Mystery at Geneva | Page 9

blood, something, as he said, with guts in it. Statesmen assembled together made him yawn. For his part, he wished something would happen during the Assembly worth writing home about some crime passtonnel, some blood and thunder melodrama. "Perhaps," said Henry, hopefully, "it will."
"Well, it may. All these hot-blooded Latins and Slavs herded together ought to be able to produce something... I bet you the Spanish Americans are hatching something to-night over there..." He waved his hand in the direction of the other side of the lake, where the great hotels blazed their thousand windows into the night. Behind those windows burnt who knew what of passion and of plot?
Dr. Svensen, strolling at a late hour across the Pont du Mont Blanc (he was returning from dinner at the Beau Rivage to his own hotel), was disturbed by a whimpering noise behind him, like the mewing of a little cat. Turning round, he saw a small and ragged form padding barefoot after him, its knuckles in its eyes. The Norwegian explorer, unlike most great men, was tenderhearted to children. Bending down to the crying urchin, he inquired of it the cause of its trouble. Its answer was in Russian, and to the effect that it was very hungry. Dr. Svenscn softened yet more. A hungry Russian child! That was an object of pity which he never could resist. Russia was full of them; this one was probably an exiled Bolshevik. He felt in his pockets for coins, but the hungry Russian infant tugged at his coat. " Come," it said, and Dr. Svenscn gathered from it that there were yet more hungry Russians where this came from. He followed.
The morning session of the Assembly was supposed to begin at ten, and at this hour next morning the unsophisticated Henry Becchtree took his seat in the Press Gallery. He soon perceived his mistake. The show obviously was not going to begin for ages. No self-respecting delegate or journalist would come into the hall on the stroke of the hour. The superior thing, in this as in other departments of life, was to be late. Lateness showed that serene contempt for the illusion we call time which is so necessary to ensure the respect of others and oneself. Only the servile are punctual....
But " Nothing to swank about in being late," thought Henry morosely; " only means they've spent too long over their coffee and bread and honey, the gluttons. I could have done the same myself."
Indeed, he wished that he had, for he fell again into the hands of the elderly clergyman who had addressed him yesterday, and who was, of course, punctual too.
"I see," said the clergyman, " that you have one of the French comic papers with you. A pity their humour is so much spoilt by suggestiveness."
Suggestiveness. Henry could never understand that word as applied in condemnation.
Should not everything be suggestive? Or should all literature, art, and humour be a cul-de-sac, suggesting no idea whatsoever? Henry did not want to be uncharitable, but he could not but think that those who used this word in this sense laid themselves open to the suspicion (in this case, at least, quite unjustified), that their minds were only receptive of one kind of suggestion, and that a coarse one.
"I expect," he replied, "that you mean coarseness. People often do when they use that word, I notice. Anyhow, the papers are not very funny, I find!"
"Suggestiveness," said the clergyman, "is seldom amusing."
Before Henry had time to argue again about this word, he hurried on.
"I sent yesterday a long message to the Church Times, the Guardian, the Commonwealth, and the Challenge about the first meeting. It is most important that these papers should set before their readers the part that the Church ought to play in promoting international goodwill."
"Indeed," said Henry, who did not see Anglican journals. He added vaguely, "The Pope sent a telegram...." For when people spoke to him of Church life, he said "the Pope" mechanically; it was his natural reaction to the subject.
"You interest me," said the English clergyman. " For the second time you have mentioned the Pope to me. Are you, perhaps, a Roman Catholic?"
"I suppose," Henry absently agreed, "that is what you would call it."
"We do, you know," the clergyman apologised. "Forgive me if it seems discourteous.... You know, then, of course, who that is, opposite?"
Henry looked across the hall to the opposite gallery, and perceived that his companion was referring to a small, delicatelooking elderly man, with the face of a priest and the clothes of a layman, who had just taken his seat there.
"I do not indeed."
"He is the ex-cardinal Franchi. You know him by reputation, of course."
"Wasn't he suspended for heresy? I have, I think, seen some of his books."
"He is a great