The man whom Humphrey feared most, in those early days, was Rivers, the news-editor. His personality was a riddle. You were never certain when you were summoned to his room in the morning, whether good or ill would result from it. In his hands lay the ordering of your day. You had no more control over your liberty from the time you came into Rivers' room than a prisoner serving his sentence,—no longer a man with a soul, but a reporter. You could be raised into the highest heaven or dropped down to the deepest hell by the wish of Rivers. He could bid you go forth—and you would have to tramp wretchedly the streets of the most unlovely spots in outer London in an interminable search for some elusive news: or perhaps you would be given five pounds for expenses and told to catch the next train for a far county, and spend the day among the hedgerows of the country-side. He had power absolute, like the taskmasters of old.

He sat in his room, with the map of England on the wall with its red flags marking the towns where The Day had correspondents, surrounded by telephones and cuttings from papers. He was in the office all day and night. At least that was how it appeared to Humphrey, who met him often and at all times on the stairs. When he was not, by any chance, there, his place was taken by O'Brien, an excitable Irishman, whose tie worked itself gradually up his collar, marking the time when his excitement was at fever-heat like a barometer.

Rivers had a home, of course, and a wife and a family. He was domesticated somewhere out in Herne Hill, from[89] the hours of eight until ten-thirty in the morning; and except once a week no more was seen of him at home. O'Brien generally took the desk on Sundays. But for the rest of his life Rivers lived and breathed with The Day more than any one else. From the time the door closed on him after breakfast, to the time when it closed on him late at night, when he went home, worn-out and tired, he worked for The Day. He was bought as surely as any slave was bought in the days of bondage. And his price was a magnificent one of four figures.

He expected his men to do as he did, in the service of the paper. For his goodwill, nothing sufficed but the complete subservience of all other interests to the work of The Day. Not until you did that, were you worthy to be on the paper and serve him.... And many hearts were broken in that room, with its hopeless gospel of materialism, where ideals were withered and nothing spiritual could survive.

Rivers was one of the young men who had won himself to power by the brute force of his intellect. He knew his own business to the tips of his fingers, and, beyond that, nothing mattered. Art and literature and the finer qualities of life could not enter into the practical range of his vision. They were not news. The great halfpenny public cared for nothing but news—a murder mystery, for choice; and the only chance art or literature had of awaking his interest was for the artist to commit suicide in extraordinary circumstances, or for the novelist to murder his publisher. ("By George!" I can hear Rivers saying, "here's a ripping story.... Here's an author murdered his publisher ... 'm ... 'm ... I suppose it's justifiable homicide.")

But on news—red-hot news—he was splendid. He might be sitting in his chair, joking idly with anybody who happened to be in the room, and suddenly the boy would bring in a slip from the tape machine: a submarine[90] wreck! Immediately, the listless, joking man would become swiftly serious and grim. He would decide instantly on the choice of reporters—two should be sent to the scene. "Boy, bring the A.B.C. No train. Damn it, why didn't that kid bring the news in at once. He dawdled five minutes. We could have caught the 3.42. Well, look up the trains to Southampton. Four o'clock. O'Brien, telephone up Southampton and tell them to have a car to take The Day reporters on. Boy, ask Mr Wratten and Mr Pride to come up. O'Brien, send a wire to the local chaps—tell 'em to weigh in all they can. Notify the post-office five thousand words from Portsmouth. Too late for photographs to-night—ring through to the artists, we'll have a diagram and a map. Off Southsea, eh? Shove in a picture of Southsea...." And in an hour it would all be over, and Rivers, a new man with news stirring in the world, would playfully punch O'Brien in the chest, and gather about him a reporter or two for company, and bestow wonderful largesse in the shape of steaks and champagne. That was the human thing about Rivers. He was master absolute, and yet there was no sharp dividing line between him and the men under him. The discipline was there, but it was never obtruded. They drank, and joked, and scored off each other, and Rivers, when things were slack, would tell them some of his early adventures, but whenever it came to the test, his authority in his sphere was supreme. He knew how to get the best work out of his men; and, I think, sometimes, he was sorry for the men who had not, and never would get, a salary of four figures.

Humphrey could not understand him. At times he would be brutally cruel, and morose, scarcely speaking a word to anybody except Wratten, who was generally in his good books; at other times he would come to the office as light-hearted as a child, and urge them all into[91] good-humour, and make them feel that there was no life in the world equal to theirs. Since that day when Humphrey had first met him in Ferrol's room, and he had laughed and said, "You're not a genius, are you?" Rivers had not taken any particular notice of him. When he came into Rivers' room, halting and nervous, he envied the easy freedom of the other reporters who chanced to be there. Wratten sitting on a table, dangling his legs, and Tommy Pride, with his hat on the back of his head, and a pipe in his mouth, while a third man might be looking over the diary of the day's events.

"Hullo, Quain...."

"Good-morning, Mr Rivers."

"O'Brien, what have you got for Quain. Eh? Nothing yet. Go downstairs and wait."

Or else: "Nothing doing this morning. You'd better do this lecture at seven o'clock. Give him the ticket, O'Brien."

And, as Humphrey left the room, he heard Wratten say casually, "I'll do that Guildhall luncheon to-day, Rivers, eh?" And Rivers replied, "Right-O. We shall want a column."

Splendid Wratten, he thought! How long would it be before he acquired such ease, such sure familiarity—how long before he should prove himself worthy to dangle his legs freely in the presence of Rivers.

Within a few days something happened that made Humphrey the celebrity of a day in the reporters' room. It was a fluke, a happy chance, as most of the good things in life are. A man had killed himself in a London street under most peculiar circumstances. He had dressed himself in woman's clothes, and only, after death, when they took him to the hospital, did they find that the dead body was that of a man. He was employed in a solicitor's office near Charing Cross Road. His name was Bellowes, and he was married, and[92] lived at Surbiton. These facts were published briefly in the afternoon papers. Rivers, scenting a mystery, threw his interest into the story. There is nothing like a mystery for selling the paper. He sent for Willoughby.

Humphrey had found Willoughby one of the most astonishing individuals of the reporters' room. He was a tall, slim man, with a hollow-cheeked face and a forehead that was always frowning. His hair fell in disorder almost over his eyebrows, and whenever he wrote he pulled his hair about with his left hand, and mumbled the sentences as he wrote them. His speciality was crime: he knew more of the dark underside of human nature than any one Humphrey had met. He knew the intimate byways of crime, and its motives; every detective in the Criminal Investigation Department was his friend, and though by the rigid law of Scotland Yard they were forbidden to give information, he could chat with them, make his own deductions as well as any detective, and sometimes accompany them when an arrest was expected. He drew his information from unknown sources, and he was always bringing the exclusive news of some crime or other to The Day.

He was a bundle of nerves, for he lived always in a world of expectancy. At any moment, any hour, day and night, something would be brought to light. Murder and sudden death and mystery formed the horizon of his thoughts.

Humphrey had found a friend in Willoughby. In very contrast to the work in which he was engaged, he kept the room alive with merriment. He could relate stories as well as he could write them, and he spoke always with the set phrases of old-time journalism that had a ludicrous effect on his listeners. His character was a strange mixture of shrewdness, worldly-wisdom, and ingenuousness, and this was reflected in the books he carried always with him. In one pocket there would[93] be an untranslatable French novel, and, in the other, by way of counterblast, a Meredith or a Stevenson. He and Humphrey had often talked about books, and Willoughby showed the temperament of a cultured scholar and a philosopher when he discussed literature.

Willoughby went up to Rivers' room.

"Here you are, my son," said Rivers, tossing him over the cuttings on the affair of the strange suicide. "Get down to Surbiton and see if you can nose out anything. I'll get some one else to look after the London end."

The some one else chanced to be Humphrey, for there was nobody but him left in the reporters' room. Thus it came about that, a few minutes after Willoughby had set out for Surbiton, Humphrey came out on Fleet Street with instructions to look after the "London end" of the tragedy.

Rivers' parting words were ringing in his ears. They had a sinister meaning in them. "... And don't you fall down, young man," he had said, using the vivid journalistic metaphor for failure.

The busy people of the street surged about him, as he stood still for a moment trying to think where he should begin on the London end. He felt extraordinarily inexperienced and helpless.... He thought how Wratten would have known at once where to go, or how easily Tommy Pride, with his years of training, could do the job. He did not dare ask Rivers to teach him his business—he had enough common sense to know that, at any cost, his ignorance must be hidden under a mask of wisdom.

The reporter thrust suddenly face to face with a mystery that must be unravelled in a few hours is a fit subject for tragedy. He is a social outlaw. He has not the authority of the detective, and none of the secret information of a department at his hand. He is a trespasser[94] in private places, a Peeping Tom, with his eye to a chink in the shuttered lives of others. His inner self wrenches both ways; he loathes and loves his duty. The human man in him says, "This is a shocking tragedy!" The journalist subconsciously murmurs, "This will be a column at least." Tears, and broken hearts, and the dismal tragedy of it all pass like a picture before him, and leave him unmoved.

The public stones him for obeying their desires. He would gladly give up all this sorry business ... and perhaps his salvation lies in his own hand if he becomes sufficiently strong and bold to cry "Enough!"

And this is the tragedy of it—he is neither strong nor bold; and so we may appreciate the picture of Humphrey Quain faced for the first time with the crisis that comes into every journalist's life, when his work revolts his finer senses.

He went blindly up the street, and newsboys ran towards him with raucous shouts, offering the latest news of the suicide. He bought a copy, and read through the story. It occurred to him that the best thing he could do was to go to the offices near Charing Cross Road, where the dead man had worked.

He took an omnibus. It was five o'clock in the evening, and most of the passengers were City men going home. Lucky people—their work was finished, and his was not yet begun.

When he came to the building he wanted, he paused outside. It was a ghastly business. What on earth should he say? What right had he to go and ask questions—there would be an inquest. Surely the public could wait till then for the sordid story. It was ghoulish.

He went into the office and asked the young man at the counter whether Mr Parfitt (the name of the partner) was in. The young man must have guessed his business[95] in a moment. Humphrey felt as if he had a placard hanging round his neck, "I am a newspaper man." "No," snapped the young man, curtly, "he's out."

"When will he be back?" asked Humphrey.

"I don't know," the young man answered, obstinately. "Who are you from?" That was a form of insult reserved for special occasions: it implied, you see, that the caller was obviously not of such appearance as to suggest that he was anything but a paid servant.

Humphrey said: "I wanted to talk about this sad tragedy of—"

The young man looked him up and down, and said, "We've nothing to say."

"But—" began Humphrey.

"We've nothing to say." The young man's lips closed tightly together with a grimace of absolute finality. Humphrey hesitated: he knew that the whole mystery lay within the knowledge of this spiteful person, if only he could be overcome.

"Look here," said the young man, threateningly. "Why don't you damn reporters mind your own business. You're the seventh we've 'ad up 'ere. We've nothing to say. See?" His voice rose to a shriller key. He was a very unpleasant young man, but fortunately he dropped his "h's," which modified, in some strange way, in Humphrey's mind the effect of his onslaught. The young man who had at first seemed somebody of importance, faded away now merely to an underbred nonentity. Humphrey laughed at him.

"You might keep your h's if you can't keep your temper," he said.

Then he left the office, feeling sorry for himself. It was nearly six o'clock, and he was no further. A hall-porter sat reading a paper in front of the fireplace. Humphrey tried diplomacy. He remarked on the tragedy: the hall-porter agreed it was very tragic.[96] There had been seven other reporters before him (marvellous how policemen and hall-porters seemed to know him at once). Humphrey felt in his pock............