THE YOUNGER LEDBETTER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2480, 10 May 1909, Page 2

THE YOUNGER LEDBETTER.

(By Mayne Lindsay.)

At Eltham the fog was white and misty; at Lee thicker and more sallow ; at New Cross it was a tine, full-bodied saffron. The men in the first-class carriage that had crawled up the North Kent loop began to knock out their pipes as they were jolted past Peek and Freans factory, which loomed at them with blurred, yellow lights struggling against the dense morning. The train jogged slower and slower; somebody stamped his numbed feet and sighed; somebody emitted a fog-dispersing theory that was received with considerable disparagement; and the conversation, punctuated by the bang-bang of explosive signals, became general. , ’ Alec Ledbetter, who had no lively anticipations of the day ahead of him, folded his Times and frowned at the surrounding gloom. He had done the journey, winter and summer, for three years now, and fog was-ind novelty. He was a young man, perhaps abnormally sensitive to atmospheric drawbacks, and to-day he shrank from the stale smell of the carriage, the irksomeness of the delays, the uncongeniality of his fellowtravellers. He wondered why Fortune had given him the cold shoulder. He was not aware of having done anything to deserve her neglect. His brother Ralph, his chum, and his senior by a year, had been a soldier .since his teens. They had loved the same things, cherished the same ideals, harkened with the same enthusiasm to the maxims of the father who had. been a soldier before them. Ralph had passed into Sandhurst without ditiicully when the time came, and Alec, who went up the year after him, nad been spun for a physical under-de-velopment since,'by the irony of fate, outgrown. And now Ralph was a brevetmajor of Indian cavalry, a V.C., and a popular hero known in England and the East for his clan anu bravery, while Alec was no more than a struggling young solicitor, launched with difficulty, and earning six and cbditpeuce with an indifference that on suen mornings as this merged, into a positive distaste. It was not thatlie grudged his brother his honors; he was, on the contrary, intensely proud of them; but he, too, had desired Ins chance, his fighting chance, and it had been denied him. It looked as if he might go on quill-driving all his life, attaining the meagre portion of success which is commonly allotted to the man whose heart is elsewhere than in his work.

So he mused dreamily, while scraps of the carriage tali', drifted obscurely through his preoccupation. “A bad day for the French President s luncheon at the Guildhall.”

“It generallv is a bad day these Continental follows come over. They’re very welcome, and we’re "lad to see them

in the City, but why do they persist in choosing November?"“There’s one visitor from Continent who won’t be exactly welcome.” “Who’s that?” “Ferrol, the anarchist, the man who escaped from New Caledonia. They say he’s in London.” “The chap who tried to blow up the Louvre? Wasn’t it the Louvre? I remember something ” Ledbetter lost himself and found an external interest. He turned his head to the other men, and spoke. . “I remember Ferrol. He was tried in Paris three years ago, and condemned to nenal servitude for life. The French make a mistake in not reserving capital punishment for wild beasts such as he. “Did you see him?” said the stockbroker in the opposite corner, struck by the personal note in the utterance. “Yes; that’s why he made such an impression on me. I was in Paris at the time, and by way of getting experience in French leeal methods X attended his trial at the Palais do Justice. I shan’t forget his defiance of civilised humanity after the President had sentenced him. ‘Ferrol is not born to die with his mission unfulfilled; he will return and shake your cowardly little world to. its foundation. Moi! lam implacable and X hate—l hate—l hate; and I will strike at the heart!” Then the policeman whisked him away, his threats still ringing, and everybody recovered himself and wiped his face.” “The dickens!” the stockbroker said uncomfortably. “Nice sort of animal to have loose in London —if ho is in Lon“I say,” piped a youthful tea. merchant, with an exuberant appreciation of his suggestion, “supposing he was out on the warpath after tho President of the Republic to-day! e’d bo jolly well able to score off humanity if he chucked a bomb at him in Chcapside. The crowd s bound to be packed like herring in a barrel. What?”

Somebody laughed. _ “Thresher, you’re a nice, soothing comnanion. My office is not a stone s throw from the Guildhall. I should probably find myself in a front seat for the demonstration. Thanks!’’ “Oh, rot!” another man said peevishly. “When the newspapers blabber about a mysterious criminal being in London you may be pretty sure it’s the last place 00 look for him. The police circulate these fain' tales purposely —Confound the train! Is it going to get to London Bridge at all to-day ?” . ‘•lt’s just there,” Ledbetter said, rubbing the moisture-laden nane and peering out “Wo passed Southward ten minutes ago. Look, there are the signals.” Faint daubs of light could 00 seen through the fog. The train lumbered on for a couple of minutes. “The platform, by Jove! Three-quarters of an hour late! ’ “It might have been more with a fair show of reason, this morning,” the stockbroker said, as the men prepared to leave the carriage. “I remember once in 1903 ” But no one was inclined to linger over the ancient history of fogs. Tho brake throw them against one another; a porter tiung open the door, and tho Cimmerian darkness took them to its bosom. Ledbetter jumped out, struggled with the rest past tho barrier, and found himself outside the station, drifting toward tho bridge. The befouled air smote at his eyes and throat as the current above the river dragged it athwart his path, lie crossed the roadway with a hundred other impatient, hurrying toilers, dodging the clattering busses, the handsoms that slid m and out° of invisibility, the great drays lumbering down to the borough. The stream set in full flood for King William street over the water, and Ledbetter, marching with it, stepped out brisklv, braced, in spite of the yellow twilight, by the raw smell of a Thames morning. . , Ho was advancing thus, steering by the balustrade, when a man’s figure loomed up unexpectedly at his side. He was not going with tho stream, either eastward or westward; he was for tno moment sidetracked and motionless, watching the passing faces with a fixed expression. Ledbetter glanced at him, seeing at first only a squat man, chin on chest, a cap jammed low on his forehead, a muffler high over his coat collar. He was standing with curiously hunched shoulders, his bowed, powerful legs apart, and a pair of hairy hands embracing a brown-paper package, cylindrical, tho size of a twopound tin, which he held cuddled to him. Something in tho attitude was strangely threatening, alien to a world in which, it men wanted to trample out the lives of their fellow men, they did it decently in the course of business. Ledbetter, shocked by tho predatory poise, looked higher to tho man’s eyes. Then he froze; and ho stopped aghast. He knew them ; he would never forget them. It was Antoine Ferro 1, the anarchist. A man behind pushed on unceremoniously. It was all borne in upon Ledbetter upon the instant, and for so long it paralysed him. This was Fcrrol with the instrument of death 111 his hand, ripe and overripe for murder. Ho moved forward, but lie was not quick enough. Whether the Frenchman had seen that ho was recognised was doubtful, but ho sprang in among tho crowd with an extraordinary agility, spun around cityward, and dived to the heart of the fog. _ He was there in the press with his infernal machine between his two hands. He was near, too, for no man could go at high speed through that close-packed, black-coatcd army. If a hue and cry were raised ho had only to answer it by unclasping his fingers, ‘by a moment s movement, tho relaxing of a muscle, and ho would hurl his pursuers to tho outer darkness that awaited himself. And he would do it. Alec Ledbetter had not stood for days in the welter of the French court, his gaze fascinated by the unwavering menace in a fettered man’s stare, without having so much conviction hammered hard home. Fcrrol was abroad in London on this veiled morning to deal death, and to defy

it. Nevertheless, or because of these things, Alec, too, began to forgo ahead with all the haste that the circumstances permitted to him. The horror of recognition had for a perceptible fraction of time disordered his pulses and dried the roof of his mouth. Now he was quite cool again and steady; all his senses alert and his brain working with a clearness it had certainly never bestowed upon legal problems. So, he supposed, finding time to explore the odd little pocket of thought a,s he used elbows upon his fellow citizens, Ralph must have felt when he went forward alone, up a rock-strewn gorge where the bullets piped and men lay thick, to quicken a forlorn hope to victory, the odds, Alee reflected, with a curious, nip of satisfaction, were quite as great against him as they had been to Half, who had set his teeth, ahd worried through and won. “Look out-mind who you’re shoving of, young man!” an indignant voice said in his car, breaking upon the flying thought. “Sorry,” Ledbetter apologised, pushing ahead cheerfully and with energy. Ho emerged at last on the ampler pavement before the Fishmongers’ Hail, and the fog, with the capricious flicker of a melting mood, lifted to let him see Ferro! ahead in the act of turning up Cheapside. Then it was the President! Alec did not think he had doubted it. He cave a spurt and the yellow curtain swept down again. He hurried on blindly, lost time at a crossing, recovered’ it in the tunnel of Walbrook, found the crowd thickening, and the fog really lifting as he ran north and west, and so came to the first glimpse of bunting and the silvery lilt of Bow bells, ringing up their welcome over the the populace. He was in the Poultry,

and be had seen Ferrol, still running, dart past the Lord _ Mayor’s door not twenty paces before him. “I’ve got him!” Ledbetter exulted to himself, noting the traffic stopped and the barrier of the crowd ruled across the great city artery, where King street turns from it to the Guildhall. No one would be permitted to pass—nor, indeed, was it possible—until the President’s procession, parading up Holborn to the east, should have come and gone. „ T Ferrol, ignorant of the density oi London crowds, had landed himself in a cu.-do-sac. , The young lawyer stopped and drew breatk. The fog .disentangled itself from the roof-tops, where people clung like flies to the copings. It rolled away from the great swaying trophy, emblematical of liberty and the arts, that hung above tn* spot where the carriages would wheel to the left to vanish from the _ cheers oi Choapside. Red-covered window-sills, with men and women chattering over thorn, and the heads of the throng became visible, and the dancing, courtesy mg strings of flags narrowing in a manycolored perspective to the vanishing-point. The people were packed' thirty deep, all with their faces toward the west, all swaying and heaving in their endeavors to see beyond the policemen, who shepherded them about a hollow square where the Life Guards’ band was playing Gallic music. , , T ~ ~ For most of them, and for Ledbetter, too, as ho hung upon the outskirts, there was nothing to see but the wink of a brass helmet, the fleck of a white horsehair plume, the heavy gold and crimson of a. State trumpeter’s can. That for the distance, and for nearer vision the unclean, riffraff scunl of humanity that rises from the abyss to the surface, a check upon the national pride, at such times as these. . They were undersized without exception, the loafers who fringed the crush. Ledbetter bad no difficulty in seeing for some distance over the heads of them > and in presently discerning a squat figure of fighting calibre working its way with a corkscrew movement, hands low and head boring doggedly, farther and farther into their midst. His mouth parched again. When. Ferrol was able to swing his arms up —and the brute strength cf hini would give him the opportunity when he desired it —he would imperil, not one life, but a hundred. Wbeu! The time was not far off. ihe President was due at half-past twelve, and Bennett’s clock was already well past the quarter. The band.' boomed its final chord, and the bells danced into a neal. There was a murmur which ran down . the street like an electric current—a murmur and a rattle. The Life Guard troopers sitting a-row had drawn their sabres. Alec pushed in desperately, more than thankful to find his weight and training wei'o able to drive him past the halfstarved wretches who stood between him and the goal. They were > good-natured enough, but it did not fit in with their sense of fair play that the latest arrivals should insist so strenuously on getting to the front. “Another ! Kip back, carnt yer, and let a pore man have a chanst?” ‘Tar play, matey!” “’Ere’s a bloke wot wants to get into the stalls!” They echoed the protests of the stream on the bridge, where the chase had first begun. ‘•p m awfully sorry,” Alec said again. ‘•l’ve got a message to give a friend of mine in front. It's pressing; it’s business. Do, like good fellows, . let me through.” And, being tolerant enough, most of them packed yet a little closer and made way for him. Thßse that cud not he rammed aside. He was not in a case to stand upon ceremony. . Ferrol, meanwhile, had succeeded in planting himself in a position favorable to Ins object. He was not far enough forward to let his burden catch a policeman s eve, and he was not too far back to make a" long, steady throw impracticable. lie kept his eyes alert and ahead, with a metime’s bitterness and hatred straining out of them. He was looking, just as all the rest were looking, for the white hair and the benign countenance of the President of the first Republic in Europe—for that and the pomp ot monarchy which was sweeping to the city to-day in compliment to him. There was to bo a royal prince in the second carriage, if not in the first. Alec felt the squeeze of the crowd tighten upon him. He was soon well in, working grimly and surely toward Ferrol. s right hand from the back. A fat clerk, wheezing and grunting, impeded him by sheer solid weight of flesh for a couple of precious minutes. He manoeuvred round him in the end, and found himself still half a dozen yards from the enemy. He pushed on silently now, careful to make no disturbance that might come to the bulging ears under the low cap. He could see Ferrol's head moving from side to side, taking stock of the men about

111 The bells changed from a peal to a crash of welcome; the ringers were firing them in answer to the roar of a growing cheer.

“He’s coming!” The lieutenant gave an order, and the Life Guardsmen came to the “Present, the flash of steel visible clearly overhead. A thin. man in the foreground raised himself on tiptoe, and Alee Ledbetter, seizing his opportunity, supplanted him. His protest was lost in the growl of anticipation that was rolling out of the mass. The lucky ones could see, far down the vista, the leading soldiers of the Presidents escort.

At last ! Ledbetter was two men away—one man —he was at the anarchists elbow. Ferrol looked round sharply, and saw a young city man, hard felt hat slightly askew, lips smiling and open, edging up with an air of artless curiosity. He twisted his eyes front again with a grunt of contempt. He knew a detective when ho saw one, and this fool was not of the meddlesome fraternity. The first rank of horsemen swept round magnificently into King Street, and .was gone. There was a brief pause, a swelling chorus, and an outrider's cap bobbed up and down. The crowd swayed like one man. The four gray horses ,the coachman and footmen in royal scarlet —the landau of the President!

Ferrol threw his massive body back to dear a space for his arms. Ledbetter saw a bead of sweat stand out between his eyes as he forced the people behind him to give way. He lifted his hands, in which his burden was cradled —lifted and swung them up. . , At the same moment, another pair, slight but sinewy, descended upon them. Alec Ledbetter had nothing to rely upon but the rapidity of his attack. Ferrol, taken unawares by it, loosed his grip. Ledbetter’s fingers shot out, curved, and snatched the bomb to his bosom. “Seize that man!” he shouted; and ms voice rang with a sharp-edged intensity into the heart of everyone who heard it. “Keep him back ! Seize him !” He was not a second too soon with his appeal. Ferrol, a savage unloosed, whipped a knife out, and hurled himself upon him. The blade darted at his breast, bub it met coat-sleeve and arm and pinned them through instead. One hand dropped, helpless, but. with the other Alec clung the more tightly to his prize. “Help! Police 1” screamed a dozen voices, and a valiant by-stander flung his arms round the would-be murderer. He was crippled in a flash 'by a brutal backward kick, and dropped howling, but his interference gave the three mounted constables hard by their ehance. They threw themselves off their horses, tossed the crowd aside as a battleship charges the foam, and arrived at the spot simultaneously. Ledbetter lay back against some opportune supporter, dizzy, but hugging the package. He heard shrieks; a woman had fainted, and sundry little souls were in

the flight of terror. He saw the three blue-coated constables rise up, pillars of defence between him and a face convulsed with the baffled lust of slaughter. He saw one of them go down gasping, stabbed 1 in the middle, and the other two, across his falling bulk, spring at Ferrol and overpower him. The crowd that had been a unit became fragments as the soldiers turned their horses and rode into it, ignoring the curses with which their onslaught was received. The lieutenant, who saw that panic would mean, suffocation to an unbroken mass, had given orders to disintegrate it. The Life Guardsmen broke it up .and drove it, shouting and hysterical, out into the roadway that was just freed in the nick of time by the passing of the last carriage of the President’s procession.

“Hold! on!” Ledbetter said to his unknown supporter. A drift of rapscallions streamed past them, and one had jostled the hand that clenched his precious burden. A brace of plain clothes policemen and a superior officer of the force, in cocked hat and braided frock, appeared before him. “We’ve got the man,” the officer said. Ledbetter met his grave eyes.

“U’you know who?” “I think we do.” He was pale and very stern. “My God! And that is ” His gloved fingers indicated the parcel. “His instrument, I believe,” Alec said. “Stand clear, sir, and let me hand it over to one of your fellows.” There was silence between the three men for a moment. “Keep the crowd back,” the officer said ; and a dozen constables, sprung apparently out of the earth, obeyed him. “So.” He watched the packet change hands. “Tell off an escort, sergeant.” They were flanked by files of heavy men in another moment. “Now we’ll go forward, please. And you, Mr —er ” _ “Ledbetter,” Alec said. “Mr Ledbetter —will do me the honor, please, to take my arm. Our surgeon will attend to you as soon as we get you in-”

They tramped to the police-station in a bodv, Ledbetter and the bomb the centre ■of" the little procession.* There was hurrying to and fro there, and messengers arrived from the Guildhall andi other places; and Alec sat on a chair while the doctor strapped his wound, and watched the brown-paper parcel disappear into a bevy of experts. ' They came back presently while ha wr.» explaining his reasons for action to a tab soldier with an aide-de-camp’s aiguillette on his breast, an individual whom he learned later was a royal equerry. A French detective led them, and came to Ledbetter and bowed low and very ceremoniously. , . , “A bomb of the most deadly, he said. “To explode on concussion. A Ferrol bomb—it is its name, monsieur. For the safety of the President and for your heroic courage, I, in the name of my nation, thank you.” , “I shouldn’t wonder if the _ English nation had something to say to it, too, the aide-de-camp said, looking down from his magnificent inches on the wounded man. “Ledbetter, d'you say you are. Any relation of Ledbetter, the V.C.-’ . “He’s my brother,” Alec said with “The deuce he is! I might have known it. Whv aren’t you a soldier, too?” < “Ploughed in the medical, for being: under weight and under size. Rotten luck, wasn’t it, sir? I grew like a a haystack between eighteen and twenty, but t never got another chance. By gad, if I only saw' my way to a commission The big man touched him kindly on the' shoulder. -a “That’s your heart’s desire? he said“lt don’t do to make impulsive promises, but—after this—l think the powers that be might see their .way to offering voir one. And now, Mr Ledbetter, when these' gentlemen of the police have done asking: you questions I am commissioned by hisRoyal Highness to see you safely home.