“Exactly.”
Maurice Norbert continued to smile.
“You had been instructed to take a suit-case and other items, and we are to understand that Dr. Prescott has come to some arrangement with those responsible for his disappearance whereby he will be present here, to- night?”
“Exactly,” Maurice Norbert repeated.
Sarah Lakin continued fixedly to watch Norbert, but she did not speak. Senator Lockly cleared his throat, and:
“I don’t understand,” he declared, “why, having found him, you left him. It seems to me there’s no guarantee even now that he will arrive.”
“One of the curious features,” rapped Nayland Smith, standing up and beginning to pace the floor, “to which I referred. . . .” He turned suddenly, facing Norbert. “I don’t entirely understand your place in this matter, Mr. Norbert.
And I believe”—glancing aside—” that Miss Lakin shares my doubts.”
“I do,” Sarah Lakin replied in her deep, calm voice.
“Forgive me”—Norbert bowed to the speaker—”but in this hour of crisis we are naturally overwrought, every one of us. It isn’t personal, it’s national. These facts will wear a different complexion to-morrow. But accept my assurance, everybody, that Dr. Prescott will be here.” He glanced at his wrist-watch, “in fact, I must go down to meet him. I beg that you will do as I have asked. Senator, will you join me. He has requested that we shall be with him on the platform.”
Senator Lockly looked rather helplessly from Sarah Lakin to Nayland Smith, and then followed Norbet out of the office. As the door shut behind them:
“How long employed by Dr. Prescott?” rapped Nayland Smith.
“Maurice Norbert,” Sarah Lakin replied, “has been in my cousin’s service for rather more than a year.”
“Hepburn has been checking up on him. It has proved difficult, but we expect all the details to-morrow.”
At which moment the door was thrown open again, and the Abbot of Holy Thorn, wearing the dress of a simple priest stepped into the office!
The bearded face of Mark Hepburn might have been glimpsed over his left shoulder. Nayland Smith sprang forward.
“Dom Patrick Donegal!” he cried, “Thank God I see you here —and safe!”
Mark Hepburn came in and closed the door.
“My experiences, Mr. Smith,” the abbot replied calmly, “on my journey to the city, have convinced me that I have incurred certain dangers.” He smiled and gripped the outstretched hand. “But I think I warned you that I am a prisoner hard to hold. It is my plain duty in this crisis, since I am denied the use of the air, to be here in person.”
“One of our patrol cars” said Hepburn drily, “picked up the abbot twenty minutes ago and brought him here under escort. I may add . . . that the escort was necessary.”
“That is quite true,” the priest admitted. “A very tough-looking party in a Cadillac had been following me for several miles. But”—he ceased to smile and assumed by a spiritual gesture the r61e of his Church—”I have achieved my purpose. If I am to consider myself technically under arrest I must nevertheless insist, Mr. Smith, upon one thing. . . . Failing the appearance of my friend Orwin Prescott,
A sound resembling an approaching storm made itself audible. Mark Hepburn nodded to Nayland Smith and went out. Sarah Lakin stood up, her grave calm ruffled at last. Smith stepped to the doorway and stared along the corridor.
The sound grew louder—it was the cheering of thousands of voices. Dimly the strains of a military band were heard. Mark Hepburn came running back.
“Dr. Prescott is on the platform!” he cried, completely lifted out of himself by the excitement of the moment. “Harvey Bragg has just arrived. . . .”
in
The classic debate which the Moving Finger was writing into American history took place in an atmosphere of tension unequalled in the memory of anyone present. After the event there were many who recalled significant features: as, for instance, that Harvey Bragg used notes, his custom being to speak extemporaneously (if in the mood, for many hours). Also, that he frequently glanced in the direction of his secretary, Salvaletti, who seemed at times to be prompting him.
Hidden from the audience, Dom Patrick Donegal looked on at the worldly duel. And, helpless now to intervene, he realized, as everyone in that vast gathering realized, that Dr. Orwin Prescott was a beaten man.
As oratory, his performance was perhaps the finest in his career; his beautiful voice, his scholarship, put to shame the coarse bellowing and lamentable historical ignorance of his opponent. But in almost every sentence he played into the hands of Harvey Bragg: he fell into traps that a child could have avoided. With dignity, assurance, perfect elocution, he made statements which even the kindest critic must have branded as those of a fool.
At times it seemed that he was conscious of this. More than once he raised his hand to his forehead as if to collect his thoughts, and especially it was noticed that points raised in response to the apparent promptings of Salvaletti resulted in disaster for Dr. Orwin Prescott.
His keenest supporters lost heart. It appeared long before the debate was ended that Harvey Bragg offered the country prosperity. Dr. Prescott had nothing to offer but beautifully phrased sentences.
And the greatest orator in the United States, the Abbot of Holy Thorn, dumbly listened—looked on! While his friend Orwin Prescott, with every word that he uttered, broke down the fine reputation which laboriously and honourably he had built up.
