Grant was conscious of a queer presentiment as he stopped to speak with Cornelius Blunn on the first day out from Southampton. Blunn was occupying his usual suite and was lying in splendid isolation in his own little portion of the deck. He had come on board the day before, to all appearance his usual self. Now, within twenty-four hours, he was again writhing in misery. There was something in his look of misery, as he glanced up at Grant, which touched the latter.
“Sit down and talk to me for a minute, my young enemy,” he invited. “The doctor tries to tell me that part of this seasickness is nervousness. One should seek distraction, he says. Tell me how you succeeded in London.”
“Admirably,” Grant replied, accepting his invitation. “But I’m not going to cure your seasickness by telling you my secrets.”
Cornelius Blunn smiled faintly.
“You’re a nice lad,” he said. “Pity you aren’t a German. I’d have made a great man of you.”
“I am very glad I am not a German.”
“Why?”
Grant shrugged his shoulders.
“Well,” he pointed out, “of course every nation has its characteristics, bad and good. Your people are industrious, domesticated, subject to discipline, and full of courage. On the other hand they are the most egregiously selfish and egotistical race upon the face of the earth. It is Germany first, and let any one else exist that may. That is what I don’t like about your people.”
Cornelius Blunn did not reply for a moment.
“It may seem so to the world,” he conceded presently. “You see we are a nation of individualists.”
“Why are you alone?” Grant enquired, after a moment’s pause.
The troubled look returned to Blunn’s face.
“A chapter of accidents has befallen me,” he explained. “Muller, my body servant, and Felix, my secretary, who came over with me, missed the boat at Southampton. Both were executing commissions for me late in London, and I sent them down by car. They had an accident, twelve miles from Guildford, and both were too injured to continue the journey. The steward does his best, but I am not used to being alone. If any other boat could have got me over in time for the Conference, where my presence in an advisory capacity is required, I should have postponed my departure.”
Grant murmured a few words of sympathy and presently departed. On the deck he met Lord Yeovil, with whom he turned and walked.
“Blunn seems to be quite ill,” he confided.
“Unfortunately men do not die of seasickness,” the other rejoined. “It sounds a brutal thing to say, I suppose, but, in my opinion, it would be a great benefit to the world if Blunn were to be removed from it. I have come to the conclusion within the last few weeks, Slattery, that, more than any other man living, Cornelius Blunn represents the spirit of warfare and unrest. He is the personification of all that is evil in the German system. I can quite believe your story that he carries with him day and night a famous letter of hate, inscribed by his father on his deathbed. He not only carries the letter, but he carries the spirit.”
“One is so often tempted to like the man,” Grant remarked. “And yet I know that you’re right. If all that we suspect of his domestic intrigues in America is true, he is a very terrible person. I hope Lady Susan is keeping well. I haven’t seen her about.”
“She is playing deck tennis forward,” her father replied. “A pleasant game but a trifle energetic for this warm weather. Lutrecht and his faithful henchman, Von Diss, are playing ecarte in the smoke room. Did you know, Slattery, that Von Diss was to be one of the German entourage?”
“I had no idea of it,” Grant answered hastily and with perfect truth. “I met the Princess in Bond Street the day before we sailed and she told me that her husband was arriving in London that afternoon. She gave me no idea that it was for the purpose of proceeding to the States or that she was accompanying him.”
“They keep their secrets well, these Germans,” Lord Yeovil mused. “They have method and reticence. I must go and spend my usual hour with Arthur. I don’t think I ever had such a mass of material to master in my life—pretty terrible, some of it, too.”
Grant strolled on and threw himself into a chair close to the rail. “Method and reticence!” He thought for a moment of Cleo’s whispered words. If they were true, and he had never doubted them, the whole secret of the poisonous domestic conspiracy, as much or more to be dreaded than any avalanche of foreign aggression, was contained in two small volumes—neat, they would be; precise, they would be; venomous, they would surely be—and never so nearly within his grasp as now. He fell to studying the ethics of the much debated problem of justification by result. Cornelius Blunn, at the present moment, was probably more helpless than he would ever be found again. Was it worth the risk of failure, the plan that was slowly forming itself in his mind?
Von Diss, very neat and dapper in white flannel trousers and blue serge coat of nautical cut, came up and touched Grant on the arm. He always made a show of being very friendly with the rival whom he hated.
“I saw you talking to our friend, Cornelius Blunn,” he said. “His condition puzzles me. It is a terrible thing to suffer so from such a simple cause. Incomprehensible, too! He enjoys sailing as much as any man, and yet directly he gets on a big steamer, he collapses altogether.”
“He was very ill coming over,” Grant remarked. “Yet he was himself again the night after landing. His speech at the Whitehall Rooms was an admirable production.”
Von Diss nodded.
“He is not old,” he went on, half to himself. “He is a strong man. His mentality is amazing. Yet this simple illness seems to have thrown him into a strange disorder. I made a harmless request to him this morning, and he ordered me away.”
“A harmless request!” Grant felt a sudden inspiration. “A harmless request!” Bearing in mind Cornelius Blunn’s unprotected state, Von Diss had probably asked for the care of the casket or that it be deposited in the ship’s safe. It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion.
“I expect you will find him better to-morrow,” Grant observed. “The Princess is, I trust, not suffering?”
“She is a little tired, but she has no mal de mer,” her husband replied. “I go now to fetch her. Presently I shall talk with our friend, Cornelius Blunn, again.”
He wandered off and Grant made his way to where the deck tennis was proceeding. He sat down and watched the players for a time. Presently, without noticing who her neighbour was, Susan came and shared his seat. She gave a little start as he spoke and made an involuntary movement. Grant rose at once to his feet.
“Pray let me go away,” he begged. “I am sorry that you find my presence so utterly distasteful.”
He was angry with himself directly he had spoken. She only laughed at him and settled herself down more comfortably.
“Don’t be absurd,” she said lightly. “Only I didn’t happen to notice who it was. Don’t you play any of these games?”
“Sometimes.”
“We’re having a competition,” she confided. “So far Charlie Suffolk and I have beaten everybody. Oh, I must go,” she added, slipping off. “I see there is another couple ready for us.”
He watched her for a moment or two and turned away. He tried other parts of the ship, but some fascination seemed to draw him always back to that little enclosed space where Cornelius Blunn lay with half-closed eyes. He had lost a great deal of his natural colour and seemed somehow to have shrunken. Grant hesitated at the round glass door for a moment or two, wondering whether or not to enter. Then he realised that Blunn was asleep. He stooped down, withdrew the key from the lock of the door, and placed it in his pocket. Afterwards he walked away.