Chapter 5

"MADAME DEATH-IN-LIFE."

As Mallow, at Drabble's elbow, stared at the demure little figure clothed in black, he realized that this was the fate controlling all things in connection with the affair he had in hand. Instantly he recognized in her the newspaper descriptions of the unknown housekeeper who had vanished so mysteriously and so completely from Athelstane Place. By name she had just been made known to him as Mrs. Arne, and he now learned that she and Madame Death-in-Life--the notorious Madame Death-in-Life who was dreaded throughout Europe--were one and the same person. He was face to face with the terrible woman with the terrible nick-name, the stormy petrel of Anarchy. At the mere rumour of her presence in their city, those in authority were wont suspiciously to look about them and doubly to safeguard their rulers. The Continental police would have given much to have had her safe in Monte Valerien, or Spandau, or Siberia. Hitherto she had always evaded them at the last moment--had thwarted their most zealous endeavours and carefully laid plans. She was Italian by birth, and had married an Englishman. She was now a widow and had made her husband's country her permanent home. As she sat before him now, so peacefully knitting, Mallow thought of Madame Defarge.

"I am delighted to see you, Mr. Mallow," she said in excellent English, with but little trace of foreign accent. "I have been expecting you for some time. You can go, doctor."

"But I want to----"

"You can go, doctor," repeated Mrs. Arne in the same unemotional voice. Without another word, Drabble, the bully, stole out of the room.

Mallow was amazed.

"It is necessary to preserve discipline here," said Madame, observing his expression. "Pray be seated, Mr. Mallow. If you do not mind, I will continue my knitting."

"I do not mind at all," replied Mallow, seating himself mechanically. He watched her firm, plump hands clicking the shining needles together as she wove her web of red wool-work.

She divined his thoughts. "You wonder at my employment," she said without a smile. "It is very feminine, is it not? Not quite in keeping perhaps, you think, with my reputation? But, you see, I am turning fiction into fact."

"Madame Defarge, I suppose you mean?"

She nodded. "A wonderful character in a wonderful book. The 'Tale of Two Cities' and your Carlyle's 'Revolution' are my favourite reading. What times, what people, what glory! I had rather work with guillotines than with bombs, but" (with a shrug) "what would you? We have improved on all that. I speak your tongue well do I not?"

"Excellently well, Madame; you are never at a loss for a word."

"I am never at a loss for anything, my friend," returned Madame Arne composedly. "But we must get to business. Tell me, why did you look so fixedly at me when you entered the room?"

"Madame, your celebrity----"

"Tell me the truth, please."

"Well, it was your name."

"As a celebrity?"

"No, as the lady who used Mrs. Dacre's house as the means of introducing Clara Trall to Mrs. Carson."

"Ah, so you know of that. You have been making inquiries. Why?"

"Because Clara has turned out badly, and has gone off to Italy with her mistress's husband."

"Quite so; I know it."

"From Major Semberry, I presume. Is he, too----"

"He is----what I please," answered Mrs. Arne with an odd look. "We will speak of him another time. So you are the man who is in love with Mrs. Carson! Oh, don't trouble to deny it. I know it. You made inquiries about me from Mrs. Dacre--on her behalf. A man does not take up a woman's burden--not a burden of this kind--unless he has something more than a platonic interest in her welfare."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Arne, but there are other subjects we can discuss more profitably."

"As you please. The subject has no interest for me; but I may explain that I purposely went to Mrs. Dacre's in the capacity of a dressmaker, that I might answer Mrs. Carson's inquiry from a good address. I was determined that she should engage Clara."

"As a spy?"

"Yes," admitted the woman, nonchalantly, "as a spy. It was necessary that I should have Carson watched."

"But your spy has betrayed you?"

"So much the worse for her. She shall die. How or when I have not yet determined."

Mallow shuddered. The woman repelled him. There was something uncanny in her bare statement of fact. Even a suggestion of the melodramatic would have relieved her assertion of its sheer brutality. But there was not a tinge of it. She merely stated that the girl should be killed, and went on knitting.

"You are not used to these things," she continued; "death is as nothing to us. To kill or to be killed, we are always ready."

"Have you no fear?" gasped Mallow.

"Of the law? No."

"Of God?"

"That is a matter between Him and myself."

"Ah, well," said Laurence, recovering his self-control, "we had better perhaps avoid anything approaching a theological discussion. But tell me one thing. Who is this Carson?"

"Why, who should he be."

"Well, he might, for instance, be impersonating the unfortunate man who was murdered in Athelstane Place."

Mrs. Arne's hands never stopped. Her colour never changed. "You have imagination, I see," she observed coldly. "That is a pity. It is apt to get people into trouble."

"Oh, as to that, I have trouble enough; and now that I have determined to join you, I shall probably have a good deal more."

"That is very possible. We are hunted like rats. Why do you wish to join us?"

"God knows," said Mallow, with a shrug.

"I also know. It is because Mrs. Carson will have nothing to say to you. It is in your despair you come to us, to throw your life away."

Mallow breathed more freely now. For the moment he had been unprepared. He had no excuse ready. He had relied upon the supreme egotism and enthusiasm of Drabble to get over any difficulty as to his intentions. But here was the most excellent of reasons already provided for him by Madame Death-in-Life herself.

Silently he acquiesced. She saw in him the foolish lover--rejected, dejected, yielding to despair. Mallow's silence convinced her she was right.

"You do not speak," she said, glancing at him. "Well, there is no need for you to do so. I am usually right in my conjectures. We have to thank Mrs. Carson for providing us with a promising brother."

Mallow protested. "I am not a brother yet," said he, emphatically. "And before I become one I must ask to know your exact aims, and the means by which you hope to accomplish them."

"Our aims!" said Mrs. Arne, laying aside her work. "We have but one aim--to establish the equality of man. The rich oppress the poor. There must be no rich, no poor, no oppressed."

"That, Madame, is absolutely impossible. Arrange it as you will to-day, you will be where you were to-morrow."

"I think not," replied Mrs. Arne. "We intend that each person shall work for the general good, and that he shall be paid by the State. If he refuse to work, then neither shall he be paid nor shall food be allowed to him. In the midst of plenty, he shall starve to death."

"A somewhat drastic arrangement, surely?" said Mallow.

"By no means. It is an absolutely necessary one. At any cost the lazy and the idle must be wiped out. Under such a r�gime no man need starve whilst he is willing to work. His life will be in his own hands."

"And it is by the hurling of bombs and such-like missives you hope to bring about your millennium?"

"Mr. Mallow, the world and its rulers will not listen to us. So long as we are what those in power choose to call good citizens' the injustice, the great wrongs under which we suffer now, will remain unaltered. If we are to be heard, we must perforce make a hearing for ourselves. Supplication is useless, hopeless. By terror alone can we wrench the attention which is our right. That is why we resort to force; that is why you hear of bombs, Mr. Mallow. For the safety of their lives even a king, an emperor, must heed us. Persistence in that direction will in the end secure to us the attention which we claim--the attention which is our right. That will be the dawn of the new era, Mr. Mallow, for we shall conquer. Till then--but there," said Madame, resuming her knitting, "I have much to do. I must leave you. I will place you in the hands of an instructor from whom you will learn everything that is needful. Then you can come to me and say if you will join us or not. I hope you will. We want men with brains and money."

"Particularly money!" said Mallow, contemptuously. He was not to be convinced by all her rhetoric.

"I do not deny it; we cannot have too much."

"Was it not a pity, then, to lose Carson and his fifty thousand pounds?"

"We have not lost it or him yet," said Mrs. Arne, with a long breath. "Think you that Italy is in the moon that my arm cannot reach him!"

"Then you did intend to have that fifty thousand!"

"I did; it was my scheme and to a point, it has been a successful one."

"In that case," said Mallow, deliberately, "Major Semberry is with you, no doubt. Without him you would have been helpless."

"Major Semberry has not taken the oath," said Mrs. Arne coldly, "but he is one of us."

"How does he reconcile that with his allegiance to his sovereign?"

Mrs. Arne knitted rapidly. "You don't know our power," she said. "In every grade of society we have our adherents--yes, even in your army. I was introduced into Mrs. Dacre's house by a friend of the cause. I am not a dressmaker, but it suited me to assume that capacity for the moment. I told Semberry to give Mrs. Dacre's address to Mrs. Carson. If I could not have got into that house, I should have given another address. Mrs. Carson wrote, and her letter naturally was given to me. I replied, and secured for the girl the position I designed for her. A friend in society helped me there, and there are dozens of people who can place me in any position I choose. You don't know my power. But enough of this"--she rose and pressed an electric button. "I will introduce you to Monsieur Rouge. He will instruct you. I have other things to do."

That personage was not long in making his appearance.

A mere spectre of a man was Monsieur Rouge, with complexion, hair, and eyes of a painfully washed-out hue. A cadaverous, lantern-jawed, unholy looking person. In common with the generality of workmen of his nationality--he was French--Monsieur Rouge was addicted to dark blue. He wore trousers, blouse, and peaked cap all of that colour. He had a habit, almost equine, of blinking and glancing out of the corners of his eyes. He was evidently a nervous man, and seemed but poorly fitted for the bold and daring path he had chosen to follow. Mallow was surprised at his appearance, as he was at the fact that Mrs. Arne should have chosen him for his instructor. But that lady evidently knew what she was about. After a few curt and explicit directions, conveyed to M. Rouge in his own tongue, she introduced him formally.

"Mr. Mallow," she said, "this is M. Rouge; at least, that is the name by which he is known among us. He has been a member of the brotherhood for some three years. You will find him a most enthusiastic disciple of our cause."

"Vive l'Anarchie. A bas les tyrans," whispered M. Rouge in endorsement.

"Keep your enthusiasm for a more fitting occasion, my friend," said Mrs. Arne, as Mallow thought with somewhat unnecessary severity. "Go with this gentleman, and tell him all that is permitted to be known by one who has yet to take our oath. You," turning to Mallow, "will come to me when you have made up your mind. For the present, good-bye--or, rather, au revoir."