Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings Page 2

  "Oh, certainly no one would accuse you of being commercialists,"agreed the _Sale_ man kindly. "Hallo, what's up?"

  Henry had stiffened suddenly, and sat straight and rigid, like a dogwho dislikes another dog. His companion followed his tense gaze, andsaw a very neat, agreeable-looking and gentlemanly fellow, exquisitelycleaned, shaved, and what novelists call _groomed_ (one supposes thisto be a kind of rubbing-down process, to make the skin glossy), withgray spats, a malacca cane, and a refined gray suit with a faintstripe and creases like knife-blades. This gentleman was strolling byin company with the senior British delegate, who had what foreignersconsidered a curious and morbid fad for walking rather than driving,even for short distances.

  "Which troubles you?" inquired the representative of the _Daily Sale_."Our only Lord B., or that Secretariat fellow?"

  "That Secretariat fellow," Henry replied rather faintly.

  The other put on his glasses, the better to observe the neat,supercilious figure. He laughed a little.

  "Charles Wilbraham. Our Gilbert. The perfect knut. The type that doesus credit abroad. Makes up for the seedy delegates and journalists,what?... He is said to have immense and offensive private wealth. Infact, it is obvious that he could scarcely present that unobtrusivelyopulent appearance on his official salary. They don't really get much,you know, poor fellows; not for an expensive place like this.... Thequeer thing is that no one seems to know where Wilbraham gets hismoney from; he never says. A very close, discreet chap; a regularcivil servant. Do you know him, then?"

  Henry hesitated for a moment, appearing to think. He then replied, inthe pained and reserved tone in which Mr. Wickham might have commentedupon Mr. Darcy, "Slightly. Very slightly. As well as I wish. In fact,rather better. He wouldn't remember me. But I'll tell you one thing.But for a series of trivial circumstances, I too might have been ...oh, well, never mind. Not, of course, that for any consideration Iwould serve in this ludicrous and impotent machine set up by thecorrupt states of the world. Wilbraham can: I could not. My soul, atleast, is my own."

  "Oh, come," remonstrated the other journalist. "Come, come. Surelynot.... But I must go and look up a few people. See you later on."

  Henry remained for a minute, broodingly watching the neat recedingback of Charles Wilbraham. How happy and how proud it looked, thatserene and elegant back! How proud and how pleased Henry knew CharlesWilbraham to be, walking with the senior British delegate, whom everyone admired, along the Quai du Mont Blanc! As proud and as happy as aprince. Henry knew better than most others Charles Wilbraham'sprofound capacity for proud and princely pleasure. He loved theseassemblies of important persons; loved to walk and talk with thegreat. He had, ever since the armistice, contracted a habit of beingpresent at those happy little gatherings which had been, so far, aperiodic feature of the great peace, and showed as yet no signs ofabating. To Paris Charles Wilbraham had gone in 1919 (and how nearHenry had been to doing the same; how near, and yet how far!). To SanRemo he had been, to Barcelona and to Brussels; to Spa, to Genoa, evento Venice in the autumn of 1922. Besides all the League of NationsAssemblies. Where the eagles were gathered together, there, always,would Charles Wilbraham be.

  Henry winced at the thought of Charles's so great happiness. But lethim wait; only let Charles wait.

  "Holy Mother of God!" (for Henry was a Roman Catholic), "only let himwait!"

  4

  The Assembly Hall was, as seen from the Press Gallery, a study inblack and white. White sheets of paper laid on the desks, black coats,white or black heads.

  Young and old, black and white, the delegates stood and walked aboutthe hall, waiting for the session of the League of Nations Assembly tobegin. The hum of talk rose up and filled the hall; it was as if aswarm of bees were hiving. What a very great deal, thought Henry, hadthe human race to say, always! Only the little Japs at the back sat insilent rows, scores and scores of them (for Japanese are no use byones), immobile, impassive, with their strange little masks andslanting eyes, waiting patiently for the business of the day to begin.When it began, their reporters would take down everything that wassaid, writing widdershins, very diligently, very slowly, in theirsolemn picture language. There was something a little sinister, alittle macabre, a little Grand Guignolish about the grave, polite,mysterious little Japs. The Yellow Peril. Perilous because of theirimmense waiting patience, that would, in the end, tire the restlessWestern peoples out. How they stored their energy, sitting quiet inrows, and how the Westerners expended theirs! What conversations, whatgesticulations, what laughter filled the hall! The delegates greetingone another, shaking one another by the hand, making their alliancesand friendships for the session, arranging meals together, kindly,good-humoured, and polite, the best of friends in private for alltheir bitter and wordy squabbles in public. The chief Russiandelegate, M. Kratzky, a small, trim little ex-Bolshevik, turnedMonarchist by the recent _coup d'?tat_, was engaged in a genialconversation with the second French delegate. France had loudly andfirmly voted last year against the admission of Russia to the League,but when the _coup d'?tat_ restored the Monarchist Government (agovernment no less, if no more, corrupt than the Bolshevik rule whichhad preceded it, but more acceptable to Europe in general), Franceheld out to her old ally fraternal arms. The only delegates who cutthe Russians were the Germans, and among the several delegates who cutthe Germans were the Russians, for, as new members, these delegateswere jealous one of the other. The Turkish delegates, also recentlyadmitted, were meanwhile delightful to the Armenians, as if to provehow they loved these unhappy people, and how small was the truth ofthe tales that were told concerning their home life together. The twoIrish delegates, O'Shane from the Free State and Macdermott fromUlster, were personally great friends, though they did not get on welltogether on platforms, as both kept getting and reading aloudtelegrams from Ireland about crimes committed there by the other'spolitical associates. This business of getting telegrams happens allthe time to delegates, and is a cause of a good deal ofdisagreeableness.

  On this, the first morning of the Assembly, telegrams shot in in aregular barrage, and nearly every delegate stopped several. Many camefrom America. The trouble about America was that every nation in theLeague had compatriots there, American by citizenship, but somethingelse by birth and sympathy, so that the Ukrainian congregation ofWoodlands, Pa., would telegraph to request the League to save theirrelations in Ukraine from the atrocities of the Poles, and the Polishsettlement in Milwaukee would wire and entreat that their sisters andtheir cousins and their aunts might be delivered from the maraudingUkrainians, and Baptist congregations in the Middle West wired to theRoumanian delegation to bring up before the Assembly the persecutionof Roumanian Baptists. And the Albanian delegate (a benign bishop) hadtelegrams daily from Albania about the violation of Albanian frontiersby the Serbs, and the Serbian delegate had even more telegrams aboutthe invasions and depredations of the Albanians. And the German andPolish delegates had telegrams from Silesia, and the Central and SouthAmerican delegates had telegrams about troubles with neighbouringrepublics. And the Armenians had desperate messages from home aboutthe Turks, for the Turks, despite the assignment to Armenia of anational home, followed them there with instruments of torture and ofdeath, making bonfires of the adults, tossing the infants on pikes,and behaving in the manner customarily adopted by these people towardsneighbours. There is this about Armenians: every one who lives nearthem feels he must assault and injure them. There is this about Turks:they feel they must assault and injure any one who lives near them. Sothat the contiguity of Turks and Armenians has been even moreunfortunate than are most contiguities. Neither of these nations oughtto be near any other, least of all each other.

  Meanwhile the Negro Equality League wired, "Do not forget the colouredraces," and the Constructive Birth Control Society urged, "Make theworld safe from babies" (this, anyhow, was the possibly inaccurateform in which this telegram arrived), and the Blackpool MethodistUnion said, "The Lord be with your efforts after a World Peace,watched b
y all Methodists with hope, faith and prayer," and the BlueCross Society said, "Remember our dumb friends," and Guatemala (whichwas not there) telegraphed, "Do not believe a word uttered by thedelegate from Nicaragua, who is highly unreliable." As for theBolshevik refugees, they sent messages about the Russian delegationwhich were couched in language too unbalanced to be made public eitherin the Assembly Journal or in these pages, but they would be put inthe Secretariat Library for people to read quietly by themselves. Thisalso occurred to a telegram from the Non-Co-operatives of India, whowired with reference to the freedom of their country from Britishrule, a topic unsuited to discussion from a world platform.

  All this fusillade of telegrams made but small impression on therecipients, who found in them nothing new. As one of the Britishdelegates regretfully observed, "_Denique nullum est jam dictum quodnon sit dictum prius._"

  But one telegram there was, addressed to the acting-President of theLeague, and handed in to him in the hall before the session began,which aroused some interest. It remarked, tersely and scripturally, inthe English tongue, "I went by and lo he was not." It had beendespatched from Geneva, and was unsigned.

  "And who," said the acting-President meditatively to those round him(he was an acute, courteous, and gentle Chinaman), "is this Lo? It isa name" (for so, indeed, it seemed to him), "but it is not my name.Does the sender, all the same, refer to the undoubted fact that I, whoshall open this Assembly as its President, shall, after the firstday's session, retire in favour of the newly elected President? Is it,perhaps, a taunt from some one who wishes to remind me of thetransience of my office? Possibly from some gentleman of Japan ... orAmerica ... who knows? or does it, perhaps, refer not to myself, butto some other person or persons, system or systems, who will, so thesender foresees, have their day and cease to be?" The acting-Presidentwas a scholar, and well read in English poetry. But, as his knowledgedid not extend to the English translation of the Hebrew Psalms, headded, "It reads, this wire, like a quotation from literature?"

  One of the British delegates gave him its source and explained that,in this context, "lo" was less a name than an ejaculation, and wouldprobably, but for the limitations of the telegraphic code, have hadafter it a point of exclamation. "The telegram," added the Britishdelegate, who was something of a biblical student, "seems to be acombination of the Bible and Prayer Book translations of the verse inquestion. The Revised Version of the Bible has again anothertranslation, a rather unhappy compromise. I believe the correctrendering----"

  "It is sarcasm," interrupted a French Secretariat official, "_C'estl'ironie._ The sender means that we are of so little use that in hiseyes we don't exist. _C'est tout._ We're used to these gibes."

  "I expect it means," said another member of the Secretariat hopefully(he was sick of Geneva), "that the fellow thinks the League will soonbe moved to Brussels."

  "Is Maxse visiting Geneva by any chance?" inquired one of thedelegates from Central Africa. "It has rather his touch. But thenMaxse would always sign his name. He's unashamed.... I dare say thisis merely some religious maniac reminding us that _sic transit gloriamundi_. Very likely a Jew.... Look, I have a much better one than thatfrom the Non-Alcoholics...."

  So they proceeded in their leisurely, attached, and pleasant way todiscuss these outpourings from eager human hearts all over the globe.

  But the second French delegate, after brooding a while, saidsuddenly, "Ce t?l?gramme-l?, celui qui dit 'j'ai travers? par l?, etvoici, il est biff?!' les Boches l'ont exp?di?. Oui, justement. Tousles Boches veulent d?truire la Soci?t? des Nations; ils le d?sirentd'autant plus depuis que l'Allemagne est admise dans la Soci?t? desNations. C'est une chose tout ? fait certaine."

  The French would talk like that about the Germans: you could notstop them. They had not, and possibly never would have, what iscalled a League mind. Central Africa, who had remonstrated gentlybut to no effect, pointing out that Germans would probably not beacquainted with the English version of the Psalms, either PrayerBook or Bible. To prevent international emotion from running high,the acting-President caused the bell to be rung and the Assembly tobe summoned to their seats.

  5

  So here, thought Henry of the _British Bolshevist_, was this greatworld federation in session. He could not help being excited, for hewas naturally excitable, and it was his first (and, had he knownit, his last) Assembly. He was annoyed by the noisy moving andchattering of the people behind him in the gallery, which preventedhis hearing the opening speech so well as he otherwise would havedone. Foreigners--how noisy they were! They were for ever passing toand fro, shaking hands with one another, exchanging vivaciouscomments. Young French widows, in their heavy crape, gayest, mostresigned, most elegant of creatures, tripped by on their pin-likeheels, sweetly smiling their patient smiles. How different fromyoung British widows, who, from their dress, might just as well haveonly lost a parent or brother. All widows are wonderful: Henry knewthis, for always he had heard "Dear so-and-so is being simplywonderful" said of bereaved wives, and knew that it merely and inpoint of fact meant bereaved; but French widows are widows indeed.However, Henry wished they would sit still.

  Henry was at the end of a row of English journalists. On his right,across a little gangway, were Germans. "At close quarters," reflectedHenry, "one is not attracted by this unfortunate nation. It lacks--oris it rather that it has--a _je ne sais quoi_.... It is perhaps morefavourably viewed from a distance: but even so not really favourably.Possibly, like many other nations, it is seen to greatest advantage athome. I must visit Germany." For Henry was anxious to acquire a broad,wise, unbiased international mind.

  The acting-President was speaking, in his charming and faultlessEnglish. He was saying what a great deal the League had done sincethe preceding Assembly. It did indeed seem, as he lightly touched onit, a very great deal. It had grappled with disease and drugs,economics, sanitation, prostitution, and education; it had through itsCourt of Justice arbitrated several times in international disputesand averted several wars; other wars it had deplored; it had wrestledwith unemployment and even with disarmament ... ("not, perhaps, quitehappily put," murmured one British delegate to another). It had hadgreat tasks entrusted to it and had performed them with success. Ithoped to have, in the future, greater tasks yet; ... it had admittedto membership several new nations, to whom it had extended theheartiest fraternal welcome; ... above all it had survived in the faceof all its enemies and detractors.... This present session was facedwith a large and important programme. But before getting on to itthere must be elections, votings, committees, a new President, and soforth.

  The speaker sat down amid the applause proper to the occasion, andthe interpreter rose to translate him into French.

  An elderly English clergyman behind Henry tapped his shoulder with apencil and said, "What paper do you represent? I am reporting for the_Challenge_. The Churches have not taken enough interest in theLeague. One must stir them up. I preach about nothing else, in thesedays. The Church of England is sadly apathetic."

  "It is a fault churches have," said Henry. "All the same, the Pope hastelegraphed a blessing."

  Those who would fain follow the French interpreter hushed them. Henryleant over, and watched Latin America conferring among itself, lookingexcited and full of purpose. Latin America obviously had something onits mind.

  "What interests them so much?" he wondered aloud, and the journalistnext him enlightened him.

  "They've made up their minds to have a Latin American President again.They say they make a third of the Assembly, and it's disgraceful thatthey don't have one every year. They don't want Edwardes again; theywant one who'll let the Spanish-Americans get on their legs every fewminutes. Edwardes had lived abroad too long and was too cosmopolitanfor them. They're going to put up a really suitable candidate thistime, and jolly well see he gets it. He won't, of course. But theremay be the hell of a row."

  "That will be very amusing," said Henry hopefully.

  They were taking the votes of the delegates for the
committee on thecredentials of delegates. Suppose, thought Henry, that in that hallthere were one or more delegates whose credentials were impeachable;delegates, perhaps who had come here by ruse with forged authority, orby force, having stolen the credentials from the rightful owner.... Itmight be done: it surely could be done, by some unprincipledadventurer from a far country. Perhaps it had been done, and perhapsthe committee would never be the wiser. Or perhaps there would be apublic _expos?_.... That would be interesting. Public _expos?s_ werealways interesting. Henry's drifting glance strayed to the platform,where the Secretariat staff sat, or went in and out through thefolding door. There, standing by the door and watching the animatedscene, was Charles Wilbraham, composed, pleased, serene, looking likea theatrical producer on the first night of a well-staged play.

  Yes, public _expos?s_ were interesting....

  The committee was elected and the Assembly dispersed for lunch, overwhich they would occupy themselves in lobbying for the Presidentialelection in the afternoon. Henry saw Charles Wilbraham go out incompany with one of the delegates from Central Africa. No doubt butthat the fellow had arranged to be seen lunching with this mainstay ofthe League. To lunch with the important ... that should be the dailygoal of those for whom life is not a playground but a ladder. It wasCharles Wilbraham's daily goal: Henry remembered that from old days.

  6

  At the afternoon session the Assembly voted for a President and sixVice-Presidents. It took a long time, and considerable feeling wasinvolved. Five candidates were proposed: Roumania suggested a Frenchdelegate, Great Britain an Albanian bishop, Japan the senior Britishdelegate, Central Africa an eminent Norwegian explorer, and the LatinAmericans put up, between them, three of their own race. Owing tounfortunate temporary differences between various of these smallrepublics they could not all agree on one candidate.