“Think of a number,” he cried. “Double it. Add ten. Take away the number you first thought of. Divide it by three, and what is the result?”
There was an awed silence. Surely the Russian, expert at evasion as he was, could not parry so direct a challenge as this.
He threw away his cigarette and lit a cigar.
“I understand,” he said, with a tinkle of defiance in his voice, “that the Suffragettes, as a last resource, propose to capture Mr. Asquith and sing the Suffragette Anthem to him.”
A startled gasp ran round the table.
“Because the higher he flies, the fewer?” asked Prince Otto, with sinister calm.
“Because the higher he flies, the fewer,” said the Russian smoothly, but with the smoothness of a treacherous sea.
There was another gasp. The situation was becoming alarmingly tense.
“You are plain-spoken, your Highness,” said Prince Otto slowly.
At this moment the tension was relieved by the Young Turk falling off his chair with a crash on to the floor. Everyone jumped up startled. Raisuli took advantage of the confusion to pocket a silver ash-tray.
The interruption had a good effect. Frowns relaxed. The wranglers began to see that they had allowed their feelings to run away with them. It was with a conciliatory smile that Prince Otto, filling the Grand Duke’s glass, observed:
“Trumper is perhaps the prettier bat, but I confess I admire Fry’s robust driving.”
The Russian was won over. He extended his hand.
“Two down and three to play, and the red near the top corner pocket,” he said with that half-Oriental charm which he knew so well how to exhibit on occasion.
The two shook hands warmly.
And so it was settled, the Russian having, as we have seen, waived his claim to bombard London in his turn, there was no obstacle to a peaceful settlement. It was obvious that the superior forces of the Germans and Russians gave them, if they did but combine, the key to the situation. The decision they arrived at was, as set forth above, as follows. After the fashion of the moment, the Russian and German generals decided to draw the Colour Line. That meant that the troops of China, Somaliland, Bollygolla, as well as Raisuli and the Young Turks, were ruled out. They would be given a week in which to leave the country. Resistance would be useless. The combined forces of the Germans, Russians, Swiss, and Monacoans were overwhelming, especially as the Chinese had not recovered from their wanderings in Wales and were far too footsore still to think of serious fighting.
When they had left, the remaining four Powers would continue the invasion jointly.
Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig went to bed that night, comfortably conscious of a good work well done. He saw his way now clear before him.
But he had made one miscalculation. He had not reckoned with Clarence Chugwater.
Part Two
Chapter 1
IN THE BOY SCOUTS’ CAMP
Night!
Night in Aldwych!
In the centre of that vast tract of unreclaimed prairie known to Londoners as the Aldwych Site there shone feebly, seeming almost to emphasise the darkness and desolation of the scene, a single light.
It was the camp-fire of the Boy Scouts.
The night was raw and windy. A fine rain had been falling for some hours. The date of September the First. For just a month England had been in the grip of the invaders. The coloured section of the hostile force had either reached its home by now, or was well on its way. The public had seen it go with a certain regret. Not since the visit of the Shah had such an attractive topic of conversation been afforded them. Several comic journalists had built up a reputation and a large price per thousand words on the King of Bollygolla alone. Theatres had benefited by the index of a large, new, unsophisticated public. A piece at the Waldorf Theatre had run for a whole fortnight, and “The Merry Widow” had taken on a new lease of life. Selfridge’s, abandoning its policy of caution, had advertised to the extent of a quarter of a column in two weekly papers.
Now the Young Turks were back at school in Constantinople, shuffling their feet and throwing ink pellets at one another; Raisuli, home again in the old mountains, was working up the kidnapping business, which had fallen off sadly in his absence under the charge of an incompetent
The Swiss army had also gone home, in order to be in time for the winter hotel season. There only remained the Germans, the Russians, and the troops of Monaco.
In the camp of the Boy Scouts a vast activity prevailed.
Few of London’s millions realise how tremendous and far-reaching an association the Boy Scouts are. It will be news to the Man in the Street to learn that, with the possible exception of the Black Hand, the Scouts are perhaps the most carefully-organised secret society in the world.
Their ramifications extend through the length and breadth of England. The boys you see parading the streets with hockey-sticks are but a small section, the aristocrats of the Society. Every boy in England, and many a man, is in the pay of the association. Their funds are practically unlimited. By the oath of initiation which he takes on joining, every boy is compelled to pay into the common coffers a percentage of his pocket-money or his salary. When you drop his weekly three and sixpence into the hand of your office-boy on Saturday, possibly you fancy he takes it home to mother. He doesn’t. He spend two-and-six on Woodbines. The other shilling goes into the treasury of the Boy Scouts. When you visit your nephew at Eton, and tip him five pounds or whatever it is, does he spend it at the sock-shop? Apparently, yes. In reality, a quarter reaches the common fund.
