

"I found myself in a long and narrow hall, upon which doors opened from
either side. At the end of the hall was a staircase with a balustrade
which ended in a sweeping curve. The balustrade was covered with heavy
Persian rugs, and the walls of the hall were also hung with them. The
door on my left was closed, but the one nearer me on the right was open,
and as I stepped opposite to it I saw that it was a sort of reception
or waiting-room, and that it was empty. The door below it was also open,
and with the idea that I would surely find some one there, I walked on
up the hall. I was in evening dress, and I felt I did not look like
a burglar, so I had no great fear that, should I encounter one of the
inmates of the house, he would shoot me on sight. The second door in the
hall opened into a dining-room. This was also empty. One person had
been dining at the table, but the cloth had not been cleared away, and
a nickering candle showed half-filled wineglasses and the ashes of
cigarettes. The greater part of the room was in complete darkness.

"By this time I had grown conscious of the fact that I was wandering
about in a strange house, and that, apparently, I was alone in it.
The silence of the place began to try my nerves, and in a sudden,
unexplainable panic I started for the open street. But as I turned,
I saw a man sitting on a bench, which the curve of the balustrade had
hidden from me. His eyes were shut, and he was sleeping soundly.

"The moment before I had been bewildered because I could see no one, but
at sight of this man I was much more bewildered.

"He was a very large man, a giant in height, with long yellow hair which
hung below his shoulders. He was dressed in a red silk shirt that was
belted at the waist and hung outside black velvet trousers which, in
turn, were stuffed into high black boots. I recognized the costume at
once as that of a Russian servant, but what a Russian servant in his
native livery could be doing in a private house in Knightsbridge was
incomprehensible.

"I advanced and touched the man on the shoulder, and after an effort he
awoke, and, on seeing me, sprang to his feet and began bowing rapidly
and making deprecatory gestures. I had picked up enough Russian in
Petersburg to make out that the man was apologizing for having fallen
asleep, and I also was able to explain to him that I desired to see his
master.

"He nodded vigorously, and said, 'Will the Excellency come this way? The
Princess is here.'

"I distinctly made out the word 'princess,' and I was a good deal
embarrassed. I had thought it would be easy enough to explain my
intrusion to a man, but how a woman would look at it was another matter,
and as I followed him down the hall I was somewhat puzzled.

"As we advanced, he noticed that the front door was standing open, and
with an exclamation of surprise, hastened toward it and closed it. Then
he rapped twice on the door of what was apparently the drawing-room.
There was no reply to his knock, and he tapped again, and then timidly,
and cringing subserviently, opened the door and stepped inside. He
withdrew himself at once and stared stupidly at me, shaking his head.

"'She is not there,' he said. He stood for a moment gazing blankly
through the open door, and then hastened toward the dining-room. The
solitary candle which still burned there seemed to assure him that the
room also was empty. He came back and bowed me toward the drawing-room.
'She is above,' he said; 'I will inform the Princess of the Excellency's
