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Arthur Conan Doyle - "The New Revelation"

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The Kingdom of the Blind

E >> E. Phillips Oppenheim >> The Kingdom of the Blind



This etext was prepared by Jim Grinsfelder of Minneapolis, MN.





The Kingdom of the Blind
by E. Phillips Oppenheim




CHAPTER I

Lady Anselman stood in the centre of the lounge at the Ritz Hotel and
with a delicately-poised forefinger counted her guests. There was the
great French actress who had every charm but youth, chatting
vivaciously with a tall, pale-faced man whose French seemed to be as
perfect as his attitude was correct. The popular wife of a great
actor was discussing her husband's latest play with a Cabinet
Minister who had the air of a school-boy present at an illicit feast.
A very beautiful young woman, tall and fair, with grey-blue eyes and
a wealth of golden, almost yellow hair, was talking to a famous
musician. A little further in the background, a young man in the
uniform of a naval lieutenant was exchanging what seemed to be rather
impressive chaff with a petite but exceedingly good-looking girl.
Lady Anselman counted them twice, glanced at the clock and frowned.

"I can't remember whom we are waiting for!" she exclaimed a little
helplessly to the remaining guest, a somewhat tired-looking publisher
who stood by her side. "I am one short. I dare say it will come to me
in a minute. You know every one, I suppose, Mr. Daniell?"

The publisher shook his head.

"I have met Lord Romsey and also Madame Selarne," he observed. "For
the rest, I was just thinking what a stranger I felt."

"The man who talks French so well," Lady Anselman told him, dropping
her voice a little, "is Surgeon-Major Thomson. He is inspector of
hospitals at the front, or something of the sort. The tall, fair
girl--isn't she pretty!--is Geraldine Conyers, daughter of Admiral
Sir Seymour Conyers. That's her brother, the sailor over there,
talking to Olive Moreton; their engagement was announced last week.
Lady Patrick of course you know, and Signor Scobel, and Adelaide
Cunningham--you do know her, don't you, Mr. Daniell? She is my
dearest friend. How many do you make that?"

The publisher counted them carefully.

"Eleven including ourselves," he announced.

"And we should be twelve," Lady Anselman sighed. "Of course!" she
added, her face suddenly brightening. "What an idiot I am! It's
Ronnie we are waiting for. One can't be cross with him, poor fellow.
He can only just get about."

The fair girl, who had overheard, leaned across. The shade of newly
awakened interest in her face, and the curve of her lips as she
spoke, added to her charm. A gleam of sunlight flashed upon the
yellow-gold of her plainly coiled hair.

"Is it your nephew, Captain Ronald Granet, who is coming?" she asked
a little eagerly.

Lady Anselman nodded.

"He only came home last Tuesday with dispatches from the front," she
said. "This is his first day out."

"Ah! but he is wounded, perhaps?" Madame Selarne inquired
solicitously.

"In the left arm and the right leg," Lady Anselman assented. "I
believe that he has seen some terrible fighting, and we are very
proud of his D. S. O. The only trouble is that he is like all the
others--he will tell us nothing."

"He shows excellent judgment," Lord Romsey observed.

Lady Anselman glanced at her august guest a little querulously.

"That is the principle you go on, nowadays, isn't it?" she remarked.
"I am not sure that you are wise. When one is told nothing, one fears
the worst, and when time after time the news of these small disasters
reaches us piecemeal, about three weeks late, we never get rid of our
forebodings, even when you tell us about victories. . . . Ah! Here he
comes at last," she added, holding out both her hands to the young
man who was making his somewhat difficult way towards them. "Ronnie,
you are a few minutes late but we're not in the least cross with you.
Do you know that you are looking better already? Come and tell me
whom you don't know of my guests and I'll introduce you."

The young man, leaning upon his stick, greeted his aunt and murmured
a word of apology. He was very fair, and with a slight, reddish
moustache and the remains of freckles upon his face. His grey eyes
were a little sunken, and there were lines about his mouth which one
might have guessed had been brought out recently by pain or suffering
of some sort. His left arm reclined uselessly in a black silk sling.
He glanced around the little assembly.

"First of all," he said, bowing to the French actress and raising her
fingers to his lips, "there is no one who does not know Madame
Selarne. Lady Patrick, we have met before, haven't we? I am going to
see your husband in his new play the first night I am allowed out.
Mr. Daniell I have met, and Lord Romsey may perhaps do me the honour
of remembering me," he added, shaking hands with the Cabinet
Minister.

He turned to face Geraldine Conyers, who had been watching him with
interest. Lady Anselman at once introduced them.

"I know that you haven't met Miss Conyers because she has been asking
about you. This is my nephew Ronnie, Geraldine. I hope that you will
be friends."

The girl murmured something inaudible as she shook hands. The young
soldier looked at her for a moment. His manner became almost serious.

"I hope so, too," he said quietly.

"Olive, come and make friends with my nephew if you can spare a
moment from your young man," Lady Anselman continued. "Captain
Granet--Miss Olive Moreton. And this is Geraldine's
brother--Lieutenant Conyers."

The two men shook hands pleasantly. Lady Anselman glanced at the
clock and turned briskly towards the corridor.

"And now, I think," she announced, "luncheon."

As she moved forward, she was suddenly conscious of the man who had
been talking to Madame Selarne. He had drawn a little on one side and
he was watching the young soldier with a curious intentness. She
turned back to her nephew and touched him on the arm.

"Ronnie," she said, "I don't know whether you have met Surgeon-Major
Thomson in France? Major Thomson, this is my nephew, Captain Granet."

Granet turned at once and offered his hand to the other man. Only
Geraldine Conyers, who was a young woman given to noticing things,
and who had also reasons of her own for being interested, observed
the rather peculiar scrutiny with which each regarded the other.
Something which might almost have been a challenge seemed to pass
from one to the other.

"I may not have met you personally," Granet admitted, "but if you are
the Surgeon-Major Thomson who has been doing such great things with
the Field Hospitals at the front, then like nearly every poor crock
out there I owe you a peculiar debt of gratitude. You are the man I
mean, aren't you?" the young soldier concluded cordially.

Major Thomson bowed, and a moment later they all made their way along
the corridor, across the restaurant, searched for their names on the
cards and took their places at the table which had been reserved for
them. Lady Anselman glanced around with the scrutinising air of the
professional hostess, to see that her guests were properly seated
before she devoted herself to the Cabinet Minister. She had a word or
two to say to nearly every one of them.

"I have put you next Miss Conyers, Ronnie," she remarked, "because we
give all the good things to our men when they come home from the war.
And I have put you next Olive, Ralph," she went on, turning to the
sailor, "because I hear you are expecting to get your ship to-day or
to-morrow, so you, too, have to be spoiled a little. As a general
rule I don't approve of putting engaged people together, it
concentrates conversation so. And, Lord Romsey," she added, turning
to her neighbour, "please don't imagine for a moment that I am going
to break my promise. We are going to talk about everything in the
world except the war. I know quite well that if Ronnie has had any
particularly thrilling experiences, he won't tell us about them, and
I also know that your brain is packed full of secrets which nothing
in the world would induce you to divulge. We are going to try and
persuade Madame to tell us about her new play," she concluded,
smiling at the French actress, "and there are so many of my friends
on the French stage whom I must hear about."

Lord Romsey commenced his luncheon with an air of relief. He was a
man of little more than middle-age, powerfully built, inclined to be
sombre, with features of a legal type, heavily jawed. "Always
tactful, dear hostess," he murmured. "As a matter of fact, nothing
but the circumstance that it was your invitation and that Madame
Selarne was to be present, brought me here to-day. It is so hard to
avoid speaking of the great things, and for a man in my position," he
added, dropping his voice a little, "so difficult to say anything
worth listening to about them, without at any rate the semblance of
indiscretion."

"We all appreciate that," Lady Anselman assured him sympathetically.
"Madame Selarne has promised to give us an outline of the new play
which she is producing in Manchester."

"If that would interest you all," Madame Selarne assented, "it
commences--so!"

For a time they nearly all listened in absorbed silence. Her
gestures, the tricks of her voice, the uplifting of her eyebrows and
shoulders--all helped to give life and colour to the little sketch
she expounded. Only those at the remote end of the table ventured
upon an independent conversation. Mrs. Cunningham, the woman whom her
hostess had referred to as being her particular friend, and one who
shared her passion for entertaining, chatted fitfully to her
neighbour, Major Thomson. It was not until luncheon was more than
half-way through that she realised the one-sidedness of their
conversation. She studied him for a moment curiously. There was
something very still and expressionless in his face, even though the
sunshine from the broad high windows which overlooked the Park, was
shining full upon him.

"Tell me about yourself!" she insisted suddenly. "I have been
talking rubbish quite long enough. You have been out, haven't you?"

He assented gravely.

"I went with the first division. At that time I was in charge of a
field hospital."

"And now?"

"I am Chief Inspector of Field Hospitals," he replied.

"You are home on leave?"

"Not exactly," he told her, a shade of stiffness in his manner.
"I have to come over very often on details connected with the
administration of my work."

"I should have known quite well that you were a surgeon," she
observed.

"You are a physiognomist, then?"

"More or less," she admitted. "You see, I love people. I love
having people around me. My friends find me a perfect nuisance, for I
am always wanting to give parties. You have the still, cold face of a
surgeon--and the hands, too," she added, glancing at them.

"You are very observant," he remarked laconically.

"I am also curious," she laughed, "as you are about to discover.
Tell me why you are so interested in Ronnie Granet? You hadn't met
him before, had you?"

Almost for the first time he turned and looked directly at his
neighbour. She was a woman whose fair hair was turning grey,
well-dressed, sprightly, agreeable. She had a humorous mouth and an
understanding face.

"Captain Granet was a stranger to me," he assented. "One is
naturally interested in soldiers, however."

"You must have met thousands like him," she remarked,--"good-looking,
very British, keen sportsman, lots of pluck, just a little careless,
hating to talk about himself and serious things. I have known him
since he was a boy."

Major Thomson continued to be gravely interested.

"Granet!" he said to himself thoughtfully, "Do I know any of his
people, I wonder?"

"You know some of his connections, of course," Mrs. Cunningham
replied briskly. "Sir Alfred Anselman, for instance, his uncle."

"His father and mother?"

"They are both dead. There is a large family place in Warwickshire,
and a chateau, just now, I am afraid, in the hands of the Germans. It
was somewhere quite close to the frontier. Lady Granet was an
Alsatian. He was to have gone out with the polo team, you know, to
America, but broke a rib just as they were making the selection. He
played cricket for Middlesex once or twice, too and he was Captain of
Oxford the year that they did so well."

"An Admirable Crichton," Major Thomson murmured.

"In sport, at any rate," his neighbour assented. "He has always been
one of the most popular young men about town, but of course the women
will spoil him now."

"Is it my fancy," he asked, "or was he not reported a prisoner?"

"He was missing twice, once for over a week," Mrs. Cunningham
replied. "There are all sorts of stories as to how he got back to the
lines. A perfect young dare-devil, I should think. I must talk to Mr.
Daniell for a few minutes or he will never publish my reminiscences."

She leaned towards her neighbour on the other side and Major Thomson
was able to resume the role of attentive observer, a role which
seemed somehow his by destiny. He listened without apparent interest
to the conversation between Geraldine Conyers and the young man whom
they had been discussing.

"I think," Geraldine complained, "that you are rather overdoing your
diplomatic reticence, Captain Granet. You haven't told me a single
thing. Why, some of the Tommies I have been to see in the hospitals
have been far more interesting than you."

He smiled.

"I can assure you," he protested, "it isn't my fault. You can't
imagine how fed up one gets with things out there, and the newspapers
can tell you ever so much more than we can. One soldier only sees a
little bit of his own corner of the fight, you know."

"But can't you tell me some of your own personal experiences?" she
persisted. "They are so much more interesting than what one reads in
print."

"I never had any," he assured her. "Fearfully slow time we had for
months."

"Of course, I don't believe a word you say," she declared, laughing.

"You're not taking me for a war correspondent, by any chance, are
you?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Your language isn't sufficiently picturesque! Tell me, when are you
going back?"

"As soon as I can pass the doctors-in a few days, I hope."

"You hope?" she repeated. "Do you really mean that, or do you say it
because it is the proper thing to say?"

He appeared for the moment to somewhat resent her question.

"The fact that I hope to get back," he remarked coldly, "has nothing
whatever to do with my liking my job when I get there. As a matter of
fact, I hate it. At the same time, you can surely understand that
there isn't any other place for a man of my age and profession."

"Of course not," she agreed softly. "I really am sorry that I
bothered you. There is one thing I should like to know, though and
that is how you managed to escape?"

He shook his head but his amiability seemed to have wholly returned.
His eyes twinkled as he looked at her.

"There we're up against a solid wall of impossibility," he replied.
"You see, some of our other chaps may try the dodge. I gave them the
tip and I don't want to spoil their chances. By-the-bye, do you know
the man two places down on your left?" he added dropping his voice a
little. "Looks almost like a waxwork figure, doesn't he?"

"You mean Major Thomson? Yes, I know him," she assented, after a
moment's hesitation. "He is very quiet to-day, but he is really most
interesting."

Their hostess rose and beamed on them all from her end of the table.

"We have decided," she announced, "to take our coffee out in the
lounge."



CHAPTER II

The little party trooped out of the restaurant and made their way to
a corner of the lounge, where tables had already been prepared with
coffee and liqueurs. Geraldine Conyers and Captain Granet, who had
lingered behind, found a table to themselves. Lady Anselman laid her
fingers upon Major Thomson's arm.

"Please talk for a few more minutes to Selarne," she begged. "Your
French is such a relief to her."

He obeyed immediately, although his eyes strayed more than once
towards the table at which Captain Granet and his companion were
seated. Madame Selarne was in a gossipy mood and they found many
mutual acquaintances.

"To speak a foreign language as you do," she told him, "is wonderful.
Is it in French alone, monsieur, that you excel, or are you, perhaps,
a great linguist?"

"I can scarcely call myself that," he replied, "but I do speak
several other languages. In my younger days I travelled a good deal."

"German, perhaps, too?" she inquired with a little grimace.

"I was at a hospital in Berlin," he confessed.

Lady Anselman's party was suddenly increased by the advent of some
acquaintances from an adjoining table, all of whom desired to be
presented to Madame Selarne. Major Thomson, set at liberty, made his
way at once towards the small table at which Captain Granet and
Geraldine Conyers were seated. She welcomed him with a smile.

"Are you coming to have coffee with us?" she asked?

"If I may," he answered. "I shall have to be off in a few minutes."

A waiter paused before their table and offered a salver on which were
several cups of coffee and liqueur glasses. Captain Granet leaned
forward in his place and stretched out his hand to serve his
companion. Before he could take the cup, however, the whole tray had
slipped from the waiter's fingers, caught the corner of the table,
and fallen with its contents on to the carpet. The waiter himself--a
small, undersized person with black, startled eyes set at that moment
in a fixed and unnatural stare--made one desperate effort to save
himself and then fell backwards. Every one turned around, attracted
by the noise of the falling cups and the sharp, half-stifled groan
which broke from the man's lips. Captain Granet sprang to his feet.

"Good heavens! The fellow's in a fit!" he exclaimed.

The maitre d'hotel and several waiters came hurrying up towards the
prostrate figure, by the side of which Major Thomson was already
kneeling. The manager, who appeared upon the scene as though by
magic, and upon whose face was an expression of horror that his
clients should have been so disturbed, quickly gave his orders. The
man was picked up and carried away. Major Thomson followed behind.
Two or three waiters in a few seconds succeeded in removing the
debris of the accident, the orchestra commenced a favourite waltz.
The maitre d'hotel apologised to the little groups of people for the
commotion--they were perhaps to blame for having employed a young man
so delicate--he was scarcely fit for service.

"He seemed to be a foreigner," Lady Anselman remarked, as the man
addressed his explanations to her.

"He was a Belgian, madam. He was seriously wounded at the
commencement of the war. We took him direct from the hospital."

"I hope the poor fellow will soon recover," Lady Anselman declared.
"Please do not think anything more of the affair so far as we are
concerned. You must let me know later on how he is."

The maitre d'hotel retreated with a little bow. Geraldine turned to
Captain Granet.

"I think," she said, "that you must be very kind-hearted, for a
soldier."

He turned and looked at her.

"Why?"

"You must have been so many horrible sights--so many dead people, and
yet--"

"Well?" he persisted.

"There was something in your face when the man staggered back, a kind
of horror almost. I am sure you felt it quite as much as any of us."

He was silent for a moment.

"In a battlefield," he observed slowly, "one naturally becomes a
little callous, but here it is different. The fellow did look ghastly
ill, didn't he? I wonder what was really the matter with him."

"We shall know when Major Thomson returns," she said.

Granet seemed scarcely to hear her words. A curious fit of
abstraction had seized him. His head was turned towards the corridor,
he seemed to be waiting.

"Queer sort of stick, Thomson," he remarked presently. "Is he a
great friend of yours, Miss Conyers?"

She hesitated for a moment.

"I have known him for some time."

Something in her tone seemed to disturb him. He leaned towards her
quickly. His face had lost its good-humoured indifference. He was
evidently very much in earnest.

"Please don't think me impertinent," he begged, "but--is he a very
great friend?"

She did not answer. She was looking over his shoulder towards where
Major Thomson, who had just returned, was answering a little stream
of questions.

"The man is in a shockingly weak state," he announced. "He is a
Belgian, has been wounded and evidently subjected to great
privations. His heart is very much weakened. He had a bad fainting
fit, but with a long rest he may recover."

The little party broke up once more into groups. Granet, who had
drawn for a moment apart and seemed to be adjusting the knots of his
sling, turned to Thomson.

"Has he recovered consciousness yet?" he asked.

"Barely," was the terse reply.

"There was no special cause for his going off like that, I suppose?"

Surgeon-Major Thomson's silence was scarcely a hesitation. He was
standing perfectly still, his eyes fixed upon the young soldier.

"At present," he said, "I am not quite clear about that. If you are
ready, Geraldine?"

She nodded and they made their farewells to Lady Anselman. Granet
looked after them with a slight frown. He drew his aunt on one side
for a moment.

"Why is Miss Conyers here without a chaperon?" he asked. "And why
did she go away with Thomson?"

Lady Anselman laughed.

"Didn't she tell you?"

"Tell me what?" he insisted eagerly.

Lady Anselman looked at her nephew curiously.

"Evidently," she remarked, "your progress with the young lady was not
so rapid as it seemed, or she would have told you her secret--which,
by-the-bye, isn't a secret at all. She and Major Thomson are engaged
to be married."



CHAPTER III

A few rays of fugitive sunshine were brightening Piccadilly when
Geraldine and her escort left the Ritz. The momentary depression
occasioned by the dramatic little episode of a few minutes ago,
seemed already to have passed from the girl's manner. She walked on,
humming to herself. As they paused to cross the road, she glanced as
though involuntarily at her companion. His dark morning clothes and
rather abstracted air created an atmosphere of sombreness about him
of which she was suddenly conscious.

"Hugh, why don't you wear uniform in town?" she asked.

"Why should I?" he replied. "After all, I am not really a fighting
man, you see."

"It's so becoming," she sighed.

He seemed to catch the reminiscent flash in her eyes as she looked
down the street, and a shadow of foreboding clouded his mind.

"You found Captain Granet interesting?"

"Very," she assented heartily. "I think he is delightful, don't
you?"

"He certainly seems to be a most attractive type of young man,"
Thomson admitted.

"And how wonderful to have had such adventures!" she continued.
"Life has become so strange, though, during the last few months. To
think that the only time I ever saw him before was at a polo match,
and to-day we sit side by side in a restaurant, and, although he
won't speak of them, one knows that he has had all manner of
marvellous adventures. He was one of those who went straight from the
playing fields to look for glory, wasn't he, Hugh? He made a hundred
and thirty-two for Middlesex the day before the war was declared."

"That's the type of young soldier who's going to carry us through, if
any one can," Major Thomson agreed cheerfully.

She suddenly clutched at his arm.

"Hugh," she exclaimed, pointing to a placard which a newsboy was
carrying, "that is the one thing I cannot bear, the one thing which I
think if I were a man would turn me into a savage!"

They both paused and read the headlines--

PASSENGER STEAMER TORPEDOED WITHOUT WARNING IN THE IRISH SEA.
TWENTY-TWO LIVES LOST.

"That is the sort of thing," she groaned, "which makes one long to be
not a man but a god, to be able to wield thunderbolts and to deal out
hell!"

"Good for you, Gerry," a strong, fresh voice behind them declared.
"That's my job now. Didn't you hear us shouting after you, Olive and
I? Look!"

Her brother waved a telegram.

"You've got your ship?" Thomson inquired.

"I've got what I wanted," the young man answered enthusiastically.
"I've got a destroyer, one of the new type--forty knots an hour, a
dear little row of four-inch guns, and, my God! something else, I
hope, that'll teach those murderers a lesson," he added, shaking his
fist towards the placard.

Geraldine laid her hand upon her brother's arm.

"When do you join, Ralph?"

"To-morrow night at Portsmouth," he replied. "I'm afraid we shall be
several days before we are at work. It's the _Scorpion_ they're
giving me, Gerald--or the mystery ship, as they call it in the navy."

"Why?" she asked.

His rather boyish face, curiously like his sister's, was suddenly
transformed.

"Because we've got a rod in pickle for those cursed pirates--"

"Conyers!" Thomson interrupted.

The young man paused in his sentence. Thomson was looking towards
him with a slight frown upon his forehead.

"Don't think I'm a fearful old woman," he said. "I know we are all
rather fed up with these tales of spies and that sort of thing, but
do you think it's wise to even open your lips about a certain
matter?"

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