them along a road, which, though I cannot pledge myself to approve of it in all its turnings and windings, is yet not unfitted to bring them somewhat nearer to goals to which there are few of us but would extend some measure of hope that the working classes of this great Empire may in due course, yet with no unnecessary delay, be enabled to arrive.”
Mr. Gladstone’s speech was an expansion of his postcard, punctuated by cheers. The only new thing in it was the graceful and touching way in which he revealed what had been a secret up till then—that the portrait had been painted and presented to the Bow Break o’ Day Club, by Lucy Brent, who in the fulness of time would have been Arthur Constant’s wife. It was a painting for which he had sat to her while alive, and she had stifled yet pampered her grief by working hard at it since his death. The fact added the last touch of pathos to the occasion. Crowl’s face was hidden behind his red handkerchief; even the fire of excitement in Wimp’s eye was quenched for a moment by a tear-drop, as he thought of Mrs. Wimp and Wilfred. As for Grodman, there was almost a lump in his throat. Denzil Cantercot was the only unmoved man in the room. He thought the episode quite too Beautiful, and was already weaving it into rhyme.
At the conclusion of his speech Mr. Gladstone called upon Tom Mortlake to unveil the portrait. Tom rose, pale and excited. His hand faltered as he touched the cord. He seemed overcome with emotion. Was it the mention of Lucy Brent that had moved him to his depths?
The brown holland fell away—the dead stood revealed as he had been in life. Every feature, painted by the hand of Love, was instinct with vitality: the fine, earnest face, the sad kindly eyes, the noble brow seeming still a-throb with the thought of Humanity. A thrill ran through the room—there was a low, undefinable murmur. O, the pathos and the tragedy of it! Every eye was fixed, misty with emotion, upon the dead man in the picture and the living man who stood, pale and agitated, and visibly unable to commence his speech, at the side of the canvas. Suddenly a hand was laid upon the labor leader’s shoulder, and there rang through the hall in Wimp’s clear, decisive tones the words: “Tom Mortlake, I arrest you for the murder of Arthur Constant!”
CHAPTER IX
For a moment there was an acute, terrible silence. Mortlake’s face was that of a corpse; the face of the dead man at his side was flushed with the hues of life. To the overstrung nerves of the onlookers, the brooding eyes of the picture seemed sad and stern with menace, and charged with the lightnings of doom.
It was a horrible contrast. For Wimp, alone, the painted face had fuller, more tragical, meanings. The audience seemed turned to stone. They sat or stood—in every variety of attitude—frozen, rigid. Arthur Constant’s picture dominated the scene, the only living thing in a hall of the dead.
But only for a moment. Mortlake shook off the detective’s hand.
“Boys!” he cried, in accents of infinite indignation, “this is a police conspiracy.”
His words relaxed the tension. The stony figures were agitated. A dull, excited hubbub answered him. The little cobbler darted from behind his pillar, and leaped upon a bench. The cords of his brow were swollen with excitement. He seemed a giant overshadowing the hall.
“Boys!” he roared, in his best Victoria Park voice, “listen to me. This charge is a foul and damnable lie.”
“Bravo!” “Hear, hear!” “Hooray!” “It is!” was roared back at him from all parts of the room. Everybody rose and stood in tentative attitudes, excited to the last degree.
“Boys!” Peter roared on, “you all know me. I’m a plain man, and I want to know if it’s likely a man would murder his best friend.”
“No,” in a mighty volume of sound.
Wimp had scarcely calculated upon Mortlake’s popularity. He stood on the platform, pale and anxious as his prisoner.
“And if he did, why didn’t they prove it the first time?”
“Hear, hear!”
“And if they want to arrest him, why couldn’t they leave it till the ceremony was over? Tom Mortlake’s not the man to run away.”
“Tom Mortlake! Tom Mortlake! Three cheers for Tom Mortlake! Hip, hip, hip, hooray!”
“Three groans for the police.”
“Hoo! Oo! Oo!”
Wimp’s melodrama was not going well. He felt like the author to whose ears is borne the ominous sibilance of the pit. He almost wished he had not followed the curtain-raiser with his own stronger drama. Unconsciously the police, scattered about the hall, drew together. The people on the platform knew not what to do. They had all risen and stood in a densely-packed mass. Even Mr. Gladstone’s speech failed him in circumstances so novel. The groans died away; the cheers for Mortlake rose and swelled and fell and rose again. Sticks and umbrellas were banged and rattled, handkerchiefs were waved, the thunder deepened. The motley crowd still surging about the hall took up the cheers, and for hundreds of yards around people were going black in the face out of mere irresponsible enthusiasm. At last Tom waved his hand—the thunder dwindled, died. The prisoner was master of the situation.
Grodman stood on the platform, grasping the back of his chair, a curious mocking Mephistophelian glitter about his eyes, his lips wreathed into a half smile. There was no hurry for him to get Denzil Cantercot arrested now. Wimp had made an egregious, a colossal blunder. In Grodman’s heart there was a great glad calm as of a man who has strained his sinews to win in a famous match, and has heard the judge’s word. He felt almost kindly to Denzil now.
Tom Mortlake spoke. His face was set and stony. His tall figure was drawn up haughtily to its full height. He pushed the black mane back from his forehead with a characteristic gesture. The fevered audience hung upon his lips—the men at the back leaned eagerly forward—the reporters were breathless with fear lest they should miss a word. What would the great labor leader have to say at this supreme moment?
“Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: It is to me a melancholy pleasure to have been honored with the task of unveiling tonight this portrait of a great benefactor to Bow and a true friend to the laboring classes. Except that he honored me with his friendship while living, and that the aspirations of my life have, in my small and restricted way, been identical with his, there is little reason why this honorable duty should have fallen upon me. Gentlemen, I trust that we shall all find an inspiring influence in the daily vision of the dead, who yet liveth in our hearts and in this noble work of art—wrought, as Mr. Gladstone has told us, by the hand of one who loved him.” The speaker paused a moment, his low vibrant tones faltering into silence. “If we humble workingmen of Bow can never hope to exert individually a tithe of the beneficial influence wielded by Arthur Constant, it is yet possible for each of us to walk in the light he has kindled in our midst—a perpetual lamp of self-sacrifice and brotherhood.”
That was all. The room rang with cheers. Tom Mortlake resumed his seat. To Wimp the man’s audacity verged on the Sublime; to Denzil on the Beautiful. Again there was a breathless hush. Mr. Gladstone’s mobile face was working with excitement. No such extraordinary scene had occurred in the whole of his extraordinary experience. He seemed about to rise. The cheering subsided to a painful stillness. Wimp cut the situation by laying his hand again upon Tom’s shoulder.
“Come quietly with me,” he said. The words were almost a whisper, but in the supreme silence they traveled to the ends of the hall.
“Don’t you go, Tom!” The trumpet tones were Peter’s. The call thrilled an answering chord of defiance in every breast, and a low, ominous murmur swept through the hall.
