“No. His part in the revolution was hidden even from most of those in it. There were reasons why he couldn’t appear.”
“There were. The chief one was that everybody knew he didn’t want any revolts, didn’t want anything but money.”
Grantham chewed his lower lip and said: “Oh, Lord, what a mess!”
Colonel Einarson arrived, in a dinner coat, but very much the soldier, the man of action. His handclasp was stronger than it needed to be. His little dark eyes were hard and bright.
“You are ready, gentlemen?” he addressed the boy and me as if we were a multitude. “Excellent! We shall go now. There will be difficulties tonight. Mahmoud is dead. There will be those of our friends who will ask: ‘Why now revolt?’ Ach!” He yanked a corner of his flowing dark mustache. “I will answer that. Good souls, our confrères, but given to timidity. There is no timidity under capable leadership. You shall see!” And he yanked his mustache again. This military gent seemed to be feeling Napoleonic this evening. But I didn’t write him off as a musical-comedy revolutionist—I remembered what he had done to the soldier.
We left the hotel, got into a machine, rode seven blocks, and went into a small hotel on a side street. The porter bowed to the belt when he opened the door for Einarson. Grantham and I followed the officer up a flight of stairs, down a dim hall. A fat, greasy man in his fifties came bowing and clucking to meet us. Einarson introduced him to me—the proprietor of the hotel. He took us into a low-ceilinged room where thirty or forty men got up from chairs and looked at us through tobacco smoke.
Einarson made a short, very formal speech which I couldn’t understand, introducing me to the gang. I ducked my head at them and found a seat beside Grantham. Einarson sat on his other side. Everybody else sat down again, in no especial order.
Colonel Einarson smoothed his mustache and began to talk to this one and that, shouting over the clamor of other voices when necessary. In an undertone, Lionel Grantham pointed out the more important conspirators to me—a dozen or more members of the Chamber of Deputies, a banker, a brother of the Minister of Finance (supposed to represent that official), half a dozen officers (all in civilian clothes tonight), three professors from the university, the president of a labor union, a newspaper publisher and his editor, the secretary of a students’ club, a politician from out in the country, and a handful of small business men.
The banker, a white-bearded fat man of sixty, stood up and began a speech, staring intently at Einarson. He spoke deliberately, softly, but with a faintly defiant air. The Colonel didn’t let him get far.
“Ach!” Einarson barked and reared up on his feet. None of the words he said meant anything to me, but they took the pinkness out of the banker’s cheeks and brought uneasiness into the eyes around us.
“They want to call it off,” Grantham whispered in my ear. “They won’t go through with it now. I know they won’t.”
The meeting became rough. A lot of people were yelping at once, but nobody talked down Einarson’s bellow. Everybody was standing up, either very red or very white in the face. Fists, fingers, and heads were shaking. The Minister of Finance’s brother—a slender, elegantly dressed man with a long, intelligent face—took off his nose glasses so savagely that they broke in half, screamed words at Einarson, spun on his heel, and walked to the door.
He pulled it open and stopped.
The hall was full of green uniforms. Soldiers leaned against the wall, sat on their heels, stood in little groups. They hadn’t guns—only bayonets in scabbards at their sides. The Minister of Finance’s brother stood very still at the door, looking at the soldiers.
A brown-whiskered, dark-skinned, big man, in coarse clothes and heavy boots, glared with red-rimmed eyes from the soldiers to Einarson, and took two heavy steps toward the Colonel. This was the country politician. Einarson blew out his lips and stepped forward to meet him. Those who were between them got out of the way.
Einarson roared and the countryman roared. Einarson made the most noise, but the countryman wouldn’t stop on that account.
Colonel Einarson said: “Ach!” and spat in the countryman’s face.
The countryman staggered back a step and one of his paws went under his brown coat. I stepped around Einarson and shoved the muzzle of my gun in the countryman’s ribs.
Einarson laughed, called two soldiers into the room. They took the countryman by the arms and led him out. Somebody closed the door. Everybody sat down. Einarson made another speech. Nobody interrupted him. The white-whiskered banker made another speech. The Minister of Finance’s brother rose to say half a dozen polite words, staring near-sightedly at Einarson, holding half of his broken glasses in each slender hand. Grantham, at a word from Einarson, got up and talked. Everybody listened very respectfully.
Einarson spoke again. Everybody got excited. Everybody talked at once. It went on for a long time. Grantham explained to me that the revolution would start early Thursday morning—it was now early Wednesday morning—and that the details were now being arranged for the last time. I doubted that anybody was going to know anything about the details, with all this hubbub going on. They kept it up until half-past three. The last couple of hours I spent dozing in a chair, tilted back against the wall in a corner.
Grantham and I walked back to our hotel after the meeting. He told me we were to gather in the plaza at four o’clock the next morning. It would be daylight by six, and by then the government buildings, the President, most of the officials and Deputies who were not on our side, would be in our hands. A meeting of the Chamber of Deputies would be held under the eyes of Einarson’s troops, and everything would be done as swiftly
