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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38664-8.txt b/38664-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3953fe --- /dev/null +++ b/38664-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12483 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Four Corners of the World, by +A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Four Corners of the World + +Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +Release Date: January 25, 2012 [EBook #38664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + +no gutcheck/jeebies/gutspell + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + 1. Page scan source: + http://www.archive.org/details/fourcornersof00masoiala + + + + + + + BOOKS BY A. E. W. MASON + + Published By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + * * * * * + +THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD. _net_ $1.50 +THE BROKEN ROAD. _net_ $1.35 +AT THE VILLA ROSE. Illustrated. _net_ $1.35 +THE TURNSTILE. _net_ $1.35 +THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE. _net_ $1.35 + + + + + + + THE FOUR CORNERS + + OF THE WORLD + + + + + + + THE FOUR CORNERS + + OF THE WORLD + + + + + BY + + A. E. W. MASON + + + + + + CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS + NEW YORK :: :: :: 1917 + + + + + + + Copyright, 1917, by + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + * * * + + Published October, 1917 + + Copyright, 1909, by THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. + Copyright, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1917, By A. E. W. MASON + Copyright, 1914, 1915, 1917, By THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE CO. + + + + + + + CONTENTS + + +The Clock. + +Green Paint. + +North of the Tropic of Capricorn. + +One of Them. + +Raymond Byatt. + +The Crystal Trench. + +The House of Terror. + +The Brown Book. + +The Refuge. + +Peiffer. + +The Ebony Box. + +The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel. + +Under Bignor Hill. + + + + + + THE CLOCK + + + + + THE CLOCK + + + I + +Mr. Twiss was a great walker, and it was his habit, after his day's +work was done, to walk from his pleasant office in the Adelphi to his +home at Hampstead. On an afternoon he was detained to a later hour +than usual by one of his clients, a Captain Brayton, over some matter +of a mortgage. Mr. Twiss looked at his office clock. + +"You are going west, I suppose?" he said. "I wonder if you would walk +with me as far as Piccadilly? It will not be very much out of your +way, and I have a reason for wishing your company." + +"By all means," replied Captain Brayton, and the two men set forth. + +Mr. Twiss, however, seemed in a difficulty as to how he should broach +his subject, and for a while the pair walked in silence. They, indeed, +reached Pall Mall, and were walking down that broad thoroughfare, +before a word of any importance was uttered. And even then it was +chance which furnished the occasion. A young man of Captain Brayton's +age came down from the steps of a club and walked towards them. As he +passed beneath a street lamp, Mr. Twiss noticed his face, and ever so +slightly started with surprise. At almost the same moment, the young +man swerved across the road at a run, as though suddenly he remembered +a very pressing appointment. The two men walked on again for a few +paces, and then Captain Brayton observed: "There is a screw loose +there, I am afraid." + +Mr. Twiss shook his head. + +"I am sorry to hear you say so," he replied. "It was, indeed, about +Archie Cranfield that I was anxious to speak to you. I promised his +father that I would be something more than Archie's mere man of +affairs, if I were allowed, and I confess that I am troubled by him. +You know him well?" + +Captain Brayton nodded his head. + +"Perhaps I should say that I did know him well," he returned. "We were +at the same school, we passed through Chatham together, but since he +has relinquished actual service we have seen very little of one +another." Here he hesitated, but eventually made up his mind to +continue in a guarded fashion. "Also, I am bound to admit that there +has been cause for disagreement. We quarrelled." + +Mr. Twiss was disappointed. "Then you can tell me nothing of him +recently?" he asked, and Captain Brayton shrugged his shoulders. + +"Nothing but what all the little world of his acquaintances already +knows. He has grown solitary, forbidding in his manner, and, what is +most noticeable, sly--extraordinarily sly. While he is speaking with +you, he will smile at some secret thought of his; the affairs of the +world have lost their interest for him; he hardly listens and seldom +speaks. He is concerned with some private matter, and he hides it +cunningly. That is the character, at all events, which his friends +give of him." + +They had now reached the corner of St. James's Street, and as they +turned up the hill, Mr. Twiss took up the tale. + +"I am not surprised at what you tell me. It is a great pity, for we +both remember him ambitious and a good soldier. I am inclined to blame +the house in the country for the change in him." + +Captain Brayton, however, did not agree. + +"It goes deeper than that," he said. "Men who live alone in the +country may show furtive ways in towns, no doubt. But why does he live +alone in the country? No, that will not do"; and at the top of St. +James's Street the two men parted. + +Mr. Twiss walked up Bond Street, and the memory of that house in the +country in which Archie Cranfield chose to bury himself kept him +company. Mr. Twiss had travelled down into the eastern counties to see +it for himself one Saturday afternoon when Cranfield was away from +home, and a walk of six miles from the station had taken him to its +door. It stood upon the borders of Essex and Suffolk, a small +Elizabethan house backed upon the Stour, a place of black beams and +low ceilings and great fireplaces. It had been buttressed behind, +where the ground ran down to the river-bank, and hardly a window was +on a level with its neighbour. A picturesque place enough, but Mr. +Twiss was a lover of towns and of paved footways and illuminated +streets. He imagined it on such an evening as this, dark, and the rain +dripping cheerlessly from the trees. He imagined its inmate crouching +over the fire with his sly smile upon his face, and of a sudden the +picture took on a sinister look, and a strong sense of discomfort made +Mr. Twiss cast an uneasy glance behind him. He had in his pocket a +letter of instructions from Archie Cranfield, bidding him buy the +house outright with its furniture, since it had now all come into the +market. + +It was a week after this when next Captain Brayton came to Mr. Twiss's +office, and, their business done, he spoke of his own accord of Archie +Cranfield. + +"I am going to stay with him," he said. "He wrote to me on the night +of the day when we passed him in Pall Mall. He told me that he would +make up a small bachelor party. I am very glad, for, to tell the +truth, our quarrel was a sufficiently serious one, and here, it seems, +is the end to it." + +Mr. Twiss was delighted, and shook his client warmly by the hand. + +"You shall bring me news of Archie Cranfield," he said--"better news +than I have," he added, with a sudden gravity upon his face. For in +making the arrangements for the purchase of the house, he had come +into contact with various neighbours of Archie Cranfield, and from all +of them he had had but one report. Cranfield had a bad name in those +parts. There were no particular facts given to account for his +reputation. It was all elusive and vague, an impression conveyed by +Archie Cranfield himself, by something strange and sly in his +demeanour. He would sit chuckling in a sort of triumph, to which no +one had the clue, or, on the other hand, he fell into deep silences +like a man with a trouble on his mind. + +"Be sure you come to see me when you return," said Mr. Twiss, and +Captain Brayton replied heartily: "Surely I will." But he never did. +For in a few days the newspapers were busy with the strange enigma of +his death. + + + II + +The first hint of this enigma was conveyed to Mr. Twiss late one night +at his private address. It came in the shape of a telegram from Archie +Cranfield, which seemed to the agitated solicitor rather a cry of +distress than a message sent across the wires. + +"Come at once. I am in terrible need.--Cranfield." + +There were no trains at so late an hour by which Mr. Twiss could reach +his client; he must needs wait until the morning. He travelled, +however, by the first train from Liverpool Street. Although the +newspapers were set out upon the bookstall, not one of them contained +a word of anything amiss at Archie Cranfield's house, and Mr. Twiss +began to breathe more freely. It was too early for a cab to be in +waiting at the station, and Mr. Twiss set out to walk the six miles. +It was a fine, clear morning of November; but for the want of leaves +and birds, and the dull look of the countryside, Mr. Twiss might have +believed the season to be June. His spirits rose as he walked, his +blood warmed to a comfortable glow, and by the time he came to the +gates of the house, Cranfield's summons had become a trifling thing. +As he walked up to the door, however, his mood changed, for every +blind in the house was drawn. The door was opened before he could +touch the bell, and it was opened by Cranfield himself. His face was +pale and disordered, his manner that of a man at his wits' end. + +"What has happened?" asked Mr. Twiss as he entered the hall. + +"A terrible thing!" replied Cranfield. "It's Brayton. Have you +breakfasted? I suppose not. Come, and I will tell you while you eat." + +He walked up and down the room while Mr. Twiss ate his breakfast, and +gradually, by question and by answer, the story took shape. +Corroboration was easy and was secured. There was no real dispute +about the facts; they were simple and clear. + +There were two other visitors in the house besides Captain Brayton, +one a barrister named Henry Chalmers, and the second, William +Linfield, a man about town as the phrase goes. Both men stood in much +the same relationship to Archie Cranfield as Captain Brayton did--that +is to say, they were old friends who had seen little of their host of +late, and were somewhat surprised to receive his invitation after so +long an interval. They had accepted it in the same spirit as Brayton, +and the three men arrived together on Wednesday evening. On Thursday +the party of four shot over some turnip fields and a few clumps of +wood which belonged to the house, and played a game of bridge in the +evening. In the opinion of all, Brayton was never in better spirits. +On Friday the four men shot again and returned to the house as +darkness was coming on. They took tea in the smoking-room, and after +tea Brayton declared his intention to write some letters before +dinner. He went upstairs to his room for that purpose. + +The other three men remained in the smoking-room. Of that there was no +doubt. Both Chalmers and Linfield were emphatic upon the point. +Chalmers, in particular, said: + +"We sat talking on a well-worn theme, I in a chair on one side of the +fireplace, Archie Cranfield in another opposite to me, and Linfield +sitting on the edge of the billiard-table between us. How the subject +cropped up I cannot remember, but I found myself arguing that most men +hid their real selves all their lives even from their most intimate +friends, that there were secret chambers in a man's consciousness +wherein he lived a different life from that which the world saw and +knew, and that it was only by some rare mistake the portals of that +chamber were ever passed by any other man. Linfield would not hear of +it. If this hidden man were the real man, he held, in some way or +another the reality would triumph, and some vague suspicion of the +truth would in the end be felt by all his intimates. I upheld my view +by instances from the courts of law, Linfield his by the aid of a +generous imagination, while Cranfield looked from one to the other of +us with his sly, mocking smile. I turned to him, indeed, in some heat. + +"'Well, since you appear to know, Cranfield, tell me which of us is +right,' and his pipe fell from his fingers and broke upon the hearth. +He stood up, with his face grown white and his lips drawn back from +his teeth in a kind of snarl. + +"'What do you mean by that?' he asked; and before I could answer, the +door was thrown violently open, and Cranfield's man-servant burst into +the room. He mastered himself enough to say: + +"'May I speak to you, sir?' + +"Cranfield went outside the door with him. He could not have moved six +paces from the door, for though he closed it behind him, we heard the +sound of his voice and of his servant's speaking in low tones. +Moreover, there was no appreciable moment of time between the +cessation of the voices and Cranfield's reappearance in the room. He +came back to the fireplace and said very quietly: + +"'I have something terrible to tell you. Brayton has shot himself.' + +"He then glanced from Linfield's face to mine, and sat down in a chair +heavily. Then he crouched over the fire shivering. Both Linfield and +myself were too shocked by the news to say a word for a moment or two. +Then Linfield asked: + +"'But is he dead?' + +"'Humphreys says so,' Cranfield returned. 'I have telephoned to the +police and to the doctor.' + +"'But we had better go upstairs ourselves and see,' said I. And we +did." + +Thus Chalmers. Humphreys, the man-servant, gave the following account: + +"The bell rang from Captain Brayton's room at half-past five. I +answered it at once myself, and Captain Brayton asked me at what hour +the post left. I replied that we sent the letters from the house to +the post-office in the village at six. He then asked me to return at +that hour and fetch those of his which would be ready. I returned +precisely at six, and I saw Captain Brayton lying in a heap upon the +rug in front of the fire. He was dead, and he held a revolver tightly +clenched in his hand. As I stepped over him, I smelt that something +was burning. He had shot himself through the heart, and his clothes +were singed, as if he had held the revolver close to his side." + +These stories were repeated at the inquest, and at this particular +point in Humphreys' evidence the coroner asked a question: + +"Did you recognise the revolver?" + +"Not until Captain Brayton's hand was unclenched." + +"But then you did?" + +"Yes," said Humphreys. + +The coroner pointed to the table on which a revolver lay. + +"Is that the weapon?" + +Humphreys took it up and looked at the handle, on which two initials +were engraved--"A. C." + +"Yes," said the man. "I recognised it as Mr. Cranfield's. He kept it +in a drawer by his bedside." + +No revolver was found amongst Captain Brayton's possessions. + +It became clear that, while the three men were talking in the +billiard-room, Captain Brayton had gone to Cranfield's room, taken his +revolver, and killed himself with it. No evidence, however, was +produced which supplied a reason for Brayton's suicide. His affairs +were in good order, his means sufficient, his prospects of advancement +in his career sound. Nor was there a suggestion of any private +unhappiness. The tragedy, therefore, was entered in that list of +mysteries which are held insoluble. + +"I might," said Chalmers, "perhaps resume the argument which Humphreys +interrupted in the billiard-room, with a better instance than any +which I induced--the instance of Captain Brayton." + + + III + +"You won't go?" Archie Cranfield pleaded with Mr. Twiss. "Linfield and +Chalmers leave to-day. If you go too, I shall be entirely alone." + +"But why should you stay?" the lawyer returned. + +"Surely you hardly propose to remain through the winter in this +house?" + +"No, but I must stay on for a few days; I have to make arrangements +before I can go," said Cranfield; and seeing that he was in earnest in +his intention to go, Mr. Twiss was persuaded. He stayed on, and +recognised, in consequence, that the death of Captain Brayton had +amongst its consequences one which he had not expected. The feeling in +the neighbourhood changed towards Archie Cranfield. It cannot be said +that he became popular--he wore too sad and joyless an air--but +sympathy was shown to him in many acts of courtesy and in a greater +charity of language. + +A retired admiral, of a strong political complexion, who had been one +of the foremost to dislike Archie Cranfield, called, indeed, to offer +his condolences. Archie Cranfield did not see him, but Mr. Twiss +walked down the drive with him to the gate. + +"It's hard on Cranfield," said the admiral. "We all admit it. It +wasn't fair of Brayton to take his host's revolver. But for the +accident that Cranfield was in the billiard-room with Linfield and +Chalmers, the affair might have taken on quite an ugly look. We all +feel that in the neighbourhood, and we shall make it up to Cranfield. +Just tell him that, Mr. Twiss, if you will." + +"It is very kind of you all, I am sure," replied Mr. Twiss, "but I +think Cranfield will not continue to live here. The death of Captain +Brayton has been too much of a shock for him." + +Mr. Twiss said "Good-bye" to the admiral at the gate, and returned to +the house. He was not easy in his mind, and as he walked round the +lawn under the great trees, he cried to himself: + +"It is lucky, indeed, that Archie Cranfield was in the billiard-room +with Linfield and Chalmers; otherwise, Heaven knows what I might have +been brought to believe myself." + +The two men had quarrelled; Brayton himself had imparted that piece of +knowledge to Mr. Twiss. Then there was the queer change in Archie +Cranfield's character, which had made for him enemies of strangers, +and strangers of his friends--the slyness, the love of solitude, the +indifference to the world, the furtive smile as of a man conscious of +secret powers, the whole indescribable uncanniness of him. Mr. Twiss +marshalled his impressions and stopped in the avenue. + +"I should have had no just grounds for any suspicion," he concluded, +"but I cannot say that I should not have suspected," and slowly he +went on to the door. + +He walked through the house into the billiard-room, and so became the +witness of an incident which caused him an extraordinary disquiet. The +room was empty. Mr. Twiss lit his pipe and took down a book from one, +of the shelves. A bright fire glowed upon the hearth, and drawing up a +chair to the fender, he settled down to read. But the day was dull, +and the fireplace stood at the dark end of the room. Mr. Twiss carried +his book over to the window, which was a bay window with a broad seat. +Now, the curtains were hung at the embrasure of the window, so that, +when they were drawn, they shut the bay off altogether from the room, +and when they were open, as now, they still concealed the corners of +the window-seats. It was in one of these corners that Mr. Twiss took +his seat, and there he read quietly for the space of five minutes. + +At the end of that time he heard the latch of the door click, and +looking out from his position behind the curtain, he saw the door +slowly open. Archie Cranfield came through the doorway into the room, +and shut the door behind him. Then he stood for a while by the door, +very still, but breathing heavily. Mr. Twiss was on the point of +coming forward and announcing his presence, but there was something so +strange and secret in Cranfield's behaviour that, in spite of certain +twinges of conscience, he remained hidden in his seat. He did more +than remain hidden. He made a chink between the curtain and the wall, +and watched. He saw Cranfield move swiftly over to the fireplace, +seize a little old-fashioned clock in a case of satinwood which stood +upon the mantelshelf, raise it in the air, and dash it with an +ungovernable fury on to the stone hearth. Having done this +unaccountable thing, Cranfield dropped into the chair which Mr. Twiss +had drawn up. He covered his face with his hands and suddenly began to +sob and wail in the most dreadful fashion, rocking his body from side +to side in a very paroxysm of grief. Mr. Twiss was at his wits' end to +know what to do. He felt that to catch a man sobbing would be to earn +his undying resentment. Yet the sound was so horrible, and produced in +him so sharp a discomfort and distress, that, on the other hand, he +could hardly keep still. The paroxysm passed, however, almost as +quickly as it had come, and Cranfield, springing to his feet, rang the +bell. Humphreys answered it. + +"I have knocked the clock off the mantelshelf with my elbow, +Humphreys," he said. "I am afraid that it is broken, and the glass +might cut somebody's hand. Would you mind clearing the pieces away?" + +He went out of the room, and Humphreys went off for a dustpan. Mr. +Twiss was able to escape from the billiard-room unnoticed. But it was +a long time before he recovered from the uneasiness which the incident +aroused in him. + +Four days later the two men left the house together. The servants had +been paid off. Humphreys had gone with the luggage to London by an +earlier train. Mr. Twiss and Archie Cranfield were the last to go. +Cranfield turned the key in the lock of the front door as they stood +upon the steps. + +"I shall never see the inside of that house again," he said with a +gusty violence. + +"Will you allow me to get rid of it for you?" asked Mr. Twiss; and for +a moment Cranfield looked at him with knotted brows, blowing the while +into the wards of the key. + +"No," he said at length, and, running down to the stream at the back +of the house, he tossed the key into the water. "No," he repeated +sharply; "let the house rot empty as it stands. The rats shall have +their will of it, and the sooner the better." + +He walked quickly to the gate, with Mr. Twiss at his heels, and as +they covered the six miles to the railway station, very little was +said between them. + + + IV + +Time ran on, and Mr. Twiss was a busy man. The old house by the Stour +began to vanish from his memory amongst the mists and the veils of +rain which so often enshrouded it. Even the enigma of Captain +Brayton's death was ceasing to perplex him, when the whole affair was +revived in the most startling fashion. A labourer, making a short cut +to his work one summer morning, passed through the grounds of +Cranfield's closed and shuttered house. His way led him round the back +of the building, and as he came to that corner where the great brick +buttresses kept the house from slipping down into the river, he saw +below him, at the edge of the water, a man sleeping. The man's back +was turned towards him; he was lying half upon his side, half upon his +face. The labourer, wondering who it was, went down to the river-bank, +and the first thing he noticed was a revolver lying upon the grass, +its black barrel and handle shining in the morning sunlight. The +labourer turned the sleeper over on his back. There was some blood +upon the left breast of his waistcoat. The sleeper was dead, and from +the rigidity of the body had been dead for some hours. The labourer +ran back to the village with the astounding news that he had found Mr. +Cranfield shot through the heart at the back of his own empty house. +People at first jumped naturally to the belief that murder had been +done. The more judicious, however, shook their heads. Not a door nor a +window was open in the house. When the locks were forced, it was seen +that the dust lay deep on floor and chair and table, and nowhere was +there any mark of a hand or a foot. Outside the house, too, in the +long neglected grass, there were but two sets of footsteps visible, +one set leading round the house--the marks made by the labourer on his +way to his work--the other set leading directly to the spot where +Archie Cranfield's body was found lying. Rumours, each contradicting +the other, flew from cottage to cottage, and the men gathered about +the police-station and in the street waiting for the next. In an hour +or two, however, the mystery was at an end. It leaked out that upon +Archie Cranfield's body a paper had been discovered, signed in his +hand and by his name, with these words: + +"I have shot myself with the same revolver with which I murdered +Captain Brayton." + +The statement created some stir when it was read out in the +billiard-room, where the coroner held his inquest. But the coroner who +presided now was the man who had held the court when Captain Brayton +had been shot. He was quite clear in his recollection of that case. + +"Mr. Cranfield's alibi on that occasion," he said, "was +incontrovertible. Mr. Cranfield was with two friends in this very room +when Captain Brayton shot himself in his bedroom. There can be no +doubt of that." And under his direction the jury returned a verdict of +"Suicide while of unsound mind." + +Mr. Twiss attended the inquest and the funeral. But though he welcomed +the verdict, at the bottom of his mind he was uneasy. He remembered +vividly that extraordinary moment when he had seen Cranfield creep +into the billiard-room, lift the little clock in its case of satinwood +high above his head, and dash it down upon the hearth in a wild gust +of fury. He recollected how the fury had given way to despair--if it +were despair and not remorse. He saw again Archie Cranfield dropping +into the chair, holding his head and rocking his body in a paroxysm of +sobs. The sound of his wailing rang horribly once more in the ears of +Mr. Twiss. He was not satisfied. + +"What should take Cranfield back to that deserted house, there to end +his life, if not remorse," he asked himself--"remorse for some evil +done there"? + +Over that question for some days he shook his head, finding it waiting +for him at his fireside and lurking for him at the corner of the +roads, as he took his daily walk between Hampstead and his office. It +began to poison his life, a life of sane and customary ways, with +eerie suggestions. There was an oppression upon his heart of which he +could not rid it. On the outskirts of his pleasant world dim horrors +loomed; he seemed to walk upon a frail crust, fearful of what lay +beneath. The sly smile, the furtive triumph, the apparent +consciousness of secret power--did they point to some corruption of +the soul in Cranfield, of which none knew but he himself? + +"At all events, he paid for it," Mr. Twiss would insist, and from that +reflection drew, after all, but little comfort. The riddle began even +to invade his business hours, and take a seat within his private +office, silently clamouring for his attention. So that it was with a +veritable relief that he heard one morning from his clerk that a man +called Humphreys wished particularly to see him. + +"Show him in," cried Mr. Twiss, and for his own ear he added: "Now I +shall know." + +Humphreys entered the room with a letter in his hand. He laid the +letter on the office table. Mr. Twiss saw at a glance that it was +addressed in Archie Cranfield's hand. He flung himself upon it and +snatched it up. It was sealed by Cranfield's seal. It was addressed to +himself, with a note upon the left-hand corner of the envelope: + +"To be delivered after my death." + +Mr. Twiss turned sternly to the man. + +"Why did you not bring it before?" + +"Mr. Cranfield told me to wait a month," Humphreys replied. + +Mr. Twiss took a turn across the room with the letter in his hand. + +"Then you knew," he cried, "that your master meant to kill himself? +You knew, and remained silent?" + +"No, sir, I did not know," Humphreys replied firmly. "Mr. Cranfield +gave me the letter, saying that he had a long railway journey in front +of him. He was smiling when he gave it me. I can remember the words +with which he gave it: 'They offer you an insurance ticket at the +booking-office, when they sell you your travelling ticket, so there is +always, I suppose, a little risk. And it is of the utmost importance +to me that, in the event of my death, this should reach Mr. Twiss.' He +spoke so lightly that I could not have guessed what was on his mind, +nor, do I think, sir, could you." + +Mr. Twiss dismissed the man and summoned his clerk. "I shall not be in +to anyone this afternoon," he said. He broke the seal and drew some +closely written sheets of note-paper from the envelope. He spread the +sheets in front of him with a trembling hand. + +"Heaven knows in what spirit and with what knowledge I shall rise from +my reading," he thought; and looking out of his pleasant window upon +the barges swinging down the river on the tide, he was in half a mind +to fling the sheets of paper into the fire. "But I shall be plagued +with that question all my life," he added, and he bent his head over +his desk and read. + + + V + +"My dear Friend,--I am writing down for you the facts. I am not +offering any explanation, for I have none to give. You will probably +rise up, after reading this letter, quite incredulous, and with the +conviction in your mind that you have been reading the extravagancies +of a madman. And I wish with all my heart that you could be right. But +you are not. I have come to the end to-day. I am writing the last +words I ever shall write, and therefore I am not likely to write a +lie. + +"You will remember the little manor-house on the borders of Essex, for +you were always opposed to my purchase of it. You were like the +British jury, my friend. Your conclusion was sound, but your reason +for it very far from the mark. You disliked it for its isolation and +the melancholy of its dripping trees, and I know not what other +town-bred reasonings. I will give you a more solid cause. Picture to +yourself the billiard-room and how it was furnished when I first took +the house--the raised settee against the wall, the deep leather chairs +by the fire, the high fender, and on the mantelshelf--what?--a little +old-fashioned clock in a case of satinwood. You probably never noticed +it. I did from the first evenings which I passed in the house. For I +spent those evenings alone, smoking my pipe by the fire. It had a +queer trick. For a while it would tick almost imperceptibly, and then, +without reason, quite suddenly, the noise would become loud and +hollow, as though the pendulum in its swing struck against the wooden +case. To anyone sitting alone for hours in the room, as I did, this +tick had the queerest effect. The clock almost became endowed with +human qualities. At one time it seemed to wish to attract one's +attention, at another time to avoid it. For more than once, disturbed +by the louder knocking, I rose and moved the clock. At once the +knocking would cease, to begin again when I had settled afresh to my +book, in a kind of tentative, secret way, as though it would accustom +my ears to the sound, and so pass unnoticed. And often it did so pass, +until one knock louder and more insistent than the rest would drag me +in annoyance on to my feet once more. In a week, however, I got used +to it, and then followed the strange incident which set in motion that +chain of events of which tomorrow will see the end. + +"It happened that a couple of my neighbours were calling on me. One of +them you have met--Admiral Palkin, a prolix old gentleman, with a +habit of saying nothing at remarkable length. The other was a Mr. +Stiles, a country gentleman who had a thought of putting up for +that division of the county. I led these two gentlemen into the +billiard-room, and composed myself to listen while the admiral +monologued. But the clock seemed to me to tick louder than ever, +until, with one sharp and almost metallic thump, the sound ceased +altogether. At exactly the same moment. Admiral Palkin stopped dead in +the middle of a sentence. It was nothing of any consequence that he +was saying, but I remember the words at which he stopped. 'I have +often----' he said, and then he broke off, not with any abrupt start, +or for any lack of words, but just as if he had completed all that he +had meant to say. I looked at him across the fireplace, but his face +wore its usual expression of complacent calm. He was in no way put +out. Nor did it seem that any new train of thought had flashed into +his mind and diverted it. I turned my eyes from him to Mr. Stiles. Mr. +Stiles seemed actually to be unaware that the admiral had stopped +talking at all. Admiral Palkin, you will remember, was a person of +consequence in the district, and Mr. Stiles, who would subsequently +need his vote and influence and motorcar, had thought fit to assume an +air of great deference. From the beginning he had leaned towards the +admiral, his elbow upon his knee, his chin propped upon his hand, and +his head now and again nodding a thoughtful assent to the admiral's +nothings. In this attitude he still remained, not surprised, not even +patiently waiting for the renewal of wisdom, but simply attentive. + +"Nor did I move, for I was amused. The two men looked just like a +couple of wax figures in Madame Tussaud's, fixed in a stiff attitude +and condemned so to remain until the building should take fire and the +wax run. I sat watching them for minutes, and still neither moved nor +spoke. I never saw in my life a couple of people so entirely +ridiculous. I tried hard to keep my countenance--for to laugh at these +great little men in my own house would not only be bad manners, but +would certainly do for me in the neighbourhood--but I could not help +it. I began to smile, and the smile became a laugh. Yet not a muscle +on the faces of my visitors changed. Not a frown overshadowed the +admiral's complacency; not a glance diverted the admiring eyes of Mr. +Stiles. And then the clock began to tick again, and, to my infinite +astonishment, at the very same moment the admiral continued. + +"'--said to myself in my lighter moments---- And pray, sir, at what +are you laughing?' + +"Mr. Stiles turned with an angry glance towards me. Admiral Palkin had +resumed his conversation, apparently unaware that there had been any +interval at all. My laughter, on the other hand, had extended beyond +the interval, had played an accompaniment to the words just spoken. I +made my excuses as well as I could, but I recognised that they were +deemed insufficient. The two gentlemen left my house with the coldest +farewells you can imagine. + +"The same extraordinary incident was repeated with other visitors, but +I was on my guard against any injudicious merriment. Moreover, I had +no longer any desire to laugh. I was too perplexed. My visitors never +seemed to notice that there had been a lengthy interval or indeed any +interval at all, while I, for my part, hesitated to ask them what had +so completely hypnotised them. + +"The next development took place when I was alone in the room. It was +five o'clock in the afternoon. I had been out shooting a covert close +to the house, and a few minutes after I had rung the bell, I +remembered that I had forgotten some instructions which I had meant to +give to the keeper. So I got up at once, thinking to catch him in the +gun-room before he went home. As I rose from my chair, the clock, +which had been ticking loudly--though, as I have said, it was rather a +hollow, booming sound, as though the pendulum struck the wood of the +case, than a mere ticking of the clock-work--ceased its noise with the +abruptness to which I was growing used. I went out of the room into +the hall, and I saw Humphreys with the tea-tray in his hands in the +hall. He was turned towards the billiard-room door, but to my +astonishment he was not moving. He was poised with one foot in the +air, as though he had been struck, as the saying is, with a step half +taken. You have seen, no doubt, instantaneous photographs of people in +the act of walking. Well, Humphreys was exactly like one of those +photographs. He had just the same stiff, ungainly look. I should have +spoken to him, but I was anxious to catch my keeper before he went +away. So I took no notice of him. I crossed the hall quickly and went +out by the front door, leaving it open. The gun-room was really a +small building of corrugated iron, standing apart at the back of the +house. I went to it and tried the door. It was locked. I called aloud: +'Martin! Martin!' + +"But I received no answer. I ran round the house again, thinking that +he might just have started home, but I saw no signs of him. There were +some outhouses which it was his business to look after, and I visited +them, opening the door of each of them and calling him by name. Then I +went down the drive to the gate, thinking that I might perhaps catch a +glimpse of him upon the road, but again I was disappointed. I then +returned to the house, shut the front door, and there in the hall +still stood Humphreys in his ridiculous attitude with the tea-tray in +his hands. I passed him and went back into the billiard-room. He took +no notice of me whatever. I looked at the clock upon the mantelshelf, +and I saw that I had been away just fourteen minutes. For fourteen +minutes Humphreys had been standing on one leg in the hall. It seemed +as incredible as it was ludicrous. Yet there was the clock to bear me +out. I sat down on my chair with my hands trembling, my mind in a +maze. The strangest thought had come to me, and while I revolved it in +my mind, the clock resumed its ticking, the door opened, and Humphreys +appeared with the tea-tray in his hand. + +"'You have been a long time, Humphreys,' I said, and the man looked at +me quickly. My voice was shaking with excitement, my face, no doubt, +had a disordered look. + +"'I prepared the tea at once, sir,' he answered. + +"'It is twenty minutes by the clock since I rang the bell,' I said. + +"Humphreys placed the tea on a small table at my side and then looked +at the clock. An expression of surprise came over his face. He +compared it with the dial of his own watch. + +"'The clock wants regulating, sir,' he said. 'I set it by the kitchen +clock this morning, and it has gained fourteen minutes.' + +"I whipped my own watch out of my pocket and stared at it. Humphreys +was quite right; the clock upon the mantelshelf had gained fourteen +minutes upon all our watches. Yes, but it had gained those fourteen +minutes in a second, and that was the least part of the marvel. I +myself had had the benefit of those fourteen minutes. I had snatched +them, as it were, from Time itself. I had looked at my watch when I +rang the bell. It had marked five minutes to five. I had remained yet +another four minutes in the room before I had remembered my forgotten +instructions to the keeper. I had then gone out. I had visited the +gun-room and the outhouses, I had walked to the front gate, I had +returned. I had taken fourteen minutes over my search--I could not +have taken less--and here were the hands of my watch now still +pointing towards five, still short of the hour. Indeed, as I replaced +my watch in my pocket, the clock in the hall outside struck five. + +"'As you passed through the hall, Humphreys, you saw no one, I +suppose?' I said. + +"Humphreys raised his eyebrows with a look of perplexity. 'No, sir, I +saw no one,' he returned, 'but it seemed to me that the front door +banged. I think it must have been left open.' + +"'Very likely,' said I. 'That will do,' and Humphreys went out of the +room. + +"Imagine my feelings. Time is relative, it is a condition of our +senses, it is nothing more--that we know. But its relation to me was +different from its relation to others. The clock had given me fourteen +minutes, which it denied to all the world besides. Fourteen full +minutes for me, yet they passed for others in less than the fraction +of a second. And not once only had it made me this gift, but many +times. The admiral's pause, unnoticed by Mr. Stiles, was now explained +to me. He had not paused; he had gone straight on with his flow of +talk, and Mr. Stiles had gone straight on listening. But between two +of Admiral Palkin's words. Time had stood still for me. Similarly, +Humphreys had not poised himself upon one ridiculous leg in the hall. +He had taken a step in the usual way, but while his leg was raised, +fourteen minutes were given to me. I had walked through the hall, I +had walked back through the hall, yet Humphreys had not seen me. He +could not have seen me, for there had been no interval of time for him +to use his eyes. I had gone and come quicker than any flash, for even +a flash is appreciable as some fraction of a second. + +"I asked you to imagine my feelings. Only with those which I first +experienced would you, from your sane and comfortable outlook upon +life, have any sympathy, for at the beginning I was shocked. I had +more than an inclination then to dash that clock upon the hearth and +deny myself its bizarre and unnatural gift. Would that I had done so! +But the inclination was passed, and was succeeded by an incredible +lightness of spirit. I had a gift which raised me above kings, which +fanned into a flame every spark of vanity within me. I had so much +more of time than any other man. I amused myself by making plans to +use it, and thereupon I suffered a disappointment. For there was so +little one could do in fourteen minutes, and the more I realised how +little there was which I could do in my own private special stretch of +time, the more I wanted to do, the more completely I wished to live in +it, the more I wished to pluck power and advantage from it. Thus I +began to look forward to the sudden cessation of the ticking of the +clock; I began to wait for it, to live for it, and when it came, I +could make no use of it. I gained fourteen minutes now and then, but I +lost more and more of the hours which I shared with other men. They +lost their salt for me. I became tortured with the waste of those +minutes of my own. I had the power; what I wanted now was to employ +it. The desire became an obsession occupying my thoughts, harassing my +dreams. + +"I was in this mood when I passed Brayton and yourself one evening in +Pall Mall. I wrote to him that night, and I swear to you upon my +conscience that I had no thought in writing but to put an end to an +old disagreement, and re-establish, if possible, an old friendship. I +wrote in a sudden revulsion of feeling. The waste of my days was +brought home to me. I recognised that the great gift was no more than +a perpetual injury. I proposed to gather my acquaintances about me, +discard my ambition for some striking illustration of my power, and +take up once more the threads of customary life. Yet my determination +lasted no longer than the time it took me to write the letter and run +out with it to the post. I regretted its despatch even as I heard it +fall to the bottom of the pillar-box. + +"Of my quarrel with Brayton I need not write at length. It sprang from +a rancorous jealousy. We had been friends and class-mates in the +beginning. But as step by step he rose just a little above me, the +friendship I had turned to gall and anger. I was never more than the +second, he always the first. Had I been fourth or fifth, I think I +should not have minded; but there was so little to separate us in +merit or advancement. Yet there was always that little, and I dreaded +the moment when he should take a bound and leave me far behind. The +jealousy grew to a real hatred, made still more bitter to me by the +knowledge that Brayton himself was unaware of it, and need not have +been troubled had he been aware. + +"After I left the Army and lost sight of him, the flame burnt low. I +believed it was extinguished when I invited him to stay with me; but +he had not been an hour in the house when it blazed up within me. His +success, the confidence which it had given him, his easy friendliness +with strangers, the talk of him as a coming man, bit into my soul. The +very sound of his footstep sickened me. I was in this mood when the +clock began to boom louder and louder in the billiard-room. Chalmers +and Linfield were talking. I did not listen to them. My heart beat +louder and louder within my breast, keeping pace with the clock. I +knew that in a moment or two the sound would cease, and the doors of +my private kingdom would be open for me to pass through. I sat back in +my chair waiting while the devilish inspiration had birth and grew +strong. Here was the great chance to use the power I had--the only +chance which had ever come to me. Brayton was writing letters in his +room. The room was in a wing of the house. The sound of a shot would +not be heard. There would be an end of his success; there would be for +me such a triumphant use of my great privilege as I had never dreamed +of. The clock suddenly ceased. I slipped from the room and went +upstairs. I was quite leisurely. I had time. I was back in my chair +again before seven minutes had passed. + + "Archie Cranfield." + + + + + + GREEN PAINT + + + + + GREEN PAINT + + + I + +I came up by the lift from the lower town, Harry Vandeleur strolled +from his more respectable lodging in the upper quarter, and we met +unexpectedly in Government Square. It was ten o'clock in the morning, +and the Square, a floor of white within a ragged border of trees, +glared blindingly under the tropical sun. On each side of the +President's door a diminutive soldier rattled a rifle from time to +time. + +"What? Has he sent for you too?" said Harry, pointing to the +President's house. + +"Juan Ballester. Yes," said I, and Harry Vandeleur stopped with a +sudden suspicion on his face. + +"What does he want with us?" he asked. + +"We volunteered in the war," said I. "We were both useful to him." + +Harry Vandeleur shook his head. + +"He is at the top of his power. He has won his three-weeks war. The +Army has made him President for the second time. He has so skilfully +organised his elections that he has a Parliament, not merely without +an Opposition, but without a single man of any note in it except +Santiago Calavera. It is not from such that humble people like us can +expect gratitude." + +Juan Ballester was, in fact, a very remarkable person. Very few people +who had dealings with him ever forgot him. There was the affair of the +Opera House, for instance, and a hundred instances. Who he really was +I should think no one knew. He used to say that he was born in Mexico +City, and when he wished to get the better of anyone with a +sentimental turn, he would speak of his old mother in a broken voice. +But since he never wrote to his old mother, nor she to him, I doubt +very much whether she existed. The only certain fact known about him +was that some thirteen years before, when he was crossing on foot a +high pass of the Cordilleras without a dollar in his pocket, he met a +stranger--but no! I have heard him attribute so many different +nationalities to that stranger that I wouldn't kiss the Bible even on +that story. Probably he _was_ a Mexican and of a good stock. Certainly +no Indian blood made a flaw in him. For though his hair was black and +a pencil-line of black moustache decorated his lip, his skin was fair +like any Englishman's. He was thirty-eight years old, five feet eleven +in height, strongly but not thickly built, and he had a pleasant, +good-humoured face which attracted and deceived by its look of +frankness. For the rest of him the story must speak. + +He received us in a great room on the first floor overlooking the +Square; and at once he advanced and laid a hand impressively upon my +shoulder. He looked into my face silently. Then he said: + +"Carlyon, I want you." + +I did not believe him for a moment. But from time to time Juan +Ballester did magnanimous things; not from magnanimity, of which +quality he was entirely devoid, but from a passion for the _bran +geste_. He would see himself a shining figure before men's eyes, the +perfect cavalier; and the illusion would dazzle him into generosity. +Accordingly, my hopes rose. I was living on credit in a very inferior +hotel. "I had thought my work was done," he continued. "I had hoped to +retire, like Cincinnatus, to my plough," and he gazed sentimentally +out of the window across the city to the wooded hills of Santa Paula. +"But since my country calls me, I must have someone about me whom I +can trust." He broke off to ask: "I suppose your police are no longer +searching for you?" + +"They never were, your Excellency," I protested hotly. + +"Well, perhaps not," he said indulgently. "No doubt the natural +attractions of Maldivia brought you here. You did me some service in +the war. I am not ungrateful. I appoint you my private secretary." + +"Your Excellency!" I cried. + +He shook hands with me and added carelessly: + +"There is no salary attached to the post, but there are +opportunities." + +And there were. That is why I now live in a neat little villa at +Sorrento. + +Ballester turned to Harry Vandeleur and took him by the arm. He looked +from one to the other of us. + +"Ever since the day when I walked over a high pass of the Cordilleras +with nothing but the clothes I stood up in, and an unknown Englishman +gave me the railway fare to this city, I have made what return I could +to your nation. You, too, have served me, Señor Vandeleur. I pay some +small portion of my debt. Money! I have none to give you"; and he +uttered the words without a blush, although the half a million pounds +sterling received as war indemnity had already been paid into his +private account. + +"Nor would you take it if I had," Juan resumed. "But I will give you +something of equal value." + +He led Vandeleur to the window, and waving his hand impressively over +the city, he said: + +"I will give you the monopoly of green paint in the city of Santa +Paula." + +I stifled a laugh. Harry Vandeleur got red in the face. For, after +all, no man likes to look a greater fool than he naturally is. He had, +moreover, a special reason for disappointment. + +"I don't suppose that there are twenty bucketsful used in Santa Paula +in the year," he exclaimed bitterly. + +"Wait, my friend," said Ballester; "there will be." + +And a week afterwards the following proclamation appeared upon the +walls of the public buildings: + +"Owing to the numerous complaints which have been received of the +discomfort produced by the glare of a tropical sun, the Government of +the day, ever solicitous to further the wishes of its citizens, now +orders that every house in Santa Paula, with the exception of the +Government buildings, be painted in green paint within two months of +the issue of this proclamation, and any resident who fails to obey +this enactment shall be liable to a fine of fifty dollars for every +day after the two months have elapsed until the order is carried out." + +Juan Ballester was, no doubt, a very great man, but I cannot deny that +he strained the loyalty of his friends by this proclamation. +Grumblings were loud. No one could discover who had complained of the +glare of the streets--for the simple reason that no one had complained +at all. However, the order was carried out. Daily the streets of Santa +Paula grew greener and greener, until the town had quite a restful +look, and sank into its background and became a piece with its +surroundings. Meanwhile, Harry Vandeleur sat in an office, rubbed his +hands, and put up the price of green paint. But, like most men upon +whom good fortune has suddenly shone, he was not quite contented. He +found his crumpled rose-leaf in the dingy aspect of the Government +buildings and the President's house. They alone now reared fronts of +dirty plaster and cracked stucco. I remember him leaning out of Juan +Ballester's window and looking up and down with a discontented eye. + +"Wants a coat of green paint, doesn't it?" he said with a sort of +jocular eagerness. + +Juan never even winked. + +"There ought to be a distinction between this house and all the +others," he said gravely. "The President is merely the butler of the +citizens. They ought to know at a glance where they can find him." + +Harry Vandeleur burst suddenly into a laugh. He was an impulsive +youth, a regular bubble of high spirits. + +"I am an ungrateful beast, and that's the truth," he said. "You have +done a great deal for me, more than you know." + +"Have I?" asked Juan Ballester drily. + +"Yes," cried Harry Vandeleur, and out the story tumbled. + +He was very anxious to marry Olivia Calavera--daughter, by the way, of +Santiago Calavera, Ballester's Minister of the Interior--and Olivia +Calavera was very anxious to marry him. Olivia was a dream. He, Harry +Vandeleur, was a planter in a small way in Trinidad. Olivia and her +father came from Trinidad. He had followed her from Trinidad, but Don +Santiago, with a father's eye for worldly goods, had been obdurate. It +was all very foolish and very young, and rather pleasant to listen to. + +"Now, thanks to your Excellency," cried Harry, "I am an eligible +suitor. I shall marry the Señorita Olivia." + +"Is that so?" said Juan Ballester, with a polite congratulation. But +there was just a suspicion of a note in his voice which made me lift +my head sharply from the papers over which I was bending. It was +impossible, of course--and yet he had drawled the words out in a slow, +hard, quiet way which had startled me. I waited for developments, and +they were not slow in coming. + +"But before you marry," said Juan Ballester, "I want you to do me a +service. I want you to go to London and negotiate a loan. I can trust +you. Moreover, you will do the work more speedily than another, for +you will be anxious to return." + +With a friendly smile he took Harry Vandeleur by the arm and led him +into his private study. Harry could not refuse. The mission was one of +honour, and would heighten his importance in Don Santiago's eyes. He +was, besides, under a considerable obligation to Ballester. He +embarked accordingly at Las Cuevas, the port of call half an hour away +from the city. + +"Look after Olivia for me," he said, as we shook hands upon the deck +of the steamer. + +"I will do the best I can," I said, and I went down the gangway. + +Harry Vandeleur travelled off to England. He was out of the way. +Meanwhile, I stayed in Maldivia and waited for more developments. But +this time they were not so quick in coming. + + + II + +Ballester, like greater and lesser men, had his inconsistencies. +Although he paid his private secretary with "opportunities" and bribed +his friends with monopolies; although he had shamelessly rigged the +elections, and paid as much of the country's finances as he dared into +his private banking account; and although there was that little affair +of the Opera House, he was genuinely and sincerely determined to give +to the Republic a cast-iron Constitution. He had an overpowering faith +in law and order--for other people. + +We hammered out the Constitution day and night for another fortnight, +and then Ballester gabbled it over to a Council of his Ministers. Not +one of them could make head or tail of what he was reading, with the +exception of Santiago Calavera, a foxy-faced old rascal with a white +moustache, who sat with a hand curved about his ear and listened to +every word. I had always wondered why Ballester had given him office +at all. At one point he interrupted in a smooth, smiling voice: + +"But, your Excellency, that is not legal." + +"Legal or not legal," said the President with a snap, "it is going +through, Señor Santiago"; and the Constitution was duly passed by a +unanimous vote, and became the law of Maldivia. + +That event took place a couple of months after Harry Vandeleur had +sailed for England. I stretched my arms and looked about for +relaxation. The Constitution was passed at six o'clock in the evening. +There was to be a ball that night at the house of the British +Minister. I made up my mind to go. For a certainty I should find +Olivia there; and I was seized with remorse. For, in spite of my +promise to Harry Vandeleur, I had hardly set eyes upon her during the +last two months. + +I saw her at ten o'clock. She was dancing--a thing she loved. She was +dressed in a white frock of satin and lace, with a single rope of +pearls about her throat, and she looked divinely happy. She was a girl +of nineteen years, fairly tall, with black hair, a beautiful white +face, and big, dark eyes which shone with kindness. She had the hand +and foot of her race, and her dancing was rather a liquid movement of +her whole supple body than a matter of her limbs. I watched her for a +few moments from a corner. She had brains as well as beauty, and +though she spoke with a pleading graciousness, at the back of it one +was aware of a pride which would crack the moon. She worked, too, as +few girls of her station work in the Republics of South America. For +her father, from what I then thought to be no better than parsimony, +used her as his secretary. As she swung by my corner for the second +time she saw me and stopped. + +"Señor Carlyon, it is two months since I have seen you," she said +reproachfully. + +"Señorita, it is only four hours since our brand new Constitution was +passed into law, and already I am looking for you." + +She shook her head. + +"You have neglected me." + +"I regret to notice," said I, "that my neglect has in no way impaired +your health." + +Olivia laughed. She had a taking laugh, and the blood mounted very +prettily into her cheeks. + +"I could hardly be ill," she said. "I had a letter to-day." + +"Lucky man to write you letters," said I. "Let me read it, Señorita." + +She drew back swiftly and her hand went to her bosom. + +"Oh, it is there!" said I. + +Again she laughed, but this time with a certain shyness, and the +colour deepened on her cheeks. + +"He sails to-day," said she. + +"Then I have still three weeks," said I lightly. "Will you dance with +me for the rest of the evening?" + +"Certainly not," she answered with decision. "But after the fifth +dance from now, you will find me, Señor Carlyon, here"; and turning +again to her partner, she was caught up into the whirl of dancers. + +After the fifth dance I returned to that corner of the ballroom. I +found Olivia waiting. But it was an Olivia whom I did not know. The +sparkle and the freshness had gone out of her; fear and not kindness +shone in her eyes. + +Her face lit up for a moment when she saw me, and she stepped eagerly +forward. + +"Quick!" she said. "Somewhere where we shall be alone!" + +Her hand trembled upon my arm. She walked quickly from the room, +smiling as she went. She led me along a corridor into the garden of +the house, a place of palms and white magnolias on the very edge of +the upper town. She went without a word to the railings at the end of +the garden, whence one looks straight down upon the lights of the +lower town along the river bank. Then she turned. A beam of light from +the windows shone upon her face. The smile had gone from it. Her lips +shook. + +"What has happened?" I asked. + +She spoke in jerks. + +"He came to me to-night.... He danced with me...." + +"Who?" I asked. + +"Juan Ballester," said she. + +I had half expected the name. + +"He spoke of himself," she resumed. "Sometimes it is not easy to tell +whether he is acting or whether he is serious. It was easy to-night. +He was serious." + +"What did he say?" + +"That up till to-night all had been work with him.... That to-night +had set the crown upon his work.... That now for the first time he +could let other hopes, other thoughts, have play...." + +"Yes, I see," I replied slowly. "Having done his work, he wants his +prize. He would." + +Ballester had toiled untiringly for thirteen years in both open and +devious ways, and, as the consequence of his toil, he had lifted his +Republic into an importance which it had never possessed before. He +had succeeded because what he wanted, he wanted very much. It +certainly looked as if there were considerable trouble in front of +Olivia and Harry Vandeleur--especially Harry Vandeleur. + +"So he wants you to marry him," I said; and Olivia gave me one swift +look and turned her head away. + +"No," she answered in a whisper. "He wants his revenge, too." + +"Revenge?" I exclaimed. + +Olivia nodded her head. + +"He told me that I must go up to Benandalla"; and the remark took my +breath away. Benandalla was the name of a farm which Ballester owned, +up in the hills two hours away from Santa Paula; and the less said +about it the better. Ballester was accustomed to retreat thither after +any spell of unusually arduous work; and the great feastings which +went on, the babel of laughter, the noise of music and castanets and +the bright lights blazing upon the quiet night till dawn had made the +farm notorious. Even at this moment, I knew, it was not nearly +uninhabited. + +"At Benandalla ... you?" I cried; and, indeed, it seemed to me that +the mere presence of Olivia must have brought discomfort into those +coarse orgies, so set apart was she by her distinction. "And he tells +you to go," I continued, "as if you were his maidservant!" + +Olivia clenched her small hands together and leaned upon the railings. +Her eyes travelled along the river below and sought a brightness in +the distant sky--the loom of the lights of Las Cuevas. For a little +while, she was strengthened by thoughts of escape, and then once more +she drooped. + +"I am frightened," she said, and coming from her, the whispered and +childish cry filled me with consternation. It was her manner and what +she left unsaid rather than her words, which alarmed me. Where I +should have expected pride and a flame of high anger, I found sheer +terror, and the reason of that terror she had not yet given me. + +"He spoke of Harry," she resumed. "He said that Harry must not +interfere.... He used threats." + +Yes, I thought, Juan Ballester would do that. It was not the usual way +of conducting a courtship; but Juan Ballester's way was not the usual +way of governing a country. + +"What kind of threats?" + +"Prisons," she answered with a break in her voice. + +"What?" I exclaimed. + +"Yes," she said. "Prisons--especially in the Northern Republics +of South America.... He explained that, though you have more liberty +here than anywhere else so long as you are free, you are more +completely--destroyed--here than anywhere else if you once get into +prison." From her hesitation I could guess that "destroyed" was a +milder word than Juan Ballester had used. + +"He described them to me," she went on. "Hovels where you sleep in the +mud at night, and whence you are leased out by day to work in the +fields without a hat--until, in a month or so, the sun puts an end to +your misery." + +I knew there was truth in that description. But it was not possible +that Ballester could put his threat into force. It was anger now, not +consternation, which filled me. + +"Señorita, reflect!" I cried. "In whose garden are you standing now? +The British Minister's--and Harry Vandeleur is an Englishman. It was +no more than a brutal piece of bullying by Ballester. See! I am his +secretary"--and she suddenly turned round towards me with a gleam in +her eyes. + +"Yes," she interrupted. "You are his secretary and Harry's friend. +Will you help us, I wonder?" + +"Show me how!" said I. + +"It is not Harry whom he threatens, but my father"; and she lowered +her eyes from mine and was silent. + +"My father"; and her answer made my protestations mere vapourings and +foolishness. + +The danger was real. The British Minister could hold no shield in +front of Santiago Calavera, even if there were no guilt upon him for +which he could be properly imprisoned. But Olivia's extremity of +terror and my knowledge of Santiago warned me that this condition was +little likely to exist. I took Olivia's hands. They clung to mine in a +desperate appeal for help. + +"Come, Señorita," I said gravely. "If I am to help you, I must have +the truth. What grounds had Ballester for his threat?" + +She raised her head suddenly with a spurt of her old pride. + +"My father is a good man," she said, challenging me to deny it. "What +he did, he thought right to do. I am not ashamed of him. No!"--and +then she would have stopped. But I would not let her. I dared not let +her. + +"Go on, please!" I insisted, and the pride died out of her face, and +she turned in a second to pleading. + +"But perhaps he was indiscreet--in what he wrote. He thought, perhaps, +too much of his country, too little of those who governed it." + +I dropped her hands. I had enough of the truth now. Rumour had always +spoken of Santiago Calavera as an intriguer. His daughter was now +telling me he was a traitor, too. + +"We must find your father," I cried. "He brought you to the ball." + +"Yes," said she. "He will be waiting to take me home." + +We hurried back to the house and searched the rooms. Calavera was +nowhere to be found. + +"He cannot have gone!" cried Olivia, wringing her hands. In both of +our minds the same question was urgent. + +"Has he been taken away?" + +I questioned the servants, and the door-keeper replied. A messenger +had come for Don Santiago early in the evening. I found the British +Minister at Olivia's side when I returned, and a smile of relief upon +her face. + +"My father made his excuses and went home," she said. "Important +business came. He has sent the carriage back." + +"May I take you home?" I asked. + +"Thank you," said she. + +It was getting near to dawn when we drove away. The streets were +empty, the houses dark. Olivia kept her face close to the window, and +never stirred until we turned the corner into the Calle Madrid. Then +she drew back with a low cry of joy. The windows of the great house +were ablaze with light. I helped her out of the carriage and rang the +bell. We stood in front of the door talking while the coachman drove +away to his stables. + +"Say nothing to my father," Olivia pleaded. "Promise me, Señor." + +I promised readily enough. + +"I will come in with you, Señorita," I said. "I must talk with your +father"; and I turned impatiently to the door and rang the bell again. + +"To-night?" said she. + +"Yes," said I. "I promised Harry Vandeleur to look after you." + +"Did you?" said she, and though her anxieties were heavy upon her, a +tender smile parted her lips. + +Still no one came to the door. + +"They must have gone to bed," I said, pushing against the panels. To +my surprise the door yielded and quietly swung wide. We looked into a +hall silent and empty and brightly lit. We were both in a mood to +count each new phenomenon a disaster. To both of us there was +something eerie in the silent swinging-in of the door, in the +emptiness and bright illumination of the hall. We looked at one +another in dismay. Then Olivia swept in, and I followed. She walked +straight to a door at the back of the hall, hesitated with her hand +upon the knob for just the fraction of a second, and flung it open. We +went into a room furnished as a study. But the study, too, was empty +and brightly lit. There was a green-shaded reading-lamp beside an +armchair, as though but now the occupant had sat there and read. +Olivia stood in the centre of the room and in a clear and ringing +voice she cried: + +"Father!" + +Her voice echoed along the passages and up the stairs. And no answer +came. She turned abruptly, and, moving with a swift step, she opened +door after door. Each door opened upon a brightly lit and empty room. +She ran a few steps up the stairs and stood poised, holding up in her +white gloved hand the glistening skirt of her white frock. One by one +she called upon the servants by name, looking upwards. Not a door was +opened above our heads. Not a sound of any movement reached our ears. + +Olivia ran lightly up the stairs. I heard the swift rustle of her gown +as she moved from room to room; and suddenly she was upon the stairs +again looking down at me, with her hand like a flake of snow upon the +bannister. She gleamed against the background of dark wood, a thing of +silver. + +"There is no one in the house," she said simply, in a strange and +quiet voice. She moved down the stairs and held out her hand to me. + +"Good night," she said. + +Though her voice never shook, her eyes shone with tears. She was but +waiting until I went, to shed them. + +"I will come to-morrow," I stammered; "in the morning. I may have news +for you," and I bent over her hand and kissed it. + +"Good night," she said again, and she stood with her hand upon the +latch of the door. I went out. She closed the door behind me. I heard +the key turn in the lock, the bolt shoot into its socket. There was a +freshness in the air, a paling of the stars above my head. I waited +for a while in the street, but no figure appeared at any window, nor +was any light put out. I left her alone in that empty and illumined +house, its windows blazing on the dawn. + + + III + +I walked back to the President's house and sat comfortably down in my +office to think the position over with the help of a pipe. But I had +hardly struck the match when the President himself came in. He had +changed his dress-coat for a smoking-jacket, and carried a few papers +in his hand. + +"I am glad to see that you are not tired," he said, "for I have still +some work for you to do. I have been looking through some letters, and +there are half-a-dozen of so much importance that I should like copies +made of them before you go to bed." + +He laid them on my writing-table with an intimation that he would +return for them in an hour. I rose up with alacrity. I was in no mood +for bed, and the mechanical work of copying a few letters appealed to +me at the moment. A glance at them, however, startled me into an even +greater wakefulness. They were letters, typewritten for the most part, +but undoubtedly signed by Santiago Calavera, and all of them dated +just before the outbreak of the war. They were addressed to the War +Minister of Esmeralda, and they gave details as to where Maldivia was +weak, where strong, what roads to the capital were unguarded, and for +how many troops provisions could be requisitioned on the way. There +was, besides, a memorandum, written, I rejoiced to see, from beginning +to end in Santiago's own hand--a deadly document naming some twenty +people in Santa Paula who would need attention when Juan Ballester had +been overthrown. It was impossible to misunderstand the phrase. Those +twenty citizens of Santa Paula were to be shot out of hand against the +nearest wall. I was appalled as I copied it out. There was enough +treachery here to convict a regiment. No wonder the great house in the +Calle Madrid stood empty! No wonder that Calavera---- But while I +argued, the picture of the daughter in her shining frock, alone amidst +the glitter and the silence, smote upon me as pitiful, and struck the +heart out of all my argument. + +Juan Ballester was at my elbow the moment after I had finished. + +"It is five o'clock," he said, as he gathered the letters and copies +together, "and no doubt you will want to be on foot early. You can +tell her that I sent her father in a special train last night to the +frontier. He is no doubt already with his friends in Esmeralda." + +"Then the prisons----" I exclaimed. + +"A lover's embroideries--nothing more," said Ballester, with a smile. +"But it is interesting to know that you are so thoroughly acquainted +with the position of affairs." And he took himself off to bed. + +His last remark, however, forced me to consider my own position, and +reflection showed it to be delicate. On the one hand I was Ballester's +servant, on the other I was Harry Vandeleur's friend. I could not side +with both, and I must side with one. If I threw in my lot with Juan +Ballester, I became a scoundrel. If I helped Olivia, I might lose my +bread and butter. I hope that in any case I should have decided as I +did, but there was a good deal of virtue in the "might." For, after +all, Juan seemed to recognise that I should be against him and to bear +no malice. He had even bidden me relieve Olivia of her fears +concerning her father's disappearance. He was a brute, but a brute on +rather a grand scale, who took what he wanted but, in spite of Olivia, +disdained revenge. I decided to help Olivia, and before nine the next +morning I knocked upon her house-door. She opened it herself. + +"You have news?" she asked, watching me with anxious eyes, and she +stood aside in the shadow of the door while I went in. + +"Your father is safe. He was sent to the frontier last night on a +special train. He is free." + +She had been steel to meet a blow. Now that it did not fall, her +strength for a moment failed her. She leaned against a table with her +hand to her heart; and her face suddenly told me that she had not +slept. + +"I will follow him," she said, and she hurried up the stairs. I looked +out a train. One left Santa Paula in an hour's time. I went out, +leaving the door ajar, and fetched a carriage. Then I shouted up the +stairs to Olivia, and she came down in a travelling dress of light +grey and a big black hat. Excitement had kindled her. I could no +longer have guessed that she had not slept. + +"You will see me off?" she said, as she handed me her bag; and she +stepped gaily into the carriage. + +"I will," I answered, and I jumped in behind her. + +The die was cast now. + +"Drive down to the station!" I cried. + +It was an open carriage. There were people in the street. Juan +Ballester would soon learn that he had played the grand gentleman to +his discomfiture. + +"Yes, I will see you off, Señorita," I said. "But I shall have a bad +half-hour with Ballester afterwards." + +"Oh!" cried Olivia, with a start. She looked at me as though for the +first time my existence had come within her field of vision. + +"I am quite aware that you have never given a thought to me," I said +sulkily, "but you need hardly make the fact so painfully obvious." + +Olivia's hand fell lightly upon mine and pressed. + +"My friend!" she said, and her eyes dwelt softly upon mine. Oh, she +knew her business as a woman! Then she looked heavenwards. + +"A man who helps a woman in trouble----" she began. + +"Yes," I interrupted. "He must look up there for his reward. +Meanwhile, Señorita, I am envying Harry Vandeleur," and I waved my +hand to the green houses. "For he has not only got you, but he has +realised his nice little fortune out of green paint." And all Olivia +did was to smile divinely; and all she said was "Harry." But there! +She said it adorably, and I shook her by the hand. + +"I forgive you," she said sweetly. Yes, she had nerve enough for that! + +We were driving down to the lower town. I began to consider how much +of the events of the early morning I should tell her. Something of +them she must know, but it was not easy for the informant. I told her +how Juan Ballester had come to me with letters signed by her father +and a memorandum in his handwriting. + +"The President gave them to me to copy out," I continued; and Olivia +broke in, rather quickly: + +"What did you do with them?" + +I stared at her. + +"I copied them out, of course." + +Olivia stared now. Her brows puckered in a frown. + +"You--didn't--destroy them when you had the chance?" she asked +incredulously. + +I jumped in my seat. + +"Destroy them?" I cried indignantly. "Really, Señorita!" + +"You are Harry's friend," she said. "I thought men did little things +like that for one another." + +"Little things!" I gasped. But I recognised that it would be waste of +breath to argue against a morality so crude. + +"You shall take Harry's opinion upon that point," said I. + +"Or perhaps Harry will take mine," she said softly, with a far-away +gaze; and the fly stopped at the station. I bought Olivia's ticket, I +placed her bag in the carriage, I stepped aside to let her mount the +step; and I knocked against a brilliant creature with a sword at his +side--he was merely a railway official. I begged his pardon, but he +held his ground. + +"Señor, you have, no doubt, his Excellency's permit for the Señorita +to travel," he said, holding out his hand. + +I was fairly staggered, but I did not misunderstand the man. Ballester +had foreseen that Olivia would follow her father, and he meant to keep +her in Santa Paula. I fumbled in my pocket to cover my confusion. + +"I must have left it behind," I said lamely. "But of course you know +me--his Excellency's secretary." + +"Who does not?" said the official, bowing politely. "And there is +another train in the afternoon, so that the Señorita will, I hope, not +be greatly inconvenienced." + +We got out of the station somehow. I was mad with myself. I had let +myself be misled by the belief that Ballester was indulging in one of +his exhibitions as a great gentleman. Whereas he was carefully +isolating Olivia so that she might be the more helplessly at his +disposition. We stumbled back again into a carriage. I dared not look +at Olivia. + +"The Calle Madrid!" I called to the driver, and Olivia cried "No!" She +turned to me, with a spot of colour burning in each cheek, and her +eyes very steady and ominous. + +"Will you tell him to drive to the President's?" she said calmly. + +The conventions are fairly strict in Maldivia. Young ladies do not as +a rule drop in casually upon men in the morning, and certainly not +upon Presidents. However, conventions are for the unharassed. We drove +to the President's. A startled messenger took in Olivia's name, and +she was instantly admitted. I went to my office, but I left the door +ajar. For down the passage outside of it Olivia would come when she +had done with Juan Ballester. I waited anxiously for a quarter of an +hour. Would she succeed with him? I had no great hopes. Anger so well +became her. But as the second quarter drew on, my hopes rose; and when +I heard the rustle of her dress, I flung open the door. A messenger +was escorting her, and she just shook her head at me. + +"What did he say?" I asked in English, and she replied in the same +language. + +"He will not let me go. He was--passionate. Underneath the passion he +was hard. He is the cruellest of men." + +"I will see you this afternoon," said I; and she passed on. I +determined to have it out with Ballester at the earliest possible +moment. And within the hour he gave me the opportunity. For he came +into the room and said: + +"Carlyon, I have not had my letters this morning. + +"No, your Excellency," I replied. I admit that my heart began to beat +more quickly than usual. "I took the Señorita Olivia to the station, +where we were stopped." + +"I thought you would," he said, with a grin. "But it is impossible +that the Señorita should leave Santa Paula." + +"But you can't keep her here!" I cried. "It's--it's----" "Tyrannical" +would not do, nor would "autocratic." Neither epithet would sting him. +At last I got the right one. + +"Your Excellency, it's barbaric!" + +Juan Ballester flushed red. I had touched him on the raw. To be a +thoroughly civilised person conducting a thoroughly civilised +Government over a thoroughly civilised community--that was his wild, +ambitious dream, and in rosy moments he would even flatter himself +that his dream was realised. + +"It's nothing of the kind," he exclaimed. "Don Santiago is a dangerous +person. I was moved by chivalry, the most cultured of virtues, to let +him go unpunished. But I am bound, from the necessities of the State, +to retain some pledge for his decent behaviour." + +The words sounded very fine and politic, but they could not obscure +the springs of his conduct. He had first got Harry Vandeleur out of +the way; then, and not till then, he had pounced upon Don Santiago. +His aim had been to isolate Olivia. There was very little chivalry +about the matter. + +"Besides," he argued, "if there were any barbarism--and there +isn't--the Señorita can put an end to it by a word." + +"But she won't say it!" I cried triumphantly. "No, she is already +pledged. She won't say it." + +Juan Ballester looked at me swiftly with a set and lowering face. No +doubt I had gone a step too far with him. But I would not have taken +back a word at that moment--no, not for the monopoly of green paint. I +awaited my instant dismissal, but he suddenly tilted back his chair +and grinned at me like a schoolboy. + +"I like a good spirit," he said, "whether it be in the Señorita or in +my private secretary." + +It was apparent that he did not think much of me as an antagonist. + +"Well," I grumbled, "Harry Vandeleur will be back in three weeks, and +your Excellency must make your account with him." + +"Yes, that's true," said Ballester, and--I don't know what it was in +him. It was not a gesture, for he did not move; it was not a smile, +for his face did not change. But I was immediately and absolutely +certain that it was not true at all. Reflection confirmed me. He had +taken so much pains to isolate Olivia that he would not have +overlooked Harry Vandeleur's return. Somewhere, on some pretext, at +Trinidad, or at our own port here, Las Cuevas, Harry Vandeleur would +be stopped. I was sure of it. The net was closing tightly round +Olivia. This morning the affair had seemed so simple--a mere matter of +a six hours' journey in a train. Now it began to look rather grim. I +stole a glance at Juan. He was still sitting with his chair tilted +back and his hands in his pockets, but he was gazing out of the +window, and his face was in repose. I recalled Olivia's phrase: "He is +the cruellest of men." Was she right? I wondered. In any case, yes, +the affair certainly began to look rather grim. + + + IV + +I was not free until five that afternoon. But I was in the Calle +Madrid before the quarter after five had struck. Again Olivia herself +admitted me. She led the way to her father's study at the back of the +house. Though I had hurried to the house, I followed her slowly into +the study. + +"You are still alone?" I asked. + +"An old woman--we once befriended her--will come in secretly for an +hour in the morning." + +"Secretly?" + +"She dare not do otherwise." + +I was silent. There was a refinement about Juan Ballester's +persecution which was simply devilish. He would not molest her, he +left her apparently free. But he kept her in a great, empty house in +the middle of the town, without servants, without power to leave, +without--oh, much more than I had any idea of at the time. He marooned +her in the midst of a great town even as Richard the Third did with +Jane Shore in the old play. But, though I did not know, I noticed that +she had changed since the morning. She had come out from her interview +with Juan Ballester holding her head high. Now she stood in front of +me twisting her hands, a creature of fear. + +"You must escape," I said. + +Her great eyes looked anxiously at me from a wan face. + +"I must," she said. "Yes, I must." Then came a pause, and with a break +in her voice she continued. "He warned me not to try. He said that it +would not be pleasant for me if I were caught trying." + +"A mere threat," I said contemptuously, "like the prisons." But I did +not believe my own words, and my blood ran cold. It would be easy to +implicate Olivia in the treachery of her father. And the police in +Maldivia are not very gentle in their handling of their prisoners, +women or men. Still, that risk must be run. + +"The _Ariadne_--an English mail-steamer--calls at Las Cuevas in a +fortnight," I said. "We must smuggle you out on her." + +Olivia stared at me in consternation. She stood like one transfixed. + +"A fortnight!" she said. Then she sat down in a chair clasping her +hands together. "A fortnight!" she whispered to herself, and as I +listened to her, and watched her eyes glancing this way and that like +an animal trapped in a cage, it was borne in on me that since this +morning some new thing had happened to frighten the very soul of her. +I begged her to tell it me. + +"No," she said, rising to her feet. "No doubt I can wait for a +fortnight." + +"That's right, Olivia," I said. "I will arrange a plan. Meanwhile, +where can I hear from you and you from me? It will not do for us to +meet too often. Have you friends who will be staunch?" + +"I wonder," she said slowly. "Enrique Gimeno and his wife, perhaps." + +"We will not strain their friendship very much. But we can meet at +their house. You can leave a letter for me there, perhaps, and I one +for you." + +Enrique Gimeno was a Spanish merchant and a gentleman. So far, I felt +sure, we could trust him. There was one other man in Santa Paula on +whom I could rely, the agent of the steamship company to which the +_Ariadne_ belonged. I rang him up on the telephone that afternoon and +arranged a meeting after dark in a back room of that very inferior +hotel in the lower town where for some weeks I had lived upon credit. +The agent, a solid man with business interests of his own in Maldivia, +listened to my story without a word of interruption. Then he said: + +"There are four things I can do for you, and no more. In the first +place, I can receive here the lady's luggage in small parcels and put +it together for her. In the second, I can guarantee that the _Ariadne_ +shall not put into Las Cuevas until dusk, and shall leave the same +night. In the third, I will have every bale of cargo already loaded +into her before the passenger train comes alongside from Santa Paula. +And in the fourth, I will arrange that the _Ariadne_ shall put to sea +the moment the last of her passengers has crossed the gangway. The +rest you must do for yourself." + +"Thank you," said I. "That's a great deal." + +But the confidence was all in my voice and none of it at all in my +heart. I went back to Juan Ballester and tried persuasion with him. + +"I have seen Olivia Calavera this afternoon," I said to him. + +"I know," said he calmly. + +I had personally no longer any fear that he might dismiss me. I would, +I think, have thrown up my job myself, but that I seemed to have a +better chance of helping the girl by staying on. + +"You will never win her," I continued, "your Excellency, by your way +of wooing." + +"Oh, and why not?" he asked. + +"She thinks you a brute," I said frankly. + +Juan Ballester reflected. + +"I don't much mind her thinking that," he answered slowly. + +"She hates you," I went on. + +"And I don't seriously object to her thinking that," he replied. + +"She despises you," I said in despair. + +"Ah!" said Ballester, with a change of voice. "I should object to her +doing that. But then it isn't true." + +I gave up efforts to persuade him. After all, the brute knew something +about women. + +I was thrown back upon the first plan. Olivia must escape from the +country on the _Ariadne_. How to smuggle her unnoticed out of her +empty house, down to Las Cuevas, and on board the steamer? That was +the problem; but though I lay awake over it o' nights, and pondered it +as I sat at my writing-table, the days crept on and brought me no +nearer to a solution. + +Meanwhile, the world was going very ill with Olivia. Santa Paula, +fresh from its war, was aflame with patriotism. The story of Santiago +Calavera's treachery had gone abroad--Juan Ballester had seen to +that--and since his daughter had been his secretary, she too was +tarnished. Her friends, with the exception of Enrique Gimeno, closed +their doors upon her. If she ventured abroad, she was insulted in the +street, and at night a lamp in a window of her house would bring a +stone crashing through the pane. Whenever I saw her, I noticed with an +aching heart the tension under which she laboured. Her face grew thin, +the tone had gone from her voice, the lustre from her eyes, the very +gloss from her hair. Sometimes it seemed to me that she must drop into +Ballester's net. I raged vainly over the problem, and the more because +I knew that Ballester would reap prestige instead of shame if she did. +The conventions were heavy on women in Maldivia, but they were not the +outward signs of any spiritual grace in the population. On the +contrary, they were evidence that the spiritual grace was lacking. If +Olivia found her way in the end to the Benandalla farm, Ballester +would be thought to have combined pleasure with the business of +revenge in a subtle and enviable way. The thought made me mad. I could +have knocked the heads together of the diminutive soldiers at the +sides of the President's doorway whenever I went in and out. And then, +when I was at my wits' end, a trivial incident suddenly showed me a +way out. + +I passed down the Calle Madrid one night, and the sight of the big, +dark house, with here and there a broken window, brought before my +mind so poignant a picture of the girl sitting in some back room alone +and in misery, and contrasted that picture so vividly with another +made familiar to me by many an evening in Santa Paula--that of a girl +shining exquisite beyond her peers in the radiance and the clean +strength of her youth--that upon returning to my room I took the +receiver from the telephone with no other thought than to talk to her +for a few moments and encourage her to keep a good heart. I gave the +number of her house to the Exchange, and the answer came promptly +back: + +"The line is out of order." + +I might have known that it would be. Olivia was to be marooned in her +great town-house as effectively as though she had been set down in a +lone island of the coral seas. I hung up the receiver again, and as I +hung it up suddenly I saw part of the way clear. I suppose that I had +used that telephone a hundred times during the past week. It had stood +all day at my elbow. Yet not until to-night had it reminded me of that +little matter of the Opera House--one of those matters in which +dealings with Ballester had left their mark. I had the answer to a +part of the problem which troubled me. I saw a way to smuggle Olivia +from Santa Paula on board the _Ariadne_. The more I thought upon it, +the clearer grew that possibility. There still remained the question: +How to get Olivia unnoticed from her house in the middle of a busy, +narrow street on the night when the _Ariadne_ was to sail. The +difficulties there brought me to a stop. And I was still revolving the +problem in my mind when the private bell rang from Ballester's room. I +went to see what he wanted; and I had not been five minutes in his +presence before, with a leaping heart, I realised that this question +was being answered too. + +Juan had of late been troubled. But not at all about Olivia. As far as +she was concerned, he ate his meals, went about his business, and +slept o' nights like any good man who has not a girl in torment upon +his conscience. But he was troubled about a rumour which was spreading +through the town. + +"You have heard of it?" he asked of me. "It is said that I am +proposing to run away secretly from Maldivia." + +I nodded. + +"I have laughed at it, of course." + +"Yes," said he, with his face in a frown. "But the rumour grows. I +doubt if laughter is enough"; and then he banged his fist violently +upon the table and cried: "I suppose Santiago Calavera is at the +bottom of it!" + +Santiago had become something of an obsession to the President. I +think he excused to himself his brutality towards Olivia by imagining +everywhere Don Santiago's machinations. As a fact, the rumour was +spontaneous in Santa Paula. It was generally suspected that the +President had annexed the war indemnity and any other portions of the +revenue which he could without too open a scandal. He was a bachelor. +The whole of Santa Paula put itself in his place. What else should he +do but retire secretly and expeditiously to some country where he +could enjoy the fruits of his industry in peace and security? Calavera +had nothing whatever to do with the story. But I did not contradict +Ballester, and he continued: + +"It is said that I have taken my passage in the _Ariadne_." + +I started, but he was not looking at me. + +"I must lay hold upon this rumour," he said, "and strangle it. I have +thought of a way. I will give a party here on the evening of the day +the _Ariadne_ calls at Las Cuevas. I will spend a great deal of money +on that party. It will be plain that I have no thought of sailing on +the _Ariadne_. I hope it will be plain that I have no thought of +sailing at all. For I think everyone in Santa Paula," he added with a +grim laugh, "knows me well enough to feel sure that I should not spend +a great deal of money on a party if I meant to run away from the place +afterwards." + +Considering Santa Paula impartially, I found the reasoning to be +sound. Juan Ballester was not a generous man. He took, but he did not +give. + +"This is what I propose," he said, and he handed me a paper on which +he had jotted down his arrangements. He had his heart set on his +Republic, that I knew. But I knew too that it must have been a fearful +wrench for him to decide upon the lavish expenditure of this +entertainment. There was to be dancing in the ballroom, a conjuror +where the Cabinet met--that seemed to be a happy touch--supper in a +marquee, fairy lights and fireworks in the garden, and buffets +everywhere. + +"You yourself will see after the invitations," he said, with a grin. + +"Certainly, your Excellency," I answered. They would come within the +definition of opportunities. + +"But here," he continued, "is a list of those who must be asked"; and +it was not until I had the list in my hand that I began to see that +here I might find an answer to my question. I looked quickly down the +names. + +"Yes, she's there," said Juan Ballester; and there she was, as plain +as a pikestaff--Olivia Calavera. I was not surprised. Ballester never +troubled about such trifles as consistency. He wanted her, so he +invited her. Nevertheless, I could have danced a _pas seul_. For +though Olivia could hardly slip out of her own house in any guise +without detection since she had no visitors, she would have a good +chance of escaping from the throng of guests at the President's party. +I left Juan Ballester with a greatly lightened heart. I looked at my +watch. It was not yet eleven. Full of my idea, nothing would serve me +but I must this moment set it in motion. I went downstairs into the +Square. Though the night was hot, I had slipped on an overcoat to +conceal the noticeable breastplate of a white shirt, and I walked +quickly for half a mile until I came opposite to a high and neglected +building, a place of darkness and rough shutters. This was the Opera +House. Beside the Opera House was a little dwelling. I rang the bell, +and the door was opened by a tall, lean gentleman in a frock-coat. For +the third time that night good luck had stood my friend. + +"Mr. Henry P. Crowninshield," I said, "the world-famous _impresario_, +I believe?" + +"And you, Mr. Carlyon, are the President's private secretary?" he said +coldly. + +"Not to-night," said I. + +With a grunt Mr. Crowninshield led the way into his parlour and stood +with his finger-tips resting on the table and his long body bent over +it. Mr. Crowninshield came from New York City, and I did not beat +about the bush with him. I told him exactly the story of Olivia and +Juan Ballester. + +"She is in great trouble," I concluded. "There is something which I do +not understand. But it comes to this. She must escape. The railways +are watched, so is her house. There is only one way of escape--and +that is on the seventeenth, the night when the _Ariadne_ calls at Las +Cuevas and the President gives his party." + +Mr. Crowninshield nodded, and his long body slid with a sort of fluid +motion into a chair. + +"Go on, sir," he said; "I am interested." + +"And I encouraged," said I. "Let us follow the Señorita's proceedings +on the night of the seventeenth. She goes dressed in her best to the +President's party. She is on view to the last possible moment. She +then slips quietly out into the garden. In the garden wall there is a +private door, of which I have a key. I let her out by that door. +Outside that door there is a closed, inconspicuous carriage waiting +for her. She slips into that carriage--and that is where you come in." + +"How?" asked Mr. Crowninshield. + +"Inside the carriage she finds a disguise--dress, wig, everything +complete--a disguise easy to slip on over her ball-gown and sufficient +to baffle a detective half a yard away." + +"You shall have it, sir! My heart bleeds for that young lady!" cried +Mr. Crowninshield, and he grasped my hand in the noblest fashion. He +had been a baritone in his day. "Besides," and he descended swiftly to +the mere level of a human being, "I have a score against Master Juan, +and I should like to get a little of my own back." + +That was precisely the point of view upon which I had counted. +Throughout his first term of office Juan Ballester had hired a box at +the Opera. Needless to say, he had never paid for it, and Mr. +Crowninshield unwisely pressed for payment. When requests failed, Mr. +Crowninshield went to threats. He threatened the Law, the American +Eagle, and the whole of the United States Navy. Ballester's reply had +been short, sharp, and decisive. The State telephone system was being +overhauled. Juan Ballester moved the Exchange to a building on the +other side of the Opera House, and then summarily closed the Opera +House on the ground that the music prevented the operators from +hearing the calls. It was not astonishing that Mr. Crowninshield was +eager to help Olivia Calavera. He lit a candle and led me through his +private door across the empty theatre, ghostly with its sheeted +benches, to the wardrobe-room. We chose a nun's dress, long enough to +hide Olivia's gown, and a coif which would conceal her hair and +overshadow her face. + +"In that her own father wouldn't know her. It will be dark; the Quay +is ill-lighted, she has only to shuffle like an old woman; she will go +third-class, of course, in the train. Who is to see her off?" + +"No one," I answered. "I dread that half-hour in the train for her +without a friend at her side. The Quay will be watched, too. She must +run the gauntlet alone. Luckily there will be a crowd of harvesters +returning to Spain. Luckily, also, she has courage. But it will be the +worst of her trials. My absence would be noticed. I can't go." + +"No, but I can!" cried Mr. Crowninshield. "An old padre seeing off an +old nun to her new mission--eh? Juan will be gritting his teeth in the +morning because I am an American citizen." + +Mr. Crowninshield was aflame with his project. He took a stick and +tottered about the room in the most comical fashion. "I will bring the +carriage myself to the garden door," said he. "I will be inside of it. +My property man--he comes from Poughkeepsie--shall be the driver. I +will dress the young lady as we drive slowly to the station, and +Sister Pepita and the Padre Antonio will direct their feeble steps to +the darkest corner of the worst-lit carriage in the train." + +I thanked him with all my heart. It had seemed to me terrible that +Olivia should have to make her way alone on board the steamer. Now she +would have someone to enhearten and befriend her. I met Olivia once at +the house of Enrique Gimeno, and made her acquainted with the scheme, +and on the night of the sixteenth the steamship agent rang me up on +the telephone. + +"The _Ariadne_ will arrive at nine to-morrow night. The passengers +will leave Santa Paula at half-past ten. Good luck!" + +I went to the window and looked out over the garden. The marquee was +erected, the fairy lights strung upon the trees, a set piece with the +portrait of Juan Ballester and a Latin motto--_semper fidelis_--raised +its monstrous joinery against the moon. Twenty-four hours more and, if +all went well, Olivia would be out upon the high seas, on her way to +Trinidad. Surely all must go well. I went over in my mind every detail +of our preparations. I recognised only one chance of failure--the +chance that Mr. Crowninshield in his exuberance might over-act his +part. But I was wrong. It was, after all, Olivia who brought our fine +scheme to grief. + + + V + +There is no doubt about it. Women are not reasonable beings. Otherwise +Olivia would never have come to the President's party in a white lace +coat over a clinging gown of white satin. She looked beautiful, but I +was dismayed when I saw her. She had come with the Gimenos, and I took +her aside, and I am afraid that I scolded her. + +"But you told me," she expostulated, "I was to spare no pains. There +must be nothing of the traveller about me"; and there was not. From +the heels of her satin slippers to the topmost tress of her hair she +was dressed as she alone could dress in Santa Paula. + +"But of course I meant you to wear black," I whispered. + +"Oh, I didn't think of it," Olivia exclaimed wearily. "Please don't +lecture"; and she dropped into a chair with such a lassitude upon her +face that I thought she was going to faint. + +"It doesn't matter," I said hastily. "No doubt the disguise will cover +it. At ten o'clock, slip down into the garden. Until then, dance!" + +"Dance!" she exclaimed, looking piteously up into my face. + +"Yes," I insisted impatiently, and taking her hand, I raised her from +her chair. + +She had no lack of partners, for the President himself singled her out +and danced in a quadrille with her. Others timorously followed his +example. But though she did dance, I was grievously disappointed--for +a time. It seemed that her soul was flickering out in her. Just when +she most needed her courage and her splendid spirit, she failed of +them. + +There were only two more hours after a long fortnight of endurance. +Yet those two last hours, it seemed, she could not face. I know now +that I never acted with greater cruelty than on that night when I kept +her dancing. But even while she danced, there came to me some fear +that I had misjudged her. I watched her from a corner of the ballroom. +There was a great change in her. Her face seemed to me smaller, her +eyes bigger, darker even, and luminous with some haunting look. But +there was more. I could not define the change--at first. Then the word +came to me. There was a spirituality in her aspect which was new to +her, an unearthliness. Surely, I thought, the fruit of great +suffering; and blundering, with the truth under my very nose, I began +to ask myself a foolish question. Had Harry Vandeleur played her +false? + +A movement of the company awakened me. A premonitory sputter of +rockets drew the guests to the cloak-room, from the cloak-room to the +garden. I saw Olivia fetch her lace coat and slip it over her +shoulders like the rest. It was close upon ten. The Fates were +favouring us, or perhaps I was favouring the Fates. For I had arranged +that the fireworks should begin just a few minutes before the hour +struck. In the darkness of the garden Olivia could slip away, and her +absence would not afterwards be noticed. + +I waited at the garden door. I heard the clock strike. I saw Juan +Ballester's profile in fire against a dark blue sky of velvet and +stars. I shook hands with myself in that the moon would not rise till +one. And then a whiteness gleamed between the bushes, and Olivia was +at my side. Her hand sought mine and clung to it. I opened the postern +and looked out into a little street. The lamps of a closed carriage +shone twenty yards away, and but for the carriage the street was +empty. + +"Now!" I whispered. + +We ran out. I opened the carriage door. I caught a glimpse of horn +spectacles, a lantern-jawed, unshaven face, a shovel hat; and I heard +a stifled oath. Mr. Crowninshield, too, had noticed Olivia's white +gown. She jumped in, I shut the door, and the carriage rolled away. I +went back into the garden, where Juan Ballester's profile was growing +ragged. + +Of the next hour or two I have only confused memories. I counted +stages in Olivia's progress as I passed from room to room among the +guests. Now she would have reached the station; now the train had +stopped on the Quay at Las Cuevas; now, perhaps, the gangway had been +withdrawn and the great ship was warping out into the river. At one +o'clock I smoked a cigarette in the garden. From the marquee came the +clatter of supper. In the sky the moon was rising. And somewhere +outside the three-mile limit a rippling path of silver struck across +the _Ariadne's_ dark bows. I was conscious of a swift exultation. I +heard the throb of the screw and saw the water flashing from the +ship's sides. + +Then I remembered that I had left the garden door unlocked. I went to +it and by chance looked out into the street. I received a shock. For, +twenty yards away, the lights of a closed carriage shone quietly +beside the kerb. I wondered whether the last few hours had been really +the dream of a second. I even looked back into the garden, to make +sure that the profile of Juan Ballester was not still sputtering in +fire. Then a detail or two brought me relief. The carriage was clearly +a private carriage; the driver on the box wore livery--at all events, +I saw a flash of bright buttons on his coat. In my relief I walked +from the garden towards the carriage. The driver recognised me most +likely--recognised, at all events, that I came from the private door +of the President's garden. For he made some kind of salute. + +I supposed that he had been told to wait at this spot, away from the +park of carriages, and I should have turned back but for a +circumstance which struck me as singular. It was a very hot night, and +yet not only were the windows of the carriage shut, but the blinds +were drawn close besides. I could not see into the carriage, but there +was light at the edges of the blinds. A lamp was burning inside. I +stood on the pavement, and a chill struck into my blood and made me +shiver. I listened. There was no sound of any movement within the +carriage. It must be empty. I assured myself and again doubted. The +little empty street, the closed carriage with the light upon the edges +of the blinds, the absolute quiet, daunted me. I stepped forward and +gently opened the door. I saw Olivia. There was no trace of the nun's +gown, nor the coif. But that her hair was ruffled she might this +moment have left Juan Ballester's drawing-room. + +She turned her face to me, shook her head, and smiled. + +"It was of no use, my friend," she said gently. "They were on the +watch at Las Cuevas. An officer brought me back. He has gone in to ask +Juan what he shall do with me." + +Olivia had given up the struggle--that was clear. + +"It was Crowninshield's fault!" I cried. + +"No, it was mine," she answered. + +And here is what had happened, as I learnt it afterwards. All had gone +well until the train reached Las Cuevas. There the police were on the +look-out for her. The Padre Antonio, however, excited no suspicion, +and very likely Sister Pepita would have passed unnoticed too. But as +she stepped down from the carriage on to the step, and from the step +to the ground, an officer was startled by the unexpected appearance of +a small foot in a white silk stocking and a white satin slipper. Now, +the officer had seen nuns before, old and young, but never had he seen +one in white satin shoes, to say nothing of the silk stockings. He +became more than curious. He pointed her out to his companions. Sister +Pepita was deftly separated in the crowd from the Padre Antonio--cut +out, to borrow the old nautical phrase--and arrested. She was +conducted towards a room in the station, but the steamer's siren +hooted its warning to the passengers, and despair seized upon Olivia. +She made a rush for the gangway, she was seized, she was carried +forcibly into the room and stripped of her nun's disguise and coif. +She was kept a prisoner in the room until the _Ariadne_ had left the +Quay. Then she was placed in a carriage and driven back, with an +officer of the police at her side, to the garden door of the +President's house. + +Something of this Olivia told me at the time, but she was interrupted +by the return of the officer and a couple of Juan Ballester's +messengers. + +"His Excellency will see you," said the officer to her. He conducted +her through the garden and by the private doorway into Ballester's +study. I had followed behind the servants and I remained in the room. +We waited for a few minutes, and Juan himself came in. He went quickly +over to Olivia's side. His voice was all gentleness. But that was his +way with her, and I set no hopes on it. + +"I am grieved, Señorita, if you have suffered rougher treatment than +befits you. But you should not have tried to escape." + +Olivia looked at him with a piteous helplessness in her eyes. "What am +I to do, then?" she seemed to ask, and, with the question, to lose the +last clutch upon her spirit. For her features quivered, she dropped +into a chair, laid her arms upon the table, and, burying her face in +them, burst into tears. + +It was uncomfortable--even for Juan Ballester. There came a look of +trouble in his face, a shadow of compunction. For myself, the heaving +of her young shoulders hurt my eyes, the sound of her young voice +breaking in sobs tortured my ears. But this was not the worst of it, +for she suddenly threw herself back in her chair with the tears wet +upon her cheeks, and, beating the table piteously with the palms of +her hands, she cried: + +"I am hungry--oh, so hungry!" + +"Good Heavens!" cried Ballester. He started forward, staring into her +face. + +"But you knew," said Olivia, and he turned away to one of the +messengers, and bade him bring some supper into the room. + +"And be quick," said I. + +"Yes, yes, be quick," said Juan. + +At last I had the key to her. She had been starving, in that great, +empty house in the Calle Madrid. "A fortnight!" she had cried in +dismay. I understood now the reason of her terror. She had known that +she would have to starve. And she had held her head high, making no +complaint, patiently enduring. It was not her spirit which had failed +her. I cursed myself for a fool as once more I enthroned her. Her face +had grown smaller, her eyes bigger. There was a look of spirituality +which I had not seen before. I had noticed the signs, and I had +misread them. Her lassitude this evening, her vain struggle with the +police, her apathy under their treatment of her, were all explained. +Not her courage, but her body had failed her. She was starving. + +A tray was brought in and placed before her. She dried her eyes and +with a sigh she drew her chair in to the table and ate, indifferent to +the presence of Ballester, of the officer who remained at the door, +and of myself. Ballester stood and watched her. "Good Heavens!" he +said again softly, and going to her side he filled her glass with +champagne. + +She nodded her thanks and raised it to her lips almost before he had +finished pouring. A little colour came into her cheeks and she turned +again to her supper. She was a healthy girl. There never had been +anything of the drooping lily about Olivia. She had always taken an +interest in her meals, however dainty she might look. The knowledge of +that made her starvation doubly cruel--not only to her. Juan sat down +opposite to her. There was no doubt now about the remorse in his face. +He never took his eyes from her as she ate. Once she looked up and saw +him watching her. + +"But you knew," she said. "I was alone in the house. How much money +did you leave there for me when you took my father away? A few dollars +which your men had not discovered." + +"But you yourself----" he stammered. + +"I was at a ball," said Olivia scornfully. "How much money does a girl +take with her to a ball? Where would she put it?" + +There was no answer to that question. + +"The next day I went to the bank," she continued. "My father's money +was impounded. You had seen to that. All the unpaid bills came in in a +stream. I couldn't pay them. I could get no credit. You had seen to +that. My friends left me alone. Of course I starved; you knew that I +should. You meant me to," and, with the air of one who has been +wasting time, she turned again to her supper. + +"I never thought that you would hold out," stammered Ballester. I had +never seen him in an apologetic mood before, and he looked miserable. +"I hadn't _seen_ that you were starving." + +Olivia looked up at him. It was not so much that her face relented, as +that it showed an interest in something beyond her supper. + +"Yes," she said, nodding at him. "I think that's true. You hadn't seen +with your own eyes that I was starving. So my starving wasn't very +real to you." + +Ballester changed her plate and filled her glass again. + +"Ah!" said Olivia with satisfaction, hitching up her chair still +closer. She was really having a good square meal. + +"But why didn't you tell me?" I asked. + +"I told no one," said Olivia, shaking her head. "I thought that I +could manage till to-night. Once or twice I called on the Gimenos at +luncheon-time, and I had one or two dollars. No; I would tell no one." + +"Yes," said Juan, "I understand that. It's the reason why I wanted +you." And at this sign of his comprehension of her, Olivia again +looked at him, and again the interest in her eyes was evident. + +At last she pushed back her chair. The tray was removed. Ballester +offered her a cigarette. She smiled faintly as she took it. Certainly +her supper had done her a world of good. She lit her cigarette and +leaned her elbows on the table. + +"And now," she said, "what do you mean to do with me?" + +Ballester went to his bureau, wrote on a sheet of paper and brought +the paper to Olivia. + +"You can show this at the railway-station to-morrow," he said, and he +laid the permit on the table and turned away. + +Women are not reasonable people. For the second time that night Olivia +forced me to contemplate that trite reflection. For now that she had +got what she had suffered hunger and indignities to get, she merely +played with it with the tips of her fingers, looking now upon the +table, now at Juan Ballester's back, and now upon the table again. + +"And you?" she said gently. "What will become of you?" + +I suppose Ballester was the only one in the room who did not notice +the softness of her voice. To me it was extraordinary. He had tortured +her with hunger, exposed her to the gentle methods of his police, yet +the fact that he did these things because he wanted her seemed to make +him suddenly valuable to her now that she was free of him. + +Ballester turned round and leaned against the wall with his hands in +his pockets. + +"I?" he said. "I shall just stay on alone here until some day someone +gets stronger than I am, perhaps, and puts me up against the wall +outside----" + +"Oh, no!" cried Olivia, interrupting him. + +"Well, one never knows," said his Excellency, shrugging his shoulders. +He turned to the window and drew aside the curtains. The morning had +come. It was broad daylight outside. + +"Unless, Olivia," he added, turning again towards her, "you will +reconsider your refusal to marry me. Together we could do great +things." + +It was the most splendid performance of the grand gentleman which +Ballester ever gave. And he knew it. You could see him preening +himself as he spoke. His gesture was as noble as his words. From head +to foot he was the perfect cavalier, and consciousness of the +perfection of his chivalry shone out from him like a nimbus. I looked +quickly towards Olivia--in some alarm for Harry Vandeleur. She had +lowered her head, so that it was impossible to see how she had taken +Ballester's honourable amendment. But when she raised her head again a +smile of satisfaction was just disappearing from her face; and the +smile betrayed her. She had been playing for this revenge from the +moment when she had finished her supper. + +"I am honoured, Señor Juan," she said sedately, "but I am already +promised." + +Ballester turned abruptly away. Whether he had seen the smile, +whether, if he had seen it, he understood it, I never knew. + +"You had better get the Señorita a carriage," he said to the officer +at the door. As the man went out, the music from the ballroom floated +in. Juan Ballester hesitated, and no shock which Olivia had given to +me came near the shock which his next words produced. + +"Don Santiago shall have his money. You can draw on it, Señorita, +to-morrow, before you go." + +"Thank you," she said. + +The messenger reappeared. A carriage was waiting. Olivia rose and +looked at Juan timidly. He walked ceremoniously to the door and held +it open. + +"Good night," she said. + +He bowed and smiled in a friendly fashion enough, but he did not +answer. It seemed that he had spoken his last word to her. She +hesitated and went out. At once the President took a quick step +towards me. + +"Do you know what is said to-night?" he said violently. + +I drew back. I could not think what he meant. To tell the truth, I +found him rather alarming. + +"No," I answered. + +"Why, that I have given this party as a farewell; that I am still +going to bolt from Maldivia. Do you see? I have spent all this money +for nothing." + +I drew a breath of relief. His violence was not aimed against me. + +"That's a pity," I said. "But the rumour can still be killed. I +thought of a way yesterday." + +"Will it cost much?" he asked. + +"Very little." + +"What am I to do?" + +"Paint the Presidential House," said I. "It wants it badly, and all +Santa Paula will be very sure that you wouldn't spend money in paint +if you meant to run away." + +"That's a good idea," said he, and he sat down at once and began to +figure out the expense. "A couple of hundred dollars will do it." + +"Not well," said I. + +"We don't want it done well," said Juan. "Two men on a plank will, be +enough. A couple of hundred dollars is too much. Half that will be +quite sufficient. By the way"--and he sat with his pen poised--"just +run after--her--and tell her that Vandeleur is landing to-morrow at +Trinidad. I invented some business for him there." + +He bent down over the desk. His back was towards the door. As I turned +the handle, someone was opening it from the other side. It was Olivia +Calavera. + +"I came back," she said, with the colour mantling in her face. "You +see, I am going away to-morrow--and I hadn't said 'Good-bye.'" + +Juan must have heard her voice. + +"Please go and give that message," he said sharply. "And shut the +door! I don't want to be disturbed." + +Olivia drew back quickly. I was amazed to see that she was hurt. + +"His message is for you," I said severely. "Harry Vandeleur lands at +Trinidad to-morrow." + +"Thank you," she said slowly; she turned away and walked as slowly +down the passage. "Goodbye," she said, with her back towards me. + +"I will see you off to-morrow, Señorita," I said; and she turned back +to me. + +"No," she said gently. "Don't do that! We will say 'Good-bye' here." + +She gave me her hand--she had been on the point of going without even +doing that. "Thank you very much," she added, and she walked rather +listlessly away. She left me with an uneasy impression that her thanks +were not very sincere. I am bound to admit that Olivia puzzled me that +night. To extract the proposal of marriage from Ballester was within +the rules of the game and good play into the bargain. But to come back +again as she had done, was not quite fair. However, as I watched her +go, I thought that I would keep my bewilderment to myself. I have +never asked Harry Vandeleur, for instance, whether he could explain +it. I went back to the study. + +"I think fifty dollars will be ample," said Ballester, still figuring +on his paper. "Has she gone?" + +"She is going," said I. He rose from his chair, broke off a rose from +a bowl of flowers which, on this night only, decorated the room. Then +he opened the window and leaned out. Olivia, I reckoned, would be just +at this moment stepping into the carriage. He tossed the rose down and +drew back quickly out of sight. + +"Shall it be green paint, your Excellency?" I asked. + +His Excellency, I regret to say, swore loudly. + +"Never in this world!" said he. + +I had left the door open. The music of a languorous and melting waltz +filled the room. + +"I do loathe music!" cried Juan Ballester violently. It was the +nearest approach to a sentimental remark that I had ever heard him +make. + + + + + + NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF + CAPRICORN + + + + + NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF + CAPRICORN + + +The strong civic spirit of the Midlands makes them fertile in +reformers; and Mr. Endicott even in his early youth was plagued by the +divine discontent with things as they are. Neither a happy marriage, +nor a prosperous business, nor an engaging daughter appeased him. But +he was slow in discovering a remedy. The absence of any sense of +humour blunted his wits and he lived in a vague distress, out of which +it needed the death of his wife to quicken him. "Some result must come +out of all these years of pondering and discomfort, if only as a +memorial to her," he reflected, and he burrowed again amongst the +innumerable panaceas. Then at last he found it--on an afternoon walk +in June when the sharp contrast between the grime of the town and the +loveliness of green and leaf which embowered it so closely, smote upon +him almost with pain. The Minimum Wage. Like Childe Roland's Dark +Tower, it had lain within his vision for many a long mile of his +pilgrimage. His eyes had rested on it and had never taken it in; so +simple and clear it was to the view. + +Thereafter he was quick to act. Time was running on. He was forty-two. +He disposed of his business, and a year later was elected to +Parliament. Once in the House he walked warily. He had no personal +ambition, but he was always afraid lest some indiscretion should set +the House against him and delay his cause. Mr. Endicott had his plan +quite clear in his mind. Samuel Plimsoll was his model. The great Bill +for the establishment of the Minimum Wage should be a private member's +Bill moved from the back benches session after session if need be, and +driven through Parliament into Law at last by the sheer weight of its +public value. + +Accordingly for a year he felt his way, learning the rules and orders, +speaking now and then without subservience and without impertinence; +and after the prorogation of the House for the summer, he took his +daughter with him to a farm-house set apart in a dale of Cumberland. +In that solitary place, inspired by the brown fells and the tumbling +streams, and with the one person he loved as his companion, he +proposed finally to smooth and round his Bill. + +Accident or destiny, however--whichever you like to call the beginning +of tragic things--put an Australian in the same compartment of the +railway-carriage; and the Australian was led to converse by the sight +of various cameras on the luggage rack. + +"My father is very fond of photography," said Elsie Endicott. "It +amuses him, and the pictures which he takes if the day is clear, are +sometimes quite recognisable." + +"My dear!" said Mr. Endicott. + +Elsie turned to the window and shook hands with two young men who had +come to see her off. One of them, whom Mr. Endicott vaguely remembered +to have seen at meals in his house, climbed on the footboard. + +"You will take care of Miss Endicott, sir," he said firmly. "She has +been overdoin' it a bit, dancin', you know, and that sort of thing, +while you were at the House of Commons." + +Mr. Endicott chuckled. + +"I'll tell you something about my daughter," he replied. "She may look +like china, but she is pretty solid earthenware really. And if there +are any others as anxious about her as you are you might spread the +good news." + +The train moved off. "So you are in the House of Commons," said the +Australian, and he began to talk. "Our great trouble--yours and +mine--is----" + +"I know it," Mr. Endicott interrupted with a smile of confidence. + +"Of course you do," replied the Australian. "It's the overcrowding of +the East under the protective rule of the British." + +"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Endicott blankly. + +"We could help a good deal," the Australian continued, "if only our +Government had got a ha'porth of common sense. North of the Tropic of +Capricorn, there's land and to spare which coloured labour could +cultivate and white labour can't." + +This was strange talk to Mr. Endicott. He was aware, but not conscious +of great dominions and possessions outside the British Islands. He had +indeed avoided the whole subject. He was shy of the phrase which +described them, as a horse is shy of a newspaper blown about the +street. The British Empire! The very words had a post-prandial sound. +Instead of suggesting to him vast territories with myriads of men and +women groping amongst enormous problems, they evoked a picture of a +flamboyant gentleman in evening dress standing at the head of a table, +his face congested with too much dinner, a glass of wine in his one +hand, a fat cigar in the other, and talking vauntingly. This +particular sentence of the Australian stuck inconveniently in his mind +and smouldered there. + +For instance. On the afternoon of their arrival Elsie was arranging +his developing dishes and his chemicals on a small rough table in a +corner of their one living-room. She put an old basket-chair by the +table and set around it a screen which she had discovered in one of +the bedrooms upstairs. + +"There!" she said. "You can make all your messes here, father, and we +can keep the room looking habitable, and I shan't get all my frocks +stained." + +"Very well, Elsie," said her father absently, and he spoke his own +thoughts. "That was a curious fear of the man in the train, Elsie. I +think there's no truth in it. No, the danger's here in this country; +here's what's to be done to avert it," and he slapped his hand down +upon his pile of statistics. + +"No doubt, father," said Elsie, and she went on with her work. + +The very next evening he returned again to the subject. It was after +dinner and about half-past nine o'clock. The blinds had not been +lowered and Endicott looked out through the open windows on to a great +flank of Scawfell which lay drenched in white moonlight a couple of +fields away. + +"North of the Tropic of Capricorn," he said, "I wish we had an atlas, +Elsie." + +"I'll write to London and buy one," said the girl. "We haven't got +more than a 'Handy Gazetteer' even at home. It'll be amusing to plan +out some long journeys which we can take together when you have passed +your Bill into law." + +Endicott smiled grimly at his daughter. + +"I reckon we won't take many journeys together, Elsie. Oh, you needn't +look surprised and hurt! I am not taken in by you a bit, my dear. That +young spark on the footboard who told me I didn't take enough care of +you"--and Elsie gurgled with laughter at the recollection--"threw a +dreadful light upon your character and gave me a clue besides to the +riddle of your vast correspondence. I hope you are telling them all +that my persistent unkindness is not driving you into a decline." + +Elsie paused in the act of addressing an envelope--there was a +growing pile of letters in front of her--to reassure her father. + +"I tell them all," she replied, "that you neither beat me nor starve +me, and that if you weren't so very messy with your chemicals in the +corner over there, I should have very little reason to change my +home." + +"Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Endicott. He was very proud of his +daughter and especially of her health. With her dark rebellious hair, +the delicate colour in her cheeks, and her starry eyes, she had a +quite delusive look of fragility. But she could dance any youth of her +acquaintance to a standstill without ruffling her curls, as he very +well knew. He gazed at her lowered head with a smile. + +"However, all this doesn't help me with the Minimum Wage," he +continued, and he turned again to the papers on his desk by the +window, while Elsie at the table in the middle of the big low-roofed +room, continued to write her letters. + +They were still engaged in these pursuits when Mrs. Tyson, their +landlady, came into the room to lower the blinds. + +"No, please leave them up," said Endicott, in an irritable voice. +"I'll draw them down myself before we go to bed." + +Mrs. Tyson accordingly left the blinds alone. + +"And you'll be careful of the Crown Derby," she said imperturbably, +nodding towards a china tea-set ranged in an open cabinet near to the +door. "Gentlemen from London have asked me to sell it over and over. +For it's of great value. But I won't, as I promised my mother. She, +poor woman----" + +"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Endicott, "we'll be very careful. You may +remember you told us all about it yesterday." + +Mrs. Tyson turned down a little lower the one oil lamp which, with the +candles upon Endicott's desk, lighted the room, and went back to the +inner door. + +"Will you be wanting anything more for a little while?" she asked. +"For my girl's away, and I must go down the valley. I am sending some +sheep away to market to-morrow morning." + +"No, we want nothing at all," said Elsie, without paying much +attention to what the woman was saying. Mrs. Tyson was obviously +inclined to fuss, and would have to be suppressed. But she went out +now without another word. There were two doors to the room at opposite +ends, the inner one leading to a small hall, the kitchen and the +staircase, the other, and outer door, opening directly close by the +window on to a tiny garden with a flagged pathway. At the end of the +path there was a gate, and a low garden wall. Beyond the gate a narrow +lane and a brook separated the house from the fields and the great +flank of fell. + +The night was hot, and Endicott, unable to concentrate his attention +upon his chosen theme, had the despairing sensation that he had lost +grip of it altogether: his eyes wandered from his papers so +continually to the hillside asleep in the bright moonlight. Here a +great boulder threw a long motionless shadow down the slope, like a +house; there a sharp rock-ridge cropping out of the hill, raised +against the sky a line of black pinnacles like a file of soldiers. + +"I can't work to-night, Elsie, and that's the truth," cried Endicott +passionately, "though this is just the night when one ought to be most +alive to the millions of men cooped in hot cities and living +wretchedly. I'll go out of doors. Will you come?" + +Elsie hesitated. Mr. Endicott was to carry that poignant recollection +to his death. One word of persuasion and she would have come with him. +But he did not speak it, and Elsie bent her head again to her work. + +"No, thanks, father," she said. "I'll finish these letters. They must +go off to-morrow morning." + +Endicott blew out his candles, lit his pipe, and took up his cap. He +was still smiling over her important air as of someone with great and +urgent business. He went out into the garden. Elsie heard the latch of +the gate click. He walked across the little bridge over the brook and +at once his mood changed. He wandered across the fields and up the +hillside, sorely discontented with himself. He had lost interest in +the Minimum Wage. So much he admitted. The surroundings which were to +inspire him had, on the contrary, merely provoked a disinclination to +do any work whatever. The reaction after the strain of the Session was +making itself felt. The question in his mind was "Why bother?" High up +the hill he sat down upon a boulder to have it out with himself. + +The sound of the stream dropping from pool to pool of rock on its way +down the valley rose in a continuous thunder to his ears. He looked +down at the little farm-house beneath him, and the golden light of the +lamp within the windows of the sitting-room. + +As he looked the light moved. Then it diminished; then it vanished +altogether. Endicott chuckled and lit a second pipe, holding the +lighted match in the hollow of his hands and bending his head close +over it, because of a whisper of air. Elsie had finished her letters +to the youths who besieged her and was off to bed. Only the moonlight +blazed upon the windows now and turned them into mirrors of burnished +silver. + +Endicott smoked a third pipe whilst he wrestled with himself upon the +hillside. To-morrow he would get up very early, bathe in the big deep +pool, transparent to the lowest of its thirty feet of water, and then +spend a long morning with the wage-lists of the chain-making industry. +That was settled. Nothing should change his plan. Meanwhile it was +very pleasant up here under the cool sky of moonlight and faint stars. + +He dragged himself up reluctantly from his seat, and went down towards +the farm. There was a little stone bridge to cross over one of the +many mountain streams which went to the making of the small river on +the other side of the house. Then came the lane and the garden-gate. +He closed the door behind him when he had gone in. Although there was +no lamp burning, the room was not dark. A twilight, vaporous and +silvery, crept into it, darkening towards the inner part and filling +the corners with mystery; while the floor by the window was chequered +with great panels of light precise and bright as day. + +On the hillside Endicott had seen the light go out in the room, and he +crossed over to the big table for the lamp. But it was no longer +there. Elsie had taken it, no doubt, into the hall with her letters +for the morning post and had not brought it back. He moved to his own +table where the candles stood; and with a shock he perceived that he +was not alone in that unlighted room. A movement amongst the shadows +by the inner door caught and held his eyes. + +He swung round and faced the spot. He saw against the wall near the +screen which hid his photographic paraphernalia, a man standing, +straight, upright and very still. The figure was vague and blurred, +but Endicott could see that his legs were clothed in white, and that +he wore some bulky and outlandish gear upon his head. Endicott quickly +struck a match. At the scratch and spurt of flame, the man in the +shadow ran forward towards the door with extraordinary swiftness. But +his shoulder caught the case in which Mrs. Tyson's Crown Derby china +was standing, and brought it with a crash of broken crockery to the +floor. Before the intruder could recover, Endicott set his back +against the door and held the burning match above his head. He was +amazed by what he saw. + +The intruder was an Asiatic with the conventional hawk-nose of the Jew +in the shape of his face; a brown man wearing a coloured turban upon +his head, an old tweed jacket on his shoulders, and a pair of dirty +white linen trousers on his legs, narrowing until they fitted closely +round his ankles. He wore neither shoes nor stockings. And he stood +very still watching Endicott with alert, bright eyes. Endicott, +without moving from the door, reached out and lit the candles upon the +table. + +"What are you doing here?" he demanded curiously. He had no personal +fear, and he was not much troubled by the man's hiding in the room. +Elsie, whom the fellow might have frightened, had long since gone to +bed, and there was nothing of value, except the Crown Derby, which he +could have stolen. On the other hand Endicott was immensely puzzled by +the presence of an Asiastic at all in this inland and lonely valley +far from railways and towns, at half-past ten of the night. + +"I pass the house," the man answered in English which was +astonishingly good. "I think you give me one piece opium to go on +with." + +"Opium!" cried Mr. Endicott, as if he had been stung. How many times +had he voted for the suppression of everything to do with opium. +"You'll find none of that abominable drug here!" + +He surveyed the Asiatic, outraged in every feeling. He lifted the +latch. He was on the point of flinging open the door. He had actually +begun to open it, when his mood changed. North of the Tropic of +Capricorn. The lilt of the words was in his ears. He remembered the +talk of the Australian in the railway-carriage about the overcrowding +of the East. The coming of this strange brown man seemed to him of a +sudden curiously relevant. He closed the door again. + +"You passed the house? Where do you come from? Who are you? How do you +come here?" + +The Asiatic, who had stood gathered like a runner at the +starting-point while the door was being opened, now cringed and +smiled. + +"Protector of the poor, I tell you my story"; and Mr. Endicott found +himself listening in that quiet farm-house of the Cumberland dales to +a most enlightening Odyssey. + +The man's name was Ahmed Ali, and he was a Pathan of the hills. His +home was in the middle country between Peshawur and the borders of +Afghanistan, and he belonged to a tribe of seven hundred men, every +one of whom had left his home and his wife and his children behind +him, and had gone down to Bombay to seek his livelihood in the +stokeholds of ships. Ahmed had been taken on a steamer of the +Peninsula and Oriental Line bound for Australia, where he hoped to +make his fortune. But neither at Sydney nor at Melbourne had he been +allowed to land. + +"But I am a British citizen," he said, having acquired some English. + +"Well, and what of it?" said the Port authorities. + +Nevertheless the night before the boat sailed he slipped overboard and +swam ashore, to be caught when the smoke of that steamer was no more +than a stain on the horizon. He was held in custody and would have +been returned by the next steamer to India. But there was already in +the harbour a cargo boat of the Clan Line bound for Quebec round the +Cape; and the boat was short of its complement in the stokehold. + +Ahmed Ali, accordingly, signed on, and sailed in her and acquired more +English to help him on in the comfortable life he now proposed to make +for himself in Canada. + +"But again they would not let me go away into the country," he +continued. "I told them I was British citizen, but it did not help me; +no, not any more than in Australia. They put me on a ship for England, +and I came to Liverpool steerage like a genelman. And at Liverpool I +landed boldly. For I was a British citizen." + +"Ah!" interjected Mr. Endicott proudly. "Here, in England, you see the +value of being a British citizen." + +"But, no, my genelman. For here there's no work for British citizen. I +land and I walk about and I ask for work. But everyone says, 'Why +don't you stay in your own country?' So I come away across the fields, +and no man give me one piece opium." + +Mr. Endicott nodded his head when the story was ended. + +"Well, after all, why don't you stay in your own country?" he asked. + +Mr. Endicott had already had his answer from the Australian, but he +was now thirsty for details, and his ears in consequence were +afflicted with a brief description of British rule from the Pathan's +point of view. + +"The all-wise one will pardon me. You keep the peace. Therefore we +cannot stay in our own country. For we grow crowded and there is no +food. In old times, when we were crowded and hungry, we went down into +the plains and took the land and the wives of the people of the plains +and killed the men. But the raj does not allow it. It holds a sword +between us and the plains, a sword with the edge towards us. Neither, +on the other hand, does it feed us." + +Mr. Endicott was aghast at the perverted views thus calmly announced +to him. + +"But we can't allow you to come down into India murdering and robbing +and taking the wives." + +The Asiatic shrugged his shoulders. + +"It is the law." + +Mr. Endicott was silent. If it were not the law, there were certainly +a great many precedents. The men of the hills and the people of the +plains--yes, history would say it _was_ the law. Mr. Endicott's eyes +were opening upon unknown worlds. The British Power stood in India +then cleaving a law of nature? + +"Also, you send your doctors and make cures when the plague and the +cholera come, so that fewer people die. Also, when the crops fail and +there is famine, you distribute food, so that again fewer people die. +No, there is no room now for us in our own country because of you, and +you will not let us into yours." + +"But we can't do anything else," cried Mr. Endicott. "We keep the +peace, we feed when there is famine, we send our doctors when there is +plague, because that is the law, also--the law of our race." + +Ahmed Ali did not move. He had placed the dilemma before Endicott. He +neither solved nor accepted it. Nor Was Endicott able to find any +answer. There must be one, since his whole race was arraigned just for +what it most prided itself upon--oh, no doubt there was an answer. But +Mr. Endicott could not find it. His imagination, however, grasped the +problem. He saw those seven hundred tribesmen travelling down the +passes to the rail head, loading the Bombay train and dispersing upon +the steamers. But he had no answer, and because he had no answer he +was extremely uncomfortable. He had lived for a year in the world of +politicians where, as a rule, there are answers all ready-made for any +question, answers neatly framed in aphorisms and propositions and +provided for our acceptance by thoughtful organisations. But he +could not remember one to suit this occasion. He was at a loss, and he +took the easy way to rid himself of discomfort. He dived into his +trouser-pocket and fished out a handful of silver. + +"Here!" he said. "This'll help you on a bit. Now go!" + +He stood aside from the door and the Asiatic darted to it with an +extraordinary eagerness. But once he had unlatched it, once it stood +open to the hillside and the sky, and he free in the embrasure, he +lost all his cringing aspect. He turned round upon Mr. Endicott. + +"I go now," he cried in a high arrogant voice. "But I shall come back +very soon, and all our peoples will come with me, all our hungry +peoples from the East. Remember that, you genelman!" And then he ran +noiselessly out of the house and down the pathway to the gate. + +He ran with extraordinary swiftness; so that Endicott followed him to +the gate and watched him go. He flew down the road, his shadow +flitting in the moonlight like a bird. Once he looked over his +shoulder, and seeing Endicott at the gate he leapt into the air. A few +yards farther he doubled on his steps, climbed down into the little +stream beside the lane and took to the hills. And in another moment he +was not. The broad and kindly fell took him to its bosom. He was too +tiny an atom to stand out against that great towering slope of grass +and stones. Indeed, he vanished so instantly that it seemed he must +have dived into a cave. The next moment Endicott almost doubted +whether he had ever been at all, whether he was not some apparition +born of his own troubled brain and the Australian's talk. But, as he +turned back into the house, he saw upon the flags of the garden path +the marks of the man's wet, bare feet. Not only had Ahmed Ali been to +the farm-house, but he had crossed the stream to get there. + +Mr. Endicott went back to his table in the window and seated himself +in front of his lighted candles, more from habit than with any thought +of work. He felt suddenly rather tired. He had not been conscious of +any fear while Ahmed Ali was in the room, or indeed of any strain. But +strain, and perhaps fear, there had been. Certainly a vague fear began +to get hold of him now. He had a picture before his eyes of the +Asiatic leaping into the air upon the road, and then doubling for the +hills. Why had he fled so fast? + +"North of the Tropic of Capricorn!" + +He repeated the words to himself aloud. Was the Australian right after +all? And would they come from the East--those hungry people? Mr. +Endicott seemed to feel the earth tremble beneath the feet of the +myriads of Asia. He bent his ear and seemed to hear the distant +confusion of their approach. He looked down at his papers and +flicked them contemptuously. Of what use would be his fine Bill +for the establishment of a Minimum Wage? Why, everything would go +down--civilisation, the treasures of art, twenty centuries of man's +painful growth--just as that Derby China teapot with its wonderful +colour of dark blue and red and gold. The broken fragments of the +teapot became a symbol to Endicott. + +"And the women would go down too," he thought with a shiver. "They +would take the wives." + +He had come to this point in his speculations when the inner door +opened, and the light broadened in the room. He heard Mrs. Tyson +shuffle in, but he did not turn towards her. He sat looking out upon +the fell. + +"I found the lamp burning on the hall table by the letters, sir," she +said, "and I thought you might want it." + +"Thank you," said Endicott vaguely, and he was roused by a little +gasping cry which she uttered. + +"Oh, yes! I am very sorry, Mrs. Tyson. Your teapot has been knocked +down. I went out. There was a man in the room when I came back. He +knocked it down. Of course I'll make its value good, though I doubt if +I can replace it." + +Mrs. Tyson made no answer. She placed the lamp on the table. Endicott +was still seated at his table in the window with his back to the room. +But he had thrown back his head, and he saw the circle of reflected +light upon the ceiling shake and quiver as Mrs. Tyson put the lamp +down. The glass chimney, too, rattled as though her hands were +shaking. + +"I am very sorry indeed," he continued. + +Mrs. Tyson dropped upon her knees and began to pick up the broken +pieces from the floor. + +"It doesn't matter at all, sir," she said, and Endicott was surprised +by the utter tonelessness of her voice. He knew that she set great +store upon this set of china; she had boasted of it. Yet now that it +was spoilt she spoke of it with complete indifference. He turned round +in his chair and watched her picking up the fragments--watched her +idly until she sobbed. + +"Good heavens," he cried, "I knew that you valued it, Mrs. Tyson, +but--" and then he stopped. For she turned to him and he knew that +there was more than the china teapot at the bottom of her trouble. Her +face, white and shaking and wet with tears, was terrible to see. There +was a horror upon it as though she had beheld things not allowed, and +a hopeless pain in her eyes as though she was sure that the appalling +vision would never pass. But all she did was to repeat her phrase. + +"It doesn't matter at all, sir." + +Endicott started up and laid his hand upon her shoulder. + +"What has happened, Mrs. Tyson?" + +"Oh, I can't tell you, sir." She knelt upon the floor and covered her +face with her hands and wept as Endicott had never dreamed that a +human being could weep. Fear seized upon him and held him till he +shivered with the chill of it. The woman had come in by the inner +door. In the hall, then, was to be found the cause of her horror. He +lifted the lamp and hurried towards it, but to reach the door he had +to pass the screen which Elsie had arranged on the day of their +coming. And at the screen he stopped. The terror which may come to a +man once in his life clutched his heart so that he choked. For behind +the screen he saw the gleam of a girl's white frock. + +"Elsie," he cried, "you have been all this while here--asleep." For he +would not believe the thing he knew. + +She was lying rather than sitting in the low basket chair in front of +the little table on which the chemicals were ranged, with her back +towards him, and her face buried in the padding of the chair. Endicott +stretched his arm over her and set down the lamp upon the table. Then +he spoke to her again chidingly and shaking her arm. + +"Elsie, wake up! Don't be ridiculous!" + +He slipped an arm under her waist, and lifting her, turned her towards +him. The girl's head rolled upon her shoulders, and there was a look +of such deadly horror upon her face that no pen could begin to +describe it. Endicott caught her to his breast. + +"Oh, my God," he cried hoarsely. "My poor girl! My poor girl!" + +Mrs. Tyson had come up behind him. + +"It was he," she whispered, "the man who was here. He killed her!" And +as Endicott turned his head towards the woman, some little thing +slipped from the chair on to the floor with a tiny rattle. Endicott +laid her down and picked up a small, yellow, round tablet. + +"No, he didn't," he said with a queer eagerness in his voice. The +tablet came from a small bottle on the table at the end of his row of +chemicals. It was labelled, "Intensifier" and "Poison," and the cork +was out of the bottle. The bottle had been full that afternoon. There +was more than one tablet missing now. + +"No, she killed herself. Those tablets are cyanide of potassium. He +never touched her. Look!" + +Upon the boards of the floor the wet and muddy feet of the Asiatic had +written the history of his movements beyond the possibility of +mistake. Here he had stood in front of her--not a step nearer. Mrs. +Tyson heard him whisper in her daughter's ear. "Oh, my dear, I thank +God!" He sank upon his knees beside her. Mrs. Tyson went out, and, +closing the door gently, left him with his dead. + +She sat and waited in the kitchen, and after a while she heard him +moving. He opened the door into the hall and came out and went slowly +and heavily up the stairs into Elsie's room. In a little while he came +down again and pushed open the kitchen door. He had aged by twenty +years, but his face and his voice were calm. + +"You found the lamp in the hall?" he said, in a low voice. "Beside the +letters? Come! We must understand this. My mind will go unless I am +quite sure." + +She followed him into the living-room and saw that his dead daughter +was no longer there. She stood aside whilst, with a patience which +wrung her heart, Endicott worked out by the footprints of the intruder +and this and that sure sign the events of those tragic minutes, until +there was no doubt left. + +"Elsie wrote eight letters," he said. "Seven are in the hall. Here is +the eighth, addressed and stamped upon the table where she wrote." + +The letters had to be sent down the valley to the inn early in the +morning. So when she had finished, she had carried them into the +hall--all of them, she thought--and she had taken the lamp to light +her steps. Whilst she was in the hall, and whilst all this side of the +house was in darkness Ahmed Ali had slipped into the room from the +lane by the brook. There were the marks of his feet coming from the +door. + +"But was that possible?" Endicott argued. "I was on the hillside, the +moon shining from behind my shoulders on to the house. There were no +shadows. It was all as clear as day. I must have seen the man come +along the little footpath to the door, for I was watching the house. I +saw the light in this room disappear. Wait a moment! Yes. Just after +the light went out I struck a match and lit my pipe." + +He had held the match close to his face in the hollow of his hands, +and had carefully lit the pipe; and after the match had burned out, +the glare had remained for a few seconds in his eyes. It was during +those seconds that the Asiatic had crossed the lane and darted in by +the door. + +The next step then became clear. Elsie, counting her letters in the +hall, had discovered that she had left one behind, she knew where she +had left it. She knew that the moonlight was pouring into the room; +and, leaving the lamp in the hall, she had returned to fetch it. In +the moonlit room she had come face to face with the Asiatic. + +He had been close to the screen when she met him, and there he had +stood. No doubt he had begun by asking her for opium. No doubt, +too--perhaps through some unanswered cry of hers, perhaps because +she never cried out at all, perhaps on account of a tense attitude +of terror not to be mistaken even in that vaporous silvery +light--somehow, at all events, he had become aware that she was alone +in the house; and his words and his demands had changed. She had +backed away from him against the wall, moving the screen and the +chair, and upsetting a book upon the table there. That was evident +from the disorder in this corner. Upon the table stood Endicott's +chemicals for developing his photographs. Endicott saw the picture +with a ghastly distinctness--her hand dropping for support upon the +table and touching the bottles which she had arranged herself. + +"Yes, she knew that that one nearest, the first she touched was the +poison, and meant--what? Safety! It's awful, but it's the truth. Very +probably she screamed, poor girl. But there was no one to hear her." + +The noise of the river leaping from rock pool to rock pool had drowned +any sound of it which might else have reached to Endicott's ears. The +scream had failed. In front of her was a wild and desperate Pathan +from the stokehold of a liner. Under her hand was the cyanide of +potassium. Endicott could see her furtively moving the cork from the +mouth of the bottle with the fingers of one hand, whilst she stood +watching in horror the man smiling at her in silence. + +"Don't you feel that that is just how everything happened? Aren't you +sure of it?" he asked, turning to Mrs. Tyson with a dreadful appeal in +his eyes. But she could answer it honestly. + +"Yes, sir, that is how it all happened," and for a moment Mr. Endicott +was comforted. But immediately afterwards he sat down on a chair like +a tired man and his fingers played upon the table. + +"It would all be over in a few seconds," he said lamentably +to Mrs. Tyson. "But, oh, those seconds! They would have been +terrible--terrible with pain." His voice trailed away into silence. He +sat still staring at the table. Then he raised his head towards Mrs. +Tyson, and his face was disfigured by a smile of torment. "Hard luck +on a young girl, eh, Mrs. Tyson?" and the very banality of the +sentence made it poignant. "Everything just beginning for her--the +sheer fun of life. Her beauty, and young men, and friends and dancing, +the whole day a burst of music--and then suddenly--quite alone--that's +so horrible--quite alone, in a minute she had to----" His voice choked +and the tears began to run down his face. + +"But the man?" Mrs. Tyson ventured. + +"Oh, the man!" cried Endicott. "I will think of him to-morrow." + +He went up the stairs walking as heavily as when he had carried his +daughter in his arms; and he went again into Elsie's room. Mrs. Tyson +blew out the candles upon his writing-table and arranged automatically +some disordered sheets of foolscap. They were notes on the great +principle of the Minimum Wage. + + + + + + ONE OF THEM + + + + + ONE OF THEM + + +At midnight on August 4th, Poldhu flung the news out to all ships, and +Anthony Strange, on the _Boulotte_, took the message in the middle of +the West Bay. He carried on accordingly past Weymouth, and in the +morning was confronted with the wall of great breakers off St. Alban's +Head. The little boat ran towards that barrier with extraordinary +swiftness. Strange put her at a gap close into the shore where the +waves broke lower, and with a lurch and a shudder she scooped the +water in over her bows and clothed herself to her brass gunwale-top in +a stinging veil of salt. Never had the _Boulotte_ behaved better than +she did that morning in the welter of the Race, and Strange, rejoicing +to his very finger-tips, forgot the news which was bringing all the +pleasure-boats, great and small, into the harbours of the south, +forgot even that sinking of the heart which had troubled him +throughout the night. But it was only in the Race that he knew any +comfort. He dropped his anchor in Poole Harbour by mid-day, and fled +through London to a house he owned on the Berkshire Downs. + +There for a few days he found life possible. It was true there were +sentries under the railway bridges, but the sun rose each day over a +country ripe for the harvest, and the smoke curled from the chimneys +of pleasant villages; and there was no sign of war. But soon the +nights became a torture. For from midnight on, at intervals of five to +ten minutes, the troop-trains roared along the Thames Valley towards +Avonmouth, and the reproach of each of them ceased only with the +morning. Strange leaned out of his window looking down the slopes +where the corn in the moonlight was like a mist. Not a light showed in +the railway carriages, but the sparks danced above the funnel of the +engine, and the glare of the furnace burnished the leaves of the +trees. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers on the road to France. Then +there came a morning when, not a hundred yards from his house, he saw +a string of horses in the road and others being taken from the +reaping-machines in a field. Strange returned to town and dined with a +Mrs. Kenway, his best friend, and to her he unburdened his soul. + +"I am ashamed ... don't know how to look people in the face.... I +never thought to be so utterly unhappy. I am thirty and useless. I +cumber the ground." + +The look of surprise with which his friend turned to him hurt him like +the cut of a whip. "Of course you can't help," it seemed to say. "The +world is for the strong, this year and the next, and for how many +more?" + +Strange had to lie on his back for some hours each day, and he +suffered off and on always. But that had been his lot since boyhood, +and he had made light of his infirmity and grown used to it until this +4th of August. He had consoled himself with the knowledge that to the +world he looked only rather delicate. He was tall, and not set apart +from his fellows. + +"Now," he said. "I wish that everybody knew. Yes, I wish that I showed +that service was impossible. To think of us sitting here round a +dinner-table--as we used to! Oh, I know what you'll think! I have the +morbid sensitiveness of sick men. Perhaps you are right." + +"I don't think it at all," she said, and she set herself to comfort +him. + +Strange went from the dinner-party to his club. There was the +inevitable crowd, fighting the campaign differently, cutting up the +conquered countries, or crying all was lost. Some of them had written +to the papers, all were somehow swollen with importance as though the +war was their private property. Strange began to take heart. + +"They are not ashamed," he thought. "They speak to me as if they +expected I should be here. Perhaps I am a fool." + +A friend sat down by his side. + +"Cross went yesterday," he said. "George Crawley was killed at Mons. +Of course you have heard." + +Strange had not heard, and there rose before his eyes suddenly a +picture of George Crawley, the youngest colonel in the army, standing +on the kerb in St. James's Street and with uplifted face blaspheming +to the skies at one o'clock in the morning because of a whiskered +degenerate dandy with a frilled shirt to whom he had just before been +introduced. But his friend was continuing his catalogue. + +"Chalmers is training at Grantham. He's with the new army. Linton has +joined the Flying Corps. Every day someone slips quietly away. God +knows how many of them will come back." + +Strange got up and walked out of the club. + +"I shall see you to-morrow," his friend cried after him. + +"No, I am going back to my boat." + +"For how long?" + +"Till the war's over." + +The resolution had been taken that instant. He loved the _Boulotte_ +better than anything else in the world. For on board of her he was +altogether a man. She was fifty-five feet long over all, fourteen +feet in beam, twenty-five tons by Thames measurement, and his debt to +her was enormous. He had found her in a shed in the Isle of Wight, +re-coppered her, given her a new boiler, fixed her up with forced +draught, and taken out for himself after a year's hard work a master's +certificate. He took her over to Holland, and since her bows worked +like a concertina in the heavy seaway between Dover and Dieppe he +strengthened them with cross-pieces. He never ceased to tinker with +her, he groused at her, and complained of her, and sneered at her, and +doted on her in the true sailor's fashion. For some years past life +had begun for him in the spring, when he passed Portland Bill bound +westward for Fowey and Falmouth and the Scillies, and had ended in the +late autumn, when he pulled the _Boulotte_ up on the mud of Wootton +Creek. Now he turned to her in his distress, and made a most miserable +Odyssey. He spent a month in the estuary above Salcombe, steamed +across to Havre, went down through the canals to Marseilles in the +autumn of 1914, and sought one of the neutral coasts of the +Mediterranean. Here, where men wore buttons in their coats inscribed, +"Don't speak to me of the war," he fancied that he might escape from +the shame of his insufficiency. He came to a pleasant harbour, with a +broad avenue of trees behind the quay, and a little ancient town +behind the trees. + +"I will drop my anchor here," he said, "until the war ends"; and he +remained, speaking to no one but his crew, sleeping in his little +cabin, and only going on shore to buy his newspapers and take his +coffee. And after five weeks the miracle began to happen. He was +sitting on his deck one morning reading a local newspaper. At right +angles to him half a dozen steamers, moored in a line, with their +sterns to the quay and their anchors out forward, were loading with +fruit. He looked up from his paper, and his eyes fell upon the nearest +ship, which was showing him her starboard broadside. He looked first +of all carelessly, then with interest, finally he laid his paper down +and walked forward. The boat had received on the lower part of her +hull, up to the Plimsoll line, a brilliant fresh coat of red paint. So +far, of course, there was nothing unusual, but forward, halfway +between her bows and her midships, and again aft on her quarter, she +had a broad perpendicular line of the same red paint standing out +vividly from the black of her upper plates. Strange called to his +engineer, John Shawe, and pointed to the streaks. + +"What do you make of them?" he asked. + +Shawe shrugged his shoulders. + +"Very wasteful it do seem, sir," he said; and to a casual glance it +did indeed appear as if the paint had been allowed, through some +carelessness on deck, to drip down the side at those two points. +Strange, however, was not satisfied. The bands of scarlet were too +regular, too broad. He had himself rowed out in his dinghy past the +steamer's bows. + +"That will do, Harry," he said. "We can go back." + +On the port bows and quarter of the steamer he had seen the same vivid +streaks. Strange spoke again to John Shawe. + +"Waste isn't the explanation, that's sure. You go about the town a +bit, don't you? You know some of the men about the port. You might +find out for me--quietly, you know--what you can about that boat"; and +the phrase "quietly, you know," made all at once a different man of +John Shawe. Strange at this time was really more moved by curiosity +than suspicion, but he did use the phrase, and John Shawe, a big, +simple, south countryman, who knew his engine and very little else, +swelled at once into a being of mystery, full of brow-twisting wisdom +and portentously sly. + +"I understand, sir," he said in a knowing whisper. "I know my dooty. +It shall be done." He put on his best brass-buttoned coat that +evening, and went down the three steps of the gangway ladder with a +secret air, a sleuth; but he brought back his news nevertheless. + +"All those boats, sir, are chartered by a German here named Rehnke." + +"But some of them are English. They are flying the red flag," cried +Strange in revolt. + +"It's God's truth, sir, and here's more of it. Every one of them's +bound for England, consigned to English firms. One's for Manchester, +two for Cardiff, one for Liverpool." + +"But it's impossible. It's trading with the enemy," Strange exclaimed. + +"That don't apply to the enemy in neutral countries, they say. Oh, +there's a deal of dirty work going on in England. Will you come on +deck?" + +Strange nodded. The saloon door opened into the cockpit, and the cabin +roof was the deck of the after-part of the _Boulotte_. They climbed by +a little ladder out of the cockpit. It was twelve o'clock on a night +of full moon. + +"Look, sir," said Shawe. + +The English boat had sailed that afternoon. The starboard side of its +neighbour was now revealed. Strange looked through his glasses and he +saw. Over the bows of that tramp steamer at midnight a man was +suspended on a plank, and he was painting a broad, perpendicular, red +streak. + +Strange thought over his discovery lying on his back in the saloon. +Distinguishing marks on a row of ships chartered by a German--there +was just one explanation for them! Strange did not even whisper it to +John Shawe, but he went ashore the next morning and called upon the +British Consul. + +His card was taken into a room where two men were speaking. At once +the conversation stopped, and it was not resumed. There was not a +whisper, nor the sound of any movement. Strange had a picture in his +mind of two men with their heads together staring at his card and +exchanging an unspoken question. Then the clerk appeared again. + +"Mr. Taylor will see you with pleasure," he said. + +As Strange entered the room a slim, elderly, indifferent gentleman, +seated at a knee-hole table, gazed vaguely at him through his +spectacles and offered him a chair. + +"What can I do for you, Mr. Strange?" he asked, and since Strange +hesitated, he turned towards his companion. + +"This is Major Slingsby," said the Consul. "He will not be in your +way." + +Major Slingsby, a square, short, rubicund man of forty, with the face +of a faun, bowed, and, without moving from his chair, seemed, +nevertheless, to remove himself completely from the room. + +"Not at all," said Strange. He had not an idea that he was in the +presence of the two shrewdest men in those parts. To him they were +just a couple of languid people whom it was his duty to arouse, and he +told his story as vividly as he could. + +"And what do you deduce from these mysterious signs?" asked the +Consul. + +Strange's answer was prompt. + +"German submarines in the Mediterranean." + +"Oh! And why not the Channel?" asked Mr. Taylor. "These steamers are +on their way there." + +To that question there was no reply. Strange rose. "I thought that I +ought to tell you what I had noticed," he said stiffly. + +"Thank you, yes. And I am very grateful," replied Taylor. + +Major Slingsby, however, followed Strange out of the room. + +"Will you lunch with me?" he asked, and the question sent the blood +rushing into Strange's face. He swung between his instinct to hide his +head from any man who was doing service and his craving to converse +with a fellow-countryman. The craving won. + +"I shall be very pleased," he stammered. + +"Right. It is half-past twelve now. Shall we say one at the Café de +Rome?" + +As they sat against the wall by the window of the café Slingsby talked +of ordinary matters, which any one of those in the chairs outside upon +the pavement might overhear and be none the wiser. But he talked +sagely, neither parading mysteries nor pretending disclosures. He let +the mere facts of companionship and nationality work, and before +luncheon was over Strange was won by them. He longed to confide, to +justify himself before a fellow-citizen of his miserable inertness. +Over the coffee, indeed, he would have begun, but Slingsby saw the +torrent of confession coming. + +"Do you often lunch here?" he said quickly. "I do whenever I happen to +be in the town. Sit in this window for an hour and you will see all +the town paraded before you like a show, its big men and little men, +its plots and its intrigues. There, for instance," and he nodded +towards a large, stout person with a blonde moustache, "is +Rehnke--yes, that's your man. Take a good look at him." + +Strange looked at the German hard. He looked also towards a youth who +had been sitting for the last hour over a cup of coffee and a +newspaper outside the window. Slingsby interpreted the look. + +"He's all right. He's trying to listen, of course. Most foreigners do, +whether they understand your language or not. And he doesn't--not a +word of it. I have been watching him. However, we may as well go, for +I would very much like you to show me your little boat." + +Strange, eager and enthusiastic, jumped up from the table. + +"Rather," he cried. "She's not big, of course, but she can keep the +sea, especially since I strengthened her bows." + +"Oh, you have done that, have you?" said Slingsby, as he paid the +bill. "That's interesting." + +They crossed the boulevard to the quay and went on board the +_Boulotte_. Every inch of brass on her, from the stanchions round the +deck to the engine-room telegraph, flashed, and she was varnished and +white and trim like a lady fresh from her maid. + +"What can you do with your forced draught?" asked Slingsby. + +"Thirteen," replied Strange proudly. "With a good wind astern +fourteen. Once I went out past the Needles buoy----" and off he went +in a glowing account of a passage to Cherbourg at the end of a stormy +September. Slingsby never once interrupted him. He followed meekly +from the rudder to the bow, where he examined with some attention the +famous struts and cross-pieces. + +"You have got a wireless, I see," he said, looking up to the aerial, +which, slackened and disconnected, dangled from the masthead. + +"Yes. But it's a small affair. However, I can hear four hundred miles +if the night's still. I can only send seventy." + +Slingsby nodded, and the two men returned to the saloon. There, at +last, over a whisky and soda. Strange was encouraged to unload his +soul. The torture of the August nights on the Berkshire Downs above +the Thames Valley, the intolerable sense of uselessness; the feeling +that he wore a brand of shame upon his forehead for all men to see, +and the poignancy of the remorse which had shrivelled him when a +wounded soldier from Ypres or Le Cateau limped past him in the street; +all tumbled from his lips in abrupt, half-finished sentences. + +"Therefore I ran away," he said. + +Slingsby sat back in his chair. + +"So that's it," he said, and he laughed in a friendly fashion. "Do you +know that we have all been greatly worried about you? Oh, you have +caused a deuce of a fluttering I can tell you." + +Strange flushed scarlet. + +"I was suspected!" he cried. "Good God!" It just wanted that to +complete his utter shame. He had been worse than useless; he had given +trouble. He sat with his eyes fixed, in the depths of abasement. Then +other words were spoken to him: + +"How long will it take you to bring your boat to Marseilles?" + +"You want it, then?" said Strange. + +"I can use you," said Slingsby. "What's more, you are necessary." + +Strange, with a buzzing head, got out his chart from a locker and +spread it on the table. He took paper and a lead pencil and his +compasses. He marked his course and measured it. + +"Forty-seven hours' steaming and six hours to get up steam. It's four +o'clock now, and the day's Tuesday. I can be at Marseilles on Thursday +afternoon at four." + +"I have done a good day's work," said Major Slingsby, as he rose to +his feet, and he meant it. Slingsby was an intelligence officer as +well as an officer of intelligence, and since he had neither boats to +dispose of nor money to buy them with, Anthony Strange was a Godsend +to him. "But I don't want you until to-day week. I shall want a little +time to make arrangements with the French." + +The _Bulotte_ steamed round the point at three o'clock on the +appointed afternoon. The pilot took her through the Naval Harbour into +the small basin where the destroyers lie, and by half-past she was +berthed against the quay. Strange had been for the best part of two +days on his bridge, but at eleven he was knocking at a certain door +without any inscription upon it in the Port office, and he was +admitted to a new Major Slingsby in a khaki uniform, with red tabs on +the collar, and clerks typewriting for dear life in a tiny room. + +"Hallo," said Slingsby. He looked into a letter-tray on the edge of +his desk and took a long envelope from it and handed it to Strange. +"You might have a look at this. I'll come on board to-morrow morning. +Meanwhile, if I were you I should go to bed, though I doubt if you'll +get much sleep." + +The reason for that doubt became more and more apparent as the evening +wore on. In the first place, when Strange returned, he found workmen +with drills and hammers and rivets spoiling the white foredeck of his +adored _Boulotte_. For a moment he was inclined, like Captain Hatteras +when his crew cut down his bulwarks for firewood, to stand aside and +weep, but he went forward, and when he saw the work which was going on +his heart exulted. Then he went back to the saloon, but as he +stretched himself out upon the cushions he remembered the envelope in +his pocket. It was stamped "On His Majesty's Service," and it +contained the announcement that one Anthony Strange had been granted a +commission as sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. +After that sleep was altogether out of the question. There was the +paper to be re-read at regular intervals lest its meaning should have +been misunderstood. And when its meaning was at last firmly and +joyfully fixed in Strange's mind there was the paper itself to be +guarded and continually felt, lest it should lose itself, be stolen, +or evaporate into air. Towards midnight, indeed, he did begin to doze +off, but then a lighter came alongside and dumped ten tons of Welsh +steam coal on board, all that he could hold, it's true, but that gave +him ten days' steaming at ordinary draught. And at eight o'clock to +the minute Slingsby hailed him from the quay. + +"You will go back now to your old harbour," he said. "You have been a +little cruise down the coast, that's all. Just look out for a sailing +schooner called the _Santa Maria del Pilar_. She ought to turn up in +seven days from now to take on board a good many barrels of carbonate +of soda. I'll come by train at the same time. If she arrives before +and takes her cargo on board, you can wire to me through the Consul +and then--act on your own discretion." + +Strange drew a long breath, and his eyes shone. + +"But she won't, I think," said Slingsby. "By the way, you were at +Rugby with Russell of my regiment, weren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"And you know Cowper, who was admiral out here?" + +"Yes, he's my uncle." + +"Exactly." + +Strange smiled. It was clear that a good many inquiries must have been +made about him over the telegraph wires during the last week. + +"Well, that's all, I think," said Slingsby. "You'll push off as soon +as you can, and good luck." + +But there was one further ceremony before the _Boulotte_ was ready for +sea. The small crew was signed on under the Naval Discipline Act. Then +she put out, rounded the point, and headed for her destination over a +smooth sunlit sea, with, by the way, an extra hand on board and a fine +new capstan on her foredeck. Two days later she was moored in her old +position, and Strange went to bed. The excitement was over, a black +depression bore him down; he was deadly tired, and his back hurt him +exceedingly. What was he doing at all with work of this kind? If he +had to "act on his own discretion," could he do it with any sort of +profit? Such questions plagued him for two days more, whilst he lay +and suffered. But then relief came. He slept soundly and without pain, +and rose the next morning in a terror lest the _Santa Maria del Pilar_ +should have come and gone. He went up on to the deck and searched the +harbour with his glasses. There was but one sailing boat taking in +cargo, and she a brigantine named the _Richard_, with the Norwegian +flag painted on her sides. Strange hurried to the Consul, and returned +with a mind at ease. The _Santa Maria del Pilar_ had not yet sailed in +between the moles. Nor did she come until the next afternoon, by which +time Slingsby was on board the _Boulotte_. + +"There she is," said Strange in a whisper of excitement, looking +seawards. She sailed in with the sunset and a fair wind, a white +schooner like a great golden bird of the sea, and she was nursed by a +tug into a berth on the opposite side of the harbour. Slingsby and +Strange dined at the Café de Rome and came on board again at nine. The +great globes of electric light on their high pillars about the quays +shone down upon the still, black water of the harbour. It was very +quiet. From the cockpit of the _Boulotte_ the two men looked across to +the schooner. + +"I think there's a lighter alongside of her, isn't there?" said +Slingsby. + +Strange, whose eyesight was remarkable, answered: + +"Yes, a lighter loaded with barrels." + +"Some carbonate of soda," said Slingsby, with a grin. They went into +the cockpit, leaving the door open. + +It was a hot night, and in a café beyond the trees a band was playing +the compelling music of _Louise_. Strange listened to it, deeply +stirred. Life had so changed for him that he had risen from the depths +during the last weeks. Then Slingsby raised his hand. + +"Listen!" + +With the distant music there mingled now the creaking of a winch. +Strange extinguished the light, and both men crept out from the +cockpit. The sound came from the _Santa Maria del Pilar_, and they +could see the spar of her hoisting tackle swing out over the lighter +and inboard over the ship's deck. + +"She's loading," said Strange, in a low voice. + +"Yes," answered Slingsby; "she's loading." And his voice purred like a +contented cat. + +He slept on a bed made up in the saloon that night. Strange in his +tiny cabin, and at nine o'clock the next morning, as they sat at +breakfast, they saw the _Santa Maria del Pilar_ make for the sea. + +"We ought to follow, oughtn't we?" said Strange anxiously. + +"There's no hurry." + +"But she'll do nine knots in this breeze." Strange watched her with +the eye of knowledge as she leaned over ever so slightly from the +wind. "She might give us the slip." + +Slingsby went on eating unconcernedly. + +"She will," he answered. "We are not after her, my friend. Got your +chart?" + +Strange fetched it from the locker and spread it out on the table. + +"Do you see a small island with a lighthouse?" + +"Yes." + +"Four miles west-south-west of the lighthouse. Got it?" + +"Yes." + +"How long will it take you to get to that point?" + +Strange measured his course. + +"Five to five and a half hours forced draught." + +"Good. Suppose we start at six this evening." + +The _Boulotte_ went away to the minute. At eight it began to grow +dark, but no steaming light was hoisted on the mast, and no sidelamps +betrayed her presence. In the failing light she became one with the +sea but for the tiniest wisp of smoke from her chimney, and soon the +night hid that. A lantern flashed for a while here and there on the +forward deck in the centre of a little group, and then Slingsby came +back to Strange at the wheel. + +"It's all right," he whispered softly. + +Nights at sea! The cool, dark tent of stars, the hiss and tinkle of +waves against the boat's side, the dinghy, slung out upon the davits, +progressing above the surface of the water, the lamp light from the +compass striking up on the brasswork of the wheel and the face of the +steersman; to nights at sea Strange owed all the spacious moments of +his crippled life. But this night was a sacred thing. He was admitted +to the band of the young strong men who serve, like a novice into the +communion of a church; and his heart sang within his breast as he kept +the _Boulotte_ to her course. At a quarter past eleven he rang the +telegraph and put the indicator to "slow." Five minutes later he +stopped the engine altogether. Four miles away to the north-eastward a +light brightened and faded. + +"We are there," he said, and he looked out over an empty sea. + +Under Slingsby's orders he steamed slowly round in a circle, ever +increasing the circumference, for an hour, and then the new hand--who, +by the way, was a master gunner--crept aft. + +"There it is, sir." + +A hundred yards from the port bow a dark mass floated on the sea. The +_Boulotte_ slid gently alongside of it. It was a raft made of barrels +lashed together. + +"We have seen those barrels before, my friend," said Slingsby, his +nose wrinkling up in a grin of delight. Before daybreak the work was +done. Fifty empty barrels floated loose; there was a layer of heavy +oil over the sea and a rank smell in the air. + +"Now," said Slingsby, In a whisper, "shall we have any luck, I +wonder?" + +He went forward. The capstan head had been removed, and in its place +sat a neat little automatic gun, which could fling two hundred and +seventy three-pound shells six thousand yards in a minute. For the +rest of that night the _Boulotte_ lay motionless without a light +showing or a word spoken. And just as the morning came, in the very +first unearthly grey of it, a wave broke--a long, placid roller which +had no right to break in that smooth, deep sea. Slingsby dipped his +hand into the cartridge box and made sure that the band ran free; the +gunner stood with one hand on the elevating wheel, the other on the +trigger; eight hundred yards away from the _Boulotte_ there was +suddenly a wild commotion of the water, and black against the misty +grey a conning tower and a long, low body of steel rose into view. +U-whatever-its-number was taken by surprise. The whole affair lasted a +few seconds. With his third shot the gunner found the range, and then, +planting his shells with precision in a level line like the +perforations of a postage stamp, he ripped the submarine from +amidships to its nose. Strange had a vision for a second of a couple +of men trying to climb out from the conning tower, and then the nose +went up in the air like the snout of some monstrous fish, and the sea +gulped it down. + +"One of 'em," said Slingsby. "But we won't mention it. Lucky you saw +those red streaks, my friend. If a destroyer had come prowling up this +coast instead of the harmless little _Boulotte_ there wouldn't have +been any raft on the sea or any submarine just here under the sea. +What about breakfast?" + +Strange set the boat's course for Marseilles, and the rest of that +voyage was remarkable only for a clear illustration of the difference +between the amateur and the professional. For whereas Strange could +not for the life of him keep still during one minute, Slingsby, +stretched at his ease on the saloon sofa, beguiled the time with +quotations from the "Bab Ballads" and "Departmental Ditties." + + + + + + RAYMOND BYATT + + + + + RAYMOND BYATT + + +Dorman Royle was the oddest hero for such an adventure. He followed +the profession of a solicitor, and the business he did was like +himself, responsible and a trifle heavy. No piratical dashes into the +Law Courts in the hope of a great haul were encouraged in his office. +Clients as regular in their morals as in their payments alone sought +his trustworthy and prosaic advice. Dorman Royle, in a word, was the +last man you would think ever to feel the hair lifting upon his scalp +or his heart sinking down into a fathomless pit of terror. Yet to him, +nevertheless, these sensations happened. It may be that he was +specially chosen just because of his unflighty qualities; that, at all +events, became his own conviction. Certainly those qualities stood him +in good stead. This, however, is surmise. The facts are beyond all +dispute. + +In June, Royle called upon his friend Henry Groome, and explained that +he wanted Groome's country house for the summer. + +"But it's very lonely," said Groome. + +"I don't mind that," replied Dorman Royle, and his face beamed with +the smile at once proud and sheepish and a little fatuous which has +only meant one thing since the beginning of the world. + +"You are going to be married!" said Groome. + +"How in the world did you guess?" asked Royle; but it must be supposed +that there had been some little note of regret or jealousy in his +friend's voice, for the smile died away, and he nodded his head in +comprehension. + +"Yes, old man. That's the way of it. It's the snapping of the old +ties--not a doubt. I shall meet you from time to time at the club in +the afternoon, and you will dine with us whenever you care to. But we +shall not talk very intimately any more of matters which concern us. +We shall be just a trifle on our guard against each other. A woman +means that--yes. However, I do what I can. I borrow your house for my +honeymoon." + +Groome heard the speech with surprise. He had not expected to be +understood with so much accuracy. He seemed to be looking at a new +man--a stranger, almost certainly no longer his friend, but a man who +had put friendship behind him and had reached out and grasped a +treasure which had transfigured all his world. + +"And whom are you going to marry?" Groome asked; and the answer +surprised him still more. + +"Ina Fayle." + +"Ina--you don't mean----?" + +"Yes, I do," said Royle, and the note of his voice was a challenge. +But Groome did not take it up. Ina Fayle, of course, he knew by sight +and by reputation, as who in London at that time did not? She was a +young actress who had not been content to be beautiful. + +"Yes, she's a worker," suddenly said Royle. "She has had to work since +she was sixteen, and what she is, sheer industry has made her. Now she +is going to give up all her success." + +Groome wondered for a moment how in the world she could bring herself +to do it. A girl of twenty-three, she had gained already so much +success that she must find the world a very pleasant place. She had +the joy of doing superbly the work she loved, and a reward besides, +tremendous because so immediate, in the adoration of the public, in +the great salary after she had been poor, and while she was young +enough to enjoy every penny of it. Groome was still wondering when +once more Royle broke in upon him. + +"Yes. It's the sort of renunciation which is much more surprising in a +girl than it would be in a man. For the art of the stage is of much +the same stuff as a woman's natural life, isn't it? I mean that +beauty, grace, the trick of wearing clothes, the power of swift +response to another's moods, play the same large part in both. But, +you see, she has character, as well as gifts--that's the explanation." + +Royle looked at his watch. + +"Come and see her, will you?" + +"Now?" + +"Yes. I promised that I would bring you round," and as he got up from +his chair he added: "Oh, by the way, as to your house, I ought to have +told you. Ina has a dog--a black spaniel--do you mind?" + +"Not a bit," said Groome, and he put on his hat. + +The two men walked northwards, Royle at once extremely shy and +inordinately proud. They crossed the Marylebone Road into Regent's +Park. + +"That's her house," said Royle, "the one at the end of the terrace." + +Ina Fayle lived with a companion; she was not quite so tall as Groome, +who had only seen her upon the stage, expected her to be. He had +thought to find a woman a trifle cadaverous and sallow. But she had +the clear eyes and complexion of a child, and her wealth of fair, +shining hair spoke of a resplendent health. She came across the room +and took Groome into a window. + +"You know Dorman very well, don't you? I want to show you something I +have bought for him. Oh, it's nothing--but do you think he will like +it?" + +She was simple and direct in her manner, with more of the comrade than +the woman. She showed Groome a gold cigarette-case. + +"Of course it will do. But you have already made him a better +wedding-gift than that," said Groome. + +"I?" Her forehead puckered in a frown. "What gift?" + +"A very remarkable gift of insight, which he never had before." + +She coloured a little with pleasure, and her eyes and her voice +softened together. + +"I am very glad," she answered. "One takes a great deal. It is +pleasant to give something in return." + +Dorman Royle and Ina Fayle were duly married towards the end of the +month, and began their life together in the house which Groome had +lent them. + +It stood on the top of a hill amongst bare uplands above the valley of +the Thames, in a garden of roses and green lawns. But the house was +new, and the trees about it small and of Groome's own planting, so +that every whisper of wind became a breeze up there, and whistled +about the windows. On the other hand, if the wind was still there was +nowhere a place more quiet, and the slightest sound which would never +have been heard in a street rang out loud with the presumption of a +boast. Especially this was so at night. The roar of the great trains +racing down to the west cleft the air like thunder; yet your eyes +could only see far away down in the river-valley, a tiny line of +bright lights winking amongst the trees. In this spot they stayed for +a week, and then Ina showed her husband a telegram summoning her to +the bedside of her mother. + +"It's not very serious, as you see," she said. "But she wants me, and +I think that for a day or two I must go." + +She went the next morning. Dorman Royle was left alone, and was +thoroughly bored until late on the night before Ina's return. It was, +in fact, not far from twelve o'clock when Royle began to be +interested. He was sitting in the library when he heard very +distinctly through the open window a metallic click. The sound was +unmistakable. Somewhere in the garden a gate had been opened and +allowed to swing back. What he had heard was the latch catching in the +socket. He was interested in his book, and for a moment paid no heed +to the sound. But after a second or two he began to wonder who at this +hour in that lonely garden had opened a gate. He sat up and listened +but the sound was not repeated. He was inclined to think, clear and +distinct though the sound had been, that he had imagined it, when his +eyes fell upon Ina's black spaniel. He could no longer believe in any +delusion of his senses. For the dog had heard the sound too. He had +been lying curled up on the varnished boards at the edge of the room, +his black, shining coat making him invisible to a careless glance. Now +he was sitting up, his ears cocked and his eyes upon the window with +the extraordinary intentness which dogs display. + +Dorman Royle rose from his chair. + +"Come," he said, in a whisper, but the spaniel did not move. He sat +with his nose raised and the lip of the lower jaw trembling, and his +eyes still fixed upon the window. Royle walked softly to the door of +the room. It opened on to a hall paved with black and white stone +which took up the middle part of the house. Upon his right a door +opened on to the drive, on his left another led out to a loggia and a +terrace. Royle opened this second door and called again in a whisper +to the spaniel: + +"Come, Duke! Seek him out!" + +This time the dog obeyed, running swiftly past his legs into the open +air. Royle followed. It was a bright, moonlit night, the stars hardly +visible in the clear sky. Royle looked out across the broad valley to +the forest-covered Chilterus, misty in the distance. Not a breath of +wind was stirring; the trees stood as though they had been metal. +Three brick steps led from the terrace to the tennis-lawn. On the +opposite side of the tennis-lawn a small gate opened on to a paddock +It was this gate which had opened and swung to. But there was no one +now on the lawn or in the paddock, and no tree stood near which could +shade an intruder. Royle looked at the dog. He stood upon the edge of +the terrace staring out over the lawn; Royle knew him to be a good +house-dog, yet now not a growl escaped him. He stood waiting to leap +forward--yes, but waiting also for a friendly call from a familiar +voice before he leapt forward; and as Royle realised that a strange +thought came to him. He had been lonely these last days; hardly a +moment had passed but he had been conscious of the absence of Ina; +hardly a moment when his heart had not ached for her and called her +back. What if he had succeeded? He played with the question as he +stood there in the quiet moonlight upon the paved terrace. It was she +who had sped across the paddock twelve hours before her time and +opened the gate. She had come so eagerly that she had not troubled to +close it. She had let it swing sharply to behind her. She was here +now, at his side. He reached out a hand to touch her, and take hers; +and suddenly he became aware that he was no longer playing with a +fancy--that he believed it. She was really here, close to him. He +could not see her--no. But that was his fault. There was too much +dross in Dorman Royle as yet for so supreme a gift. But that would +follow--follow with the greater knowledge of her which their life +together would bring. + +"Come, Duke," he said, and he went back into the house and sat late in +the smoking-room, filled with the wonder of this new, strange life +that was to be his. A month ago and now! He measured the difference of +stature between the Dorman Royle of those days and the Dorman Royle of +to-day, and he was sunk in humility and gratitude. But a few hours +later that night his mood changed. He waked up in the dark, and, +between sleep and consciousness, was aware of some regular, measured +movement in the room. In a moment he became wide awake, and understood +what had aroused him. The spaniel, lying on the coverlet at the foot +of the bed, was thumping with his tail--just as if someone he loved +was by him, fondling him. Royle sat up; the bed shook and creaked +under him, but the dog paid no heed at all. He went on wagging his +tail in the silence and darkness of the room. Someone must be there, +and suddenly Royle cried aloud, impetuously, so that he was surprised +to hear his own voice: + +"Ina! Ina!" and he listened, with his arms outstretched. + +But no answer came at all. It seemed that he had rashly broken a +spell. For the dog became still. Royle struck a match and lighted the +candle by his bed, straining his eyes to the corners of the room. But +there was no one visible. + +He blew out the candle and lay down again, and the darkness blotted +out all the room. But he could not sleep; and--and--he was very +careful not to move. It was not fear which kept him still--though fear +came later---but a thrilling expectation. He was on the threshold of a +new world. He had been made conscious of it already; now he was to +enter it--to see. But he saw nothing. Only in a little while the +spaniel's tail began once more to thump gently and regularly upon the +bed. It was just as if the dog had waited for him to go to sleep +before it once more resumed its invisible communion. This time he +spoke to the dog. + +"Duke!" he whispered, and he struck a match. The spaniel was lying +upon his belly, his neck stretched out, his jaws resting upon his +paws. "Duke, what is it?" + +The animal raised its head and turned a little to one side. The human +voice could not have said more clearly: + +"What's the matter? You are interrupting us." + +The match burned out between his forefinger and thumb. Royle did not +light another. He laid himself down again. But the pleasant fancy born +in him upon the moonlit terrace had gone altogether from his thoughts. +There was something to him rather sinister in the notion of the dog +waiting for him to go to sleep and then, without moving from its +place--so certain it was of the neighbourhood of some unseen being to +whom it gave allegiance--resuming a strange companionship. He no +longer thought of Ina--Ina as the visitor. He began to wonder how the +dog had come to her, who had owned it before her. He plunged into +vague and uncomfortable surmises. No doubt the darkness, the silence +of the night, and his own sleeplessness had their effects. He lay in a +strange exaltation of spirit, which deepened slowly and gradually into +fear. Yes, he was afraid now. He had a sense of danger, all the more +alarming because it was reasonless. There were low breathings about +his bed; now some one bent over him, now a hand lightly touched the +coverlet. He, the most unimpressionable of men, rejoiced when a grey +beam of light shot through a chink of the curtain and spread like a +fan into the room. He turned over on his side and slept until the sun +was high. + +In the clear light of a July morning Royle's thoughts took on a more +sober colour. None the less, he made a cautious inquiry or two that +day from the gardener, and from the shops in the village. The answer +in each case was the same. + +"The house had no history, no traditions. It had only been built ten +years back. There was nothing but a field then where the house now +stood. Even the trees had been planted at the time the house was +built." + +Indeed, the assurance was hardly needed; for the house was new and +bright as a hospital. There was hardly a dark corner anywhere, +certainly nowhere a harbour for dark thoughts. Royle began to revert +to his original fancy; and when that evening his wife returned, he +asked her: + +"Last night, just before midnight--what were you doing?" + +They were together in a small library upon the first floor, a room +with big windows opening upon the side of the house. The night was hot +and the windows stood open, and close to one of them at a little table +Ina was writing a letter. She looked up with a smile. + +"Last night--just before midnight? I was asleep." + +"Are you sure?" + +Some note of urgency in his voice made her smile waver. It disappeared +altogether as she gazed at him. + +"Of course," she answered, slowly, "I am sure;" and then, after a +little pause and with a slight but a noticeable hesitation, she added: +"Why do you ask?" + +Dorman Royle crossed over to her side and most unwisely told her: + +"Because at midnight the gate into the paddock was opened and swung to +without any hand to touch it. I had been thinking of you, Ina--wanting +you--and I wondered." + +He spoke half in jest, but there was no jesting reply. For a little +while, indeed, Ina did not answer him at all. He was standing just a +step behind her as she sat at the table in the window, so that he +could not see her face. But her body stiffened. + +"It must have been a delusion," she said, and he walked forward and +sat down in a chair by the table facing her. + +"If so, it was a delusion which the dog shared." + +She did not change her attitude; she did not stir. From head to foot +she sat as though carved in stone. Nor did her face tell him anything. +It became a mask; it seemed to him that she forced all expression out +of it, by some miracle of self-command. But her eyes shone more than +usually big, more than usually luminous; and they held their secret +too, if they had a secret to hold. Then she leaned forward and touched +his sleeve. + +"Tell me!" she said, and she had trouble to find her voice; and, +having found it, she could not keep it steady. + +"I am sorry, Ina," he said. "You are frightened. I should not have +said a word." + +"But you have," she replied. "Now I must know the rest." + +He told her all that there was to tell. Reduced to the simple terms of +narrative, the story sounded, even to him, thin and unconvincing. +There was so little of fact and event, so much of suggestion and vague +emotion. But his recollection was still vivid, and something of the +queer terror which he had felt as he had lain in the darkness was +expressed in his aspect and in the vibrations of his voice. So, at all +events, he judged. For he had almost expected her to laugh at the +solemnity of his manner, and yet Ina did not so much as smile. She +listened without even astonishment, paying close heed to every word, +now and then nodding her head in assent, but never interrupting. He +was vaguely reminded of clients listening to his advice in some grave +crisis of their affairs. But when he had finished she made no comment. +She just sat still and rigid, gazing at him with baffling and +inscrutable eyes. + +Dorman Royle rose. "So it wasn't you, Ina, who returned last night?" +he said. + +"No," she answered, in a voice which was low, but now quite clear and +steady. "I slept soundly last night--much more soundly than I usually +do." + +"That's strange," said Royle. + +"I don't think so," Ina answered. "I think it follows. _I was let +alone_. Yes, that's all of a piece with your story, don't you see?" + +Dorman Royle sprang up, and at his abrupt movement his wife's face +flashed into life and fear. + +"What are you saying?" he cried, and she shrank as if she realised now +what a dangerous phrase she had allowed her lips to utter. + +"Nothing, nothing!" she exclaimed, and she set herself obstinately to +her letter. + +Royle looked at the clock. + +"It's late," he said. "I'll take the dog out for a run." + +He went downstairs and out at the front of the house. To-night the air +was mistier, and the moon sailed through a fleece of clouds. Royle +walked to a gate on the edge of the hill. It may have been a quarter +of an hour before he whistled to the dog and turned back to the house. +From the gate to the house was perhaps a hundred yards, and as he +walked back first one, then another, of the windows of the library +upon the first floor came within his view. These windows stood wide +open to the night, and showed him, as in a miniature, this and that +corner of the room, the bookcases, the lamps upon the tables, and the +top-rails of the chair-backs, small but very clear. The one window +which he could not as yet see at all was that in which his wife sat. +For it was at the far end of the room and almost over the front door. +Royle came within view of it at last, and stopped dead. He gazed at +the window with amazement. Ina was still sitting at the writing-table +in the window, but she was no longer alone. Just where he himself had +stood a few minutes before, a step behind her shoulder, another man +was now standing--a man with a strong, rather square, dark face, under +a mane of black hair. He wore a dinner-jacket and a black tie, and he +was bending forward and talking to Ina very earnestly. Ina herself sat +with her hands pressed upon her face and her body huddled in her +chair, not answering, but beaten down by the earnestness of the +stranger's pleading. Thus they appeared within the frame of the +window, both extraordinarily distinct to Royle watching outside there +in the darkness. He could see the muscles working in the stranger's +face and the twitching of Ina's hands, but he could hear nothing. The +man was speaking in too low a voice. + +Royle did not move. + +"But I know the man," he was saying to himself. "I have seen him, at +all events. Where? Where?" And suddenly he remembered. It was at the +time of a General Election. He had arrived at King's Cross Station +from Scotland late one night, and, walking along the Marylebone +Road, he had been attracted by a throng of people standing about a +lamp-post, and above the throng the head and shoulders of a man +addressing it had been thrown into a clear light. He had stopped for a +moment to listen; He had asked a question of his neighbour. Yes, the +speaker was one of the candidates, and he was the man who now stood by +Ina's side. + +Royle tried to remember the name, but he could not. Then he began to +wonder whence the stranger had come. It was a good two miles to the +village. How, too, had he managed to get into the house? The servants +had gone to bed an hour before Royle had come out. The hall-door stood +open now. He had left it open. The man must have been waiting some +such opportunity--as he had done no doubt last night. Such a passion +of anger and jealousy flamed up in Royle as he had never known. He ran +into the hall and shot the bolts. He hurried up the stairs and flung +open the door. Ina was still sitting at the table, but she had +withdrawn her hands from her face, and, but for her, the room was +empty. + +"Ina!" he cried, and she turned to him. Her face was quiet, her eyes +steady; there was a smile upon her lips. + +"Yes?" + +She sat just as he had left her. Looking at her in his bewilderment, +he almost came to believe that his eyes had tricked him, that thus she +had sat all this while. Almost! For the violence of his cry had been +unmistakable, and she did not ask for the reason of it. He was out of +breath, too, his face no doubt disordered; yet she put no question; +she sat and smiled--tenderly. Yes, that was the word. Dorman Royle +stood in front of her. It seemed to him that his happiness was +crumbling down in ruins about him. + +"Ina!" he repeated, and the dog barked for admission underneath the +window. The current of his thoughts was altered by the sound. His +passion fell away from him. It seemed to him that he dived under ice. + +"Ina!" + +He sat quietly down in the chair on the other side of that table. + +"You have had that dog some time?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"How did you get it?" + +The answer came quite steadily but slowly, and after a long silence. + +"A friend gave it to me." + +"Who?" + +There was no longer any smile upon the girl's face. Nor, on the other +hand, was there any fear. Her eyes never for a second wavered from +his. + +"Why do you ask?" + +"I am curious," replied Royle. "Who?" + +"Raymond Byatt." + +The name conveyed nothing to Royle. He did not even recollect it. But +he spoke as if it were quite familiar to him. + +"Raymond Byatt? Didn't he stand for Parliament once in Marylebone?" + +"Yes. He was defeated." + +Royle rose from his chair. + +"Well, I had better go down and let the dog in," he said, and he went +to the door, where he turned to her again. + +"But if he's a friend of yours, you should ask him down," he remarked. +Ina drew herself up in her chair, her hands clinging to the arms of +it. + +"He killed himself a fortnight ago." + +The answer turned Royle into a figure of stone. The two people stared +at one another across the room in a dreadful silence; and it seemed as +if, having once spoken, Ina was forced by some terrible burden of +anguish to speak yet more. + +"Yes," she continued in a whisper, "a week before we married." + +"Did you care for him?" + +Ina shook her head. + +"Never." + +There were words upon the tip of Royle's tongue--words of bitterness: + +"It was he who came back last night. He came back for you. He was with +you to-night--the moment after I left you. I saw him." But he knew +they would be irrevocable words, and with an effort he held his +tongue. He went downstairs and let the dog in. When he returned to the +library Ina was standing up. + +"I'll go to bed," she said, and her voice pleaded for silence. "I am +tired. I have had a long journey;" and he let her go without a word. + +He sat late himself, wondering what in the morning he should do. The +house had become horrible to him. And unless Ina told him all there +was to tell, how could they go on side by side anywhere? When he went +upstairs Ina was in bed and asleep. He left the door wide open between +her room and his and turned in himself. But he slept lightly, and at +some time that night, whilst it was still dark, he was roused to +wakefulness. A light was burning in his wife's room, and through the +doorway he could see her. She had in her hand the glass of water which +usually stood on a little table beside her bed, and she was measuring +out into it from a bottle some crystals. He knew that they were +chloral crystals, for, since she slept badly, she always kept them by +her. He watched her shaking out the dose, and as he watched such a +fear clutched at his heart as made all the other terrors of that night +pale and of no account. Ina was measuring out deliberately enough +chloral into that tumbler of water to kill a company. Very cautiously +he drew himself up in his bed. He heard the girl stifle a sob, and as +she waited for the crystals to dissolve her face took on a look of +grief and despair which he had never in his life seen before. He +sprang out of bed, and in an instant was at her side. With a cry Ina +raised the glass to her lips, but his hand was already upon her wrist. + +"Let me go!" she cried, and she struggled to free herself. But he took +the glass from her, and suddenly all her self-command gave way in a +passion of tears. She became a frightened child. Her hands sought him, +she hid her face from him, and she would not let him go. + +"Ina," he whispered, "what were you doing?" + +"I was following," she said. "I had to. He stands by me, always, +commanding me." And she shook like one in a fever. + +"Good God!" he cried. + +"Oh, I have fought," she sobbed, "but he's winning. Yes, that's the +truth. Sooner or later I shall have to follow." + +"Tell me everything," said Royle. + +"No." + +But he held her close within the comfort of his arms and wrestled for +her and for himself. Gradually the story was told to him in broken +sentences and with long silences between them, during which she lay in +his clasp and shivered. + +"He wanted me to marry him. But I wouldn't. He had a sort of power +over me--the power of a bully who cares very much," she said; and a +little later she gave the strangest glimpse of the man. He would +hardly have believed it; but he had seen the man, and the story fitted +him. + +"I was in Paris for a few days--alone with my maid. I went to see a +play which was to be translated for me. He was in the same hotel, +quite alone as I was. It was after I had kept on refusing him. He +seemed horribly lonely--that was part of his power. I never saw anyone +who lived so completely in loneliness. He was shut away in it as if in +some prison of glass through which you could see but not hear. It made +him tragic--pitiful. I went up to him in the lounge and asked if we +couldn't be just friends, since we were both there alone. You'll never +imagine what he did. He stared at me without answering at all. He just +walked away and went to the hotel manager. He asked him how it was +that he allowed women in his hotel who came up and spoke to +strangers." + +"Ina--he didn't!" cried Royle. + +"He did. Luckily the manager knew me. And that night, though he +wouldn't speak to me in the lounge, he wrote me a terrible letter. +Then, when you and I were engaged, he killed himself--just a week +before we married. He tried to do it twice. He went down to an hotel +at Aylesbury and sat up all night, trying to do it. But the morning +came and he had failed. The servant who called him found him sitting +in his bedroom at the writing-table at which he had left him the night +before; and all night he had written not one word. Next day he went to +another hotel on the South Coast, and all that night he waited. But in +the morning--after he had been called--quite suddenly he found the +courage--yes----" and Ina's voice trailed away into silence. In a +little while she began again. + +"Ever since he has been at my side, saying 'I did it because of you. +You must follow.' There was the chloral always ready. I found myself +night after night, when you were asleep, reaching out my hand +obediently towards it--towards it----" + +"Except last night," Royle interrupted, suddenly finding at last the +explanation of some words of hers which had puzzled him, "when he came +here, and you were away." + +"And I slept soundly in consequence," she agreed. "Yes. But +to-night--if you hadn't been here--I should have obeyed altogether." + +"But I am here," said Royle, gently; and, looking up, he saw that the +morning had come. He rose and pulled aside the curtains so that the +clear light flooded the room. + +"Ina, do something for me," he pleaded, and she understood. She took +the bottle of crystals, poured them into the basin, and set the tap +running. + +"Stay with me," she said. "Now that I have told you, I believe that I +shall sleep, and sleep without fear. When you came into the room +before I was only pretending." + +She nestled down, and this time she did sleep. It seemed to Royle that +the victory was won. + +Some months later, however, a client talking over his affairs with +Royle in his private office mentioned Raymond Byatt's name. Royle +leaned forward with a start. + +"You knew that man?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied the client with a laugh. "He forged my name for a +thousand pounds--and not mine alone. He was clever with his pen. But +he came to the end of his tether at last. He saved himself from penal +servitude by blowing his brains out." + +Royle jumped out of his chair. + +"Is that true?" + +"Absolutely." + +And Royle sat down suddenly. + +"That's the best piece of news I have ever had in my life," he cried. +Now for a sure thing the victory was his. He went home that evening in +the highest spirits. + +"What do you think, Ina, I discovered to-day?" he blurted out. "You'll +be as glad to hear as I was. Raymond Byatt didn't kill himself for +you, after all. He did it to save himself from a prosecution for +forgery." + +There was a moment's silence, and then Ina replied: + +"Indeed!" and that was all. But Dorman Royle, to his perplexity, +detected a certain unexpected iciness in her voice. Somehow that new +insight which Groome had discovered in him had on this evening failed +him altogether. + + + + + + THE CRYSTAL TRENCH + + + + + THE CRYSTAL TRENCH + + + I + +It was late in the season, and for the best part of a week the weather +had been disheartening. Even to-day, though there had been no rain +since last night, the mists swirled in masses over a sunless valley +green as spring, and the hill-sides ran with water. It pleased Dennis +Challoner, however, to believe that better times were coming. He stood +at a window of the Riffelalp Hotel, and imagined breaches in the dark +canopy of cloud. + +"Yes," he said, hopefully, "the weather is taking up." + +He was speaking to a young girl whose name he did not know, a +desultory acquaintance made during the twelve hours which he had +passed at the hotel. + +"I believe it is," she answered. She looked out of the window at two +men who were sitting disconsolately on a bench. "Those are your men, +aren't they? So you climb with guides!" + +There was, a note of deprecation in her voice quite unmistakable. She +was trying not to show scorn, but the scorn was a little too strong +for her. Challoner laughed. + +"I do. With guides I can go where I like, when I like. I don't have to +hunt for companions or make arrangements beforehand. I have climbed +with the Blauers for five years now, and we know each other's ways." + +He broke off, conscious that in her eyes he was making rather feeble +excuses to cover his timidity and incompetence. + +"I have no doubt you are quite right," she replied. There was a gentle +indulgence in her voice, and a smile upon her lips which cried as +plainly as words, "I could tell you something if I chose." But she was +content to keep her triumphant secret to herself. She laid her hand +upon the ledge of the window, and beat a little tattoo with her +finger-tips, so that Challoner could not but look at them. When he +looked he understood why she thus called his attention. She wore a +wedding-ring. + +Challoner was surprised. For she was just a tall slip of a girl. He +put her age at nineteen or less. She was clear-eyed and pretty, with +the tremendous confidence of one who looks out at life from the secure +shelter of a school-room. Then, with too conscious an unconsciousness, +she turned away, and Challoner saw no more of her that day. + +But the hotel was still full, though most of the climbers had gone, +and in the garden looking over the valley of Zermatt, at six o'clock +that evening, a commotion broke out about the big telescope. Challoner +was discussing plans for the morrow with his guides by the parapet at +the time, and the three men turned as one towards the centre of the +clamour. A German tourist was gesticulating excitedly amidst a group +of his compatriots. He broke through the group and came towards +Challoner, beaming like a man with good news. + +"You should see--through the telescope--since you climb. It is very +interesting. But you must be quick, or the clouds will close in +again." + +"What do you mean?" Challoner asked. + +"There, on the top of the Weisshorn, I saw two men." + +"Now? At six o'clock in the evening--on a day of storm?" Challoner +cried. "It's impossible." + +"But I have seen them, I tell you." + +Challoner turned and looked down and across the valley. The great +curtain of cloud hung down in front of the hills like wool. The lower +slopes of dark green met it, and on them the black pines marched up +into the mist. Of rock and glacier and soaring snow not an inch was +visible. But the tourist clung to his story. + +"It is my first visit to the mountains. I was never free before, and I +must go down to-morrow morning. I thought that even now I should never +see them--all the time I have been here the weather has been terrible. +But at the last moment I have had the good fortune. Oh, I am very +pleased." + +The enthusiasm of this middle-aged German business man, an enthusiasm +childlike as it was sincere, did not surprise Challoner. He looked +upon that as natural. But he doubted the truth of the man's vision. He +wanted so much to see what he saw. + +"Tell me exactly what you saw," Challoner asked, and this was the +story which the tourist told. + +He was looking through the telescope when suddenly the clouds thinned, +and through a film of vapour he saw, very far away and dimly, a +soaring line of black like a jagged reef, and a great white slope more +solid than the clouds, and holding light. He kept his eye to the lens, +hoping with all his soul that the wonderful vision might be vouchsafed +to him, and as he looked, the screen of vapour vanished, and he saw +quite clearly the exquisite silver pyramid of the Weisshorn soaring up +alone in the depths of a great cavern of grey cloud. For a little +while he continued to watch, hoping for a ray of sunlight to complete +a picture which he was never to forget, and then, to his amazement and +delight, two men climbed suddenly into his vision on to the top of the +peak. They came from the south or the south-west. + +"By the Schalligrat!" exclaimed Challoner. "It's not possible!" + +"Yes," the tourist protested. He was sure. There was no illusion at +all. The two men did not halt for a second on the top. They crossed +it, and began to descend the long ridge towards the St. Nicholas +valley. + +"I am sure," he continued. "One of the climbers, the one in front, was +moving very slowly and uncertainly like a man in an extremity of +weakness. The last was strong. I saw him lift the rope between them, +which was slack, and shake the snow off it----" + +"You saw that?" exclaimed Challoner. "What then?" + +"Nothing. The clouds closed again over the peak, and I saw no more." + +Challoner had listened to the story with a growing anxiety. He took +the chair behind the telescope, and sat with his eye to the lens for a +long while. But he saw only writhing mists in a failing light. He rose +and moved away. There was no mountaineer that day in the hotel except +himself. Not one of the group about the telescope quite understood the +gravity of the story which had been told them--if it were true. But it +could not be true, Challoner assured himself. + +It was just possible, of course, that on a fine day some party which +had adventured upon a new ascent might find itself on the top of the +Weisshorn at six o'clock in the evening. But on a day like this no man +in his senses would be on any ridge or face of that mountain at all, +even in the morning. Yet the tourist's story was circumstantial. That +was the fact which troubled Challoner. The traverse of the Weisshorn +from the Schallijoch, for instance, was one of the known difficult +climbs of the Pennine Alps. There was that little detail, too, of the +last man shaking the snow from the slack of the rope. But no doubt the +tourist had read the year-books of the Austrian Alpine Club. Certainly +he must have been mistaken. He wanted to see; therefore he saw. It was +inconceivable that the story should be true. + +Thus Challoner thought all through that evening and the next day. But +as he left the dining-room the manageress met him with a grave face, +and asked him into her office. She closed the door when he had entered +the room, and said: + +"There has been an accident." + +Challoner's thoughts flew back to the story of the tourist. + +"On the Weisshorn?" + +"Yes. It is terrible!" And the woman sat down, while the tears came +into her eyes and ran down her cheeks. + +Two young Englishmen, it appeared, Mark Frobisher and George Liston, +had come up from the valley a week ago. They would not hear of guides. +They had climbed from Wasdale Head and in the Snowdon range. The +Alpine Club was a body of old fogies. They did not think much of the +Alps. + +"They were so young--boys! Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him." + +"A wife?" exclaimed Challoner. + +"Yes. She was still younger than he was, and she spoke as he +did--knowing nothing, but full of pride in her husband, and quite +confident in his judgment. They were children--that is the truth--and +very likely we might have persuaded them that they were wrong--if only +Herr Ranks had not come, too, from Vienna about the same time." + +Challoner began dimly to understand the tragedy which had happened. +Ranks was well known amongst mountaineers. Forty years old, the right +age for endurance, he was known for a passion for long expeditions +undertaken with very small equipment; and for a rather dangerous +indifference as to the companions he climbed with. He had at once +proposed the Schalligrat ascent to the two Englishmen. They had gone +down to Randa, slept the night there, and in bad weather had walked up +to the Weisshorn hut, with provisions for three days. Nothing more had +been heard of the party until this very afternoon, when Ranks and +George Listen, both exhausted and the latter terribly frost-bitten, +staggered into the Randa hotel. + +"That's terrible," said Challoner. But still more terrible was the +story which the Austrian had to tell. He had written it out at once +very briefly, and sent it up to the Riffelalp. The manageress handed +the letter to Challoner. + +"We stayed in the hut two days," it ran, "hoping that the weather +would lift. The next morning there were promising signs, and taking +our blankets we crossed the Schalliberg glacier, and camped on the +usual spur of the Schallihorn. We had very little food left, and I +know now that we ought to have returned to Randa. But I did not think +of the youth of my companions. It was very cold during the night, but +no snow fell, and in the morning there was a gleam of sunshine. +Accordingly we started, and reached the Schallijoch in four hours and +a half. Under the top of the col we breakfasted, and then attacked the +ridge. The going was very difficult; there was often a glaze of black +ice upon the rocks, and as not one of us knew the ridge at all, we +wasted much time in trying to traverse some of the bigger gendarmes on +the western side, whereas they were only possible on the east. +Moreover, the sunlight did not keep its promise: it went out +altogether at half-past ten; the ridge became bitterly and dangerously +cold, and soon after midday the wind rose. We dared not stop anywhere, +and our food was now altogether exhausted. At two o'clock we found a +shelter under a huge tower of red rock, and there we rested. Frobisher +complained of exhaustion, and was clearly very weak. Liston was +stronger, but not in a condition for a climb which I think must always +be difficult and was now hazardous in the extreme. The cold had made +him very sleepy. We called a council of war. But it was quite evident +to me that we could not get down in the state in which we were, and +that a night upon the ridge without food or drink was not to be +thought of. I was certain that we were not very far from the top, and +I persuaded my friends to go forward. I climbed up and over the red +tower by a small winding crack in its face, and with great difficulty +managed, by the help of the rope, to draw my friends up after me. But +this one tower took more than an hour to cross, and on a little +snow-col like a knife-edge on the farther side of it, Frobisher +collapsed altogether. What with the cold and his exhaustion his heart +gave out. I swear that we stayed with him until he died--yes, I swear +it--although the wind was very dangerous to the rest of us, and he was +evidently dying. We stayed with him--yes. When all was over, I tied +him by the waist with a piece of spare rope we carried to a splinter +of rock which cropped out of the col, and went on with Liston. I did +not think that we should either of us now escape, but the rock-towers +upon the arête came to an end at last, and at six o'clock we stood on +the mountain-top. Then we changed the order, Liston going now first +down the easy eastern ridge. The snow was granulated and did not bind, +and we made very slow progress. We stopped for the night at a height, +I should think, of thirteen thousand feet, with very little protection +from the wind. The cold was terrible, and I did not think that Liston +would live through the night. But he did, and today there was +sunlight, and warmth in the sunlight, so that moving very carefully we +got down to the hut by midday. There, by a happy chance, we found some +crusts and odds and ends of food which we had left behind; and after a +rest were able to come on to Randa, getting some milk at the half-way +chalet on the way down. Liston is frost-bitten in the feet and hands, +but I think will be able to be moved down to the clinic at Lucerne in +a couple of days. It is all my fault. Yes. I say that frankly. I alone +am to blame. I take it all upon my shoulders. You can say so freely at +the Riffelalp. 'Ranks takes all the blame.' I shall indeed write +to-morrow to the Zurich papers to say that the fault is mine." + +Challoner read the message through again. The assumption of +magnanimity in the last few lines was singularly displeasing, and the +eager assertion that the party had not left Frobisher until he was +actually dead seemed to protest overmuch. + +"That's a bad letter," said Challoner. "He left Frobisher still alive +upon the ridge," and the desolation of that death in the cold and the +darkness and the utter loneliness of those storm-riven pinnacles +soaring above the world seemed to him appalling. But the manageress +had no thoughts to spare for the letter. + +"Who will tell her?" she asked, rocking her body to and fro, and +fixing her troubled eyes on Challoner. "It is you. You are her +countryman." + +Challoner was startled. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I told you. Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him. Yes. They had only +been married a couple of months. She is a year or two younger than he +is--a child. Oh, and she was so proud of him. For my part I did not +like him very much. I would not have trusted him with the happiness of +anyone I cared for. But she had given him all her heart. And now she +must be told!" + +"She is in the hotel now?" Challoner asked. + +"Yes. You were talking to her yesterday." + +Challoner did not need the answer. + +"Very well. I will tell her." And he turned away, his heart sick at +the task which lay before him. But before he had reached the door the +woman called him back. + +"Could we not give her just one more night of confidence and +contentment? Nothing can be done until to-morrow. No one in the hotel +knows but you and I. She will have sorrow enough. She need not begin +to suffer before she must. Just one more night of quiet sleep." + +So she pleaded, and Challoner clutched at the plea. He was twenty-six, +and up to the moment life had hidden from him her stern ordeals. How +should he break the news? He needed time carefully to prepare the way. +He shrank from the vision of the pain which he must inflict. + +"Yes, it can all wait until to-morrow," he said, and he went out of +the office into the hall. There was a sound of music in the big +drawing-room--a waltz, and the visitors were dancing to it. The noise +jarred upon his ears, and he crossed towards the garden door in order +to escape from it. But to reach the garden he had to pass the +ballroom, and as he passed it he looked in, and the irony of the world +shocked him so that he stood staring upon the company with a white +face and open-mouthed. Frobisher's widow was dancing. She was dancing +with all the supple grace of her nineteen years, her face flushed +and smiling, whilst up there, fourteen thousand feet high on the +storm-swept ridge of the Weisshorn, throughout that bitter night her +dead husband bestrode the snow, and nodded and swayed to the gale. As +she whirled past the door she saw him. She smiled with the pleasant +friendliness of a girl who is perfectly happy, and with just a hint of +condescension for the weaker vessel who found it necessary to climb +with guides. Challoner hurried out into the garden. + +He went up to her room the next morning and broke the news to her as +gently as he could. He was prepared for tears, for an overwhelming +grief. But she showed him neither. She caught at an arm of a chair, +and leaning upon it, seated herself when he began to speak. But after +that she listened, frowning at him in a perplexity like a child over +some difficult problem of her books. And when he had finished she drew +a long breath. + +"I don't know why you should try to frighten me," she said. "Of +course, it is not true." + +She would not believe--no, not even with Ranks's letter in her hand, +at which she stared and stared as though it needed decoding. + +"Perhaps I could read it if I were alone," she said at last, and +Challoner left her to herself. + +In an hour she sent for him again. Now indeed she knew, but she had no +tears wherewith to ease her knowledge. Challoner saw upon her face +such an expression of misery and torture as he hoped never to see +again. She spoke with a submission which was very strange. It was only +the fact of her youth, not her consciousness of it, which seemed to +protest against her anguish as against an injustice. + +"I was abrupt to you," she said. "I am sorry. You were kind to me. I +did not understand. But I understand now, and there is something which +I should like to ask you. You see, I do not know." + +"Yes?" + +"Would it be possible that he should be brought back to me?" + +She had turned to the window, and she spoke low, and with a world of +yearning in her voice. + +"We will try." + +"I should be so very grateful." + +She had so desolate a look that Challoner made a promise of it, even +though he knew well the rashness of the promise. + +"You will go yourself?" she asked, turning her face to him. + +"Of course." + +"Thank you. I have no friends here, you see, but you." + +Eight guides were collected that afternoon in the valley. Challoner +brought down his two, and the whole party, under the guide-chief, +moved up to the Weisshorn hut. Starting the next morning with a clear +sky of starlight above their heads, they crossed the mountain by the +eastern arête, and descending the Schalligrat, found young Frobisher +tied by the waist and shoulders to a splinter of rock as Ranks had +described. He was astride a narrow edge of snow, a leg dangling down +each precipice. His eyes stared at them, his mouth hung open, and when +any stray gust of wind struck the ridge, he nodded at them with a +dreadful pleasantry. He had the air, to Challoner's eyes, of a live +paralytic rather than of a man frozen and dead. His face was the +colour of cheese. + +With infinite trouble they lifted him back on to the mountain summit, +and roped him round in a piece of stout sacking. Then they dragged him +down the snow of the upper part of the ridge, carried him over the +lower section of rock, and, turning off the ridge to the right, +brought him down to the glacier. + +It was then three o'clock in the afternoon, and half an hour later the +grimmest episode of all that terrible day occurred. The lashing of the +rope got loose as they dragged the body down the glacier, and suddenly +it worked out of the sacking and slid swiftly past them down a steep +slope of ice. A cry of horror broke from the rescue party. For a +moment or two they watched it helplessly as it gathered speed and +leapt into the air from one little hummock to another, the arms +tossing and whirling like the arms of a man taken off his guard. Then +it disappeared with a crash into a crevasse, and the glacier was +empty. + +The party stood for a little while aghast, and the illusion which had +seized upon Challoner when he had first come in sight of the red +rock-tower on the other ridge attacked him again. He could not get it +out of his thoughts that this was a living man who had disappeared +from their gaze, so natural had all his movements been. + +The party descended to the lip of the crevasse, and a guide was +lowered into it. But he could not reach the bottom, and they drew him +up again. + +"That is his grave," said Joseph Blauer, solemnly; and they turned +away again and descended to Randa. + +"How shall I meet that girl?" Challoner asked himself, in a passion of +remorse. It seemed to him that he had betrayed a trust, and the sum of +treachery deepened in him when he did tell it that night at the +Riffelalp. For tears had their way with her at last. She buried her +face in her arms upon the table, and sobbed as though her heart would +burst. + +"I had so hoped that you would bring him back to me," she said. "I +cannot bear to think of him lying for ever in that loneliness of ice." + +"I am very sorry," Challoner stammered, and she was silent. "You have +friends coming out to you?" he asked. + +He went down into the hall, and a man whose face he remembered came +eagerly towards him. Challoner was able to identify him the next +moment. For the man cried out: + +"It is done. Yes, it is in all the Zurich papers. I have said that I +alone am to blame. I have taken the whole responsibility upon my +shoulders." Herr Ranks brimmed with magnanimity. + + + II + +Towards Christmas of that year Challoner, at his chambers in the +Temple, received a letter in an unfamiliar hand. It came from Mrs. +Frobisher. It was a letter of apology. She had run away into hiding +with her sorrow, and only during the last weeks had she grown +conscious of the trouble which Challoner had taken for her. She had +quite forgotten to thank him, but she did so now, though the thanks +were overlate. Challoner was very glad to receive the letter. From the +day when he had seen her off from the new station in the valley, he +had lost sight of her altogether, but the recollection of her pale and +wistful face at the carriage window had haunted him. With just that +look, he had thought, might some exile leave behind every treasured +thing and depart upon a long journey into perpetual banishment. This +letter, however, had a hint, a perfume of spring-time. Stella +Frobisher--by that name she signed--was beginning to recreate her +life. + +Challoner took a note of her address, and travelled into Dorsetshire +on the Saturday. Stella Frobisher lived in a long and ancient house, +half farm, half mansion, set apart in a rich country close to +Arishmell Cove. Through a doorway one looked into a garden behind the +house which even at that season was bright with flowers. She lived +with the roar of the waves upon the shingle in her ears and the +gorse-strewn downs before her eyes. Challoner had found a warm and +cheerful welcome at that house, and came back again to it. Stella +Frobisher neither played the hermit nor made a luxury out of her +calamitous loss. She rebuilt her little world as well as she could, +bearing herself with pride and courage. Challoner could not but admire +her; he began to be troubled by what seemed to him the sterility of a +valuable life. He could not but see that she looked forward to his +visits. Other emotions were roused in him, and on one morning of +summer, with the sea blue at her feet and the gorse a golden flame +about her, he asked her to marry him. + +Stella Frobisher's face grew very grave. + +"I am afraid that's impossible," she said, slowly, a little to his +surprise and a great deal to his chagrin. Perhaps she noticed the +chagrin, for she continued quickly, "I shall tell you why. Do you know +Professor Kersley?" + +Challoner looked at her with astonishment. + +"I have met him in the Alps." + +Stella Frobisher nodded. "He is supposed to know more than anyone else +about the movements of glaciers." + +Dimly Challoner began to understand, and he was startled. + +"Yes," he answered. + +"I went to call on him at Cambridge. He was very civil. I told him +about the accident on the Weisshorn. He promised to make a +calculation. He took a great deal of trouble. He sent for me again and +told me the month and the year. He even named a week, and a day in the +week." So far she had spoken quite slowly and calmly. Now, however, +her voice broke, and she looked away. "On July 21st, twenty-four years +from now, Mark will come out of the ice at the snout of the Hohlicht +glacier." + +Challoner did not dispute the prophecy. Computations of the kind had +been made before with extraordinary truth. + +"But you won't wait till then?" he cried, in protest. + +For a little while she found it difficult to speak. Her thoughts were +very far away from that shining sea and homely turf. + +"Yes," she said at last, in a whisper; "I am dedicated to that as a +nun to her service." And against that dead man wrapped in ice, his +unconquerable rival, Challoner strove in vain. + +"So you must look elsewhere," Stella said. "You must not waste your +life. I am not wasting mine. I live for an hour which will come." + +"I am in too deep, I am afraid, to look elsewhere," said Challoner, +gloomily. Stella Frobisher looked at him with a smile of humour +playing about her mouth. + +"I should like to feel sorry about that," she said. "But I am not +noble, and I can't." + +They went together down to the house, and she said: "However, you are +young. Many things will happen to you. You will change." + +But as a matter of fact he did not. He wanted this particular woman, +and not another. He cursed himself considerably for his folly in not +making sure, when the rescue party got down from the rocks on to the +glacier, that the rope about the sacking was not working loose. But +such reproaches did not help forward his suit. And the years slipped +away, each one a trifle more swiftly than that which had gone before. +But in the press of a rising practice he hardly noticed their passage. +From time to time Stella Frobisher came to town, sat in the Law Courts +while he argued, was taken to shop in Bond Street, and entertained at +theatres. Upon one such visit they motored--for motors had come +now--on an evening in June down the Portsmouth road, and dined at the +inn at Ockham. On their way she said, simply: + +"It is the year." + +"I know," replied Challoner. "Shall I come with you?" + +She caught his hand tightly for a moment. + +"Oh, if you could! I am a little afraid--now." + +He took her out to Randa. There were many changes in the valley. New +hotels had sprung up; a railway climbed nowadays to the Riffelalp; the +tourists came in hundreds instead of tens; the mountains were overrun. +But Challoner's eyes were closed to the changes. He went up through +the cleft of the hills to where the glaciers come down from the +Weisshorn and the Schallijoch and the Moming Pass; and as July drew +on, he pitched a camp there, and stood on guard like a sentinel. + +There came a morning when, coming out of his tent on to a knoll of +grass, he saw below him on the white surface of the glacier, and not +very far away, something small and black. + +"It's a pebble, no doubt," he thought, but he took his axe and climbed +down on to the ice. As he approached the object the surer he became. +It was a round pebble, polished black and smooth by the friction of +the ice. He almost turned back. But it was near, and he went on. Then +a ray of sunlight shot down the valley, and the thing flickered. +Challoner stooped over it curiously and picked it up. It was a gold +watch, lying with its dial against the ice, and its case blackened +save for a spot or two where it shone. The glass was missing and the +hands broken, and it had stopped. Challoner opened it at the back; the +tiny wheels, the coil of the mainspring, were as bright as on the day +when the watch was sold. It might have been dropped there out of a +pocket a day or two ago. But ice has its whims and vagaries. Here it +will grind to powder, there it will encase and preserve. The watch +might have come out of the ice during this past night. Was the glacier +indeed giving up its secrets? + +Challoner held the watch in his hand, gazing out with blind eyes over +the empty, silent world of rock and ice. The feel of it was magical. +It was as though he gazed into the sorcerer's pot of ink, so vivid and +near were those vanished days at the Riffelalp and the dreadful quest +on the silver peak now soaring high above his head. He continued his +search that morning. Late in the afternoon he burst into the hotel at +Randa. Stella Frobisher drew him away into the garden, where they were +alone. He gave the watch into her hands, and she clasped it swiftly +against her heart with an unearthly look of exaltation upon her face. + +"It is his?" asked Challoner. + +"Yes. I will go up." + +Challoner looked at her doubtfully. He had been prepared to refuse her +plea, but he had seen, and having seen, he consented. + +"To-morrow--early. Trust me. That will be time enough." + +He collected porters that evening, and at daybreak they walked out +from the chalets and up the bank of the glacier, left the porters by +his tent, and he led her alone across the glacier and stopped. + +"Here," he said. In front of her the glacier spread out like a vast +fan within the cup of the hills, but it was empty. + +"Where?" she asked, in a whisper, and Challoner looked at her out of +troubled eyes, and did not answer. Then she looked down, and at her +feet just below the surface of the glacier, as under a thick sheet of +crystal, she saw after all these years Mark Frobisher. She dropped on +her knees with a loud cry, and to Challoner the truth about all these +years came home with a dreadful shock. + +Under the ice Mark Frobisher lay quietly, like a youth asleep. The +twenty-four years had cut not a line about his mouth, not a wrinkle +about his eyes. The glacier had used him even more tenderly than it +had used his watch. The years had taken no toll of him. He was as +young, his features were as clear and handsome, as on the day when he +had set out upon his tragic expedition. And over him bent his wife, a +woman worn, lined, old. For the first time Challoner realised that all +her youth had long since gone, and he understood for the first time +that, as it was with her, so, too, it was with him. Often enough he +had said, "Oh, yes, I am getting on. The years are passing." But he +had used the words with a laugh, deferring to convention by the +utterance of the proper meaningless thing. Now he understood the +meaningless thing meant the best part of everything. Stella Frobisher +and he were just a couple of old people, and their good years had all +been wasted. + +He gently raised Stella Frobisher to her feet. + +"Will you stand aside for a little?" he said. "I will call you." + +She moved obediently a few yards away, and Challoner summoned the +porters. Very carefully they cut the ice away. Then he called aloud: + +"Stella!" And she returned. + +There was no sheet of ice between them now; the young man and the worn +woman who had spent a couple of months of their youth together met +thus at last. But the meeting was as brief as a spark. + +The airs, of heaven beat upon Mark Frobisher, and suddenly his face +seemed to quiver and his features to be obscured. Stella uttered a +scream of terror, and covered her face with her hands. For from head +to foot the youth crumbled into dust and was not. And some small +trifle tinkled on the ice with a metallic sound. + +Challoner saw it shining at the bottom of the shallow trench of ice. +It was a gold locket on a thin chain. It was still quite bright, for +it had been worn round the neck and under the clothes. Challoner +stooped and picked it up and opened it. A face stared boldly out at +him, the face of a girl, pretty and quite vulgar, and quite strange to +him. A forgotten saying took shape slowly in his memory. What was it +that the woman who had managed the hotel at the Riffelalp had said to +him of Frobisher? + +"I did not like him. I should not trust him." + +He looked up to see Stella Frobisher watching him with a white face +and brooding eyes. + +"What is that?" she asked. + +Challoner shut the locket. + +"A portrait of you," he said, hastily. + +"He had no locket with a portrait of me," said Stella Frobisher. + +Over the shoulder of a hill the sun leapt into the sky and flooded the +world with gold. + + + + + + THE HOUSE OF TERROR + + + + + THE HOUSE OF TERROR + + +There are eager spirits who enter upon each morning like adventurers +upon an unknown sea. Mr. Rupert Glynn, however, was not of that +company. He had been christened "Rupert" in an ironical moment, for he +preferred the day to be humdrum. Possessed of an easy independence, +which he had never done a stroke of work to enlarge, he remained a +bachelor, not from lack of opportunity to become a husband, but in +order that his comfort might not be disarranged. + +"A hunting-box in the Midlands," he used to say, "a set of chambers in +the Albany, the season in town, a cure in the autumn at some French +spa where a modest game of baccarat can be enjoyed, and a five-pound +note in my pocket at the service of a friend--these conditions satisfy +my simple wants, and I can rub along." + +Contentment had rounded his figure, and he was a little thicker in the +jaw and redder in the face than he used to be. But his eye was clear, +and he had many friends, a fact for which it was easy to account. For +there was a pleasant earthliness about him which made him restful +company. It seemed impossible that strange startling things could +happen in his presence; he had so stolid and comfortable a look, his +life was so customary and sane. "When I am frightened by queer +shuffling sounds in the dead of night," said a nervous friend of his, +"I think of Rupert Glynn and I am comforted." Yet just because of this +atmosphere of security which he diffused about him, Mr. Glynn was +dragged into mysteries, and made acquainted with terrors. + +In the first days of February Mr. Glynn found upon his breakfast-table +at Melton a letter which he read through with an increasing gravity. +Mr. Glynn being a man of method, kept a file of the _Morning Post_. He +rang the bell for his servant, and fetched to the table his pocket +diary. He turned back the pages until he read in the space reserved +for November 15th, "My first run of the year." + +Then he spoke to his servant, who was now waiting in the room: + +"Thompson, bring me the _Morning Post_ of November 16th." + +Mr. Glynn remembered that he had read a particular announcement in the +paper on the morning after his first run, when he was very stiff. +Thompson brought him the copy for which he had asked, and, turning +over the pages, he soon lighted upon the paragraph. + +"Mr. James Thresk has recovered from his recent breakdown, and left +London yesterday with Mrs. Thresk for North Uist." + +Glynn laid down his newspaper and contemplated the immediate future +with gloom. It was a very long way to the Outer Hebrides, and, +moreover, he had eight horses in his stable. Yet he could hardly +refuse to take the journey in the face of that paragraph. It was not, +indeed, in his nature to refuse. For the letter written by Linda +Thresk claimed his presence urgently. He took it up again. There was +no reason expressed as to why he was needed. And there were +instructions, besides, which puzzled him, very explicit instructions. +He was to bring his guns, he was to send a telegram from Loch +Boisdale, the last harbour into which the steamer from Oban put before +it reached North Uist, and from no other place. He was, in a word, to +pretend that he had been shooting in a neighbouring island to North +Uist, and that, since he was so near, he ventured to trespass for a +night or two on Mrs. Thresk's hospitality. All these precautions +seemed to Glynn ominous, but still more ominous was the style of the +letter. A word here, a sentence there--nay, the very agitation of the +handwriting, filled Glynn with uneasiness. The appeal was almost +pitiful. He seemed to see Linda Thresk bending over the pages of the +letter which he now held in his hand, writing hurriedly, with a +twitching, terrified face, and every now and then looking up, and to +this side and to that, with the eyes of a hunted animal. He remembered +Linda's appearance very well as he held her letter in his hand, +although three years had passed since he had seen her--a fragile, +slender woman with a pale, delicate face, big dark eyes, and masses of +dark hair--a woman with the look of a girl and an almost hot-house air +of refinement. + +Mr. Glynn laid the letter down again, and again rang for his servant. + +"Pack for a fortnight," he said. "And get my guns out. I am going +away." + +Thompson was as surprised as his self-respect allowed him to be. + +"Your guns, sir?" he asked. "I think they are in town, but we have not +used them for so long." + +"I know," said Mr. Glynn impatiently, "But we are going to use them +now." + +Thompson knew very well that Mr. Glynn could not hit a haystack twenty +yards away, and had altogether abandoned a sport in which he was so +lamentably deficient. But a still greater shock was to be inflicted +upon him. + +"Thompson," said Mr. Glynn, "I shall not take you with me. I shall go +alone." + +And go alone he did. Here was the five-pound note, in a word, at the +service of a friend. But he was not without perplexities, to keep his +thoughts busy upon his journey. + +Why had Linda Thresk sent for him out of all her friends? + +For since her marriage three years before, he had clean lost sight of +her, and even before her marriage he had, after all, been only one of +many. He found no answer to that question. On the other hand, he +faithfully fulfilled Mrs. Thresk's instructions. He took his guns with +him, and when the steamer stopped beside the little quay at Loch +Boisdale he went ashore and sent off his telegram. Two hours later he +disembarked at Lochmaddy in North Uist, and, hiring a trap at the inn, +set off on his long drive across that flat and melancholy island. The +sun set, the swift darkness followed, and the moon had risen before he +heard the murmurous thunder of the sea upon the western shore. It was +about ten minutes later when, beyond a turn of the road, he saw the +house and lights shining brightly in its windows. It was a small white +house with a few out-buildings at the back, set in a flat peat country +on the edge of a great marsh. Ten yards from the house a great brake +of reeds marked the beginning of the marsh, and beyond the reeds the +bog stretched away glistening with pools to the low sand-hills. Beyond +the sand-hills the Atlantic ran out to meet the darkness, a shimmering +plain of silver. One sapling stood up from the middle of the marsh, +and laid a finger across the moon. But except that sapling, there were +not any trees. + +To Glynn, fresh from the meadowlands of Leicestershire with their neat +patterns of hedges, white gates and trees, this corner of the Outer +Hebrides upon the edge of the Atlantic had the wildest and most +desolate look. The seagulls and curlews cried perpetually above the +marsh, and the quiet sea broke upon the sand with a haunting and +mournful sound. Glynn looked at the little house set so far away in +solitude, and was glad that he had come. To his southern way of +thinking, trouble was best met and terrors most easily endured in the +lighted ways of cities, where companionship was to be had by the mere +stepping across the threshold. + +When the trap drove up to the door, there was some delay in answering +Glynn's summons. A middle-aged man-servant came at last to the door, +and peered out from the doorway in surprise. + +"I sent a telegram," said Glynn, "from Loch Boisdale. I am Mr. Glynn." + +"A telegram?" said the man. "It will not come up until the morning, +sir." + +Then the voice of the driver broke in. + +"I brought up a telegram from Lochmaddy. It's from a gentleman who is +coming to visit Mrs. Thresk from South Uist." + +In the outer islands, where all are curious, news is not always to be +had, and the privacy of the telegraph system is not recognised. Glynn +laughed, and the same moment the man-servant opened an inner door of +the tiny hall. Glynn stepped into a low-roofed parlour which was +obviously the one living-room of the house. On his right hand there +was a great fireplace with a peat fire burning in the grate, and a +high-backed horsehair sofa in front of it. On his left at a small +round table Thresk and his wife were dining. + +Both Thresk and his wife sprang up as he entered. Linda advanced to +him with every mark of surprise upon her face. + +"You!" she cried, holding out her hand. "Where have you sprung from?" + +"South Uist," said Glynn, repeating his lesson. + +"And you have come on to us! That is kind of you! Martin, you must +take Mr. Glynn's bag up to the guest-room. I expect you will be +wanting your dinner." + +"I sent you a telegram asking you whether you would mind if I +trespassed upon your hospitality for a night or so." + +He saw Linda's eyes fixed upon him with some anxiety, and he continued +at once: + +"I sent it from Loch Boisdale." + +A wave of relief passed over Linda's face. + +"It will not come up until the morning," she said with a smile. + +"As a matter of fact, the driver brought it up with him," said Glynn. +And Martin handed to Mrs. Thresk the telegram. Over his shoulder, +Glynn saw Thresk raise his head. He had been standing by the table +listening to what was said. Now he advanced. He was a tall man, +powerfully built, with a strongly-marked, broad face, which was only +saved from coarseness by its look of power. They made a strange +contrast, the husband and wife, as they stood side by side--she slight +and exquisitely delicate in her colour, dainty in her movements, he +clumsy and big and masterful. Glynn suddenly recalled gossip which had +run through the town about the time of their marriage. Linda had been +engaged to another--a man whose name Glynn did not remember, but on +whom, so the story ran, her heart was set. + +"Of course you are very welcome," said Thresk, as he held out his +hand, and Glynn noticed with something of a shock that his throat was +bandaged. He looked towards Linda. Her eyes were resting upon him with +a look of agonised appeal. He was not to remark upon that wounded +throat. He took Thresk's hand. + +"We shall be delighted if you will stay with us as long as you can," +said Thresk, "We have been up here for more than three months. You +come to us from another world, and visitors from another world are +always interesting, aren't they, Linda?" + +He spoke his question with a quiet smile, like a man secretly amused. +But on Linda's face fear flashed out suddenly and was gone. It seemed +to Glynn that she was at pains to repress a shiver. + +"Martin will show you your room," said Thresk. "What's the matter?" + +Glynn was staring at the table in consternation. Where had been the +use of all the pretence that he had come unexpectedly on an +unpremeditated visit? His telegram had only this minute arrived--and +yet there was the table laid for three people. Thresk followed the +direction of his visitor's eyes. + +"Oh, I see," he said with a laugh. + +Glynn flushed. No wonder Thresk was amused. He had been sitting at the +table; and between himself and his wife the third place was laid. + +"I will go up and change," said Glynn awkwardly. + +"Well, don't be long!" replied Thresk. + +Glynn followed Martin to the guest-room. But he was annoyed. He did +not, under any circumstances, like to look a fool. But he had the +strongest possible objection to travelling three hundred miles in +order to look it. If he wanted to look a fool, he grumbled, he could +have managed it just as well in the Midlands. + +But he was to be more deeply offended. For when he came down into the +dining-room he walked to the table and drew out the vacant chair. At +once Thresk shot out his hand and stopped him. + +"You mustn't sit there!" he cried violently. Then his face changed. +Slowly the smile of amusement reappeared upon it. "After all, why +not?" he said. "Try, yes, try," and he watched Glynn with a strange +intentness. + +Glynn sat down slowly. A trick was being played upon him--of that he +was sure. He was still more sure when Thresk's face relaxed and he +broke into a laugh. + +"Well, that's funny!" he cried, and Glynn, in exasperation, asked +indignantly: + +"What's funny?" + +But Thresk was no longer listening. He was staring across the room +towards the front door, as though he heard outside yet another +visitor. Glynn turned angrily towards Linda. At once his anger died +away. Her face was white as paper, and her eyes full of fear. Her need +was real, whatever it might be. Thresk turned sharply back again. + +"It's a long journey from London to North Uist," he said pleasantly. + +"No doubt," replied Glynn, as he set himself to his dinner. "But I +have come from South Uist. However, I am just as hungry as if I had +come from London." + +He laughed, and Thresk joined in the laugh. + +"I am glad of that," he said, "for it's quite a long time since we +have seen you." + +"Yes, it is," replied Glynn carelessly. "A year, I should think." + +"Three years," said Thresk. "For I don't think that you have ever come +to see us in London." + +"We are so seldom there," interrupted Linda. + +"Three months a year, my dear," said Thresk. "But I know very well +that a man will take a day's journey in the Outer Island's to see his +friends, whereas he wouldn't cross the street in London. And, in any +case, we are very glad to see you. By the way," and he reached out his +hand carelessly for the salt, "isn't this rather a new departure for +you, Glynn? You were always a sociable fellow. A hunting-box in the +Midlands, and all the lighted candles in the season. The Outer Islands +were hardly in your line." And he turned quickly towards him. "You +have brought your guns?" + +"Of course," said Glynn, laughing as easily as he could under a +cross-examination which he began to find anything but comfortable. +"But I won't guarantee that I can shoot any better than I used to." + +"Never mind," said Thresk. "We'll shoot the bog to-morrow, and it +will be strange if you don't bring down something. It's full of duck. +You don't mind getting wet, I suppose? There was once a man named +Channing----" he broke off upon the name, and laughed again with that +air of secret amusement. "Did you ever hear of him?" he asked of +Glynn. + +"Yes," replied Glynn slowly. "I knew him." + +At the mention of the name he had seen Linda flinch, and he knew why +she flinched. + +"Did you?" exclaimed Thresk, with a keen interest. "Then you will +appreciate the story. He came up here on a visit." + +Glynn started. + +"He came here!" he cried, and could have bitten out his tongue for +uttering the cry. + +"Oh, yes," said Thresk easily, "I asked him," and Glynn looked from +Thresk to Thresk's wife in amazement. Linda for once did not meet +Glynn's eyes. Her own were fixed upon the tablecloth. She was sitting +in her chair rather rigidly. One hand rested upon the tablecloth, and +it was tightly clenched. Alone of the three James Thresk appeared at +ease. + +"I took him out to shoot that bog," he continued with a laugh. "He +loathed getting wet. He was always so very well dressed, wasn't he, +Linda? The reeds begin twenty yards from the front door, and within +the first five minutes he was up to the waist!" Thresk suddenly +checked his laughter. "However, it ceased to be a laughing matter. +Channing got a little too near the sapling in the middle." + +"Is it dangerous there?" asked Glynn. + +"Yes, it's dangerous." Thresk rose from his chair and walked across +the room to the window. He pulled up the blind and, curving his hands +about his eyes to shut out the light of the room, leaned his face +against the window-frame and looked out. "It's more than dangerous," +he said in a low voice. "Just round that sapling, it's swift and +certain death. You would sink to the waist," and he spoke still more +slowly, as though he were measuring by the utterance of the syllables +the time it would take for the disaster to be complete--"from the +waist to the shoulders, from the shoulders clean out of sight, before +any help could reach you." + +He stopped abruptly, and Glynn, watching him from the table, saw his +attitude change. He dropped his head, he hunched his back, and made a +strange hissing sound with his breath. + +"Linda!" he cried, in a low, startling voice, "Linda!" + +Glynn, unimpressionable man that he was, started to his feet. The long +journey, the loneliness of the little house set in this wild, flat +country, the terror which hung over it and was heavy in the very +atmosphere of the rooms, were working already upon his nerves. + +"Who is it?" he cried. + +Linda laid a hand upon his arm. + +"There's no one," she said in a whisper. "Take no notice." + +And, looking at her quivering face, Glynn was inspired to ask a +question, was wrought up to believe that the answer would explain to +him why Thresk leaned his forehead against the window-pane and called +upon his wife in so strange a voice. + +"Did Channing sink--by the sapling?" + +"No," said Linda hurriedly, and as hurriedly she drew away in her +chair. Glynn turned and saw Thresk himself standing just behind his +shoulder. He had crept down noiselessly behind them. + +"No," Thresk repeated. "But he is dead. Didn't you know that? Oh, yes, +he is dead," and suddenly he broke out with a passionate violence. "A +clever fellow--an infernally clever fellow. You are surprised to hear +me say that, Glynn. You underrated him like the rest of us. We thought +him a milksop, a tame cat, a poor, weak, interloping, unprofitable +creature who would sidle obsequiously into your house, and make his +home there. But we were wrong--all except Linda there." + +Linda sat with her head bowed, and said not a word. She was sitting so +that Glynn could see her profile, and though she said nothing, her +lips were trembling. + +"Linda was right," and Thresk turned carelessly to Glynn. "Did you +know that Linda was at one time engaged to Channing?" + +"Yes, I knew," said Glynn awkwardly. + +"It was difficult for most of us to understand," said Thresk. "There +seemed no sort of reason why a girl like Linda should select a man +like Channing to fix her heart upon. But she was right. Channing was a +clever fellow--oh, a very clever fellow," and he leaned over and +touched Glynn upon the sleeve, "for he died." + +Glynn started back. + +"What are you saying?" he cried. + +Thresk burst into a laugh. + +"That my throat hurts me to-night," he said. + +Glynn recovered himself with an effort. "Oh, yes," he said, as though +now for the first time he had noticed the bandage. "Yes, I see you +have hurt your throat. How did you do it?" + +Thresk chuckled. + +"Not very well done, Glynn. Will you smoke?" + +The plates had been cleared from the table, and the coffee brought in. +Thresk rose from his seat and crossed to the mantelshelf on which a +box of cigars was laid. As he took up the box and turned again towards +the table, a parchment scroll which hung on a nail at the side of the +fireplace caught his eye. + +"Do you see this?" he said, and he unrolled it. "It's my landlord's +family tree. All the ancestors of Mr. Robert Donald McCullough right +back to the days of Bruce. McCullough's prouder of that scroll than of +anything else in the world. He is more interested in it than in +anything else in the world." + +For a moment he fingered it, and in the tone of a man communing with +himself, he added: + +"Now, isn't that curious?" + +Glynn rose from his chair, and moved down the table so that he could +see the scroll unimpeded by Thresk's bulky figure. Thresk, however, +was not speaking any longer to his guest. Glynn sat down again. But he +sat down now in the chair which Thresk had used; the chair in which he +himself had been sitting between Thresk and Linda was empty. + +"What interests me," Thresk continued, like a man in a dream, "is what +is happening now--and very strange, queer, interesting things are +happening now--for those who have eyes to see. Yes, through centuries +and centuries, McCulloughs have succeeded McCulloughs, and lived in +this distant, little corner of the Outer Islands through forays and +wars and rebellions, and the oversetting of kings, and yet nothing has +ever happened in this house to any one of them half so interesting and +half so strange as what is happening now to us, the shooting tenants +of a year." + +Thresk dropped the scroll, and, coming out of his dream, brought the +cigar-box to the table. + +"You have changed your seat!" he said with a smile, as he offered the +box to Glynn. Glynn took out of it a cigar, and leaning back, cut off +the end. As he stooped forward to light it, he saw the cigar-box still +held out to him. Thresk had not moved. He seemed to have forgotten +Glynn's presence in the room. His eyes were fixed upon the empty +chair. He stood strangely rigid, and then he suddenly cried out: + +"Take care, Linda!" + +There was so sharp a note of warning in his voice that Linda sprang to +her feet, with her hand pressed upon her heart. Glynn was startled +too, and because he was startled he turned angrily to Thresk. + +"Of what should Mrs. Thresk take care?" + +Thresk took his eyes for a moment, and only for a moment, from the +empty chair. + +"Do you see nothing?" he asked, in a whisper, and his glance went back +again. "Not a shadow which leans across the table there towards Linda, +darkening the candle-light?" + +"No; for there's nothing to cast a shadow." + +"Is there not?" said Thresk, with a queer smile. "That's where you +make your mistake. Aren't you conscious of something very strange, +very insidious, close by us in this room?" + +"I am aware that you are frightening Mrs. Thresk," said Glynn roughly; +and, indeed, standing by the table, with her white face and her bosom +heaving under her hand, she looked the very embodiment of terror. +Thresk turned at once to her. A look of solicitude made his gross face +quite tender. He took her by the arm, and in a chiding, affectionate +tone he said very gently: + +"You are not frightened, Linda, are you? Interested--yes, just as I +am. But not frightened. There's nothing to be frightened at. We are +not children." + +"Oh, Jim," she said, and she leaned upon his arm. He led her across to +the sofa, and sat down beside her. + +"That's right. Now we are comfortable." But the last word was not +completed. It seemed that it froze upon his lips. He stopped, looked +for a second into space, and then, dropping his arm from about his +wife's waist, he deliberately moved aside from her, and made a space +between them. + +"Now we are in our proper places--the four of us," he said bitterly, + +"The three of us," Glynn corrected, as he walked round the table. +"Where's the fourth?" + +And then there came to him this extraordinary answer given in the +quietest voice imaginable. + +"Between my wife and me. Where should he be?" + +Glynn stared. There was no one in the room but Linda, Thresk, and +himself--no one. But--but--it was the loneliness of the spot, and its +silence, and its great distance from his world, no doubt, which +troubled him. Thresk's manner, too, and his words were having their +effect. That was all, Glynn declared stoutly to himself. But--but--he +did not wonder that Linda had written so urgently for him to come to +her. His back went cold, and the hair stirred upon his scalp. + +"Who is it, then?" he cried violently. + +Linda rose from the sofa, and took a quick step towards him.. Her eyes +implored him to silence. + +"There is no one," she protested in a low voice. + +"No," cried Glynn loudly. "Let us understand what wild fancy he has! +Who is the fourth?" + +Upon Thresk's face came a look of sullenness. + +"Who should he be?" + +"Who is he?" Glynn insisted. + +"Channing," said Thresk. "Mildmay Channing." He sat for a while, +brooding with his head sunk upon his breast. And Glynn started back. +Some vague recollection was stirring in his memory. There had been a +story current amongst Linda's friends at the time of her marriage. She +had been in love with Channing, desperately in love with him. The +marriage with Thresk had been forced on her by her parents--yes, and +by Thresk's persistency. It had been a civilised imitation of the Rape +of the Sabine Women. That was how the story ran, Glynn remembered. He +waited to hear more from James Thresk, and in a moment the words came, +but in a thoroughly injured tone. + +"It's strange that you can't see either." + +"There is some one else, then, as blind as I am?" said Glynn. + +"There was. Yes, yes, the dog," replied Thresk, gazing into the fire. +"You and the dog," he repeated uneasily, "you and the dog. But the dog +saw in the end, Glynn, and so will you--even you." + +Linda turned quickly, but before she could speak, Glynn made a sign to +her. He went over to her side. A glance at Thresk showed him that he +was lost in his thoughts. + +"If you want me to help you, you must leave us alone," he said. + +She hesitated for a moment, and then swiftly crossed the room and went +out at the door. Glynn, who had let his cigar go out, lit it again at +the flame of one of the candles on the dining-table. Then he planted +himself in front of Thresk. + +"You are terrifying your wife," he said. "You are frightening her to +death." + +Thresk did not reply to the accusation directly. He smiled quietly at +Glynn. + +"She sent for you." + +Glynn looked uncomfortable, and Thresk went on: + +"You haven't come from South Uist. You have come from London." + +"No," said Glynn. + +"From Melton, then. You came because Linda sent for you." + +"If it were so," stammered Glynn, "it would only be another proof that +you are frightening her." + +Thresk shook his head. + +"It wasn't because Linda was afraid that she sent for you," he said +stubbornly. "I know Linda. I'll tell you the truth," and he fixed his +burning eyes on Glynn's face. "She sent for you because she hates +being here with me." + +"Hates being with you!" cried Glynn, and Thresk nodded his head. Glynn +could hardly even so believe that he had heard aright. "Why, you must +be mad!" he protested. "Mad or blind. There's just one person of whom +your wife is thinking, for whom she is caring, for whose health she is +troubled. It has been evident to me ever since I have been in this +house--in spite of her fears. Every time she looks at you her eyes are +tender with solicitude. That one person is yourself." + +"No," said Thresk. "It's Channing." + +"But he's dead, man!" cried Glynn in exasperation. "You told me so +yourself not half an hour ago. He is dead." + +"Yes," answered Thresk. "He's dead. That's where he beat me. You don't +understand that?" + +"No, I don't," replied Glynn. + +He was speaking aggressively; he stood with his legs apart in an +aggressive attitude. Thresk looked him over from head to foot and +agreed. + +"No," he said, "and I don't see why you should. You are rather like +me, comfortable and commonplace, and of the earth earthy. Before men +of our gross stamp could believe and understand what I am going to +tell you, they would have to reach--do you mind if I say a +refinement?--by passing through the same fires which have tempered +me." + +Glynn made no reply. He shifted his position so that the firelight +might fall upon Thresk's face with its full strength. Thresk leaned +forward with his hands upon his knees, and very quietly, though now +and then a note of scorn rang in his voice, he told his story. + +"You tell me my wife cares for me. I reply that she would have cared, +if Channing had not died. When I first met Linda she was engaged to +him. You know that. She was devoted to him. You know that too. I knew +it and I didn't mind. I wasn't afraid of Channing. A poor, feeble +creature--heaps of opportunities, not one of them foreseen, not one of +them grasped when it came his way. A grumbler, a bag of envy, a beggar +for sympathy at any woman's lap! Why should I have worried my head +about Channing? And I didn't. Linda's people were all for breaking off +their engagement. After all, I was some good. I had made my way. I had +roughed it in South America; and I had come home a rich man--not such +a very easy thing, as the superior people who haven't the heart even +to try to be rich men are inclined to think. Well, the engagement was +broken off, Channing hadn't a penny to marry on, and nobody would give +him a job. Look here!" And he suddenly swung round upon Glynn. + +"I gave Channing his chance. I knew he couldn't make any use of it. I +wanted to prove he wasn't any good. So I put a bit of a railway in +Chili into his hands, and he brought the thing to the edge of +bankruptcy within twelve months. So the engagement was broken off. +Linda clung to the fellow. I knew it, and I didn't mind. She didn't +want to marry me. I knew it, and I didn't mind. Her parents broke her +down to it. She sobbed through the night before we were married. I +knew it, and I didn't mind. You think me a beast, of course," he +added, with a look at Glynn. "But just consider the case from my point +of view. Channing was no match for Linda. I was. I wanted time, that +was all. Give me only time, and I knew that I could win her." + +Boastful as the words sounded, there was nothing aggressive in +Thresk's voice. He was speaking with a quiet simplicity which robbed +them quite of offence. He was unassumingly certain. + +"Why?" asked Glynn. "Why, given time, were you sure that you could win +her?" + +"Because I wanted enough. That's my creed, Glynn. If you want enough, +want with every thought, and nerve, and pulse, the thing you want +comes along all right. There was the difference between Channing and +me. He hadn't the heart to want enough. I wanted enough to go to +school again. I set myself to learn the small attentions which mean so +much to women. They weren't in my line naturally. I pay so little heed +to things of that kind myself that it did not easily occur to me that +women might think differently. But I learnt my lesson, and I got my +reward. Just simple little precautions, like having a cloak ready for +her, almost before she was aware that she was cold. And I would see a +look of surprise on her face, and the surprise flush into a smile of +pleasure. Oh, I was holding her, Glynn, I can tell you. I went about +it so very warily," and Thresk laughed with a knowing air. "I didn't +shut my door on Channing either. Not I! I wasn't going to make a +martyr of him. I let him sidle in and out of the house, and I laughed. +For I was holding her. Every day she came a step or two nearer to me." + +He broke off suddenly, and his voice, which had taken on a tender and +wistful note, incongruous in so big a creature, rose in a gust of +anger. + +"But he died! He died and caught her back again." + +Glynn raised his hands in despair. + +"That memory has long since faded," he argued, and Thresk burst out in +a bitter laugh. + +"Memory," he cried, flinging himself into a chair. "You are one of the +imaginative people after all, Glynn." And Glynn stared in round-eyed +surprise. Here to him was conclusive proof that there was something +seriously wrong with Thresk's mind. Never had Mr. Glynn been called +imaginative before, and his soul revolted against the aspersion. +"Yes," said Thresk, pointing an accusing finger. "Imaginative! I am +one of the practical people. I don't worry about memories. Actual real +things interest me--such as Channing's presence now--in this house." +And he spoke suddenly, leaning forward with so burning a fire in his +eyes and voice that Glynn, in spite of himself, looked nervously +across his shoulder. He rose hastily from the sofa, and rather in +order to speak than with any thought of what he was saying, he asked: + +"When did he die?" + +"Four months ago. I was ill at the time." + +"Ah!" + +The exclamation sprang from Glynn's lips before he could check it. +Here to him was the explanation of Thresk's illusions. But he was +sorry that he had not kept silent. For he saw Thresk staring angrily +at him. + +"What did you mean by your 'Ah'?" Thresk asked roughly. + +"Merely that I had seen a line about your illness in a newspaper," +Glynn explained hastily. + +Thresk leaned back satisfied. + +"Yes," he resumed. "I broke down. I had had a hard life, you see, and +I was paying for it. I am right enough now, however," and his voice +rose in a challenge to Glynn to contradict him. + +Nothing was further from Glynn's thoughts. + +"Of course," he said quickly. + +"I saw Channing's death in the obituary column whilst I was lying in +bed, and, to tell you the truth, I was relieved by it." + +"But I thought you said you didn't mind about Channing?" Glynn +interrupted, and Thresk laughed with a little discomfort. + +"Well, perhaps I did mind a little more than I care to admit," Thresk +confessed. "At all events, I felt relieved at his death. What a fool I +was!" And he stopped for a moment as though he wondered now that his +mind was so clear, at the delusion which had beset him. + +"I thought that it was all over with Channing. Oh, what a fool I was! +Even after he came back and would sidle up to my bedside in his old +fawning style, I couldn't bring myself to take him seriously, and I +was only amused." + +"He came to your bedside!" exclaimed Glynn. + +"Yes," replied Thresk, and he laughed at the recollection. "He came +with his humble smirk, and pottered about the room as if he were my +nurse. I put out my tongue at him, and told him he was dead and done +for, and that he had better not meddle with the bottles on my table. +Yes, he amused me. What a fool I was! I thought no one else saw him. +That was my first mistake. I thought he was helpless.... That was my +second." + +Thresk got up from his chair, and, standing over the fireplace, +knocked the ash off his cigar. + +"Do you remember a great Danish boar-hound I used to have?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied Glynn, puzzled by the sudden change of subject. "But +what has the boar-hound to do with your story?" + +"A good deal," said Thresk. "I was very fond of that dog." + +"The dog was fond of you," said Glynn. + +"Yes. Remember that!" Thresk cried suddenly. "For it's true." Then he +relapsed again into a quiet, level voice. + +"It took me some time to get well. I was moved up here. It was the one +place where I wanted to be. But I wasn't used to sitting round and +doing nothing. So the time of my convalescence hung pretty heavily, +and, casting about for some way of amusing myself, I wondered whether +I could teach the dog to see Channing as I saw him. I tried. Whenever +I saw Channing come in at the door, I used to call the dog to my side +and point Channing out to him with my finger as Channing moved about +the room." + +Thresk sat down in a chair opposite to Glynn, and with a singular +alertness began to act over again the scenes which had taken place in +his sick room upstairs. + +"I used to say, 'Hst! Hst!' 'There! Do you see? By the window!' or if +Channing moved towards Linda I would turn the dog's head and make his +eyes follow him across the room. At first the dog saw nothing. Then he +began to avoid me, to slink away with his tail between his legs, to +growl. He was frightened. Yes, he was frightened!" And Thresk nodded +his head in a quick, interested way. + +"He was frightened of you," cried Glynn, "and I don't wonder." + +For even to him there was something uncanny and impish in Thresk's +quick movements and vivid gestures. + +"Wait a bit," said Thresk. "He was frightened, but not of me. He saw +Channing. His hair bristled under my fingers as I pointed the fellow +out. I had to keep one hand on his neck, you see, to keep him by me. +He began to yelp in a queer, panicky way, and tremble--a man in a +fever couldn't tremble and shake any more than that dog did. And then +one day, when we were alone together, the dog and I and Channing--the +dog sprang at my throat." + +"That's how you were wounded!" cried Glynn, leaping from his sofa. He +stood staring in horror at Thresk. "I wonder the dog didn't kill you." + +"He very nearly did," said Thresk. "Oh, very nearly." + +"You had frightened him out of his wits." + +Thresk laughed contemptuously. + +"That's the obvious explanation, of course," he said. "But it's not +the true one. I have been living amongst the subtleties of life. I +know about things now. The dog sprang at me because--" He stopped and +glanced uneasily about the room. When he raised his face again, there +was a look upon it which Glynn had not seen there before--a look of +sudden terror. He leaned forward that he might be the nearer to Glynn, +and his voice sank to a whisper--"well, because Channing set him on to +me." + +It was no doubt less the statement itself than the crafty look which +accompanied it, and the whisper which uttered it, that shocked Glynn. +But he was shocked. There came upon him--yes, even upon him, the sane, +prosaic Glynn--a sudden doubt whether, after all, Thresk was mad. It +occurred to him as a possibility that Thresk was speaking the mere, +bare truth. Suppose that it were the truth! Suppose that Channing were +here! In this room! Glynn felt the flesh creep upon his bones. + +"Ah, you are beginning to understand," said Thresk, watching his +companion. "You are beginning to get frightened, too." And he nodded +his head in comprehension. "I used not to know what fear meant. But I +knew the meaning well enough as soon as I had guessed why the dog +sprang at my throat. For I realised my helplessness." + +Throughout their conversation Glynn had been perpetually puzzled by +something unexpected in Thresk's conclusions. He followed his +reasoning up to a point, and then came a word which left him at a +loss. Thresk's fear he understood. But why the sense of helplessness? +And he asked for an explanation. + +"Because I had no weapons to fight Channing with," Thresk replied. "I +could cope with the living man and win every time. But against the +dead man I was helpless. I couldn't hurt him. I couldn't even +come to grips with him. I had just to sit by and make room. And that's +what I have been doing ever since. I have been sitting by and +watching--without a single resource, without a single opportunity of a +counterstroke. Oh, I had my time--when Channing was alive. But upon my +word, he has the best of it. Here I sit without raising a hand while +he recaptures Linda." + +"There you are wrong," cried Glynn, seizing gladly, in the midst of +these subtleties, upon some fact of which he felt sure. "Your wife is +yours. There has been no recapture. Besides, she doesn't believe that +Channing is here." + +Thresk laughed. + +"Do you think she would tell me if she did?" he asked. "No." + +He rose from his chair and, walking to the window, thrust back the +curtains and looked out. So he stood for the space of a minute. Then +he came back and, looking fixedly at Glynn, said with an air of +extraordinary cunning: + +"But I have a plan. Yes, I have a plan. I shall get on level terms +with Mr. Channing again one of these fine days, and then I'll prove to +him for a second time which of us two is the better man." + +He made a sign to Glynn, and looked towards the door. It was already +opening. He advanced to it as Linda came into the room. + +"You have come back, Linda! I have been talking to Glynn at such a +rate that he hasn't been able to get a word in edgeways," he said, +with a swift change to a gaiety of voice and manner. "However, I'll +show him a good day's sport to-morrow, Linda. We will shoot the bog, +and perhaps you'll come out with the luncheon to the sand-hills?" + +Linda Thresk smiled. + +"Of course I will," she said. She showed to Glynn a face of gratitude. +"It has done you good, Jim, to have a man to talk to," and she laid a +hand upon her husband's arm and laughed quite happily. Glynn turned +his back upon them and walked up to the window, leaving them standing +side by side in the firelight. Outside, the moon shone from a clear +sky upon the pools and the reeds of the marsh and the low white +sand-hills, chequered with their tufts of grass. But upon the sea +beyond, a white mist lay thick and low. + +"There's a sea-fog," said Glynn; and Thresk, at the fire, suddenly +lifted his head, and looked towards the window with a strange +intensity. One might have thought that a sea-fog was a strange, +unusual thing among the Outer Islands. + +"Watch it!" he said, and there was a vibration in his voice which +matched the intensity of his look. "You will see it suddenly creep +through the gaps in the sand-hills and pass over the marsh like an +army that obeys a command. I have watched it by the hour, time and +time again. It gathers on the level of the sea and waits and waits +until it seems that the word is given. Then it comes swirling through +the gaps of the sand-hills and eats up the marsh in a minute." + +Even as he spoke Glynn cried out: + +"That's extraordinary!" + +The fog had crept out through the gaps. Only the summits of the +sand-hills rose in the moonlight like little peaks above clouds; and +over the marsh the fog burst like cannon smoke and lay curling and +writhing up to the very reeds twenty yards from the house. The sapling +alone stood high above it, like the mast of a wreck in the sea. + +"How high is it?" asked Thresk. + +"Breast high," replied Glynn. + +"Only breast high," said Thresk, and there seemed to be a note of +disappointment in his voice. However, in the next moment he shook it +off. "The fog will be gone before morning," he said. "I'll go and tell +Donald to bring the dogs round at nine to-morrow, and have your guns +ready. Nine is not too early for you, I suppose?" + +"Not a bit," said Glynn; and Thresk, going up to the door which led +from the house, opened it, went out, and closed it again behind him. + +Glynn turned at once towards Linda Thresk. But she held up a warning +hand, and waited for the outer door to slam. No sound, however, broke +the silence. Glynn went to the inner door and opened it. A bank of +white fog, upon which he saw his own shadow most brightly limned by +the light behind him, filled the outer passage and crept by him into +the room. Glynn closed the latch quickly. + +"He has left the outer door open," he said, and, coming back into the +room he stood beside the fire looking down into Linda's face. + +"He has been talking to me," said Glynn. + +Linda looked at him curiously. + +"How much did he tell you?" + +"There can be little he left unsaid. He told me of the dog, of +Channing's death----" + +"Yes?" + +"Of Channing's return." + +"Yes?" + +"And of you." + +With each sentence Glynn's embarrassment had increased. Linda, +however, held him to his story. + +"What did he say of me?" + +"That but for Channing's death he would have held you. That since +Channing died--and came back--he had lost you." + +Linda nodded her head. Nothing in Glynn's words surprised her--that +was clear. It was a story already familiar to her which he was +repeating. + +"Is that all?" she said. + +"I think so. Yes," replied Glynn, glad to get the business over. Yet +he had omitted the most important part of Thresk's confession--the one +part which Linda did not already know. He omitted it because he had +forgotten it. There was something else which he had in his mind to +say. + +"When Thresk told me that Channing had won you back, I ventured to say +that no one watching you and Thresk, even with the most indifferent +eyes, could doubt that it was always and only of him that you were +thinking." + +"Thank you," said Linda, quietly. "That is true." + +"And now," said Glynn, "I want, in my turn, to ask you a question. I +have been a little curious. I want, too, to do what I can. Therefore, +I ask you, why did you send, for me? What is it that you think I can +do? That other friends of yours can't?" + +A slight colour came into Linda's cheeks; and for a moment she lowered +her eyes. She spoke with an accent of apology. + +"It is quite true that there are friends whom I see more constantly +than you, Mr. Glynn, and upon whom I have, perhaps, greater claims." + +"Oh, I did not mean you to think that I was reluctant to come," Glynn +exclaimed, and Linda smiled, lifting her eyes to his. + +"No," she said. "I remembered your kindness. It was that recollection +which helped me to appeal to you," and she resumed her explanation as +though he had never interrupted her. + +"Nor was there any particular thing which I thought you could do. +But--well, here's the truth--I have been living in terror. This house +has become a house of terror. I am frightened, and I have come almost +to believe----" and she looked about her with a shiver of her +shoulders, sinking her voice to a whisper as she spoke--"that Jim was +right--that _he is_ here after all." + +And Glynn recoiled. Just for a moment the same fancy had occurred to +him. + +"You don't believe that--really!" he cried. + +"No--no," she answered. "Once I think calmly. But it is so difficult +to think calmly and reasonably here. Oh----" and she threw up her arms +suddenly, and her whole face and eyes were alight with terror--"the +very air is to me heavy with fear in this house. It is Jim's quiet +certainty." + +"Yes, that's it!" exclaimed Glynn, catching eagerly at that +explanation because it absolved him to his own common sense for the +inexplicable fear which he had felt invade himself. "Yes, Jim's quiet, +certain, commonplace way in which he speaks of Channing's presence +here. That's what makes his illusion so convincing." + +"Well, I thought that if I could get you here, you who----" and she +hesitated in order to make her description polite--"are not afflicted +by fancies, who are pleasantly sensible"--thus did Linda express her +faith that Mr. Glynn was of the earth, earthy--"I myself should +lose my terror, and Jim, too, might lose his illusion. But now," she +looked at him keenly, "I think that Jim is affecting you--that you, +too--yes"--she sprang up suddenly and stood before him, with her dark, +terror-haunted eyes fixed upon him--"that you, too, believe Mildmay +Channing is here." + +"No," he protested violently--too violently unless the accusation were +true. + +"Yes," she repeated, nodding her head quietly. "You, too, believe that +Mildmay Channing is here." + +And before her horror-stricken face the protest which was on the tip +of his tongue remained unuttered. His eyes sought the floor. With a +sudden movement of despair Linda turned aside. Even the earthliness of +Mr. Glynn had brought her no comfort or security. He had fallen under +the spell, as she had done. It seemed that they had no more words to +speak to one another. They stood and waited helplessly until Thresk +should return. + +But that return was delayed. + +"He has been a long time speaking to the keeper," said Linda +listlessly, and rather to break a silence which was becoming +intolerable, than with any intention in the words. But they struck a +chord of terror in Glynn's thoughts. He walked quickly to the window, +and hastily tore the curtain aside. + +The flurry of his movements aroused Linda's attention. She followed +him with her eyes. She saw him curve his hands about his forehead and +press his face against the pane, even as Thresk had done an hour +before. She started forward from the fireplace and Glynn swung round +with his arms extended, barring the window. His face was white, his +lips shook. The one important statement of Thresk's he now recalled. + +"Don't look!" he cried, and as he spoke, Linda pushed past him. She +flung up the window. Outside the fog curled and smoked upon the marsh +breast high. The moonlight played upon it; above it the air was clear +and pure, and in the sky stars shone faintly. Above the mist the bare +sapling stood like a pointing finger, and halfway between the sapling +and the house Thresk's head and shoulders showed plain to see. But +they were turned away from the house. + +"Jim! Jim!" cried Linda, shaking the window-frame with her hand. Her +voice rang loudly out on the still air. But Thresk never so much as +turned his head. He moved slowly towards the sapling, feeling the +unstable ground beneath him with his feet. + +"Jim! Jim!" again she cried. And behind her she heard a strange, +unsteady whispering voice. + +"'On equal terms!' That's what he said--I did not understand. He said, +'On equal terms.'" + +And even as Glynn spoke, both Linda and he saw Thresk throw up his +arms and sink suddenly beneath the bog. Linda ran to the door, +stumbling as she ran, and with a queer, sobbing noise in her throat. + +Glynn caught her by the arm. + +"It is of no use. You know. Round the sapling--there is no chance of +rescue. It is my fault, I should have understood. He had no fear of +Channing--if only he could meet him on equal terms." + +Linda stared at Glynn. For a little while the meaning of the words did +not sink into her mind. + +"He said that!" she cried. "And you did not tell me." She crept back +to the fireplace and cowered in front of it, shivering. + +"But he said he would come back to me," she said in the voice of a +child who has been deceived. "Yes, Jim said he would come back to me." + +Of course it was a chance, accident, coincidence, a breath of +wind--call it what you will, except what Linda Thresk and Glynn called +it. But even as she uttered her complaint, "He said he would come back +to me," the latch of the door clicked loudly. There was a rush of cold +air into the room. The door swung slowly inwards and stood wide open. + +Linda sprang to her feet. Both she and Glynn turned to the open door. +The white fog billowed into the room. Glynn felt the hair stir and +move upon his scalp. He stood transfixed. Was it possible? he asked +himself. Had Thresk indeed come back to fight for Linda once more, and +to fight now as he had fought the first time--on equal terms? He stood +expecting the white fog to shape itself into the likeness of a man. +And then he heard a wild scream of laughter behind him. He turned in +time to catch Linda as she fell. + + + + + + THE BROWN BOOK + + + + + THE BROWN BOOK + + +A few friends of Murgatroyd, the physician, sat about his +dinner-table, discussing that perplexing question, "How much of the +truth should a doctor tell?" In the middle of the discussion a quiet +voice spoke up from a corner, and all turned towards a middle-aged man +of European reputation who sat fingering the stem of his wine-glass. + +"It is dangerous to lay down a general rule," said Sir James Kelsey. +"But I should say, if you want to keep a secret tell half the truth. +People accept it and pass on to their own affairs." He hesitated for a +moment and continued, rather slowly: "I am thinking of a tremendous +secret which has been kept that way for a good number of years. I call +it the story of the Brown Book." + +At once the discussion ceased. It was so seldom that Kelsey indulged +in anything like a confidence. Now on this one evening amongst his +brethren it seemed that he was in the mood to talk. + +"All of you will remember the name of John Rymer, and some of you +his meteoric career and the tragic circumstances of his death. There +was no doubt that he was a master of surgery. Yet at the age of +thirty-seven, at eleven o'clock on a July morning, after performing +three operations with all his accustomed skill, he walked into his +consulting-room and blew his brains out." + +Here and there a voice was raised. + +"Yes, I remember." + +"It was overwork, I think." + +Sir James Kelsey smiled. + +"Exactly," he said. "That's the half-truth. Overwork there was. I am +familiar with the details of the inquest, for I married John Rymer's +niece. It was proved, for instance, that during the last week of his +life he had been curtailing his operations and spending more time over +his dressings--a definite policy of his when the strain became too +heavy. Moreover, there was some mention made of a sudden reasonless +fear which had attacked him, a fear that his practice was dropping +away, and that he would be left with a wife and young family to +support, and no means to do it with. Well, we all know round this +table that that particular terror is one of the commonest results of +overwork. So overwork there undoubtedly was. A spell of tropical heat +no doubt, too, had its effect. Anyway, here was enough for a quite +acceptable verdict, and so the world thought. The usual platitudes +about the tension of modern life made their appearance. The public +read, accepted, and passed on to its own affairs. But behind John +Rymer's death there lay a tremendous secret." + +Once more he hesitated. Then he took a cigar from the box which his +host held out to him, and said, in a kind of rush: "No one could make +any use of it now. For there's no longer any evidence but my word, and +I should deny it. It's overwork John Rymer died of. Let us not forget +it." + +And then he told the story of the Brown Book. At the end of it his +cigar was still alight, for he smoked while he talked. But it was the +only cigar alight in that room. + + +I was twenty-five, and I had bought a practice at Chailsey, a village +deep amongst tall, dark trees in the very heart of the Berkshire +Downs. You'll hardly find a place more pastoral and remote in all that +country of remote villages. But a couple of training stables were +established there, and, what with kicks and jumping accidents, there +was a good deal of work at times. I quite liked the spot, and I liked +it still more when Bradley Rymer and his daughter took the big house +on the slope of the Down above the village. + +John Rymer, the surgeon, had then been dead eight months, and Bradley +Rymer was his brother, a shortish, broad man of forty-five with a big, +pleasant face. Gossip had it that he had been very poor, so poor, +indeed, that his daughter had made her living at a typewriting +machine. There was no doubt, however, that he was rich now. "Canada's +the country," he used to say. "I made my money out of Canadian land," +and when he fell into conversation of a morning with any of the +stable-boys on the gallops he was always urging them to better +themselves in that country. + +His daughter Violet--a good many of you know her as my wife--had +little of his fore-gathering disposition. She was an extremely pretty +girl of nineteen, with eyes which matched her name. But she held +herself apart. She seldom came down into the village, and even when +one met her in her own house there was a constraint in her manner and +a look upon her face which I was at a loss to understand. It wasn't +merely trouble. It was a kind of perplexity, as though she did not +know where to turn. For the rest, the couple did not entertain. + +"We have had hard lives," Bradley Rymer said to me one rare evening +when I dined there, "and a year or two of quiet is what we want beyond +everything." And never did man speak a truer word. + +Bradley Rymer had lived for three months at Chailsey when Queen +Victoria died, and all the great kings and the little kings flocked +from Europe to her funeral. We at Chailsey--like the rest of Great +Britain--determined to set up a memorial, and a committee of five was +appointed to determine the form it was to take. + +"It must be a drinking-fountain," said I. + +"No; a stained-glass window," the vicar interrupted; and there we +were, Grayly the trainer and I on one side, the vicar and Hollams the +grocer on the other. The fifth member of the committee was absent. + +"Well, I shall go up and see Mr. Bradley Rymer this afternoon," I +said. "He has the casting vote." + +"You may do just as you please," said the vicar, with some +acerbity--Bradley Rymer did not go to church; "but until Mr. Bradley +Rymer condescends to be present at our committee meetings, I shall pay +not the slightest attention to his opinion." + +Thereupon the committee broke up. I had a good many visits to pay to +patients, and it was close upon eight o'clock when I set out upon my +walk, and darker than it usually is at that time of the year. Bradley +Rymer, I knew, did not dine until late, and I hoped to catch him just +before he and Violet sat down. + +The house stood a good half-mile from the village, even by the short +cut which I took up the side of the Down. It was a big, square +Georgian house with rows of high, flat windows; a large garden of +lawns and flowers and beech trees surrounded it; and the whole +property was enclosed in high red-brick walls. I was kept for a little +while at the great wrought-iron gates. That always happened. You rang +the big bell, the corner of a white curtain was cautiously lifted in +the window of the lodge, you were inspected, and at last the gates +swung open. Berkshire people were slow in those days, and, like most +country-folk, curious. I walked up the drive to the house. The front +door stood open. I rang the bell. A big mastiff came out from the hall +and sniffed at me. But we were good friends, and he retired again to +the corner. Finally a maid-servant appeared. It was perhaps a curious +fact that Bradley Rymer had no man-servant living in the house. + +"A butler is a spy you set upon yourself," he once said to me. Another +case of the half-truth, you see. I accepted it, and passed on to my +own affairs. So when only a maid answered the bell I was not +surprised. + +"Can I see Mr. Rymer?" I asked. + +"He is in the library, I think, sir," she answered. + +"Very well. I know my way." And, putting down my hat, I climbed the +stairs. + +The library was a long, comfortably-furnished room upon the first +floor, lighted by a row of windows upon one side and lined to the +ceiling with bookshelves upon the other. Rymer had a wonderful +collection of books bound in vellum and calf, but he had bought the +lot at a sale, and I don't think he ever read one of them. However, he +liked the room, and it was the one which he usually used. + +I opened the door and went into the library. But the servant had been +mistaken. The library was empty. I waited, however, and while I waited +a noise in the next room attracted my attention. I don't think that I +was conscious of it at first, for when I did notice it, It seemed to +me that the room had perceptibly darkened. It was so familiar a noise, +too, that one wouldn't notice it unless there were some special +unsuitability of time and place to provoke one's curiosity. For +a busy man walks through life to the sound of it. It was the sharp +tack-tack-tack of a typewriting machine, with the little clang and +break when the end of a line is reached. I listened to it first of all +surprised at the relentless rapidity with which the machine was +worked, and then, wondering why at this hour, in this house of leisure +and wealth, so tremendous an assiduity was being employed. Then in a +rush the gossip of the village came back to me. Violet Rymer, in the +days of her father's poverty, had made her living in a typewriting +office. Yes; but why should she continue so monotonous a practice now? +I couldn't think that she, if it were she, was keeping up her +proficiency for amusement. You can always tell whether the typist is +interested or whether she is working against time from the sound of +the machine. In the former case it becomes alive, one is conscious of +a personality; in the latter one thinks of an absent-minded clergyman +gabbling through the Lessons in church. + +Well, it was just that last note which was being struck. The machine +was racing to the end of a wearisome task, and, since already Violet +Rymer was very much to me, I thought with a real discomfort of her +bending over the keys. Moreover, I seemed to be stumbling upon a +secret which I was not meant to know. Was this tack-tack-tacking the +explanation of why Chailsey saw so little of her? + +While I was asking myself this question a door opened and shut +violently. It was the door into that next room, and as it was banged +the typewriting ceased altogether. There was a moment's pause, and +then a voice was raised in passion. It was Bradley Rymer's voice, but +I hardly recognised it. + +"What is it now?" he cried, bitterly. "A novel, a volume of sermons, a +pamphlet? Am I never to see you, Violet? You remain hidden in this +room, breaking your back for sixpence an hour. Why, I bought this +house for you. My one aim was to get rich for you." And the girl +interrupted him with an agonised cry. + +"Oh, don't say that, father!" + +"But I do say it." And suddenly his voice softened. "It's true, Vi. +You know it's true. The one thing I hated was that you should lose all +the fun of your youth at that grinding work. And now you're still at +it. Why? Why?" + +And through the door came her voice, in a passionate, broken reply: + +"Because--because--I feel--that not even the clothes I am wearing +really belong to me." + +The dispute suddenly ceased. A third voice spoke so low that I could +not hear the words, but I heard Bradley Rymer's startled reply: + +"In the library?" + +I had just time to get away into the farthest window before he entered +the room. It was almost dark now, and he peered about in search of me. +I moved from the window towards him. + +"Oh, you are there, Kelsey," he said, suavely. "We'll have a light. +It's so confoundedly dark that I can hardly see you." + +He rang a bell and a lamp was brought, which he took from the hands of +the servant and set down on the corner of his writing-table between +us. + +"How long have you been here?" he asked, and--I can't account for +it--he stood facing me in his dinner-jacket, with his usual pleasant, +friendly smile; but I suddenly became quite sure that he was +dangerous. Yes, that's the word--dangerous. + +"Just a minute or so," I answered, as indifferently as I could, and +then, with a strangely swift movement, he crossed the room again to +the fireplace and rang the bell. "Will you tell Miss Violet that Dr. +Kelsey is here?" he said to the parlourmaid, as soon as she appeared. +"You will find her in the next room." + +He came softly back and seated himself at the writing-table. + +"And why do you want to see me?" he asked, in a queer voice. + +I spoke about the memorial, and he answered at random. He was +listening, but he was not listening to me. In a sort of abstraction he +drew open a drawer in his writing-table on a level with his hand, and +every now and then he shut it, and every now and then he drew it open +again. + +I cannot hope to make you realise the uncanny feeling of discomfort +which crept over me. Most of us at this table, I imagine, have some +knowledge of photography and its processes. We have placed a gaslight +paper in the developing-dish, and seen the face of our portrait flash +out in a second on the white surface. I can never get accustomed to +it. I can never quite look upon it as not a miracle. Well, just that +miracle seemed to me to be happening now. Bradley Rymer suddenly +became visible to me, a rogue, a murderous rogue, and I watched with +an increasing fear that drawer in his table. I waited for his hand to +slip into it. + +But while I waited the door of the next room was opened, and Rymer and +I both ceased to talk. We pretended no more. We listened, and, +_although we heard voices, we could not distinguish words_. Both +Violet and the servant were speaking in their ordinary tones, and +Rymer and I were now on the far side of the room. An expression of +immense relief shone upon Bradley Rymer's face for a moment, and he +rose up with the smile and the friendliness I knew. + +"Will you stay to dinner?" he asked. "Do!" But I dared not. I should +have betrayed the trouble I was in. I made a lame excuse and left the +house. + +It was now quite dark, and in the cool night air I began, before I had +reached the lodge, to wonder whether I had not been misled altogether +by some hallucination. Bradley Rymer brought to my memory the tragic +case of his brother, and I asked myself for a moment if the long and +late hours of a country practice were unbalancing me. But I looked +back towards the house as I took the track over the turf, and the +scene through which I had passed returned too vividly to leave me in +any doubt. I could see Bradley Rymer clearly as he opened and shut the +drawer of his writing-table. I could hear his voice raised in bitter +reproach to Violet and the click of the typewriting machine. No, I had +not been dreaming. + +I had walked about a hundred yards down the slope when a sharp whistle +of two notes sounded a little way off upon my right, and almost before +I had stopped a man sprang from the grass at my very feet with a +guttural cry like a man awakened from a doze. Had I taken another step +I should have trodden upon him. The next moment the light from an +electric torch flashed upon my face, blinding me. I stepped back and +put up my hand to my eyes. But even while I raised my hand the button +of the torch was released and the light went out. I stood for a moment +in utter blackness, then dimly I became aware of some one moving away +from in front of me. + +"What do you want?" I cried. + +"Nothing," was the word spoken in answer. + +I should have put the fellow down for one of the gipsies who infest +those Downs in the summer, and thought no more about him, but for one +reason. He had spoken with a pronounced German accent. Besides, there +was the warning whistle, the flash of the torch. I could not resist +the conviction that Bradley Rymer's house was being watched. + +I walked on without quickening my pace, for perhaps a hundred yards. +Then I ran, and as fast as I could, down to the village. I did not +stop to reason things out. I was in a panic. Violet was in that house, +and it was being watched by strangers. We had one policeman in the +village, and he not the brainiest of men. I got out my bicycle and +rode fourteen miles, walking up the hills and coasting down them until +I reached the town of Reading. I rode to the house of the Chief +Constable, whom I happened to know. + +"Is Captain Bowyer in?" I asked of the servant. + +"No, sir; he's dining out to-night." + +"In the town?" + +"Yes, sir." + +I was white with dust and wet through with sweat. The girl looked me +over and said: + +"I have orders to telephone for him if he is wanted." + +"He is," I replied, and she went off to the telephone at once. + +I began to cool down in more ways than one while I waited. It seemed +to me very likely that I had come upon a fool's errand. After all, +what had I got to go upon but a German accent, a low, sharp whistle, +and an electric torch? I waited about half an hour before Bowyer came +in. He was a big man, with a strong face and a fair moustache, +capable, but not imaginative; and I began my story with a good deal of +diffidence. But I had not got far before his face became serious, +though he said not a word until I had done. + +"Bradley Rymer's house," he then remarked. "I know it." He went out +into the passage, and I heard his voice at the telephone. He came back +in a moment. + +"I have sent for some men," he said, "and a car. Will you wait here +while I change?" + +"Yes." + +I glanced at the clock. For now that he took the affair seriously all +my fears had returned. + +"What time did you leave the house?" he asked. + +"Nine." + +"And it's now eleven. Yes, we must hurry. Bradley Rymer's house! So +that's where they are." + +He hurried away. But before he had changed his clothes a great touring +motor-car whirred and stopped in front of the door. When we went out +on to the steps of the house there were four constables waiting. We +climbed into the car, and the hilly road to Streatley, which had taken +me so long and painful a time to traverse, now rose and fell beneath +the broad wheels like the waves of a sea. At Streatley we turned +uphill along the Aldworth Road, and felt the fresh wind of the +downland upon our faces. Then for the first time upon the journey I +spoke. + +"You know these men?" I asked of Captain Bowyer. + +"I know of them," he answered, and he bent forwards to me. "With all +these kings and emperors in London for the funeral, of course a great +many precautions were taken on the Continent. All the known Anarchists +were marked down; most of them on some excuse or another were +arrested. But three slipped through the net and reached England." + +"But they would be in London," I urged. + +"So you would think. We were warned to-day, however, that they had +been traced into Berkshire and there lost sight of." + +A hundred questions rose to my lips, but I did not put them. We were +all in the dark together. + +"That's the house," I said at length, and Captain Bowyer touched the +chauffeur on the shoulder. + +"We'll stop, then, by the road." + +Very quietly we got out of the car and crept up the hill. The night +was dark; only here and there in a chink of the clouds a star shone +feebly. Down in the village a dog barked and the wind whistled amongst +the grasses under our feet. We met no one. The lodge at the gates was +dark; we could not see the house itself, but a glare striking upon the +higher branches of the trees in the garden showed that a room was +brightly lit. + +"Do you know which room that is?" Bowyer asked of me in a whisper. + +"The library." + +We spread out then and made a circuit of the garden wall. There was no +one any longer watching, and we heard no whistle. + +"They have gone," I said to Bowyer. + +"Or they are inside," he replied, and as he spoke we heard feet +brushing upon the grass and a constable loomed up in front of us. + +"This way, sir," he whispered. "They are inside." + +We followed him round to the back of the garden. Just about the middle +of that back wall the men stood in a cluster. We joined them, and saw +that an upright ladder rose to the parapet. On the other side of the +wall a thick coppice of trees grew, dark and high. Without a word, one +after another we mounted the ladder and let ourselves down by the +trees into the garden. A few paces took us to the edge of the coppice, +and the house stood in the open before us. Standing in the shadow of +the branches, we looked up. The house was in complete darkness but for +the long row of library windows upon the first floor. In these, +however, the curtains were not drawn, and the light blazed out upon +the green foliage. There was no sound, no sign of any disorder. Once +more I began to think that I had brought Bowyer and his men here upon +a fool's errand. I said as much to him in a whisper. + +"But the ladder?" he answered, "my men found it there." And even while +he spoke there appeared at one of these windows a stranger. It was as +much as I could do in that awful moment to withhold a cry, I gripped +Bowyer's arm with so much violence that he could show me the bruises +of my fingers a week afterwards. But he stood like a rock now. + +"Is that Rymer?" + +"No. I have never seen him in my life before." + +He was a dark man, and his hair and moustache were turning grey. He +had the look of a foreigner, and he lounged at the window with as much +assurance as if he owned the place. Then he turned his face towards +the room with a smile, and, as if in obedience to an order, carelessly +drew down the blinds. + +They were in the house, then--these men who had slipped through the +net of the Continental police; more, they were masters in the house; +and there was no sound. They were in peaceful possession. My heart +sank within me when I thought of Violet Rymer and her father. What had +become of them? In what plight were they? + +Bowyer made a sign, and, stepping carefully on the turf border and +keeping within the shadow of the trees, we crept round to the back of +the house. One of the party ran swiftly and silently across a gravel +path to the house-wall and followed it for a little way. Then as +swiftly he came back. + +"Yes, there's a window open," he said. We crossed to it. It yawned +upon black emptiness. We listened; not a sound reached us. + +"What does it give on to?" asked Bowyer. + +"A passage. At the end of the passage there's a swing door. Beyond the +swing door the hall." + +We climbed in through the window. + +"There should be a mastiff in the hall," I said. + +"Oh!" and Bowyer came to a stop. "Do you think Rymer expected these +men?" he asked. I had begun to ask myself that question already. It +was clear the dog had not given any alarm. But we found out the reason +when we crept into the hall. He was lying dead upon the stone floor, +with a piece of meat at his side. + +"Quick!" whispered Bowyer, and I led the way up the great staircase. +At the head of it at last we heard voices, and stopped, holding our +breath. A few words spoken in a foreign accent detached themselves +from the general murmur. + +"Where is it? You won't say! Very well, then!" A muffled groan +followed the words, and once more the voice spoke. "Wait, Adolf! He +gives in. We shall know now," and as the voice continued, some one, it +was clear, between each question asked, answered with a sign, a shake +of the head, or a nod. "It is in the bookcase? Yes. Behind the books? +Good. There? No. To the right? Yes. Higher? Yes. On that shelf? Good. +Search well, Adolf!" And with that Bowyer burst into the room with his +men behind him. He held a revolver in his hand. + +"I shall shoot the first man who moves," he said; and no one did move. +They stood like wax figures moulded in an attitude for ever. Imagine, +if you can, the scene which confronted me! On the library ladder, with +a hand thrust behind the books on one of the highest shelves, was +mounted one of the three foreigners. A second--he whom we had seen at +the window--stood over a chair into which Bradley Rymer was strapped +with a gag over his mouth. The third supported Violet. She was +standing in the middle of the room, with her hands tied behind her and +a rope in a noose about her neck. The end of the rope had been passed +through a big ring in the ceiling which had once carried a lamp. I +sprang towards her, cast off the noose, and she fainted there and then +in my arms. + +At the back of the bookshelf we found a slim little book of brown +morocco with a broken lock. + + +At this point in Sir James Kelsey's story Dr. Murgatroyd leaned +forward and interrupted. + +"John Rymer's private case-book," he said. + +"Exactly," replied Kelsey, "and also Bradley Rymer's boom in Canadian +land." + +There was a quick stir about that table, and then a moment of +uncomfortable silence. At last one spoke the thought in the minds of +all. + +"Blackmail!" + +"Yes." + +There was hardly a man in the room who had not some record of a case +locked away in a private drawer which was worth a fortune of gold, and +each one began to think of the security of his locks. + +"But where do your foreign revolutionaries come in?" asked Murgatroyd, +and Kelsey took up his tale again. + +"Bowyer and I went through that brown book together in my house, after +the prisoners had been sent off. For a long time we could find no +explanation. But right at the end of the book there was a case which +puzzled me. A Mr. Johnson had entered Rymer's nursing-home on June +17th of the year before at five o'clock in the morning, a strange time +to arrive. But there it was, noted down with every other particular of +his case. Three days later Mr. Johnson was operated on for cancer of +the throat. The operation was remarkably successful, and the patient +left the home cured seven weeks later. I think it was the unusual time +of Mr. Johnson's arrival which first directed my suspicions; and the +more I thought of them the more credible they became. I had lighted a +fire in the sitting-room, for the morning had come, and it was chilly. +I said to Bowyer: + +"'Just wait a moment here. I keep a file of _The Times_,' and I went +upstairs, blessing the methodical instinct which had made me for so +long keep in due order this record of events. I brought down the file +of June of the year before, and, turning over the pages, I found under +the date of June 14th the official paragraph of which I was in search. +I put it under Bowyer's eyes. He read it through and sprang to his +feet with a cry. The paragraph ran like this. I can remember every +word of it. I am inventing a name for the country, that's all, instead +of giving you the real one: + +"'The Crown Prince of Galicia left the capital yesterday for his +annual visit to his shooting-box in the Tyrol, where he will remain +for two months. This news effectually dispels the rumours that His +Royal Highness's recent indisposition was due to a malignant growth in +the throat.' + +"Underneath this paragraph there was an editorial note: + +"'The importance of this news cannot be overrated. For by the +constitution of Galicia no one suffering from or tainted by any +malignant disease can ascend the throne.' + +"Identify now Rymer's Mr. Johnson with the Crown Prince of Galicia, +and not only Bradley Rymer's fortune but the attack upon his house by +the revolutionaries was explained, for whether they meant to use the +Brown Book for blackmail as Bradley Rymer had done, or to upset a +monarchy, it would be of an inestimable value to them. + +"'What are we to do?' asked Bowyer. + +"'What John Rymer's executors would have done if the book had not been +stolen,' I answered, balancing it above the fire. + +"He hesitated. The official mind said 'No.' Then he realised the +stupendous character of the secret. He burst through forms and rules. + +"'Yes, by Heaven,' he cried, 'destroy it!' And we sat there till the +last sheet blackened and curled up in the flames. + +"I had not a doubt as to what had happened. I took the half-truth +which the public knew and it fitted like a piece of a Chinese puzzle +with our discovery. John Rymer, assailed with a causeless fear of +penury, had consented for a huge fee to take the Crown Prince into his +home under the false name. Bradley Rymer had got wind of the +operation, had stolen the record of the case, and had the Galician +Crown and Government at his mercy. John Rymer's suicide followed +logically. Accused of bad faith, and already unbalanced, aware that a +deadly secret which he should have guarded with his life had escaped, +he had put the muzzle of a revolver into his mouth and blown his +brains out." + +"What became of the foreigners?" asked one of the guests, as Kelsey +finished. + +"They were kept under lock and key until the funeral was over. Then +they were sent out of the country." + +Kelsey rose from his chair. The hands of the clock pointed to eleven. +But before anyone else got up Dr. Murgatroyd asked a final question: + +"And what of Mr. Johnson?" + +Kelsey laughed. + +"I told you Rymer was a great surgeon. Mr. Johnson has been King of +Galicia, as we are calling it, for the past ten years." + + + + + + THE REFUGE + + + + + THE REFUGE + + +The basket of _petits fours_ had been removed; cigars and cigarettes +had been passed round; one or two of the half-dozen people gathered +about the small round table, rashly careless of a sleepless night, +were drinking coffee with their liqueurs; the conversation was +sprightly, at all events, if it was not witty, and laughter ran easily +in ripples; the little supper-party, in a word, was at its gayest when +Harry Caston suddenly pushed back his chair. Though the movement was +abrupt, it was not conspicuous; it did not interrupt the light +interchange of chaff and pleasantries for a moment. It was probably +not noticed, and certainly not understood by more than one in that +small company. The one, however, was a woman to whom Harry Gaston's +movements were a matter of much greater interest than he knew. Mrs. +Wordingham was sitting next to him, and she remarked quietly: + +"So you are not going on to the Mirlitons' dance, after all?" + +Harry Caston turned to her in surprise. + +"You're a witch," he replied. "I have only just made up my mind to go +home instead." + +"I know," said Mrs. Wordingham. + +"Then you oughtn't to," retorted Harry Caston carelessly. Mrs. +Wordingham flushed. + +"I wish I didn't," she answered in a low, submissive voice. She was +not naturally a submissive woman, and it was only in his ears that +this particular note was sounded. + +"I meant that you had no right to be able to estimate so accurately +the hidden feelings of your brother-man," he answered awkwardly, and +wrapping up his awkwardness in an elaboration of words. + +Harry Caston looked about the supper-room, with its walls of white and +gold, its clusters of bright faces, its flash of silver, its running +noise of merriment. His fingers twitched restlessly. + +"Yes, I am going," he said. "I shall leave London to-morrow. I have a +house." + +"I know that too--in the Isle of Wight." + +"Not so very far, after all, is it?" he said. + +"As far as Timbuctoo when you are there," replied Mrs. Wordingham. Her +great dark eyes rested wistfully upon his face; she leaned the least +little bit towards him. Harry Caston was silent for a moment. Then he +turned to her with a smile of apology. + +"You know me----" + +"Oh, don't I!" she cried in a low voice. "We shall see you no more +for--how many months?" + +Harry Caston did not answer. His memories were busy with an afternoon +of early summer in that same year, when, as his motor-car slid down a +long straight slope into a village of red-brick cottages, he had seen, +on the opposite incline, a row of tall stone-pines, and glowing +beneath their shade the warm brown roof of a small and ancient house. + +"Tell me about it," said Mrs. Wordingham, once more interpreting his +silence. + +"There was a bridge at the bottom of the hill--a bridge across the +neck of a creek, with an old flour mill and a tiny roof at one side of +it. Inland of the bridge was a reach of quiet water running back +towards the downs through woods and meadows. Already I seemed to have +dropped from the crest of the hill into another century. Beyond the +bridge the road curved upwards. I went up on my second speed between +the hedge of a field which sloped down to the creek upon the one side, +and a low brick wall topped by a bank of grass upon the other. The +incline of the hill brought my head suddenly above the bank, and I +looked straight across a smooth lawn broken by great trees on to the +front of a house. And I stopped my car, believe me, almost with a +gasp. There was no fence or hedge to impede my view. I had come at +last across the perfect house, and I sat in the car and stared and +stared at it, not at first with any conscious desire to possess it, +but simply taken by the sheer beauty of the thing, just as one may +gaze at a jewel." + +The lights went suddenly out in the supper-room, as a gentle warning +that time was up, and then were raised again. Harry Caston, however, +seemed unaware of any change. He was at the moment neither of that +party nor of that room. + +"It was a small house of the E shape, raised upon a low parapet and +clothed in ivy. The middle part, set back a few feet behind flowers, +had big flat windows; the gabled ends had smaller ones and more of +them. Oh, I can't describe to you what I saw! The house in detail? +Yes. But that would not give you an idea of it. The woodwork of the +windows was painted white, and, where they stood open to the sunlight +and the air, they showed you deep embrasures of black oak within." + +He stumbled on awkwardly, impelled to describe the house, yet aware +that his description left all unsaid. The tiles of the roof were +mellowed by centuries, so that shade ran into shade; and here they +were almost purple, and there brown with a glint of gold. Two great +chimney stacks stood high, not rising from the roof, but from the +sides of the house, flanking it like sentinels, and over these, too, +the ivy climbed. + +But what had taken Caston by the throat was the glamour of repose on +that old house. Birds flickered about the lawn, and though the windows +stood open, and the grass was emerald green and smooth, no smoke rose +from any of the chimney-tops. + +"I ran on for a few yards," he went on, "until I saw a road which +branched off to the right. I drove up it, and came to a gate with a +notice that the house was to be sold. I went in, and at the back of +the house, in a second queer little grass garden, screened by big +trees upon three sides and a low red-brick wall upon the fourth, over +which you could see the upper reach of the estuary and the woods on +the further hill, I found a garrulous old gardener." + +Mrs. Wordingham leaned forward. + +"And what story had he to tell?" + +"Oh, none!" answered Caston with a laugh. "There's no tragic +or romantic history connected with the house. Of course, it's +haunted--that goes without saying. There's hardly a bedroom window +where the ivy does not tap upon the panes. But for history! Four old +ladies took it for a summer, and remained in it for forty years. The +last one of them died two years ago. That's all the history the +gardener knew. But he showed me over the house, the quaintest place +you ever dreamed of--a small stone-flagged hall, little staircases +rising straight and enclosed in the walls, great polished oak beams, +rooms larger than you would expect, and a great one on the first +floor, occupying the middle of the house and looking out upon the +grass garden at the back, and over the sunk road to the creek in +front. Anyway"--and he broke off abruptly--"I bought the house, and +I've furnished it, and now----" + +"Now you are going to shut yourself up in it," said Mrs. Wordingham. + +The lights were turned out now for the last time. The party sat almost +in darkness. Caston turned towards his companion. He could just see +the soft gleam of her dark eyes. + +"For a little," he replied. "I have to, you know. I can't help it. I +enjoy all this. I like running about London as much as any man; I--I +am fond of my friends." The lady smiled with a little bitterness, and +Caston went on: "But the time comes when everything suddenly jars on +me--noise, company, everything--when I must get away with my books +into some refuge of my own, when I must take my bath of solitude +without anyone having a lien upon a single minute of my time. The +need has come on me to-night. The house is ready--waiting. I shall go +to-morrow." + +Mrs. Wordingham glanced at him with a quick anxiety. There was a +trifle of exasperation in his voice. He was suddenly on wires. + +"Yes, you look tired," she said. The head waiter approached the table, +and the party broke up and mounted the steps into the hall. Caston +handed Mrs. Wordingham into her carriage. + +"I shall see you when I come back?" said he, and Mrs. Wordingham +answered with a well-assumed carelessness: + +"I shall be in London in the autumn. Perhaps you will have some story +to tell me of your old house. Has it a name?" + +"Oh, yes--Hawk Hill," replied Caston. "But there's no story about that +house," he repeated, and the carriage rolled away. Later on, however, +he was inclined to doubt the accuracy of his statement, confidently +though he had made it. And a little later still he became again aware +of its truth. + +Here, at all events, is what occurred. Harry Caston idled through his +mornings over his books, sailed his sloop down the creek and out past +the black booms into the Solent in the afternoon, and came back to a +solitary dinner in the cool of the evening. Thus he passed a month. He +was not at all tired with his own company. The inevitable demand for +comrades and a trifle of gaiety had not yet been whispered to his +soul. The fret of his nerves ceased; London sank away into the mists. +Even the noise of the motor-horns in the hidden road beneath his lawn +merely reminded him pleasantly that he was free of that whirlpool and +of all who whirled in it. If he needed conversation, there were +the boatmen on the creek, with their interest in tides and shoals, +or the homely politics of the village. But Caston needed very +little. He drifted back, as it seemed to him, into the reposeful, +lavender-scented life of a century and a half ago. For though the +house was of the true E shape, and had its origin in Tudor times, it +was with that later period that Caston linked it in his thoughts. +Tudor times were stirring, and the recollection of them uncongenial to +Caston's mood. + +He had furnished the house to suit his mood, and the room which he +chiefly favoured--a room at the back, with a great bay window thrown +out upon the grass, and the floor just a step below the level of the +garden--had the very look of some old parlour where Mr. Hardcastle +might have sipped his port, and Kate stitched at her samplers. Here he +was sitting at ten o'clock in the evening, about a month after he had +left London, when the first of the incidents occurred. It was nothing +very startling in itself--merely the sound of some small thing falling +upon the boards of the floor and rolling into a corner--a crisp, sharp +sound, as though a pebble had dropped. + +Caston looked up from his book, at the first hardly curious. But in a +minute or so, it occurred to him that he was alone, and that he had +dropped nothing. Moreover, the sound had travelled from the other side +of the room. He was not as yet curious enough to rise from his chair, +and a round satin-wood table impeded his view. But he looked about the +room, and could see nothing from which an ornament could have dropped. +He turned back to his book, but his attention wandered. Once or twice +he looked sharply up, as though he expected to find another occupant +in the room. Finally he rose, and walking round the table, he saw what +seemed to be a big glass bead sparkling in the lamplight on the +dark-stained boards in a corner of the room. He picked the object up, +and found it to be not a large bead, but a small knob or handle of +cut-glass. He knew now whence it had come. + +Against the wall stood a small Louis Seize table in white and gold, +which he remembered to have picked up at a sale, with some other +furniture, at some old mansion, across the water, in the New Forest. +He had paid no particular attention to the table, had never even +troubled to look inside of it. It had the appearance of being a lady's +secretaire or something of the kind. But there were three shallow +drawers, one above the other, in the middle part of it--it was what is +inelegantly called a kidney table--and these drawers were fitted with +small glass knobs such as that which he held in his hand. + +Caston went over to the table, and saw that one of the knobs was +missing. He stooped to replace it, and at once stood erect again, with +the knob in his hand and a puzzled expression upon his face. He had +expected that the handles would fit on to projecting screws. But he +found that they were set into brass rings, and firmly set. This one +which he held seemed to have been wrenched out of its setting by some +violent jerk. He tried the drawers, but they were locked. There were +some papers and books spread upon the top. He removed them, and found +upon the white polish a half-erased crest. It was plain that the +middle part of the top was a lid and lifted up, but it was now locked +down. Caston did not replace the books and papers. He returned to his +chair. The servants probably had been curious. No doubt they had tried +to open the drawers, and in the attempt had loosened one of the +handles. + +Caston was content with the explanation--for that night. But the next +evening, at the same hour, the legs of the table rattled on the wooden +floor. He sprang up from his seat. The table was shaking. He stepped +quickly across to it, and then stopped with his heart leaping in +his breast. The books and papers had not been replaced, and he had +seen--it might be that his eyes had played him a trick, but he had +_seen_--a small slim hand suddenly withdrawn from the lid of the +table. The hand had been lying flat upon its palm--Caston had just +time enough to see that--and it was the left hand. + +"That's exactly the position," he said to himself, "in which one would +place the left hand to hold the table steady while one tried to force +the drawers open with one's right." + +He stood without a movement, but the hand did not appear again; and +then he found himself saying in a quiet voice of reassurance: + +"Can I help at all?" + +The sound of his own words stirred him abruptly to laughter. Common +sense reasserted itself; his eyes had played him a trick. Too much +tobacco, very likely, was the cause and origin of his romantic vision. +But, none the less, he remained standing quite still, with his eyes +fixed upon the table's polished lid, for some minutes; and when he +went back at last to his chair, from time to time he glanced abruptly +from his book, in the hope that he might once more detect the hand +upon the table. But he was disappointed. + +The next morning he saw the old gardener sweeping the leaves from the +front lawn, and he at once and rather eagerly went out to him. + +"I think you told me, Hayes, that this house is supposed to be +haunted," he said, with a laugh at the supposition. + +The gardener took off his hat and scratched his head reflectively. + +"Well, they do say, sir, as it is. But I've never seen anything +myself, nor can I rightly say that I've ever come across anyone who +has. A pack o' nonsense, I call it." + +"Very likely, Hayes," said Caston. "And what sort of a person is it +who's supposed to walk?" + +"An old man in grey stockings," replied the gardener. "That's what +I've heard. But what he's supposed to be doing I don't know, sir, any +more than I know why there should be so much fuss about his wearing +grey stockings. Live men do that, after all." + +"To be sure," replied Caston. "You may count them by dozens on +bicycles if you stand for an hour or two above the road here." And he +went back to the house. It was quite clear that his visitant of last +night, if there had been one, was not the native spectre of this small +old manor-house. + +"The slim white hand I saw," Caston argued, "belonged to no old man in +grey stockings or out of them. It was the hand of a quite young woman. +But if she doesn't belong to the house, if she isn't one of the +fixtures to be taken on by the incoming tenant--if, in a word, she's a +trespasser--how in the world did she find her way here?" + +Caston suddenly saw an answer to the question--a queer and a rather +attractive answer, especially to a man who had fed for a month on +solitude and had grown liable to fancies. He had all through this +lonely month been gradually washing from his body and his mind the +dust of his own times. He had sought to reproduce the quiet of an +older age, and in the seeking had perhaps done more than reproduce. +That was his thought. He had, perhaps, by ever so little, penetrated +the dark veil which hides from men all days but their own--just +enough, say, to catch a glimpse of a hand. He himself was becoming +more and more harmonious with his house; the cries of the outer world +hardly reached his ears in that little parlour which opened on to the +hidden garden. It seemed to him that other times, through some +thinning out of the thick curtain of his senses, were becoming actual +and real just to him. + +"The first month passed," he said to himself. "I was undisturbed; no +sign was made. I was still too near to what I had left behind--London +and the rest of it. But now I pass more and more over the threshold +into that other century. First of all, I was only aware of a movement, +a presence; then I was able to see--nothing much, it is true--only a +small hand. But tonight I may see her to whom the hand belongs. In a +week I may be admitted into her company." + +Thus he argued, pretending to himself the while that he was merely +playing with his fancy, pursuing it like a ball in a game, and ready +to let it fall and lie the moment that he was tired. But the sudden +hum of a motor-car upon his drive, and a joyous outcry of voices, soon +dispelled the pretence. A party of his friends invaded him, clamouring +for luncheon, and in his mind there sprang up a fear so strong that it +surprised him. They would thicken the thinning curtain between himself +and her whose hand had lain upon the table. They would drag him back +into his own century. The whole process of isolation would have to +begin again. The talk at luncheon was all of regattas and the tonnage +of yachts. Caston sat at the table with his fear increasing. His +visitors were friends he would have welcomed five weeks ago, and he +would have gaily taken his part in their light talk. Now it was every +moment on his lips to cry out: + +"Hold your tongues and go!" + +They went off at three o'clock, and a lady of the party wisely nodded +a dainty head at him as he stood upon the steps, and remarked: + +"You hated us visiting you, Mr. Caston. You have someone in that +house--someone you won't show to us." + +Caston coloured to the roots of his hair. + +The lady laughed. "There--I knew I was right! Let me guess who it can +be." + +Caston raised his head in a quick protest. + +"No, there is no one." He tried to laugh easily. "That's my trouble. +There is no one, I am afraid." + +They had driven his visitor away, without a doubt; and though he sat +very still in his arm-chair that night, careful as a hunter by no +abrupt movement to scare away his quarry, he sat undisturbed. He +waited until the light was grey and the birds singing upon the lawn. +He went to bed disappointed as a lover whose mistress had failed to +keep her tryst. + +On the next day he searched for and found the catalogue of the sale at +which he had bought the table. The sale had been held at a house +called Bylanes, some five miles from the Beaulieu river, and the +furniture was advertised as the property of Geoffrey Trimingham, Esq., +deceased, and sold by his young widow. Caston's memory was quickened +by these meagre details. He recollected stories which he had heard +during the three days of the sale. The Triminghams were a branch of +the old Norfolk family of that name, and had settled in the New Forest +so far back as the reign of the first George. Geoffrey Trimingham, +however, had delayed marriage until well sped in years, and then had +committed the common fault of marrying a young woman, who, with no +children and no traditions to detain her in a neighbourhood which she +considered gloomy, had, as soon as she was free, sold off house and +furniture--lock, stock, and barrel--so that she might retire to what +she considered the more elegant neighbourhood of Blandford Square. + +This was all very well, but it did not bring Harry Gaston very much +nearer to the identification of his visitor. She was a Trimingham, +probably, but even that was by no means certain; and to what +generation of Triminghams she belonged, he knew no more than he knew +her Christian name. He searched the house for the keys of the table, +but nowhere could he find them. He had never opened the drawers, he +had never raised the lid. It seemed to him that he must have bought +the table without the keys at all. + +He might have broken it open, of course, and from time to time, as the +evenings passed in an expectation which was not fulfilled, he was +tempted to take a chisel in his hand and set to work. But he resisted. +The table was not his. It was _hers_, and in her presence alone it +must be opened. + +Thus Caston passed a week, and then one evening there fell a shadow +across the open page of his book. He looked swiftly up. He saw nothing +but the empty room, and the flame of the lamp burned bright and +steady. She was here, then, and as the conviction grew within him to a +veritable exultation, he was aware of rustling of a woman's gown. The +sound came from behind him. He turned with a leap of his heart, and +saw her--saw her from the crown of her small head, with its thick +brown hair, to the hem of her dress--not a shadow, not a vague shape +dimly to be apprehended, but as actual as flesh and blood could be. +She was dressed in a gown of pale blue satin of an ancient mode, and +was slender as a child. Her face, too, was the face of one little more +than a child, though pain and trouble had ravaged it. + +She stood as though she had just stepped from the garden on to the +window-seat, and so to the floor, and in her dark eyes there was a +look of the direst urgency. She moved swiftly across the room to the +table, pulled at the glass handles, and sought to lift the lid, and +all in a feverish haste, with her young and troubled face twitching as +though she were at pains to check her tears. Caston watched her +eagerly. He noticed that once more her left hand was pressed flat +upon the lid, as she tried to open the drawer, and then a flash of +gold caught and held his eyes. Young though she was, she wore a +wedding-ring. He had barely noticed it, when she turned from the table +and came straight towards him. Caston rose from his chair. He heard +himself saying once more: + +"Can I help?" + +But this time he did not laugh upon the words. She stood before him +with so pitiful an appeal, her hands clutched together in front of +her, her face convulsed. He spoke with the deference due to those who +have greatly suffered. Then came to him a whisper in reply, so low +that he barely heard it--so low that perhaps he only imagined it. + +"Yes." + +Caston went across to the table, and, opening his knife, inserted it +under the lid. The girl stood at his side, a gleam of hope in her +eyes. Caston ran the blade of the knife along to the lock and turned +it, prising up the lid. There was a sound of the splitting of wood, +and the lock gave. Caston lifted the lid. It rose on hinges, and had +upon the under-side a bevelled mirror, and it disclosed, when open, a +fixed tray lined with blue velvet. The tray was empty. + +But now that the lid was raised in the centre of the table, the +side-pieces could be opened too. The girl opened the one at her hand. +Caston saw a well, lined, like the rest, with velvet, and filled with +the knick-knacks and belongings of a girl. She took them out +hurriedly, heaping them together on the tray--a walnut-wood housewife +shaped and shut like a large card-case, with scissors, thimble, +needle-case, tiny penknife, all complete--for she opened it, as she +opened everything in the haste and urgency of her search--a large +needle-case of ivory, a walnut-wood egg, which unscrewed and showed +within a reel with silk still wound upon it, and a little oval box +with a label on the top of it, and the royal arms. Caston read the +label: + + + STRINGER'S CANDY. + PREPARED AND SOLD ONLY BY THE PROPRIETOR, + R. STRINGER, + DRUGGIST TO THE KING. + + +The top fell from the little box, and a shower of shells rattled out +of it. Bags of beads followed, wash-leather bags carefully tied up, +and some of them filled with the minutest of beads. It made Caston's +eyes ache to think of anyone stringing them together. In the end the +well was emptied, and, with a gesture of despair, the girl slipped +round to the other side of Caston. She turned back the flap upon this +side. + +On the other side were the implements of work; here was the finished +product. She lifted out two small anti-macassars, completely made up +of tiny beads in crystal and turquoise colours, and worked in the most +intricate patterns. They were extraordinarily heavy, and must have +taken months in the making. Under these were still more beads, in +boxes and in bags and coiled in long strings. She heaped them out upon +the tray, and looked into the well. Her face flashed into relief. She +thrust her hands in; she drew out from the very bottom a faded bundle +of letters. She clasped them for a moment close against her heart, +then very swiftly, as though she feared to be stopped, she took them +over to the fireplace. + +A fire was burning in the grate, for the night was chilly. She dropped +the bundle into the flames, and stood there while it was consumed. +Caston saw the glare of the flames behind the paper light up here and +there a word or a phrase, and then the edges curled over and the +sparks ran across the sheets, and the letters changed to white ashes +and black flakes. When all was done, she sighed and turned to Caston +with a wistful smile of thanks. She moved back to the table, and with +a queer orderliness which seemed somehow in keeping with her looks and +manner, she replaced the beads, the little boxes, and the +paraphernalia of her work carefully in the wells, and shut the table +up. She turned again to Caston at the end. Just for a second she stood +before him, her face not happy, but cleared of its trouble, and with a +smile upon her lips. She stood, surely a living thing. Caston advanced +to her. "You will stay now!" he cried, and she was gone. + +This is the story as Harry Caston told it to Mrs. Wordingham when he +returned to London in the autumn. She ridiculed it gently and with a +trifle of anxiety, believing that solitude had bred delusions. + +"Thank you," said Harry Caston grimly, and sitting up very erect. Mrs. +Wordingham changed her note. + +"It's the most wonderful thing to have happened to you," she said. "I +should have been frightened out of my life. And you weren't?" + +Harry Gaston's face hardly relaxed. + +"You don't believe a word of it," he asserted sternly. + +"Of course I do," she replied soothingly, "and I quite see that, with +us nowhere near you, all your senses became refined, and you +penetrated behind the curtain. Yes, I see all that, Harry. But she +might, perhaps, have told you a little more, mightn't she? As a story, +it almost sounds unfinished." + +Harry Caston rose to his feet. + +"I tell you what you are doing," he said, standing over her--"you are +getting a little of your own back." + +"But such a very little, Harry," murmured Mrs. Wordingham; and Harry +Caston flung out of the room. + +He did not refer to the subject again for some little while. But in +the month of December, on one foggy afternoon, he arrived with a new +book under his arm. He put it down on the floor beside his chair +rather ostentatiously, as one inviting questions. Mrs. Wordingham was +serenely unaware of the book. + +"Where have you been, Harry?" she asked as she gave him a cup of tea. + +"In Norfolk--shooting," he said. + +"Many birds?" + +"So few that we did not go out on the second day. We motored to a +church instead--a very old church with a beautiful clerestory." + +Mrs. Wordingham affected an intense interest. + +"Old churches are wonderful," she said. + +"You care no more about them than I do," said Harry Gaston brutally. +"I am not going to tell you about the church." + +"Oh, aren't you?" said Mrs. Wordingham. + +"No. What I am going to tell you is this. The vicar is a friend of my +host, and happened to be in the church when we arrived. He showed us +the building himself, and then, taking us into the vestry, got out the +parish register. It dates back a good many years. Well, turning over +the leaves, I noticed quite carelessly an entry made by the vicar in +the year 1786. It was a note of a donation which he had made to the +parish as a thanksgiving for his recovery from a severe operation +which had been performed upon him in Norwich by a famous surgeon of +the day named Twiddy." + +"Yes?" said Mrs. Wordingham. + +"That little entry occupied my mind much more than the church," +continued Caston. "I wondered what the vicar must have felt as he +travelled into Norwich in those days of no chloroform, no antiseptics, +of sloughing wounds, and hospital fevers. Not much chance of _his_ +ever coming back again, eh? And then the revulsion when he did +recover--the return home to Frimley-next-the-Sea alive and well! It +must all have been pretty wonderful to the vicar in 1786, eh?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Wordingham submissively. + +"I couldn't get him out of my head and when I returned to London a +couple of days ago, I saw in a bookseller's this book." + +Caston picked the volume up from the floor. + +"It seems that Twiddy was no end of a swell with his knife, so some +one of his devoted descendants has had a life written of him, with all +his letters included. He kept up an extensive correspondence, as +people did in those days. He had a shrewd eye and a knack of telling a +story. There's one here which I wish you to read if you will. No, not +now--when I have gone. I have put a slip of paper in at the page. I +think it will interest you." + +Harry Caston went away. Mrs. Wordingham had her curtains closed and +her lamps lit. She drew her chair up to the fire, and she opened "The +Life and Letters of Mr. Edmund Twiddy, Surgeon, of Norwich," with a +shrug of the shoulders and a little grimace of discontent. But the +grimace soon left her face, and when her maid came with a warning that +she had accepted an invitation for that night to dinner, she found her +mistress with the book still open upon her knees, and her eyes staring +with a look of wonder into the fire. For this is what she had read in +"The Life and Letters of Mr. Edmund Twiddy." + +"I have lately had a curious case under my charge, which has given me +more trouble than I care to confess. For sentiment is no part of the +equipment of a surgeon. It perplexed as well as troubled me, and some +clue to the explanation was only afforded me yesterday. Three months +ago my servant brought me word one evening that there was a lady very +urgent to see me, of the name of Mrs. Braxfield. I replied that my +work was done, and she must return at a more seasonable time. But +while I was giving this message the door was pushed open, and already +she stood in front of me. She was a slip of a girl, very pretty to +look at, and shrinking with alarm at her own audacity. Yet she held +her ground. + +"'Mrs. Braxfield,' I cried, 'you have no right to be married--you are +much too young! Young girls hooked at your age ought to be put back.' + +"'I am ill,' she said, and I nodded to the servant to leave us. + +"'Very well,' I said. 'What's the matter?' + +"'My throat,' said she. + +"I looked at it. There was trouble, but the trouble was not so very +serious, though I recognised that at some time treatment would be +advisable. + +"'There's no hurry at all about it,' I said, when my examination was +concluded, 'but, on the whole, you are right to get it looked to +soon.' I spoke roughly, for I shrank a little from having this tender +bit of a girl under my knife. 'Where's your husband?' + +"'He is in Spain,' she replied. + +"'Oh, indeed!' said I with some surprise. 'Well, when he returns, we +can talk about it.' + +"Mrs. Braxfield shook her head. + +"'No, I want it done now, while he's away,' she said, and nothing that +I could say would shake her from her purpose. I fathered her, and +bullied her, and lectured her, but she stood her ground. Her lips +trembled; she was afraid of me, and still more desperately afraid of +what waited for her. I could see her catch her breath and turn pale as +she thought upon the ordeal. But the same sort of timid courage which +had made her push into my room before I could refuse to see her, +sustained her now. I raised my hands at last in despair. + +"'Very well,' I said. 'Give me your husband's address. I will send a +letter to him, and if he consents, we will not wait for his return.' + +"'No,' she insisted stubbornly, 'I do not want him to know anything +about it. But if you will not attend me, no doubt someone else will.' + +"That was my trouble. The throat, look at it how you will, is a +ticklish affair. If she went away from me, Heaven knows into whose +hands she might fall. She had some money and was well dressed. Some +quack would have used his blundering knife. I could have shaken her +for her obstinacy, and would have, if I had had a hope that I would +shake it out of her. But she had screwed herself up to a pitch of +determination almost unbelievable in her. I could make her cry; I +could not make her draw back from her resolve. Nor, on the other hand, +could I allow her to go out of my house and hand herself over to be +butchered by any Tom, Dick, or Harry of a barber on the look-out for a +fat fee. So I gave in. + +"I got her a lodging in this town, and a woman to look after her, and +I did what needed to be done with as little pain as might be. + +"'You won't hurt me more than you can help,' she said in a sort of +childish wail. And then she shut her eyes and bore it with an +extraordinary fortitude; while, for my part, I never worked more +neatly or more quickly in my life, and in a few days she was quite +comfortable again. + +"But here she began to perplex me. For though the wound healed, and +there was no fever, she did not mend. She lay from day to day in an +increasing weakness, for which I could not account. I drew a chair up +to her bed one morning and took my seat. + +"'My dear,' I said, 'a good many of us are father-confessors as well +as doctors. We needs must be at times if our patients are to get well +and do us credit. You are lying here surely with a great trouble on +your mind. It shall be sacred to me, but I must know it if I am to +cure you.' + +"The girl looked at me with a poor little smile. + +"'No, there's nothing at all,' she said; and even while she spoke she +lifted her head from the pillow, and a light dawned in her eyes. + +"'Listen!' she said. + +"I heard a step coming nearer and nearer along the pavement outside. +As it grew louder, she raised herself upon her elbow, and when the +footsteps ceased outside the door, her whole soul leapt into her face. + +"'There will be a letter for me!' she cried, with a joyous clapping of +her hands. + +"The footsteps moved on and became fainter and more faint. The girl +remained propped up, with her eyes fixed upon the door. But no one +came. + +"'It has been left in the hall,' she said, turning wistfully to me. + +"'I will send it up if it is there,' said I. + +"I went downstairs rather heavy at heart. Here was the reason why she +did not mend. Here it was, and I saw no cure for it. There was no +letter in the hall, nor did I expect to find one. I sent for the woman +who waited upon her. 'Does she always expect a letter?' + +"The woman nodded. + +"'She knows the postman's step, sir, even when he is a long way off. +She singles it out from all other sounds. If he stops at the door, I +must run down upon the instant. But whether he stops or not, it is +always the same thing--there is no letter for her.' + +"I went upstairs again and into her room. The girl was lying upon her +side, with her faced pressed into the pillow, and crying. I patted her +shoulder. + +"'Come, Mrs. Braxfield, you must tell me what the trouble is, and we +will put our heads together and discover a remedy.' + +"But she drew away from me. 'There is nothing,' she repeated. 'I am +weak--that is all.' + +"I could get no more from her, and the next day I besought her to tell +me where I might find her husband. But upon that point, too, she was +silent. Then came a night, about a week later, when she fell into a +delirium, and I sat by her side and wrestled with death for her. I +fought hard with what resources I had, for there was no reason why she +should die but the extreme weakness into which she had fallen. + +"I sat by the bed, thinking that now at last I should learn the secret +which ravaged her. But there was no coherency in what she said. She +talked chiefly, I remember, of a work-table and of something hidden +there which she must destroy. She was continually, in her delirium, +searching its drawers, opening the lid and diving amongst her +embroidery and beads, as though she could not die and let the thing be +found. + +"So till the grey of the morning, when she came out of her delirium, +turned very wistfully to me with a feeble motion of her hands, and +said: + +"'You have been very good to me, doctor.' + +"She lay thus for a few moments, and then she cried in a low sad +voice: 'Oh, Arthur, Arthur!' And with that name upon her lips she +died. + +"She carried her secret with her, leaving me in the dark as to who she +was and how I was to lay my hands upon one of her relations. I buried +the poor girl here, and I advertised for her husband in _The London +Newsletter_, and I made inquiries of our ambassador in Spain. A week +ago Mr. Braxfield appeared at my house. He was a man of sixty years of +age, and his Christian name was Robert. + +"He gave me some few details about his marriage, and from them I am +able to put together the rest of the story. Mr. Braxfield is a Spanish +merchant of means, and the girl, a Trimingham of that branch of the +family which moved a long while since into Hampshire, was, no doubt, +pressed into marriage with him owing to the straitened position of her +parents. Mr. Braxfield and his young wife took up their residence in +Soho Square, in London, until, at the beginning of this year, business +called him once more to Spain for some months. + +"His wife thereupon elected to return to her home, and there Mr. +Braxfield believed her to be, until chance threw one of my +advertisements in his way. Her own parents, for their part, understood +that she had returned to her house in Soho Square. To me, then, the +story is clear. Having married without love, she had given her heart +to someone, probably after her return to her own home--someone called +Arthur. Whether he had treated her ill, I cannot say. But I take it +that he had grown cold, and she had looked upon this trouble with her +throat as her opportunity to hold him. The risk, the suffering--these +things, one can imagine her believing, must make their appeal. She had +pretended to return to London. She had travelled, instead, to Norwich, +letting him and him alone know what she was about. The great +experiment failed. She looked for some letter; no letter came. But had +letters passed? Are these letters locked up amongst the embroidery and +the beads in that work-table, I wonder? Let us hope that, if they are, +they trouble her no longer." + + + + + + PEIFFER + + + + + PEIFFER + + +For a moment I was surprised to see the stout and rubicund Slingsby in +Lisbon. He was drinking a vermouth and seltzer at five o'clock in the +afternoon at a café close to the big hotel. But at that time Portugal +was still a neutral country and a happy hunting ground for a good many +thousand Germans. Slingsby was lolling in his chair with such +exceeding indolence that I could not doubt his business was pressing +and serious. I accordingly passed him by as if I had never seen him in +my life before. But he called out to me. So I took a seat at his +table. + +Of what we talked about I have not the least recollection, for my eyes +were quite captivated by a strange being who sat alone fairly close to +Slingsby, at one side and a little behind him. This was a man of +middle age, with reddish hair, a red, square, inflamed face and a +bristly moustache. He was dressed in a dirty suit of grey flannel; +he wore a battered Panama pressed down upon his head; he carried +pince-nez on the bridge of his nose, and he sat with a big bock of +German beer In front of him. But I never saw him touch the beer. He +sat in a studied attitude of ferocity, his elbow on the table, his +chin propped on the palm of his hand, his head pushed aggressively +forward, and he glared at Slingsby through his glasses with the fixed +stare of hatred and fury which a master workman in wax might give to a +figure in a Chamber of Horrors. Indeed, it seemed to me that he must +have rehearsed his bearing in some such quarter, for there was nothing +natural or convinced in him from the brim of his Panama to the black +patent leather tips of his white canvas shoes. + +I touched Slingsby on the arm. + +"Who is that man, and what have you done to him?" + +Slingsby looked round unconcernedly. + +"Oh, that's only Peiffer," he replied. "Peiffer making frightfulness." + +"Peiffer?" + +The name was quite strange to me. + +"Yes. Don't you know him? He's a product of 1914," and Slingsby leaned +towards me a little. "Peiffer is an officer in the German Navy. You +would hardly guess it, but he is. Now that their country is at war, +officers in the German Navy have a marked amount of spare time which +they never had before. So Peiffer went to a wonderful Government +school in Hamburg, where in twenty lessons they teach the gentle art +of espionage, a sort of Berlitz school. Peiffer ate his dinners and +got his degrees, so to speak, and now he's at Lisbon putting obi on +me." + +"It seems rather infantile, and must be annoying," I said; but +Slingsby would only accept half the statement. "Infantile, yes. +Annoying, not at all. For so long as Peiffer is near me, being +frightful, I know he's not up to mischief." + +"Mischief!" I cried. "That fellow? What mischief can he do?" + +Slingsby viciously crushed the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray. + +"A deuce of a lot, my friend. Don't make any mistake. Peiffer's +methods are infantile and barbaric, but he has a low and fertile +cunning in the matter of ideas. I know. I have had some." + +And Slingsby was to have more, very much more: in the shape of a great +many sleepless nights, during which he wrestled with a dreadful +uncertainty to get behind that square red face and those shining +pince-nez, and reach the dark places of Peiffer's mind. + +The first faint wisp of cloud began to show six weeks later, when +Slingsby happened to be in Spain. + +"Something's up," he said, scratching his head. "But I'm hanged if I +can guess what it is. See what you can make of it"; and here is the +story which he told. + +Three Germans dressed in the black velvet corduroy, the white +stockings and the rope-soled white shoes of the Spanish peasant, +arrived suddenly in the town of Cartagena, and put up at an inn in a +side-street near the harbour. Cartagena, for all that it is one of the +chief naval ports of Spain, is a small place, and the life of it ebbs +and flows in one narrow street, the Calle Mayor; so that very little +can happen which is not immediately known and discussed. The arrival +of the three mysterious Germans provoked, consequently, a deal of +gossip and curiosity, and the curiosity was increased when the German +Consul sitting in front of the Casino loudly professed complete +ignorance of these very doubtful compatriots of his, and an exceeding +great contempt for them. The next morning, however, brought a new +development. The three Germans complained publicly to the Alcalde. +They had walked through Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia in search of +work, and everywhere they had been pestered and shadowed by the +police. + +"Our Consul will do nothing for us," they protested indignantly. "He +will not receive us, nor will any German in Cartagena. We are poor +people." And having protested, they disappeared in the night. + +But a few days later the three had emerged again at Almeria, and at a +mean café in one of the narrow, blue-washed Moorish streets of the old +town. Peiffer was identified as one of the three--not the Peiffer who +had practised frightfulness in Lisbon, but a new and wonderful +Peiffer, who inveighed against the shamelessness of German officials +on the coasts of Spain. At Almeria, in fact, Peiffer made a scene at +the German Vice-Consulate, and, having been handed over to the police, +was fined and threatened with imprisonment. At this point the story +ended. + +"What do you make of it?" asked Slingsby. + +"First, that Peiffer is working south; and, secondly, that he is +quarrelling with his own officials." + +"Yes, but quarrelling with marked publicity," said Slingsby. "That, I +think we shall find, is the point of real importance. Peiffer's +methods are not merely infantile; they are elaborate. He is working +down South. I think that I will go to Gibraltar. I have always wished +to see it." + +Whether Slingsby was speaking the truth, I had not an idea. But he +went to Gibraltar, and there an astonishing thing happened to him. He +received a letter, and the letter came from Peiffer. Peiffer was at +Algeciras, just across the bay in Spain, and he wanted an interview. +He wrote for it with the most brazen impertinence. + +"I cannot, owing to this with-wisdom-so-easily-to-have-been-avoided +war, come myself to Gibraltar, but I will remain at your disposition +here." + +"_That_," said Slingsby, "from the man who was making frightfulness at +me a few weeks ago, is a proof of some nerve. We will go and see +Peiffer. We will stay at Algeciras from Saturday to Monday, and we +will hear what he has to say." + +A polite note was accordingly dispatched, and on Sunday morning +Peiffer, decently clothed in a suit of serge, was shown into +Slingsby's private sitting-room. He plunged at once into the story of +his wanderings. We listened to it without a sign that we knew anything +about it. + +"So?" from time to time said Slingsby, with inflections of increasing +surprise, but that was all. Then Peiffer went on to his grievances. + +"Perhaps you have heard how I was treated by the Consuls?" he +interrupted himself to ask suddenly. + +"No," Slingsby replied calmly. "Continue!" + +Peiffer wiped his forehead and his glasses. We were each one, in his +way, all working for our respective countries. The work was +honourable. But there were limits to endurance. All his fatigue and +perils went for nothing in the eyes of comfortable officials sure of +their salary. He had been fined; he had been threatened with +imprisonment. It was _unverschämt_ the way he had been treated. + +"So?" said Slingsby firmly. There are fine inflections by which that +simple word may be made to express most of the emotions. Slingsby's +"So?" expressed a passionate agreement with the downtrodden Peiffer. + +"Flesh and blood can stand it no longer," cried Peiffer, "and my heart +is flesh. No, I have had enough." + +Throughout the whole violent tirade, in his eyes, in his voice, in his +gestures, there ran an eager, wistful plea that we should take him at +his face value and believe every word he said. + +"So I came to you," he said at last, slapping his knee and throwing +out his hand afterwards like a man who has taken a mighty resolution. +"Yes. I have no money, nothing. And they will give me none. It is +_unverschämt_. So," and he screwed up his little eyes and wagged a +podgy forefinger--"so the service I had begun for my Government I will +now finish for you." + +Slingsby examined the carpet curiously. + +"Well, there are possibly some shillings to be had if the service is +good enough. I do not know. But I cannot deal in the dark. What sort +of a service is it?" + +"Ah!" + +Peiffer hitched his chair nearer. + +"It is a question of rifles--rifles for over there," and, looking out +through the window, he nodded towards Gibel Musa and the coast of +Morocco. + +Slingsby did not so much as flinch. I almost groaned aloud. We were to +be treated to the stock legend of the ports, the new edition of the +Spanish prisoner story. I, the mere tourist in search of health, could +have gone on with Peiffer's story myself, even to the exact number of +the rifles. + +"It was a great plan," Peiffer continued. "Fifty thousand rifles, no +less." There always were fifty-thousand rifles. "They are buried--near +the sea." They always were buried either near the sea or on the +frontier of Portugal. "With ammunition. They are to be landed outside +Melilla, where I have been about this very affair, and distributed +amongst the Moors in the unsubdued country on the edge of the French +zone." + +"So?" exclaimed Slingsby with the most admirable imitation of +consternation. + +"Yes, but you need not fear. You shall have the rifles--when I know +exactly where they are buried." + +"Ah!" said Slingsby. + +He had listened to the familiar rigmarole, certain that behind it +there was something real and sinister which he did not know--something +which he was desperately anxious to find out. + +"Then you do not know where they are buried?" + +"No, but I shall know if--I am allowed to go into Gibraltar. Yes, +there is someone there. I must put myself into relations with him. +Then I shall know, and so shall you." + +So here was some part of the truth, at all events. Peiffer wanted to +get into Gibraltar. His disappearance from Lisbon, his reappearance in +corduroys, his quarrelsome progress down the east coast, his letter to +Slingsby, and his story, were all just the items of an elaborate piece +of machinery invented to open the gates of that fortress to him. +Slingsby's only movement was to take his cigarette-case lazily from +his pocket. + +"But why in the world," he asked, "can't you get your man in Gibraltar +to come out here and see you?" + +Peiffer shook his head. + +"He would not come. He has been told to expect me, and I shall give +him certain tokens from which he can guess my trustworthiness. If I +write to him, 'Come to me,' he will say 'This is a trap.'" + +Slingsby raised another objection: + +"But I shouldn't think that you can expect the authorities to give you +a safe conduct into Gibraltar upon your story." + +Peiffer swept that argument aside with a contemptuous wave of his +hand. + +"I have a Danish passport. See!" and he took the document from his +breast pocket. It was complete, to his photograph. + +"Yes, you can certainly come in on that," said Slingsby. He reflected +for a moment before he added: "I have no power, of course. But I have +some friends. I think you may reasonably reckon that you won't be +molested." + +I saw Peiffer's eyes glitter behind his glasses. + +"But there's a condition," Slingsby continued sharply. "You must +not leave Gibraltar without coming personally to me and giving me +twenty-four hours' notice." + +Peiffer was all smiles and agreement. + +"But of course. We shall have matters to talk over--terms to arrange. +I must see you." + +"Exactly. Cross by the nine-fifty steamer tomorrow morning. Is that +understood?" + +"Yes, sir." And suddenly Peiffer stood up and actually saluted, as +though he had now taken service under Slingsby's command. + +The unexpected movement almost made me vomit. Slingsby himself moved +quickly away, and his face lost for a second the mask of impassivity. +He stood at the window and looked across the water to the city of +Gibraltar. + + +Slingsby had been wounded in the early days of the war, and ever since +he had been greatly troubled because he was not still in the trenches +in Flanders. The casualty lists filled him with shame and discontent. +So many of his friends, the men who had trained and marched with him, +were laying down their gallant lives. He should have been with them. +But during the last few days a new knowledge and inspiration had come +to him. Gibraltar! A tedious, little, unlovely town of yellow houses +and coal sheds, with an undesirable climate. Yes. But above it was the +rock, the heart of a thousand memories and traditions which made it +beautiful. He looked at it now with its steep wooded slopes, scarred +by roads and catchments and the emplacements of guns. How much of +England was recorded there! To how many British sailing on great ships +from far dominions this huge buttress towering to its needle-ridge was +the first outpost of the homeland! And for the moment he seemed to be +its particular guardian, the ear which must listen night and day lest +harm come to it. Harm the Rock, and all the Empire, built with such +proud and arduous labour, would stagger under the blow, from St. Kilda +to distant Lyttelton. He looked across the water and imagined +Gibraltar as it looked at night, its houselights twinkling like a +crowded zone of stars, and its great search-beams turning the ships in +the harbour and the stone of the moles into gleaming silver, and +travelling far over the dark waters. No harm must come to Gibraltar. +His honour was all bound up in that. This was his service, and as he +thought upon it he was filled with a cold fury against the traitor who +thought it so easy to make him fail. But every hint of his anger had +passed from his face as he turned back into the room. + +"If you bring me good information, why, we can do business," he said; +and Peiffer went away. + +I was extremely irritated by the whole interview, and could hardly +wait for the door to close. + +"What knocks me over," I cried, "is the impertinence of the man. Does +he really think that any old yarn like the fifty thousand rifles is +going to deceive you?" + +Slingsby lit a cigarette. + +"Peiffer's true to type, that's all," he answered imperturbably. "They +are vain, and vanity makes them think that you will at once believe +what they want you to believe. So their deceits are a little crude." +Then a smile broke over his face, and to some tune with which I was +unfamiliar he sang softly: "But he's coming to Gibraltar in the +morning." + +"You think he will?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"And," I added doubtfully--it was not my business to criticise--"on +conditions he can walk out again?" + +Slingsby's smile became a broad grin. + +"His business in Gibraltar, my friend, is not with me. He will not +want to meet us any more; as soon as he has done what he came for he +will go--or try to go. He thinks we are fools, you see." + +And in the end it seemed almost as though Peiffer was justified of his +belief. He crossed the next morning. He went to a hotel of the second +class; he slept in the hotel, and next morning he vanished. Suddenly +there was no more Peiffer. Peiffer was not. For six hours Peiffer was +not; and then at half-past five in the afternoon the telephone bell +rang in an office where Slingsby was waiting. He rushed to the +instrument. + +"Who is it?" he cried, and I saw a wave of relief surge into his face. +Peiffer had been caught outside the gates and within a hundred yards +of the neutral zone. He had strolled out in the thick of the dockyard +workmen going home to Linea in Spain. + +"Search him and bring him up here at once," said Slingsby, and he +dropped into his chair and wiped his forehead. "Phew! Thirty seconds +more and he might have snapped his fingers at us." He turned to me. "I +shall want a prisoner's escort here in half an hour." + +I went about that business and returned in time to see Slingsby giving +an admirable imitation of a Prussian police official. + +"So, Peiffer," he cried sternly, "you broke your word. Do not deny it. +It will be useless." + +The habit of a lifetime asserted itself in Peiffer. He quailed before +authority when authority began to bully. + +"I did not know I was outside the walls," he faltered. "I was taking a +walk. No one stopped me." + +"So!" Slingsby snorted. "And these, Peiffer--what have you to say of +these?" + +There were four separate passports which had been found in Peiffer's +pockets. He could be a Dane of Esbjerg, a Swede of Stockholm, a +Norwegian of Christiania, or a Dutchman from Amsterdam. All four +nationalities were open to Peiffer to select from. + +"They provide you with these, no doubt, in your school at Hamburg," +and Slingsby paused to collect his best German. "You are a prisoner of +war. _Das ist genug_," he cried, and Peiffer climbed to the internment +camp. + +So far so good. Slingsby had annexed Peiffer, but more important than +Peiffer was Peiffer's little plot, and that he had not got. Nor did +the most careful inquiry disclose what Peiffer had done and where he +had been during the time when he was not. For six hours Peiffer had +been loose in Gibraltar, and Slingsby began to get troubled. He tried +to assume the mentality of Peiffer, and so reach his intention, but +that did not help. He got out all the reports in which Peiffer's name +was mentioned and read them over again. + +I saw him sit back in his chair and remain looking straight in front +of him. + +"Yes," he said thoughtfully, and he turned over the report to me, +pointing to a passage. It was written some months before, at Melilla, +on the African side of the Mediterranean, and it ran like this: + + +"Peiffer frequents the low houses and cafés, where he spends a good +deal of money and sometimes gets drunk. When drunk he gets very +arrogant, and has been known to boast that he has been three times in +Bordeaux since the war began, and, thanks to his passports, can travel +as easily as if the world were at peace. On such occasions he +expresses the utmost contempt for neutral nations. I myself have heard +him burst out: 'Wait until we have settled with our enemies. Then we +will deal properly with the neutral nations. They shall explain to us +on their knees. Meanwhile,' and he thumped the table, making the +glasses rattle, 'let them keep quiet and hold their tongues. We shall +do what we like in neutral countries.'" + +I read the passage. + +"Do you see that last sentence? 'We shall do what we like in neutral +countries.' No man ever spoke the mind of his nation better than +Peiffer did that night in a squalid café in Melilla." + +Slingsby looked out over the harbour to where the sun was setting on +the sierras. He would have given an arm to be sure of what Peiffer had +set on foot behind those hills. + +"I wonder," he said uneasily, and from that day he began to sleep +badly. + +Then came another and a most disquieting phase of the affair. Peiffer +began to write letters to Slingsby. He was not comfortable. He was not +being treated as an officer should be. He had no amusements, and his +food was too plain. Moreover, there were Germans and Austrians up in +the camp who turned up their noses at him because their birth was +better than his. + +"You see what these letters mean?" said Slingsby. "Peiffer wants to be +sent away from the Rock." + +"You are reading your own ideas into them," I replied. + +But Slingsby was right. Each letter under its simple and foolish +excuses was a prayer for translation to a less dangerous place. For as +the days passed and no answer was vouchsafed, the prayer became a real +cry of fear. + +"I claim to be sent to England without any delay. I must be sent," he +wrote frankly and frantically. + +Slingsby set his teeth with a grim satisfaction. + +"No, my friend, you shall stay while the danger lasts. If it's a year, +if you are alone in the camp, still you shall stay. The horrors you +have planned you shall share with every man, woman and child in the +town." + +We were in this horrible and strange predicament. The whole colony was +menaced, and from the Lines to Europa Point only two men knew of the +peril. Of those two, one, in an office down by the harbour, +ceaselessly and vainly, with a dreadful anxiety, asked "When?" The +other, the prisoner, knew the very hour and minute of the catastrophe, +and waited for it with the sinking fear of a criminal awaiting the +fixed moment of his execution. + +Thus another week passed. + +Slingsby became a thing of broken nerves. If you shut the door noisily +he cursed; if you came in noiselessly he cursed yet louder, and one +evening he reached the stage when the sunset gun made him jump. + +"That's enough," I said sternly. "To-day is Saturday. To-morrow we +borrow the car"--there is only one worth talking about on the +Rock--"and we drive out." + +"I can't do it," he cried. + +I continued: + +"We will lunch somewhere by the road, and we will go on to the country +house of the Claytons, who will give us tea. Then in the afternoon we +will return." + +Slingsby hesitated. It is curious to remember on how small a matter so +much depended. I believe he would have refused, but at that moment the +sunset gun went off and he jumped out of his chair. + +"Yes, I am fairly rocky," he admitted. "I will take a day off." + +I borrowed the car, and we set off and lunched according to our +programme. It was perhaps half an hour afterwards when we were going +slowly over a remarkably bad road. A powerful car, driven at a furious +pace, rushed round a corner towards us, swayed, lurched, and swept +past us with a couple of inches to spare, whilst a young man seated at +the wheel shouted a greeting and waved his hand. + +"Who the dickens was that?" I asked. + +"I know," replied Slingsby. "It's Morano. He's a count, and will be a +marquis and no end of a swell if he doesn't get killed motoring. +Which, after all, seems likely." + +I thought no more of the man until his name cropped up whilst we were +sitting at tea on the Claytons' veranda. + +"We passed Morano," said Slingsby. And Mrs. Clayton said with some +pride--she was a pretty, kindly woman, but she rather affected the +Spanish nobility: + +"He lunched with us to-day. You know he is staying in Gibraltar." + +"Yes, I know that," said Slingsby. "For I met him a little time ago. +He wanted to know if there was a good Government launch for sale." + +Mrs. Clayton raised her eyebrows in surprise. + +"A launch? Surely you are wrong. He is devoting himself to aviation." + +"Is he?" said Slingsby, and a curious look flickered for a moment over +his face. + +We left the house half an hour afterwards, and as soon as we were out +of sight of it Slingsby opened his hand. He was holding a visiting +card. + +"I stole this off the hall table," he said. "Mrs. Clayton will never +forgive me. Just look at it." + +His face had become extraordinarily grave. The card was Morano's, and +it was engraved after the Spanish custom. In Spain, when a woman +marries she does not lose her name. She may be in appearance more +subject to her husband than the women of other countries, though you +will find many good judges to tell you that women rule Spain. In any +case her name is not lost in that of her husband; the children will +bear it as well as their father's, and will have it printed on their +cards. Thus, Mr. Jones will call on you, but on the card he leaves he +will be styled: + + + Mr. Jones and Robinson, + + +if Robinson happens to be his mother's name, and if you are scrupulous +in your etiquette you will so address him. + +Now, on the card which Slingsby had stolen, the Count Morano was +described: + + + MORANO Y GOLTZ + + +"I see," I replied. "Morano had a German mother." + +I was interested. There might be nothing in it, of course. A noble of +Spain might have a German mother and still not intrigue for the +Germans against the owners of Gibraltar. But no sane man would take a +bet about it. + +"The point is," said Slingsby, "I am pretty sure that is not the card +which he sent in to me when he came to ask about a launch. We will go +straight to the office and make sure." + +By the time we got there we were both somewhat excited, and we +searched feverishly in the drawers of Slingsby's writing-table. + +"I shouldn't be such an ass as to throw it away," he said, turning +over his letters. "No! Here it is!" and a sharp exclamation burst from +his lips. + +"Look!" + +He laid the card he had stolen side by side with the card which he had +just found, and between the two there was a difference--to both of us +a veritable world of difference. For from the second card the "y +Goltz," the evidence that Morano was half-German, had disappeared. + +"And it's not engraved," said Slingsby, bending down over the table. +"It's just printed--printed in order to mislead us." + +Slingsby sat down in his chair. A great hope was bringing the life +back to his tired face, but he would not give the reins to his hope. + +"Let us go slow," he said, warned by the experience of a hundred +disappointments. "Let us see how it works out. Morano comes to +Gibraltar and makes a prolonged stay in a hotel. Not being a fool, he +is aware that I know who is in Gibraltar and who is not. Therefore he +visits me with a plausible excuse for being in Gibraltar. But he takes +the precaution to have this card specially printed. Why, if he is +playing straight? He pretends he wants a launch, but he is really +devoting himself to aviation. Is it possible that the Count Morano, +not forgetting Goltz, knows exactly how the good Peiffer spent the six +hours we can't account for, and what his little plan is?" + +I sprang up. It did seem that Slingsby was getting at last to the +heart of Peiffer's secret. + +"We will now take steps," said Slingsby, and telegrams began to fly +over the wires. In three days' time the answers trickled in. + +An agent of Morano's had bought a German aeroplane in Lisbon. A German +aviator was actually at the hotel there. Slingsby struck the table +with his fist. + +"What a fool I am!" he cried. "Give me a newspaper." + +I handed him one of that morning's date. Slingsby turned it feverishly +over, searching down the columns of the provincial news until he came +to the heading "Portugal." + +"Here it is!" he cried, and he read aloud. "'The great feature of the +Festival week this year will be, of course, the aviation race from +Villa Real to Seville. Amongst those who have entered machines is the +Count Morano y Goltz.'" + +He leaned back and lit a cigarette. + +"We have got it! Morano's machine, driven by the German aviator, rises +from the aerodrome at Villa Real in Portugal with the others, heads +for Seville, drops behind, turns and makes a bee-line for the Rock, +Peiffer having already arranged with Morano for signals to be made +where bombs should be dropped. When is the race to be?" + +I took the newspaper. + +"Ten days from now." + +"Good!" + +Once more the telegrams began to fly. A week later Slingsby told me +the result. + +"Owing to unforeseen difficulties, the Festival committee at Villa +Real has reorganised its arrangements, and there will be no aviation +race. Oh, they'll do what they like in neutral countries, will they? +But Peiffer shan't know," he added, with a grin. "Peiffer shall eat of +his own frightfulness." + + + + + + THE EBONY BOX + + + + + THE EBONY BOX + + +"No, no," said Colonel von Altrock, abruptly. "It is not always true." + +The conversation died away at once, and everyone about that dinner +table in the Rue St. Florentin looked at him expectantly. He played +nervously with the stem of his wineglass for a few moments, as though +the complete silence distressed him. Then he resumed with a more +diffident air: + +"War no doubt inspires noble actions and brings out great qualities in +men from whom you expected nothing. But there is another side to it +which becomes apparent, not at once, but after a few months of +campaigning. Your nerves get over-strained, fatigue and danger tell +their tale. You lose your manners, sometimes you degenerate into a +brute. I happen to know. Thirty years have passed since the siege of +Paris, yet even to-day there is no part of my life which I regret so +much as the hours between eleven and twelve o'clock of Christmas night +in the year 'Seventy. I will tell you about it if you like, although +the story may make us late for the opera." + +The opera to be played that evening was "Faust," which most had heard, +and the rest could hear when they would. On the other hand Colonel von +Altrock was habitually a silent man. The offer which he made now he +was not likely to repeat. It was due, as his companions understood, to +the accident that this night was the first which he had spent in Paris +since the days of the great siege. + +"It will not matter if we are a little late," said his hostess, the +Baroness Hammerstein, and her guests agreed with her. + +"It is permitted to smoke?" asked the Colonel. For a moment the flame +of a match lit up and exaggerated the hollows and the lines upon his +lean, rugged face. Then, drawing his chair to the table, he told his +story. + +I was a lieutenant of the fifth company of the second battalion of the +103rd Regiment, which belonged to the 23rd Infantry Division. It is as +well to be exact. That division was part of the 12th Army Corps under +the Crown Prince of Saxony, and in the month of December formed the +south-eastern segment of our circle about Paris. On Christmas night I +happened to be on duty at a forepost in advance of Noisy-le-Grand. The +centrigrade thermometer was down to twelve degrees below zero, and our +little wooden hut with the sloping roof, which served us at once as +kitchen, mess-room, and dormitory, seemed to us all a comfortable +shelter. Outside its door the country glimmered away into darkness, a +white silent plain of snow. Inside, the camp-bedsteads were neatly +ranged along the wall where the roof was lowest. A long table covered +with a white cloth--for we were luxurious on Christmas night--occupied +the middle of the floor. A huge fire blazed up the chimney, chairs of +any style, from a Louis Quatorze fauteuil borrowed from the _salon_ of +a château to the wooden bench of a farm-house, were placed about the +table, and in a corner stood a fine big barrel of Bavarian beer which +had arrived that morning as a Christmas present from my mother at +Leipzig. We were none of us anxious to turn out into the bitter cold, +I can tell you. But we were not colonels in those days, and while the +Hauptmann was proposing my mother's health the door was thrust open +and an orderly muffled up to the eyes stood on the threshold at the +salute. + +"The Herr Oberst wishes to see the Herr Lieutenant von Altrock," said +he, and before I had time even to grumble he turned on his heels and +marched away. + +I took down my great-coat, drew the cape over my head, and went out of +the hut. There was no wind, nor was the snow falling, but the cold was +terrible, and to me who had come straight from the noise of my +companions the night seemed unnaturally still. I plodded away through +the darkness. Behind me in the hut the Hauptmann struck up a song, and +the words came to me quite clearly and very plaintively across the +snow: + + + Ich hatte einen Kamaraden + Einen besseren findest du nicht. + + +I wondered whether in the morning, like that comrade, I should be a +man to be mentioned in the past tense. For more than once a sentinel +had been found frozen dead at his post, and I foresaw a long night's +work before me. My Colonel had acquired a habit of choosing me for +special services, and indeed to his kindness in this respect I owed my +commission. For you must understand that I was a student at Heidelberg +when the newsboys came running down the streets one evening in July +with the telegram that M. Benedetti had left Ems. I joined the army as +a volunteer, and I fought in the ranks at Gravelotte. However, I felt +no gratitude to my Colonel that Christmas night as I tramped up the +slope of Noisy-le-Grand to the château where he had his quarters. + +I found him sitting at a little table drawn close to the fire in a +bare, dimly-lighted room. A lamp stood on the table, and he was +peering at a crumpled scrap of paper and smoothing out its creases. So +engrossed was he, indeed, in his scrutiny that it was some minutes +before he raised his head and saw me waiting for his commands. + +"Lieutenant von Altrock," he said, "you must ride to Raincy." + +Raincy was only five miles distant, as the crow flies. Yes, but the +French had made a sortie on the 21st, they had pushed back our lines, +and they now held Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche between Raincy and +Noisy-le-Grand. I should have to make a circuit; my five miles became +ten. I did not like the prospect at all. I liked it still less when +the Colonel added: + +"You must be careful. More than one German soldier has of late been +killed upon that road. There are _francs-tireurs_ about, and you +_must_ reach Raincy." + +It was a verbal message which he gave me, and I was to deliver it in +person to the commandant of the battery at Raincy. It bore its fruit +upon the 27th, when the cross-fire from Raincy and Noisy-le-Grand +destroyed the new French fort upon Mount Avron in a snowstorm. + +"There is a horse ready for you at the stables," said the Colonel, and +with a nod he turned again to his scrap of paper. I saluted and walked +to the door. As my hand was on the knob he called me back. + +"What do you make of it?" he asked, holding the paper out to me. "It +was picked out of the Marne in a sealed wine-bottle." + +I took the paper, and saw that a single sentence was written upon it +in a round and laborious hand with the words mis-spelt. The meaning of +the sentence seemed simple enough. It was apparently a message from a +M. Bonnet to his son in the Mobiles at Paris, and it stated that the +big black sow had had a litter of fifteen. + +"What do you make of it?" repeated the Colonel. + +"Why, that M. Bonnet's black sow has farrowed fifteen," said I. + +I handed the paper back. The Colonel looked at it again, shrugged his +shoulders, and laughed. + +"Well, after all, perhaps it does mean no more than that," said he. + +But for the Colonel's suspicions I should not have given another +thought to that mis-spelt scrawl. M. Bonnet was probably some little +farmer engrossed in his pigs and cows, who thought that no message +could be more consoling to his son locked up in Paris than this great +news about the black sow. The Colonel's anxiety, however, fixed it for +awhile in my mind. + +The wildest rumours were flying about our camp at that time, as I +think will always happen when you have a large body of men living +under a great strain of cold and privation and peril. They perplexed +the seasoned officers and they were readily swallowed by the +youngsters, of whom I was one. Now, this scrap of paper happened to +fit in with the rumour which most of all exercised our imaginations. + +It was known that in spite of all our precautions news was continually +leaking into Paris which we did not think it good for the Parisians to +have. What we did think good for them--information, for instance, of +the defeat of the Army of the Loire--we ourselves sent in without +delay. But we ascertained from our prisoners that Paris was +enlightened with extraordinary rapidity upon other matters which we +wished to keep to ourselves. On that very Christmas Day they already +knew that General Faidherbe, at Pont Noyelles, had repulsed a portion +of our first army under General Manteuffel. How did they know? We were +not satisfied that pigeons and balloons completely explained the +mystery. No, we believed that the news passed somewhere through our +lines on the south-east of Paris. There was supposed to exist a +regular system like the underground road in the Southern States of +America during the slavery days. There the escaped slave was quickly +and secretly passed on from appointed house to appointed house, until +he reached freedom. Here it was news in cipher which was passed on and +on to a house close to our lines, whence, as occasion served, it was +carried into Paris. + +That was the rumour. There may have been truth in it, or it may have +been entirely false. But, at all events, it had just the necessary +element of fancy to appeal to the imagination of a very young man, and +as I walked to the stables and mounted the horse which the Colonel had +lent me, I kept wondering whether this message, so simple in +appearance, had travelled along that underground road and was covering +its last stage between the undiscovered château and Paris in the +sealed wine-bottle. I tried to make out what the black sow stood for +in the cipher, and whose identity was concealed under the pseudonym of +M. Bonnet. So I rode down the slope of Noisy-le-Grand. + +But at the bottom of the slope these speculations passed entirely from +my mind. In front, hidden away in the darkness, lay the dangers of +Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche. German soldiers had ridden along this +path and had not returned; the _francs-tireurs_ were abroad. Yet I +must reach Raincy. Moreover, in my own mind, I was equally convinced +that I must return. I saw the little beds against the wall of the hut +under the sloping roof. I rode warily, determined to sleep in one of +them that night, determined to keep my life if it could be kept. I +believe I should have pistolled my dearest friend without a tinge of +remorse had he tried to delay me for a second. Three months of +campaigning, in a word, had told their tale. + +I crossed the Marne and turned off the road into a forest path. Ville +Evrart with its French garrison lay now upon my left behind the screen +of trees. Fortunately there was no moon that night, and a mist hung in +the air. The snow, too, deadened the sound of my horse's hoofs. But I +rode, nevertheless, very gently and with every sense alert. Each +moment I expected the challenge of a sentinel in French. From any of +the bushes which I passed I might suddenly see the spurt of flame from +a _franc-tireur's chassepot_. If a twig snapped in the frost at my +side I was very sure the foot of an enemy was treading there. + +I came to the end of the wood and rode on to Chesnay. Here the country +was more open, and I had passed Ville Evrart. But I did not feel any +greater security. I was possessed with a sort of rage to get my +business done and live--yes, at all costs live. A mile beyond Chesnay +I came to cross-roads, and within the angle which the two roads made a +little cabin stood upon a plot of grass. I was in doubt which road to +take. The cabin was all dark, and riding up to the door I hammered +upon it with the butt of my pistol. It was not immediately opened. +There must indeed have been some delay, since the inmates were +evidently in bed. But I was not in any mood to show consideration. I +wanted to get on--to get on and live. A little window was within my +reach. I dashed the butt of the pistol violently through the glass. + +"Will that waken you, eh?" I cried, and almost before I had finished I +heard a shuffling footstep in the passage and the door was opened. A +poor old peasant-woman, crippled with rheumatism, stood in the doorway +shading a lighted candle with a gnarled, trembling hand. In her haste +to obey she had merely thrown a petticoat over the shoulders of her +nightdress, and there she stood with bare feet, shivering in the cold, +an old bent woman of eighty, and apologised. + +"I am sorry, monsieur," she said, meekly. "But I cannot move as +quickly as I could when I was young. How can I serve monsieur?" + +Not a word of reproach about her broken window. You would think that +the hardest man must have felt some remorse. I merely broke in upon +her apologies with a rough demand for information. + +"The road upon your right leads to Chelles, monsieur," she answered. +"That upon your left to Raincy." + +I rode off without another word. It is not a pretty description which +I am giving to you, but it is a true one. That is my regret--it is a +true one. I forgot the old peasant woman the moment I had passed the +cabin. I thought only of the long avenues of trees which stretched +across that flat country, and which could hide whole companies of +_francs-tireurs_. I strained my eyes forwards. I listened for the +sound of voices. But the first voice which I heard spoke in my own +tongue. + +It was the voice of a sentry on the outposts of Raincy, and I could +have climbed down from my saddle and hugged him to my heart. Instead, +I sat impassively in my saddle and gave him the countersign. I was +conducted to the quarters of the commandant of artillery and I +delivered my message. + +"You have come quickly," he said. "What road did you take?" + +"That of Chesnay and Gagny." + +The commandant looked queerly at me. + +"Did you?" said he. "You are lucky. You will return by Montfermeil +and Chelles, Lieutenant von Altrock, and I will send an escort with +you. Apparently we are better informed at Raincy than you are at +Noisy-le-Grand." + +"I knew there was danger, sir," I replied. + +A regiment of dragoons was quartered at Raincy, and from it two +privates and a corporal were given me for escort. In the company of +these men I started back by the longer road in the rear of our lines. +And it was a quarter to ten when I started. For I noticed the time of +a clock in the commandant's quarters. I should think that it must have +taken three-quarters of an hour to reach Montfermeil, for the snow was +deep here and the mist very thick. Beyond Montfermeil, however, we +came to higher ground; there were fewer drifts of snow, and the +night began to clear, so that we made better going. We were now, of +course, behind our lines, and the only risk we ran was that a few +peasants armed with rifles from a battlefield or a small band of +_francs-tireurs_ might be lurking on the chance of picking off a +straggler. But that risk was not very great now that there were four +of us. I rode therefore with an easier mind, and the first thing which +entered my thoughts was--what do you think? The old peasant-woman's +cabin with the broken window? Not a bit of it. No, it was M. Bonnet's +black sow. Had M. Bonnet's sow farrowed fifteen? Or was that litter of +fifteen intended to inform the people in Paris by some system of +multiplication of the exact number of recruits which had joined one of +the French armies still in the field--say, General Faidherbe's, at +Bapaume, and so to keep up their spirits and prolong the siege? I was +still puzzling over this problem when in a most solitary place I came +suddenly upon a château with lighted windows. This was the Château +Villetaneuse. I reined in my horse and stopped. My escort halted +behind me. It was after all an astonishing sight. There were many +châteaux about Paris then, as there are now, but not one that I had +ever come across was inhabited by more than a caretaker. The owners +had long since fled. Breached walls, trampled gardens, gaping roofs, +and silence and desertion--that is what we meant when we spoke of a +chateâu near Paris in those days. But here was one with lighted +windows on the first and second storeys staring out calmly on the snow +as though never a Prussian soldier had crossed the Rhine. A thick +clump of trees sheltered it behind, and it faced the eastern side of +the long ridge of Mont Guichet, along the foot of which I rode--the +side farthest from Paris. From the spot where I and my escort had +halted an open park stretched level to the door. The house had, no +doubt, a very homelike look on that cold night. It should have spoken +to me, no doubt, of the well-ordered family life and the gentle +occupations of women. But I was thinking of M. Bonnet's black sow. I +was certain that none of our officers were quartered there and making +the best of their Christmas night in France. Had that been the case, +black paths and ruts would have been trampled in the snow up to the +door, and before now I should have been challenged by a sentinel. No! +The more I looked at the house and its lighted windows, the more I +thought of M. Bonnet's sow. Was this solitary château the undiscovered +last station on the underground road through which the news passed +into Paris? If not, why was it still inhabited? Why did the lights +blaze out upon the snow so late? + +I commanded my escort to be silent. We rode across the park, and +half-way to the door we came upon a wire fence and a gate. There we +dismounted, and walked our horses. We tethered them to a tree about +twenty yards from the house. I ordered one of my dragoons to go round +the house, and watch any door which he might find at the back. I told +the other two to stay where they were, and I advanced alone to the +steps, but before I had reached them the front door was thrown open, +and a girl with a lantern in her hand came out. + +She held the lantern high above her head and peered forward, so that +the light fell full upon her hair, her face, and dress. She was a tall +girl and slight of figure, with big, dark eyes, and a face pretty and +made for laughter. It was very pale now, however, and the brows were +drawn together in a frown. She wore a white evening frock, which +glistened in the lantern light, and over her bare shoulders she had +flung a heavy, black, military cloak. So she stood and swung the +lantern slowly from side to side as she stared into the darkness, +while the lights and shadows chased each other swiftly across her +white frock, her anxious face, and the waves of her fair hair. + +"Whom do you expect at this hour, mademoiselle?" I asked. + +I was quite close to her, but she had not seen me, for I stood at the +bottom of the steps and she was looking out over my head. Yet she did +not start or utter any cry. Only the lantern rattled in her hand. Then +she stood quite still for a moment or two, and afterwards lowered her +arm until the light shone upon me. + +"You are Prussian?" she said. + +"A lieutenant of foot," I answered. "You have nothing to fear." + +"I am not afraid," she replied, quietly. + +"Yet you tremble, mademoiselle. Your hand shakes." + +"That is the cold," said she. + +"Whom did you expect?" + +"No one," she replied. "I thought that I heard the rattle of iron as +though a horse moved and a stirrup rang. It is lonely here since our +neighbours have fled. I came out to see." + +"The lantern then was not a signal, mademoiselle?" I asked. + +She looked at me in perplexity, and certainly the little piece of +acting, I thought, was very well done. Many a man might have been +taken in by it. But it was thrown away upon me, for I had noticed that +heavy military cloak. How did it come to lie so conveniently to her +hand in the hall? + +"A signal?" she repeated. "To whom?" + +"To some man hiding in the woods of Mont Guichet, a signal to him +that he may come and fetch the news for Paris that has lately--very +lately--been brought to the house." + +She bent forward and peered down at me, drawing the cloak closer about +her neck. + +"You are under some strange mistake, monsieur," she said. "No news for +Paris has been brought to this house by anyone." + +"Indeed?" I answered. "And is that so?" Then I stretched out my hand +and said triumphantly: "You will tell me perhaps that the cloak upon +your shoulders is a woman's cloak?" + +And she laughed! It was humiliating; it is always humiliating to a +young man not to be taken seriously, isn't--especially if he is a +conqueror? There was I thinking that I had fairly cross-examined her +into a trap, and she laughed indulgently. Of course, a girl always +claims the right to be ever so much older than a man of her own age, +but she stood on the top of the steps and laughed down at me as though +she had the advantage of as many years as there were steps between us. +And she explained indulgently, too. + +"The cloak I am wearing belongs to a wounded French officer who was +taken prisoner and released upon parole. He is now in our house." + +"Then I think I will make his acquaintance," I said, and over my +shoulder I called to the corporal. As he advanced to my side a look of +alarm came into the girl's face. + +"You are not alone," she said, and suddenly her face became wistful +and her voice began to plead. "You have not come for him? He has done +no harm. He could not, even if he would. And he would not, for he has +given his parole. Oh, you are not going to take him away?" + +"That we shall see, mademoiselle." + +I left one dragoon at the door. I ordered the corporal to wait in the +hall, and I followed the girl up the stairs to the first floor. All +her pride had gone; she led the way with a submission of manner which +seemed to me only a fresh effort to quiet my suspicions. But they were +not quieted. I distrusted her; I believed that I had under my fingers +the proof of that rumour which flew about our camp. She stopped at a +door, and as she turned the handle she said: + +"This is my own parlour, monsieur. We all use it now, for it is warmer +than the others, and all our servants but one have fled." + +It was a pretty room, and cheery enough to a young man who came into +it from the darkness and the snow. A piano stood open in a corner with +a rug thrown upon it to protect the strings from the cold; books lay +upon the tables, heavy curtains were drawn close over the windows, +there were cushioned sofas and deep armchairs, and a good fire of logs +blazed upon the hearth. These details I took in at once. Then I looked +at the occupants. A youth lay stretched upon a sofa close to the fire +with a wrap covering his legs. The wrap was raised by a cradle to keep +off its weight. His face must have been, I think, unusually handsome +when he had his health; at the moment it was so worn and pale, and the +eyes were so sunk, that all its beauty had gone. The pallor was +accentuated by a small black moustache he wore and his black hair. He +lay with his head supported upon a pillow, and was playing a game of +chess with an old lady who sat at a little table by his side. This old +lady was actually making a move as I entered the room, for as she +turned and stared at me she was holding a chessman in her hand. I +advanced to the fire and warmed my hands at it. + +"You, sir, are the wounded officer on parole?" I said in French. The +officer bowed. + +"And you, madame?" I asked of the old lady. The sight of my uniform +seemed to have paralysed her with terror. She sat still holding the +chessman in her hand, and staring at me with her mouth half-open. + +"Come, come, madame," I explained, impatiently; "it is a simple +question." + +"Monsieur, you frighten her," said the young lady. "It is my aunt, the +Baroness Granville." + +"You tell me nothing of yourself," I said to her, and she looked at me +in surprise. + +"Since you have come with an escort to this house I imagined you must +know to whom it belonged. I am Sophie de Villetaneuse." + +"Exactly," I replied, as though I had known all along, and had merely +asked the question to see whether she would speak the truth. "Now, +mademoiselle, will you please explain to me how it is that while your +neighbours have fled you remain at your château?" + +"It is quite simple," she answered. "My mother is bedridden. She could +not be moved. She could not be left alone." + +"You will pardon me," said I, "if I test the statement." + +The wounded officer raised himself upon his elbow as though to +protest, but Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse put out a hand and checked +him. She showed me a face flushed with anger, but she spoke quite +quietly. + +"I will myself take you to my mother's room." + +I laughed. I said: "That is just what I expected. You will take me to +your mother's room and leave your friends here to make any little +preparations in the way of burning awkward letters which they may +think desirable. Thank you, no! I am not so easily caught." + +Mademoiselle Sophie was becoming irritated. + +"There are no awkward letters!" she exclaimed. + +"That statement, too, I shall put to the test." + +I went to the door, and standing so that I could still keep an eye +upon the room, I called the corporal. + +"You will search the house thoroughly," I said, "and quickly. Bring me +word how many people you find in it. You, mademoiselle, will remain in +the room with us." + +She shrugged her shoulders as I closed the door and came back into the +room. + +"You were wounded, monsieur," I said to the Frenchman. "Where?" + +"In the sortie on Le Bourget." + +"And you came here the moment you were released on your parole?" + +The wounded officer turned with a smile to Mademoiselle Sophie. + +"Yes, for here live my best friends." + +He took her hand, and with a Frenchman's grace he raised it to his +lips and kissed it. And I was suddenly made acquainted with the +relationship in which these two, youth and maid, stood to one another. +Mademoiselle Sophie had cried out on the steps against the possibility +that I might have come to claim my prisoner. But though she spoke no +word, she was still more explicit now. With the officer that caress +was plainly no more than a pretty way of saying thanks; it had the +look of a habit, it was so neatly given, and he gave it without +carelessness, it is true, but without warmth. She, however, received +it very differently. He did not see, because his head was bent above +her hand, but I did. + +I saw the look of pain in her face, the slight contraction of her +shoulders and arms, as if to meet a blow. The kiss hurt her--no, not +the kiss, but the finished grace with which it was given, the proof, +in a word, that it was a way of saying "Thanks"--and nothing more. +Here was a woman who loved and a man who did not love, and the woman +knew. So much was evident to me who looked on, but when the officer +raised his head there was nothing for him to see, and upon her lips +only the conventional remark: + +"We should have been hurt if you had not come." + +I resumed my questions: + +"Your doctor, monsieur, is in the house?" + +"At this hour? No." + +"Ah. That is a pity." + +The young man lifted his head from his pillow and looked me over from +head to foot with a stare of disdain. + +"I do not quite understand. You doubt my word, monsieur?" + +"Why not?" I asked sharply. + +It was quite possible that the cradle, this rug across his legs, the +pillow, were all pretences. Many a soldier in those days was pale and +worn and had sunken eyes, and yet was sound of limb and could do a +day's work of twenty-four hours if there were need. I had my theory +and as yet I had come upon nothing to disprove it. This young officer +might very well have brought in a cipher message to the Château +Villetaneuse. Mademoiselle Sophie might very well have waved her +lantern at the door to summon a fresh messenger. + +"No; why should I not doubt your word?" I repeated. + +He turned his face to the old lady. "It is your move, Baronne," he +said, and she placed the piece she held upon a square of the board. +Mademoiselle Sophie took her stand by the table between the players, +and the game went on just as though there were no intruder in the +room. It was uncomfortable for me. I shifted my feet. I tried to +appear at my ease; finally I sat down in a chair. They took no notice +of me whatever. But that I felt hot upon a discovery, but that I knew +if I could bring back to Noisy-le-Grand proof of where the leakage +through our lines occurred, I should earn approval and perhaps +promotion, I should very deeply have regretted my entrance into the +Château Villetaneuse. And I was extremely glad when at last the +corporal opened the door. He had searched the house--he had found no +one but Madame de Villetaneuse and an old servant who was watching by +her bed. + +"Very well," said I, and the corporal returned to the hall. + +Mademoiselle Sophie moved away from the chess-table. She came and +stood opposite to me, and though her face was still, her eyes were +hard with anger. + +"And now perhaps you will tell me to what I owe your visit?" she said. + +"Certainly," I returned. I fixed my eyes on her, and I said slowly, "I +have come to ask for more news of M. Bonnet's black sow." + +Mademoiselle Sophie stared as if she were not sure whether I was mad +or drunk, but was very sure I was one or the other. The young +Frenchman started upon his couch, with the veins swelling upon his +forehead and a flushed face. + +"This is an insult," he cried savagely, and no less savagely I +answered him. + +"Hold your tongue!" I cried. "You forget too often that though you are +on parole you are still a prisoner." + +He fell back upon the sofa with a groan of pain, and the girl hurried +to his side. + +"Your leg hurts you. You should not have moved," she cried. + +"It is nothing," he said, faintly. + +Meanwhile I had been looking about the room for a box or a case where +the cipher messages might be hid. I saw nothing of the kind. Of course +they might be hidden between the pages of a book. I went from table to +table, taking them by the boards and shaking the leaves. Not a scrap +of paper tumbled out. There was another door in the room besides that +which led on to the landing. + +"Mademoiselle, what room is that?" I asked. + +"My bedroom," she answered, simply, and with a gesture full of dignity +she threw open the door. + +I carried the mud and snow and the grime of a camp without a scruple +of remorse into that neat and pretty chamber. Mademoiselle Sophie +followed me as I searched wardrobe and drawer and box. At last I came +to one drawer in her dressing-table which was locked. I tried the +handle again to make sure. Yes, it was locked. I looked suddenly at +the young lady. She was watching me out of the corners of her eyes +with a peculiar intentness. I felt at once that I was hot. + +"Open that drawer, mademoiselle," I said. + +"It contains only some private things." + +"Open that drawer or I burst it open." + +"No," she cried, as I jerked the handle. "I will open it." + +She fetched the key out of another drawer which was unlocked, and +fitted it into the lock of the dressing-table. And all the while I saw +that she was watching me. She meant to play me some trick, I was +certain. So I watched too, and I did well to watch. She turned the +key, opened the drawer, and then snatched out something with +extraordinary rapidity and ran as hard as she could to the door--not +the door through which we had entered, but a second door which gave on +to the passage. She ran very fast and she ran very lightly, and she +did not stumble over a chair as I did in pursuit of her. But she had +to unlatch the door and pull it open. I caught her up and closed my +arms about her. It was a little, carved, ebony box which she held, the +very thing for which I searched. + +"I thought so," I cried with a laugh. "Drop the box, mademoiselle. +Drop it on the floor!" + +The noise of our struggle had been heard in the next room. The +Baroness rushed through the doorway. + +"What has happened?" she cried. "Mon Dieu! you are killing her!" + +"Drop the box, mademoiselle!" + +And as I spoke she threw it away. She threw it through the doorway; +she tried to throw it over the banisters of the stairs, but my arms +were about hers, and it fell into the passage just beyond the door. I +darted from her and picked it up. When I returned with it she was +taking a gold chain from her neck. At the end of the chain hung a +little golden key. This she held out to me. + +"Open it here," she said in a low, eager voice. + +The sudden change only increased my suspicions, or rather my +conviction that I had now the proof which I needed. A minute ago she +was trying as hard as she could to escape with the box, now she was +imploring me to open it. + +"Why, if you are so eager to show me the contents, did you try to +throw it away?" I asked. + +"I tried to throw it down into the hall," she answered. + +"My corporal would have picked it up." + +"Oh, what would that matter?" she exclaimed, impatiently. "You would +have opened it in the hall. That was what I wanted. Open it here! At +all events open it here!" + +The very urgency of her pleading made me determined to refuse the +plea. + +"No, you have some other ruse, mademoiselle," said I. "Perhaps you +wish to gain time for your friend in the next room. No, we will return +here and open it comfortably by the fire." + +I kept a tight hold upon the box. I shook it. To my delight I felt +that there were papers within it. I carried it back to the fireside +and sat down on a chair. Mademoiselle Sophie followed me close, and as +I fixed the little gold key into the lock she laid her hand very +gently upon my arm. + +"I beg you not to unlock that box," she said; "if you do you will +bring upon me a great humiliation and upon yourself much remorse. +There is nothing there which concerns you. There are just my little +secrets. A girl may have secrets, monsieur, which are sacred to her." + +She was standing quite close to me, and her back was towards the +French officer and her aunt. They could not see her face and they +could hardly have heard more than a word here and there of what she +said. For always she spoke in a low voice, and at times that low voice +dropped to a whisper, so that I myself had to watch her lips. I +answered her only by turning the key in the lock. She took her hand +from my arm and laid it on the lid to hinder me from opening it. + +"I wore the key on a chain about my neck, monsieur," she whispered. +"Does that teach you nothing? Even though you are young, does it teach +you nothing? I said that if you unlocked that box you would cause me +great humiliation, thinking that would be enough to stop you. But I +see I must tell you more. Read the letters, monsieur, question me +about them, and you will make my life a very lonely one. I think so. I +think you will destroy my chance of happiness. You would not wish +that, monsieur? It is true that we are enemies, but some day this war +will end, and you would not wish to prolong its sufferings beyond the +end. Yet you will be doing that, monsieur, if you open that box. You +would be sorry afterwards when you were back at home to know that a +girl in France was suffering from a needless act of yours. Yes, you +will be sorry if you open that box." + +It seems now almost impossible to me that I could have doubted her +sincerity; she spoke with so much simplicity, and so desperate an +appeal looked out from her dark eyes. Ever since that Christmas night +I can see her quite clearly at will, standing as she stood then--all +the sincerity of her which I would not acknowledge, all the appeal +which I would not hear; and I see her many times when for my peace I +would rather not. Much remorse, she said very wisely, would be the +consequence for me. She was pleading for her pride, and to do that the +better she laid her pride aside; yet she never lost her dignity. She +was pleading for her chance of happiness, foreseeing that it was +likely to be destroyed, without any reason or any profit to a living +being, by a stranger who would the next moment pass out of her life. +Yet there was no outcry, and there were no tears. Had it been a +trick--I ask the ladies--would there not have been tears? + +But I thought it was a trick and a cheap one. She was trying to make +me believe that there were love-letters in the box--compromising +love-letters. Now, I _know_ that there were no love-letters in the +box. I had seen the Frenchman's pretty way of saying thanks. I had +noticed how the caress hurt her just through what it lacked. He was +the friend, you see, and nothing more; she was the lover and the only +lover of the pair. There could be no love-letters in the box unless +she had written them herself and kept them. But I did not think she +was the girl to do that. There was a dignity about her which would +have stopped her pen. + +I opened the box accordingly. Mademoiselle Sophie turned away +abruptly, and sitting down in a chair shaded her eyes with her hand. I +emptied the letters out on to a table, turning the box upside down, +and thus the first which I took up and read was the one which lay at +the very bottom. As I read it it seemed that every suspicion I had +formed was established. She had hinted at love-letters, she had spoken +of secrets sacred to a girl; and the letter was not even addressed to +her. It was addressed to Madame de Villetaneuse; it was a letter +which, if it meant no more than what was implied upon the surface, +would have long since found destruction in the waste-paper basket. For +it purported to be merely the acceptance of an invitation to dinner at +the town house of Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain. +It was signed only by a Christian name, "Armand," and the few +sentences which composed the letter explained that M. Armand was a +distant kinsman of Madame de Villetaneuse who had just come to Paris +to pursue his studies, and who, up till now, had no acquaintance with +the family. + +I looked at Mademoiselle Sophie sternly. "So all this pother was about +a mere invitation to dinner! Once let it be known that M. Armand will +dine with Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain, and you +are humiliated, you lose your chance of happiness, and I, too, shall +find myself in good time suffering the pangs of remorse," and I read +the letter slowly aloud to her, word by word. + +She returned no answer. She sat with her hand shading her face, and +she rocked her head backwards and forwards continually and rather +quickly, like a child with a racking headache. Of course, to my mind +all that was part of the game. The letter was dated two years back, +but the month was December, and, of course, to antedate would be the +first precaution. + +"Come, mademoiselle," I said, changing my tone, "I invite you very +seriously to make a clean breast of it. I wish to take no harsh +measures with you if I can avoid them. Tell me frankly what news this +letter plainly translated gives to General Trochu in Paris." + +"None," she answered. + +"Very well," said I, and I took up the next letter. Ah, M. Armand +writes again a week later. It was evidently a good dinner and M. +Armand is properly grateful. + +The gratitude, indeed, was rather excessive, rather provincial. +It was just the effusion which a young man who had not yet learned +self-possession might have written on his first introduction to the +highest social life of Paris. Certainly the correspondence was very +artfully designed. But what did it hide? I puzzled over the question; +I took the words and the dates, and it seemed to me that I began to +see light. So much stress was laid upon the dinner, that the word must +signify some event of importance. The first letter spoke of a dinner +in the future. I imagined that it had not been possible to pass this +warning into Paris. The second letter mentioned with gratitude that +the dinner had been successful. Well, suppose "dinner" stood for +"engagement"! The letter would refer to the sortie from Paris which +pushed back our lines and captured Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche. +That seemed likely. Madame de Villetaneuse gave the dinner; General +Trochu made the sortie. Then "Madame de Villetaneuse" stood for +"General Trochu." Who would be Armand? Why, the French people outside +Paris--the provincials! I had the explanation of that provincial +expression of gratitude. Ah, no doubt it all seems far-fetched now +that we sit quietly about this table. But put yourselves in the thick +of war and take twenty years off your lives! Suppose yourselves young +and green, eager for advancement, and just off your balance for want +of sleep, want of food, want of rest, want of everything, and brutal +from the facts of war. There are very few things which would seem +far-fetched. It seemed to me that I was deciphering these letters with +absolute accuracy. I saw myself promoted to captain, seconded to the +General Staff. M. Armand represented the French people in the +provinces. No doubt they would be grateful for that sortie. The only +point which troubled me arose from M. Armand's presence at that +dinner-party. Now, the one defect from the French point of view in +that sortie on Ville Evrart was that the French outside Paris did not +come to General Trochu's help. They were expected, but they did not +take part in that dinner-party. + +I went on with the letters, hoping to find an explanation there. The +third letter was addressed to Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse, who had +evidently written to M. Armand on behalf of her mother, inviting him +to her box at the opera. M. Armand regretted that he had not been +fortunate enough to call at a time when mademoiselle was at home, and +would look forward to the pleasure of seeing her at the opera. Was +that an apology? I asked myself. An apology for absence at Ville +Evrart and a pledge to be present at the next engagement! + +"Mademoiselle," I cried, "what does the opera stand for?" + +Mademoiselle Sophie laughed disdainfully. + +"For music, monsieur, for art, for refinement, for many things you do +not understand." + +I sprang up in excitement. What did it matter what she said? M. Armand +stood for the Army of the Loire. It was that army which had been +expected at Ville Evrart. Here was a pledge that it would be reformed, +that it would come to the help of Paris at the next sortie. That was +valuable news--it could not but bring recognition to the man who +brought evidence of it into the Prussian lines. I hurriedly read +through the other letters, quoting a passage here and there, trying to +startle Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse into a confession. But she never +changed her attitude, she did not answer a word. + +Her conduct was the more aggravating, for I began to get lost among +these letters. They were all in the same handwriting; they were all +signed "Armand," and they seemed to give a picture of the life of a +young man in Paris during the two years which preceded the war. They +recorded dinner-parties, visits to the theatres, examinations passed, +prizes won and lost, receptions, rides in the Bois, and Sunday +excursions into the country. All these phrases, these appointments, +these meetings, might have particular meanings. But if so, how +stupendous a cipher! Besides, how was it that none of these messages +had been passed into Paris? Very reluctantly I began to doubt my own +conjecture. I read some more letters, and then I suddenly turned back +to the earlier ones. I compared them with the later notes. I began to +be afraid the correspondence after all was genuine, for the tone of +the letters changed and changed so gradually, and yet so clearly, that +the greatest literary art could hardly have deliberately composed +them. I seemed to witness the actual progress of M. Armand, a +hobbledehoy from the provinces losing his awkwardness, acquiring ease +and polish in his contact with the refinement of Paris. Gratitude was +now expressed without effusion, he was no longer gaping with +admiration at the elegance of the women, a knowledge of the world +began to show itself in his comments. M. Armand was growing master of +himself, he had gained a facility of style and a felicity of phrase. +The last letters had the postmark of Paris, the first that of +Auvergne. + +They were genuine, then. And they were not love-letters. I looked at +Mademoiselle Sophie with an increased perplexity. Why did she now sit +rocking her head like a child in pain? Why had she so struggled to +hinder me from opening them? They recorded a beginning of +acquaintanceship and the growth of that into friendship between a +young man and a young girl--nothing more. The friendship might +eventually end in marriage no doubt if left to itself, but there was +not a word of that in the letters. I was still wondering, when the +French officer raised himself from his sofa and dragged himself across +the room to Mademoiselle Sophie's chair. His left trouser leg had been +slit down the side from the knee to the foot and laced lightly so as +to make room for a bandage. He supported himself from chair to chair +with evident pain, and I could not doubt that his wound was as genuine +as the letters. + +He bent down and gently took her hand away from her face. + +"Sophie," he said, "I did not dare to think that you kept this place +for me in your thoughts. A little more courage and I should long since +have said to you what I say now. I beg your permission to ask Madame +de Villetaneuse to-morrow for your hand in marriage." + +My house of cards tumbled down in a second. The French officer was M. +Armand. With the habit women have of treasuring tokens of the things +which have happened, Mademoiselle Sophie had kept all these trifling +notes and messages, and had even gathered to them the letters written +by him to her mother, so that the story might be complete. But without +M. Armand's knowledge; he was not to know; her pride must guard her +secret from him. For she was the lover and he only the friend, and she +knew it. Even in the little speech which he had just made, there was +just too much formality, just too little sincerity of voice. I +understood why she had tried to throw the ebony box down into the hall +so that I might open it there--I understood that I had caused her +great humiliation. But that was not all there was for me to +understand. + +In answer to Armand she raised her eyes quietly, and shook her head. + +"You wish to spare me shame," she said, "and I thank you very much. +But it is because of these letters that you spoke. I must think that. +I must always think it." + +"No!" he exclaimed. + +"But yes," she replied firmly. "If monsieur had not unlocked that +box--I don't know--but some day perhaps--oh, not yet, no, not yet--but +some day perhaps you might have come of your own accord and said what +you have just said. And I should have been very happy. But now you +never must. For you see I shall always think that the letters are +prompting you." + +And M. Armand bowed. + +I had taken from her her chance of happiness. The friendship between +them might have ended in marriage if left to itself. But I had not +left it to itself. + +"Mademoiselle," I said, "I am very sorry." + +She turned her dark eyes on me. + +"Monsieur, I warned you. It is too late to be sorry," and as I stood +shuffling awkwardly from one foot to the other, she added, gently, +"Will you not go, monsieur?" + +I went out of the room, called together my escort, mounted and rode +off. It was past midnight now, and the night was clear. But I thought +neither of the little beds under the slope of the roof nor of any +danger on the road. There might have been a _franc-tireur_ behind +every tree. I would never have noticed it until one of them had +brought me down. Remorse was heavy upon me. I had behaved without +consideration, without chivalry, without any manners at all. I had not +been able to distinguish truth when it stared me in the face, or to +recognise honesty when it looked out from a young girl's dark eyes. I +had behaved, in a word, like the brute six months of war had made of +me. I wondered with a vague hope whether after all time might not set +matters right between M. Armand and Mademoiselle Sophie. And I wonder +now whether it has. But even if I knew that it had, I should always +remember that Christmas night of 1870 with acute regret. The only +incident, indeed, which I can mention with the slightest satisfaction +is this: On the way back to Noisy-le-Grand I came to a point where the +road from Chelles crossed the road from Montfermeil. I halted at a +little cabin which stood upon a grass-plot within the angle of the +roads, and tying up all the money I had on me in a pocket-handkerchief +I dropped the handkerchief through a broken window-pane. + + +The Colonel let the end of his cigar fall upon his plate, and pushed +back his chair from the table. "But I see we shall be late for the +opera," he said, as he glanced at the clock. + +_November_, 1905. + + + + + + THE AFFAIR + AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL + + + + + THE AFFAIR + AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL + + + I + +Mr. Ricardo, when the excitements of the Villa Rose were done with, +returned to Grosvenor Square and resumed the busy, unnecessary life of +an amateur. But the studios had lost their savour, artists their +attractiveness, and even the Russian opera seemed a trifle flat. Life +was altogether a disappointment; Fate, like an actress at a +restaurant, had taken the wooden pestle in her hand and stirred all +the sparkle out of the champagne; Mr. Ricardo languished--until one +unforgettable morning. + +He was sitting disconsolately at his breakfast-table when the door was +burst open and a square, stout man, with the blue, shaven face of a +French comedian, flung himself into the room. Ricardo sprang towards +the new-comer with a cry of delight. + +"My dear Hanaud!" + +He seized his visitor by the arm, feeling it to make sure that here, +in flesh and blood, stood the man who had introduced him to the +acutest sensations of his life. He turned towards his butler, who was +still bleating expostulations in the doorway at the unceremonious +irruption of the French detective. + +"Another place, Burton, at once," he cried, and as soon as he and +Hanaud were alone: "What good wind blows you to London?" + +"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the +line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a +holiday." + +"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the +line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a +holiday." + +A light had suddenly flashed in Mr. Ricardo's eyes, and was now no +less suddenly extinguished. Hanaud paid no attention whatever to his +friend's disappointment. He pounced upon a piece of silver which +adorned the tablecloth and took it over to the window. + +"Everything is as it should be, my friend," he exclaimed, with a grin. +"Grosvenor Square, the _Times_ open at the money column, and a false +antique upon the table. Thus I have dreamed of you. All Mr. Ricardo is +in that sentence." + +Ricardo laughed nervously. Recollection made him wary of Hanaud's +sarcasms. He was shy even to protest the genuineness of his silver. +But, indeed, he had not the time. For the door opened again and once +more the butler appeared. On this occasion, however, he was alone. + +"Mr. Calladine would like to speak to you, sir," he said. + +"Calladine!" cried Ricardo in an extreme surprise. "That is the most +extraordinary thing." He looked at the clock upon his mantelpiece. It +was barely half-past eight. "At this hour, too?" + +"Mr. Calladine is still wearing evening dress," the butler remarked. + +Ricardo started in his chair. He began to dream of possibilities; and +here was Hanaud miraculously at his side. + +"Where is Mr. Calladine?" he asked. + +"I have shown him into the library." + +"Good," said Mr. Ricardo. "I will come to him." + +But he was in no hurry. He sat and let his thoughts play with this +incident of Calladine's early visit. + +"It is very odd," he said. "I have not seen Calladine for months--no, +nor has anyone. Yet, a little while ago, no one was more often seen." + +He fell apparently into a muse, but he was merely seeking to provoke +Hanaud's curiosity. In this attempt, however, he failed. Hanaud +continued placidly to eat his breakfast, so that Mr. Ricardo was +compelled to volunteer the story which he was burning to tell. + +"Drink your coffee, Hanaud, and you shall hear about Calladine." + +Hanaud grunted with resignation, and Mr. Ricardo flowed on: + +"Calladine was one of England's young men. Everybody said so. He was +going to do very wonderful things as soon as he had made up his mind +exactly what sort of wonderful things he was going to do. Meanwhile, +you met him in Scotland, at Newmarket, at Ascot, at Cowes, in the box +of some great lady at the Opera--not before half-past ten in the +evening _there_--in any fine house where the candles that night +happened to be lit. He went everywhere, and then a day came and he +went nowhere. There was no scandal, no trouble, not a whisper against +his good name. He simply vanished. For a little while a few people +asked: 'What has become of Calladine?' But there never was any answer, +and London has no time for unanswered questions. Other promising young +men dined in his place. Calladine had joined the huge legion of the +Come-to-nothings. No one even seemed to pass him in the street. Now +unexpectedly, at half-past eight in the morning, and in evening dress, +he calls upon me. 'Why?' I ask myself." + +Mr. Ricardo sank once more into a reverie. Hanaud watched him with a +broadening smile of pure enjoyment. + +"And in time, I suppose," he remarked casually, "you will perhaps ask +him?" + +Mr. Ricardo sprang out of his pose to his feet. + +"Before I discuss serious things with an acquaintance," he said with a +scathing dignity, "I make it a rule to revive my impressions of his +personality. The cigarettes are in the crystal box." + +"They would be," said Hanaud, unabashed, as Ricardo stalked from the +room. But in five minutes Mr. Ricardo came running back, all his +composure gone. + +"It is the greatest good fortune that you, my friend, should have +chosen this morning to visit me," he cried, and Hanaud nodded with a +little grimace of resignation. + +"There goes my holiday. You shall command me now and always. I will +make the acquaintance of your young friend." + +He rose up and followed Ricardo into his study, where a young man was +nervously pacing the floor. + +"Mr. Calladine," said Ricardo. "This is Mr. Hanaud." + +The young man turned eagerly. He was tall, with a noticeable elegance +and distinction, and the face which he showed to Hanaud was, in spite +of its agitation, remarkably handsome. + +"I am very glad," he said. "You are not an official of this country. +You can advise--without yourself taking action, if you'll be so good." + +Hanaud frowned. He bent his eyes uncompromisingly upon Calladine. + +"What does that mean?" he asked, with a note of sternness in his +voice. + +"It means that I must tell someone," Calladine burst out in quivering +tones. "That I don't know what to do. I am in a difficulty too big for +me. That's the truth." + +Hanaud looked at the young man keenly. It seemed to Ricardo that he +took in every excited gesture, every twitching feature, in one +comprehensive glance. Then he said in a friendlier voice: + +"Sit down and tell me"--and he himself drew up a chair to the table. + +"I was at the Semiramis last night," said Calladine, naming one of the +great hotels upon the Embankment. "There was a fancy-dress ball." + +All this happened, by the way, in those far-off days before the +war--nearly, in fact, three years ago today--when London, flinging +aside its reticence, its shy self-consciousness, had become a city of +carnivals and masquerades, rivalling its neighbours on the Continent +in the spirit of its gaiety, and exceeding them by its stupendous +luxury. "I went by the merest chance. My rooms are in the Adelphi +Terrace." + +"There!" cried Mr. Ricardo in surprise, and Hanaud lifted a hand to +check his interruptions. + +"Yes," continued Calladine. "The night was warm, the music floated +through my open windows and stirred old memories. I happened to have a +ticket. I went." + +Calladine drew up a chair opposite to Hanaud and, seating himself, +told, with many nervous starts and in troubled tones, a story which, +to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was as fabulous as any out of the "Arabian +Nights." + +"I had a ticket," he began, "but no domino. I was consequently stopped +by an attendant in the lounge at the top of the staircase leading down +to the ballroom. + +"'You can hire a domino in the cloakroom, Mr. Calladine,' he said to +me. I had already begun to regret the impulse which had brought me, +and I welcomed the excuse with which the absence of a costume provided +me. I was, indeed, turning back to the door, when a girl who had at +that moment run down from the stairs of the hotel into the lounge, +cried gaily: 'That's not necessary'; and at the same moment she flung +to me a long scarlet cloak which she had been wearing over her own +dress. She was young, fair, rather tall, slim, and very pretty; her +hair was drawn back from her face with a ribbon, and rippled down her +shoulders in heavy curls; and she was dressed in a satin coat and +knee-breeches of pale green and gold, with a white waistcoat and +silk stockings and scarlet heels to her satin shoes. She was as +straight-limbed as a boy, and exquisite like a figure in Dresden +china. I caught the cloak and turned to thank her. But she did not +wait. With a laugh she ran down the stairs a supple and shining +figure, and was lost in the throng at the doorway of the ballroom. I +was stirred by the prospect of an adventure. I ran down after her. She +was standing just inside the room alone, and she was gazing at the +scene with parted lips and dancing eyes. She laughed again as she saw +the cloak about my shoulders, a delicious gurgle of amusement, and I +said to her: + +"'May I dance with you?' + +"'Oh, do!' she cried, with a little jump, and clasping her hands. She +was of a high and joyous spirit and not difficult in the matter of an +introduction. 'This gentleman will do very well to present us,' she +said, leading me in front of a bust of the God Pan which stood in a +niche of the wall. 'I am, as you see, straight out of an opera. My +name is Celymène or anything with an eighteenth century sound to it. +You are--what you will. For this evening we are friends.' + +"'And for to-morrow?' I asked. + +"'I will tell you about that later on,' she replied, and she began to +dance with a light step and a passion in her dancing which earned me +many an envious glance from the other men. I was in luck, for Celymène +knew no one, and though, of course, I saw the faces of a great many +people whom I remembered, I kept them all at a distance. We had been +dancing for about half an hour when the first queerish thing happened. +She stopped suddenly in the midst of a sentence with a little gasp. I +spoke to her, but she did not hear. She was gazing past me, her eyes +wide open, and such a rapt look upon her face as I had never seen. She +was lost in a miraculous vision. I followed the direction of her eyes +and, to my astonishment, I saw nothing more than a stout, short, +middle-aged woman, egregiously over-dressed as Marie Antoinette. + +"'So you do know someone here?' I said, and I had to repeat the words +sharply before my friend withdrew her eyes. But even then she was not +aware of me. It was as if a voice had spoken to her whilst she was +asleep and had disturbed, but not wakened her. Then she came +to--there's really no other word I can think of which describes her at +that moment--she came to with a deep sigh. + +"'No,' she answered. 'She is a Mrs. Blumenstein from Chicago, a widow +with ambitions and a great deal of money. But I don't know her.' + +"'Yet you know all about her,' I remarked. + +"'She crossed in the same boat with me,' Celymène replied. 'Did I tell +you that I landed at Liverpool this morning? She is staying at the +Semiramis too. Oh, let us dance!' + +"She twitched my sleeve impatiently, and danced with a kind of +violence and wildness as if she wished to banish some sinister +thought. And she did undoubtedly banish it. We supped together and +grew confidential, as under such conditions people will. She told me +her real name. It was Joan Carew. + +"'I have come over to get an engagement if I can at Covent Garden. I +am supposed to sing all right. But I don't know anyone. I have been +brought up in Italy.' + +"'You have some letters of introduction, I suppose?' I asked. + +"'Oh, yes. One from my teacher in Milan. One from an American +manager.' + +"In my turn I told her my name and where I lived, and I gave her my +card. I thought, you see, that since I used to know a good many +operatic people, I might be able to help her. + +"'Thank you,' she said, and at that moment Mrs. Blumenstein, followed +by a party, chiefly those lap-dog young men who always seem to gather +about that kind of person, came into the supper-room and took a table +close to us. There was at once an end of all confidences--indeed, of +all conversation. Joan Carew lost all the lightness of her spirit; she +talked at random, and her eyes were drawn again and again to the +grotesque slander on Marie Antoinette. Finally I became annoyed. + +"'Shall we go?' I suggested impatiently, and to my surprise she +whispered passionately: + +"'Yes. Please! Let us go.' + +"Her voice was actually shaking, her small hands clenched. We went +back to the ballroom, but Joan Carew did not recover her gaiety, and +half-way through a dance, when we were near to the door, she stopped +abruptly--extraordinarily abruptly. + +"'I shall go,' she said abruptly. 'I am tired. I have grown dull.' + +"I protested, but she made a little grimace. + +"'You'll hate me in half an hour. Let's be wise and stop now while we +are friends,' she said, and whilst I removed the domino from my +shoulders she stooped very quickly. It seemed to me that she picked up +something which had lain hidden beneath the sole of her slipper. She +certainly moved her foot, and I certainly saw something small and +bright flash in the palm of her glove as she raised herself again. But +I imagined merely that it was some object which she had dropped. + +"'Yes, we'll go,' she said, and we went up the stairs into the lobby. +Certainly all the sparkle had gone out of our adventure. I recognized +her wisdom. + +"'But I shall meet you again?' I asked. + +"'Yes. I have your address. I'll write and fix a time when you will be +sure to find me in. Good-night, and a thousand thanks. I should have +been bored to tears if you hadn't come without a domino.' + +"She was speaking lightly as she held out her hand, but her grip +tightened a little and--clung. Her eyes darkened and grew troubled, +her mouth trembled. The shadow of a great trouble had suddenly closed +about her. She shivered. + +"'I am half inclined to ask you to stay, however dull I am; and dance +with me till daylight--the safe daylight,' she said. + +"It was an extraordinary phrase for her to use, and it moved me. + +"'Let us go back then!' I urged. She gave me an impression suddenly of +someone quite forlorn. But Joan Carew recovered her courage. 'No, no,' +she answered quickly. She snatched her hand away and ran lightly up +the staircase, turning at the corner to wave her hand and smile. It +was then half-past one in the morning." + +So far Calladine had spoken without an interruption. Mr. Ricardo, it +is true, was bursting to break in with the most important questions, +but a salutary fear of Hanaud restrained him. Now, however, he had an +opportunity, for Calladine paused. + +"Half-past one," he said sagely. "Ah!" + +"And when did you go home?" Hanaud asked of Calladine. + +"True," said Mr. Ricardo. "It is of the greatest consequence." + +Calladine was not sure. His partner had left behind her the strangest +medley of sensations in his breast. He was puzzled, haunted, and +charmed. He had to think about her; he was a trifle uplifted; sleep +was impossible. He wandered for a while about the ballroom. Then he +walked to his chambers along the echoing streets and sat at his +window; and some time afterwards the hoot of a motor-horn broke the +silence and a car stopped and whirred in the street below. A moment +later his bell rang. + +He ran down the stairs in a queer excitement, unlocked the street door +and opened it. Joan Carew, still in her masquerade dress with her +scarlet cloak about her shoulders, slipped through the opening. + +"Shut the door," she whispered, drawing herself apart in a corner. + +"Your cab?" asked Calladine. + +"It has gone." + +Calladine latched the door. Above, in the well of the stairs, the +light spread out from the open door of his flat. Down here all was +dark. He could just see the glimmer of her white face, the glitter of +her dress, but she drew her breath like one who has run far. They +mounted the stairs cautiously. He did not say a word until they were +both safely in his parlour; and even then it was in a low voice. + +"What has happened?" + +"You remember the woman I stared at? You didn't know why I stared, but +any girl would have understood. She was wearing the loveliest pearls I +ever saw in my life." + +Joan was standing by the edge of the table. She was tracing with her +finger a pattern on the cloth as she spoke. Calladine started with a +horrible presentiment. + +"Yes," she said. "I worship pearls. I always have done. For one thing, +they improve on me. I haven't got any, of course. I have no money. But +friends of mine who do own pearls have sometimes given theirs to me to +wear when they were going sick, and they have always got back their +lustre. I think that has had a little to do with my love of them. Oh, +I have always longed for them--just a little string. Sometimes I have +felt that I would have given my soul for them." + +She was speaking in a dull, monotonous voice. But Calladine recalled +the ecstasy which had shone in her face when her eyes first had fallen +on the pearls, the longing which had swept her quite into another +world, the passion with which she had danced to throw the obsession +off. + +"And I never noticed them at all," he said. + +"Yet they were wonderful. The colour! The lustre! All the evening they +tempted me. I was furious that a fat, coarse creature like that should +have such exquisite things. Oh, I was mad." + +She covered her face suddenly with her hands and swayed. Calladine +sprang towards her. But she held out her hand. + +"No, I am all right." And though he asked her to sit down she would +not. "You remember when I stopped dancing suddenly?" + +"Yes. You had something hidden under your foot?" + +The girl nodded. + +"Her key!" And under his breath Calladine uttered a startled cry. + +For the first time since she had entered the room Joan Carew raised +her head and looked at him. Her eyes were full of terror, and with the +terror was mixed an incredulity as though she could not possibly +believe that that had happened which she knew had happened. + +"A little Yale key," the girl continued. "I saw Mrs. Blumenstein +looking on the floor for something, and then I saw it shining on the +very spot. Mrs. Blumenstein's suite was on the same floor as mine, and +her maid slept above. All the maids do. I knew that. Oh, it seemed to +me as if I had sold my soul and was being paid." + +Now Calladine understood what she had meant by her strange +phrase--"the safe daylight." + +"I went up to my little suite," Joan Carew continued. "I sat there +with the key burning through my glove until I had given her time +enough to fall asleep"--and though she hesitated before she spoke the +words, she did speak them, not looking at Calladine, and with a +shudder of remorse making her confession complete. "Then I crept out. +The corridor was dimly lit. Far away below the music was throbbing. Up +here it was as silent as the grave. I opened the door--her door. I +found myself in a lobby. The suite, though bigger, was arranged like +mine. I slipped in and closed the door behind me. I listened in the +darkness. I couldn't hear a sound. I crept forward to the door in +front of me. I stood with my fingers on the handle and my heart +beating fast enough to choke me. I had still time to turn back. But I +couldn't. There were those pearls in front of my eyes, lustrous and +wonderful. I opened the door gently an inch or so--and then--it all +happened in a second." + +Joan Carew faltered. The night was too near to her, its memory too +poignant with terror. She shut her eyes tightly and cowered down in a +chair. With the movement her cloak slipped from her shoulders and +dropped on to the ground. Calladine leaned forward with an exclamation +of horror; Joan Carew started up. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"Nothing. Go on." + +"I found myself inside the room with the door shut behind me. I had +shut it myself in a spasm of terror. And I dared not turn round to +open it. I was helpless." + +"What do you mean? She was awake?" + +Joan Carew shook her head. + +"There were others in the room before me, and on the same +errand--men!" + +Calladine drew back, his eyes searching the girl's face. + +"Yes?" he said slowly. + +"I didn't see them at first. I didn't hear them. The room was quite +dark except for one jet of fierce white light which beat upon the door +of a safe. And as I shut the door the jet moved swiftly and the light +reached me and stopped. I was blinded. I stood in the full glare of +it, drawn up against the panels of the door, shivering, sick with +fear. Then I heard a quiet laugh, and someone moved softly towards me. +Oh, it was terrible! I recovered the use of my limbs; in a panic I +turned to the door, but I was too late. Whilst I fumbled with the +handle I was seized; a hand covered my mouth. I was lifted to the +centre of the room. The jet went out, the electric lights were turned +on. There were two men dressed as apaches in velvet trousers and red +scarves, like a hundred others in the ballroom below, and both were +masked. I struggled furiously; but, of course, I was like a child in +their grasp. 'Tie her legs,' the man whispered who was holding me; +'she's making too much noise.' I kicked and fought, but the other man +stooped and tied my ankles, and I fainted." + +Calladine nodded his head. + +"Yes?" he said. + +"When I came to, the lights were still burning, the door of the safe +was open, the room empty; I had been flung on to a couch at the foot +of the bed. I was lying there quite free." + +"Was the safe empty?" asked Calladine suddenly. + +"I didn't look," she answered. "Oh!"--and she covered her face +spasmodically with her hands. "I looked at the bed. Someone was lying +there--under a sheet and quite still. There was a clock ticking in the +room; it was the only sound. I was terrified. I was going mad with +fear. If I didn't get out of the room at once I felt that I should +go mad, that I should scream and bring everyone to find me alone +with--what was under the sheet in the bed. I ran to the door and +looked out through a slit into the corridor. It was still quite empty, +and below the music still throbbed in the ballroom. I crept down the +stairs, meeting no one until I reached the hall. I looked into the +ballroom as if I was searching for someone. I stayed long enough to +show myself. Then I got a cab and came to you." + +A short silence followed. Joan Carew looked at her companion in +appeal. "You are the only one I could come to," she added. "I know no +one else." + +Calladine sat watching the girl in silence. Then he asked, and his +voice was hard: + +"And is that all you have to tell me?" + +"Yes." + +"You are quite sure?" + +Joan Carew looked at him perplexed by the urgency of his question. She +reflected for a moment or two. + +"Quite." + +Calladine rose to his feet and stood beside her. + +"Then how do you come to be wearing this?" he asked, and he lifted a +chain of platinum and diamonds which she was wearing about her +shoulders. "You weren't wearing it when you danced with me." + +Joan Carew stared at the chain. + +"No. It's not mine. I have never seen it before." Then a light came +into her eyes. "The two men--they must have thrown it over my head +when I was on the couch--before they went." She looked at it more +closely. "That's it. The chain's not very valuable. They could spare +it, and--it would accuse me--of what they did." + +"Yes, that's very good reasoning," said Calladine coldly. + +Joan Carew looked quickly up into his face. + +"Oh, you don't believe me," she cried. "You think--oh, it's +impossible." And, holding him by the edge of his coat, she burst into +a storm of passionate denials. + +"But you went to steal, you know," he said gently, and she answered +him at once: + +"Yes, I did, but not this." And she held up the necklace. "Should I +have stolen this, should I have come to you wearing it, if I had +stolen the pearls, if I had"--and she stopped--"if my story were not +true?" + +Calladine weighed her argument, and it affected him. + +"No, I think you wouldn't," he said frankly. + +Most crimes, no doubt, were brought home because the criminal had made +some incomprehensibly stupid mistake; incomprehensibly stupid, that +is, by the standards of normal life. Nevertheless, Calladine was +inclined to believe her. He looked at her. That she should have +murdered was absurd. Moreover, she was not making a parade of remorse, +she was not playing the unctuous penitent; she had yielded to a +temptation, had got herself into desperate straits, and was at her +wits' ends how to escape from them. She was frank about herself. + +Calladine looked at the clock. It was nearly five o'clock in the +morning, and though the music could still be heard from the ballroom +in the Semiramis, the night had begun to wane upon the river. + +"You must go back," he said. "I'll walk with you." + +They crept silently down the stairs and into the street. It was only a +step to the Semiramis. They met no one until they reached the Strand. +There many, like Joan Carew in masquerade, were standing about, or +walking hither and thither in search of carriages and cabs. The whole +street was in a bustle, what with drivers shouting and people coming +away. + +"You can slip in unnoticed," said Calladine as he looked into the +thronged courtyard. "I'll telephone to you in the morning." + +"You will?" she cried eagerly, clinging for a moment to his arm. + +"Yes, for certain," he replied. "Wait in until you hear from me. I'll +think it over. I'll do what I can." + +"Thank you," she said fervently. + +He watched her scarlet cloak flitting here and there in the crowd +until it vanished through the doorway. Then, for the second time, he +walked back to his chambers, while the morning crept up the river from +the sea. + + + * * * * * + + +This was the story which Calladine told in Mr. Ricardo's library. Mr. +Ricardo heard it out with varying emotions. He began with a thrill of +expectation like a man on a dark threshold of great excitements. The +setting of the story appealed to him, too, by a sort of brilliant +bizarrerie which he found in it. But, as it went on, he grew puzzled +and a trifle disheartened. There were flaws and chinks; he began to +bubble with unspoken criticisms, then swift and clever thrusts which +he dared not deliver. He looked upon the young man with disfavour, as +upon one who had half opened a door upon a theatre of great promise +and shown him a spectacle not up to the mark. Hanaud, on the other +hand, listened imperturbably, without an expression upon his face, +until the end. Then he pointed a finger at Calladine and asked him +what to Ricardo's mind was a most irrelevant question. + +"You got back to your rooms, then, before five, Mr. Calladine, and it +is now nine o'clock less a few minutes." + +"Yes." + +"Yet you have not changed your clothes. Explain to me that. What did +you do between five and half-past eight?" + +Calladine looked down at his rumpled shirt front. + +"Upon my word, I never thought of it," he cried. "I was worried out of +my mind. I couldn't decide what to do. Finally, I determined to talk +to Mr. Ricardo, and after I had come to that conclusion I just waited +impatiently until I could come round with decency." + +Hanaud rose from his chair. His manner was grave, but conveyed no +single hint of an opinion. He turned to Ricardo. + +"Let us go round to your young friend's rooms in the Adelphi," he +said; and the three men drove thither at once. + + + II + +Calladine lodged in a corner house and upon the first floor. His +rooms, large and square and lofty, with Adams mantelpieces and a +delicate tracery upon their ceilings, breathed the grace of the +eighteenth century. Broad high windows, embrasured in thick walls, +overlooked the river and took in all the sunshine and the air which +the river had to give. And they were furnished fittingly. When the +three men entered the parlour, Mr. Ricardo was astounded. He had +expected the untidy litter of a man run to seed, the neglect and the +dust of the recluse. But the room was as clean as the deck of a yacht; +an Aubusson carpet made the floor luxurious underfoot; a few coloured +prints of real value decorated the walls; and the mahogany furniture +was polished so that a lady could have used it as a mirror. There was +even by the newspapers upon the round table a china bowl full of fresh +red roses. If Calladine had turned hermit, he was a hermit of an +unusually fastidious type. Indeed, as he stood with his two companions +in his dishevelled dress he seemed quite out of keeping with his +rooms. + +"So you live here, Mr. Calladine?" said Hanaud, taking off his hat and +laying it down. + +"Yes." + +"With your servants, of course?" + +"They come in during the day," said Calladine, and Hanaud looked at +him curiously. + +"Do you mean that you sleep here alone?" + +"Yes." + +"But your valet?" + +"I don't keep a valet," said Calladine; and again the curious look +came into Hanaud's eyes. + +"Yet," he suggested gently, "there are rooms enough in your set of +chambers to house a family." + +Calladine coloured and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the +other. + +"I prefer at night not to be disturbed," he said, stumbling a little +over the words. "I mean, I have a liking for quiet." + +Gabriel Hanaud nodded his head with sympathy. + +"Yes, yes. And it is a difficult thing to get--as difficult as +my holiday," he said ruefully, with a smile for Mr. Ricardo. +"However"--he turned towards Calladine--"no doubt, now that you are at +home, you would like a bath and a change of clothes. And when you are +dressed, perhaps you will telephone to the Semiramis and ask Miss +Carew to come round here. Meanwhile, we will read your newspapers and +smoke your cigarettes." + +Hanaud shut the door upon Calladine, but he turned neither to the +papers nor the cigarettes. He crossed the room to Mr. Ricardo, who, +seated at the open window, was plunged deep in reflections. + +"You have an idea, my friend," cried Hanaud. "It demands to express +itself. That sees itself in your face. Let me hear it, I pray." + +Mr. Ricardo started out of an absorption which was altogether assumed. + +"I was thinking," he said, with a faraway smile, "that you might +disappear in the forests of Africa, and at once everyone would be very +busy about your disappearance. You might leave your village in +Leicestershire and live in the fogs of Glasgow, and within a week the +whole village would know your postal address. But London--what a city! +How different! How indifferent! Turn out of St. James's into the +Adelphi Terrace and not a soul will say to you: 'Dr. Livingstone, I +presume?'" + +"But why should they," asked Hanaud, "if your name isn't Dr. +Livingstone?" + +Mr. Ricardo smiled indulgently. + +"Scoffer!" he said. "You understand me very well," and he sought to +turn the tables on his companion. "And you--does this room suggest +nothing to you? Have you no ideas?" But he knew very well that Hanaud +had. Ever since Hanaud had crossed the threshold he had been like a +man stimulated by a drug. His eyes were bright and active, his body +alert. + +"Yes," he said, "I have." + +He was standing now by Ricardo's side with his hands in his pockets, +looking out at the trees on the Embankment and the barges swinging +down the river. + +"You are thinking of the strange scene which took place in this room +such a very few hours ago," said Ricardo. "The girl in her masquerade +dress making her confession with the stolen chain about her +throat----" + +Hanaud looked backwards carelessly. "No, I wasn't giving it a +thought," he said, and in a moment or two he began to walk about the +room with that curiously light step which Ricardo was never able to +reconcile with his cumbersome figure. With the heaviness of a bear he +still padded. He went from corner to corner, opened a cupboard here, a +drawer of the bureau there, and--stooped suddenly. He stood erect +again with a small box of morocco leather in his hand. His body from +head to foot seemed to Ricardo to be expressing the question, "Have I +found it?" He pressed a spring and the lid of the box flew open. +Hanaud emptied its contents into the palm of his hand. There were two +or three sticks of sealing-wax and a seal. With a shrug of the +shoulders he replaced them and shut the box. + +"You are looking for something," Ricardo announced with sagacity. + +"I am," replied Hanaud; and it seemed that in a second or two he found +it. Yet--yet--he found it with his hands in his pockets, if he had +found it. Mr. Ricardo saw him stop in that attitude in front of the +mantelshelf, and heard him utter a long, low whistle. Upon the +mantelshelf some photographs were arranged, a box of cigars stood at +one end, a book or two lay between some delicate ornaments of china, +and a small engraving in a thin gilt frame was propped at the back +against the wall. Ricardo surveyed the shelf from his seat in the +window, but he could not imagine which it was of these objects that so +drew and held Hanaud's eyes. + +Hanaud, however, stepped forward. He looked into a vase and turned it +upside down. Then he removed the lid of a porcelain cup, and from the +very look of his great shoulders Ricardo knew that he had discovered +what he sought. He was holding something in his hands, turning it +over, examining it. When he was satisfied he moved swiftly to the door +and opened it cautiously. Both men could hear the splashing of water +in a bath. Hanaud closed the door again with a nod of contentment and +crossed once more to the window. + +"Yes, it is all very strange and curious," he said, "and I do not +regret that you dragged me into the affair. You were quite right, my +friend, this morning. It is the personality of your young Mr. +Calladine which is the interesting thing. For instance, here we are in +London in the early summer. The trees out, freshly green, lilac and +flowers in the gardens, and I don't know what tingle of hope and +expectation in the sunlight and the air. I am middle-aged--yet there's +a riot in my blood, a recapture of youth, a belief that just round the +corner, beyond the reach of my eyes, wonders wait for me. Don't you, +too, feel something like that? Well, then--" and he heaved his +shoulders in astonishment. + +"Can you understand a young man with money, with fastidious tastes, +good-looking, hiding himself in a corner at such a time--except for +some overpowering reason? No. Nor can I. There is another thing--I put +a question or two to Calladine." + +"Yes," said Ricardo. + +"He has no servants here at night. He is quite alone and--here is what +I find interesting--he has no valet. That seems a small thing to you?" +Hanaud asked at a movement from Ricardo. "Well, it is no doubt a +trifle, but it's a significant trifle in the case of a young rich man. +It is generally a sign that there is something strange, perhaps even +something sinister, in his life. Mr. Calladine, some months ago, +turned out of St. James's into the Adelphi. Can you tell me why?" + +"No," replied Mr. Ricardo. "Can you?" + +Hanaud stretched out a hand. In his open palm lay a small round hairy +bulb about the size of a big button and of a colour between green and +brown. + +"Look!" he said. "What is that?" + +Mr. Ricardo took the bulb wonderingly. + +"It looks to me like the fruit of some kind of cactus." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"It is. You will see some pots of it in the hothouses of any really +good botanical gardens. Kew has them, I have no doubt. Paris certainly +has. They are labelled. 'Anhalonium Luinii.' But amongst the Indians +of Yucatan the plant has a simpler name." + +"What name?" asked Ricardo. + +"Mescal." + +Mr. Ricardo repeated the name. It conveyed nothing to him whatever. + +"There are a good many bulbs just like that in the cup upon the +mantelshelf," said Hanaud. + +Ricardo looked quickly up. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"Mescal is a drug." + +Ricardo started. + +"Yes, you are beginning to understand now," Hanaud continued, "why +your young friend Calladine turned out of St. James's into the Adelphi +Terrace." + +Ricardo turned the little bulb over in his fingers. + +"You make a decoction of it, I suppose?" he said. + +"Or you can use it as the Indians do in Yucatan," replied Hanaud. +"Mescal enters into their religious ceremonies. They sit at night in a +circle about a fire built in the forest and chew it, whilst one of +their number beats perpetually upon a drum." + +Hanaud looked round the room and took notes of its luxurious carpet, +its delicate appointments. Outside the window there was a thunder in +the streets, a clamour of voices. Boats went swiftly down the river on +the ebb. Beyond the mass of the Semiramis rose the great grey-white +dome of St. Paul's. Opposite, upon the Southwark bank, the giant +sky-signs, the big Highlander drinking whisky, and the rest of them +waited, gaunt skeletons, for the night to limn them in fire and give +them life. Below the trees in the gardens rustled and waved. In the +air were the uplift and the sparkle of the young summer. + +"It's a long way from the forests of Yucatan to the Adelphi Terrace of +London," said Hanaud. "Yet here, I think, in these rooms, when the +servants are all gone and the house is very quiet, there is a little +corner of wild Mexico." + +A look of pity came into Mr. Ricardo's face. He had seen more than one +young man of great promise slacken his hold and let go, just for this +reason. Calladine, it seemed, was another. + +"It's like bhang and kieff and the rest of the devilish things, I +suppose," he said, indignantly tossing the button upon the table. + +Hanaud picked it up. + +"No," he replied. "It's not quite like any other drug. It has a +quality of its own which just now is of particular importance to you +and me. Yes, my friend"--and he nodded his head very seriously--"we +must watch that we do not make the big fools of ourselves in this +affair." + +"There," Mr. Ricardo agreed with an ineffable air of wisdom, "I am +entirely with you." + +"Now, why?" Hanaud asked. Mr. Ricardo was at a loss for a reason, but +Hanaud did not wait. "I will tell you. Mescal intoxicates, yes--but it +does more--it gives to the man who eats of it colour-dreams." + +"Colour-dreams?" Mr. Ricardo repeated in a wondering voice. + +"Yes, strange heated charms, in which violent things happen vividly +amongst bright colours. Colour is the gift of this little prosaic +brown button." He spun the bulb in the air like a coin, and catching +it again, took it over to the mantelpiece and dropped it into the +porcelain cup. + +"Are you sure of this?" Ricardo cried excitedly, and Hanaud raised his +hand in warning. He went to the door, opened it for an inch or so, and +closed it again. + +"I am quite sure," he returned. "I have for a friend a very learned +chemist in the Collège de France. He is one of those enthusiasts who +must experiment upon themselves. He tried this drug." + +"Yes," Ricardo said in a quieter voice. "And what did he see?" + +"He had a vision of a wonderful garden bathed in sunlight, an old +garden of gorgeous flowers and emerald lawns, ponds with golden lilies +and thick yew hedges--a garden where peacocks stepped indolently and +groups of gay people fantastically dressed quarrelled and fought with +swords. That is what he saw. And he saw it so vividly that, when the +vapours of the drug passed from his brain and he waked, he seemed to +be coming out of the real world into a world of shifting illusions." + +Hanaud's strong quiet voice stopped, and for a while there was a +complete silence in the room. Neither of the two men stirred so much +as a finger. Mr. Ricardo once more was conscious of the thrill of +strange sensations. He looked round the room. He could hardly believe +that a room which had been--nay was--the home and shrine of mysteries +in the dark hours could wear so bright and innocent a freshness in the +sunlight of the morning. There should be something sinister which +leaped to the eyes as you crossed the threshold. + +"Out of the real world," Mr. Ricardo quoted. "I begin to see." + +"Yes, you begin to see, my friend, that we must be very careful not to +make the big fools of ourselves. My friend of the Collège de France +saw a garden. But had he been sitting alone in the window-seat where +you are, listening through a summer night to the music of the +masquerade at the Semiramis, might he not have seen the ballroom, the +dancers, the scarlet cloak, and the rest of this story?" + +"You mean," cried Ricardo, now fairly startled, "that Calladine came +to us with the fumes of mescal still working in his brain, that the +false world was the real one still for him." + +"I do not know," said Hanaud. "At present I only put questions. I ask +them of you. I wish to hear how they sound. Let us reason this problem +out. Calladine, let us say, takes a great deal more of the drug than +my professor. It will have on him a more powerful effect while it +lasts, and it will last longer. Fancy dress balls are familiar things +to Calladine. The music floating from the Semiramis will revive old +memories. He sits here, the pageant takes shape before him, he sees +himself taking his part in it. Oh, he is happier here sitting quietly +in his window-seat than if he was actually at the Semiramis. For he is +there more intensely, more vividly, more really, than if he had +actually descended this staircase. He lives his story through, the +story of a heated brain, the scene of it changes in the way dreams +have, it becomes tragic and sinister, it oppresses him with horror, +and in the morning, so obsessed with it that he does not think to +change his clothes, he is knocking at your door." + +Mr. Ricardo raised his eyebrows and moved. + +"Ah! You see a flaw in my argument," said Hanaud. But Mr. Ricardo was +wary. Too often in other days he had been leaped upon and trounced for +a careless remark. + +"Let me hear the end of your argument," he said. "There was then to +your thinking no temptation of jewels, no theft, no murder--in a word, +no Celymène? She was born of recollections and the music of the +Semiramis." + +"No!" cried Hanaud. "Come with me, my friend. I am not so sure that +there was no Celymène." + +With a smile upon his face, Hanaud led the way across the room. He had +the dramatic instinct, and rejoiced in it. He was going to produce a +surprise for his companion and, savouring the moment in advance, he +managed his effects. He walked towards the mantelpiece and stopped a +few paces away from it. + +"Look!" + +Mr. Ricardo looked and saw a broad Adams mantelpiece. He turned a +bewildered face to his friend. + +"You see nothing?" Hanaud asked. + +"Nothing!" + +"Look again! I am not sure--but is it not that Celymène is posing +before you?" + +Mr. Ricardo looked again. There was nothing to fix his eyes. He saw a +book or two, a cup, a vase or two, and nothing else really expect a +very pretty and apparently valuable piece of--and suddenly Mr. Ricardo +understood. Straight in front of him, in the very centre of the +mantelpiece, a figure in painted china was leaning against a china +stile. It was the figure of a perfectly impossible courtier, feminine +and exquisite as could be, and apparelled also even to the scarlet +heels exactly as Calladine had described Joan Carew. + +Hanaud chuckled with satisfaction when he saw the expression upon Mr. +Ricardo's face. + +"Ah, you understand," he said. "Do you dream, my friend? At +times--yes, like the rest of us. Then recollect your dreams? Things, +people, which you have seen perhaps that day, perhaps months ago, pop +in and out of them without making themselves prayed for. You cannot +understand why. Yet sometimes they cut their strange capers there, +logically, too, through subtle associations which the dreamer, once +awake, does not apprehend. Thus, our friend here sits in the window, +intoxicated by his drug, the music plays in the Semiramis, the curtain +goes up in the heated theatre of his brain. He sees himself step upon +the stage, and who else meets him but the china figure from his +mantelpiece?" + +Mr. Ricardo for a moment was all enthusiasm. Then his doubt returned +to him. + +"What you say, my dear Hanaud, is very ingenious. The figure upon the +mantelpiece is also extremely convincing. And I should be absolutely +convinced but for one thing." + +"Yes?" said Hanaud, watching his friend closely. + +"I am--I may say it, I think, a man of the world. And I ask +myself"--Mr. Ricardo never could ask himself anything without assuming +a manner of extreme pomposity--"I ask myself, whether a young man who +has given up his social ties, who has become a hermit, and still more +who has become the slave of a drug, would retain that scrupulous +carefulness of his body which is indicated by dressing for dinner when +alone?" + +Hanaud struck the table with the palm of his hand and sat down in a +chair. + +"Yes. That is the weak point in my theory. You have hit it. I knew it +was there--that weak point, and I wondered whether you would seize it. +Yes, the consumers of drugs are careless, untidy--even unclean as a +rule. But not always. We must be careful. We must wait." + +"For what?" asked Ricardo, beaming with pride. + +"For the answer to a telephone message," replied Hanaud, with a nod +towards the door. + +Both men waited impatiently until Calladine came into the room. He +wore now a suit of blue serge, he had a clearer eye, his skin a +healthier look; he was altogether a more reputable person. But he was +plainly very ill at ease. He offered his visitors cigarettes, he +proposed refreshments, he avoided entirely and awkwardly the object of +their visit. Hanaud smiled. His theory was working out. Sobered by his +bath, Calladine had realised the foolishness of which he had been +guilty. + +"You telephone, to the Semiramis, of course?" said Hanaud cheerfully. + +Calladine grew red. + +"Yes," he stammered. + +"Yet I did not hear that volume of 'Hallos' which precedes telephonic +connection in your country of leisure," Hanaud continued. + +"I telephoned from my bedroom. You would not hear anything in this +room." + +"Yes, yes; the walls of these old houses are solid." Hanaud was +playing with his victim. "And when may we expect Miss Carew?" + +"I can't say," replied Calladine. "It's very strange. She is not in +the hotel. I am afraid that she has gone away, fled." + +Mr. Ricardo and Hanaud exchanged a look. They were both satisfied now. +There was no word of truth in Calladine's story. + +"Then there is no reason for us to wait," said Hanaud. "I shall have +my holiday after all." And while he was yet speaking the voice of a +newsboy calling out the first edition of an evening paper became +distantly audible. Hanaud broke off his farewell. For a moment he +listened, with his head bent. Then the voice was heard again, +confused, indistinct; Hanaud picked up his hat and cane and, without +another word to Calladine, raced down the stairs. Mr. Ricardo followed +him, but when he reached the pavement, Hanaud was half down the little +street. At the corner, however, he stopped, and Ricardo joined him, +coughing and out of breath. + +"What's the matter?" he gasped. + +"Listen," said Hanaud. + +At the bottom of Duke Street, by Charing Cross Station, the newsboy +was shouting his wares. Both men listened, and now the words came to +them mispronounced but decipherable. + +"Mysterious crime at the Semiramis Hotel." + +Ricardo stared at his companion. + +"You were wrong then!" he cried. "Calladine's story was true." + +For once in a way Hanaud was quite disconcerted. + +"I don't know yet," he said. "We will buy a paper." + +But before he could move a step a taxi-cab turned into the Adelphi +from the Strand, and wheeling in front of their faces, stopped at +Calladine's door. From the cab a girl descended. + +"Let us go back," said Hanaud. + + + III + +Mr. Ricardo could no longer complain. It was half-past eight when +Calladine had first disturbed the formalities of his house in +Grosvenor Square. It was barely ten now, and during that short time he +had been flung from surprise to surprise, he had looked underground on +a morning of fresh summer, and had been thrilled by the contrast +between the queer, sinister life below and within and the open call to +joy of the green world above. He had passed from incredulity to +belief, from belief to incredulity, and when at last incredulity was +firmly established, and the story to which he had listened proved the +emanation of a drugged and heated brain, lo! the facts buffeted him in +the face, and the story was shown to be true. + +"I am alive once more," Mr. Ricardo thought as he turned back with +Hanaud, and in his excitement he cried his thought aloud. + +"Are you?" said Hanaud. "And what is life without a newspaper? If you +will buy one from that remarkably raucous boy at the bottom of the +street I will keep an eye upon Calladine's house till you come back." + +Mr. Ricardo sped down to Charing Cross and brought back a copy of the +fourth edition of the _Star_. He handed it to Hanaud, who stared at it +doubtfully, folded as it was. + +"Shall we see what it says?" Ricardo asked impatiently. + +"By no means," Hanaud answered, waking from his reverie and tucking +briskly away the paper into the tail pocket of his coat. "We will hear +what Miss Joan Carew has to say, with our minds undisturbed by any +discoveries. I was wondering about something totally different." + +"Yes?" Mr. Ricardo encouraged him. "What was it?" + +"I was wondering, since it is only ten o'clock, at what hour the first +editions of the evening papers appear." + +"It is a question," Mr. Ricardo replied sententiously, "which the +greatest minds have failed to answer." + +And they walked along the street to the house. The front door stood +open during the day like the front door of any other house which is +let off in sets of rooms. Hanaud and Ricardo went up the staircase and +rang the bell of Calladine's door. A middle-aged woman opened it. + +"Mr. Calladine is in?" said Hanaud. + +"I will ask," replied the woman. "What name shall I say?" + +"It does not matter. I will go straight in," said Hanaud quietly. "I +was here with my friend but a minute ago." + +He went straight forward and into Calladine's parlour. Mr. Ricardo +looked over his shoulder as he opened the door and saw a girl turn to +them suddenly a white face of terror, and flinch as though already she +felt the hand of a constable upon her shoulder. Calladine, on the +other hand, uttered a cry of relief. + +"These are my friends," he exclaimed to the girl, "the friends of whom +I spoke to you"; and to Hanaud he said: "This is Miss Carew." + +Hanaud bowed. + +"You shall tell me your story, mademoiselle," he said very gently, and +a little colour returned to the girl's cheeks, a little courage +revived in her. + +"But you have heard it," she answered. + +"Not from you," said Hanaud. + +So for a second time in that room she told the history of that night. +Only this time the sunlight was warm upon the world, the comfortable +sounds of life's routine were borne through the windows, and the girl +herself wore the inconspicuous blue serge of a thousand other girls +afoot that morning. These trifles of circumstance took the edge of +sheer horror off her narrative, so that, to tell the truth, Mr. +Ricardo was a trifle disappointed. He wanted a crescendo motive in his +music, whereas it had begun at its fortissimo. Hanaud, however, was +the perfect listener. He listened without stirring and with most +compassionate eyes, so that Joan Carew spoke only to him, and to him, +each moment that passed, with greater confidence. The life and sparkle +of her had gone altogether. There was nothing in her manner now to +suggest the waywardness, the gay irresponsibility, the radiance, which +had attracted Calladine the night before. She was just a very young +and very pretty girl, telling in a low and remorseful voice of the +tragic dilemma to which she had brought herself. Of Celymène all that +remained was something exquisite and fragile in her beauty, in the +slimness of her figure, in her daintiness of hand and foot--something +almost of the hot-house. But the story she told was, detail for +detail, the same which Calladine had already related. + +"Thank you," said Hanaud when she had done. "Now I must ask you two +questions." + +"I will answer them." + +Mr. Ricardo sat up. He began to think of a third question which he +might put himself, something uncommonly subtle and searching, which +Hanaud would never have thought of. But Hanaud put his questions, and +Ricardo almost jumped out of his chair. + +"You will forgive me. Miss Carew. But have you ever stolen before?" + +Joan Carew turned upon Hanaud with spirit. Then a change swept over +her face. + +"You have a right to ask," she answered. "Never." She looked into his +eyes as she answered. Hanaud did not move. He sat with a hand upon +each knee and led to his second question. + +"Early this morning, when you left this room, you told Mr. Calladine +that you would wait at the Semiramis until he telephoned to you?" + +"Yes." + +"Yet when he telephoned, you had gone out?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"I will tell you," said Joan Carew. "I could not bear to keep the +little diamond chain in my room." + +For a moment even Hanaud was surprised. He had lost sight of that +complication. Now he leaned forward anxiously; indeed, with a greater +anxiety than he had yet shown in all this affair. + +"I was terrified," continued Joan Carew. "I kept thinking: 'They must +have found out by now. They will search everywhere.' I didn't reason. +I lay in bed expecting to hear every moment a loud knocking on the +door. Besides--the chain itself being there in my bedroom--her +chain--the dead woman's chain--no, I couldn't endure it. I felt as if +I had stolen it. Then my maid brought in my tea." + +"You had locked it away?" cried Hanaud. + +"Yes. My maid did not see it." + +Joan Carew explained how she had risen, dressed, wrapped the chain in +a pad of cotton-wool and enclosed it in an envelope. The envelope had +not the stamp of the hotel upon it. It was a rather large envelope, +one of a packet which she had bought in a crowded shop in Oxford +Street on her way from Euston to the Semiramis. She had bought the +envelopes of that particular size in order that when she sent her +letter of introduction to the Director of the Opera at Covent Garden +she might enclose with it a photograph. + +"And to whom did you send it?" asked Mr. Ricardo. + +"To Mrs. Blumenstein at the Semiramis. I printed the address +carefully. Then I went out and posted it." + +"Where?" Hanaud inquired. + +"In the big letter-box of the Post Office at the corner of Trafalgar +Square." + +Hanaud looked at the girl sharply. + +"You had your wits about you, I see," he said. + +"What if the envelope gets lost?" said Ricardo. + +Hanaud laughed grimly. + +"If one envelope is delivered at its address in London to-day, it will +be that one," he said. "The news of the crime is published, you see," +and he swung round to Joan. + +"Did you know that, Miss Carew?" + +"No," she answered in an awe-stricken voice. + +"Well, then, it is. Let us see what the special investigator has to +say about it." And Hanaud, with a deliberation which Mr. Ricardo found +quite excruciating, spread out the newspaper on the table in front of +him. + + + IV + +There was only one new fact in the couple of columns devoted to the +mystery. Mrs. Blumenstein had died from chloroform poisoning. She was +of a stout habit, and the thieves were not skilled in the +administration of the anæsthetic. + +"It's murder none the less," said Hanaud, and he gazed straight at +Joan, asking her by the direct summons of his eyes what she was going +to do. + +"I must tell my story to the police," she replied painfully and +slowly. But she did not hesitate; she was announcing a meditated plan. + +Hanaud neither agreed nor differed. His face was blank, and when he +spoke there was no cordiality in his voice. "Well," he asked, "and +what is it that you have to say to the police, miss? That you went +into the room to steal, and that you were attacked by two strangers, +dressed as apaches, and masked? That is all?" + +"Yes." + +"And how many men at the Semiramis ball were dressed as apaches and +wore masks? Come! Make a guess. A hundred at the least?" + +"I should think so." + +"Then what will your confession do beyond--I quote your English +idiom--putting you in the coach?" + +Mr. Ricardo now smiled with relief. Hanaud was taking a definite line. +His knowledge of idiomatic English might be incomplete, but his heart +was in the right place. The girl traced a vague pattern on the +tablecloth with her fingers. + +"Yet I think I must tell the police," she repeated, looking up and +dropping her eyes again. Mr. Ricardo noticed that her eyelashes were +very long. For the first time Hanaud's face relaxed. + +"And I think you are quite right," he cried heartily, to Mr. Ricardo's +surprise. "Tell them the truth before they suspect it, and they will +help you out of the affair if they can. Not a doubt of it. Come, I +will go with you myself to Scotland Yard." + +"Thank you," said Joan, and the pair drove away in a cab together. + +Hanaud returned to Grosvenor Square alone and lunched with Ricardo. + +"It was all right," he said. "The police were very kind. Miss Joan +Carew told her story to them as she had told it to us. Fortunately, +the envelope with the aluminium chain had already been delivered, and +was in their hands. They were much mystified about it, but Miss Joan's +story gave them a reasonable explanation. I think they are inclined to +believe her; and, if she is speaking the truth, they will keep her out +of the witness-box if they can." + +"She is to stay here in London, then?" asked Ricardo. + +"Oh, yes; she is not to go. She will present her letters at the Opera +House and secure an engagement, if she can. The criminals might be +lulled thereby into a belief that the girl had kept the whole strange +incident to herself, and that there was nowhere even a knowledge of +the disguise which they had used." Hanaud spoke as carelessly as if +the matter was not very important; and Ricardo, with an unusual flash +of shrewdness, said: + +"It is clear, my friend, that you do not think those two men will ever +be caught at all." + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. + +"There is always a chance. But listen. There is a room with a +hundred guns, one of which is loaded. Outside the room there are a +hundred pigeons, one of which is white. You are taken into the room +blind-fold. You choose the loaded gun and you shoot the one white +pigeon. That is the value of the chance." + +"But," exclaimed Ricardo, "those pearls were of great value, and I +have heard at a trial expert evidence given by pearl merchants. All +agree that the pearls of great value are known; so, when they come +upon the market----" + +"That is true," Hanaud interrupted imperturbably. "But how are they +known?" + +"By their weight," said Mr. Ricardo. + +"Exactly," replied Hanaud. "But did you not also hear at this trial of +yours that pearls can be peeled like an onion? No? It is true. Remove +a skin, two skins, the weight is altered, the pearl is a trifle +smaller. It has lost a little of its value, yes--but you can no longer +identify it as the so-and-so pearl which belonged to this or that +sultan, was stolen by the vizier, bought by Messrs. Lustre and +Steinopolis, of Hatton Garden, and subsequently sold to the wealthy +Mrs. Blumenstein. No, your pearl has vanished altogether. There is a +new pearl which can be traded." He looked at Ricardo. "Who shall say +that those pearls are not already in one of the queer little back +streets of Amsterdam, undergoing their transformation?" + +Mr. Ricardo was not persuaded because he would not be. "I have some +experience in these matters," he said loftily to Hanaud. "I am sure +that we shall lay our hands upon the criminals. We have never failed." + +Hanaud grinned from ear to ear. The only experience which Mr. Ricardo +had ever had was gained on the shores of Geneva and at Aix under +Hanaud's tuition. But Hanaud did not argue, and there the matter +rested. + +The days flew by. It was London's play-time. The green and gold of +early summer deepened and darkened; wondrous warm nights under +England's pale blue sky, when the streets rang with the joyous feet of +youth, led in clear dawns and lovely glowing days. Hanaud made +acquaintance with the wooded reaches of the Thames; Joan Carew sang +"Louise" at Covent Garden with notable success; and the affair of the +Semiramis Hotel, in the minds of the few who remembered it, was +already added to the long list of unfathomed mysteries. + +But towards the end of May there occurred a startling development. +Joan Carew wrote to Mr. Ricardo that she would call upon him in +the afternoon, and she begged him to secure the presence of Hanaud. +She came as the clock struck; she was pale and agitated; and in the +room where Calladine had first told the story of her visit she told +another story which, to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was yet more strange +and--yes--yet more suspicious. + +"It has been going on for some time," she began. "I thought of coming +to you at once. Then I wondered whether, if I waited--oh, you'll never +believe me!" + +"Let us hear!" said Hanaud patiently. + +"I began to dream of that room, the two men disguised and masked, the +still figure in the bed. Night after night! I was terrified to go to +sleep. I felt the hand upon my mouth. I used to catch myself falling +asleep, and walk about the room with all the lights up to keep myself +awake." + +"But you couldn't," said Hanaud with a smile. "Only the old can do +that." + +"No, I couldn't," she admitted; "and--oh, my nights were horrible +until"--she paused and looked at her companions doubtfully--"until one +night the mask slipped." + +"What--?" cried Hanaud, and a note of sternness rang suddenly in his +voice. "What are you saying?" + +With a desperate rush of words, and the colour staining her forehead +and cheeks, Joan Carew continued: + +"It is true. The mask slipped on the face of one of the men--of +the man who held me. Only a little way; it just left his forehead +visible--no more." + +"Well?" asked Hanaud, and Mr. Ricardo leaned forward, swaying between +the austerity of criticism and the desire to believe so thrilling a +revelation. + +"I waked up," the girl continued, "in the darkness, and for a moment +the whole scene remained vividly with me--for just long enough for me +to fix clearly in my mind the figure of the apache with the white +forehead showing above the mask." + +"When was that?" asked Ricardo. + +"A fortnight ago." + +"Why didn't you come with your story then?" + +"I waited," said Joan. "What I had to tell wasn't yet helpful. I +thought that another night the mask might slip lower still. Besides, +I--it is difficult to describe just what I felt. I felt it important +just to keep that photograph in my mind, not to think about it, not to +talk about it, not even to look at it too often lest I should begin to +imagine the rest of the face and find something familiar in the man's +carriage and shape when there was nothing really familiar to me at +all. Do you understand that?" she asked, with her eyes fixed in appeal +on Hanaud's face. + +"Yes," replied Hanaud. "I follow your thought." + +"I thought there was a chance now--the strangest chance--that the +truth might be reached. I did not wish to spoil it," and she turned +eagerly to Ricardo, as if, having persuaded Hanaud, she would now turn +her batteries on his companion. "My whole point of view was changed. I +was no longer afraid of falling asleep lest I should dream. I wished +to dream, but----" + +"But you could not," suggested Hanaud. + +"No, that is the truth," replied Joan Carew. "Whereas before I was +anxious to keep awake and yet must sleep from sheer fatigue, now that +I tried consciously to put myself to sleep I remained awake all +through the night, and only towards morning, when the light was coming +through the blinds, dropped off into a heavy, dreamless slumber." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"It is a very perverse world, Miss Carew, and things go by +contraries." + +Ricardo listened for some note of irony in Hanaud's voice, some look +of disbelief in his face. But there was neither the one nor the other. +Hanaud was listening patiently. + +"Then came my rehearsals," Joan Carew continued, "and that wonderful +opera drove everything else out of my head. I had such a chance, if +only I could make use of it! When I went to bed now, I went with that +haunting music in my ears--the call of Paris--oh, you must remember +it. But can you realise what it must mean to a girl who is going to +sing it for the first time in Covent Garden?" + +Mr. Ricardo saw his opportunity. He, the connoisseur, to whom the +psychology of the green room was as an open book, could answer that +question. + +"It is true, my friend," he informed Hanaud with quiet authority. "The +great march of events leaves the artist cold. He lives aloof. While +the tumbrils thunder in the streets he adds a delicate tint to the +picture he is engaged upon or recalls his triumph in his last great +part." + +"Thank you," said Hanaud gravely. "And now Miss Carew may perhaps +resume her story." + +"It was the very night of my début," she continued. "I had supper with +some friends. A great artist. Carmen Valeri, honoured me with her +presence. I went home excited, and that night I dreamed again." + +"Yes?" + +"This time the chin, the lips, the eyes were visible. There was only a +black strip across the middle of the face. And I thought--nay, I was +sure--that if that strip vanished I should know the man." + +"And it did vanish?" + +"Three nights afterwards." + +"And you did know the man?" + +The girl's face became troubled. She frowned. + +"I knew the face, that was all," she answered. "I was disappointed. I +had never spoken to the man. I am sure of that still. But somewhere I +have seen him." + +"You don't even remember when?" asked Hanaud. + +"No." Joan Carew reflected for a moment with her eyes upon the carpet, +and then flung up her head with a gesture of despair. "No. I try all +the time to remember. But it is no good." + +Mr. Ricardo could not restrain a movement of indignation. He was being +played with. The girl with her fantastic story had worked him up to a +real pitch of excitement only to make a fool of him. All his earlier +suspicions flowed back into his mind. What if, after all, she was +implicated in the murder and the theft? What if, with a perverse +cunning, she had told Hanaud and himself just enough of what she knew, +just enough of the truth, to persuade them to protect her? What if her +frank confession of her own overpowering impulse to steal the necklace +was nothing more than a subtle appeal to the sentimental pity of men, +an appeal based upon a wider knowledge of men's weaknesses than a girl +of nineteen or twenty ought to have? Mr. Ricardo cleared his throat +and sat forward in his chair. He was girding himself for a singularly +searching interrogatory when Hanaud asked the most irrelevant of +questions: + +"How did you pass the evening of that night when you first dreamed +complete the face of your assailant?" + +Joan Carew reflected. Then her face cleared. + +"I know," she exclaimed. "I was at the opera." + +"And what was being given?" + +"_The Jewels of the Madonna_." + +Hanaud nodded his head. To Ricardo it seemed that he had expected +precisely that answer. + +"Now," he continued, "you are sure that you have seen this man?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well," said Hanaud. "There is a game you play at children's +parties--is there not?--animal, vegetable, or mineral, and always you +get the answer. Let us play that game for a few minutes, you and I." + +Joan Carew drew up her chair to the table and sat with her chin +propped upon her hands and her eyes fixed on Hanaud's face. As he put +each question she pondered on it and answered. If she answered +doubtfully he pressed it. + +"You crossed on the _Lucania_ from New York?" + +"Yes." + +"Picture to yourself the dining-room, the tables. You have the picture +quite clear?" + +"Yes." + +"Was it at breakfast that you saw him?" + +"No." + +"At luncheon?" + +"No." + +"At dinner?" + +She paused for a moment, summoning before her eyes the travellers at +the tables. + +"No." + +"Not in the dining-table at all, then?" + +"No." + +"In the library, when you were writing letters, did you not one day +lift your head and see him?" + +"No." + +"On the promenade deck? Did he pass you when you sat in your +deck-chair, or did you pass him when he sat in his chair?" + +"No." + +Step by step Hanaud took her back to New York to her hotel, to +journeys in the train. Then he carried her to Milan where she had +studied. It was extraordinary to Ricardo to realise how much Hanaud +knew of the curriculum of a student aspiring to grand opera. From +Milan he brought her again to New York, and at the last, with a start +of joy, she cried: "Yes, it was there." + +Hanaud took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. + +"Ouf!" he grunted. "To concentrate the mind on a day like this, it +makes one hot, I can tell you. Now, Miss Carew, let us hear." + +It was at a concert at the house of a Mrs. Starlingshield in Fifth +Avenue and in the afternoon. Joan Carew sang. She was a stranger to +New York and very nervous. She saw nothing but a mist of faces whilst +she sang, but when she had finished the mist cleared, and as she left +the improvised stage she saw the man. He was standing against the wall +in a line of men. There was no particular reason why her eyes should +single him out, except that he was paying no attention to her singing, +and, indeed, she forgot him altogether afterwards. + +"I just happened to see him clearly and distinctly," she said. "He was +tall, clean-shaven, rather dark, not particularly young--thirty-five +or so, I should say--a man with a heavy face and beginning to grow +stout. He moved away whilst I was bowing to the audience, and I +noticed him afterwards walking about, talking to people." + +"Do you remember to whom?" + +"No." + +"Did he notice you, do you think?" + +"I am sure he didn't," the girl replied emphatically. "He never looked +at the stage where I was singing, and he never looked towards me +afterwards." + +She gave, so far as she could remember, the names of such guests and +singers as she knew at that party. "And that is all," she said. + +"Thank you," said Hanaud. "It is perhaps a good deal. But it is +perhaps nothing at all." + +"You will let me hear from you?" she cried, as she rose to her feet. + +"Miss Carew, I am at your service," he returned. She gave him her hand +timidly and he took it cordially. For Mr. Ricardo she had merely a +bow, a bow which recognised that he distrusted her and that she had no +right to be offended. Then she went, and Hanaud smiled across the +table at Ricardo. + +"Yes," he said, "all that you are thinking is true enough. A man who +slips out of society to indulge a passion for a drug in greater peace, +a girl who, on her own confession, tried to steal, and, to crown all, +this fantastic story. It is natural to disbelieve every word of it. +But we disbelieved before, when we left Calladine's lodging in the +Adelphi, and we were wrong. Let us be warned." + +"You have an idea?" exclaimed Ricardo. + +"Perhaps!" said Hanaud. And he looked down the theatre column of the +_Times_. "Let us distract ourselves by going to the theatre." + +"You are the most irritating man!" Mr. Ricardo broke out impulsively. +"If I had to paint your portrait, I should paint you with your finger +against the side of your nose, saying mysteriously: '_I_ know,' when +you know nothing at all." + +Hanaud made a schoolboy's grimace. "We will go and sit in your box at +the opera to-night," he said, "and you shall explain to me all through +the beautiful music the theory of the tonic sol-fa." + +They reached Covent Garden before the curtain rose. Mr. Ricardo's box +was on the lowest tier and next to the omnibus box. + +"We are near the stage," said Hanaud, as he took his seat in the +corner and so arranged the curtain that he could see and yet was +hidden from view. "I like that." + +The theatre was full; stalls and boxes shimmered with jewels and +satin, and all that was famous that season for beauty and distinction +had made its tryst there that night. + +"Yes, this is wonderful," said Hanaud. "What opera do they play?" He +glanced at his programme and cried, with a little start of surprise: +"We are in luck. It is _The Jewels of the Madonna_." + +"Do you believe in omens?" Mr. Ricardo asked coldly. He had not yet +recovered from his rebuff of the afternoon. + +"No, but I believe that Carmen Valeri is at her best in this part," +said Hanaud. + +Mr. Ricardo belonged to that body of critics which must needs spoil +your enjoyment by comparisons and recollections of other great +artists. He was at a disadvantage certainly to-night, for the opera +was new. But he did his best. He imagined others in the part, and when +the great scene came at the end of the second act, and Carmen Valeri, +on obtaining from her lover the jewels stolen from the sacred image, +gave such a display of passion as fairly enthralled that audience, Mr. +Ricardo sighed quietly and patiently. + +"How Calvé would have brought out the psychological value of that +scene!" he murmured; and he was quite vexed with Hanaud, who sat with +his opera glasses held to his eyes, and every sense apparently +concentrated on the stage. The curtains rose and rose again when the +act was concluded, and still Hanaud sat motionless as the Sphynx, +staring through his glasses. + +"That is all," said Ricardo when the curtains fell for the fifth time. + +"They will come out," said Hanaud. "Wait!" And from between the +curtains Carmen Valeri was led out into the full glare of the +footlights with the panoply of jewels flashing on her breast. Then at +last Hanaud put down his glasses and turned to Ricardo with a look of +exultation and genuine delight upon his face which filled that +season-worn dilettante with envy. + +"What a night!" said Hanaud. "What a wonderful night!" And he +applauded until he split his gloves. At the end of the opera he cried: +"We will go and take supper at the Semiramis. Yes, my friend, we will +finish our evening like gallant gentlemen. Come! Let us not think of +the morning." And boisterously he slapped Ricardo in the small of the +back. + +In spite of his boast, however, Hanaud hardly touched his supper, and +he played with, rather than drank, his brandy and soda. He had a +little table to which he was accustomed beside a glass screen in the +depths of the room, and he sat with his back to the wall watching the +groups which poured in. Suddenly his face lighted up. + +"Here is Carmen Valeri!" he cried. "Once more we are in luck. Is it +not that she is beautiful?" + +Mr. Ricardo turned languidly about in his chair and put up his +eyeglass. + +"So, so," he said. + +"Ah!" returned Hanaud. "Then her companion will interest you still +more. For he is the man who murdered Mrs. Blumenstein." + +Mr. Ricardo jumped so that his eyeglass fell down and tinkled on its +cord against the buttons of his waistcoat. + +"What!" he exclaimed. "It's impossible!" He looked again. "Certainly +the man fits Joan Carew's description. But--" He turned back to Hanaud +utterly astounded. And as he looked at the Frenchman all his earlier +recollections of him, of his swift deductions, of the subtle +imagination which his heavy body so well concealed, crowded in upon +Ricardo and convinced him. + +"How long have you known?" he asked in a whisper of awe. + +"Since ten o'clock to-night." + +"But you will have to find the necklace before you can prove it." + +"The necklace!" said Hanaud carelessly. "That is already found." + +Mr. Ricardo had been longing for a thrill. He had it now. He felt it +in his very spine. + +"It's found?" he said in a startled whisper. + +"Yes." + +Ricardo turned again, with as much indifference as he could assume, +towards the couple who were settling down at their table, the man with +a surly indifference, Carmen Valeri with the radiance of a woman who +has just achieved a triumph and is now free to enjoy the fruits of it. +Confusedly, recollections returned to Ricardo of questions put that +afternoon by Hanaud to Joan Carew--subtle questions into which the +name of Carmen Valeri was continually entering. She was a woman of +thirty, certainly beautiful, with a clear, pale face and eyes like the +night. + +"Then she is implicated too!" he said. What a change for her, he +thought, from the stage of Covent Garden to the felon's cell, from the +gay supper-room of the Semiramis, with its bright frocks and its babel +of laughter, to the silence and the ignominious garb of the workrooms +in Aylesbury Prison! + +"She!" exclaimed Hanaud; and in his passion for the contrasts of drama +Ricardo was almost disappointed. "She has nothing whatever to do with +it. She knows nothing. André Favart there--yes. But Carmen Valeri! +She's as stupid as an owl, and loves him beyond words. Do you want to +know how stupid she is? You shall know. I asked Mr. Clements, the +director of the opera house, to take supper with us, and here he is." + +Hanaud stood up and shook hands with the director. He was of the world +of business rather than of art, and long experience of the ways of +tenors and prima-donnas had given him a good-humoured cynicism. + +"They are spoilt children, all tantrums and vanity," he said, "and +they would ruin you to keep a rival out of the theatre." + +He told them anecdote upon anecdote. + +"And Carmen Valeri," Hanaud asked in a pause; "is she troublesome this +season?" + +"Has been," replied Clements dryly. "At present she is playing at +being good. But she gave me a turn some weeks ago." He turned to +Ricardo. "Superstition's her trouble, and André Favart knows it. She +left him behind in America this spring." + +"America!" suddenly cried Ricardo; so suddenly that Clements looked at +him in surprise. + +"She was singing in New York, of course, during the winter," he +returned. "Well, she left him behind, and I was shaking hands with +myself when he began to deal the cards over there. She came to me in a +panic. She had just had a cable. She couldn't sing on Friday night. +There was a black knave next to the nine of diamonds. She wouldn't +sing for worlds. And it was the first night of _The Jewels of the +Madonna!_ Imagine the fix I was in!" + +"What did you do?" asked Ricardo. + +"The only thing there was to do," replied Clements with a shrug of the +shoulders. "I cabled Favart some money and he dealt the cards again. +She came to me beaming. Oh, she had been so distressed to put me in +the cart! But what could she do? Now there was a red queen next to the +ace of hearts, so she could sing without a scruple so long, of course, +as she didn't pass a funeral on the way down to the opera house. +Luckily she didn't. But my money brought Favart over here, and now I'm +living on a volcano. For he's the greatest scoundrel unhung. He never +has a farthing, however much she gives him; he's a blackmailer, he's a +swindler, he has no manners and no graces, he looks like a butcher and +treats her as if she were dirt, he never goes near the opera except +when she is singing in this part, and she worships the ground he walks +on. Well, I suppose it's time to go." + +The lights had been turned off, the great room was emptying. Mr. +Ricardo and his friends rose to go, but at the door Hanaud detained +Mr. Clements, and they talked together alone for some little while, +greatly to Mr. Ricardo's annoyance. Hanaud's good humour, however, +when he rejoined his friend, was enough for two. + +"I apologise, my friend, with my hand on my heart. But it was for your +sake that I stayed behind. You have a meretricious taste for melodrama +which I deeply deplore, but which I mean to gratify. I ought to leave +for Paris to-morrow, but I shall not. I shall stay until Thursday." +And he skipped upon the pavement as they walked home to Grosvenor +Square. + +Mr. Ricardo bubbled with questions, but he knew his man. He would get +no answer to any one of them to-night. So he worked out the problem +for himself as he lay awake in his bed, and he came down to breakfast +next morning fatigued but triumphant. Hanaud was already chipping off +the top of his egg at the table. + +"So I see you have found it all out, my friend," he said. + +"Not all," replied Ricardo modestly, "and you will not mind, I am +sure, if I follow the usual custom and wish you a good morning." + +"Not at all," said Hanaud. "I am all for good manners myself." + +He dipped his spoon into his egg. + +"But I am longing to hear the line of your reasoning." + +Mr. Ricardo did not need much pressing. + +"Joan Carew saw André Favart at Mrs. Starlingshield's party, and saw +him with Carmen Valeri. For Carmen Valeri was there. I remember that +you asked Joan for the names of the artists who sang, and Carmen +Valeri was amongst them." + +Hanaud nodded his head. + +"Exactly." + +"No doubt Joan Carew noticed Carmen Valeri particularly, and so took +unconsciously into her mind an impression of the man who was with her, +André Favart--of his build, of his walk, of his type." + +Again Hanaud agreed. + +"She forgets the man altogether, but the picture remains latent in her +mind--an undeveloped film." + +Hanaud looked up in surprise, and the surprise flattered Mr. Ricardo. +Not for nothing had he tossed about in his bed for the greater part of +the night. + +"Then came the tragic night at the Semiramis. She does not consciously +recognise her assailant, but she dreams the scene again and again, and +by a process of unconscious cerebration the figure of the man becomes +familiar. Finally she makes her début, is entertained at supper +afterwards, and meets once more Carmen Valeri." + +"Yes, for the first time since Mrs. Starlingshield's party," +interjected Hanaud. + +"She dreams again, she remembers asleep more than she remembers when +awake. The presence of Carmen Valeri at her supper-party has its +effect. By a process of association, she recalls Favart, and the mask +slips on the face of her assailant. Some days later she goes to the +opera. She hears Carmen Valeri sing in _The Jewels of the Madonna_. No +doubt the passion of her acting, which I am more prepared to +acknowledge this morning than I was last night, affects Joan Carew +powerfully, emotionally. She goes to bed with her head full of Carmen +Valeri, and she dreams not of Carmen Valeri, but of the man who is +unconsciously associated with Carmen Valeri in her thoughts. The mask +vanishes altogether. She sees her assailant now, has his portrait +limned in her mind, would know him if she met him in the street, +though she does not know by what means she identified him." + +"Yes," said Hanaud. "It is curious the brain working while the body +sleeps, the dream revealing what thought cannot recall." + +Mr. Ricardo was delighted. He was taken seriously. + +"But of course," he said, "I could not have worked the problem out but +for you. You knew of André Favart and the kind of man he was." + +Hanaud laughed. + +"Yes. That is always my one little advantage. I know all the +cosmopolitan blackguards of Europe." His laughter ceased suddenly, and +he brought his clenched fist heavily down upon the table. "Here is one +of them who will be very well out of the world, my friend," he said +very quietly, but there was a look of force in his face and a hard +light in his eyes which made Mr. Ricardo shiver. + +For a few moments there was silence. Then Ricardo asked: "But have you +evidence enough?" + +"Yes." + +"Your two chief witnesses, Calladine and Joan Carew--you said it +yourself--there are facts to discredit them. Will they be believed?" + +"But they won't appear in the case at all," Hanaud said. "Wait, wait!" +and once more he smiled. "By the way, what is the number of +Calladine's house?" + +Ricardo gave it, and Hanaud therefore wrote a letter. "It is all for +your sake, my friend," he said with a chuckle. + +"Nonsense," said Ricardo. "You have the spirit of the theatre in your +bones." + +"Well, I shall not deny it," said Hanaud, and he sent out the letter +to the nearest pillar-box. + +Mr. Ricardo waited in a fever of impatience until Thursday came. At +breakfast Hanaud would talk of nothing but the news of the day. At +luncheon he was no better. The affair of the Semiramis Hotel seemed a +thousand miles from any of his thoughts. But at five o'clock he said +as he drank his tea: + +"You know, of course, that we go to the opera to-night?" + +"Yes. Do we?" + +"Yes. Your young friend Calladine, by the way, will join us in your +box." + +"That is very kind of him, I am sure," said Mr. Ricardo. + +The two men arrived before the rising of the curtain, and in the +crowded lobby a stranger spoke a few words to Hanaud, but what he said +Ricardo could not hear. They took their seats in the box, and Hanaud +looked at his programme. + +"Ah! It is _Il Ballo de Maschera_ to-night. We always seem to hit upon +something appropriate, don't we?" + +Then he raised his eyebrows. + +"Oh-o! Do you see that our pretty young friend, Joan Carew, is singing +in the rôle of the page? It is a showy part. There is a particular +melody with a long-sustained trill in it, as far as I remember." + +Mr. Ricardo was not deceived by Hanaud's apparent ignorance of the +opera to be given that night and of the part Joan Carew was to take. +He was, therefore, not surprised when Hanaud added: + +"By the way, I should let Calladine find it all out for himself." + +Mr. Ricardo nodded sagely. + +"Yes. That is wise. I had thought of it myself." But he had +done nothing of the kind. He was only aware that the elaborate +stage-management in which Hanaud delighted was working out to the +desired climax, whatever that climax might be. Calladine entered the +box a few minutes later and shook hands with them awkwardly. + +"It was kind of you to invite me," he said and, very ill at ease, he +took a seat between them and concentrated his attention on the house +as it filled up. + +"There's the overture," said Hanaud. The curtains divided and were +festooned on either side of the stage. The singers came on in their +turn; the page appeared to a burst of delicate applause (Joan Carew +had made a small name for herself that season), and with a stifled cry +Calladine shot back in the box as if he had been struck. Even then Mr. +Ricardo did not understand. He only realised that Joan Carew was +looking extraordinarily trim and smart in her boy's dress. He had to +look from his programme to the stage and back again several times +before the reason of Calladine's exclamation dawned on him. When it +did, he was horrified. Hanaud, in his craving for dramatic effects, +must have lost his head altogether. Joan Carew was wearing, from the +ribbon in her hair to the scarlet heels of her buckled satin shoes, +the same dress as she had worn on the tragic night at the Semiramis +Hotel. He leaned forward in his agitation to Hanaud. + +"You must be mad. Suppose Favart is in the theatre and sees her. He'll +be over on the Continent by one in the morning." + +"No, he won't," replied Hanaud. "For one thing, he never comes to +Covent Garden unless one opera, with Carmen Valeri in the chief part, +is being played, as you heard the other night at supper. For a second +thing, he isn't in the house. I know where he is. He is gambling in +Dean Street, Soho. For a third thing, my friend, he couldn't leave by +the nine o'clock train for the Continent if he wanted to. Arrangements +have been made. For a fourth thing, he wouldn't wish to. He has really +remarkable reasons for desiring to stay in London. But he will come to +the theatre later. Clements will send him an urgent message, with the +result that he will go straight to Clements' office. Meanwhile, we can +enjoy ourselves, eh?" + +Never was the difference between the amateur dilettante and the +genuine professional more clearly exhibited than by the behaviour of +the two men during the rest of the performance. Mr. Ricardo might have +been sitting on a coal fire from his jumps and twistings; Hanaud +stolidly enjoyed the music, and when Joan Carew sang her famous solo +his hands clamoured for an encore louder than anyone's in the boxes. +Certainly, whether excitement was keeping her up or no, Joan Carew had +never sung better in her life. Her voice was clear and fresh as a +bird's--a bird with a soul inspiring its song. Even Calladine drew his +chair forward again and sat with his eyes fixed upon the stage and +quite carried out of himself. He drew a deep breath at the end. + +"She is wonderful," he said, like a man waking up. + +"She is very good," replied Mr. Ricardo, correcting Calladine's +transports. + +"We will go round to the back of the stage," said Hanaud. + +They passed through the iron door and across the stage to a long +corridor with a row of doors on one side. There were two or three men +standing about in evening dress, as if waiting for friends in the +dressing-rooms. At the third door Hanaud stopped and knocked. The door +was opened by Joan Carew, still dressed in her green and gold. Her +face was troubled, her eyes afraid. + +"Courage, little one," said Hanaud, and he slipped past her into the +room. "It is as well that my ugly, familiar face should not be seen +too soon." + +The door closed and one of the strangers loitered along the corridor +and spoke to a call-boy. The call-boy ran off. For five minutes more +Mr. Ricardo waited with a beating heart. He had the joy of a man in +the centre of things. All those people driving homewards in their +motor-cars along the Strand--how he pitied them! Then, at the end of +the corridor, he saw Clements and André Favart. They approached, +discussing the possibility of Carmen Valeri's appearance in London +opera during the next season. + +"We have to look ahead, my dear friend," said Clements, "and though I +should be extremely sorry----" + +At that moment they were exactly opposite Joan Carew's door. It +opened, she came out; with a nervous movement she shut the door behind +her. At the sound André Favart turned, and he saw drawn up against the +panels of the door, with a look of terror in her face, the same gay +figure which had interrupted him in Mrs. Blumenstein's bedroom. There +was no need for Joan to act. In the presence of this man her fear was +as real as it had been on the night of the Semiramis ball. She +trembled from head to foot. Her eyes closed; she seemed about to +swoon. + +Favart stared and uttered an oath. His face turned white; he staggered +back as if he had seen a ghost. Then he made a wild dash along the +corridor, and was seized and held by two of the men in evening dress. +Favart recovered his wits. He ceased to struggle. + +"What does this outrage mean?" he asked, and one of the men drew a +warrant and notebook from his pocket. + +"You are arrested for the murder of Mrs. Blumenstein in the Semiramis +Hotel," he said, "and I have to warn you that anything you may say +will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you." + +"Preposterous!" exclaimed Favart. "There's a mistake. We will go along +to the police and put it right. Where's your evidence against me?" + +Hanaud stepped out of the doorway of the dressing-room. + +"In the property-room of the theatre," he said. + +At the sight of him Favart uttered a violent cry of rage. "You are +here, too, are you?" he screamed, and he sprang at Hanaud's throat. +Hanaud stepped lightly aside. Favart was borne down to the ground, and +when he stood up again the handcuffs were on his wrists. + +Favart was led away, and Hanaud turned to Mr. Ricardo and Clements. + +"Let us go to the property-room," he said. They passed along the +corridor, and Ricardo noticed that Calladine was no longer with them. +He turned and saw him standing outside Joan Carew's dressing-room. + +"He would like to come, of course," said Ricardo. + +"Would he?" asked Hanaud. "Then why doesn't he? He's quite grown up, +you know," and he slipped his arm through Ricardo's and led him back +across the stage. In the property-room there was already a detective +in plain clothes. Mr. Ricardo had still not as yet guessed the truth. + +"What is it you really want, sir?" the property-master asked of the +director. + +"Only the jewels of the Madonna," Hanaud answered. + +The property-master unlocked a cupboard and took from it the sparkling +cuirass. Hanaud pointed to it, and there, lost amongst the huge +glittering stones of paste and false pearls, Mrs. Blumenstein's +necklace was entwined. + +"Then that is why Favart came always to Covent Garden when _The Jewels +of the Madonna_ was being performed!" exclaimed Ricardo. + +Hanaud nodded. + +"He came to watch over his treasure." + +Ricardo was piecing together the sections of the puzzle. + +"No doubt he knew of the necklace in America. No doubt he followed it +to England." + +Hanaud agreed. + +"Mrs. Blumenstein's jewels were quite famous in New York." + +"But to hide them here!" cried Mr. Clements. "He must have been mad." + +"Why?" asked Hanaud. "Can you imagine a safer hiding-place? Who is +going to burgle the property-room of Covent Garden? Who is going to +look for a priceless string of pearls amongst the stage jewels of an +opera house?" + +"You did," said Mr. Ricardo. + +"I?" replied Hanaud, shrugging his shoulders. "Joan Carew's dreams led +me to André Favart. The first time we came here and saw the pearls of +the Madonna, I was on the look-out, naturally. I noticed Favart at the +back of the stalls. But it was a stroke of luck that I noticed those +pearls through my opera glasses." + +"At the end of the second act?" cried Ricardo suddenly. "I remember +now." + +"Yes," replied Hanaud. "But for that second act the pearls would have +stayed comfortably here all through the season. Carmen Valeri--a fool +as I told you--would have tossed them about in her dressing-room +without a notion of their value, and at the end of July, when the +murder at the Semiramis Hotel had been forgotten, Favart would have +taken them to Amsterdam and made his bargain." + +"Shall we go?" + +They left the theatre together and walked down to the grill-room of +the Semiramis. But as Hanaud looked through the glass door he drew +back. + +"We will not go in, I think, eh?" + +"Why?" asked Ricardo. + +Hanaud pointed to a table. Calladine and Joan Carew were seated at it +taking their supper. + +"Perhaps," said Hanaud with a smile, "perhaps, my friend--what? Who +shall say that the rooms in the Adelphi will not be given up?" + +They turned away from the hotel. But Hanaud was right, and before the +season was over Mr. Ricardo had to put his hand in his pocket for a +wedding present. + + + + + + UNDER BIGNOR HILL + + + + + UNDER BIGNOR HILL[1] + + +The action of the play takes place on a night in summer at the foot of +Bignor Hill on the north side of the Sussex Downs. The time is that of +the Roman occupation of England. In the foreground is an open space of +turf surrounded with gorse-bushes. The turf rises in a steep bank at +the back and melts into the side of the hill. The left of the stage is +closed in by a wooded spur of the hill. The scene is wild and revealed +by a strong moonlight. A fallen tree-trunk lies on the right, and a +raised bank is at the left of the stage. + +On the summit of the hill the glow of a camp-fire is seen, and from +time to time a flame leaps up as though fuel had been added. Towards +the end of the play the fire dies down and goes out. + +When the curtain rises the stage is empty, but a sound of men marching +is faintly heard. The sound is heard in pauses throughout the first +part of the play. + + [_Gleva enters from the R. She is a British princess, clothed in + skins. But she has added to her dress some of the refinements of + the conquerors--a shirt of fine linen, the high sandals of the + Roman lady, the Roman comb in her hair, some jewellery, a necklace + of stones, and bracelets. She is followed by three men of her + tribe, wild men in skins, armed with knives, and flint axes carried + at the waist. Gleva comes forward silently into the open space of + turf_.] +Gleva: No one! + +Bran: The trumpet has not sounded the last call on the hill. + +Gleva: No. Yet the hour for it is past. By now the camp should be +asleep. (_She looks up the hill and then turns to her men_.) Be ready +to light the torch. + +Caransius: Everything is strange to-day. + + [_He sits R. under the shelter of a bush, and with a flint and + steel kindles a tiny flame during the following scene. He has a + torch in his hand which he lays by his side. When the fire is + lighted he blows on it from time to time to keep it alight_.] + +Bran: Yes. And yesterday. For many months we have been left in quiet. +Now once more the soldiers march through Anderida. + +Gleva (_holds up her hand_): Listen! + + [_A pause. The sound of marching is heard quite clearly, but at a + distance_.] + +Bran: It does not stop, Princess. + +Gleva: All yesterday, all through last night, all through this long +day! Listen to it, steady as a heart beating, steady and terrible. +(_She speaks with great discouragement, moving apart, L., and sitting +on tree bole_.) + +Caransius (_lighting fire_): I crept to the edge of the forest to-day. +I lay very quiet behind the bushes and looked out across the clearing +to the road. + +Gleva: You! + + [_A general exclamation of astonishment._] + +Caransius: Oh, it's not easy to frighten me, I can tell you. I fought +at Verulanium with the Iceni. I know. I carried a sling. (_He nods +majestically at his companions._) And there you have it. + +Gleva: Yes, yes, good friend. But which way did the soldiers march? +What of the road? + + [_She goes over to him._] + +Caransius: Mistress, there wasn't any road. There were only soldiers. +As far as my eyes could see, bright helmets and brown faces and +flashing shoulder plates bobbing up and down between the trees and a +smother of dust until my head whirled. + +Bran and Both Attendants: Oh! + +Gleva: But which way did they go? + +Caransius: I lost my dog, too--the brute. He ran from me and joined +the marching men. I dared not call to him. + +Bran: Yes, that is the way of dogs. + +Gleva: Did they go north towards the Wall? (_She shakes him._) + +Caransius (_who has been blowing on the fire, now sits up comfortably +and smiles upon Gleva, who is tortured with impatience_): God bless +you, mistress, there isn't any Wall. I know about the Romans; I know! +I fought at Verulanium. Now! + + [_Gleva turns away in despair of getting any sense out of him. A + trumpet sounds on the top of Bignor Hill, faintly. All turn swiftly + towards it_.] + +Gleva: Ready! + + [_A sound of armed men moving, a clash of shields is heard from the + top of Bignor Hill._] +Now fire the torch. Give it me! (_She springs on to the bank and waves +it three times from side to side, steps down, and gives it back to an +attendant, who puts it out._) + +Caransius (_continuing placidly_): No, there's no Wall. There are a +great many mistakes made about the Romans. They are no longer the men +they were. I carried a sling at Verulanium, and there you have it. +I'll tell you something. The soldiers were marching to Regnum. + +Gleva: To Regnum? Are you sure? + +Caransius: Yes. Up over the great Down they went. I saw their armour +amongst the trees on the side of the hill, and the smoke of their +marching on the round bare top. + +Gleva: They were going to Regnum and the sea. (_She speaks in +despair._) + +Third Attendant: I am afraid. + +Gleva (_turns on him scornfully_): You! Why should you fear if they +are marching to the sea? + +Third Attendant: I have been afraid ever since yesterday. The noise of +the marching scattered my wits. + + [_Gleva and the others laugh contemptuously._] + +And because I was afraid--I killed. (_A low cry of consternation +bursts from Bran and Caransius._) + +Bran: Madman! Madman! + +Gleva: You killed one of the Romans! + +Third Attendant (_stands before her_): I was afraid. It was by the old +forge in the forest. There's a brook by the forge. + +Bran: Yes. + +Third Attendant: He had fallen out of the ranks. He was stooping over +the brook. I saw the sun sparkle upon his helmet as he dipped it into +the water, and his strong, brown neck as he raised it. I crept close +to him and struck at his neck as he drank. + +Caransius: That was a good stroke. + +Bran: A mad stroke. + +Third Attendant: He fell over without a cry, and all his armour +rattled once. + +Bran: It will be the fire for our barns, and death for every tenth man +of the tribe. + +Third Attendant: No one saw. + +Gleva: Stand here! + + [_The third attendant stands before her._] + +I gave an order. + +Caransius: Yet, mistress, it is better to strike against orders than +to leave one's friends and, like my dog, follow the marching men. + + [_A cry bursts from Bran. He seizes Caransius. Gleva stands with + her hand upon her knife. Then she turns away, and buries her face + in her hands. A whistle is heard from the hillside above her on the + left. She looks up, and her face changes. She turns to third + attendant._] + +Gleva: Go up the hill--close to the camp, as close as you can creep, +and watch. So may you earn your pardon. (_He goes off_.) You two stand +aside--but not so far but that a cry may bring you instantly. + +Bran: We will be ready. (_Exeunt R._) + + [_Gleva faces the spur of the hill on her left as if all her world + was there. There is a movement among the trees on the spur, a flash + of armour in the moonlight, and at the edge of the trees appears + Quintus Calpurnius Aulus, a Captain about thirty-five years old, + handsome, but in repose his face is stern and inscrutable. He is + active, lithe, self-confident. He comes out into the open just + below the trees, and stands quite still. His very attitude should + suggest strength._] + +Quintus: I am here. (_He speaks with the voice of a man accustomed to +command, and to have his orders obeyed without question. Gleva stands +erect questioning his authority. Then she crosses her hands upon her +bosom and bows her head._) + +Gleva: My Lord Calpurnius. + + [_Calpurnius laughs. He runs down the slope._] + +Calpurnius: That's well. (_He takes her in his arms._) You have a +trick of saying "Calpurnius." I shall remember it till I die. + + [_Gleva draws away from him._] + +Say it again. + +Gleva: With all my soul in the word. It is a prayer. Calpurnius! + + [_Calpurnius is moved by the passion of her voice. He takes her + hands in his._] + +Calpurnius: Yes. I shall remember till I die. (_They move towards the +bank._) + +Gleva: My lord is late to-night. + +Calpurnius: Late! A Roman soldier of fifteen years' service late. My +dear, let us talk sense. Come! + + [_The trumpet sounds again from the hill. Calpurnius stops._] + +Gleva: Why does the trumpet sound? + +Calpurnius: To call some straggler back to Rome. + +Gleva: Rome! (_With a cry._) + +Calpurnius: Yes. For every one of us, the camp on the empty hill-top +there is Rome, and all Rome's in the trumpet call. + +Gleva: Is the sound so strange and moving? + +Calpurnius: Yes. Most strange, most moving. For I know that at this +actual minute every Roman soldier on guard throughout the world has +the sound of it in his ears, here in the forest of Anderida, far away +on some fortress wall in Syria. (_Throws off his seriousness._) But I +am talking of sacred things, and that one should be shy to do. Come, +Gleva. We have little time. When the moon touches those trees I climb +again. + +Gleva: Yet, my lord, for one more moment think of me not as the +foolish, conquered slave. Listen! Turn your head this way and listen. + +Calpurnius: What shall I hear? Some nightingale pouring out love upon +a moonlit night? He'll not say "Calpurnius" with so sweet a note as +you. + +Gleva: You'll hear no nightingale, nor any sound that has one memory +of me in it. Listen, you'll hear--all Rome. + + [_He looks at her quickly. In the pause is heard the sound of men + marching._] + +That speaks louder than the trumpets. + + [_He is very still._] + +Calpurnius! (_She sits by him, and puts an arm about his shoulder. She +speaks his name as if she were afraid._) The Romans flee from Britain. + +Calpurnius (_with a start of contempt_): Madness! It's one legion +going home. Another, with its rest still to earn, will take its place. + +Gleva: Which legion goes? + +Calpurnius: How should I know? (_A pause._) The Valeria Victrix. + +Gleva: Yours! (_She starts away from him._) Calpurnius, yours! + +Calpurnius: Yes, mine. My legion goes to Rome. (_His voice thrills +with eagerness. He has been troubled through the scene how he shall +break the news. Now it is out, he cannot conceal his joy._) + +Gleva: But you--you stay behind. + +Calpurnius (_gently_): This is our last night together. Let us not +waste it. Never was there a night so made for love. (_He draws her +towards him._) + +Gleva: You go with your legion? + +Calpurnius: Before the dawn. + +Gleva: It's impossible. No. You'll stay behind. + +Calpurnius: No. + +Gleva: Listen to me. You shall be King with me. + +Calpurnius (_in a burst of contempt_): King here! In the forests of +Britain! I! + +Gleva: Yes. You'll lie quiet here. I by your side. Your hand in mine. +See! We'll forget the hours. The dawn will come. + +Calpurnius: And find me a traitor! + +Gleva: I am already one. There was a servant with me. He told me I was +like a dog that leaves its own people to follow the marching men. + +Calpurnius (_sits up_): And you let him live, with this knife ready in +your girdle? + +Gleva: He spoke the truth. + +Calpurnius: The truth! (_Contemptuously._) There's a word for you! +Child! There's a greater thing in the world than truth. Truth wins no +battles. + +Gleva: What's this greater thing? + +Calpurnius: Discipline! You should have struck. + +Gleva: I wish I had. For he might have struck back. + +Calpurnius: Discipline! So I go with my legion. + +Gleva (_with a cry accusingly_): You want to go. + +Calpurnius (_springs up_): By all the gods I do. For ten years I have +toiled in Britain building roads--roads--roads--till I'm sick of them. +First the pounded earth, then the small stones, next the rubble, then +the concrete, and last of all the pavement; here in Anderida, there +across the swamps to Londinium, northwards through the fens to +Eboracum--ten years of it. And now--Rome--the mother of me! + +Gleva: Rome? (_She speaks despairingly. Calpurnius has forgotten her: +he answers her voice, not her._) + +Calpurnius: Just for a little while. Oh, I shall go out again, but +just for a little while--to rise when I want to, not at the trumpet's +call, the house all quiet till I clap my hands--to have one's mornings +free--to saunter through the streets, picking up the last new thing of +Juvenal in the Argiletum, or some fine piece of Corinthian bronze in +the Campus Martius, and stopping on the steps of the Appian Way to +send a basket of flowers or a bottle of new scent to some girl that +has caught one's fancy. To go to the theatre, and see the new play, +though, to be sure, people write to me that there are no plays +nowadays. + +Gleva: Plays? + +Calpurnius: And in the evening with a party of girls in their bravest, +all without a care, to gallop in the cool along the Appian Way to +Baiae and crowned with roses and violets have supper by the sea. Oh, +to see one's women again--Lydia'll be getting on, by the way!--women +dressed, jewelled, smelling of violets. Oh, just for a little while! +By Castor and Pollux, I have deserved it. + +Gleva (_who has been listening in grief_): Yes, you must go. (_She +goes to him and sits at his side._) I have a plan. + +Calpurnius: Yes. (_Absently._) + +Gleva: Listen to me!--Calpurnius. + + [_He laughs affectionately at her pronunciation of his name._] + +Calpurnius: Let me hear this wise plan! + +Gleva: I will go with you. + +Calpurnius (_rising_): What? + + [_Gleva pulls him down._] + +Gleva: Yes, I'll give up my kingdom here, sacrifice it all, and go to +Rome with you. Calpurnius (_in a whisper_), I'll be your Lydia. Oh, to +drive with you on such a night as this, all crowned with roses, from +Rome to Baiae on the sea. + +Calpurnius: These are dreams. + +Gleva (_passionately_): Why? Why? Are these women in Rome more +beautiful than I? Look! (_She rises._) I can dress, too, as the Roman +women do. I wear the combs you gave me. I don't think they are pretty, +but I wear them. See, I wear, too, the sandals, the bracelets. + +Calpurnius: No. There are no women in Rome more beautiful than +you--but--but---- + +Gleva (_all her passion dying away_): You would be ashamed of me. + + [_Calpurnius is uncomfortable._] + +Calpurnius: You would be--unusual. People would turn and stare. Other +women would laugh. Some scribbler would write a lampoon. Oh, you are +beautiful, but this is your place, not Rome. Each to his own in the +end, Gleva. I to Rome--you to your people. + +Gleva: My people! Oh, you did right to laugh at the thought of +reigning here. What are my people? Slaves for your pleasure. It can't +be! You to Rome, the lights, the women--oh, how I hate them! You would +not reproach me because my knife hangs idle, had I your Roman women +here! Calpurnius, be kind. From the first morning when I saw you in +the forest, shining in brass, a god, there has been no kingdom, no +people for me but you. I have watched you, learnt from you. Oh! I am +of the Romans--I'll---- + +Calpurnius: Each to his own in the end. That's the law. + +Gleva: A bitter, cruel one. + +Calpurnius: Very likely. But it can't be changed. So long as the world +lasts, centuries hence, wherever soldiers are, still it will be the +law. + +Gleva: Soldiers! Say soldiers, and all must be forgiven! + +Calpurnius: Much, at all events, by those with understanding. Hear +what a soldier is. You see him strong, browned by the sun, flashing in +armour, tramping the earth, a conqueror--a god, yes, a god! Ask his +centurion who drills him in the barrack square. + +Gleva: But the centurion---- + +Calpurnius: The centurion's the god, then? Ask me, his Captain, who +tells him off. Am I the god, then? Ask my Colonel, who tells me off. +Is it my Colonel, my General? Ask the Emperor in Rome who, for a +fault, strips them of their command and brings them home. Soldiers are +men trained to endurance by a hard discipline, cursed, ridiculed, +punished like children but with a man's punishments, so that when the +great ordeal comes they may move, fight, die, like a machine. The +soldier! He suffers discomfort, burns in the desert, freezes in the +snow at another's orders. He has no liberty, he must not argue, he +must not answer; and he gets an obol a day, and in the end--in the +end, a man, he gives his life without complaint, without faltering, +gladly as a mere trifle in the business of the day, so that his +country may endure. And what's his reward? What does he get? A woman's +smile in his hour of furlough. That's his reward. He takes it. Blame +him who will. The woman thinks him a god, and he does not tell her of +the barrack square. Good luck to him and her, I say. But at the last, +there's the long parting, just as you and I part in the forest of +Anderida to-night. Other soldiers will say good-bye here on this spot +to other women in centuries from now. Their trouble will be heavy, my +dear, but they'll obey the soldier's law. + +Gleva: Very well, then! Each to his own! I, too, will obey that law. +(_She confronts him, erect and, strong._) + +Calpurnius: You will? (_Doubtfully._) + +Gleva: To the letter. To the very last letter. I'll gather my men. +There shall be no more Romans in Anderida. There shall be only stubble +in the fields where the scythes of my chariots have run. + +Calpurnius: Silence! (_Sternly._) + +Gleva: I learn my lesson from my Lord Calpurnius. Why should my +teacher blame me if I learn it thoroughly? + +Calpurnius: Gleva, you cannot conquer Rome. (_He speaks gently. She +stands stubbornly._) How shall I prove it to you--you who know only +one wild corner of Britain! (_Thinks._) There is that road where the +soldiers march. You know--how much of it?--a few miles where it passes +through the forest. That's all. But it runs to the Wall in the north. + +Gleva (_scornfully_): Is there a Wall? + +Calpurnius: Is there a Wall? Ye gods! I kept my watch upon it through +a winter under the coldest stars that ever made a night unfriendly. I +freeze now when I think of it. Yes, there's a Wall in the north, and +that road runs to it; and in the south, it does not end at Regnum. + +Gleva: Doesn't it? Wonderful road! + +Calpurnius: Yes, wonderful road. For on the other side at the very +edge of the sea in Gaul it lives again--yes, that's the word--the +great road lives and runs straight as a ruled line to Rome. For forty +days you drive, inns by the road-side, post horses ready and a cloud +of traffic, merchants on business, governors on leave, pedlars, +musicians and actors for the fairs, students for the universities, +Jews, explorers, soldiers, pack-horses and waggons, gigs and litters. +Oh, if I could make you see it--always on each side the shade of +trees, until on its seven hills springs Rome. Nor does the road end +there. + +Gleva: This same road? (_Her scorn has gone. She speaks doubtfully._) + +Calpurnius: This same road which runs by the brook down here in the +forest. (_Pointing L._) It crosses Rome and goes straight to the sea +again--again beyond the sea it turns and strikes to Jerusalem four +thousand miles from where we stand to-night, Rome made it. Rome guards +it, and where it runs Rome rules. You cannot conquer Rome--until the +road's destroyed. + +Gleva: I will destroy it. + +Calpurnius: Only Rome can destroy it. (_A pause._) Gleva, let what I +say sink deep into your heart. A minute ago I sneered at the road. I +blasphemed. The roads are my people's work. While it builds roads, +it's Rome, it's the Unconquerable. But when there are no new roads in +the making and the weeds sprout between the pavements of the old ones, +then your moment's coming. When the slabs are broken and no company +marches down from the hill to mend them, it has come. Launch your +chariots then, Gleva! Rome's day is over, her hand tired. She has +grown easy and forgotten. But while Rome does Rome's appointed work, +beware of her! Not while the road runs straight from Regnum to the +Wall, shall you or any of you prevail. + +Gleva (_looking inscrutably._) No, I cannot conquer Rome. + + [_A moment's pause._] + +Calpurnius: Listen! + +Gleva: The sound upon the road has ceased. + +Calpurnius: There are no longer men marching. + +Gleva: All have gone over the hill to the sea. + +Calpurnius: Yes. There's a freshness in the air, a breath of wind. The +morning comes---- + +Gleva: I cannot conquer Rome. + + [_A trumpet rings out clear from the top of the hill. The morning + is beginning to break. There is the strange light which comes when + moonlight and the dawn meet._] + +Calpurnius: The reveillé! (_He turns to her._) + +Gleva: And---- + +Calpurnius (_nods_): My summons. Gleva! + +Gleva: My Lord will bid farewell to his slaves. (_She calls aloud_): +Bran, Caransius. + +Calpurnius: Oh, before they come! (_He holds out his arms to her._) +Gleva! (_She comes slowly into his embrace._) I shall remember this +night. Some of our poets say that we are born again in another age. So +may it be with us! We shall grow old and die, you here, I where my +Emperor shall send me. May we be born again, love again, under a +happier star. + + [_He kisses her, she clings to him. Behind enter Bran, Caransius. + They approach carefully._] + +But now there's Rome in front of me. + + [_He tries to draw away from her. She clings about his neck._] + +And I must go. + +Gleva: Not yet, my Lord--Calpurnius. + +Calpurnius: Farewell! and the Gods prosper you. (_He is seized from +behind on a gesture from Gleva. She utters a cry._) + +Gleva: Do him no hurt! Yet hold him safe. (_They bind him. Calpurnius +struggles._) + +Calpurnius: Help! Romans, help! + + [_The two men gag him._] + +Gleva: Do him no hurt! + + [_They lay him on the bank. Gleva goes to him._] + +No, I cannot conquer Rome, but one Roman--yes. You taught me, +Calpurnius, the lesson of the road. I thank you. I learn another +lesson. (_She is speaking very gently._) On that long, crowded way +from the edge of Gaul to Rome many a soldier of your legion will be +lost--lost and remain unheard of. Calpurnius, you shall stay with me, +reign with me, over me. You shall forget Rome. + + [_Once more the trumpet sounds only more faintly. Calpurnius utters + a stifled groan. The morning broadens. A cracking of bushes is + heard. From the right enters third attendant excitedly._] + +Attendant: Mistress! Mistress! + +Gleva: Well? + + [_She turns, stands between Calpurnius and attendants, e. g._: + + Bran. + + Third Attendant. Gleva. Calpurnius. + + Caransius.] + + [_Footlights._] + +Attendant: They have gone! The hill is empty; the camp is scattered. + +Gleva: They march to the coast. The Valeria Victrix. + + [_A movement from Calpurnius, who is working his hands free._] + +Third Attendant: They are putting out to sea. The harbour's black with +ships. Some have reached the open water. + +Gleva: All have gone. + +Third Attendant: All. Already there's a wolf in the camp on the hill. + +Calpurnius (_freeing his hands and mouth, plucks out his sword. He +buries it in his heart._) Rome! Rome! (_In a whisper._) + + [_Gleva turns and sees Calpurnius dead. She stands motionless. Then + she waves her attendants away. They go silently. Gleva seats + herself by Calpurnius's side. She runs her hand over his hair._] + +Gleva (_with a sob_): My Lord Calpurnius! + + [The Curtain Falls Slowly.] + + + FOOTNOTE: +[Footnote 1: Acting rights of this play are reserved.] + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Four Corners of the World, by +A. E. W. 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E. W. 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E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Four Corners of the World + +Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +Release Date: January 25, 2012 [EBook #38664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br> + +1. Page scan source:<br> +http://www.archive.org/details/fourcornersof00masoiala</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>BOOKS BY A. E. W. MASON</h2> + +<h3>Published By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h3> + +<hr class="W50"> +<div style="margin-left:25%; font-weight:bold"> +<p class="hang1">THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD. <i>net</i> $1.50</p> +<p class="hang1">THE BROKEN ROAD. <i>net</i> $1.35</p> +<p class="hang1">AT THE VILLA ROSE. Illustrated. <i>net</i> $1.35</p> +<p class="hang1">THE TURNSTILE. <i>net</i> $1.35</p> +<p class="hang1">THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE. <i>net</i> $1.35</p> +</div> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE FOUR CORNERS<br> + +OF THE WORLD</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>THE FOUR CORNERS<br> + +OF THE WORLD</h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h2>A. E. W. MASON</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS<br> +NEW YORK :: :: :: 1917</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h4><span class="sc2">Copyright, 1917, by</span><br> +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h4> + +<hr class="W10" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> + +<h4>Published October, 1917</h4> +<hr class="W10" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> + +<h4><span class="sc2">Copyright, 1909, by</span> THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO.<br> +<span class="sc2">Copyright, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1917, By</span> A. E. W. MASON<br> +<span class="sc2">Copyright, 1914, 1915, 1917, By</span> THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE CO.</h4> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<br> +<div style="margin-left:5%"> +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_clock" href="#div1_clock"><span class="sc">The Clock.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_green" href="#div1_green"><span class="sc">Green Paint.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_north" href="#div1_north"><span class="sc">North of the Tropic of Capricorn.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_one" href="#div1_one"><span class="sc">One of Them.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_raymond" href="#div1_raymond"><span class="sc">Raymond Byatt.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_crystal" href="#div1_crystal"><span class="sc">The Crystal Trench.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_house" href="#div1_house"><span class="sc">The House of Terror.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_brown" href="#div1_brown"><span class="sc">The Brown Book.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_refuge" href="#div1_refuge"><span class="sc">The Refuge.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_peiffer" href="#div1_peiffer"><span class="sc">Peiffer.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_ebony" href="#div1_ebony"><span class="sc">The Ebony Box.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_affair" href="#div1_affair"><span class="sc">The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel.</span></a></p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div1Ref_under" href="#div1_under"><span class="sc">Under Bignor Hill.</span></a></p> +</div> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE CLOCK</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_clock" href="#div1Ref_clock">THE CLOCK</a></h2> +<br> + +<h3>I</h3> +<br> +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss was a great walker, and it was his habit, after his day's +work was done, to walk from his pleasant office in the Adelphi to his +home at Hampstead. On an afternoon he was detained to a later hour +than usual by one of his clients, a Captain Brayton, over some matter +of a mortgage. Mr. Twiss looked at his office clock.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are going west, I suppose?" he said. "I wonder if you would walk +with me as far as Piccadilly? It will not be very much out of your +way, and I have a reason for wishing your company."</p> + +<p class="normal">"By all means," replied Captain Brayton, and the two men set forth.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss, however, seemed in a difficulty as to how he should broach +his subject, and for a while the pair walked in silence. They, indeed, +reached Pall Mall, and were walking down that broad thoroughfare, +before a word of any importance was uttered. And even then it was +chance which furnished the occasion. A young man of Captain Brayton's +age came down from the steps of a club and walked towards them. As he +passed beneath a street lamp, Mr. Twiss noticed his face, and ever so +slightly started with surprise. At almost the same moment, the young +man swerved across the road at a run, as though suddenly he remembered +a very pressing appointment. The two men walked on again for a few +paces, and then Captain Brayton observed: "There is a screw loose +there, I am afraid."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss shook his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sorry to hear you say so," he replied. "It was, indeed, about +Archie Cranfield that I was anxious to speak to you. I promised his +father that I would be something more than Archie's mere man of +affairs, if I were allowed, and I confess that I am troubled by him. +You know him well?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Captain Brayton nodded his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps I should say that I did know him well," he returned. "We were +at the same school, we passed through Chatham together, but since he +has relinquished actual service we have seen very little of one +another." Here he hesitated, but eventually made up his mind to +continue in a guarded fashion. "Also, I am bound to admit that there +has been cause for disagreement. We quarrelled."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss was disappointed. "Then you can tell me nothing of him +recently?" he asked, and Captain Brayton shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing but what all the little world of his acquaintances already +knows. He has grown solitary, forbidding in his manner, and, what is +most noticeable, sly--extraordinarily sly. While he is speaking with +you, he will smile at some secret thought of his; the affairs of the +world have lost their interest for him; he hardly listens and seldom +speaks. He is concerned with some private matter, and he hides it +cunningly. That is the character, at all events, which his friends +give of him."</p> + +<p class="normal">They had now reached the corner of St. James's Street, and as they +turned up the hill, Mr. Twiss took up the tale.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am not surprised at what you tell me. It is a great pity, for we +both remember him ambitious and a good soldier. I am inclined to blame +the house in the country for the change in him."</p> + +<p class="normal">Captain Brayton, however, did not agree.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It goes deeper than that," he said. "Men who live alone in the +country may show furtive ways in towns, no doubt. But why does he live +alone in the country? No, that will not do"; and at the top of St. +James's Street the two men parted.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss walked up Bond Street, and the memory of that house in the +country in which Archie Cranfield chose to bury himself kept him +company. Mr. Twiss had travelled down into the eastern counties to see +it for himself one Saturday afternoon when Cranfield was away from +home, and a walk of six miles from the station had taken him to its +door. It stood upon the borders of Essex and Suffolk, a small +Elizabethan house backed upon the Stour, a place of black beams and +low ceilings and great fireplaces. It had been buttressed behind, +where the ground ran down to the river-bank, and hardly a window was +on a level with its neighbour. A picturesque place enough, but Mr. +Twiss was a lover of towns and of paved footways and illuminated +streets. He imagined it on such an evening as this, dark, and the rain +dripping cheerlessly from the trees. He imagined its inmate crouching +over the fire with his sly smile upon his face, and of a sudden the +picture took on a sinister look, and a strong sense of discomfort made +Mr. Twiss cast an uneasy glance behind him. He had in his pocket a +letter of instructions from Archie Cranfield, bidding him buy the +house outright with its furniture, since it had now all come into the +market.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a week after this when next Captain Brayton came to Mr. Twiss's +office, and, their business done, he spoke of his own accord of Archie +Cranfield.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am going to stay with him," he said. "He wrote to me on the night +of the day when we passed him in Pall Mall. He told me that he would +make up a small bachelor party. I am very glad, for, to tell the +truth, our quarrel was a sufficiently serious one, and here, it seems, +is the end to it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss was delighted, and shook his client warmly by the hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall bring me news of Archie Cranfield," he said--"better news +than I have," he added, with a sudden gravity upon his face. For in +making the arrangements for the purchase of the house, he had come +into contact with various neighbours of Archie Cranfield, and from all +of them he had had but one report. Cranfield had a bad name in those +parts. There were no particular facts given to account for his +reputation. It was all elusive and vague, an impression conveyed by +Archie Cranfield himself, by something strange and sly in his +demeanour. He would sit chuckling in a sort of triumph, to which no +one had the clue, or, on the other hand, he fell into deep silences +like a man with a trouble on his mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Be sure you come to see me when you return," said Mr. Twiss, and +Captain Brayton replied heartily: "Surely I will." But he never did. +For in a few days the newspapers were busy with the strange enigma of +his death.</p> +<br> + +<h3>II</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The first hint of this enigma was conveyed to Mr. Twiss late one night +at his private address. It came in the shape of a telegram from Archie +Cranfield, which seemed to the agitated solicitor rather a cry of +distress than a message sent across the wires.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come at once. I am in terrible need.--Cranfield."</p> + +<p class="normal">There were no trains at so late an hour by which Mr. Twiss could reach +his client; he must needs wait until the morning. He travelled, +however, by the first train from Liverpool Street. Although the +newspapers were set out upon the bookstall, not one of them contained +a word of anything amiss at Archie Cranfield's house, and Mr. Twiss +began to breathe more freely. It was too early for a cab to be in +waiting at the station, and Mr. Twiss set out to walk the six miles. +It was a fine, clear morning of November; but for the want of leaves +and birds, and the dull look of the countryside, Mr. Twiss might have +believed the season to be June. His spirits rose as he walked, his +blood warmed to a comfortable glow, and by the time he came to the +gates of the house, Cranfield's summons had become a trifling thing. +As he walked up to the door, however, his mood changed, for every +blind in the house was drawn. The door was opened before he could +touch the bell, and it was opened by Cranfield himself. His face was +pale and disordered, his manner that of a man at his wits' end.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What has happened?" asked Mr. Twiss as he entered the hall.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A terrible thing!" replied Cranfield. "It's Brayton. Have you +breakfasted? I suppose not. Come, and I will tell you while you eat."</p> + +<p class="normal">He walked up and down the room while Mr. Twiss ate his breakfast, and +gradually, by question and by answer, the story took shape. +Corroboration was easy and was secured. There was no real dispute +about the facts; they were simple and clear.</p> + +<p class="normal">There were two other visitors in the house besides Captain Brayton, +one a barrister named Henry Chalmers, and the second, William +Linfield, a man about town as the phrase goes. Both men stood in much +the same relationship to Archie Cranfield as Captain Brayton did--that +is to say, they were old friends who had seen little of their host of +late, and were somewhat surprised to receive his invitation after so +long an interval. They had accepted it in the same spirit as Brayton, +and the three men arrived together on Wednesday evening. On Thursday +the party of four shot over some turnip fields and a few clumps of +wood which belonged to the house, and played a game of bridge in the +evening. In the opinion of all, Brayton was never in better spirits. +On Friday the four men shot again and returned to the house as +darkness was coming on. They took tea in the smoking-room, and after +tea Brayton declared his intention to write some letters before +dinner. He went upstairs to his room for that purpose.</p> + +<p class="normal">The other three men remained in the smoking-room. Of that there was no +doubt. Both Chalmers and Linfield were emphatic upon the point. +Chalmers, in particular, said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"We sat talking on a well-worn theme, I in a chair on one side of the +fireplace, Archie Cranfield in another opposite to me, and Linfield +sitting on the edge of the billiard-table between us. How the subject +cropped up I cannot remember, but I found myself arguing that most men +hid their real selves all their lives even from their most intimate +friends, that there were secret chambers in a man's consciousness +wherein he lived a different life from that which the world saw and +knew, and that it was only by some rare mistake the portals of that +chamber were ever passed by any other man. Linfield would not hear of +it. If this hidden man were the real man, he held, in some way or +another the reality would triumph, and some vague suspicion of the +truth would in the end be felt by all his intimates. I upheld my view +by instances from the courts of law, Linfield his by the aid of a +generous imagination, while Cranfield looked from one to the other of +us with his sly, mocking smile. I turned to him, indeed, in some heat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Well, since you appear to know, Cranfield, tell me which of us is +right,' and his pipe fell from his fingers and broke upon the hearth. +He stood up, with his face grown white and his lips drawn back from +his teeth in a kind of snarl.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'What do you mean by that?' he asked; and before I could answer, the +door was thrown violently open, and Cranfield's man-servant burst into +the room. He mastered himself enough to say:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'May I speak to you, sir?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Cranfield went outside the door with him. He could not have moved six +paces from the door, for though he closed it behind him, we heard the +sound of his voice and of his servant's speaking in low tones. +Moreover, there was no appreciable moment of time between the +cessation of the voices and Cranfield's reappearance in the room. He +came back to the fireplace and said very quietly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I have something terrible to tell you. Brayton has shot himself.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"He then glanced from Linfield's face to mine, and sat down in a chair +heavily. Then he crouched over the fire shivering. Both Linfield and +myself were too shocked by the news to say a word for a moment or two. +Then Linfield asked:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'But is he dead?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Humphreys says so,' Cranfield returned. 'I have telephoned to the +police and to the doctor.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'But we had better go upstairs ourselves and see,' said I. And we +did."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus Chalmers. Humphreys, the man-servant, gave the following account:</p> + +<p class="normal">"The bell rang from Captain Brayton's room at half-past five. I +answered it at once myself, and Captain Brayton asked me at what hour +the post left. I replied that we sent the letters from the house to +the post-office in the village at six. He then asked me to return at +that hour and fetch those of his which would be ready. I returned +precisely at six, and I saw Captain Brayton lying in a heap upon the +rug in front of the fire. He was dead, and he held a revolver tightly +clenched in his hand. As I stepped over him, I smelt that something +was burning. He had shot himself through the heart, and his clothes +were singed, as if he had held the revolver close to his side."</p> + +<p class="normal">These stories were repeated at the inquest, and at this particular +point in Humphreys' evidence the coroner asked a question:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you recognise the revolver?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not until Captain Brayton's hand was unclenched."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But then you did?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said Humphreys.</p> + +<p class="normal">The coroner pointed to the table on which a revolver lay.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that the weapon?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Humphreys took it up and looked at the handle, on which two initials +were engraved--"A. C."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said the man. "I recognised it as Mr. Cranfield's. He kept it +in a drawer by his bedside."</p> + +<p class="normal">No revolver was found amongst Captain Brayton's possessions.</p> + +<p class="normal">It became clear that, while the three men were talking in the +billiard-room, Captain Brayton had gone to Cranfield's room, taken his +revolver, and killed himself with it. No evidence, however, was +produced which supplied a reason for Brayton's suicide. His affairs +were in good order, his means sufficient, his prospects of advancement +in his career sound. Nor was there a suggestion of any private +unhappiness. The tragedy, therefore, was entered in that list of +mysteries which are held insoluble.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I might," said Chalmers, "perhaps resume the argument which Humphreys +interrupted in the billiard-room, with a better instance than any +which I induced--the instance of Captain Brayton."</p> +<br> + +<h3>III</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"You won't go?" Archie Cranfield pleaded with Mr. Twiss. "Linfield and +Chalmers leave to-day. If you go too, I shall be entirely alone."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But why should you stay?" the lawyer returned.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Surely you hardly propose to remain through the winter in this +house?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, but I must stay on for a few days; I have to make arrangements +before I can go," said Cranfield; and seeing that he was in earnest in +his intention to go, Mr. Twiss was persuaded. He stayed on, and +recognised, in consequence, that the death of Captain Brayton had +amongst its consequences one which he had not expected. The feeling in +the neighbourhood changed towards Archie Cranfield. It cannot be said +that he became popular--he wore too sad and joyless an air--but +sympathy was shown to him in many acts of courtesy and in a greater +charity of language.</p> + +<p class="normal">A retired admiral, of a strong political complexion, who had been one +of the foremost to dislike Archie Cranfield, called, indeed, to offer +his condolences. Archie Cranfield did not see him, but Mr. Twiss +walked down the drive with him to the gate.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's hard on Cranfield," said the admiral. "We all admit it. It +wasn't fair of Brayton to take his host's revolver. But for the +accident that Cranfield was in the billiard-room with Linfield and +Chalmers, the affair might have taken on quite an ugly look. We all +feel that in the neighbourhood, and we shall make it up to Cranfield. +Just tell him that, Mr. Twiss, if you will."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is very kind of you all, I am sure," replied Mr. Twiss, "but I +think Cranfield will not continue to live here. The death of Captain +Brayton has been too much of a shock for him."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss said "Good-bye" to the admiral at the gate, and returned to +the house. He was not easy in his mind, and as he walked round the +lawn under the great trees, he cried to himself:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is lucky, indeed, that Archie Cranfield was in the billiard-room +with Linfield and Chalmers; otherwise, Heaven knows what I might have +been brought to believe myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">The two men had quarrelled; Brayton himself had imparted that piece of +knowledge to Mr. Twiss. Then there was the queer change in Archie +Cranfield's character, which had made for him enemies of strangers, +and strangers of his friends--the slyness, the love of solitude, the +indifference to the world, the furtive smile as of a man conscious of +secret powers, the whole indescribable uncanniness of him. Mr. Twiss +marshalled his impressions and stopped in the avenue.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should have had no just grounds for any suspicion," he concluded, +"but I cannot say that I should not have suspected," and slowly he +went on to the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">He walked through the house into the billiard-room, and so became the +witness of an incident which caused him an extraordinary disquiet. The +room was empty. Mr. Twiss lit his pipe and took down a book from one, +of the shelves. A bright fire glowed upon the hearth, and drawing up a +chair to the fender, he settled down to read. But the day was dull, +and the fireplace stood at the dark end of the room. Mr. Twiss carried +his book over to the window, which was a bay window with a broad seat. +Now, the curtains were hung at the embrasure of the window, so that, +when they were drawn, they shut the bay off altogether from the room, +and when they were open, as now, they still concealed the corners of +the window-seats. It was in one of these corners that Mr. Twiss took +his seat, and there he read quietly for the space of five minutes.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the end of that time he heard the latch of the door click, and +looking out from his position behind the curtain, he saw the door +slowly open. Archie Cranfield came through the doorway into the room, +and shut the door behind him. Then he stood for a while by the door, +very still, but breathing heavily. Mr. Twiss was on the point of +coming forward and announcing his presence, but there was something so +strange and secret in Cranfield's behaviour that, in spite of certain +twinges of conscience, he remained hidden in his seat. He did more +than remain hidden. He made a chink between the curtain and the wall, +and watched. He saw Cranfield move swiftly over to the fireplace, +seize a little old-fashioned clock in a case of satinwood which stood +upon the mantelshelf, raise it in the air, and dash it with an +ungovernable fury on to the stone hearth. Having done this +unaccountable thing, Cranfield dropped into the chair which Mr. Twiss +had drawn up. He covered his face with his hands and suddenly began to +sob and wail in the most dreadful fashion, rocking his body from side +to side in a very paroxysm of grief. Mr. Twiss was at his wits' end to +know what to do. He felt that to catch a man sobbing would be to earn +his undying resentment. Yet the sound was so horrible, and produced in +him so sharp a discomfort and distress, that, on the other hand, he +could hardly keep still. The paroxysm passed, however, almost as +quickly as it had come, and Cranfield, springing to his feet, rang the +bell. Humphreys answered it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have knocked the clock off the mantelshelf with my elbow, +Humphreys," he said. "I am afraid that it is broken, and the glass +might cut somebody's hand. Would you mind clearing the pieces away?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He went out of the room, and Humphreys went off for a dustpan. Mr. +Twiss was able to escape from the billiard-room unnoticed. But it was +a long time before he recovered from the uneasiness which the incident +aroused in him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Four days later the two men left the house together. The servants had +been paid off. Humphreys had gone with the luggage to London by an +earlier train. Mr. Twiss and Archie Cranfield were the last to go. +Cranfield turned the key in the lock of the front door as they stood +upon the steps.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall never see the inside of that house again," he said with a +gusty violence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you allow me to get rid of it for you?" asked Mr. Twiss; and for +a moment Cranfield looked at him with knotted brows, blowing the while +into the wards of the key.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," he said at length, and, running down to the stream at the back +of the house, he tossed the key into the water. "No," he repeated +sharply; "let the house rot empty as it stands. The rats shall have +their will of it, and the sooner the better."</p> + +<p class="normal">He walked quickly to the gate, with Mr. Twiss at his heels, and as +they covered the six miles to the railway station, very little was +said between them.</p> +<br> + +<h3>IV</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Time ran on, and Mr. Twiss was a busy man. The old house by the Stour +began to vanish from his memory amongst the mists and the veils of +rain which so often enshrouded it. Even the enigma of Captain +Brayton's death was ceasing to perplex him, when the whole affair was +revived in the most startling fashion. A labourer, making a short cut +to his work one summer morning, passed through the grounds of +Cranfield's closed and shuttered house. His way led him round the back +of the building, and as he came to that corner where the great brick +buttresses kept the house from slipping down into the river, he saw +below him, at the edge of the water, a man sleeping. The man's back +was turned towards him; he was lying half upon his side, half upon his +face. The labourer, wondering who it was, went down to the river-bank, +and the first thing he noticed was a revolver lying upon the grass, +its black barrel and handle shining in the morning sunlight. The +labourer turned the sleeper over on his back. There was some blood +upon the left breast of his waistcoat. The sleeper was dead, and from +the rigidity of the body had been dead for some hours. The labourer +ran back to the village with the astounding news that he had found Mr. +Cranfield shot through the heart at the back of his own empty house. +People at first jumped naturally to the belief that murder had been +done. The more judicious, however, shook their heads. Not a door nor a +window was open in the house. When the locks were forced, it was seen +that the dust lay deep on floor and chair and table, and nowhere was +there any mark of a hand or a foot. Outside the house, too, in the +long neglected grass, there were but two sets of footsteps visible, +one set leading round the house--the marks made by the labourer on his +way to his work--the other set leading directly to the spot where +Archie Cranfield's body was found lying. Rumours, each contradicting +the other, flew from cottage to cottage, and the men gathered about +the police-station and in the street waiting for the next. In an hour +or two, however, the mystery was at an end. It leaked out that upon +Archie Cranfield's body a paper had been discovered, signed in his +hand and by his name, with these words:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have shot myself with the same revolver with which I murdered +Captain Brayton."</p> + +<p class="normal">The statement created some stir when it was read out in the +billiard-room, where the coroner held his inquest. But the coroner who +presided now was the man who had held the court when Captain Brayton +had been shot. He was quite clear in his recollection of that case.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Cranfield's alibi on that occasion," he said, "was +incontrovertible. Mr. Cranfield was with two friends in this very room +when Captain Brayton shot himself in his bedroom. There can be no +doubt of that." And under his direction the jury returned a verdict of +"Suicide while of unsound mind."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss attended the inquest and the funeral. But though he welcomed +the verdict, at the bottom of his mind he was uneasy. He remembered +vividly that extraordinary moment when he had seen Cranfield creep +into the billiard-room, lift the little clock in its case of satinwood +high above his head, and dash it down upon the hearth in a wild gust +of fury. He recollected how the fury had given way to despair--if it +were despair and not remorse. He saw again Archie Cranfield dropping +into the chair, holding his head and rocking his body in a paroxysm of +sobs. The sound of his wailing rang horribly once more in the ears of +Mr. Twiss. He was not satisfied.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What should take Cranfield back to that deserted house, there to end +his life, if not remorse," he asked himself--"remorse for some evil +done there"?</p> + +<p class="normal">Over that question for some days he shook his head, finding it waiting +for him at his fireside and lurking for him at the corner of the +roads, as he took his daily walk between Hampstead and his office. It +began to poison his life, a life of sane and customary ways, with +eerie suggestions. There was an oppression upon his heart of which he +could not rid it. On the outskirts of his pleasant world dim horrors +loomed; he seemed to walk upon a frail crust, fearful of what lay +beneath. The sly smile, the furtive triumph, the apparent +consciousness of secret power--did they point to some corruption of +the soul in Cranfield, of which none knew but he himself?</p> + +<p class="normal">"At all events, he paid for it," Mr. Twiss would insist, and from that +reflection drew, after all, but little comfort. The riddle began even +to invade his business hours, and take a seat within his private +office, silently clamouring for his attention. So that it was with a +veritable relief that he heard one morning from his clerk that a man +called Humphreys wished particularly to see him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Show him in," cried Mr. Twiss, and for his own ear he added: "Now I +shall know."</p> + +<p class="normal">Humphreys entered the room with a letter in his hand. He laid the +letter on the office table. Mr. Twiss saw at a glance that it was +addressed in Archie Cranfield's hand. He flung himself upon it and +snatched it up. It was sealed by Cranfield's seal. It was addressed to +himself, with a note upon the left-hand corner of the envelope:</p> + +<p class="normal">"To be delivered after my death."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss turned sternly to the man.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why did you not bring it before?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Cranfield told me to wait a month," Humphreys replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss took a turn across the room with the letter in his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then you knew," he cried, "that your master meant to kill himself? +You knew, and remained silent?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, sir, I did not know," Humphreys replied firmly. "Mr. Cranfield +gave me the letter, saying that he had a long railway journey in front +of him. He was smiling when he gave it me. I can remember the words +with which he gave it: 'They offer you an insurance ticket at the +booking-office, when they sell you your travelling ticket, so there is +always, I suppose, a little risk. And it is of the utmost importance +to me that, in the event of my death, this should reach Mr. Twiss.' He +spoke so lightly that I could not have guessed what was on his mind, +nor, do I think, sir, could you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Twiss dismissed the man and summoned his clerk. "I shall not be in +to anyone this afternoon," he said. He broke the seal and drew some +closely written sheets of note-paper from the envelope. He spread the +sheets in front of him with a trembling hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Heaven knows in what spirit and with what knowledge I shall rise from +my reading," he thought; and looking out of his pleasant window upon +the barges swinging down the river on the tide, he was in half a mind +to fling the sheets of paper into the fire. "But I shall be plagued +with that question all my life," he added, and he bent his head over +his desk and read.</p> +<br> + +<h3>V</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"<span class="sc">My dear Friend</span>,--I am writing down for you the facts. I am not +offering any explanation, for I have none to give. You will probably +rise up, after reading this letter, quite incredulous, and with the +conviction in your mind that you have been reading the extravagancies +of a madman. And I wish with all my heart that you could be right. But +you are not. I have come to the end to-day. I am writing the last +words I ever shall write, and therefore I am not likely to write a +lie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will remember the little manor-house on the borders of Essex, for +you were always opposed to my purchase of it. You were like the +British jury, my friend. Your conclusion was sound, but your reason +for it very far from the mark. You disliked it for its isolation and +the melancholy of its dripping trees, and I know not what other +town-bred reasonings. I will give you a more solid cause. Picture to +yourself the billiard-room and how it was furnished when I first took +the house--the raised settee against the wall, the deep leather chairs +by the fire, the high fender, and on the mantelshelf--what?--a little +old-fashioned clock in a case of satinwood. You probably never noticed +it. I did from the first evenings which I passed in the house. For I +spent those evenings alone, smoking my pipe by the fire. It had a +queer trick. For a while it would tick almost imperceptibly, and then, +without reason, quite suddenly, the noise would become loud and +hollow, as though the pendulum in its swing struck against the wooden +case. To anyone sitting alone for hours in the room, as I did, this +tick had the queerest effect. The clock almost became endowed with +human qualities. At one time it seemed to wish to attract one's +attention, at another time to avoid it. For more than once, disturbed +by the louder knocking, I rose and moved the clock. At once the +knocking would cease, to begin again when I had settled afresh to my +book, in a kind of tentative, secret way, as though it would accustom +my ears to the sound, and so pass unnoticed. And often it did so pass, +until one knock louder and more insistent than the rest would drag me +in annoyance on to my feet once more. In a week, however, I got used +to it, and then followed the strange incident which set in motion that +chain of events of which tomorrow will see the end.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It happened that a couple of my neighbours were calling on me. One of +them you have met--Admiral Palkin, a prolix old gentleman, with a +habit of saying nothing at remarkable length. The other was a Mr. +Stiles, a country gentleman who had a thought of putting up for +that division of the county. I led these two gentlemen into the +billiard-room, and composed myself to listen while the admiral +monologued. But the clock seemed to me to tick louder than ever, +until, with one sharp and almost metallic thump, the sound ceased +altogether. At exactly the same moment. Admiral Palkin stopped dead in +the middle of a sentence. It was nothing of any consequence that he +was saying, but I remember the words at which he stopped. 'I have +often----' he said, and then he broke off, not with any abrupt start, +or for any lack of words, but just as if he had completed all that he +had meant to say. I looked at him across the fireplace, but his face +wore its usual expression of complacent calm. He was in no way put +out. Nor did it seem that any new train of thought had flashed into +his mind and diverted it. I turned my eyes from him to Mr. Stiles. Mr. +Stiles seemed actually to be unaware that the admiral had stopped +talking at all. Admiral Palkin, you will remember, was a person of +consequence in the district, and Mr. Stiles, who would subsequently +need his vote and influence and motorcar, had thought fit to assume an +air of great deference. From the beginning he had leaned towards the +admiral, his elbow upon his knee, his chin propped upon his hand, and +his head now and again nodding a thoughtful assent to the admiral's +nothings. In this attitude he still remained, not surprised, not even +patiently waiting for the renewal of wisdom, but simply attentive.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nor did I move, for I was amused. The two men looked just like a +couple of wax figures in Madame Tussaud's, fixed in a stiff attitude +and condemned so to remain until the building should take fire and the +wax run. I sat watching them for minutes, and still neither moved nor +spoke. I never saw in my life a couple of people so entirely +ridiculous. I tried hard to keep my countenance--for to laugh at these +great little men in my own house would not only be bad manners, but +would certainly do for me in the neighbourhood--but I could not help +it. I began to smile, and the smile became a laugh. Yet not a muscle +on the faces of my visitors changed. Not a frown overshadowed the +admiral's complacency; not a glance diverted the admiring eyes of Mr. +Stiles. And then the clock began to tick again, and, to my infinite +astonishment, at the very same moment the admiral continued.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'--said to myself in my lighter moments---- And pray, sir, at what +are you laughing?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Stiles turned with an angry glance towards me. Admiral Palkin had +resumed his conversation, apparently unaware that there had been any +interval at all. My laughter, on the other hand, had extended beyond +the interval, had played an accompaniment to the words just spoken. I +made my excuses as well as I could, but I recognised that they were +deemed insufficient. The two gentlemen left my house with the coldest +farewells you can imagine.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The same extraordinary incident was repeated with other visitors, but +I was on my guard against any injudicious merriment. Moreover, I had +no longer any desire to laugh. I was too perplexed. My visitors never +seemed to notice that there had been a lengthy interval or indeed any +interval at all, while I, for my part, hesitated to ask them what had +so completely hypnotised them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The next development took place when I was alone in the room. It was +five o'clock in the afternoon. I had been out shooting a covert close +to the house, and a few minutes after I had rung the bell, I +remembered that I had forgotten some instructions which I had meant to +give to the keeper. So I got up at once, thinking to catch him in the +gun-room before he went home. As I rose from my chair, the clock, +which had been ticking loudly--though, as I have said, it was rather a +hollow, booming sound, as though the pendulum struck the wood of the +case, than a mere ticking of the clock-work--ceased its noise with the +abruptness to which I was growing used. I went out of the room into +the hall, and I saw Humphreys with the tea-tray in his hands in the +hall. He was turned towards the billiard-room door, but to my +astonishment he was not moving. He was poised with one foot in the +air, as though he had been struck, as the saying is, with a step half +taken. You have seen, no doubt, instantaneous photographs of people in +the act of walking. Well, Humphreys was exactly like one of those +photographs. He had just the same stiff, ungainly look. I should have +spoken to him, but I was anxious to catch my keeper before he went +away. So I took no notice of him. I crossed the hall quickly and went +out by the front door, leaving it open. The gun-room was really a +small building of corrugated iron, standing apart at the back of the +house. I went to it and tried the door. It was locked. I called aloud: +'Martin! Martin!'</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I received no answer. I ran round the house again, thinking that +he might just have started home, but I saw no signs of him. There were +some outhouses which it was his business to look after, and I visited +them, opening the door of each of them and calling him by name. Then I +went down the drive to the gate, thinking that I might perhaps catch a +glimpse of him upon the road, but again I was disappointed. I then +returned to the house, shut the front door, and there in the hall +still stood Humphreys in his ridiculous attitude with the tea-tray in +his hands. I passed him and went back into the billiard-room. He took +no notice of me whatever. I looked at the clock upon the mantelshelf, +and I saw that I had been away just fourteen minutes. For fourteen +minutes Humphreys had been standing on one leg in the hall. It seemed +as incredible as it was ludicrous. Yet there was the clock to bear me +out. I sat down on my chair with my hands trembling, my mind in a +maze. The strangest thought had come to me, and while I revolved it in +my mind, the clock resumed its ticking, the door opened, and Humphreys +appeared with the tea-tray in his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'You have been a long time, Humphreys,' I said, and the man looked at +me quickly. My voice was shaking with excitement, my face, no doubt, +had a disordered look.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I prepared the tea at once, sir,' he answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'It is twenty minutes by the clock since I rang the bell,' I said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Humphreys placed the tea on a small table at my side and then looked +at the clock. An expression of surprise came over his face. He +compared it with the dial of his own watch.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'The clock wants regulating, sir,' he said. 'I set it by the kitchen +clock this morning, and it has gained fourteen minutes.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"I whipped my own watch out of my pocket and stared at it. Humphreys +was quite right; the clock upon the mantelshelf had gained fourteen +minutes upon all our watches. Yes, but it had gained those fourteen +minutes in a second, and that was the least part of the marvel. I +myself had had the benefit of those fourteen minutes. I had snatched +them, as it were, from Time itself. I had looked at my watch when I +rang the bell. It had marked five minutes to five. I had remained yet +another four minutes in the room before I had remembered my forgotten +instructions to the keeper. I had then gone out. I had visited the +gun-room and the outhouses, I had walked to the front gate, I had +returned. I had taken fourteen minutes over my search--I could not +have taken less--and here were the hands of my watch now still +pointing towards five, still short of the hour. Indeed, as I replaced +my watch in my pocket, the clock in the hall outside struck five.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'As you passed through the hall, Humphreys, you saw no one, I +suppose?' I said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Humphreys raised his eyebrows with a look of perplexity. 'No, sir, I +saw no one,' he returned, 'but it seemed to me that the front door +banged. I think it must have been left open.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Very likely,' said I. 'That will do,' and Humphreys went out of the +room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Imagine my feelings. Time is relative, it is a condition of our +senses, it is nothing more--that we know. But its relation to me was +different from its relation to others. The clock had given me fourteen +minutes, which it denied to all the world besides. Fourteen full +minutes for me, yet they passed for others in less than the fraction +of a second. And not once only had it made me this gift, but many +times. The admiral's pause, unnoticed by Mr. Stiles, was now explained +to me. He had not paused; he had gone straight on with his flow of +talk, and Mr. Stiles had gone straight on listening. But between two +of Admiral Palkin's words. Time had stood still for me. Similarly, +Humphreys had not poised himself upon one ridiculous leg in the hall. +He had taken a step in the usual way, but while his leg was raised, +fourteen minutes were given to me. I had walked through the hall, I +had walked back through the hall, yet Humphreys had not seen me. He +could not have seen me, for there had been no interval of time for him +to use his eyes. I had gone and come quicker than any flash, for even +a flash is appreciable as some fraction of a second.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I asked you to imagine my feelings. Only with those which I first +experienced would you, from your sane and comfortable outlook upon +life, have any sympathy, for at the beginning I was shocked. I had +more than an inclination then to dash that clock upon the hearth and +deny myself its bizarre and unnatural gift. Would that I had done so! +But the inclination was passed, and was succeeded by an incredible +lightness of spirit. I had a gift which raised me above kings, which +fanned into a flame every spark of vanity within me. I had so much +more of time than any other man. I amused myself by making plans to +use it, and thereupon I suffered a disappointment. For there was so +little one could do in fourteen minutes, and the more I realised how +little there was which I could do in my own private special stretch of +time, the more I wanted to do, the more completely I wished to live in +it, the more I wished to pluck power and advantage from it. Thus I +began to look forward to the sudden cessation of the ticking of the +clock; I began to wait for it, to live for it, and when it came, I +could make no use of it. I gained fourteen minutes now and then, but I +lost more and more of the hours which I shared with other men. They +lost their salt for me. I became tortured with the waste of those +minutes of my own. I had the power; what I wanted now was to employ +it. The desire became an obsession occupying my thoughts, harassing my +dreams.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was in this mood when I passed Brayton and yourself one evening in +Pall Mall. I wrote to him that night, and I swear to you upon my +conscience that I had no thought in writing but to put an end to an +old disagreement, and re-establish, if possible, an old friendship. I +wrote in a sudden revulsion of feeling. The waste of my days was +brought home to me. I recognised that the great gift was no more than +a perpetual injury. I proposed to gather my acquaintances about me, +discard my ambition for some striking illustration of my power, and +take up once more the threads of customary life. Yet my determination +lasted no longer than the time it took me to write the letter and run +out with it to the post. I regretted its despatch even as I heard it +fall to the bottom of the pillar-box.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of my quarrel with Brayton I need not write at length. It sprang from +a rancorous jealousy. We had been friends and class-mates in the +beginning. But as step by step he rose just a little above me, the +friendship I had turned to gall and anger. I was never more than the +second, he always the first. Had I been fourth or fifth, I think I +should not have minded; but there was so little to separate us in +merit or advancement. Yet there was always that little, and I dreaded +the moment when he should take a bound and leave me far behind. The +jealousy grew to a real hatred, made still more bitter to me by the +knowledge that Brayton himself was unaware of it, and need not have +been troubled had he been aware.</p> + +<p class="normal">"After I left the Army and lost sight of him, the flame burnt low. I +believed it was extinguished when I invited him to stay with me; but +he had not been an hour in the house when it blazed up within me. His +success, the confidence which it had given him, his easy friendliness +with strangers, the talk of him as a coming man, bit into my soul. The +very sound of his footstep sickened me. I was in this mood when the +clock began to boom louder and louder in the billiard-room. Chalmers +and Linfield were talking. I did not listen to them. My heart beat +louder and louder within my breast, keeping pace with the clock. I +knew that in a moment or two the sound would cease, and the doors of +my private kingdom would be open for me to pass through. I sat back in +my chair waiting while the devilish inspiration had birth and grew +strong. Here was the great chance to use the power I had--the only +chance which had ever come to me. Brayton was writing letters in his +room. The room was in a wing of the house. The sound of a shot would +not be heard. There would be an end of his success; there would be for +me such a triumphant use of my great privilege as I had never dreamed +of. The clock suddenly ceased. I slipped from the room and went +upstairs. I was quite leisurely. I had time. I was back in my chair +again before seven minutes had passed.</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="sc">Archie Cranfield</span>."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>GREEN PAINT</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_green" href="#div1Ref_green">GREEN PAINT</a></h2> +<br> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="normal">I came up by the lift from the lower town, Harry Vandeleur strolled +from his more respectable lodging in the upper quarter, and we met +unexpectedly in Government Square. It was ten o'clock in the morning, +and the Square, a floor of white within a ragged border of trees, +glared blindingly under the tropical sun. On each side of the +President's door a diminutive soldier rattled a rifle from time to +time.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What? Has he sent for you too?" said Harry, pointing to the +President's house.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Juan Ballester. Yes," said I, and Harry Vandeleur stopped with a +sudden suspicion on his face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What does he want with us?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We volunteered in the war," said I. "We were both useful to him."</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Vandeleur shook his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is at the top of his power. He has won his three-weeks war. The +Army has made him President for the second time. He has so skilfully +organised his elections that he has a Parliament, not merely without +an Opposition, but without a single man of any note in it except +Santiago Calavera. It is not from such that humble people like us can +expect gratitude."</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan Ballester was, in fact, a very remarkable person. Very few people +who had dealings with him ever forgot him. There was the affair of the +Opera House, for instance, and a hundred instances. Who he really was +I should think no one knew. He used to say that he was born in Mexico +City, and when he wished to get the better of anyone with a +sentimental turn, he would speak of his old mother in a broken voice. +But since he never wrote to his old mother, nor she to him, I doubt +very much whether she existed. The only certain fact known about him +was that some thirteen years before, when he was crossing on foot a +high pass of the Cordilleras without a dollar in his pocket, he met a +stranger--but no! I have heard him attribute so many different +nationalities to that stranger that I wouldn't kiss the Bible even on +that story. Probably he <i>was</i> a Mexican and of a good stock. Certainly +no Indian blood made a flaw in him. For though his hair was black and +a pencil-line of black moustache decorated his lip, his skin was fair +like any Englishman's. He was thirty-eight years old, five feet eleven +in height, strongly but not thickly built, and he had a pleasant, +good-humoured face which attracted and deceived by its look of +frankness. For the rest of him the story must speak.</p> + +<p class="normal">He received us in a great room on the first floor overlooking the +Square; and at once he advanced and laid a hand impressively upon my +shoulder. He looked into my face silently. Then he said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Carlyon, I want you."</p> + +<p class="normal">I did not believe him for a moment. But from time to time Juan +Ballester did magnanimous things; not from magnanimity, of which +quality he was entirely devoid, but from a passion for the <i>bran +geste</i>. He would see himself a shining figure before men's eyes, the +perfect cavalier; and the illusion would dazzle him into generosity. +Accordingly, my hopes rose. I was living on credit in a very inferior +hotel. "I had thought my work was done," he continued. "I had hoped to +retire, like Cincinnatus, to my plough," and he gazed sentimentally +out of the window across the city to the wooded hills of Santa Paula. +"But since my country calls me, I must have someone about me whom I +can trust." He broke off to ask: "I suppose your police are no longer +searching for you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They never were, your Excellency," I protested hotly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, perhaps not," he said indulgently. "No doubt the natural +attractions of Maldivia brought you here. You did me some service in +the war. I am not ungrateful. I appoint you my private secretary."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your Excellency!" I cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">He shook hands with me and added carelessly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is no salary attached to the post, but there are +opportunities."</p> + +<p class="normal">And there were. That is why I now live in a neat little villa at +Sorrento.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ballester turned to Harry Vandeleur and took him by the arm. He looked +from one to the other of us.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ever since the day when I walked over a high pass of the Cordilleras +with nothing but the clothes I stood up in, and an unknown Englishman +gave me the railway fare to this city, I have made what return I could +to your nation. You, too, have served me, Señor Vandeleur. I pay some +small portion of my debt. Money! I have none to give you"; and he +uttered the words without a blush, although the half a million pounds +sterling received as war indemnity had already been paid into his +private account.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nor would you take it if I had," Juan resumed. "But I will give you +something of equal value."</p> + +<p class="normal">He led Vandeleur to the window, and waving his hand impressively over +the city, he said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will give you the monopoly of green paint in the city of Santa +Paula."</p> + +<p class="normal">I stifled a laugh. Harry Vandeleur got red in the face. For, after +all, no man likes to look a greater fool than he naturally is. He had, +moreover, a special reason for disappointment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't suppose that there are twenty bucketsful used in Santa Paula +in the year," he exclaimed bitterly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wait, my friend," said Ballester; "there will be."</p> + +<p class="normal">And a week afterwards the following proclamation appeared upon the +walls of the public buildings:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Owing to the numerous complaints which have been received of the +discomfort produced by the glare of a tropical sun, the Government of +the day, ever solicitous to further the wishes of its citizens, now +orders that every house in Santa Paula, with the exception of the +Government buildings, be painted in green paint within two months of +the issue of this proclamation, and any resident who fails to obey +this enactment shall be liable to a fine of fifty dollars for every +day after the two months have elapsed until the order is carried out."</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan Ballester was, no doubt, a very great man, but I cannot deny that +he strained the loyalty of his friends by this proclamation. +Grumblings were loud. No one could discover who had complained of the +glare of the streets--for the simple reason that no one had complained +at all. However, the order was carried out. Daily the streets of Santa +Paula grew greener and greener, until the town had quite a restful +look, and sank into its background and became a piece with its +surroundings. Meanwhile, Harry Vandeleur sat in an office, rubbed his +hands, and put up the price of green paint. But, like most men upon +whom good fortune has suddenly shone, he was not quite contented. He +found his crumpled rose-leaf in the dingy aspect of the Government +buildings and the President's house. They alone now reared fronts of +dirty plaster and cracked stucco. I remember him leaning out of Juan +Ballester's window and looking up and down with a discontented eye.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wants a coat of green paint, doesn't it?" he said with a sort of +jocular eagerness.</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan never even winked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There ought to be a distinction between this house and all the +others," he said gravely. "The President is merely the butler of the +citizens. They ought to know at a glance where they can find him."</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Vandeleur burst suddenly into a laugh. He was an impulsive +youth, a regular bubble of high spirits.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am an ungrateful beast, and that's the truth," he said. "You have +done a great deal for me, more than you know."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Have I?" asked Juan Ballester drily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," cried Harry Vandeleur, and out the story tumbled.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was very anxious to marry Olivia Calavera--daughter, by the way, of +Santiago Calavera, Ballester's Minister of the Interior--and Olivia +Calavera was very anxious to marry him. Olivia was a dream. He, Harry +Vandeleur, was a planter in a small way in Trinidad. Olivia and her +father came from Trinidad. He had followed her from Trinidad, but Don +Santiago, with a father's eye for worldly goods, had been obdurate. It +was all very foolish and very young, and rather pleasant to listen to.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now, thanks to your Excellency," cried Harry, "I am an eligible +suitor. I shall marry the Señorita Olivia."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that so?" said Juan Ballester, with a polite congratulation. But +there was just a suspicion of a note in his voice which made me lift +my head sharply from the papers over which I was bending. It was +impossible, of course--and yet he had drawled the words out in a slow, +hard, quiet way which had startled me. I waited for developments, and +they were not slow in coming.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But before you marry," said Juan Ballester, "I want you to do me a +service. I want you to go to London and negotiate a loan. I can trust +you. Moreover, you will do the work more speedily than another, for +you will be anxious to return."</p> + +<p class="normal">With a friendly smile he took Harry Vandeleur by the arm and led him +into his private study. Harry could not refuse. The mission was one of +honour, and would heighten his importance in Don Santiago's eyes. He +was, besides, under a considerable obligation to Ballester. He +embarked accordingly at Las Cuevas, the port of call half an hour away +from the city.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look after Olivia for me," he said, as we shook hands upon the deck +of the steamer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will do the best I can," I said, and I went down the gangway.</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Vandeleur travelled off to England. He was out of the way. +Meanwhile, I stayed in Maldivia and waited for more developments. But +this time they were not so quick in coming.</p> +<br> + +<h3>II</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Ballester, like greater and lesser men, had his inconsistencies. +Although he paid his private secretary with "opportunities" and bribed +his friends with monopolies; although he had shamelessly rigged the +elections, and paid as much of the country's finances as he dared into +his private banking account; and although there was that little affair +of the Opera House, he was genuinely and sincerely determined to give +to the Republic a cast-iron Constitution. He had an overpowering faith +in law and order--for other people.</p> + +<p class="normal">We hammered out the Constitution day and night for another fortnight, +and then Ballester gabbled it over to a Council of his Ministers. Not +one of them could make head or tail of what he was reading, with the +exception of Santiago Calavera, a foxy-faced old rascal with a white +moustache, who sat with a hand curved about his ear and listened to +every word. I had always wondered why Ballester had given him office +at all. At one point he interrupted in a smooth, smiling voice:</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, your Excellency, that is not legal."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Legal or not legal," said the President with a snap, "it is going +through, Señor Santiago"; and the Constitution was duly passed by a +unanimous vote, and became the law of Maldivia.</p> + +<p class="normal">That event took place a couple of months after Harry Vandeleur had +sailed for England. I stretched my arms and looked about for +relaxation. The Constitution was passed at six o'clock in the evening. +There was to be a ball that night at the house of the British +Minister. I made up my mind to go. For a certainty I should find +Olivia there; and I was seized with remorse. For, in spite of my +promise to Harry Vandeleur, I had hardly set eyes upon her during the +last two months.</p> + +<p class="normal">I saw her at ten o'clock. She was dancing--a thing she loved. She was +dressed in a white frock of satin and lace, with a single rope of +pearls about her throat, and she looked divinely happy. She was a girl +of nineteen years, fairly tall, with black hair, a beautiful white +face, and big, dark eyes which shone with kindness. She had the hand +and foot of her race, and her dancing was rather a liquid movement of +her whole supple body than a matter of her limbs. I watched her for a +few moments from a corner. She had brains as well as beauty, and +though she spoke with a pleading graciousness, at the back of it one +was aware of a pride which would crack the moon. She worked, too, as +few girls of her station work in the Republics of South America. For +her father, from what I then thought to be no better than parsimony, +used her as his secretary. As she swung by my corner for the second +time she saw me and stopped.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Señor Carlyon, it is two months since I have seen you," she said +reproachfully.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Señorita, it is only four hours since our brand new Constitution was +passed into law, and already I am looking for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have neglected me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I regret to notice," said I, "that my neglect has in no way impaired +your health."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia laughed. She had a taking laugh, and the blood mounted very +prettily into her cheeks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I could hardly be ill," she said. "I had a letter to-day."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lucky man to write you letters," said I. "Let me read it, Señorita."</p> + +<p class="normal">She drew back swiftly and her hand went to her bosom.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, it is there!" said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">Again she laughed, but this time with a certain shyness, and the +colour deepened on her cheeks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He sails to-day," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I have still three weeks," said I lightly. "Will you dance with +me for the rest of the evening?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly not," she answered with decision. "But after the fifth +dance from now, you will find me, Señor Carlyon, here"; and turning +again to her partner, she was caught up into the whirl of dancers.</p> + +<p class="normal">After the fifth dance I returned to that corner of the ballroom. I +found Olivia waiting. But it was an Olivia whom I did not know. The +sparkle and the freshness had gone out of her; fear and not kindness +shone in her eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her face lit up for a moment when she saw me, and she stepped eagerly +forward.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Quick!" she said. "Somewhere where we shall be alone!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Her hand trembled upon my arm. She walked quickly from the room, +smiling as she went. She led me along a corridor into the garden of +the house, a place of palms and white magnolias on the very edge of +the upper town. She went without a word to the railings at the end of +the garden, whence one looks straight down upon the lights of the +lower town along the river bank. Then she turned. A beam of light from +the windows shone upon her face. The smile had gone from it. Her lips +shook.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What has happened?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">She spoke in jerks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He came to me to-night.... He danced with me...."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Juan Ballester," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">I had half expected the name.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He spoke of himself," she resumed. "Sometimes it is not easy to tell +whether he is acting or whether he is serious. It was easy to-night. +He was serious."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What did he say?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That up till to-night all had been work with him.... That to-night +had set the crown upon his work.... That now for the first time he +could let other hopes, other thoughts, have play...."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I see," I replied slowly. "Having done his work, he wants his +prize. He would."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ballester had toiled untiringly for thirteen years in both open and +devious ways, and, as the consequence of his toil, he had lifted his +Republic into an importance which it had never possessed before. He +had succeeded because what he wanted, he wanted very much. It +certainly looked as if there were considerable trouble in front of +Olivia and Harry Vandeleur--especially Harry Vandeleur.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So he wants you to marry him," I said; and Olivia gave me one swift +look and turned her head away.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she answered in a whisper. "He wants his revenge, too."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Revenge?" I exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia nodded her head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He told me that I must go up to Benandalla"; and the remark took my +breath away. Benandalla was the name of a farm which Ballester owned, +up in the hills two hours away from Santa Paula; and the less said +about it the better. Ballester was accustomed to retreat thither after +any spell of unusually arduous work; and the great feastings which +went on, the babel of laughter, the noise of music and castanets and +the bright lights blazing upon the quiet night till dawn had made the +farm notorious. Even at this moment, I knew, it was not nearly +uninhabited.</p> + +<p class="normal">"At Benandalla ... you?" I cried; and, indeed, it seemed to me that +the mere presence of Olivia must have brought discomfort into those +coarse orgies, so set apart was she by her distinction. "And he tells +you to go," I continued, "as if you were his maidservant!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia clenched her small hands together and leaned upon the railings. +Her eyes travelled along the river below and sought a brightness in +the distant sky--the loom of the lights of Las Cuevas. For a little +while, she was strengthened by thoughts of escape, and then once more +she drooped.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am frightened," she said, and coming from her, the whispered and +childish cry filled me with consternation. It was her manner and what +she left unsaid rather than her words, which alarmed me. Where I +should have expected pride and a flame of high anger, I found sheer +terror, and the reason of that terror she had not yet given me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He spoke of Harry," she resumed. "He said that Harry must not +interfere.... He used threats."</p> + +<p class="normal">Yes, I thought, Juan Ballester would do that. It was not the usual way +of conducting a courtship; but Juan Ballester's way was not the usual +way of governing a country.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What kind of threats?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Prisons," she answered with a break in her voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What?" I exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she said. "Prisons--especially in the Northern Republics +of South America.... He explained that, though you have more liberty +here than anywhere else so long as you are free, you are more +completely--destroyed--here than anywhere else if you once get into +prison." From her hesitation I could guess that "destroyed" was a +milder word than Juan Ballester had used.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He described them to me," she went on. "Hovels where you sleep in the +mud at night, and whence you are leased out by day to work in the +fields without a hat--until, in a month or so, the sun puts an end to +your misery."</p> + +<p class="normal">I knew there was truth in that description. But it was not possible +that Ballester could put his threat into force. It was anger now, not +consternation, which filled me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Señorita, reflect!" I cried. "In whose garden are you standing now? +The British Minister's--and Harry Vandeleur is an Englishman. It was +no more than a brutal piece of bullying by Ballester. See! I am his +secretary"--and she suddenly turned round towards me with a gleam in +her eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she interrupted. "You are his secretary and Harry's friend. +Will you help us, I wonder?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Show me how!" said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is not Harry whom he threatens, but my father"; and she lowered +her eyes from mine and was silent.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My father"; and her answer made my protestations mere vapourings and +foolishness.</p> + +<p class="normal">The danger was real. The British Minister could hold no shield in +front of Santiago Calavera, even if there were no guilt upon him for +which he could be properly imprisoned. But Olivia's extremity of +terror and my knowledge of Santiago warned me that this condition was +little likely to exist. I took Olivia's hands. They clung to mine in a +desperate appeal for help.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come, Señorita," I said gravely. "If I am to help you, I must have +the truth. What grounds had Ballester for his threat?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She raised her head suddenly with a spurt of her old pride.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My father is a good man," she said, challenging me to deny it. "What +he did, he thought right to do. I am not ashamed of him. No!"--and +then she would have stopped. But I would not let her. I dared not let +her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Go on, please!" I insisted, and the pride died out of her face, and +she turned in a second to pleading.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But perhaps he was indiscreet--in what he wrote. He thought, perhaps, +too much of his country, too little of those who governed it."</p> + +<p class="normal">I dropped her hands. I had enough of the truth now. Rumour had always +spoken of Santiago Calavera as an intriguer. His daughter was now +telling me he was a traitor, too.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We must find your father," I cried. "He brought you to the ball."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said she. "He will be waiting to take me home."</p> + +<p class="normal">We hurried back to the house and searched the rooms. Calavera was +nowhere to be found.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He cannot have gone!" cried Olivia, wringing her hands. In both of +our minds the same question was urgent.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Has he been taken away?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I questioned the servants, and the door-keeper replied. A messenger +had come for Don Santiago early in the evening. I found the British +Minister at Olivia's side when I returned, and a smile of relief upon +her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My father made his excuses and went home," she said. "Important +business came. He has sent the carriage back."</p> + +<p class="normal">"May I take you home?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was getting near to dawn when we drove away. The streets were +empty, the houses dark. Olivia kept her face close to the window, and +never stirred until we turned the corner into the Calle Madrid. Then +she drew back with a low cry of joy. The windows of the great house +were ablaze with light. I helped her out of the carriage and rang the +bell. We stood in front of the door talking while the coachman drove +away to his stables.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Say nothing to my father," Olivia pleaded. "Promise me, Señor."</p> + +<p class="normal">I promised readily enough.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will come in with you, Señorita," I said. "I must talk with your +father"; and I turned impatiently to the door and rang the bell again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"To-night?" said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said I. "I promised Harry Vandeleur to look after you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you?" said she, and though her anxieties were heavy upon her, a +tender smile parted her lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">Still no one came to the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They must have gone to bed," I said, pushing against the panels. To +my surprise the door yielded and quietly swung wide. We looked into a +hall silent and empty and brightly lit. We were both in a mood to +count each new phenomenon a disaster. To both of us there was +something eerie in the silent swinging-in of the door, in the +emptiness and bright illumination of the hall. We looked at one +another in dismay. Then Olivia swept in, and I followed. She walked +straight to a door at the back of the hall, hesitated with her hand +upon the knob for just the fraction of a second, and flung it open. We +went into a room furnished as a study. But the study, too, was empty +and brightly lit. There was a green-shaded reading-lamp beside an +armchair, as though but now the occupant had sat there and read. +Olivia stood in the centre of the room and in a clear and ringing +voice she cried:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Father!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Her voice echoed along the passages and up the stairs. And no answer +came. She turned abruptly, and, moving with a swift step, she opened +door after door. Each door opened upon a brightly lit and empty room. +She ran a few steps up the stairs and stood poised, holding up in her +white gloved hand the glistening skirt of her white frock. One by one +she called upon the servants by name, looking upwards. Not a door was +opened above our heads. Not a sound of any movement reached our ears.</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia ran lightly up the stairs. I heard the swift rustle of her gown +as she moved from room to room; and suddenly she was upon the stairs +again looking down at me, with her hand like a flake of snow upon the +bannister. She gleamed against the background of dark wood, a thing of +silver.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is no one in the house," she said simply, in a strange and +quiet voice. She moved down the stairs and held out her hand to me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good night," she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Though her voice never shook, her eyes shone with tears. She was but +waiting until I went, to shed them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will come to-morrow," I stammered; "in the morning. I may have news +for you," and I bent over her hand and kissed it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good night," she said again, and she stood with her hand upon the +latch of the door. I went out. She closed the door behind me. I heard +the key turn in the lock, the bolt shoot into its socket. There was a +freshness in the air, a paling of the stars above my head. I waited +for a while in the street, but no figure appeared at any window, nor +was any light put out. I left her alone in that empty and illumined +house, its windows blazing on the dawn.</p> +<br> + +<h3>III</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">I walked back to the President's house and sat comfortably down in my +office to think the position over with the help of a pipe. But I had +hardly struck the match when the President himself came in. He had +changed his dress-coat for a smoking-jacket, and carried a few papers +in his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am glad to see that you are not tired," he said, "for I have still +some work for you to do. I have been looking through some letters, and +there are half-a-dozen of so much importance that I should like copies +made of them before you go to bed."</p> + +<p class="normal">He laid them on my writing-table with an intimation that he would +return for them in an hour. I rose up with alacrity. I was in no mood +for bed, and the mechanical work of copying a few letters appealed to +me at the moment. A glance at them, however, startled me into an even +greater wakefulness. They were letters, typewritten for the most part, +but undoubtedly signed by Santiago Calavera, and all of them dated +just before the outbreak of the war. They were addressed to the War +Minister of Esmeralda, and they gave details as to where Maldivia was +weak, where strong, what roads to the capital were unguarded, and for +how many troops provisions could be requisitioned on the way. There +was, besides, a memorandum, written, I rejoiced to see, from beginning +to end in Santiago's own hand--a deadly document naming some twenty +people in Santa Paula who would need attention when Juan Ballester had +been overthrown. It was impossible to misunderstand the phrase. Those +twenty citizens of Santa Paula were to be shot out of hand against the +nearest wall. I was appalled as I copied it out. There was enough +treachery here to convict a regiment. No wonder the great house in the +Calle Madrid stood empty! No wonder that Calavera---- But while I +argued, the picture of the daughter in her shining frock, alone amidst +the glitter and the silence, smote upon me as pitiful, and struck the +heart out of all my argument.</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan Ballester was at my elbow the moment after I had finished.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is five o'clock," he said, as he gathered the letters and copies +together, "and no doubt you will want to be on foot early. You can +tell her that I sent her father in a special train last night to the +frontier. He is no doubt already with his friends in Esmeralda."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then the prisons----" I exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A lover's embroideries--nothing more," said Ballester, with a smile. +"But it is interesting to know that you are so thoroughly acquainted +with the position of affairs." And he took himself off to bed.</p> + +<p class="normal">His last remark, however, forced me to consider my own position, and +reflection showed it to be delicate. On the one hand I was Ballester's +servant, on the other I was Harry Vandeleur's friend. I could not side +with both, and I must side with one. If I threw in my lot with Juan +Ballester, I became a scoundrel. If I helped Olivia, I might lose my +bread and butter. I hope that in any case I should have decided as I +did, but there was a good deal of virtue in the "might." For, after +all, Juan seemed to recognise that I should be against him and to bear +no malice. He had even bidden me relieve Olivia of her fears +concerning her father's disappearance. He was a brute, but a brute on +rather a grand scale, who took what he wanted but, in spite of Olivia, +disdained revenge. I decided to help Olivia, and before nine the next +morning I knocked upon her house-door. She opened it herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have news?" she asked, watching me with anxious eyes, and she +stood aside in the shadow of the door while I went in.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your father is safe. He was sent to the frontier last night on a +special train. He is free."</p> + +<p class="normal">She had been steel to meet a blow. Now that it did not fall, her +strength for a moment failed her. She leaned against a table with her +hand to her heart; and her face suddenly told me that she had not +slept.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will follow him," she said, and she hurried up the stairs. I looked +out a train. One left Santa Paula in an hour's time. I went out, +leaving the door ajar, and fetched a carriage. Then I shouted up the +stairs to Olivia, and she came down in a travelling dress of light +grey and a big black hat. Excitement had kindled her. I could no +longer have guessed that she had not slept.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will see me off?" she said, as she handed me her bag; and she +stepped gaily into the carriage.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will," I answered, and I jumped in behind her.</p> + +<p class="normal">The die was cast now.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Drive down to the station!" I cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was an open carriage. There were people in the street. Juan +Ballester would soon learn that he had played the grand gentleman to +his discomfiture.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I will see you off, Señorita," I said. "But I shall have a bad +half-hour with Ballester afterwards."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh!" cried Olivia, with a start. She looked at me as though for the +first time my existence had come within her field of vision.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am quite aware that you have never given a thought to me," I said +sulkily, "but you need hardly make the fact so painfully obvious."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia's hand fell lightly upon mine and pressed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My friend!" she said, and her eyes dwelt softly upon mine. Oh, she +knew her business as a woman! Then she looked heavenwards.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A man who helps a woman in trouble----" she began.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," I interrupted. "He must look up there for his reward. +Meanwhile, Señorita, I am envying Harry Vandeleur," and I waved my +hand to the green houses. "For he has not only got you, but he has +realised his nice little fortune out of green paint." And all Olivia +did was to smile divinely; and all she said was "Harry." But there! +She said it adorably, and I shook her by the hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I forgive you," she said sweetly. Yes, she had nerve enough for that!</p> + +<p class="normal">We were driving down to the lower town. I began to consider how much +of the events of the early morning I should tell her. Something of +them she must know, but it was not easy for the informant. I told her +how Juan Ballester had come to me with letters signed by her father +and a memorandum in his handwriting.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The President gave them to me to copy out," I continued; and Olivia +broke in, rather quickly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"What did you do with them?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I stared at her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I copied them out, of course."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia stared now. Her brows puckered in a frown.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You--didn't--destroy them when you had the chance?" she asked +incredulously.</p> + +<p class="normal">I jumped in my seat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Destroy them?" I cried indignantly. "Really, Señorita!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are Harry's friend," she said. "I thought men did little things +like that for one another."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Little things!" I gasped. But I recognised that it would be waste of +breath to argue against a morality so crude.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall take Harry's opinion upon that point," said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Or perhaps Harry will take mine," she said softly, with a far-away +gaze; and the fly stopped at the station. I bought Olivia's ticket, I +placed her bag in the carriage, I stepped aside to let her mount the +step; and I knocked against a brilliant creature with a sword at his +side--he was merely a railway official. I begged his pardon, but he +held his ground.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Señor, you have, no doubt, his Excellency's permit for the Señorita +to travel," he said, holding out his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">I was fairly staggered, but I did not misunderstand the man. Ballester +had foreseen that Olivia would follow her father, and he meant to keep +her in Santa Paula. I fumbled in my pocket to cover my confusion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must have left it behind," I said lamely. "But of course you know +me--his Excellency's secretary."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who does not?" said the official, bowing politely. "And there is +another train in the afternoon, so that the Señorita will, I hope, not +be greatly inconvenienced."</p> + +<p class="normal">We got out of the station somehow. I was mad with myself. I had let +myself be misled by the belief that Ballester was indulging in one of +his exhibitions as a great gentleman. Whereas he was carefully +isolating Olivia so that she might be the more helplessly at his +disposition. We stumbled back again into a carriage. I dared not look +at Olivia.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Calle Madrid!" I called to the driver, and Olivia cried "No!" She +turned to me, with a spot of colour burning in each cheek, and her +eyes very steady and ominous.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you tell him to drive to the President's?" she said calmly.</p> + +<p class="normal">The conventions are fairly strict in Maldivia. Young ladies do not as +a rule drop in casually upon men in the morning, and certainly not +upon Presidents. However, conventions are for the unharassed. We drove +to the President's. A startled messenger took in Olivia's name, and +she was instantly admitted. I went to my office, but I left the door +ajar. For down the passage outside of it Olivia would come when she +had done with Juan Ballester. I waited anxiously for a quarter of an +hour. Would she succeed with him? I had no great hopes. Anger so well +became her. But as the second quarter drew on, my hopes rose; and when +I heard the rustle of her dress, I flung open the door. A messenger +was escorting her, and she just shook her head at me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What did he say?" I asked in English, and she replied in the same +language.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He will not let me go. He was--passionate. Underneath the passion he +was hard. He is the cruellest of men."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will see you this afternoon," said I; and she passed on. I +determined to have it out with Ballester at the earliest possible +moment. And within the hour he gave me the opportunity. For he came +into the room and said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Carlyon, I have not had my letters this morning.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, your Excellency," I replied. I admit that my heart began to beat +more quickly than usual. "I took the Señorita Olivia to the station, +where we were stopped."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I thought you would," he said, with a grin. "But it is impossible +that the Señorita should leave Santa Paula."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you can't keep her here!" I cried. "It's--it's----" "Tyrannical" +would not do, nor would "autocratic." Neither epithet would sting him. +At last I got the right one.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your Excellency, it's barbaric!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan Ballester flushed red. I had touched him on the raw. To be a +thoroughly civilised person conducting a thoroughly civilised +Government over a thoroughly civilised community--that was his wild, +ambitious dream, and in rosy moments he would even flatter himself +that his dream was realised.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's nothing of the kind," he exclaimed. "Don Santiago is a dangerous +person. I was moved by chivalry, the most cultured of virtues, to let +him go unpunished. But I am bound, from the necessities of the State, +to retain some pledge for his decent behaviour."</p> + +<p class="normal">The words sounded very fine and politic, but they could not obscure +the springs of his conduct. He had first got Harry Vandeleur out of +the way; then, and not till then, he had pounced upon Don Santiago. +His aim had been to isolate Olivia. There was very little chivalry +about the matter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Besides," he argued, "if there were any barbarism--and there +isn't--the Señorita can put an end to it by a word."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But she won't say it!" I cried triumphantly. "No, she is already +pledged. She won't say it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan Ballester looked at me swiftly with a set and lowering face. No +doubt I had gone a step too far with him. But I would not have taken +back a word at that moment--no, not for the monopoly of green paint. I +awaited my instant dismissal, but he suddenly tilted back his chair +and grinned at me like a schoolboy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I like a good spirit," he said, "whether it be in the Señorita or in +my private secretary."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was apparent that he did not think much of me as an antagonist.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well," I grumbled, "Harry Vandeleur will be back in three weeks, and +your Excellency must make your account with him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, that's true," said Ballester, and--I don't know what it was in +him. It was not a gesture, for he did not move; it was not a smile, +for his face did not change. But I was immediately and absolutely +certain that it was not true at all. Reflection confirmed me. He had +taken so much pains to isolate Olivia that he would not have +overlooked Harry Vandeleur's return. Somewhere, on some pretext, at +Trinidad, or at our own port here, Las Cuevas, Harry Vandeleur would +be stopped. I was sure of it. The net was closing tightly round +Olivia. This morning the affair had seemed so simple--a mere matter of +a six hours' journey in a train. Now it began to look rather grim. I +stole a glance at Juan. He was still sitting with his chair tilted +back and his hands in his pockets, but he was gazing out of the +window, and his face was in repose. I recalled Olivia's phrase: "He is +the cruellest of men." Was she right? I wondered. In any case, yes, +the affair certainly began to look rather grim.</p> +<br> + +<h3>IV</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">I was not free until five that afternoon. But I was in the Calle +Madrid before the quarter after five had struck. Again Olivia herself +admitted me. She led the way to her father's study at the back of the +house. Though I had hurried to the house, I followed her slowly into +the study.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are still alone?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"An old woman--we once befriended her--will come in secretly for an +hour in the morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Secretly?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"She dare not do otherwise."</p> + +<p class="normal">I was silent. There was a refinement about Juan Ballester's +persecution which was simply devilish. He would not molest her, he +left her apparently free. But he kept her in a great, empty house in +the middle of the town, without servants, without power to leave, +without--oh, much more than I had any idea of at the time. He marooned +her in the midst of a great town even as Richard the Third did with +Jane Shore in the old play. But, though I did not know, I noticed that +she had changed since the morning. She had come out from her interview +with Juan Ballester holding her head high. Now she stood in front of +me twisting her hands, a creature of fear.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must escape," I said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her great eyes looked anxiously at me from a wan face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must," she said. "Yes, I must." Then came a pause, and with a break +in her voice she continued. "He warned me not to try. He said that it +would not be pleasant for me if I were caught trying."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A mere threat," I said contemptuously, "like the prisons." But I did +not believe my own words, and my blood ran cold. It would be easy to +implicate Olivia in the treachery of her father. And the police in +Maldivia are not very gentle in their handling of their prisoners, +women or men. Still, that risk must be run.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The <i>Ariadne</i>--an English mail-steamer--calls at Las Cuevas in a +fortnight," I said. "We must smuggle you out on her."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia stared at me in consternation. She stood like one transfixed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A fortnight!" she said. Then she sat down in a chair clasping her +hands together. "A fortnight!" she whispered to herself, and as I +listened to her, and watched her eyes glancing this way and that like +an animal trapped in a cage, it was borne in on me that since this +morning some new thing had happened to frighten the very soul of her. +I begged her to tell it me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she said, rising to her feet. "No doubt I can wait for a +fortnight."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's right, Olivia," I said. "I will arrange a plan. Meanwhile, +where can I hear from you and you from me? It will not do for us to +meet too often. Have you friends who will be staunch?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wonder," she said slowly. "Enrique Gimeno and his wife, perhaps."</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will not strain their friendship very much. But we can meet at +their house. You can leave a letter for me there, perhaps, and I one +for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Enrique Gimeno was a Spanish merchant and a gentleman. So far, I felt +sure, we could trust him. There was one other man in Santa Paula on +whom I could rely, the agent of the steamship company to which the +<i>Ariadne</i> belonged. I rang him up on the telephone that afternoon and +arranged a meeting after dark in a back room of that very inferior +hotel in the lower town where for some weeks I had lived upon credit. +The agent, a solid man with business interests of his own in Maldivia, +listened to my story without a word of interruption. Then he said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"There are four things I can do for you, and no more. In the first +place, I can receive here the lady's luggage in small parcels and put +it together for her. In the second, I can guarantee that the <i>Ariadne</i> +shall not put into Las Cuevas until dusk, and shall leave the same +night. In the third, I will have every bale of cargo already loaded +into her before the passenger train comes alongside from Santa Paula. +And in the fourth, I will arrange that the <i>Ariadne</i> shall put to sea +the moment the last of her passengers has crossed the gangway. The +rest you must do for yourself."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said I. "That's a great deal."</p> + +<p class="normal">But the confidence was all in my voice and none of it at all in my +heart. I went back to Juan Ballester and tried persuasion with him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have seen Olivia Calavera this afternoon," I said to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know," said he calmly.</p> + +<p class="normal">I had personally no longer any fear that he might dismiss me. I would, +I think, have thrown up my job myself, but that I seemed to have a +better chance of helping the girl by staying on.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will never win her," I continued, "your Excellency, by your way +of wooing."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, and why not?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She thinks you a brute," I said frankly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan Ballester reflected.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't much mind her thinking that," he answered slowly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She hates you," I went on.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I don't seriously object to her thinking that," he replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She despises you," I said in despair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!" said Ballester, with a change of voice. "I should object to her +doing that. But then it isn't true."</p> + +<p class="normal">I gave up efforts to persuade him. After all, the brute knew something +about women.</p> + +<p class="normal">I was thrown back upon the first plan. Olivia must escape from the +country on the <i>Ariadne</i>. How to smuggle her unnoticed out of her +empty house, down to Las Cuevas, and on board the steamer? That was +the problem; but though I lay awake over it o' nights, and pondered it +as I sat at my writing-table, the days crept on and brought me no +nearer to a solution.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile, the world was going very ill with Olivia. Santa Paula, +fresh from its war, was aflame with patriotism. The story of Santiago +Calavera's treachery had gone abroad--Juan Ballester had seen to +that--and since his daughter had been his secretary, she too was +tarnished. Her friends, with the exception of Enrique Gimeno, closed +their doors upon her. If she ventured abroad, she was insulted in the +street, and at night a lamp in a window of her house would bring a +stone crashing through the pane. Whenever I saw her, I noticed with an +aching heart the tension under which she laboured. Her face grew thin, +the tone had gone from her voice, the lustre from her eyes, the very +gloss from her hair. Sometimes it seemed to me that she must drop into +Ballester's net. I raged vainly over the problem, and the more because +I knew that Ballester would reap prestige instead of shame if she did. +The conventions were heavy on women in Maldivia, but they were not the +outward signs of any spiritual grace in the population. On the +contrary, they were evidence that the spiritual grace was lacking. If +Olivia found her way in the end to the Benandalla farm, Ballester +would be thought to have combined pleasure with the business of +revenge in a subtle and enviable way. The thought made me mad. I could +have knocked the heads together of the diminutive soldiers at the +sides of the President's doorway whenever I went in and out. And then, +when I was at my wits' end, a trivial incident suddenly showed me a +way out.</p> + +<p class="normal">I passed down the Calle Madrid one night, and the sight of the big, +dark house, with here and there a broken window, brought before my +mind so poignant a picture of the girl sitting in some back room alone +and in misery, and contrasted that picture so vividly with another +made familiar to me by many an evening in Santa Paula--that of a girl +shining exquisite beyond her peers in the radiance and the clean +strength of her youth--that upon returning to my room I took the +receiver from the telephone with no other thought than to talk to her +for a few moments and encourage her to keep a good heart. I gave the +number of her house to the Exchange, and the answer came promptly +back:</p> + +<p class="normal">"The line is out of order."</p> + +<p class="normal">I might have known that it would be. Olivia was to be marooned in her +great town-house as effectively as though she had been set down in a +lone island of the coral seas. I hung up the receiver again, and as I +hung it up suddenly I saw part of the way clear. I suppose that I had +used that telephone a hundred times during the past week. It had stood +all day at my elbow. Yet not until to-night had it reminded me of that +little matter of the Opera House--one of those matters in which +dealings with Ballester had left their mark. I had the answer to a +part of the problem which troubled me. I saw a way to smuggle Olivia +from Santa Paula on board the <i>Ariadne</i>. The more I thought upon it, +the clearer grew that possibility. There still remained the question: +How to get Olivia unnoticed from her house in the middle of a busy, +narrow street on the night when the <i>Ariadne</i> was to sail. The +difficulties there brought me to a stop. And I was still revolving the +problem in my mind when the private bell rang from Ballester's room. I +went to see what he wanted; and I had not been five minutes in his +presence before, with a leaping heart, I realised that this question +was being answered too.</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan had of late been troubled. But not at all about Olivia. As far as +she was concerned, he ate his meals, went about his business, and +slept o' nights like any good man who has not a girl in torment upon +his conscience. But he was troubled about a rumour which was spreading +through the town.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have heard of it?" he asked of me. "It is said that I am +proposing to run away secretly from Maldivia."</p> + +<p class="normal">I nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have laughed at it, of course."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said he, with his face in a frown. "But the rumour grows. I +doubt if laughter is enough"; and then he banged his fist violently +upon the table and cried: "I suppose Santiago Calavera is at the +bottom of it!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Santiago had become something of an obsession to the President. I +think he excused to himself his brutality towards Olivia by imagining +everywhere Don Santiago's machinations. As a fact, the rumour was +spontaneous in Santa Paula. It was generally suspected that the +President had annexed the war indemnity and any other portions of the +revenue which he could without too open a scandal. He was a bachelor. +The whole of Santa Paula put itself in his place. What else should he +do but retire secretly and expeditiously to some country where he +could enjoy the fruits of his industry in peace and security? Calavera +had nothing whatever to do with the story. But I did not contradict +Ballester, and he continued:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is said that I have taken my passage in the <i>Ariadne</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">I started, but he was not looking at me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must lay hold upon this rumour," he said, "and strangle it. I have +thought of a way. I will give a party here on the evening of the day +the <i>Ariadne</i> calls at Las Cuevas. I will spend a great deal of money +on that party. It will be plain that I have no thought of sailing on +the <i>Ariadne</i>. I hope it will be plain that I have no thought of +sailing at all. For I think everyone in Santa Paula," he added with a +grim laugh, "knows me well enough to feel sure that I should not spend +a great deal of money on a party if I meant to run away from the place +afterwards."</p> + +<p class="normal">Considering Santa Paula impartially, I found the reasoning to be +sound. Juan Ballester was not a generous man. He took, but he did not +give.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This is what I propose," he said, and he handed me a paper on which +he had jotted down his arrangements. He had his heart set on his +Republic, that I knew. But I knew too that it must have been a fearful +wrench for him to decide upon the lavish expenditure of this +entertainment. There was to be dancing in the ballroom, a conjuror +where the Cabinet met--that seemed to be a happy touch--supper in a +marquee, fairy lights and fireworks in the garden, and buffets +everywhere.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You yourself will see after the invitations," he said, with a grin.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly, your Excellency," I answered. They would come within the +definition of opportunities.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But here," he continued, "is a list of those who must be asked"; and +it was not until I had the list in my hand that I began to see that +here I might find an answer to my question. I looked quickly down the +names.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, she's there," said Juan Ballester; and there she was, as plain +as a pikestaff--Olivia Calavera. I was not surprised. Ballester never +troubled about such trifles as consistency. He wanted her, so he +invited her. Nevertheless, I could have danced a <i>pas seul</i>. For +though Olivia could hardly slip out of her own house in any guise +without detection since she had no visitors, she would have a good +chance of escaping from the throng of guests at the President's party. +I left Juan Ballester with a greatly lightened heart. I looked at my +watch. It was not yet eleven. Full of my idea, nothing would serve me +but I must this moment set it in motion. I went downstairs into the +Square. Though the night was hot, I had slipped on an overcoat to +conceal the noticeable breastplate of a white shirt, and I walked +quickly for half a mile until I came opposite to a high and neglected +building, a place of darkness and rough shutters. This was the Opera +House. Beside the Opera House was a little dwelling. I rang the bell, +and the door was opened by a tall, lean gentleman in a frock-coat. For +the third time that night good luck had stood my friend.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Henry P. Crowninshield," I said, "the world-famous <i>impresario</i>, +I believe?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you, Mr. Carlyon, are the President's private secretary?" he said +coldly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not to-night," said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">With a grunt Mr. Crowninshield led the way into his parlour and stood +with his finger-tips resting on the table and his long body bent over +it. Mr. Crowninshield came from New York City, and I did not beat +about the bush with him. I told him exactly the story of Olivia and +Juan Ballester.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is in great trouble," I concluded. "There is something which I do +not understand. But it comes to this. She must escape. The railways +are watched, so is her house. There is only one way of escape--and +that is on the seventeenth, the night when the <i>Ariadne</i> calls at Las +Cuevas and the President gives his party."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Crowninshield nodded, and his long body slid with a sort of fluid +motion into a chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Go on, sir," he said; "I am interested."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I encouraged," said I. "Let us follow the Señorita's proceedings +on the night of the seventeenth. She goes dressed in her best to the +President's party. She is on view to the last possible moment. She +then slips quietly out into the garden. In the garden wall there is a +private door, of which I have a key. I let her out by that door. +Outside that door there is a closed, inconspicuous carriage waiting +for her. She slips into that carriage--and that is where you come in."</p> + +<p class="normal">"How?" asked Mr. Crowninshield.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Inside the carriage she finds a disguise--dress, wig, everything +complete--a disguise easy to slip on over her ball-gown and sufficient +to baffle a detective half a yard away."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall have it, sir! My heart bleeds for that young lady!" cried +Mr. Crowninshield, and he grasped my hand in the noblest fashion. He +had been a baritone in his day. "Besides," and he descended swiftly to +the mere level of a human being, "I have a score against Master Juan, +and I should like to get a little of my own back."</p> + +<p class="normal">That was precisely the point of view upon which I had counted. +Throughout his first term of office Juan Ballester had hired a box at +the Opera. Needless to say, he had never paid for it, and Mr. +Crowninshield unwisely pressed for payment. When requests failed, Mr. +Crowninshield went to threats. He threatened the Law, the American +Eagle, and the whole of the United States Navy. Ballester's reply had +been short, sharp, and decisive. The State telephone system was being +overhauled. Juan Ballester moved the Exchange to a building on the +other side of the Opera House, and then summarily closed the Opera +House on the ground that the music prevented the operators from +hearing the calls. It was not astonishing that Mr. Crowninshield was +eager to help Olivia Calavera. He lit a candle and led me through his +private door across the empty theatre, ghostly with its sheeted +benches, to the wardrobe-room. We chose a nun's dress, long enough to +hide Olivia's gown, and a coif which would conceal her hair and +overshadow her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"In that her own father wouldn't know her. It will be dark; the Quay +is ill-lighted, she has only to shuffle like an old woman; she will go +third-class, of course, in the train. Who is to see her off?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No one," I answered. "I dread that half-hour in the train for her +without a friend at her side. The Quay will be watched, too. She must +run the gauntlet alone. Luckily there will be a crowd of harvesters +returning to Spain. Luckily, also, she has courage. But it will be the +worst of her trials. My absence would be noticed. I can't go."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, but I can!" cried Mr. Crowninshield. "An old padre seeing off an +old nun to her new mission--eh? Juan will be gritting his teeth in the +morning because I am an American citizen."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Crowninshield was aflame with his project. He took a stick and +tottered about the room in the most comical fashion. "I will bring the +carriage myself to the garden door," said he. "I will be inside of it. +My property man--he comes from Poughkeepsie--shall be the driver. I +will dress the young lady as we drive slowly to the station, and +Sister Pepita and the Padre Antonio will direct their feeble steps to +the darkest corner of the worst-lit carriage in the train."</p> + +<p class="normal">I thanked him with all my heart. It had seemed to me terrible that +Olivia should have to make her way alone on board the steamer. Now she +would have someone to enhearten and befriend her. I met Olivia once at +the house of Enrique Gimeno, and made her acquainted with the scheme, +and on the night of the sixteenth the steamship agent rang me up on +the telephone.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The <i>Ariadne</i> will arrive at nine to-morrow night. The passengers +will leave Santa Paula at half-past ten. Good luck!"</p> + +<p class="normal">I went to the window and looked out over the garden. The marquee was +erected, the fairy lights strung upon the trees, a set piece with the +portrait of Juan Ballester and a Latin motto--<i>semper fidelis</i>--raised +its monstrous joinery against the moon. Twenty-four hours more and, if +all went well, Olivia would be out upon the high seas, on her way to +Trinidad. Surely all must go well. I went over in my mind every detail +of our preparations. I recognised only one chance of failure--the +chance that Mr. Crowninshield in his exuberance might over-act his +part. But I was wrong. It was, after all, Olivia who brought our fine +scheme to grief.</p> +<br> + +<h3>V</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">There is no doubt about it. Women are not reasonable beings. Otherwise +Olivia would never have come to the President's party in a white lace +coat over a clinging gown of white satin. She looked beautiful, but I +was dismayed when I saw her. She had come with the Gimenos, and I took +her aside, and I am afraid that I scolded her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you told me," she expostulated, "I was to spare no pains. There +must be nothing of the traveller about me"; and there was not. From +the heels of her satin slippers to the topmost tress of her hair she +was dressed as she alone could dress in Santa Paula.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But of course I meant you to wear black," I whispered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, I didn't think of it," Olivia exclaimed wearily. "Please don't +lecture"; and she dropped into a chair with such a lassitude upon her +face that I thought she was going to faint.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It doesn't matter," I said hastily. "No doubt the disguise will cover +it. At ten o'clock, slip down into the garden. Until then, dance!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dance!" she exclaimed, looking piteously up into my face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," I insisted impatiently, and taking her hand, I raised her from +her chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had no lack of partners, for the President himself singled her out +and danced in a quadrille with her. Others timorously followed his +example. But though she did dance, I was grievously disappointed--for +a time. It seemed that her soul was flickering out in her. Just when +she most needed her courage and her splendid spirit, she failed of +them.</p> + +<p class="normal">There were only two more hours after a long fortnight of endurance. +Yet those two last hours, it seemed, she could not face. I know now +that I never acted with greater cruelty than on that night when I kept +her dancing. But even while she danced, there came to me some fear +that I had misjudged her. I watched her from a corner of the ballroom. +There was a great change in her. Her face seemed to me smaller, her +eyes bigger, darker even, and luminous with some haunting look. But +there was more. I could not define the change--at first. Then the word +came to me. There was a spirituality in her aspect which was new to +her, an unearthliness. Surely, I thought, the fruit of great +suffering; and blundering, with the truth under my very nose, I began +to ask myself a foolish question. Had Harry Vandeleur played her +false?</p> + +<p class="normal">A movement of the company awakened me. A premonitory sputter of +rockets drew the guests to the cloak-room, from the cloak-room to the +garden. I saw Olivia fetch her lace coat and slip it over her +shoulders like the rest. It was close upon ten. The Fates were +favouring us, or perhaps I was favouring the Fates. For I had arranged +that the fireworks should begin just a few minutes before the hour +struck. In the darkness of the garden Olivia could slip away, and her +absence would not afterwards be noticed.</p> + +<p class="normal">I waited at the garden door. I heard the clock strike. I saw Juan +Ballester's profile in fire against a dark blue sky of velvet and +stars. I shook hands with myself in that the moon would not rise till +one. And then a whiteness gleamed between the bushes, and Olivia was +at my side. Her hand sought mine and clung to it. I opened the postern +and looked out into a little street. The lamps of a closed carriage +shone twenty yards away, and but for the carriage the street was +empty.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now!" I whispered.</p> + +<p class="normal">We ran out. I opened the carriage door. I caught a glimpse of horn +spectacles, a lantern-jawed, unshaven face, a shovel hat; and I heard +a stifled oath. Mr. Crowninshield, too, had noticed Olivia's white +gown. She jumped in, I shut the door, and the carriage rolled away. I +went back into the garden, where Juan Ballester's profile was growing +ragged.</p> + +<p class="normal">Of the next hour or two I have only confused memories. I counted +stages in Olivia's progress as I passed from room to room among the +guests. Now she would have reached the station; now the train had +stopped on the Quay at Las Cuevas; now, perhaps, the gangway had been +withdrawn and the great ship was warping out into the river. At one +o'clock I smoked a cigarette in the garden. From the marquee came the +clatter of supper. In the sky the moon was rising. And somewhere +outside the three-mile limit a rippling path of silver struck across +the <i>Ariadne's</i> dark bows. I was conscious of a swift exultation. I +heard the throb of the screw and saw the water flashing from the +ship's sides.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then I remembered that I had left the garden door unlocked. I went to +it and by chance looked out into the street. I received a shock. For, +twenty yards away, the lights of a closed carriage shone quietly +beside the kerb. I wondered whether the last few hours had been really +the dream of a second. I even looked back into the garden, to make +sure that the profile of Juan Ballester was not still sputtering in +fire. Then a detail or two brought me relief. The carriage was clearly +a private carriage; the driver on the box wore livery--at all events, +I saw a flash of bright buttons on his coat. In my relief I walked +from the garden towards the carriage. The driver recognised me most +likely--recognised, at all events, that I came from the private door +of the President's garden. For he made some kind of salute.</p> + +<p class="normal">I supposed that he had been told to wait at this spot, away from the +park of carriages, and I should have turned back but for a +circumstance which struck me as singular. It was a very hot night, and +yet not only were the windows of the carriage shut, but the blinds +were drawn close besides. I could not see into the carriage, but there +was light at the edges of the blinds. A lamp was burning inside. I +stood on the pavement, and a chill struck into my blood and made me +shiver. I listened. There was no sound of any movement within the +carriage. It must be empty. I assured myself and again doubted. The +little empty street, the closed carriage with the light upon the edges +of the blinds, the absolute quiet, daunted me. I stepped forward and +gently opened the door. I saw Olivia. There was no trace of the nun's +gown, nor the coif. But that her hair was ruffled she might this +moment have left Juan Ballester's drawing-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned her face to me, shook her head, and smiled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was of no use, my friend," she said gently. "They were on the +watch at Las Cuevas. An officer brought me back. He has gone in to ask +Juan what he shall do with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia had given up the struggle--that was clear.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was Crowninshield's fault!" I cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, it was mine," she answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">And here is what had happened, as I learnt it afterwards. All had gone +well until the train reached Las Cuevas. There the police were on the +look-out for her. The Padre Antonio, however, excited no suspicion, +and very likely Sister Pepita would have passed unnoticed too. But as +she stepped down from the carriage on to the step, and from the step +to the ground, an officer was startled by the unexpected appearance of +a small foot in a white silk stocking and a white satin slipper. Now, +the officer had seen nuns before, old and young, but never had he seen +one in white satin shoes, to say nothing of the silk stockings. He +became more than curious. He pointed her out to his companions. Sister +Pepita was deftly separated in the crowd from the Padre Antonio--cut +out, to borrow the old nautical phrase--and arrested. She was +conducted towards a room in the station, but the steamer's siren +hooted its warning to the passengers, and despair seized upon Olivia. +She made a rush for the gangway, she was seized, she was carried +forcibly into the room and stripped of her nun's disguise and coif. +She was kept a prisoner in the room until the <i>Ariadne</i> had left the +Quay. Then she was placed in a carriage and driven back, with an +officer of the police at her side, to the garden door of the +President's house.</p> + +<p class="normal">Something of this Olivia told me at the time, but she was interrupted +by the return of the officer and a couple of Juan Ballester's +messengers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"His Excellency will see you," said the officer to her. He conducted +her through the garden and by the private doorway into Ballester's +study. I had followed behind the servants and I remained in the room. +We waited for a few minutes, and Juan himself came in. He went quickly +over to Olivia's side. His voice was all gentleness. But that was his +way with her, and I set no hopes on it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am grieved, Señorita, if you have suffered rougher treatment than +befits you. But you should not have tried to escape."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia looked at him with a piteous helplessness in her eyes. "What am +I to do, then?" she seemed to ask, and, with the question, to lose the +last clutch upon her spirit. For her features quivered, she dropped +into a chair, laid her arms upon the table, and, burying her face in +them, burst into tears.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was uncomfortable--even for Juan Ballester. There came a look of +trouble in his face, a shadow of compunction. For myself, the heaving +of her young shoulders hurt my eyes, the sound of her young voice +breaking in sobs tortured my ears. But this was not the worst of it, +for she suddenly threw herself back in her chair with the tears wet +upon her cheeks, and, beating the table piteously with the palms of +her hands, she cried:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am hungry--oh, so hungry!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good Heavens!" cried Ballester. He started forward, staring into her +face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you knew," said Olivia, and he turned away to one of the +messengers, and bade him bring some supper into the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And be quick," said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, yes, be quick," said Juan.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last I had the key to her. She had been starving, in that great, +empty house in the Calle Madrid. "A fortnight!" she had cried in +dismay. I understood now the reason of her terror. She had known that +she would have to starve. And she had held her head high, making no +complaint, patiently enduring. It was not her spirit which had failed +her. I cursed myself for a fool as once more I enthroned her. Her face +had grown smaller, her eyes bigger. There was a look of spirituality +which I had not seen before. I had noticed the signs, and I had +misread them. Her lassitude this evening, her vain struggle with the +police, her apathy under their treatment of her, were all explained. +Not her courage, but her body had failed her. She was starving.</p> + +<p class="normal">A tray was brought in and placed before her. She dried her eyes and +with a sigh she drew her chair in to the table and ate, indifferent to +the presence of Ballester, of the officer who remained at the door, +and of myself. Ballester stood and watched her. "Good Heavens!" he +said again softly, and going to her side he filled her glass with +champagne.</p> + +<p class="normal">She nodded her thanks and raised it to her lips almost before he had +finished pouring. A little colour came into her cheeks and she turned +again to her supper. She was a healthy girl. There never had been +anything of the drooping lily about Olivia. She had always taken an +interest in her meals, however dainty she might look. The knowledge of +that made her starvation doubly cruel--not only to her. Juan sat down +opposite to her. There was no doubt now about the remorse in his face. +He never took his eyes from her as she ate. Once she looked up and saw +him watching her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you knew," she said. "I was alone in the house. How much money +did you leave there for me when you took my father away? A few dollars +which your men had not discovered."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you yourself----" he stammered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was at a ball," said Olivia scornfully. "How much money does a girl +take with her to a ball? Where would she put it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">There was no answer to that question.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The next day I went to the bank," she continued. "My father's money +was impounded. You had seen to that. All the unpaid bills came in in a +stream. I couldn't pay them. I could get no credit. You had seen to +that. My friends left me alone. Of course I starved; you knew that I +should. You meant me to," and, with the air of one who has been +wasting time, she turned again to her supper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I never thought that you would hold out," stammered Ballester. I had +never seen him in an apologetic mood before, and he looked miserable. +"I hadn't <i>seen</i> that you were starving."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia looked up at him. It was not so much that her face relented, as +that it showed an interest in something beyond her supper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she said, nodding at him. "I think that's true. You hadn't seen +with your own eyes that I was starving. So my starving wasn't very +real to you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ballester changed her plate and filled her glass again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!" said Olivia with satisfaction, hitching up her chair still +closer. She was really having a good square meal.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But why didn't you tell me?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I told no one," said Olivia, shaking her head. "I thought that I +could manage till to-night. Once or twice I called on the Gimenos at +luncheon-time, and I had one or two dollars. No; I would tell no one."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said Juan, "I understand that. It's the reason why I wanted +you." And at this sign of his comprehension of her, Olivia again +looked at him, and again the interest in her eyes was evident.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last she pushed back her chair. The tray was removed. Ballester +offered her a cigarette. She smiled faintly as she took it. Certainly +her supper had done her a world of good. She lit her cigarette and +leaned her elbows on the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And now," she said, "what do you mean to do with me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Ballester went to his bureau, wrote on a sheet of paper and brought +the paper to Olivia.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You can show this at the railway-station to-morrow," he said, and he +laid the permit on the table and turned away.</p> + +<p class="normal">Women are not reasonable people. For the second time that night Olivia +forced me to contemplate that trite reflection. For now that she had +got what she had suffered hunger and indignities to get, she merely +played with it with the tips of her fingers, looking now upon the +table, now at Juan Ballester's back, and now upon the table again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you?" she said gently. "What will become of you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I suppose Ballester was the only one in the room who did not notice +the softness of her voice. To me it was extraordinary. He had tortured +her with hunger, exposed her to the gentle methods of his police, yet +the fact that he did these things because he wanted her seemed to make +him suddenly valuable to her now that she was free of him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ballester turned round and leaned against the wall with his hands in +his pockets.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I?" he said. "I shall just stay on alone here until some day someone +gets stronger than I am, perhaps, and puts me up against the wall +outside----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, no!" cried Olivia, interrupting him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, one never knows," said his Excellency, shrugging his shoulders. +He turned to the window and drew aside the curtains. The morning had +come. It was broad daylight outside.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Unless, Olivia," he added, turning again towards her, "you will +reconsider your refusal to marry me. Together we could do great +things."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the most splendid performance of the grand gentleman which +Ballester ever gave. And he knew it. You could see him preening +himself as he spoke. His gesture was as noble as his words. From head +to foot he was the perfect cavalier, and consciousness of the +perfection of his chivalry shone out from him like a nimbus. I looked +quickly towards Olivia--in some alarm for Harry Vandeleur. She had +lowered her head, so that it was impossible to see how she had taken +Ballester's honourable amendment. But when she raised her head again a +smile of satisfaction was just disappearing from her face; and the +smile betrayed her. She had been playing for this revenge from the +moment when she had finished her supper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am honoured, Señor Juan," she said sedately, "but I am already +promised."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ballester turned abruptly away. Whether he had seen the smile, +whether, if he had seen it, he understood it, I never knew.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You had better get the Señorita a carriage," he said to the officer +at the door. As the man went out, the music from the ballroom floated +in. Juan Ballester hesitated, and no shock which Olivia had given to +me came near the shock which his next words produced.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don Santiago shall have his money. You can draw on it, Señorita, +to-morrow, before you go."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">The messenger reappeared. A carriage was waiting. Olivia rose and +looked at Juan timidly. He walked ceremoniously to the door and held +it open.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good night," she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">He bowed and smiled in a friendly fashion enough, but he did not +answer. It seemed that he had spoken his last word to her. She +hesitated and went out. At once the President took a quick step +towards me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you know what is said to-night?" he said violently.</p> + +<p class="normal">I drew back. I could not think what he meant. To tell the truth, I +found him rather alarming.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," I answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, that I have given this party as a farewell; that I am still +going to bolt from Maldivia. Do you see? I have spent all this money +for nothing."</p> + +<p class="normal">I drew a breath of relief. His violence was not aimed against me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's a pity," I said. "But the rumour can still be killed. I +thought of a way yesterday."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will it cost much?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very little."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What am I to do?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Paint the Presidential House," said I. "It wants it badly, and all +Santa Paula will be very sure that you wouldn't spend money in paint +if you meant to run away."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's a good idea," said he, and he sat down at once and began to +figure out the expense. "A couple of hundred dollars will do it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not well," said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We don't want it done well," said Juan. "Two men on a plank will, be +enough. A couple of hundred dollars is too much. Half that will be +quite sufficient. By the way"--and he sat with his pen poised--"just +run after--her--and tell her that Vandeleur is landing to-morrow at +Trinidad. I invented some business for him there."</p> + +<p class="normal">He bent down over the desk. His back was towards the door. As I turned +the handle, someone was opening it from the other side. It was Olivia +Calavera.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I came back," she said, with the colour mantling in her face. "You +see, I am going away to-morrow--and I hadn't said 'Good-bye.'"</p> + +<p class="normal">Juan must have heard her voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Please go and give that message," he said sharply. "And shut the +door! I don't want to be disturbed."</p> + +<p class="normal">Olivia drew back quickly. I was amazed to see that she was hurt.</p> + +<p class="normal">"His message is for you," I said severely. "Harry Vandeleur lands at +Trinidad to-morrow."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," she said slowly; she turned away and walked as slowly +down the passage. "Goodbye," she said, with her back towards me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will see you off to-morrow, Señorita," I said; and she turned back +to me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she said gently. "Don't do that! We will say 'Good-bye' here."</p> + +<p class="normal">She gave me her hand--she had been on the point of going without even +doing that. "Thank you very much," she added, and she walked rather +listlessly away. She left me with an uneasy impression that her thanks +were not very sincere. I am bound to admit that Olivia puzzled me that +night. To extract the proposal of marriage from Ballester was within +the rules of the game and good play into the bargain. But to come back +again as she had done, was not quite fair. However, as I watched her +go, I thought that I would keep my bewilderment to myself. I have +never asked Harry Vandeleur, for instance, whether he could explain +it. I went back to the study.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think fifty dollars will be ample," said Ballester, still figuring +on his paper. "Has she gone?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is going," said I. He rose from his chair, broke off a rose from +a bowl of flowers which, on this night only, decorated the room. Then +he opened the window and leaned out. Olivia, I reckoned, would be just +at this moment stepping into the carriage. He tossed the rose down and +drew back quickly out of sight.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shall it be green paint, your Excellency?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">His Excellency, I regret to say, swore loudly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Never in this world!" said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">I had left the door open. The music of a languorous and melting waltz +filled the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do loathe music!" cried Juan Ballester violently. It was the +nearest approach to a sentimental remark that I had ever heard him +make.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF<br> +CAPRICORN</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_north" href="#div1Ref_north">NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF +CAPRICORN</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The strong civic spirit of the Midlands makes them fertile in +reformers; and Mr. Endicott even in his early youth was plagued by the +divine discontent with things as they are. Neither a happy marriage, +nor a prosperous business, nor an engaging daughter appeased him. But +he was slow in discovering a remedy. The absence of any sense of +humour blunted his wits and he lived in a vague distress, out of which +it needed the death of his wife to quicken him. "Some result must come +out of all these years of pondering and discomfort, if only as a +memorial to her," he reflected, and he burrowed again amongst the +innumerable panaceas. Then at last he found it--on an afternoon walk +in June when the sharp contrast between the grime of the town and the +loveliness of green and leaf which embowered it so closely, smote upon +him almost with pain. The Minimum Wage. Like Childe Roland's Dark +Tower, it had lain within his vision for many a long mile of his +pilgrimage. His eyes had rested on it and had never taken it in; so +simple and clear it was to the view.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thereafter he was quick to act. Time was running on. He was forty-two. +He disposed of his business, and a year later was elected to +Parliament. Once in the House he walked warily. He had no personal +ambition, but he was always afraid lest some indiscretion should set +the House against him and delay his cause. Mr. Endicott had his plan +quite clear in his mind. Samuel Plimsoll was his model. The great Bill +for the establishment of the Minimum Wage should be a private member's +Bill moved from the back benches session after session if need be, and +driven through Parliament into Law at last by the sheer weight of its +public value.</p> + +<p class="normal">Accordingly for a year he felt his way, learning the rules and orders, +speaking now and then without subservience and without impertinence; +and after the prorogation of the House for the summer, he took his +daughter with him to a farm-house set apart in a dale of Cumberland. +In that solitary place, inspired by the brown fells and the tumbling +streams, and with the one person he loved as his companion, he +proposed finally to smooth and round his Bill.</p> + +<p class="normal">Accident or destiny, however--whichever you like to call the beginning +of tragic things--put an Australian in the same compartment of the +railway-carriage; and the Australian was led to converse by the sight +of various cameras on the luggage rack.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My father is very fond of photography," said Elsie Endicott. "It +amuses him, and the pictures which he takes if the day is clear, are +sometimes quite recognisable."</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dear!" said Mr. Endicott.</p> + +<p class="normal">Elsie turned to the window and shook hands with two young men who had +come to see her off. One of them, whom Mr. Endicott vaguely remembered +to have seen at meals in his house, climbed on the footboard.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will take care of Miss Endicott, sir," he said firmly. "She has +been overdoin' it a bit, dancin', you know, and that sort of thing, +while you were at the House of Commons."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Endicott chuckled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I'll tell you something about my daughter," he replied. "She may look +like china, but she is pretty solid earthenware really. And if there +are any others as anxious about her as you are you might spread the +good news."</p> + +<p class="normal">The train moved off. "So you are in the House of Commons," said the +Australian, and he began to talk. "Our great trouble--yours and +mine--is----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know it," Mr. Endicott interrupted with a smile of confidence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course you do," replied the Australian. "It's the overcrowding of +the East under the protective rule of the British."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Endicott blankly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We could help a good deal," the Australian continued, "if only our +Government had got a ha'porth of common sense. North of the Tropic of +Capricorn, there's land and to spare which coloured labour could +cultivate and white labour can't."</p> + +<p class="normal">This was strange talk to Mr. Endicott. He was aware, but not conscious +of great dominions and possessions outside the British Islands. He had +indeed avoided the whole subject. He was shy of the phrase which +described them, as a horse is shy of a newspaper blown about the +street. The British Empire! The very words had a post-prandial sound. +Instead of suggesting to him vast territories with myriads of men and +women groping amongst enormous problems, they evoked a picture of a +flamboyant gentleman in evening dress standing at the head of a table, +his face congested with too much dinner, a glass of wine in his one +hand, a fat cigar in the other, and talking vauntingly. This +particular sentence of the Australian stuck inconveniently in his mind +and smouldered there.</p> + +<p class="normal">For instance. On the afternoon of their arrival Elsie was arranging +his developing dishes and his chemicals on a small rough table in a +corner of their one living-room. She put an old basket-chair by the +table and set around it a screen which she had discovered in one of +the bedrooms upstairs.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There!" she said. "You can make all your messes here, father, and we +can keep the room looking habitable, and I shan't get all my frocks +stained."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well, Elsie," said her father absently, and he spoke his own +thoughts. "That was a curious fear of the man in the train, Elsie. I +think there's no truth in it. No, the danger's here in this country; +here's what's to be done to avert it," and he slapped his hand down +upon his pile of statistics.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No doubt, father," said Elsie, and she went on with her work.</p> + +<p class="normal">The very next evening he returned again to the subject. It was after +dinner and about half-past nine o'clock. The blinds had not been +lowered and Endicott looked out through the open windows on to a great +flank of Scawfell which lay drenched in white moonlight a couple of +fields away.</p> + +<p class="normal">"North of the Tropic of Capricorn," he said, "I wish we had an atlas, +Elsie."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I'll write to London and buy one," said the girl. "We haven't got +more than a 'Handy Gazetteer' even at home. It'll be amusing to plan +out some long journeys which we can take together when you have passed +your Bill into law."</p> + +<p class="normal">Endicott smiled grimly at his daughter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I reckon we won't take many journeys together, Elsie. Oh, you needn't +look surprised and hurt! I am not taken in by you a bit, my dear. That +young spark on the footboard who told me I didn't take enough care of +you"--and Elsie gurgled with laughter at the recollection--"threw a +dreadful light upon your character and gave me a clue besides to the +riddle of your vast correspondence. I hope you are telling them all +that my persistent unkindness is not driving you into a decline."</p> + +<p class="normal">Elsie paused in the act of addressing an envelope--there was a +growing pile of letters in front of her--to reassure her father.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I tell them all," she replied, "that you neither beat me nor starve +me, and that if you weren't so very messy with your chemicals in the +corner over there, I should have very little reason to change my +home."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Endicott. He was very proud of his +daughter and especially of her health. With her dark rebellious hair, +the delicate colour in her cheeks, and her starry eyes, she had a +quite delusive look of fragility. But she could dance any youth of her +acquaintance to a standstill without ruffling her curls, as he very +well knew. He gazed at her lowered head with a smile.</p> + +<p class="normal">"However, all this doesn't help me with the Minimum Wage," he +continued, and he turned again to the papers on his desk by the +window, while Elsie at the table in the middle of the big low-roofed +room, continued to write her letters.</p> + +<p class="normal">They were still engaged in these pursuits when Mrs. Tyson, their +landlady, came into the room to lower the blinds.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, please leave them up," said Endicott, in an irritable voice. +"I'll draw them down myself before we go to bed."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Tyson accordingly left the blinds alone.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you'll be careful of the Crown Derby," she said imperturbably, +nodding towards a china tea-set ranged in an open cabinet near to the +door. "Gentlemen from London have asked me to sell it over and over. +For it's of great value. But I won't, as I promised my mother. She, +poor woman----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Endicott, "we'll be very careful. You may +remember you told us all about it yesterday."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Tyson turned down a little lower the one oil lamp which, with the +candles upon Endicott's desk, lighted the room, and went back to the +inner door.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you be wanting anything more for a little while?" she asked. +"For my girl's away, and I must go down the valley. I am sending some +sheep away to market to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, we want nothing at all," said Elsie, without paying much +attention to what the woman was saying. Mrs. Tyson was obviously +inclined to fuss, and would have to be suppressed. But she went out +now without another word. There were two doors to the room at opposite +ends, the inner one leading to a small hall, the kitchen and the +staircase, the other, and outer door, opening directly close by the +window on to a tiny garden with a flagged pathway. At the end of the +path there was a gate, and a low garden wall. Beyond the gate a narrow +lane and a brook separated the house from the fields and the great +flank of fell.</p> + +<p class="normal">The night was hot, and Endicott, unable to concentrate his attention +upon his chosen theme, had the despairing sensation that he had lost +grip of it altogether: his eyes wandered from his papers so +continually to the hillside asleep in the bright moonlight. Here a +great boulder threw a long motionless shadow down the slope, like a +house; there a sharp rock-ridge cropping out of the hill, raised +against the sky a line of black pinnacles like a file of soldiers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I can't work to-night, Elsie, and that's the truth," cried Endicott +passionately, "though this is just the night when one ought to be most +alive to the millions of men cooped in hot cities and living +wretchedly. I'll go out of doors. Will you come?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Elsie hesitated. Mr. Endicott was to carry that poignant recollection +to his death. One word of persuasion and she would have come with him. +But he did not speak it, and Elsie bent her head again to her work.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, thanks, father," she said. "I'll finish these letters. They must +go off to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">Endicott blew out his candles, lit his pipe, and took up his cap. He +was still smiling over her important air as of someone with great and +urgent business. He went out into the garden. Elsie heard the latch of +the gate click. He walked across the little bridge over the brook and +at once his mood changed. He wandered across the fields and up the +hillside, sorely discontented with himself. He had lost interest in +the Minimum Wage. So much he admitted. The surroundings which were to +inspire him had, on the contrary, merely provoked a disinclination to +do any work whatever. The reaction after the strain of the Session was +making itself felt. The question in his mind was "Why bother?" High up +the hill he sat down upon a boulder to have it out with himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sound of the stream dropping from pool to pool of rock on its way +down the valley rose in a continuous thunder to his ears. He looked +down at the little farm-house beneath him, and the golden light of the +lamp within the windows of the sitting-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">As he looked the light moved. Then it diminished; then it vanished +altogether. Endicott chuckled and lit a second pipe, holding the +lighted match in the hollow of his hands and bending his head close +over it, because of a whisper of air. Elsie had finished her letters +to the youths who besieged her and was off to bed. Only the moonlight +blazed upon the windows now and turned them into mirrors of burnished +silver.</p> + +<p class="normal">Endicott smoked a third pipe whilst he wrestled with himself upon the +hillside. To-morrow he would get up very early, bathe in the big deep +pool, transparent to the lowest of its thirty feet of water, and then +spend a long morning with the wage-lists of the chain-making industry. +That was settled. Nothing should change his plan. Meanwhile it was +very pleasant up here under the cool sky of moonlight and faint stars.</p> + +<p class="normal">He dragged himself up reluctantly from his seat, and went down towards +the farm. There was a little stone bridge to cross over one of the +many mountain streams which went to the making of the small river on +the other side of the house. Then came the lane and the garden-gate. +He closed the door behind him when he had gone in. Although there was +no lamp burning, the room was not dark. A twilight, vaporous and +silvery, crept into it, darkening towards the inner part and filling +the corners with mystery; while the floor by the window was chequered +with great panels of light precise and bright as day.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the hillside Endicott had seen the light go out in the room, and he +crossed over to the big table for the lamp. But it was no longer +there. Elsie had taken it, no doubt, into the hall with her letters +for the morning post and had not brought it back. He moved to his own +table where the candles stood; and with a shock he perceived that he +was not alone in that unlighted room. A movement amongst the shadows +by the inner door caught and held his eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">He swung round and faced the spot. He saw against the wall near the +screen which hid his photographic paraphernalia, a man standing, +straight, upright and very still. The figure was vague and blurred, +but Endicott could see that his legs were clothed in white, and that +he wore some bulky and outlandish gear upon his head. Endicott quickly +struck a match. At the scratch and spurt of flame, the man in the +shadow ran forward towards the door with extraordinary swiftness. But +his shoulder caught the case in which Mrs. Tyson's Crown Derby china +was standing, and brought it with a crash of broken crockery to the +floor. Before the intruder could recover, Endicott set his back +against the door and held the burning match above his head. He was +amazed by what he saw.</p> + +<p class="normal">The intruder was an Asiatic with the conventional hawk-nose of the Jew +in the shape of his face; a brown man wearing a coloured turban upon +his head, an old tweed jacket on his shoulders, and a pair of dirty +white linen trousers on his legs, narrowing until they fitted closely +round his ankles. He wore neither shoes nor stockings. And he stood +very still watching Endicott with alert, bright eyes. Endicott, +without moving from the door, reached out and lit the candles upon the +table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What are you doing here?" he demanded curiously. He had no personal +fear, and he was not much troubled by the man's hiding in the room. +Elsie, whom the fellow might have frightened, had long since gone to +bed, and there was nothing of value, except the Crown Derby, which he +could have stolen. On the other hand Endicott was immensely puzzled by +the presence of an Asiastic at all in this inland and lonely valley +far from railways and towns, at half-past ten of the night.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I pass the house," the man answered in English which was +astonishingly good. "I think you give me one piece opium to go on +with."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Opium!" cried Mr. Endicott, as if he had been stung. How many times +had he voted for the suppression of everything to do with opium. +"You'll find none of that abominable drug here!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He surveyed the Asiatic, outraged in every feeling. He lifted the +latch. He was on the point of flinging open the door. He had actually +begun to open it, when his mood changed. North of the Tropic of +Capricorn. The lilt of the words was in his ears. He remembered the +talk of the Australian in the railway-carriage about the overcrowding +of the East. The coming of this strange brown man seemed to him of a +sudden curiously relevant. He closed the door again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You passed the house? Where do you come from? Who are you? How do you +come here?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The Asiatic, who had stood gathered like a runner at the +starting-point while the door was being opened, now cringed and +smiled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Protector of the poor, I tell you my story"; and Mr. Endicott found +himself listening in that quiet farm-house of the Cumberland dales to +a most enlightening Odyssey.</p> + +<p class="normal">The man's name was Ahmed Ali, and he was a Pathan of the hills. His +home was in the middle country between Peshawur and the borders of +Afghanistan, and he belonged to a tribe of seven hundred men, every +one of whom had left his home and his wife and his children behind +him, and had gone down to Bombay to seek his livelihood in the +stokeholds of ships. Ahmed had been taken on a steamer of the +Peninsula and Oriental Line bound for Australia, where he hoped to +make his fortune. But neither at Sydney nor at Melbourne had he been +allowed to land.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I am a British citizen," he said, having acquired some English.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, and what of it?" said the Port authorities.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nevertheless the night before the boat sailed he slipped overboard and +swam ashore, to be caught when the smoke of that steamer was no more +than a stain on the horizon. He was held in custody and would have +been returned by the next steamer to India. But there was already in +the harbour a cargo boat of the Clan Line bound for Quebec round the +Cape; and the boat was short of its complement in the stokehold.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ahmed Ali, accordingly, signed on, and sailed in her and acquired more +English to help him on in the comfortable life he now proposed to make +for himself in Canada.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But again they would not let me go away into the country," he +continued. "I told them I was British citizen, but it did not help me; +no, not any more than in Australia. They put me on a ship for England, +and I came to Liverpool steerage like a genelman. And at Liverpool I +landed boldly. For I was a British citizen."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!" interjected Mr. Endicott proudly. "Here, in England, you see the +value of being a British citizen."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, no, my genelman. For here there's no work for British citizen. I +land and I walk about and I ask for work. But everyone says, 'Why +don't you stay in your own country?' So I come away across the fields, +and no man give me one piece opium."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Endicott nodded his head when the story was ended.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, after all, why don't you stay in your own country?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Endicott had already had his answer from the Australian, but he +was now thirsty for details, and his ears in consequence were +afflicted with a brief description of British rule from the Pathan's +point of view.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The all-wise one will pardon me. You keep the peace. Therefore we +cannot stay in our own country. For we grow crowded and there is no +food. In old times, when we were crowded and hungry, we went down into +the plains and took the land and the wives of the people of the plains +and killed the men. But the raj does not allow it. It holds a sword +between us and the plains, a sword with the edge towards us. Neither, +on the other hand, does it feed us."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Endicott was aghast at the perverted views thus calmly announced +to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But we can't allow you to come down into India murdering and robbing +and taking the wives."</p> + +<p class="normal">The Asiatic shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is the law."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Endicott was silent. If it were not the law, there were certainly +a great many precedents. The men of the hills and the people of the +plains--yes, history would say it <i>was</i> the law. Mr. Endicott's eyes +were opening upon unknown worlds. The British Power stood in India +then cleaving a law of nature?</p> + +<p class="normal">"Also, you send your doctors and make cures when the plague and the +cholera come, so that fewer people die. Also, when the crops fail and +there is famine, you distribute food, so that again fewer people die. +No, there is no room now for us in our own country because of you, and +you will not let us into yours."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But we can't do anything else," cried Mr. Endicott. "We keep the +peace, we feed when there is famine, we send our doctors when there is +plague, because that is the law, also--the law of our race."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ahmed Ali did not move. He had placed the dilemma before Endicott. He +neither solved nor accepted it. Nor Was Endicott able to find any +answer. There must be one, since his whole race was arraigned just for +what it most prided itself upon--oh, no doubt there was an answer. But +Mr. Endicott could not find it. His imagination, however, grasped the +problem. He saw those seven hundred tribesmen travelling down the +passes to the rail head, loading the Bombay train and dispersing upon +the steamers. But he had no answer, and because he had no answer he +was extremely uncomfortable. He had lived for a year in the world of +politicians where, as a rule, there are answers all ready-made for any +question, answers neatly framed in aphorisms and propositions and +provided for our acceptance by thoughtful organisations. But he +could not remember one to suit this occasion. He was at a loss, and he +took the easy way to rid himself of discomfort. He dived into his +trouser-pocket and fished out a handful of silver.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here!" he said. "This'll help you on a bit. Now go!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He stood aside from the door and the Asiatic darted to it with an +extraordinary eagerness. But once he had unlatched it, once it stood +open to the hillside and the sky, and he free in the embrasure, he +lost all his cringing aspect. He turned round upon Mr. Endicott.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I go now," he cried in a high arrogant voice. "But I shall come back +very soon, and all our peoples will come with me, all our hungry +peoples from the East. Remember that, you genelman!" And then he ran +noiselessly out of the house and down the pathway to the gate.</p> + +<p class="normal">He ran with extraordinary swiftness; so that Endicott followed him to +the gate and watched him go. He flew down the road, his shadow +flitting in the moonlight like a bird. Once he looked over his +shoulder, and seeing Endicott at the gate he leapt into the air. A few +yards farther he doubled on his steps, climbed down into the little +stream beside the lane and took to the hills. And in another moment he +was not. The broad and kindly fell took him to its bosom. He was too +tiny an atom to stand out against that great towering slope of grass +and stones. Indeed, he vanished so instantly that it seemed he must +have dived into a cave. The next moment Endicott almost doubted +whether he had ever been at all, whether he was not some apparition +born of his own troubled brain and the Australian's talk. But, as he +turned back into the house, he saw upon the flags of the garden path +the marks of the man's wet, bare feet. Not only had Ahmed Ali been to +the farm-house, but he had crossed the stream to get there.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Endicott went back to his table in the window and seated himself +in front of his lighted candles, more from habit than with any thought +of work. He felt suddenly rather tired. He had not been conscious of +any fear while Ahmed Ali was in the room, or indeed of any strain. But +strain, and perhaps fear, there had been. Certainly a vague fear began +to get hold of him now. He had a picture before his eyes of the +Asiatic leaping into the air upon the road, and then doubling for the +hills. Why had he fled so fast?</p> + +<p class="normal">"North of the Tropic of Capricorn!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He repeated the words to himself aloud. Was the Australian right after +all? And would they come from the East--those hungry people? Mr. +Endicott seemed to feel the earth tremble beneath the feet of the +myriads of Asia. He bent his ear and seemed to hear the distant +confusion of their approach. He looked down at his papers and +flicked them contemptuously. Of what use would be his fine Bill +for the establishment of a Minimum Wage? Why, everything would go +down--civilisation, the treasures of art, twenty centuries of man's +painful growth--just as that Derby China teapot with its wonderful +colour of dark blue and red and gold. The broken fragments of the +teapot became a symbol to Endicott.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And the women would go down too," he thought with a shiver. "They +would take the wives."</p> + +<p class="normal">He had come to this point in his speculations when the inner door +opened, and the light broadened in the room. He heard Mrs. Tyson +shuffle in, but he did not turn towards her. He sat looking out upon +the fell.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I found the lamp burning on the hall table by the letters, sir," she +said, "and I thought you might want it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Endicott vaguely, and he was roused by a little +gasping cry which she uttered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, yes! I am very sorry, Mrs. Tyson. Your teapot has been knocked +down. I went out. There was a man in the room when I came back. He +knocked it down. Of course I'll make its value good, though I doubt if +I can replace it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Tyson made no answer. She placed the lamp on the table. Endicott +was still seated at his table in the window with his back to the room. +But he had thrown back his head, and he saw the circle of reflected +light upon the ceiling shake and quiver as Mrs. Tyson put the lamp +down. The glass chimney, too, rattled as though her hands were +shaking.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am very sorry indeed," he continued.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Tyson dropped upon her knees and began to pick up the broken +pieces from the floor.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It doesn't matter at all, sir," she said, and Endicott was surprised +by the utter tonelessness of her voice. He knew that she set great +store upon this set of china; she had boasted of it. Yet now that it +was spoilt she spoke of it with complete indifference. He turned round +in his chair and watched her picking up the fragments--watched her +idly until she sobbed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good heavens," he cried, "I knew that you valued it, Mrs. Tyson, +but--" and then he stopped. For she turned to him and he knew that +there was more than the china teapot at the bottom of her trouble. Her +face, white and shaking and wet with tears, was terrible to see. There +was a horror upon it as though she had beheld things not allowed, and +a hopeless pain in her eyes as though she was sure that the appalling +vision would never pass. But all she did was to repeat her phrase.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It doesn't matter at all, sir."</p> + +<p class="normal">Endicott started up and laid his hand upon her shoulder.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What has happened, Mrs. Tyson?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, I can't tell you, sir." She knelt upon the floor and covered her +face with her hands and wept as Endicott had never dreamed that a +human being could weep. Fear seized upon him and held him till he +shivered with the chill of it. The woman had come in by the inner +door. In the hall, then, was to be found the cause of her horror. He +lifted the lamp and hurried towards it, but to reach the door he had +to pass the screen which Elsie had arranged on the day of their +coming. And at the screen he stopped. The terror which may come to a +man once in his life clutched his heart so that he choked. For behind +the screen he saw the gleam of a girl's white frock.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Elsie," he cried, "you have been all this while here--asleep." For he +would not believe the thing he knew.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was lying rather than sitting in the low basket chair in front of +the little table on which the chemicals were ranged, with her back +towards him, and her face buried in the padding of the chair. Endicott +stretched his arm over her and set down the lamp upon the table. Then +he spoke to her again chidingly and shaking her arm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Elsie, wake up! Don't be ridiculous!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He slipped an arm under her waist, and lifting her, turned her towards +him. The girl's head rolled upon her shoulders, and there was a look +of such deadly horror upon her face that no pen could begin to +describe it. Endicott caught her to his breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, my God," he cried hoarsely. "My poor girl! My poor girl!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Tyson had come up behind him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was he," she whispered, "the man who was here. He killed her!" And +as Endicott turned his head towards the woman, some little thing +slipped from the chair on to the floor with a tiny rattle. Endicott +laid her down and picked up a small, yellow, round tablet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, he didn't," he said with a queer eagerness in his voice. The +tablet came from a small bottle on the table at the end of his row of +chemicals. It was labelled, "Intensifier" and "Poison," and the cork +was out of the bottle. The bottle had been full that afternoon. There +was more than one tablet missing now.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, she killed herself. Those tablets are cyanide of potassium. He +never touched her. Look!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Upon the boards of the floor the wet and muddy feet of the Asiatic had +written the history of his movements beyond the possibility of +mistake. Here he had stood in front of her--not a step nearer. Mrs. +Tyson heard him whisper in her daughter's ear. "Oh, my dear, I thank +God!" He sank upon his knees beside her. Mrs. Tyson went out, and, +closing the door gently, left him with his dead.</p> + +<p class="normal">She sat and waited in the kitchen, and after a while she heard him +moving. He opened the door into the hall and came out and went slowly +and heavily up the stairs into Elsie's room. In a little while he came +down again and pushed open the kitchen door. He had aged by twenty +years, but his face and his voice were calm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You found the lamp in the hall?" he said, in a low voice. "Beside the +letters? Come! We must understand this. My mind will go unless I am +quite sure."</p> + +<p class="normal">She followed him into the living-room and saw that his dead daughter +was no longer there. She stood aside whilst, with a patience which +wrung her heart, Endicott worked out by the footprints of the intruder +and this and that sure sign the events of those tragic minutes, until +there was no doubt left.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Elsie wrote eight letters," he said. "Seven are in the hall. Here is +the eighth, addressed and stamped upon the table where she wrote."</p> + +<p class="normal">The letters had to be sent down the valley to the inn early in the +morning. So when she had finished, she had carried them into the +hall--all of them, she thought--and she had taken the lamp to light +her steps. Whilst she was in the hall, and whilst all this side of the +house was in darkness Ahmed Ali had slipped into the room from the +lane by the brook. There were the marks of his feet coming from the +door.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But was that possible?" Endicott argued. "I was on the hillside, the +moon shining from behind my shoulders on to the house. There were no +shadows. It was all as clear as day. I must have seen the man come +along the little footpath to the door, for I was watching the house. I +saw the light in this room disappear. Wait a moment! Yes. Just after +the light went out I struck a match and lit my pipe."</p> + +<p class="normal">He had held the match close to his face in the hollow of his hands, +and had carefully lit the pipe; and after the match had burned out, +the glare had remained for a few seconds in his eyes. It was during +those seconds that the Asiatic had crossed the lane and darted in by +the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">The next step then became clear. Elsie, counting her letters in the +hall, had discovered that she had left one behind, she knew where she +had left it. She knew that the moonlight was pouring into the room; +and, leaving the lamp in the hall, she had returned to fetch it. In +the moonlit room she had come face to face with the Asiatic.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had been close to the screen when she met him, and there he had +stood. No doubt he had begun by asking her for opium. No doubt, +too--perhaps through some unanswered cry of hers, perhaps because +she never cried out at all, perhaps on account of a tense attitude +of terror not to be mistaken even in that vaporous silvery +light--somehow, at all events, he had become aware that she was alone +in the house; and his words and his demands had changed. She had +backed away from him against the wall, moving the screen and the +chair, and upsetting a book upon the table there. That was evident +from the disorder in this corner. Upon the table stood Endicott's +chemicals for developing his photographs. Endicott saw the picture +with a ghastly distinctness--her hand dropping for support upon the +table and touching the bottles which she had arranged herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, she knew that that one nearest, the first she touched was the +poison, and meant--what? Safety! It's awful, but it's the truth. Very +probably she screamed, poor girl. But there was no one to hear her."</p> + +<p class="normal">The noise of the river leaping from rock pool to rock pool had drowned +any sound of it which might else have reached to Endicott's ears. The +scream had failed. In front of her was a wild and desperate Pathan +from the stokehold of a liner. Under her hand was the cyanide of +potassium. Endicott could see her furtively moving the cork from the +mouth of the bottle with the fingers of one hand, whilst she stood +watching in horror the man smiling at her in silence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't you feel that that is just how everything happened? Aren't you +sure of it?" he asked, turning to Mrs. Tyson with a dreadful appeal in +his eyes. But she could answer it honestly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, sir, that is how it all happened," and for a moment Mr. Endicott +was comforted. But immediately afterwards he sat down on a chair like +a tired man and his fingers played upon the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It would all be over in a few seconds," he said lamentably +to Mrs. Tyson. "But, oh, those seconds! They would have been +terrible--terrible with pain." His voice trailed away into silence. He +sat still staring at the table. Then he raised his head towards Mrs. +Tyson, and his face was disfigured by a smile of torment. "Hard luck +on a young girl, eh, Mrs. Tyson?" and the very banality of the +sentence made it poignant. "Everything just beginning for her--the +sheer fun of life. Her beauty, and young men, and friends and dancing, +the whole day a burst of music--and then suddenly--quite alone--that's +so horrible--quite alone, in a minute she had to----" His voice choked +and the tears began to run down his face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But the man?" Mrs. Tyson ventured.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, the man!" cried Endicott. "I will think of him to-morrow."</p> + +<p class="normal">He went up the stairs walking as heavily as when he had carried his +daughter in his arms; and he went again into Elsie's room. Mrs. Tyson +blew out the candles upon his writing-table and arranged automatically +some disordered sheets of foolscap. They were notes on the great +principle of the Minimum Wage.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>ONE OF THEM</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_one" href="#div1Ref_one">ONE OF THEM</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">At midnight on August 4th, Poldhu flung the news out to all ships, and +Anthony Strange, on the <i>Boulotte</i>, took the message in the middle of +the West Bay. He carried on accordingly past Weymouth, and in the +morning was confronted with the wall of great breakers off St. Alban's +Head. The little boat ran towards that barrier with extraordinary +swiftness. Strange put her at a gap close into the shore where the +waves broke lower, and with a lurch and a shudder she scooped the +water in over her bows and clothed herself to her brass gunwale-top in +a stinging veil of salt. Never had the <i>Boulotte</i> behaved better than +she did that morning in the welter of the Race, and Strange, rejoicing +to his very finger-tips, forgot the news which was bringing all the +pleasure-boats, great and small, into the harbours of the south, +forgot even that sinking of the heart which had troubled him +throughout the night. But it was only in the Race that he knew any +comfort. He dropped his anchor in Poole Harbour by mid-day, and fled +through London to a house he owned on the Berkshire Downs.</p> + +<p class="normal">There for a few days he found life possible. It was true there were +sentries under the railway bridges, but the sun rose each day over a +country ripe for the harvest, and the smoke curled from the chimneys +of pleasant villages; and there was no sign of war. But soon the +nights became a torture. For from midnight on, at intervals of five to +ten minutes, the troop-trains roared along the Thames Valley towards +Avonmouth, and the reproach of each of them ceased only with the +morning. Strange leaned out of his window looking down the slopes +where the corn in the moonlight was like a mist. Not a light showed in +the railway carriages, but the sparks danced above the funnel of the +engine, and the glare of the furnace burnished the leaves of the +trees. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers on the road to France. Then +there came a morning when, not a hundred yards from his house, he saw +a string of horses in the road and others being taken from the +reaping-machines in a field. Strange returned to town and dined with a +Mrs. Kenway, his best friend, and to her he unburdened his soul.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am ashamed ... don't know how to look people in the face.... I +never thought to be so utterly unhappy. I am thirty and useless. I +cumber the ground."</p> + +<p class="normal">The look of surprise with which his friend turned to him hurt him like +the cut of a whip. "Of course you can't help," it seemed to say. "The +world is for the strong, this year and the next, and for how many +more?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange had to lie on his back for some hours each day, and he +suffered off and on always. But that had been his lot since boyhood, +and he had made light of his infirmity and grown used to it until this +4th of August. He had consoled himself with the knowledge that to the +world he looked only rather delicate. He was tall, and not set apart +from his fellows.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now," he said. "I wish that everybody knew. Yes, I wish that I showed +that service was impossible. To think of us sitting here round a +dinner-table--as we used to! Oh, I know what you'll think! I have the +morbid sensitiveness of sick men. Perhaps you are right."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't think it at all," she said, and she set herself to comfort +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange went from the dinner-party to his club. There was the +inevitable crowd, fighting the campaign differently, cutting up the +conquered countries, or crying all was lost. Some of them had written +to the papers, all were somehow swollen with importance as though the +war was their private property. Strange began to take heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They are not ashamed," he thought. "They speak to me as if they +expected I should be here. Perhaps I am a fool."</p> + +<p class="normal">A friend sat down by his side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Cross went yesterday," he said. "George Crawley was killed at Mons. +Of course you have heard."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange had not heard, and there rose before his eyes suddenly a +picture of George Crawley, the youngest colonel in the army, standing +on the kerb in St. James's Street and with uplifted face blaspheming +to the skies at one o'clock in the morning because of a whiskered +degenerate dandy with a frilled shirt to whom he had just before been +introduced. But his friend was continuing his catalogue.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Chalmers is training at Grantham. He's with the new army. Linton has +joined the Flying Corps. Every day someone slips quietly away. God +knows how many of them will come back."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange got up and walked out of the club.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall see you to-morrow," his friend cried after him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, I am going back to my boat."</p> + +<p class="normal">"For how long?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Till the war's over."</p> + +<p class="normal">The resolution had been taken that instant. He loved the <i>Boulotte</i> +better than anything else in the world. For on board of her he was +altogether a man. She was fifty-five feet long over all, fourteen +feet in beam, twenty-five tons by Thames measurement, and his debt to +her was enormous. He had found her in a shed in the Isle of Wight, +re-coppered her, given her a new boiler, fixed her up with forced +draught, and taken out for himself after a year's hard work a master's +certificate. He took her over to Holland, and since her bows worked +like a concertina in the heavy seaway between Dover and Dieppe he +strengthened them with cross-pieces. He never ceased to tinker with +her, he groused at her, and complained of her, and sneered at her, and +doted on her in the true sailor's fashion. For some years past life +had begun for him in the spring, when he passed Portland Bill bound +westward for Fowey and Falmouth and the Scillies, and had ended in the +late autumn, when he pulled the <i>Boulotte</i> up on the mud of Wootton +Creek. Now he turned to her in his distress, and made a most miserable +Odyssey. He spent a month in the estuary above Salcombe, steamed +across to Havre, went down through the canals to Marseilles in the +autumn of 1914, and sought one of the neutral coasts of the +Mediterranean. Here, where men wore buttons in their coats inscribed, +"Don't speak to me of the war," he fancied that he might escape from +the shame of his insufficiency. He came to a pleasant harbour, with a +broad avenue of trees behind the quay, and a little ancient town +behind the trees.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will drop my anchor here," he said, "until the war ends"; and he +remained, speaking to no one but his crew, sleeping in his little +cabin, and only going on shore to buy his newspapers and take his +coffee. And after five weeks the miracle began to happen. He was +sitting on his deck one morning reading a local newspaper. At right +angles to him half a dozen steamers, moored in a line, with their +sterns to the quay and their anchors out forward, were loading with +fruit. He looked up from his paper, and his eyes fell upon the nearest +ship, which was showing him her starboard broadside. He looked first +of all carelessly, then with interest, finally he laid his paper down +and walked forward. The boat had received on the lower part of her +hull, up to the Plimsoll line, a brilliant fresh coat of red paint. So +far, of course, there was nothing unusual, but forward, halfway +between her bows and her midships, and again aft on her quarter, she +had a broad perpendicular line of the same red paint standing out +vividly from the black of her upper plates. Strange called to his +engineer, John Shawe, and pointed to the streaks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you make of them?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">Shawe shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very wasteful it do seem, sir," he said; and to a casual glance it +did indeed appear as if the paint had been allowed, through some +carelessness on deck, to drip down the side at those two points. +Strange, however, was not satisfied. The bands of scarlet were too +regular, too broad. He had himself rowed out in his dinghy past the +steamer's bows.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That will do, Harry," he said. "We can go back."</p> + +<p class="normal">On the port bows and quarter of the steamer he had seen the same vivid +streaks. Strange spoke again to John Shawe.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Waste isn't the explanation, that's sure. You go about the town a +bit, don't you? You know some of the men about the port. You might +find out for me--quietly, you know--what you can about that boat"; and +the phrase "quietly, you know," made all at once a different man of +John Shawe. Strange at this time was really more moved by curiosity +than suspicion, but he did use the phrase, and John Shawe, a big, +simple, south countryman, who knew his engine and very little else, +swelled at once into a being of mystery, full of brow-twisting wisdom +and portentously sly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I understand, sir," he said in a knowing whisper. "I know my dooty. +It shall be done." He put on his best brass-buttoned coat that +evening, and went down the three steps of the gangway ladder with a +secret air, a sleuth; but he brought back his news nevertheless.</p> + +<p class="normal">"All those boats, sir, are chartered by a German here named Rehnke."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But some of them are English. They are flying the red flag," cried +Strange in revolt.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's God's truth, sir, and here's more of it. Every one of them's +bound for England, consigned to English firms. One's for Manchester, +two for Cardiff, one for Liverpool."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But it's impossible. It's trading with the enemy," Strange exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That don't apply to the enemy in neutral countries, they say. Oh, +there's a deal of dirty work going on in England. Will you come on +deck?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange nodded. The saloon door opened into the cockpit, and the cabin +roof was the deck of the after-part of the <i>Boulotte</i>. They climbed by +a little ladder out of the cockpit. It was twelve o'clock on a night +of full moon.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look, sir," said Shawe.</p> + +<p class="normal">The English boat had sailed that afternoon. The starboard side of its +neighbour was now revealed. Strange looked through his glasses and he +saw. Over the bows of that tramp steamer at midnight a man was +suspended on a plank, and he was painting a broad, perpendicular, red +streak.</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange thought over his discovery lying on his back in the saloon. +Distinguishing marks on a row of ships chartered by a German--there +was just one explanation for them! Strange did not even whisper it to +John Shawe, but he went ashore the next morning and called upon the +British Consul.</p> + +<p class="normal">His card was taken into a room where two men were speaking. At once +the conversation stopped, and it was not resumed. There was not a +whisper, nor the sound of any movement. Strange had a picture in his +mind of two men with their heads together staring at his card and +exchanging an unspoken question. Then the clerk appeared again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Taylor will see you with pleasure," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">As Strange entered the room a slim, elderly, indifferent gentleman, +seated at a knee-hole table, gazed vaguely at him through his +spectacles and offered him a chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What can I do for you, Mr. Strange?" he asked, and since Strange +hesitated, he turned towards his companion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This is Major Slingsby," said the Consul. "He will not be in your +way."</p> + +<p class="normal">Major Slingsby, a square, short, rubicund man of forty, with the face +of a faun, bowed, and, without moving from his chair, seemed, +nevertheless, to remove himself completely from the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not at all," said Strange. He had not an idea that he was in the +presence of the two shrewdest men in those parts. To him they were +just a couple of languid people whom it was his duty to arouse, and he +told his story as vividly as he could.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And what do you deduce from these mysterious signs?" asked the +Consul.</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange's answer was prompt.</p> + +<p class="normal">"German submarines in the Mediterranean."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh! And why not the Channel?" asked Mr. Taylor. "These steamers are +on their way there."</p> + +<p class="normal">To that question there was no reply. Strange rose. "I thought that I +ought to tell you what I had noticed," he said stiffly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you, yes. And I am very grateful," replied Taylor.</p> + +<p class="normal">Major Slingsby, however, followed Strange out of the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you lunch with me?" he asked, and the question sent the blood +rushing into Strange's face. He swung between his instinct to hide his +head from any man who was doing service and his craving to converse +with a fellow-countryman. The craving won.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall be very pleased," he stammered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Right. It is half-past twelve now. Shall we say one at the Café de +Rome?"</p> + +<p class="normal">As they sat against the wall by the window of the café Slingsby talked +of ordinary matters, which any one of those in the chairs outside upon +the pavement might overhear and be none the wiser. But he talked +sagely, neither parading mysteries nor pretending disclosures. He let +the mere facts of companionship and nationality work, and before +luncheon was over Strange was won by them. He longed to confide, to +justify himself before a fellow-citizen of his miserable inertness. +Over the coffee, indeed, he would have begun, but Slingsby saw the +torrent of confession coming.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you often lunch here?" he said quickly. "I do whenever I happen to +be in the town. Sit in this window for an hour and you will see all +the town paraded before you like a show, its big men and little men, +its plots and its intrigues. There, for instance," and he nodded +towards a large, stout person with a blonde moustache, "is +Rehnke--yes, that's your man. Take a good look at him."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange looked at the German hard. He looked also towards a youth who +had been sitting for the last hour over a cup of coffee and a +newspaper outside the window. Slingsby interpreted the look.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He's all right. He's trying to listen, of course. Most foreigners do, +whether they understand your language or not. And he doesn't--not a +word of it. I have been watching him. However, we may as well go, for +I would very much like you to show me your little boat."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange, eager and enthusiastic, jumped up from the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Rather," he cried. "She's not big, of course, but she can keep the +sea, especially since I strengthened her bows."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, you have done that, have you?" said Slingsby, as he paid the +bill. "That's interesting."</p> + +<p class="normal">They crossed the boulevard to the quay and went on board the +<i>Boulotte</i>. Every inch of brass on her, from the stanchions round the +deck to the engine-room telegraph, flashed, and she was varnished and +white and trim like a lady fresh from her maid.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What can you do with your forced draught?" asked Slingsby.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thirteen," replied Strange proudly. "With a good wind astern +fourteen. Once I went out past the Needles buoy----" and off he went +in a glowing account of a passage to Cherbourg at the end of a stormy +September. Slingsby never once interrupted him. He followed meekly +from the rudder to the bow, where he examined with some attention the +famous struts and cross-pieces.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have got a wireless, I see," he said, looking up to the aerial, +which, slackened and disconnected, dangled from the masthead.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. But it's a small affair. However, I can hear four hundred miles +if the night's still. I can only send seventy."</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby nodded, and the two men returned to the saloon. There, at +last, over a whisky and soda. Strange was encouraged to unload his +soul. The torture of the August nights on the Berkshire Downs above +the Thames Valley, the intolerable sense of uselessness; the feeling +that he wore a brand of shame upon his forehead for all men to see, +and the poignancy of the remorse which had shrivelled him when a +wounded soldier from Ypres or Le Cateau limped past him in the street; +all tumbled from his lips in abrupt, half-finished sentences.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Therefore I ran away," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby sat back in his chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So that's it," he said, and he laughed in a friendly fashion. "Do you +know that we have all been greatly worried about you? Oh, you have +caused a deuce of a fluttering I can tell you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange flushed scarlet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was suspected!" he cried. "Good God!" It just wanted that to +complete his utter shame. He had been worse than useless; he had given +trouble. He sat with his eyes fixed, in the depths of abasement. Then +other words were spoken to him:</p> + +<p class="normal">"How long will it take you to bring your boat to Marseilles?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You want it, then?" said Strange.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I can use you," said Slingsby. "What's more, you are necessary."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange, with a buzzing head, got out his chart from a locker and +spread it on the table. He took paper and a lead pencil and his +compasses. He marked his course and measured it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Forty-seven hours' steaming and six hours to get up steam. It's four +o'clock now, and the day's Tuesday. I can be at Marseilles on Thursday +afternoon at four."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have done a good day's work," said Major Slingsby, as he rose to +his feet, and he meant it. Slingsby was an intelligence officer as +well as an officer of intelligence, and since he had neither boats to +dispose of nor money to buy them with, Anthony Strange was a Godsend +to him. "But I don't want you until to-day week. I shall want a little +time to make arrangements with the French."</p> + +<p class="normal">The <i>Bulotte</i> steamed round the point at three o'clock on the +appointed afternoon. The pilot took her through the Naval Harbour into +the small basin where the destroyers lie, and by half-past she was +berthed against the quay. Strange had been for the best part of two +days on his bridge, but at eleven he was knocking at a certain door +without any inscription upon it in the Port office, and he was +admitted to a new Major Slingsby in a khaki uniform, with red tabs on +the collar, and clerks typewriting for dear life in a tiny room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hallo," said Slingsby. He looked into a letter-tray on the edge of +his desk and took a long envelope from it and handed it to Strange. +"You might have a look at this. I'll come on board to-morrow morning. +Meanwhile, if I were you I should go to bed, though I doubt if you'll +get much sleep."</p> + +<p class="normal">The reason for that doubt became more and more apparent as the evening +wore on. In the first place, when Strange returned, he found workmen +with drills and hammers and rivets spoiling the white foredeck of his +adored <i>Boulotte</i>. For a moment he was inclined, like Captain Hatteras +when his crew cut down his bulwarks for firewood, to stand aside and +weep, but he went forward, and when he saw the work which was going on +his heart exulted. Then he went back to the saloon, but as he +stretched himself out upon the cushions he remembered the envelope in +his pocket. It was stamped "On His Majesty's Service," and it +contained the announcement that one Anthony Strange had been granted a +commission as sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. +After that sleep was altogether out of the question. There was the +paper to be re-read at regular intervals lest its meaning should have +been misunderstood. And when its meaning was at last firmly and +joyfully fixed in Strange's mind there was the paper itself to be +guarded and continually felt, lest it should lose itself, be stolen, +or evaporate into air. Towards midnight, indeed, he did begin to doze +off, but then a lighter came alongside and dumped ten tons of Welsh +steam coal on board, all that he could hold, it's true, but that gave +him ten days' steaming at ordinary draught. And at eight o'clock to +the minute Slingsby hailed him from the quay.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will go back now to your old harbour," he said. "You have been a +little cruise down the coast, that's all. Just look out for a sailing +schooner called the <i>Santa Maria del Pilar</i>. She ought to turn up in +seven days from now to take on board a good many barrels of carbonate +of soda. I'll come by train at the same time. If she arrives before +and takes her cargo on board, you can wire to me through the Consul +and then--act on your own discretion."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange drew a long breath, and his eyes shone.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But she won't, I think," said Slingsby. "By the way, you were at +Rugby with Russell of my regiment, weren't you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you know Cowper, who was admiral out here?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, he's my uncle."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Exactly."</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange smiled. It was clear that a good many inquiries must have been +made about him over the telegraph wires during the last week.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, that's all, I think," said Slingsby. "You'll push off as soon +as you can, and good luck."</p> + +<p class="normal">But there was one further ceremony before the <i>Boulotte</i> was ready for +sea. The small crew was signed on under the Naval Discipline Act. Then +she put out, rounded the point, and headed for her destination over a +smooth sunlit sea, with, by the way, an extra hand on board and a fine +new capstan on her foredeck. Two days later she was moored in her old +position, and Strange went to bed. The excitement was over, a black +depression bore him down; he was deadly tired, and his back hurt him +exceedingly. What was he doing at all with work of this kind? If he +had to "act on his own discretion," could he do it with any sort of +profit? Such questions plagued him for two days more, whilst he lay +and suffered. But then relief came. He slept soundly and without pain, +and rose the next morning in a terror lest the <i>Santa Maria del Pilar</i> +should have come and gone. He went up on to the deck and searched the +harbour with his glasses. There was but one sailing boat taking in +cargo, and she a brigantine named the <i>Richard</i>, with the Norwegian +flag painted on her sides. Strange hurried to the Consul, and returned +with a mind at ease. The <i>Santa Maria del Pilar</i> had not yet sailed in +between the moles. Nor did she come until the next afternoon, by which +time Slingsby was on board the <i>Boulotte</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There she is," said Strange in a whisper of excitement, looking +seawards. She sailed in with the sunset and a fair wind, a white +schooner like a great golden bird of the sea, and she was nursed by a +tug into a berth on the opposite side of the harbour. Slingsby and +Strange dined at the Café de Rome and came on board again at nine. The +great globes of electric light on their high pillars about the quays +shone down upon the still, black water of the harbour. It was very +quiet. From the cockpit of the <i>Boulotte</i> the two men looked across to +the schooner.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think there's a lighter alongside of her, isn't there?" said +Slingsby.</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange, whose eyesight was remarkable, answered:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, a lighter loaded with barrels."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Some carbonate of soda," said Slingsby, with a grin. They went into +the cockpit, leaving the door open.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a hot night, and in a café beyond the trees a band was playing +the compelling music of <i>Louise</i>. Strange listened to it, deeply +stirred. Life had so changed for him that he had risen from the depths +during the last weeks. Then Slingsby raised his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Listen!"</p> + +<p class="normal">With the distant music there mingled now the creaking of a winch. +Strange extinguished the light, and both men crept out from the +cockpit. The sound came from the <i>Santa Maria del Pilar</i>, and they +could see the spar of her hoisting tackle swing out over the lighter +and inboard over the ship's deck.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She's loading," said Strange, in a low voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," answered Slingsby; "she's loading." And his voice purred like a +contented cat.</p> + +<p class="normal">He slept on a bed made up in the saloon that night. Strange in his +tiny cabin, and at nine o'clock the next morning, as they sat at +breakfast, they saw the <i>Santa Maria del Pilar</i> make for the sea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We ought to follow, oughtn't we?" said Strange anxiously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There's no hurry."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But she'll do nine knots in this breeze." Strange watched her with +the eye of knowledge as she leaned over ever so slightly from the +wind. "She might give us the slip."</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby went on eating unconcernedly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She will," he answered. "We are not after her, my friend. Got your +chart?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange fetched it from the locker and spread it out on the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you see a small island with a lighthouse?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Four miles west-south-west of the lighthouse. Got it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"How long will it take you to get to that point?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange measured his course.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Five to five and a half hours forced draught."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good. Suppose we start at six this evening."</p> + +<p class="normal">The <i>Boulotte</i> went away to the minute. At eight it began to grow +dark, but no steaming light was hoisted on the mast, and no sidelamps +betrayed her presence. In the failing light she became one with the +sea but for the tiniest wisp of smoke from her chimney, and soon the +night hid that. A lantern flashed for a while here and there on the +forward deck in the centre of a little group, and then Slingsby came +back to Strange at the wheel.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's all right," he whispered softly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nights at sea! The cool, dark tent of stars, the hiss and tinkle of +waves against the boat's side, the dinghy, slung out upon the davits, +progressing above the surface of the water, the lamp light from the +compass striking up on the brasswork of the wheel and the face of the +steersman; to nights at sea Strange owed all the spacious moments of +his crippled life. But this night was a sacred thing. He was admitted +to the band of the young strong men who serve, like a novice into the +communion of a church; and his heart sang within his breast as he kept +the <i>Boulotte</i> to her course. At a quarter past eleven he rang the +telegraph and put the indicator to "slow." Five minutes later he +stopped the engine altogether. Four miles away to the north-eastward a +light brightened and faded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We are there," he said, and he looked out over an empty sea.</p> + +<p class="normal">Under Slingsby's orders he steamed slowly round in a circle, ever +increasing the circumference, for an hour, and then the new hand--who, +by the way, was a master gunner--crept aft.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There it is, sir."</p> + +<p class="normal">A hundred yards from the port bow a dark mass floated on the sea. The +<i>Boulotte</i> slid gently alongside of it. It was a raft made of barrels +lashed together.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We have seen those barrels before, my friend," said Slingsby, his +nose wrinkling up in a grin of delight. Before daybreak the work was +done. Fifty empty barrels floated loose; there was a layer of heavy +oil over the sea and a rank smell in the air.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now," said Slingsby, In a whisper, "shall we have any luck, I +wonder?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He went forward. The capstan head had been removed, and in its place +sat a neat little automatic gun, which could fling two hundred and +seventy three-pound shells six thousand yards in a minute. For the +rest of that night the <i>Boulotte</i> lay motionless without a light +showing or a word spoken. And just as the morning came, in the very +first unearthly grey of it, a wave broke--a long, placid roller which +had no right to break in that smooth, deep sea. Slingsby dipped his +hand into the cartridge box and made sure that the band ran free; the +gunner stood with one hand on the elevating wheel, the other on the +trigger; eight hundred yards away from the <i>Boulotte</i> there was +suddenly a wild commotion of the water, and black against the misty +grey a conning tower and a long, low body of steel rose into view. +U-whatever-its-number was taken by surprise. The whole affair lasted a +few seconds. With his third shot the gunner found the range, and then, +planting his shells with precision in a level line like the +perforations of a postage stamp, he ripped the submarine from +amidships to its nose. Strange had a vision for a second of a couple +of men trying to climb out from the conning tower, and then the nose +went up in the air like the snout of some monstrous fish, and the sea +gulped it down.</p> + +<p class="normal">"One of 'em," said Slingsby. "But we won't mention it. Lucky you saw +those red streaks, my friend. If a destroyer had come prowling up this +coast instead of the harmless little <i>Boulotte</i> there wouldn't have +been any raft on the sea or any submarine just here under the sea. +What about breakfast?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Strange set the boat's course for Marseilles, and the rest of that +voyage was remarkable only for a clear illustration of the difference +between the amateur and the professional. For whereas Strange could +not for the life of him keep still during one minute, Slingsby, +stretched at his ease on the saloon sofa, beguiled the time with +quotations from the "Bab Ballads" and "Departmental Ditties."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>RAYMOND BYATT</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_raymond" href="#div1Ref_raymond">RAYMOND BYATT</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Dorman Royle was the oddest hero for such an adventure. He followed +the profession of a solicitor, and the business he did was like +himself, responsible and a trifle heavy. No piratical dashes into the +Law Courts in the hope of a great haul were encouraged in his office. +Clients as regular in their morals as in their payments alone sought +his trustworthy and prosaic advice. Dorman Royle, in a word, was the +last man you would think ever to feel the hair lifting upon his scalp +or his heart sinking down into a fathomless pit of terror. Yet to him, +nevertheless, these sensations happened. It may be that he was +specially chosen just because of his unflighty qualities; that, at all +events, became his own conviction. Certainly those qualities stood him +in good stead. This, however, is surmise. The facts are beyond all +dispute.</p> + +<p class="normal">In June, Royle called upon his friend Henry Groome, and explained that +he wanted Groome's country house for the summer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But it's very lonely," said Groome.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't mind that," replied Dorman Royle, and his face beamed with +the smile at once proud and sheepish and a little fatuous which has +only meant one thing since the beginning of the world.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are going to be married!" said Groome.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How in the world did you guess?" asked Royle; but it must be supposed +that there had been some little note of regret or jealousy in his +friend's voice, for the smile died away, and he nodded his head in +comprehension.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, old man. That's the way of it. It's the snapping of the old +ties--not a doubt. I shall meet you from time to time at the club in +the afternoon, and you will dine with us whenever you care to. But we +shall not talk very intimately any more of matters which concern us. +We shall be just a trifle on our guard against each other. A woman +means that--yes. However, I do what I can. I borrow your house for my +honeymoon."</p> + +<p class="normal">Groome heard the speech with surprise. He had not expected to be +understood with so much accuracy. He seemed to be looking at a new +man--a stranger, almost certainly no longer his friend, but a man who +had put friendship behind him and had reached out and grasped a +treasure which had transfigured all his world.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And whom are you going to marry?" Groome asked; and the answer +surprised him still more.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina Fayle."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina--you don't mean----?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I do," said Royle, and the note of his voice was a challenge. +But Groome did not take it up. Ina Fayle, of course, he knew by sight +and by reputation, as who in London at that time did not? She was a +young actress who had not been content to be beautiful.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, she's a worker," suddenly said Royle. "She has had to work since +she was sixteen, and what she is, sheer industry has made her. Now she +is going to give up all her success."</p> + +<p class="normal">Groome wondered for a moment how in the world she could bring herself +to do it. A girl of twenty-three, she had gained already so much +success that she must find the world a very pleasant place. She had +the joy of doing superbly the work she loved, and a reward besides, +tremendous because so immediate, in the adoration of the public, in +the great salary after she had been poor, and while she was young +enough to enjoy every penny of it. Groome was still wondering when +once more Royle broke in upon him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. It's the sort of renunciation which is much more surprising in a +girl than it would be in a man. For the art of the stage is of much +the same stuff as a woman's natural life, isn't it? I mean that +beauty, grace, the trick of wearing clothes, the power of swift +response to another's moods, play the same large part in both. But, +you see, she has character, as well as gifts--that's the explanation."</p> + +<p class="normal">Royle looked at his watch.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come and see her, will you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. I promised that I would bring you round," and as he got up from +his chair he added: "Oh, by the way, as to your house, I ought to have +told you. Ina has a dog--a black spaniel--do you mind?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not a bit," said Groome, and he put on his hat.</p> + +<p class="normal">The two men walked northwards, Royle at once extremely shy and +inordinately proud. They crossed the Marylebone Road into Regent's +Park.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's her house," said Royle, "the one at the end of the terrace."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ina Fayle lived with a companion; she was not quite so tall as Groome, +who had only seen her upon the stage, expected her to be. He had +thought to find a woman a trifle cadaverous and sallow. But she had +the clear eyes and complexion of a child, and her wealth of fair, +shining hair spoke of a resplendent health. She came across the room +and took Groome into a window.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You know Dorman very well, don't you? I want to show you something I +have bought for him. Oh, it's nothing--but do you think he will like +it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She was simple and direct in her manner, with more of the comrade than +the woman. She showed Groome a gold cigarette-case.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course it will do. But you have already made him a better +wedding-gift than that," said Groome.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I?" Her forehead puckered in a frown. "What gift?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A very remarkable gift of insight, which he never had before."</p> + +<p class="normal">She coloured a little with pleasure, and her eyes and her voice +softened together.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am very glad," she answered. "One takes a great deal. It is +pleasant to give something in return."</p> + +<p class="normal">Dorman Royle and Ina Fayle were duly married towards the end of the +month, and began their life together in the house which Groome had +lent them.</p> + +<p class="normal">It stood on the top of a hill amongst bare uplands above the valley of +the Thames, in a garden of roses and green lawns. But the house was +new, and the trees about it small and of Groome's own planting, so +that every whisper of wind became a breeze up there, and whistled +about the windows. On the other hand, if the wind was still there was +nowhere a place more quiet, and the slightest sound which would never +have been heard in a street rang out loud with the presumption of a +boast. Especially this was so at night. The roar of the great trains +racing down to the west cleft the air like thunder; yet your eyes +could only see far away down in the river-valley, a tiny line of +bright lights winking amongst the trees. In this spot they stayed for +a week, and then Ina showed her husband a telegram summoning her to +the bedside of her mother.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's not very serious, as you see," she said. "But she wants me, and +I think that for a day or two I must go."</p> + +<p class="normal">She went the next morning. Dorman Royle was left alone, and was +thoroughly bored until late on the night before Ina's return. It was, +in fact, not far from twelve o'clock when Royle began to be +interested. He was sitting in the library when he heard very +distinctly through the open window a metallic click. The sound was +unmistakable. Somewhere in the garden a gate had been opened and +allowed to swing back. What he had heard was the latch catching in the +socket. He was interested in his book, and for a moment paid no heed +to the sound. But after a second or two he began to wonder who at this +hour in that lonely garden had opened a gate. He sat up and listened +but the sound was not repeated. He was inclined to think, clear and +distinct though the sound had been, that he had imagined it, when his +eyes fell upon Ina's black spaniel. He could no longer believe in any +delusion of his senses. For the dog had heard the sound too. He had +been lying curled up on the varnished boards at the edge of the room, +his black, shining coat making him invisible to a careless glance. Now +he was sitting up, his ears cocked and his eyes upon the window with +the extraordinary intentness which dogs display.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dorman Royle rose from his chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come," he said, in a whisper, but the spaniel did not move. He sat +with his nose raised and the lip of the lower jaw trembling, and his +eyes still fixed upon the window. Royle walked softly to the door of +the room. It opened on to a hall paved with black and white stone +which took up the middle part of the house. Upon his right a door +opened on to the drive, on his left another led out to a loggia and a +terrace. Royle opened this second door and called again in a whisper +to the spaniel:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come, Duke! Seek him out!"</p> + +<p class="normal">This time the dog obeyed, running swiftly past his legs into the open +air. Royle followed. It was a bright, moonlit night, the stars hardly +visible in the clear sky. Royle looked out across the broad valley to +the forest-covered Chilterus, misty in the distance. Not a breath of +wind was stirring; the trees stood as though they had been metal. +Three brick steps led from the terrace to the tennis-lawn. On the +opposite side of the tennis-lawn a small gate opened on to a paddock +It was this gate which had opened and swung to. But there was no one +now on the lawn or in the paddock, and no tree stood near which could +shade an intruder. Royle looked at the dog. He stood upon the edge of +the terrace staring out over the lawn; Royle knew him to be a good +house-dog, yet now not a growl escaped him. He stood waiting to leap +forward--yes, but waiting also for a friendly call from a familiar +voice before he leapt forward; and as Royle realised that a strange +thought came to him. He had been lonely these last days; hardly a +moment had passed but he had been conscious of the absence of Ina; +hardly a moment when his heart had not ached for her and called her +back. What if he had succeeded? He played with the question as he +stood there in the quiet moonlight upon the paved terrace. It was she +who had sped across the paddock twelve hours before her time and +opened the gate. She had come so eagerly that she had not troubled to +close it. She had let it swing sharply to behind her. She was here +now, at his side. He reached out a hand to touch her, and take hers; +and suddenly he became aware that he was no longer playing with a +fancy--that he believed it. She was really here, close to him. He +could not see her--no. But that was his fault. There was too much +dross in Dorman Royle as yet for so supreme a gift. But that would +follow--follow with the greater knowledge of her which their life +together would bring.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come, Duke," he said, and he went back into the house and sat late in +the smoking-room, filled with the wonder of this new, strange life +that was to be his. A month ago and now! He measured the difference of +stature between the Dorman Royle of those days and the Dorman Royle of +to-day, and he was sunk in humility and gratitude. But a few hours +later that night his mood changed. He waked up in the dark, and, +between sleep and consciousness, was aware of some regular, measured +movement in the room. In a moment he became wide awake, and understood +what had aroused him. The spaniel, lying on the coverlet at the foot +of the bed, was thumping with his tail--just as if someone he loved +was by him, fondling him. Royle sat up; the bed shook and creaked +under him, but the dog paid no heed at all. He went on wagging his +tail in the silence and darkness of the room. Someone must be there, +and suddenly Royle cried aloud, impetuously, so that he was surprised +to hear his own voice:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina! Ina!" and he listened, with his arms outstretched.</p> + +<p class="normal">But no answer came at all. It seemed that he had rashly broken a +spell. For the dog became still. Royle struck a match and lighted the +candle by his bed, straining his eyes to the corners of the room. But +there was no one visible.</p> + +<p class="normal">He blew out the candle and lay down again, and the darkness blotted +out all the room. But he could not sleep; and--and--he was very +careful not to move. It was not fear which kept him still--though fear +came later---but a thrilling expectation. He was on the threshold of a +new world. He had been made conscious of it already; now he was to +enter it--to see. But he saw nothing. Only in a little while the +spaniel's tail began once more to thump gently and regularly upon the +bed. It was just as if the dog had waited for him to go to sleep +before it once more resumed its invisible communion. This time he +spoke to the dog.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Duke!" he whispered, and he struck a match. The spaniel was lying +upon his belly, his neck stretched out, his jaws resting upon his +paws. "Duke, what is it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The animal raised its head and turned a little to one side. The human +voice could not have said more clearly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"What's the matter? You are interrupting us."</p> + +<p class="normal">The match burned out between his forefinger and thumb. Royle did not +light another. He laid himself down again. But the pleasant fancy born +in him upon the moonlit terrace had gone altogether from his thoughts. +There was something to him rather sinister in the notion of the dog +waiting for him to go to sleep and then, without moving from its +place--so certain it was of the neighbourhood of some unseen being to +whom it gave allegiance--resuming a strange companionship. He no +longer thought of Ina--Ina as the visitor. He began to wonder how the +dog had come to her, who had owned it before her. He plunged into +vague and uncomfortable surmises. No doubt the darkness, the silence +of the night, and his own sleeplessness had their effects. He lay in a +strange exaltation of spirit, which deepened slowly and gradually into +fear. Yes, he was afraid now. He had a sense of danger, all the more +alarming because it was reasonless. There were low breathings about +his bed; now some one bent over him, now a hand lightly touched the +coverlet. He, the most unimpressionable of men, rejoiced when a grey +beam of light shot through a chink of the curtain and spread like a +fan into the room. He turned over on his side and slept until the sun +was high.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the clear light of a July morning Royle's thoughts took on a more +sober colour. None the less, he made a cautious inquiry or two that +day from the gardener, and from the shops in the village. The answer +in each case was the same.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The house had no history, no traditions. It had only been built ten +years back. There was nothing but a field then where the house now +stood. Even the trees had been planted at the time the house was +built."</p> + +<p class="normal">Indeed, the assurance was hardly needed; for the house was new and +bright as a hospital. There was hardly a dark corner anywhere, +certainly nowhere a harbour for dark thoughts. Royle began to revert +to his original fancy; and when that evening his wife returned, he +asked her:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Last night, just before midnight--what were you doing?"</p> + +<p class="normal">They were together in a small library upon the first floor, a room +with big windows opening upon the side of the house. The night was hot +and the windows stood open, and close to one of them at a little table +Ina was writing a letter. She looked up with a smile.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Last night--just before midnight? I was asleep."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Some note of urgency in his voice made her smile waver. It disappeared +altogether as she gazed at him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course," she answered, slowly, "I am sure;" and then, after a +little pause and with a slight but a noticeable hesitation, she added: +"Why do you ask?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Dorman Royle crossed over to her side and most unwisely told her:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because at midnight the gate into the paddock was opened and swung to +without any hand to touch it. I had been thinking of you, Ina--wanting +you--and I wondered."</p> + +<p class="normal">He spoke half in jest, but there was no jesting reply. For a little +while, indeed, Ina did not answer him at all. He was standing just a +step behind her as she sat at the table in the window, so that he +could not see her face. But her body stiffened.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It must have been a delusion," she said, and he walked forward and +sat down in a chair by the table facing her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"If so, it was a delusion which the dog shared."</p> + +<p class="normal">She did not change her attitude; she did not stir. From head to foot +she sat as though carved in stone. Nor did her face tell him anything. +It became a mask; it seemed to him that she forced all expression out +of it, by some miracle of self-command. But her eyes shone more than +usually big, more than usually luminous; and they held their secret +too, if they had a secret to hold. Then she leaned forward and touched +his sleeve.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me!" she said, and she had trouble to find her voice; and, +having found it, she could not keep it steady.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sorry, Ina," he said. "You are frightened. I should not have +said a word."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you have," she replied. "Now I must know the rest."</p> + +<p class="normal">He told her all that there was to tell. Reduced to the simple terms of +narrative, the story sounded, even to him, thin and unconvincing. +There was so little of fact and event, so much of suggestion and vague +emotion. But his recollection was still vivid, and something of the +queer terror which he had felt as he had lain in the darkness was +expressed in his aspect and in the vibrations of his voice. So, at all +events, he judged. For he had almost expected her to laugh at the +solemnity of his manner, and yet Ina did not so much as smile. She +listened without even astonishment, paying close heed to every word, +now and then nodding her head in assent, but never interrupting. He +was vaguely reminded of clients listening to his advice in some grave +crisis of their affairs. But when he had finished she made no comment. +She just sat still and rigid, gazing at him with baffling and +inscrutable eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">Dorman Royle rose. "So it wasn't you, Ina, who returned last night?" +he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she answered, in a voice which was low, but now quite clear and +steady. "I slept soundly last night--much more soundly than I usually +do."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's strange," said Royle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't think so," Ina answered. "I think it follows. <i>I was let +alone</i>. Yes, that's all of a piece with your story, don't you see?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Dorman Royle sprang up, and at his abrupt movement his wife's face +flashed into life and fear.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What are you saying?" he cried, and she shrank as if she realised now +what a dangerous phrase she had allowed her lips to utter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing, nothing!" she exclaimed, and she set herself obstinately to +her letter.</p> + +<p class="normal">Royle looked at the clock.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's late," he said. "I'll take the dog out for a run."</p> + +<p class="normal">He went downstairs and out at the front of the house. To-night the air +was mistier, and the moon sailed through a fleece of clouds. Royle +walked to a gate on the edge of the hill. It may have been a quarter +of an hour before he whistled to the dog and turned back to the house. +From the gate to the house was perhaps a hundred yards, and as he +walked back first one, then another, of the windows of the library +upon the first floor came within his view. These windows stood wide +open to the night, and showed him, as in a miniature, this and that +corner of the room, the bookcases, the lamps upon the tables, and the +top-rails of the chair-backs, small but very clear. The one window +which he could not as yet see at all was that in which his wife sat. +For it was at the far end of the room and almost over the front door. +Royle came within view of it at last, and stopped dead. He gazed at +the window with amazement. Ina was still sitting at the writing-table +in the window, but she was no longer alone. Just where he himself had +stood a few minutes before, a step behind her shoulder, another man +was now standing--a man with a strong, rather square, dark face, under +a mane of black hair. He wore a dinner-jacket and a black tie, and he +was bending forward and talking to Ina very earnestly. Ina herself sat +with her hands pressed upon her face and her body huddled in her +chair, not answering, but beaten down by the earnestness of the +stranger's pleading. Thus they appeared within the frame of the +window, both extraordinarily distinct to Royle watching outside there +in the darkness. He could see the muscles working in the stranger's +face and the twitching of Ina's hands, but he could hear nothing. The +man was speaking in too low a voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">Royle did not move.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I know the man," he was saying to himself. "I have seen him, at +all events. Where? Where?" And suddenly he remembered. It was at the +time of a General Election. He had arrived at King's Cross Station +from Scotland late one night, and, walking along the Marylebone +Road, he had been attracted by a throng of people standing about a +lamp-post, and above the throng the head and shoulders of a man +addressing it had been thrown into a clear light. He had stopped for a +moment to listen; He had asked a question of his neighbour. Yes, the +speaker was one of the candidates, and he was the man who now stood by +Ina's side.</p> + +<p class="normal">Royle tried to remember the name, but he could not. Then he began to +wonder whence the stranger had come. It was a good two miles to the +village. How, too, had he managed to get into the house? The servants +had gone to bed an hour before Royle had come out. The hall-door stood +open now. He had left it open. The man must have been waiting some +such opportunity--as he had done no doubt last night. Such a passion +of anger and jealousy flamed up in Royle as he had never known. He ran +into the hall and shot the bolts. He hurried up the stairs and flung +open the door. Ina was still sitting at the table, but she had +withdrawn her hands from her face, and, but for her, the room was +empty.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina!" he cried, and she turned to him. Her face was quiet, her eyes +steady; there was a smile upon her lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She sat just as he had left her. Looking at her in his bewilderment, +he almost came to believe that his eyes had tricked him, that thus she +had sat all this while. Almost! For the violence of his cry had been +unmistakable, and she did not ask for the reason of it. He was out of +breath, too, his face no doubt disordered; yet she put no question; +she sat and smiled--tenderly. Yes, that was the word. Dorman Royle +stood in front of her. It seemed to him that his happiness was +crumbling down in ruins about him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina!" he repeated, and the dog barked for admission underneath the +window. The current of his thoughts was altered by the sound. His +passion fell away from him. It seemed to him that he dived under ice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He sat quietly down in the chair on the other side of that table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have had that dog some time?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"How did you get it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The answer came quite steadily but slowly, and after a long silence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A friend gave it to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who?"</p> + +<p class="normal">There was no longer any smile upon the girl's face. Nor, on the other +hand, was there any fear. Her eyes never for a second wavered from +his.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why do you ask?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am curious," replied Royle. "Who?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Raymond Byatt."</p> + +<p class="normal">The name conveyed nothing to Royle. He did not even recollect it. But +he spoke as if it were quite familiar to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Raymond Byatt? Didn't he stand for Parliament once in Marylebone?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. He was defeated."</p> + +<p class="normal">Royle rose from his chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, I had better go down and let the dog in," he said, and he went +to the door, where he turned to her again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But if he's a friend of yours, you should ask him down," he remarked. +Ina drew herself up in her chair, her hands clinging to the arms of +it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He killed himself a fortnight ago."</p> + +<p class="normal">The answer turned Royle into a figure of stone. The two people stared +at one another across the room in a dreadful silence; and it seemed as +if, having once spoken, Ina was forced by some terrible burden of +anguish to speak yet more.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she continued in a whisper, "a week before we married."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you care for him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Ina shook her head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Never."</p> + +<p class="normal">There were words upon the tip of Royle's tongue--words of bitterness:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was he who came back last night. He came back for you. He was with +you to-night--the moment after I left you. I saw him." But he knew +they would be irrevocable words, and with an effort he held his +tongue. He went downstairs and let the dog in. When he returned to the +library Ina was standing up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I'll go to bed," she said, and her voice pleaded for silence. "I am +tired. I have had a long journey;" and he let her go without a word.</p> + +<p class="normal">He sat late himself, wondering what in the morning he should do. The +house had become horrible to him. And unless Ina told him all there +was to tell, how could they go on side by side anywhere? When he went +upstairs Ina was in bed and asleep. He left the door wide open between +her room and his and turned in himself. But he slept lightly, and at +some time that night, whilst it was still dark, he was roused to +wakefulness. A light was burning in his wife's room, and through the +doorway he could see her. She had in her hand the glass of water which +usually stood on a little table beside her bed, and she was measuring +out into it from a bottle some crystals. He knew that they were +chloral crystals, for, since she slept badly, she always kept them by +her. He watched her shaking out the dose, and as he watched such a +fear clutched at his heart as made all the other terrors of that night +pale and of no account. Ina was measuring out deliberately enough +chloral into that tumbler of water to kill a company. Very cautiously +he drew himself up in his bed. He heard the girl stifle a sob, and as +she waited for the crystals to dissolve her face took on a look of +grief and despair which he had never in his life seen before. He +sprang out of bed, and in an instant was at her side. With a cry Ina +raised the glass to her lips, but his hand was already upon her wrist.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let me go!" she cried, and she struggled to free herself. But he took +the glass from her, and suddenly all her self-command gave way in a +passion of tears. She became a frightened child. Her hands sought him, +she hid her face from him, and she would not let him go.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina," he whispered, "what were you doing?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was following," she said. "I had to. He stands by me, always, +commanding me." And she shook like one in a fever.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good God!" he cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, I have fought," she sobbed, "but he's winning. Yes, that's the +truth. Sooner or later I shall have to follow."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me everything," said Royle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">But he held her close within the comfort of his arms and wrestled for +her and for himself. Gradually the story was told to him in broken +sentences and with long silences between them, during which she lay in +his clasp and shivered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He wanted me to marry him. But I wouldn't. He had a sort of power +over me--the power of a bully who cares very much," she said; and a +little later she gave the strangest glimpse of the man. He would +hardly have believed it; but he had seen the man, and the story fitted +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was in Paris for a few days--alone with my maid. I went to see a +play which was to be translated for me. He was in the same hotel, +quite alone as I was. It was after I had kept on refusing him. He +seemed horribly lonely--that was part of his power. I never saw anyone +who lived so completely in loneliness. He was shut away in it as if in +some prison of glass through which you could see but not hear. It made +him tragic--pitiful. I went up to him in the lounge and asked if we +couldn't be just friends, since we were both there alone. You'll never +imagine what he did. He stared at me without answering at all. He just +walked away and went to the hotel manager. He asked him how it was +that he allowed women in his hotel who came up and spoke to +strangers."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina--he didn't!" cried Royle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He did. Luckily the manager knew me. And that night, though he +wouldn't speak to me in the lounge, he wrote me a terrible letter. +Then, when you and I were engaged, he killed himself--just a week +before we married. He tried to do it twice. He went down to an hotel +at Aylesbury and sat up all night, trying to do it. But the morning +came and he had failed. The servant who called him found him sitting +in his bedroom at the writing-table at which he had left him the night +before; and all night he had written not one word. Next day he went to +another hotel on the South Coast, and all that night he waited. But in +the morning--after he had been called--quite suddenly he found the +courage--yes----" and Ina's voice trailed away into silence. In a +little while she began again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ever since he has been at my side, saying 'I did it because of you. +You must follow.' There was the chloral always ready. I found myself +night after night, when you were asleep, reaching out my hand +obediently towards it--towards it----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Except last night," Royle interrupted, suddenly finding at last the +explanation of some words of hers which had puzzled him, "when he came +here, and you were away."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I slept soundly in consequence," she agreed. "Yes. But +to-night--if you hadn't been here--I should have obeyed altogether."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I am here," said Royle, gently; and, looking up, he saw that the +morning had come. He rose and pulled aside the curtains so that the +clear light flooded the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ina, do something for me," he pleaded, and she understood. She took +the bottle of crystals, poured them into the basin, and set the tap +running.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Stay with me," she said. "Now that I have told you, I believe that I +shall sleep, and sleep without fear. When you came into the room +before I was only pretending."</p> + +<p class="normal">She nestled down, and this time she did sleep. It seemed to Royle that +the victory was won.</p> + +<p class="normal">Some months later, however, a client talking over his affairs with +Royle in his private office mentioned Raymond Byatt's name. Royle +leaned forward with a start.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You knew that man?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," replied the client with a laugh. "He forged my name for a +thousand pounds--and not mine alone. He was clever with his pen. But +he came to the end of his tether at last. He saved himself from penal +servitude by blowing his brains out."</p> + +<p class="normal">Royle jumped out of his chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that true?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Absolutely."</p> + +<p class="normal">And Royle sat down suddenly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's the best piece of news I have ever had in my life," he cried. +Now for a sure thing the victory was his. He went home that evening in +the highest spirits.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you think, Ina, I discovered to-day?" he blurted out. "You'll +be as glad to hear as I was. Raymond Byatt didn't kill himself for +you, after all. He did it to save himself from a prosecution for +forgery."</p> + +<p class="normal">There was a moment's silence, and then Ina replied:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Indeed!" and that was all. But Dorman Royle, to his perplexity, +detected a certain unexpected iciness in her voice. Somehow that new +insight which Groome had discovered in him had on this evening failed +him altogether.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE CRYSTAL TRENCH</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_crystal" href="#div1Ref_crystal">THE CRYSTAL TRENCH</a></h2> +<br> + +<h3>I</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">It was late in the season, and for the best part of a week the weather +had been disheartening. Even to-day, though there had been no rain +since last night, the mists swirled in masses over a sunless valley +green as spring, and the hill-sides ran with water. It pleased Dennis +Challoner, however, to believe that better times were coming. He stood +at a window of the Riffelalp Hotel, and imagined breaches in the dark +canopy of cloud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he said, hopefully, "the weather is taking up."</p> + +<p class="normal">He was speaking to a young girl whose name he did not know, a +desultory acquaintance made during the twelve hours which he had +passed at the hotel.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I believe it is," she answered. She looked out of the window at two +men who were sitting disconsolately on a bench. "Those are your men, +aren't they? So you climb with guides!"</p> + +<p class="normal">There was, a note of deprecation in her voice quite unmistakable. She +was trying not to show scorn, but the scorn was a little too strong +for her. Challoner laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do. With guides I can go where I like, when I like. I don't have to +hunt for companions or make arrangements beforehand. I have climbed +with the Blauers for five years now, and we know each other's ways."</p> + +<p class="normal">He broke off, conscious that in her eyes he was making rather feeble +excuses to cover his timidity and incompetence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have no doubt you are quite right," she replied. There was a gentle +indulgence in her voice, and a smile upon her lips which cried as +plainly as words, "I could tell you something if I chose." But she was +content to keep her triumphant secret to herself. She laid her hand +upon the ledge of the window, and beat a little tattoo with her +finger-tips, so that Challoner could not but look at them. When he +looked he understood why she thus called his attention. She wore a +wedding-ring.</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner was surprised. For she was just a tall slip of a girl. He +put her age at nineteen or less. She was clear-eyed and pretty, with +the tremendous confidence of one who looks out at life from the secure +shelter of a school-room. Then, with too conscious an unconsciousness, +she turned away, and Challoner saw no more of her that day.</p> + +<p class="normal">But the hotel was still full, though most of the climbers had gone, +and in the garden looking over the valley of Zermatt, at six o'clock +that evening, a commotion broke out about the big telescope. Challoner +was discussing plans for the morrow with his guides by the parapet at +the time, and the three men turned as one towards the centre of the +clamour. A German tourist was gesticulating excitedly amidst a group +of his compatriots. He broke through the group and came towards +Challoner, beaming like a man with good news.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You should see--through the telescope--since you climb. It is very +interesting. But you must be quick, or the clouds will close in +again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you mean?" Challoner asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There, on the top of the Weisshorn, I saw two men."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now? At six o'clock in the evening--on a day of storm?" Challoner +cried. "It's impossible."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I have seen them, I tell you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner turned and looked down and across the valley. The great +curtain of cloud hung down in front of the hills like wool. The lower +slopes of dark green met it, and on them the black pines marched up +into the mist. Of rock and glacier and soaring snow not an inch was +visible. But the tourist clung to his story.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is my first visit to the mountains. I was never free before, and I +must go down to-morrow morning. I thought that even now I should never +see them--all the time I have been here the weather has been terrible. +But at the last moment I have had the good fortune. Oh, I am very +pleased."</p> + +<p class="normal">The enthusiasm of this middle-aged German business man, an enthusiasm +childlike as it was sincere, did not surprise Challoner. He looked +upon that as natural. But he doubted the truth of the man's vision. He +wanted so much to see what he saw.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me exactly what you saw," Challoner asked, and this was the +story which the tourist told.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was looking through the telescope when suddenly the clouds thinned, +and through a film of vapour he saw, very far away and dimly, a +soaring line of black like a jagged reef, and a great white slope more +solid than the clouds, and holding light. He kept his eye to the lens, +hoping with all his soul that the wonderful vision might be vouchsafed +to him, and as he looked, the screen of vapour vanished, and he saw +quite clearly the exquisite silver pyramid of the Weisshorn soaring up +alone in the depths of a great cavern of grey cloud. For a little +while he continued to watch, hoping for a ray of sunlight to complete +a picture which he was never to forget, and then, to his amazement and +delight, two men climbed suddenly into his vision on to the top of the +peak. They came from the south or the south-west.</p> + +<p class="normal">"By the Schalligrat!" exclaimed Challoner. "It's not possible!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," the tourist protested. He was sure. There was no illusion at +all. The two men did not halt for a second on the top. They crossed +it, and began to descend the long ridge towards the St. Nicholas +valley.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sure," he continued. "One of the climbers, the one in front, was +moving very slowly and uncertainly like a man in an extremity of +weakness. The last was strong. I saw him lift the rope between them, +which was slack, and shake the snow off it----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You saw that?" exclaimed Challoner. "What then?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing. The clouds closed again over the peak, and I saw no more."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner had listened to the story with a growing anxiety. He took +the chair behind the telescope, and sat with his eye to the lens for a +long while. But he saw only writhing mists in a failing light. He rose +and moved away. There was no mountaineer that day in the hotel except +himself. Not one of the group about the telescope quite understood the +gravity of the story which had been told them--if it were true. But it +could not be true, Challoner assured himself.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was just possible, of course, that on a fine day some party which +had adventured upon a new ascent might find itself on the top of the +Weisshorn at six o'clock in the evening. But on a day like this no man +in his senses would be on any ridge or face of that mountain at all, +even in the morning. Yet the tourist's story was circumstantial. That +was the fact which troubled Challoner. The traverse of the Weisshorn +from the Schallijoch, for instance, was one of the known difficult +climbs of the Pennine Alps. There was that little detail, too, of the +last man shaking the snow from the slack of the rope. But no doubt the +tourist had read the year-books of the Austrian Alpine Club. Certainly +he must have been mistaken. He wanted to see; therefore he saw. It was +inconceivable that the story should be true.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus Challoner thought all through that evening and the next day. But +as he left the dining-room the manageress met him with a grave face, +and asked him into her office. She closed the door when he had entered +the room, and said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"There has been an accident."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner's thoughts flew back to the story of the tourist.</p> + +<p class="normal">"On the Weisshorn?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. It is terrible!" And the woman sat down, while the tears came +into her eyes and ran down her cheeks.</p> + +<p class="normal">Two young Englishmen, it appeared, Mark Frobisher and George Liston, +had come up from the valley a week ago. They would not hear of guides. +They had climbed from Wasdale Head and in the Snowdon range. The +Alpine Club was a body of old fogies. They did not think much of the +Alps.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They were so young--boys! Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A wife?" exclaimed Challoner.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. She was still younger than he was, and she spoke as he +did--knowing nothing, but full of pride in her husband, and quite +confident in his judgment. They were children--that is the truth--and +very likely we might have persuaded them that they were wrong--if only +Herr Ranks had not come, too, from Vienna about the same time."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner began dimly to understand the tragedy which had happened. +Ranks was well known amongst mountaineers. Forty years old, the right +age for endurance, he was known for a passion for long expeditions +undertaken with very small equipment; and for a rather dangerous +indifference as to the companions he climbed with. He had at once +proposed the Schalligrat ascent to the two Englishmen. They had gone +down to Randa, slept the night there, and in bad weather had walked up +to the Weisshorn hut, with provisions for three days. Nothing more had +been heard of the party until this very afternoon, when Ranks and +George Listen, both exhausted and the latter terribly frost-bitten, +staggered into the Randa hotel.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's terrible," said Challoner. But still more terrible was the +story which the Austrian had to tell. He had written it out at once +very briefly, and sent it up to the Riffelalp. The manageress handed +the letter to Challoner.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We stayed in the hut two days," it ran, "hoping that the weather +would lift. The next morning there were promising signs, and taking +our blankets we crossed the Schalliberg glacier, and camped on the +usual spur of the Schallihorn. We had very little food left, and I +know now that we ought to have returned to Randa. But I did not think +of the youth of my companions. It was very cold during the night, but +no snow fell, and in the morning there was a gleam of sunshine. +Accordingly we started, and reached the Schallijoch in four hours and +a half. Under the top of the col we breakfasted, and then attacked the +ridge. The going was very difficult; there was often a glaze of black +ice upon the rocks, and as not one of us knew the ridge at all, we +wasted much time in trying to traverse some of the bigger gendarmes on +the western side, whereas they were only possible on the east. +Moreover, the sunlight did not keep its promise: it went out +altogether at half-past ten; the ridge became bitterly and dangerously +cold, and soon after midday the wind rose. We dared not stop anywhere, +and our food was now altogether exhausted. At two o'clock we found a +shelter under a huge tower of red rock, and there we rested. Frobisher +complained of exhaustion, and was clearly very weak. Liston was +stronger, but not in a condition for a climb which I think must always +be difficult and was now hazardous in the extreme. The cold had made +him very sleepy. We called a council of war. But it was quite evident +to me that we could not get down in the state in which we were, and +that a night upon the ridge without food or drink was not to be +thought of. I was certain that we were not very far from the top, and +I persuaded my friends to go forward. I climbed up and over the red +tower by a small winding crack in its face, and with great difficulty +managed, by the help of the rope, to draw my friends up after me. But +this one tower took more than an hour to cross, and on a little +snow-col like a knife-edge on the farther side of it, Frobisher +collapsed altogether. What with the cold and his exhaustion his heart +gave out. I swear that we stayed with him until he died--yes, I swear +it--although the wind was very dangerous to the rest of us, and he was +evidently dying. We stayed with him--yes. When all was over, I tied +him by the waist with a piece of spare rope we carried to a splinter +of rock which cropped out of the col, and went on with Liston. I did +not think that we should either of us now escape, but the rock-towers +upon the arête came to an end at last, and at six o'clock we stood on +the mountain-top. Then we changed the order, Liston going now first +down the easy eastern ridge. The snow was granulated and did not bind, +and we made very slow progress. We stopped for the night at a height, +I should think, of thirteen thousand feet, with very little protection +from the wind. The cold was terrible, and I did not think that Liston +would live through the night. But he did, and today there was +sunlight, and warmth in the sunlight, so that moving very carefully we +got down to the hut by midday. There, by a happy chance, we found some +crusts and odds and ends of food which we had left behind; and after a +rest were able to come on to Randa, getting some milk at the half-way +chalet on the way down. Liston is frost-bitten in the feet and hands, +but I think will be able to be moved down to the clinic at Lucerne in +a couple of days. It is all my fault. Yes. I say that frankly. I alone +am to blame. I take it all upon my shoulders. You can say so freely at +the Riffelalp. 'Ranks takes all the blame.' I shall indeed write +to-morrow to the Zurich papers to say that the fault is mine."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner read the message through again. The assumption of +magnanimity in the last few lines was singularly displeasing, and the +eager assertion that the party had not left Frobisher until he was +actually dead seemed to protest overmuch.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's a bad letter," said Challoner. "He left Frobisher still alive +upon the ridge," and the desolation of that death in the cold and the +darkness and the utter loneliness of those storm-riven pinnacles +soaring above the world seemed to him appalling. But the manageress +had no thoughts to spare for the letter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who will tell her?" she asked, rocking her body to and fro, and +fixing her troubled eyes on Challoner. "It is you. You are her +countryman."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner was startled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I told you. Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him. Yes. They had only +been married a couple of months. She is a year or two younger than he +is--a child. Oh, and she was so proud of him. For my part I did not +like him very much. I would not have trusted him with the happiness of +anyone I cared for. But she had given him all her heart. And now she +must be told!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is in the hotel now?" Challoner asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. You were talking to her yesterday."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner did not need the answer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well. I will tell her." And he turned away, his heart sick at +the task which lay before him. But before he had reached the door the +woman called him back.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Could we not give her just one more night of confidence and +contentment? Nothing can be done until to-morrow. No one in the hotel +knows but you and I. She will have sorrow enough. She need not begin +to suffer before she must. Just one more night of quiet sleep."</p> + +<p class="normal">So she pleaded, and Challoner clutched at the plea. He was twenty-six, +and up to the moment life had hidden from him her stern ordeals. How +should he break the news? He needed time carefully to prepare the way. +He shrank from the vision of the pain which he must inflict.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, it can all wait until to-morrow," he said, and he went out of +the office into the hall. There was a sound of music in the big +drawing-room--a waltz, and the visitors were dancing to it. The noise +jarred upon his ears, and he crossed towards the garden door in order +to escape from it. But to reach the garden he had to pass the +ballroom, and as he passed it he looked in, and the irony of the world +shocked him so that he stood staring upon the company with a white +face and open-mouthed. Frobisher's widow was dancing. She was dancing +with all the supple grace of her nineteen years, her face flushed +and smiling, whilst up there, fourteen thousand feet high on the +storm-swept ridge of the Weisshorn, throughout that bitter night her +dead husband bestrode the snow, and nodded and swayed to the gale. As +she whirled past the door she saw him. She smiled with the pleasant +friendliness of a girl who is perfectly happy, and with just a hint of +condescension for the weaker vessel who found it necessary to climb +with guides. Challoner hurried out into the garden.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went up to her room the next morning and broke the news to her as +gently as he could. He was prepared for tears, for an overwhelming +grief. But she showed him neither. She caught at an arm of a chair, +and leaning upon it, seated herself when he began to speak. But after +that she listened, frowning at him in a perplexity like a child over +some difficult problem of her books. And when he had finished she drew +a long breath.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't know why you should try to frighten me," she said. "Of +course, it is not true."</p> + +<p class="normal">She would not believe--no, not even with Ranks's letter in her hand, +at which she stared and stared as though it needed decoding.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps I could read it if I were alone," she said at last, and +Challoner left her to herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">In an hour she sent for him again. Now indeed she knew, but she had no +tears wherewith to ease her knowledge. Challoner saw upon her face +such an expression of misery and torture as he hoped never to see +again. She spoke with a submission which was very strange. It was only +the fact of her youth, not her consciousness of it, which seemed to +protest against her anguish as against an injustice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was abrupt to you," she said. "I am sorry. You were kind to me. I +did not understand. But I understand now, and there is something which +I should like to ask you. You see, I do not know."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Would it be possible that he should be brought back to me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She had turned to the window, and she spoke low, and with a world of +yearning in her voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will try."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should be so very grateful."</p> + +<p class="normal">She had so desolate a look that Challoner made a promise of it, even +though he knew well the rashness of the promise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will go yourself?" she asked, turning her face to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you. I have no friends here, you see, but you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Eight guides were collected that afternoon in the valley. Challoner +brought down his two, and the whole party, under the guide-chief, +moved up to the Weisshorn hut. Starting the next morning with a clear +sky of starlight above their heads, they crossed the mountain by the +eastern arête, and descending the Schalligrat, found young Frobisher +tied by the waist and shoulders to a splinter of rock as Ranks had +described. He was astride a narrow edge of snow, a leg dangling down +each precipice. His eyes stared at them, his mouth hung open, and when +any stray gust of wind struck the ridge, he nodded at them with a +dreadful pleasantry. He had the air, to Challoner's eyes, of a live +paralytic rather than of a man frozen and dead. His face was the +colour of cheese.</p> + +<p class="normal">With infinite trouble they lifted him back on to the mountain summit, +and roped him round in a piece of stout sacking. Then they dragged him +down the snow of the upper part of the ridge, carried him over the +lower section of rock, and, turning off the ridge to the right, +brought him down to the glacier.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was then three o'clock in the afternoon, and half an hour later the +grimmest episode of all that terrible day occurred. The lashing of the +rope got loose as they dragged the body down the glacier, and suddenly +it worked out of the sacking and slid swiftly past them down a steep +slope of ice. A cry of horror broke from the rescue party. For a +moment or two they watched it helplessly as it gathered speed and +leapt into the air from one little hummock to another, the arms +tossing and whirling like the arms of a man taken off his guard. Then +it disappeared with a crash into a crevasse, and the glacier was +empty.</p> + +<p class="normal">The party stood for a little while aghast, and the illusion which had +seized upon Challoner when he had first come in sight of the red +rock-tower on the other ridge attacked him again. He could not get it +out of his thoughts that this was a living man who had disappeared +from their gaze, so natural had all his movements been.</p> + +<p class="normal">The party descended to the lip of the crevasse, and a guide was +lowered into it. But he could not reach the bottom, and they drew him +up again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is his grave," said Joseph Blauer, solemnly; and they turned +away again and descended to Randa.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How shall I meet that girl?" Challoner asked himself, in a passion of +remorse. It seemed to him that he had betrayed a trust, and the sum of +treachery deepened in him when he did tell it that night at the +Riffelalp. For tears had their way with her at last. She buried her +face in her arms upon the table, and sobbed as though her heart would +burst.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I had so hoped that you would bring him back to me," she said. "I +cannot bear to think of him lying for ever in that loneliness of ice."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am very sorry," Challoner stammered, and she was silent. "You have +friends coming out to you?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went down into the hall, and a man whose face he remembered came +eagerly towards him. Challoner was able to identify him the next +moment. For the man cried out:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is done. Yes, it is in all the Zurich papers. I have said that I +alone am to blame. I have taken the whole responsibility upon my +shoulders." Herr Ranks brimmed with magnanimity.</p> +<br> + +<h3>II</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Towards Christmas of that year Challoner, at his chambers in the +Temple, received a letter in an unfamiliar hand. It came from Mrs. +Frobisher. It was a letter of apology. She had run away into hiding +with her sorrow, and only during the last weeks had she grown +conscious of the trouble which Challoner had taken for her. She had +quite forgotten to thank him, but she did so now, though the thanks +were overlate. Challoner was very glad to receive the letter. From the +day when he had seen her off from the new station in the valley, he +had lost sight of her altogether, but the recollection of her pale and +wistful face at the carriage window had haunted him. With just that +look, he had thought, might some exile leave behind every treasured +thing and depart upon a long journey into perpetual banishment. This +letter, however, had a hint, a perfume of spring-time. Stella +Frobisher--by that name she signed--was beginning to recreate her +life.</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner took a note of her address, and travelled into Dorsetshire +on the Saturday. Stella Frobisher lived in a long and ancient house, +half farm, half mansion, set apart in a rich country close to +Arishmell Cove. Through a doorway one looked into a garden behind the +house which even at that season was bright with flowers. She lived +with the roar of the waves upon the shingle in her ears and the +gorse-strewn downs before her eyes. Challoner had found a warm and +cheerful welcome at that house, and came back again to it. Stella +Frobisher neither played the hermit nor made a luxury out of her +calamitous loss. She rebuilt her little world as well as she could, +bearing herself with pride and courage. Challoner could not but admire +her; he began to be troubled by what seemed to him the sterility of a +valuable life. He could not but see that she looked forward to his +visits. Other emotions were roused in him, and on one morning of +summer, with the sea blue at her feet and the gorse a golden flame +about her, he asked her to marry him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Stella Frobisher's face grew very grave.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am afraid that's impossible," she said, slowly, a little to his +surprise and a great deal to his chagrin. Perhaps she noticed the +chagrin, for she continued quickly, "I shall tell you why. Do you know +Professor Kersley?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner looked at her with astonishment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have met him in the Alps."</p> + +<p class="normal">Stella Frobisher nodded. "He is supposed to know more than anyone else +about the movements of glaciers."</p> + +<p class="normal">Dimly Challoner began to understand, and he was startled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I went to call on him at Cambridge. He was very civil. I told him +about the accident on the Weisshorn. He promised to make a +calculation. He took a great deal of trouble. He sent for me again and +told me the month and the year. He even named a week, and a day in the +week." So far she had spoken quite slowly and calmly. Now, however, +her voice broke, and she looked away. "On July 21st, twenty-four years +from now, Mark will come out of the ice at the snout of the Hohlicht +glacier."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner did not dispute the prophecy. Computations of the kind had +been made before with extraordinary truth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you won't wait till then?" he cried, in protest.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a little while she found it difficult to speak. Her thoughts were +very far away from that shining sea and homely turf.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she said at last, in a whisper; "I am dedicated to that as a +nun to her service." And against that dead man wrapped in ice, his +unconquerable rival, Challoner strove in vain.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So you must look elsewhere," Stella said. "You must not waste your +life. I am not wasting mine. I live for an hour which will come."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am in too deep, I am afraid, to look elsewhere," said Challoner, +gloomily. Stella Frobisher looked at him with a smile of humour +playing about her mouth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should like to feel sorry about that," she said. "But I am not +noble, and I can't."</p> + +<p class="normal">They went together down to the house, and she said: "However, you are +young. Many things will happen to you. You will change."</p> + +<p class="normal">But as a matter of fact he did not. He wanted this particular woman, +and not another. He cursed himself considerably for his folly in not +making sure, when the rescue party got down from the rocks on to the +glacier, that the rope about the sacking was not working loose. But +such reproaches did not help forward his suit. And the years slipped +away, each one a trifle more swiftly than that which had gone before. +But in the press of a rising practice he hardly noticed their passage. +From time to time Stella Frobisher came to town, sat in the Law Courts +while he argued, was taken to shop in Bond Street, and entertained at +theatres. Upon one such visit they motored--for motors had come +now--on an evening in June down the Portsmouth road, and dined at the +inn at Ockham. On their way she said, simply:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is the year."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know," replied Challoner. "Shall I come with you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She caught his hand tightly for a moment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, if you could! I am a little afraid--now."</p> + +<p class="normal">He took her out to Randa. There were many changes in the valley. New +hotels had sprung up; a railway climbed nowadays to the Riffelalp; the +tourists came in hundreds instead of tens; the mountains were overrun. +But Challoner's eyes were closed to the changes. He went up through +the cleft of the hills to where the glaciers come down from the +Weisshorn and the Schallijoch and the Moming Pass; and as July drew +on, he pitched a camp there, and stood on guard like a sentinel.</p> + +<p class="normal">There came a morning when, coming out of his tent on to a knoll of +grass, he saw below him on the white surface of the glacier, and not +very far away, something small and black.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's a pebble, no doubt," he thought, but he took his axe and climbed +down on to the ice. As he approached the object the surer he became. +It was a round pebble, polished black and smooth by the friction of +the ice. He almost turned back. But it was near, and he went on. Then +a ray of sunlight shot down the valley, and the thing flickered. +Challoner stooped over it curiously and picked it up. It was a gold +watch, lying with its dial against the ice, and its case blackened +save for a spot or two where it shone. The glass was missing and the +hands broken, and it had stopped. Challoner opened it at the back; the +tiny wheels, the coil of the mainspring, were as bright as on the day +when the watch was sold. It might have been dropped there out of a +pocket a day or two ago. But ice has its whims and vagaries. Here it +will grind to powder, there it will encase and preserve. The watch +might have come out of the ice during this past night. Was the glacier +indeed giving up its secrets?</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner held the watch in his hand, gazing out with blind eyes over +the empty, silent world of rock and ice. The feel of it was magical. +It was as though he gazed into the sorcerer's pot of ink, so vivid and +near were those vanished days at the Riffelalp and the dreadful quest +on the silver peak now soaring high above his head. He continued his +search that morning. Late in the afternoon he burst into the hotel at +Randa. Stella Frobisher drew him away into the garden, where they were +alone. He gave the watch into her hands, and she clasped it swiftly +against her heart with an unearthly look of exaltation upon her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is his?" asked Challoner.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. I will go up."</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner looked at her doubtfully. He had been prepared to refuse her +plea, but he had seen, and having seen, he consented.</p> + +<p class="normal">"To-morrow--early. Trust me. That will be time enough."</p> + +<p class="normal">He collected porters that evening, and at daybreak they walked out +from the chalets and up the bank of the glacier, left the porters by +his tent, and he led her alone across the glacier and stopped.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here," he said. In front of her the glacier spread out like a vast +fan within the cup of the hills, but it was empty.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where?" she asked, in a whisper, and Challoner looked at her out of +troubled eyes, and did not answer. Then she looked down, and at her +feet just below the surface of the glacier, as under a thick sheet of +crystal, she saw after all these years Mark Frobisher. She dropped on +her knees with a loud cry, and to Challoner the truth about all these +years came home with a dreadful shock.</p> + +<p class="normal">Under the ice Mark Frobisher lay quietly, like a youth asleep. The +twenty-four years had cut not a line about his mouth, not a wrinkle +about his eyes. The glacier had used him even more tenderly than it +had used his watch. The years had taken no toll of him. He was as +young, his features were as clear and handsome, as on the day when he +had set out upon his tragic expedition. And over him bent his wife, a +woman worn, lined, old. For the first time Challoner realised that all +her youth had long since gone, and he understood for the first time +that, as it was with her, so, too, it was with him. Often enough he +had said, "Oh, yes, I am getting on. The years are passing." But he +had used the words with a laugh, deferring to convention by the +utterance of the proper meaningless thing. Now he understood the +meaningless thing meant the best part of everything. Stella Frobisher +and he were just a couple of old people, and their good years had all +been wasted.</p> + +<p class="normal">He gently raised Stella Frobisher to her feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you stand aside for a little?" he said. "I will call you."</p> + +<p class="normal">She moved obediently a few yards away, and Challoner summoned the +porters. Very carefully they cut the ice away. Then he called aloud:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Stella!" And she returned.</p> + +<p class="normal">There was no sheet of ice between them now; the young man and the worn +woman who had spent a couple of months of their youth together met +thus at last. But the meeting was as brief as a spark.</p> + +<p class="normal">The airs, of heaven beat upon Mark Frobisher, and suddenly his face +seemed to quiver and his features to be obscured. Stella uttered a +scream of terror, and covered her face with her hands. For from head +to foot the youth crumbled into dust and was not. And some small +trifle tinkled on the ice with a metallic sound.</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner saw it shining at the bottom of the shallow trench of ice. +It was a gold locket on a thin chain. It was still quite bright, for +it had been worn round the neck and under the clothes. Challoner +stooped and picked it up and opened it. A face stared boldly out at +him, the face of a girl, pretty and quite vulgar, and quite strange to +him. A forgotten saying took shape slowly in his memory. What was it +that the woman who had managed the hotel at the Riffelalp had said to +him of Frobisher?</p> + +<p class="normal">"I did not like him. I should not trust him."</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked up to see Stella Frobisher watching him with a white face +and brooding eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is that?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">Challoner shut the locket.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A portrait of you," he said, hastily.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He had no locket with a portrait of me," said Stella Frobisher.</p> + +<p class="normal">Over the shoulder of a hill the sun leapt into the sky and flooded the +world with gold.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE HOUSE OF TERROR</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_house" href="#div1Ref_house">THE HOUSE OF TERROR</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">There are eager spirits who enter upon each morning like adventurers +upon an unknown sea. Mr. Rupert Glynn, however, was not of that +company. He had been christened "Rupert" in an ironical moment, for he +preferred the day to be humdrum. Possessed of an easy independence, +which he had never done a stroke of work to enlarge, he remained a +bachelor, not from lack of opportunity to become a husband, but in +order that his comfort might not be disarranged.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A hunting-box in the Midlands," he used to say, "a set of chambers in +the Albany, the season in town, a cure in the autumn at some French +spa where a modest game of baccarat can be enjoyed, and a five-pound +note in my pocket at the service of a friend--these conditions satisfy +my simple wants, and I can rub along."</p> + +<p class="normal">Contentment had rounded his figure, and he was a little thicker in the +jaw and redder in the face than he used to be. But his eye was clear, +and he had many friends, a fact for which it was easy to account. For +there was a pleasant earthliness about him which made him restful +company. It seemed impossible that strange startling things could +happen in his presence; he had so stolid and comfortable a look, his +life was so customary and sane. "When I am frightened by queer +shuffling sounds in the dead of night," said a nervous friend of his, +"I think of Rupert Glynn and I am comforted." Yet just because of this +atmosphere of security which he diffused about him, Mr. Glynn was +dragged into mysteries, and made acquainted with terrors.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the first days of February Mr. Glynn found upon his breakfast-table +at Melton a letter which he read through with an increasing gravity. +Mr. Glynn being a man of method, kept a file of the <i>Morning Post</i>. He +rang the bell for his servant, and fetched to the table his pocket +diary. He turned back the pages until he read in the space reserved +for November 15th, "My first run of the year."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he spoke to his servant, who was now waiting in the room:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thompson, bring me the <i>Morning Post</i> of November 16th."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Glynn remembered that he had read a particular announcement in the +paper on the morning after his first run, when he was very stiff. +Thompson brought him the copy for which he had asked, and, turning +over the pages, he soon lighted upon the paragraph.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. James Thresk has recovered from his recent breakdown, and left +London yesterday with Mrs. Thresk for North Uist."</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn laid down his newspaper and contemplated the immediate future +with gloom. It was a very long way to the Outer Hebrides, and, +moreover, he had eight horses in his stable. Yet he could hardly +refuse to take the journey in the face of that paragraph. It was not, +indeed, in his nature to refuse. For the letter written by Linda +Thresk claimed his presence urgently. He took it up again. There was +no reason expressed as to why he was needed. And there were +instructions, besides, which puzzled him, very explicit instructions. +He was to bring his guns, he was to send a telegram from Loch +Boisdale, the last harbour into which the steamer from Oban put before +it reached North Uist, and from no other place. He was, in a word, to +pretend that he had been shooting in a neighbouring island to North +Uist, and that, since he was so near, he ventured to trespass for a +night or two on Mrs. Thresk's hospitality. All these precautions +seemed to Glynn ominous, but still more ominous was the style of the +letter. A word here, a sentence there--nay, the very agitation of the +handwriting, filled Glynn with uneasiness. The appeal was almost +pitiful. He seemed to see Linda Thresk bending over the pages of the +letter which he now held in his hand, writing hurriedly, with a +twitching, terrified face, and every now and then looking up, and to +this side and to that, with the eyes of a hunted animal. He remembered +Linda's appearance very well as he held her letter in his hand, +although three years had passed since he had seen her--a fragile, +slender woman with a pale, delicate face, big dark eyes, and masses of +dark hair--a woman with the look of a girl and an almost hot-house air +of refinement.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Glynn laid the letter down again, and again rang for his servant.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Pack for a fortnight," he said. "And get my guns out. I am going +away."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thompson was as surprised as his self-respect allowed him to be.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your guns, sir?" he asked. "I think they are in town, but we have not +used them for so long."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know," said Mr. Glynn impatiently, "But we are going to use them +now."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thompson knew very well that Mr. Glynn could not hit a haystack twenty +yards away, and had altogether abandoned a sport in which he was so +lamentably deficient. But a still greater shock was to be inflicted +upon him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thompson," said Mr. Glynn, "I shall not take you with me. I shall go +alone."</p> + +<p class="normal">And go alone he did. Here was the five-pound note, in a word, at the +service of a friend. But he was not without perplexities, to keep his +thoughts busy upon his journey.</p> + +<p class="normal">Why had Linda Thresk sent for him out of all her friends?</p> + +<p class="normal">For since her marriage three years before, he had clean lost sight of +her, and even before her marriage he had, after all, been only one of +many. He found no answer to that question. On the other hand, he +faithfully fulfilled Mrs. Thresk's instructions. He took his guns with +him, and when the steamer stopped beside the little quay at Loch +Boisdale he went ashore and sent off his telegram. Two hours later he +disembarked at Lochmaddy in North Uist, and, hiring a trap at the inn, +set off on his long drive across that flat and melancholy island. The +sun set, the swift darkness followed, and the moon had risen before he +heard the murmurous thunder of the sea upon the western shore. It was +about ten minutes later when, beyond a turn of the road, he saw the +house and lights shining brightly in its windows. It was a small white +house with a few out-buildings at the back, set in a flat peat country +on the edge of a great marsh. Ten yards from the house a great brake +of reeds marked the beginning of the marsh, and beyond the reeds the +bog stretched away glistening with pools to the low sand-hills. Beyond +the sand-hills the Atlantic ran out to meet the darkness, a shimmering +plain of silver. One sapling stood up from the middle of the marsh, +and laid a finger across the moon. But except that sapling, there were +not any trees.</p> + +<p class="normal">To Glynn, fresh from the meadowlands of Leicestershire with their neat +patterns of hedges, white gates and trees, this corner of the Outer +Hebrides upon the edge of the Atlantic had the wildest and most +desolate look. The seagulls and curlews cried perpetually above the +marsh, and the quiet sea broke upon the sand with a haunting and +mournful sound. Glynn looked at the little house set so far away in +solitude, and was glad that he had come. To his southern way of +thinking, trouble was best met and terrors most easily endured in the +lighted ways of cities, where companionship was to be had by the mere +stepping across the threshold.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the trap drove up to the door, there was some delay in answering +Glynn's summons. A middle-aged man-servant came at last to the door, +and peered out from the doorway in surprise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I sent a telegram," said Glynn, "from Loch Boisdale. I am Mr. Glynn."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A telegram?" said the man. "It will not come up until the morning, +sir."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then the voice of the driver broke in.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I brought up a telegram from Lochmaddy. It's from a gentleman who is +coming to visit Mrs. Thresk from South Uist."</p> + +<p class="normal">In the outer islands, where all are curious, news is not always to be +had, and the privacy of the telegraph system is not recognised. Glynn +laughed, and the same moment the man-servant opened an inner door of +the tiny hall. Glynn stepped into a low-roofed parlour which was +obviously the one living-room of the house. On his right hand there +was a great fireplace with a peat fire burning in the grate, and a +high-backed horsehair sofa in front of it. On his left at a small +round table Thresk and his wife were dining.</p> + +<p class="normal">Both Thresk and his wife sprang up as he entered. Linda advanced to +him with every mark of surprise upon her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You!" she cried, holding out her hand. "Where have you sprung from?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"South Uist," said Glynn, repeating his lesson.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you have come on to us! That is kind of you! Martin, you must +take Mr. Glynn's bag up to the guest-room. I expect you will be +wanting your dinner."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I sent you a telegram asking you whether you would mind if I +trespassed upon your hospitality for a night or so."</p> + +<p class="normal">He saw Linda's eyes fixed upon him with some anxiety, and he continued +at once:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I sent it from Loch Boisdale."</p> + +<p class="normal">A wave of relief passed over Linda's face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It will not come up until the morning," she said with a smile.</p> + +<p class="normal">"As a matter of fact, the driver brought it up with him," said Glynn. +And Martin handed to Mrs. Thresk the telegram. Over his shoulder, +Glynn saw Thresk raise his head. He had been standing by the table +listening to what was said. Now he advanced. He was a tall man, +powerfully built, with a strongly-marked, broad face, which was only +saved from coarseness by its look of power. They made a strange +contrast, the husband and wife, as they stood side by side--she slight +and exquisitely delicate in her colour, dainty in her movements, he +clumsy and big and masterful. Glynn suddenly recalled gossip which had +run through the town about the time of their marriage. Linda had been +engaged to another--a man whose name Glynn did not remember, but on +whom, so the story ran, her heart was set.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course you are very welcome," said Thresk, as he held out his +hand, and Glynn noticed with something of a shock that his throat was +bandaged. He looked towards Linda. Her eyes were resting upon him with +a look of agonised appeal. He was not to remark upon that wounded +throat. He took Thresk's hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We shall be delighted if you will stay with us as long as you can," +said Thresk, "We have been up here for more than three months. You +come to us from another world, and visitors from another world are +always interesting, aren't they, Linda?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He spoke his question with a quiet smile, like a man secretly amused. +But on Linda's face fear flashed out suddenly and was gone. It seemed +to Glynn that she was at pains to repress a shiver.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Martin will show you your room," said Thresk. "What's the matter?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn was staring at the table in consternation. Where had been the +use of all the pretence that he had come unexpectedly on an +unpremeditated visit? His telegram had only this minute arrived--and +yet there was the table laid for three people. Thresk followed the +direction of his visitor's eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, I see," he said with a laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn flushed. No wonder Thresk was amused. He had been sitting at the +table; and between himself and his wife the third place was laid.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will go up and change," said Glynn awkwardly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, don't be long!" replied Thresk.</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn followed Martin to the guest-room. But he was annoyed. He did +not, under any circumstances, like to look a fool. But he had the +strongest possible objection to travelling three hundred miles in +order to look it. If he wanted to look a fool, he grumbled, he could +have managed it just as well in the Midlands.</p> + +<p class="normal">But he was to be more deeply offended. For when he came down into the +dining-room he walked to the table and drew out the vacant chair. At +once Thresk shot out his hand and stopped him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You mustn't sit there!" he cried violently. Then his face changed. +Slowly the smile of amusement reappeared upon it. "After all, why +not?" he said. "Try, yes, try," and he watched Glynn with a strange +intentness.</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn sat down slowly. A trick was being played upon him--of that he +was sure. He was still more sure when Thresk's face relaxed and he +broke into a laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, that's funny!" he cried, and Glynn, in exasperation, asked +indignantly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"What's funny?"</p> + +<p class="normal">But Thresk was no longer listening. He was staring across the room +towards the front door, as though he heard outside yet another +visitor. Glynn turned angrily towards Linda. At once his anger died +away. Her face was white as paper, and her eyes full of fear. Her need +was real, whatever it might be. Thresk turned sharply back again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's a long journey from London to North Uist," he said pleasantly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No doubt," replied Glynn, as he set himself to his dinner. "But I +have come from South Uist. However, I am just as hungry as if I had +come from London."</p> + +<p class="normal">He laughed, and Thresk joined in the laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am glad of that," he said, "for it's quite a long time since we +have seen you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, it is," replied Glynn carelessly. "A year, I should think."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Three years," said Thresk. "For I don't think that you have ever come +to see us in London."</p> + +<p class="normal">"We are so seldom there," interrupted Linda.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Three months a year, my dear," said Thresk. "But I know very well +that a man will take a day's journey in the Outer Island's to see his +friends, whereas he wouldn't cross the street in London. And, in any +case, we are very glad to see you. By the way," and he reached out his +hand carelessly for the salt, "isn't this rather a new departure for +you, Glynn? You were always a sociable fellow. A hunting-box in the +Midlands, and all the lighted candles in the season. The Outer Islands +were hardly in your line." And he turned quickly towards him. "You +have brought your guns?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course," said Glynn, laughing as easily as he could under a +cross-examination which he began to find anything but comfortable. +"But I won't guarantee that I can shoot any better than I used to."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Never mind," said Thresk. "We'll shoot the bog to-morrow, and it +will be strange if you don't bring down something. It's full of duck. +You don't mind getting wet, I suppose? There was once a man named +Channing----" he broke off upon the name, and laughed again with that +air of secret amusement. "Did you ever hear of him?" he asked of +Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," replied Glynn slowly. "I knew him."</p> + +<p class="normal">At the mention of the name he had seen Linda flinch, and he knew why +she flinched.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you?" exclaimed Thresk, with a keen interest. "Then you will +appreciate the story. He came up here on a visit."</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn started.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He came here!" he cried, and could have bitten out his tongue for +uttering the cry.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, yes," said Thresk easily, "I asked him," and Glynn looked from +Thresk to Thresk's wife in amazement. Linda for once did not meet +Glynn's eyes. Her own were fixed upon the tablecloth. She was sitting +in her chair rather rigidly. One hand rested upon the tablecloth, and +it was tightly clenched. Alone of the three James Thresk appeared at +ease.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I took him out to shoot that bog," he continued with a laugh. "He +loathed getting wet. He was always so very well dressed, wasn't he, +Linda? The reeds begin twenty yards from the front door, and within +the first five minutes he was up to the waist!" Thresk suddenly +checked his laughter. "However, it ceased to be a laughing matter. +Channing got a little too near the sapling in the middle."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it dangerous there?" asked Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, it's dangerous." Thresk rose from his chair and walked across +the room to the window. He pulled up the blind and, curving his hands +about his eyes to shut out the light of the room, leaned his face +against the window-frame and looked out. "It's more than dangerous," +he said in a low voice. "Just round that sapling, it's swift and +certain death. You would sink to the waist," and he spoke still more +slowly, as though he were measuring by the utterance of the syllables +the time it would take for the disaster to be complete--"from the +waist to the shoulders, from the shoulders clean out of sight, before +any help could reach you."</p> + +<p class="normal">He stopped abruptly, and Glynn, watching him from the table, saw his +attitude change. He dropped his head, he hunched his back, and made a +strange hissing sound with his breath.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Linda!" he cried, in a low, startling voice, "Linda!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn, unimpressionable man that he was, started to his feet. The long +journey, the loneliness of the little house set in this wild, flat +country, the terror which hung over it and was heavy in the very +atmosphere of the rooms, were working already upon his nerves.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is it?" he cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda laid a hand upon his arm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There's no one," she said in a whisper. "Take no notice."</p> + +<p class="normal">And, looking at her quivering face, Glynn was inspired to ask a +question, was wrought up to believe that the answer would explain to +him why Thresk leaned his forehead against the window-pane and called +upon his wife in so strange a voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did Channing sink--by the sapling?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," said Linda hurriedly, and as hurriedly she drew away in her +chair. Glynn turned and saw Thresk himself standing just behind his +shoulder. He had crept down noiselessly behind them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," Thresk repeated. "But he is dead. Didn't you know that? Oh, yes, +he is dead," and suddenly he broke out with a passionate violence. "A +clever fellow--an infernally clever fellow. You are surprised to hear +me say that, Glynn. You underrated him like the rest of us. We thought +him a milksop, a tame cat, a poor, weak, interloping, unprofitable +creature who would sidle obsequiously into your house, and make his +home there. But we were wrong--all except Linda there."</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda sat with her head bowed, and said not a word. She was sitting so +that Glynn could see her profile, and though she said nothing, her +lips were trembling.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Linda was right," and Thresk turned carelessly to Glynn. "Did you +know that Linda was at one time engaged to Channing?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I knew," said Glynn awkwardly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was difficult for most of us to understand," said Thresk. "There +seemed no sort of reason why a girl like Linda should select a man +like Channing to fix her heart upon. But she was right. Channing was a +clever fellow--oh, a very clever fellow," and he leaned over and +touched Glynn upon the sleeve, "for he died."</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn started back.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What are you saying?" he cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk burst into a laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That my throat hurts me to-night," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn recovered himself with an effort. "Oh, yes," he said, as though +now for the first time he had noticed the bandage. "Yes, I see you +have hurt your throat. How did you do it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk chuckled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not very well done, Glynn. Will you smoke?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The plates had been cleared from the table, and the coffee brought in. +Thresk rose from his seat and crossed to the mantelshelf on which a +box of cigars was laid. As he took up the box and turned again towards +the table, a parchment scroll which hung on a nail at the side of the +fireplace caught his eye.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you see this?" he said, and he unrolled it. "It's my landlord's +family tree. All the ancestors of Mr. Robert Donald McCullough right +back to the days of Bruce. McCullough's prouder of that scroll than of +anything else in the world. He is more interested in it than in +anything else in the world."</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment he fingered it, and in the tone of a man communing with +himself, he added:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now, isn't that curious?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn rose from his chair, and moved down the table so that he could +see the scroll unimpeded by Thresk's bulky figure. Thresk, however, +was not speaking any longer to his guest. Glynn sat down again. But he +sat down now in the chair which Thresk had used; the chair in which he +himself had been sitting between Thresk and Linda was empty.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What interests me," Thresk continued, like a man in a dream, "is what +is happening now--and very strange, queer, interesting things are +happening now--for those who have eyes to see. Yes, through centuries +and centuries, McCulloughs have succeeded McCulloughs, and lived in +this distant, little corner of the Outer Islands through forays and +wars and rebellions, and the oversetting of kings, and yet nothing has +ever happened in this house to any one of them half so interesting and +half so strange as what is happening now to us, the shooting tenants +of a year."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk dropped the scroll, and, coming out of his dream, brought the +cigar-box to the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have changed your seat!" he said with a smile, as he offered the +box to Glynn. Glynn took out of it a cigar, and leaning back, cut off +the end. As he stooped forward to light it, he saw the cigar-box still +held out to him. Thresk had not moved. He seemed to have forgotten +Glynn's presence in the room. His eyes were fixed upon the empty +chair. He stood strangely rigid, and then he suddenly cried out:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Take care, Linda!"</p> + +<p class="normal">There was so sharp a note of warning in his voice that Linda sprang to +her feet, with her hand pressed upon her heart. Glynn was startled +too, and because he was startled he turned angrily to Thresk.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of what should Mrs. Thresk take care?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk took his eyes for a moment, and only for a moment, from the +empty chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you see nothing?" he asked, in a whisper, and his glance went back +again. "Not a shadow which leans across the table there towards Linda, +darkening the candle-light?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No; for there's nothing to cast a shadow."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is there not?" said Thresk, with a queer smile. "That's where you +make your mistake. Aren't you conscious of something very strange, +very insidious, close by us in this room?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am aware that you are frightening Mrs. Thresk," said Glynn roughly; +and, indeed, standing by the table, with her white face and her bosom +heaving under her hand, she looked the very embodiment of terror. +Thresk turned at once to her. A look of solicitude made his gross face +quite tender. He took her by the arm, and in a chiding, affectionate +tone he said very gently:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are not frightened, Linda, are you? Interested--yes, just as I +am. But not frightened. There's nothing to be frightened at. We are +not children."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, Jim," she said, and she leaned upon his arm. He led her across to +the sofa, and sat down beside her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's right. Now we are comfortable." But the last word was not +completed. It seemed that it froze upon his lips. He stopped, looked +for a second into space, and then, dropping his arm from about his +wife's waist, he deliberately moved aside from her, and made a space +between them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now we are in our proper places--the four of us," he said bitterly,</p> + +<p class="normal">"The three of us," Glynn corrected, as he walked round the table. +"Where's the fourth?"</p> + +<p class="normal">And then there came to him this extraordinary answer given in the +quietest voice imaginable.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Between my wife and me. Where should he be?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn stared. There was no one in the room but Linda, Thresk, and +himself--no one. But--but--it was the loneliness of the spot, and its +silence, and its great distance from his world, no doubt, which +troubled him. Thresk's manner, too, and his words were having their +effect. That was all, Glynn declared stoutly to himself. But--but--he +did not wonder that Linda had written so urgently for him to come to +her. His back went cold, and the hair stirred upon his scalp.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is it, then?" he cried violently.</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda rose from the sofa, and took a quick step towards him.. Her eyes +implored him to silence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is no one," she protested in a low voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," cried Glynn loudly. "Let us understand what wild fancy he has! +Who is the fourth?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Upon Thresk's face came a look of sullenness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who should he be?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is he?" Glynn insisted.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Channing," said Thresk. "Mildmay Channing." He sat for a while, +brooding with his head sunk upon his breast. And Glynn started back. +Some vague recollection was stirring in his memory. There had been a +story current amongst Linda's friends at the time of her marriage. She +had been in love with Channing, desperately in love with him. The +marriage with Thresk had been forced on her by her parents--yes, and +by Thresk's persistency. It had been a civilised imitation of the Rape +of the Sabine Women. That was how the story ran, Glynn remembered. He +waited to hear more from James Thresk, and in a moment the words came, +but in a thoroughly injured tone.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's strange that you can't see either."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is some one else, then, as blind as I am?" said Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There was. Yes, yes, the dog," replied Thresk, gazing into the fire. +"You and the dog," he repeated uneasily, "you and the dog. But the dog +saw in the end, Glynn, and so will you--even you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda turned quickly, but before she could speak, Glynn made a sign to +her. He went over to her side. A glance at Thresk showed him that he +was lost in his thoughts.</p> + +<p class="normal">"If you want me to help you, you must leave us alone," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">She hesitated for a moment, and then swiftly crossed the room and went +out at the door. Glynn, who had let his cigar go out, lit it again at +the flame of one of the candles on the dining-table. Then he planted +himself in front of Thresk.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are terrifying your wife," he said. "You are frightening her to +death."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk did not reply to the accusation directly. He smiled quietly at +Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She sent for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn looked uncomfortable, and Thresk went on:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You haven't come from South Uist. You have come from London."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," said Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"From Melton, then. You came because Linda sent for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"If it were so," stammered Glynn, "it would only be another proof that +you are frightening her."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk shook his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It wasn't because Linda was afraid that she sent for you," he said +stubbornly. "I know Linda. I'll tell you the truth," and he fixed his +burning eyes on Glynn's face. "She sent for you because she hates +being here with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hates being with you!" cried Glynn, and Thresk nodded his head. Glynn +could hardly even so believe that he had heard aright. "Why, you must +be mad!" he protested. "Mad or blind. There's just one person of whom +your wife is thinking, for whom she is caring, for whose health she is +troubled. It has been evident to me ever since I have been in this +house--in spite of her fears. Every time she looks at you her eyes are +tender with solicitude. That one person is yourself."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," said Thresk. "It's Channing."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But he's dead, man!" cried Glynn in exasperation. "You told me so +yourself not half an hour ago. He is dead."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," answered Thresk. "He's dead. That's where he beat me. You don't +understand that?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, I don't," replied Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was speaking aggressively; he stood with his legs apart in an +aggressive attitude. Thresk looked him over from head to foot and +agreed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," he said, "and I don't see why you should. You are rather like +me, comfortable and commonplace, and of the earth earthy. Before men +of our gross stamp could believe and understand what I am going to +tell you, they would have to reach--do you mind if I say a +refinement?--by passing through the same fires which have tempered +me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn made no reply. He shifted his position so that the firelight +might fall upon Thresk's face with its full strength. Thresk leaned +forward with his hands upon his knees, and very quietly, though now +and then a note of scorn rang in his voice, he told his story.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You tell me my wife cares for me. I reply that she would have cared, +if Channing had not died. When I first met Linda she was engaged to +him. You know that. She was devoted to him. You know that too. I knew +it and I didn't mind. I wasn't afraid of Channing. A poor, feeble +creature--heaps of opportunities, not one of them foreseen, not one of +them grasped when it came his way. A grumbler, a bag of envy, a beggar +for sympathy at any woman's lap! Why should I have worried my head +about Channing? And I didn't. Linda's people were all for breaking off +their engagement. After all, I was some good. I had made my way. I had +roughed it in South America; and I had come home a rich man--not such +a very easy thing, as the superior people who haven't the heart even +to try to be rich men are inclined to think. Well, the engagement was +broken off, Channing hadn't a penny to marry on, and nobody would give +him a job. Look here!" And he suddenly swung round upon Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I gave Channing his chance. I knew he couldn't make any use of it. I +wanted to prove he wasn't any good. So I put a bit of a railway in +Chili into his hands, and he brought the thing to the edge of +bankruptcy within twelve months. So the engagement was broken off. +Linda clung to the fellow. I knew it, and I didn't mind. She didn't +want to marry me. I knew it, and I didn't mind. Her parents broke her +down to it. She sobbed through the night before we were married. I +knew it, and I didn't mind. You think me a beast, of course," he +added, with a look at Glynn. "But just consider the case from my point +of view. Channing was no match for Linda. I was. I wanted time, that +was all. Give me only time, and I knew that I could win her."</p> + +<p class="normal">Boastful as the words sounded, there was nothing aggressive in +Thresk's voice. He was speaking with a quiet simplicity which robbed +them quite of offence. He was unassumingly certain.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?" asked Glynn. "Why, given time, were you sure that you could win +her?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because I wanted enough. That's my creed, Glynn. If you want enough, +want with every thought, and nerve, and pulse, the thing you want +comes along all right. There was the difference between Channing and +me. He hadn't the heart to want enough. I wanted enough to go to +school again. I set myself to learn the small attentions which mean so +much to women. They weren't in my line naturally. I pay so little heed +to things of that kind myself that it did not easily occur to me that +women might think differently. But I learnt my lesson, and I got my +reward. Just simple little precautions, like having a cloak ready for +her, almost before she was aware that she was cold. And I would see a +look of surprise on her face, and the surprise flush into a smile of +pleasure. Oh, I was holding her, Glynn, I can tell you. I went about +it so very warily," and Thresk laughed with a knowing air. "I didn't +shut my door on Channing either. Not I! I wasn't going to make a +martyr of him. I let him sidle in and out of the house, and I laughed. +For I was holding her. Every day she came a step or two nearer to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">He broke off suddenly, and his voice, which had taken on a tender and +wistful note, incongruous in so big a creature, rose in a gust of +anger.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But he died! He died and caught her back again."</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn raised his hands in despair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That memory has long since faded," he argued, and Thresk burst out in +a bitter laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Memory," he cried, flinging himself into a chair. "You are one of the +imaginative people after all, Glynn." And Glynn stared in round-eyed +surprise. Here to him was conclusive proof that there was something +seriously wrong with Thresk's mind. Never had Mr. Glynn been called +imaginative before, and his soul revolted against the aspersion. +"Yes," said Thresk, pointing an accusing finger. "Imaginative! I am +one of the practical people. I don't worry about memories. Actual real +things interest me--such as Channing's presence now--in this house." +And he spoke suddenly, leaning forward with so burning a fire in his +eyes and voice that Glynn, in spite of himself, looked nervously +across his shoulder. He rose hastily from the sofa, and rather in +order to speak than with any thought of what he was saying, he asked:</p> + +<p class="normal">"When did he die?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Four months ago. I was ill at the time."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The exclamation sprang from Glynn's lips before he could check it. +Here to him was the explanation of Thresk's illusions. But he was +sorry that he had not kept silent. For he saw Thresk staring angrily +at him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What did you mean by your 'Ah'?" Thresk asked roughly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Merely that I had seen a line about your illness in a newspaper," +Glynn explained hastily.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk leaned back satisfied.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he resumed. "I broke down. I had had a hard life, you see, and +I was paying for it. I am right enough now, however," and his voice +rose in a challenge to Glynn to contradict him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Nothing was further from Glynn's thoughts.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course," he said quickly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I saw Channing's death in the obituary column whilst I was lying in +bed, and, to tell you the truth, I was relieved by it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I thought you said you didn't mind about Channing?" Glynn +interrupted, and Thresk laughed with a little discomfort.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, perhaps I did mind a little more than I care to admit," Thresk +confessed. "At all events, I felt relieved at his death. What a fool I +was!" And he stopped for a moment as though he wondered now that his +mind was so clear, at the delusion which had beset him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I thought that it was all over with Channing. Oh, what a fool I was! +Even after he came back and would sidle up to my bedside in his old +fawning style, I couldn't bring myself to take him seriously, and I +was only amused."</p> + +<p class="normal">"He came to your bedside!" exclaimed Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," replied Thresk, and he laughed at the recollection. "He came +with his humble smirk, and pottered about the room as if he were my +nurse. I put out my tongue at him, and told him he was dead and done +for, and that he had better not meddle with the bottles on my table. +Yes, he amused me. What a fool I was! I thought no one else saw him. +That was my first mistake. I thought he was helpless.... That was my +second."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk got up from his chair, and, standing over the fireplace, +knocked the ash off his cigar.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you remember a great Danish boar-hound I used to have?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," replied Glynn, puzzled by the sudden change of subject. "But +what has the boar-hound to do with your story?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A good deal," said Thresk. "I was very fond of that dog."</p> + +<p class="normal">"The dog was fond of you," said Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. Remember that!" Thresk cried suddenly. "For it's true." Then he +relapsed again into a quiet, level voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It took me some time to get well. I was moved up here. It was the one +place where I wanted to be. But I wasn't used to sitting round and +doing nothing. So the time of my convalescence hung pretty heavily, +and, casting about for some way of amusing myself, I wondered whether +I could teach the dog to see Channing as I saw him. I tried. Whenever +I saw Channing come in at the door, I used to call the dog to my side +and point Channing out to him with my finger as Channing moved about +the room."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk sat down in a chair opposite to Glynn, and with a singular +alertness began to act over again the scenes which had taken place in +his sick room upstairs.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I used to say, 'Hst! Hst!' 'There! Do you see? By the window!' or if +Channing moved towards Linda I would turn the dog's head and make his +eyes follow him across the room. At first the dog saw nothing. Then he +began to avoid me, to slink away with his tail between his legs, to +growl. He was frightened. Yes, he was frightened!" And Thresk nodded +his head in a quick, interested way.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He was frightened of you," cried Glynn, "and I don't wonder."</p> + +<p class="normal">For even to him there was something uncanny and impish in Thresk's +quick movements and vivid gestures.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wait a bit," said Thresk. "He was frightened, but not of me. He saw +Channing. His hair bristled under my fingers as I pointed the fellow +out. I had to keep one hand on his neck, you see, to keep him by me. +He began to yelp in a queer, panicky way, and tremble--a man in a +fever couldn't tremble and shake any more than that dog did. And then +one day, when we were alone together, the dog and I and Channing--the +dog sprang at my throat."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's how you were wounded!" cried Glynn, leaping from his sofa. He +stood staring in horror at Thresk. "I wonder the dog didn't kill you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"He very nearly did," said Thresk. "Oh, very nearly."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You had frightened him out of his wits."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk laughed contemptuously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's the obvious explanation, of course," he said. "But it's not +the true one. I have been living amongst the subtleties of life. I +know about things now. The dog sprang at me because--" He stopped and +glanced uneasily about the room. When he raised his face again, there +was a look upon it which Glynn had not seen there before--a look of +sudden terror. He leaned forward that he might be the nearer to Glynn, +and his voice sank to a whisper--"well, because Channing set him on to +me."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was no doubt less the statement itself than the crafty look which +accompanied it, and the whisper which uttered it, that shocked Glynn. +But he was shocked. There came upon him--yes, even upon him, the sane, +prosaic Glynn--a sudden doubt whether, after all, Thresk was mad. It +occurred to him as a possibility that Thresk was speaking the mere, +bare truth. Suppose that it were the truth! Suppose that Channing were +here! In this room! Glynn felt the flesh creep upon his bones.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah, you are beginning to understand," said Thresk, watching his +companion. "You are beginning to get frightened, too." And he nodded +his head in comprehension. "I used not to know what fear meant. But I +knew the meaning well enough as soon as I had guessed why the dog +sprang at my throat. For I realised my helplessness."</p> + +<p class="normal">Throughout their conversation Glynn had been perpetually puzzled by +something unexpected in Thresk's conclusions. He followed his +reasoning up to a point, and then came a word which left him at a +loss. Thresk's fear he understood. But why the sense of helplessness? +And he asked for an explanation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because I had no weapons to fight Channing with," Thresk replied. "I +could cope with the living man and win every time. But against the +dead man I was helpless. I couldn't hurt him. I couldn't even +come to grips with him. I had just to sit by and make room. And that's +what I have been doing ever since. I have been sitting by and +watching--without a single resource, without a single opportunity of a +counterstroke. Oh, I had my time--when Channing was alive. But upon my +word, he has the best of it. Here I sit without raising a hand while +he recaptures Linda."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There you are wrong," cried Glynn, seizing gladly, in the midst of +these subtleties, upon some fact of which he felt sure. "Your wife is +yours. There has been no recapture. Besides, she doesn't believe that +Channing is here."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thresk laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you think she would tell me if she did?" he asked. "No."</p> + +<p class="normal">He rose from his chair and, walking to the window, thrust back the +curtains and looked out. So he stood for the space of a minute. Then +he came back and, looking fixedly at Glynn, said with an air of +extraordinary cunning:</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I have a plan. Yes, I have a plan. I shall get on level terms +with Mr. Channing again one of these fine days, and then I'll prove to +him for a second time which of us two is the better man."</p> + +<p class="normal">He made a sign to Glynn, and looked towards the door. It was already +opening. He advanced to it as Linda came into the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have come back, Linda! I have been talking to Glynn at such a +rate that he hasn't been able to get a word in edgeways," he said, +with a swift change to a gaiety of voice and manner. "However, I'll +show him a good day's sport to-morrow, Linda. We will shoot the bog, +and perhaps you'll come out with the luncheon to the sand-hills?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda Thresk smiled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course I will," she said. She showed to Glynn a face of gratitude. +"It has done you good, Jim, to have a man to talk to," and she laid a +hand upon her husband's arm and laughed quite happily. Glynn turned +his back upon them and walked up to the window, leaving them standing +side by side in the firelight. Outside, the moon shone from a clear +sky upon the pools and the reeds of the marsh and the low white +sand-hills, chequered with their tufts of grass. But upon the sea +beyond, a white mist lay thick and low.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There's a sea-fog," said Glynn; and Thresk, at the fire, suddenly +lifted his head, and looked towards the window with a strange +intensity. One might have thought that a sea-fog was a strange, +unusual thing among the Outer Islands.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Watch it!" he said, and there was a vibration in his voice which +matched the intensity of his look. "You will see it suddenly creep +through the gaps in the sand-hills and pass over the marsh like an +army that obeys a command. I have watched it by the hour, time and +time again. It gathers on the level of the sea and waits and waits +until it seems that the word is given. Then it comes swirling through +the gaps of the sand-hills and eats up the marsh in a minute."</p> + +<p class="normal">Even as he spoke Glynn cried out:</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's extraordinary!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The fog had crept out through the gaps. Only the summits of the +sand-hills rose in the moonlight like little peaks above clouds; and +over the marsh the fog burst like cannon smoke and lay curling and +writhing up to the very reeds twenty yards from the house. The sapling +alone stood high above it, like the mast of a wreck in the sea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How high is it?" asked Thresk.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Breast high," replied Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only breast high," said Thresk, and there seemed to be a note of +disappointment in his voice. However, in the next moment he shook it +off. "The fog will be gone before morning," he said. "I'll go and tell +Donald to bring the dogs round at nine to-morrow, and have your guns +ready. Nine is not too early for you, I suppose?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not a bit," said Glynn; and Thresk, going up to the door which led +from the house, opened it, went out, and closed it again behind him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn turned at once towards Linda Thresk. But she held up a warning +hand, and waited for the outer door to slam. No sound, however, broke +the silence. Glynn went to the inner door and opened it. A bank of +white fog, upon which he saw his own shadow most brightly limned by +the light behind him, filled the outer passage and crept by him into +the room. Glynn closed the latch quickly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He has left the outer door open," he said, and, coming back into the +room he stood beside the fire looking down into Linda's face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He has been talking to me," said Glynn.</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda looked at him curiously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How much did he tell you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"There can be little he left unsaid. He told me of the dog, of +Channing's death----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of Channing's return."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And of you."</p> + +<p class="normal">With each sentence Glynn's embarrassment had increased. Linda, +however, held him to his story.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What did he say of me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That but for Channing's death he would have held you. That since +Channing died--and came back--he had lost you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda nodded her head. Nothing in Glynn's words surprised her--that +was clear. It was a story already familiar to her which he was +repeating.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that all?" she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think so. Yes," replied Glynn, glad to get the business over. Yet +he had omitted the most important part of Thresk's confession--the one +part which Linda did not already know. He omitted it because he had +forgotten it. There was something else which he had in his mind to +say.</p> + +<p class="normal">"When Thresk told me that Channing had won you back, I ventured to say +that no one watching you and Thresk, even with the most indifferent +eyes, could doubt that it was always and only of him that you were +thinking."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Linda, quietly. "That is true."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And now," said Glynn, "I want, in my turn, to ask you a question. I +have been a little curious. I want, too, to do what I can. Therefore, +I ask you, why did you send, for me? What is it that you think I can +do? That other friends of yours can't?"</p> + +<p class="normal">A slight colour came into Linda's cheeks; and for a moment she lowered +her eyes. She spoke with an accent of apology.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is quite true that there are friends whom I see more constantly +than you, Mr. Glynn, and upon whom I have, perhaps, greater claims."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, I did not mean you to think that I was reluctant to come," Glynn +exclaimed, and Linda smiled, lifting her eyes to his.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she said. "I remembered your kindness. It was that recollection +which helped me to appeal to you," and she resumed her explanation as +though he had never interrupted her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nor was there any particular thing which I thought you could do. +But--well, here's the truth--I have been living in terror. This house +has become a house of terror. I am frightened, and I have come almost +to believe----" and she looked about her with a shiver of her +shoulders, sinking her voice to a whisper as she spoke--"that Jim was +right--that <i>he is</i> here after all."</p> + +<p class="normal">And Glynn recoiled. Just for a moment the same fancy had occurred to +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You don't believe that--really!" he cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No--no," she answered. "Once I think calmly. But it is so difficult +to think calmly and reasonably here. Oh----" and she threw up her arms +suddenly, and her whole face and eyes were alight with terror--"the +very air is to me heavy with fear in this house. It is Jim's quiet +certainty."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, that's it!" exclaimed Glynn, catching eagerly at that +explanation because it absolved him to his own common sense for the +inexplicable fear which he had felt invade himself. "Yes, Jim's quiet, +certain, commonplace way in which he speaks of Channing's presence +here. That's what makes his illusion so convincing."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, I thought that if I could get you here, you who----" and she +hesitated in order to make her description polite--"are not afflicted +by fancies, who are pleasantly sensible"--thus did Linda express her +faith that Mr. Glynn was of the earth, earthy--"I myself should +lose my terror, and Jim, too, might lose his illusion. But now," she +looked at him keenly, "I think that Jim is affecting you--that you, +too--yes"--she sprang up suddenly and stood before him, with her dark, +terror-haunted eyes fixed upon him--"that you, too, believe Mildmay +Channing is here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," he protested violently--too violently unless the accusation were +true.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she repeated, nodding her head quietly. "You, too, believe that +Mildmay Channing is here."</p> + +<p class="normal">And before her horror-stricken face the protest which was on the tip +of his tongue remained unuttered. His eyes sought the floor. With a +sudden movement of despair Linda turned aside. Even the earthliness of +Mr. Glynn had brought her no comfort or security. He had fallen under +the spell, as she had done. It seemed that they had no more words to +speak to one another. They stood and waited helplessly until Thresk +should return.</p> + +<p class="normal">But that return was delayed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He has been a long time speaking to the keeper," said Linda +listlessly, and rather to break a silence which was becoming +intolerable, than with any intention in the words. But they struck a +chord of terror in Glynn's thoughts. He walked quickly to the window, +and hastily tore the curtain aside.</p> + +<p class="normal">The flurry of his movements aroused Linda's attention. She followed +him with her eyes. She saw him curve his hands about his forehead and +press his face against the pane, even as Thresk had done an hour +before. She started forward from the fireplace and Glynn swung round +with his arms extended, barring the window. His face was white, his +lips shook. The one important statement of Thresk's he now recalled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't look!" he cried, and as he spoke, Linda pushed past him. She +flung up the window. Outside the fog curled and smoked upon the marsh +breast high. The moonlight played upon it; above it the air was clear +and pure, and in the sky stars shone faintly. Above the mist the bare +sapling stood like a pointing finger, and halfway between the sapling +and the house Thresk's head and shoulders showed plain to see. But +they were turned away from the house.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Jim! Jim!" cried Linda, shaking the window-frame with her hand. Her +voice rang loudly out on the still air. But Thresk never so much as +turned his head. He moved slowly towards the sapling, feeling the +unstable ground beneath him with his feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Jim! Jim!" again she cried. And behind her she heard a strange, +unsteady whispering voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'On equal terms!' That's what he said--I did not understand. He said, +'On equal terms.'"</p> + +<p class="normal">And even as Glynn spoke, both Linda and he saw Thresk throw up his +arms and sink suddenly beneath the bog. Linda ran to the door, +stumbling as she ran, and with a queer, sobbing noise in her throat.</p> + +<p class="normal">Glynn caught her by the arm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is of no use. You know. Round the sapling--there is no chance of +rescue. It is my fault, I should have understood. He had no fear of +Channing--if only he could meet him on equal terms."</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda stared at Glynn. For a little while the meaning of the words did +not sink into her mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He said that!" she cried. "And you did not tell me." She crept back +to the fireplace and cowered in front of it, shivering.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But he said he would come back to me," she said in the voice of a +child who has been deceived. "Yes, Jim said he would come back to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Of course it was a chance, accident, coincidence, a breath of +wind--call it what you will, except what Linda Thresk and Glynn called +it. But even as she uttered her complaint, "He said he would come back +to me," the latch of the door clicked loudly. There was a rush of cold +air into the room. The door swung slowly inwards and stood wide open.</p> + +<p class="normal">Linda sprang to her feet. Both she and Glynn turned to the open door. +The white fog billowed into the room. Glynn felt the hair stir and +move upon his scalp. He stood transfixed. Was it possible? he asked +himself. Had Thresk indeed come back to fight for Linda once more, and +to fight now as he had fought the first time--on equal terms? He stood +expecting the white fog to shape itself into the likeness of a man. +And then he heard a wild scream of laughter behind him. He turned in +time to catch Linda as she fell.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE BROWN BOOK</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_brown" href="#div1Ref_brown">THE BROWN BOOK</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">A few friends of Murgatroyd, the physician, sat about his +dinner-table, discussing that perplexing question, "How much of the +truth should a doctor tell?" In the middle of the discussion a quiet +voice spoke up from a corner, and all turned towards a middle-aged man +of European reputation who sat fingering the stem of his wine-glass.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is dangerous to lay down a general rule," said Sir James Kelsey. +"But I should say, if you want to keep a secret tell half the truth. +People accept it and pass on to their own affairs." He hesitated for a +moment and continued, rather slowly: "I am thinking of a tremendous +secret which has been kept that way for a good number of years. I call +it the story of the Brown Book."</p> + +<p class="normal">At once the discussion ceased. It was so seldom that Kelsey indulged +in anything like a confidence. Now on this one evening amongst his +brethren it seemed that he was in the mood to talk.</p> + +<p class="normal">"All of you will remember the name of John Rymer, and some of you +his meteoric career and the tragic circumstances of his death. There +was no doubt that he was a master of surgery. Yet at the age of +thirty-seven, at eleven o'clock on a July morning, after performing +three operations with all his accustomed skill, he walked into his +consulting-room and blew his brains out."</p> + +<p class="normal">Here and there a voice was raised.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I remember."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was overwork, I think."</p> + +<p class="normal">Sir James Kelsey smiled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Exactly," he said. "That's the half-truth. Overwork there was. I am +familiar with the details of the inquest, for I married John Rymer's +niece. It was proved, for instance, that during the last week of his +life he had been curtailing his operations and spending more time over +his dressings--a definite policy of his when the strain became too +heavy. Moreover, there was some mention made of a sudden reasonless +fear which had attacked him, a fear that his practice was dropping +away, and that he would be left with a wife and young family to +support, and no means to do it with. Well, we all know round this +table that that particular terror is one of the commonest results of +overwork. So overwork there undoubtedly was. A spell of tropical heat +no doubt, too, had its effect. Anyway, here was enough for a quite +acceptable verdict, and so the world thought. The usual platitudes +about the tension of modern life made their appearance. The public +read, accepted, and passed on to its own affairs. But behind John +Rymer's death there lay a tremendous secret."</p> + +<p class="normal">Once more he hesitated. Then he took a cigar from the box which his +host held out to him, and said, in a kind of rush: "No one could make +any use of it now. For there's no longer any evidence but my word, and +I should deny it. It's overwork John Rymer died of. Let us not forget +it."</p> + +<p class="normal">And then he told the story of the Brown Book. At the end of it his +cigar was still alight, for he smoked while he talked. But it was the +only cigar alight in that room.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">I was twenty-five, and I had bought a practice at Chailsey, a village +deep amongst tall, dark trees in the very heart of the Berkshire +Downs. You'll hardly find a place more pastoral and remote in all that +country of remote villages. But a couple of training stables were +established there, and, what with kicks and jumping accidents, there +was a good deal of work at times. I quite liked the spot, and I liked +it still more when Bradley Rymer and his daughter took the big house +on the slope of the Down above the village.</p> + +<p class="normal">John Rymer, the surgeon, had then been dead eight months, and Bradley +Rymer was his brother, a shortish, broad man of forty-five with a big, +pleasant face. Gossip had it that he had been very poor, so poor, +indeed, that his daughter had made her living at a typewriting +machine. There was no doubt, however, that he was rich now. "Canada's +the country," he used to say. "I made my money out of Canadian land," +and when he fell into conversation of a morning with any of the +stable-boys on the gallops he was always urging them to better +themselves in that country.</p> + +<p class="normal">His daughter Violet--a good many of you know her as my wife--had +little of his fore-gathering disposition. She was an extremely pretty +girl of nineteen, with eyes which matched her name. But she held +herself apart. She seldom came down into the village, and even when +one met her in her own house there was a constraint in her manner and +a look upon her face which I was at a loss to understand. It wasn't +merely trouble. It was a kind of perplexity, as though she did not +know where to turn. For the rest, the couple did not entertain.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We have had hard lives," Bradley Rymer said to me one rare evening +when I dined there, "and a year or two of quiet is what we want beyond +everything." And never did man speak a truer word.</p> + +<p class="normal">Bradley Rymer had lived for three months at Chailsey when Queen +Victoria died, and all the great kings and the little kings flocked +from Europe to her funeral. We at Chailsey--like the rest of Great +Britain--determined to set up a memorial, and a committee of five was +appointed to determine the form it was to take.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It must be a drinking-fountain," said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No; a stained-glass window," the vicar interrupted; and there we +were, Grayly the trainer and I on one side, the vicar and Hollams the +grocer on the other. The fifth member of the committee was absent.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, I shall go up and see Mr. Bradley Rymer this afternoon," I +said. "He has the casting vote."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You may do just as you please," said the vicar, with some +acerbity--Bradley Rymer did not go to church; "but until Mr. Bradley +Rymer condescends to be present at our committee meetings, I shall pay +not the slightest attention to his opinion."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thereupon the committee broke up. I had a good many visits to pay to +patients, and it was close upon eight o'clock when I set out upon my +walk, and darker than it usually is at that time of the year. Bradley +Rymer, I knew, did not dine until late, and I hoped to catch him just +before he and Violet sat down.</p> + +<p class="normal">The house stood a good half-mile from the village, even by the short +cut which I took up the side of the Down. It was a big, square +Georgian house with rows of high, flat windows; a large garden of +lawns and flowers and beech trees surrounded it; and the whole +property was enclosed in high red-brick walls. I was kept for a little +while at the great wrought-iron gates. That always happened. You rang +the big bell, the corner of a white curtain was cautiously lifted in +the window of the lodge, you were inspected, and at last the gates +swung open. Berkshire people were slow in those days, and, like most +country-folk, curious. I walked up the drive to the house. The front +door stood open. I rang the bell. A big mastiff came out from the hall +and sniffed at me. But we were good friends, and he retired again to +the corner. Finally a maid-servant appeared. It was perhaps a curious +fact that Bradley Rymer had no man-servant living in the house.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A butler is a spy you set upon yourself," he once said to me. Another +case of the half-truth, you see. I accepted it, and passed on to my +own affairs. So when only a maid answered the bell I was not +surprised.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Can I see Mr. Rymer?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is in the library, I think, sir," she answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well. I know my way." And, putting down my hat, I climbed the +stairs.</p> + +<p class="normal">The library was a long, comfortably-furnished room upon the first +floor, lighted by a row of windows upon one side and lined to the +ceiling with bookshelves upon the other. Rymer had a wonderful +collection of books bound in vellum and calf, but he had bought the +lot at a sale, and I don't think he ever read one of them. However, he +liked the room, and it was the one which he usually used.</p> + +<p class="normal">I opened the door and went into the library. But the servant had been +mistaken. The library was empty. I waited, however, and while I waited +a noise in the next room attracted my attention. I don't think that I +was conscious of it at first, for when I did notice it, It seemed to +me that the room had perceptibly darkened. It was so familiar a noise, +too, that one wouldn't notice it unless there were some special +unsuitability of time and place to provoke one's curiosity. For +a busy man walks through life to the sound of it. It was the sharp +tack-tack-tack of a typewriting machine, with the little clang and +break when the end of a line is reached. I listened to it first of all +surprised at the relentless rapidity with which the machine was +worked, and then, wondering why at this hour, in this house of leisure +and wealth, so tremendous an assiduity was being employed. Then in a +rush the gossip of the village came back to me. Violet Rymer, in the +days of her father's poverty, had made her living in a typewriting +office. Yes; but why should she continue so monotonous a practice now? +I couldn't think that she, if it were she, was keeping up her +proficiency for amusement. You can always tell whether the typist is +interested or whether she is working against time from the sound of +the machine. In the former case it becomes alive, one is conscious of +a personality; in the latter one thinks of an absent-minded clergyman +gabbling through the Lessons in church.</p> + +<p class="normal">Well, it was just that last note which was being struck. The machine +was racing to the end of a wearisome task, and, since already Violet +Rymer was very much to me, I thought with a real discomfort of her +bending over the keys. Moreover, I seemed to be stumbling upon a +secret which I was not meant to know. Was this tack-tack-tacking the +explanation of why Chailsey saw so little of her?</p> + +<p class="normal">While I was asking myself this question a door opened and shut +violently. It was the door into that next room, and as it was banged +the typewriting ceased altogether. There was a moment's pause, and +then a voice was raised in passion. It was Bradley Rymer's voice, but +I hardly recognised it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is it now?" he cried, bitterly. "A novel, a volume of sermons, a +pamphlet? Am I never to see you, Violet? You remain hidden in this +room, breaking your back for sixpence an hour. Why, I bought this +house for you. My one aim was to get rich for you." And the girl +interrupted him with an agonised cry.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, don't say that, father!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I do say it." And suddenly his voice softened. "It's true, Vi. +You know it's true. The one thing I hated was that you should lose all +the fun of your youth at that grinding work. And now you're still at +it. Why? Why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">And through the door came her voice, in a passionate, broken reply:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because--because--I feel--that not even the clothes I am wearing +really belong to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">The dispute suddenly ceased. A third voice spoke so low that I could +not hear the words, but I heard Bradley Rymer's startled reply:</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the library?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I had just time to get away into the farthest window before he entered +the room. It was almost dark now, and he peered about in search of me. +I moved from the window towards him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, you are there, Kelsey," he said, suavely. "We'll have a light. +It's so confoundedly dark that I can hardly see you."</p> + +<p class="normal">He rang a bell and a lamp was brought, which he took from the hands of +the servant and set down on the corner of his writing-table between +us.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How long have you been here?" he asked, and--I can't account for +it--he stood facing me in his dinner-jacket, with his usual pleasant, +friendly smile; but I suddenly became quite sure that he was +dangerous. Yes, that's the word--dangerous.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Just a minute or so," I answered, as indifferently as I could, and +then, with a strangely swift movement, he crossed the room again to +the fireplace and rang the bell. "Will you tell Miss Violet that Dr. +Kelsey is here?" he said to the parlourmaid, as soon as she appeared. +"You will find her in the next room."</p> + +<p class="normal">He came softly back and seated himself at the writing-table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And why do you want to see me?" he asked, in a queer voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">I spoke about the memorial, and he answered at random. He was +listening, but he was not listening to me. In a sort of abstraction he +drew open a drawer in his writing-table on a level with his hand, and +every now and then he shut it, and every now and then he drew it open +again.</p> + +<p class="normal">I cannot hope to make you realise the uncanny feeling of discomfort +which crept over me. Most of us at this table, I imagine, have some +knowledge of photography and its processes. We have placed a gaslight +paper in the developing-dish, and seen the face of our portrait flash +out in a second on the white surface. I can never get accustomed to +it. I can never quite look upon it as not a miracle. Well, just that +miracle seemed to me to be happening now. Bradley Rymer suddenly +became visible to me, a rogue, a murderous rogue, and I watched with +an increasing fear that drawer in his table. I waited for his hand to +slip into it.</p> + +<p class="normal">But while I waited the door of the next room was opened, and Rymer and +I both ceased to talk. We pretended no more. We listened, and, +<i>although we heard voices, we could not distinguish words</i>. Both +Violet and the servant were speaking in their ordinary tones, and +Rymer and I were now on the far side of the room. An expression of +immense relief shone upon Bradley Rymer's face for a moment, and he +rose up with the smile and the friendliness I knew.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you stay to dinner?" he asked. "Do!" But I dared not. I should +have betrayed the trouble I was in. I made a lame excuse and left the +house.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was now quite dark, and in the cool night air I began, before I had +reached the lodge, to wonder whether I had not been misled altogether +by some hallucination. Bradley Rymer brought to my memory the tragic +case of his brother, and I asked myself for a moment if the long and +late hours of a country practice were unbalancing me. But I looked +back towards the house as I took the track over the turf, and the +scene through which I had passed returned too vividly to leave me in +any doubt. I could see Bradley Rymer clearly as he opened and shut the +drawer of his writing-table. I could hear his voice raised in bitter +reproach to Violet and the click of the typewriting machine. No, I had +not been dreaming.</p> + +<p class="normal">I had walked about a hundred yards down the slope when a sharp whistle +of two notes sounded a little way off upon my right, and almost before +I had stopped a man sprang from the grass at my very feet with a +guttural cry like a man awakened from a doze. Had I taken another step +I should have trodden upon him. The next moment the light from an +electric torch flashed upon my face, blinding me. I stepped back and +put up my hand to my eyes. But even while I raised my hand the button +of the torch was released and the light went out. I stood for a moment +in utter blackness, then dimly I became aware of some one moving away +from in front of me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you want?" I cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing," was the word spoken in answer.</p> + +<p class="normal">I should have put the fellow down for one of the gipsies who infest +those Downs in the summer, and thought no more about him, but for one +reason. He had spoken with a pronounced German accent. Besides, there +was the warning whistle, the flash of the torch. I could not resist +the conviction that Bradley Rymer's house was being watched.</p> + +<p class="normal">I walked on without quickening my pace, for perhaps a hundred yards. +Then I ran, and as fast as I could, down to the village. I did not +stop to reason things out. I was in a panic. Violet was in that house, +and it was being watched by strangers. We had one policeman in the +village, and he not the brainiest of men. I got out my bicycle and +rode fourteen miles, walking up the hills and coasting down them until +I reached the town of Reading. I rode to the house of the Chief +Constable, whom I happened to know.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is Captain Bowyer in?" I asked of the servant.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, sir; he's dining out to-night."</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the town?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p class="normal">I was white with dust and wet through with sweat. The girl looked me +over and said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have orders to telephone for him if he is wanted."</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is," I replied, and she went off to the telephone at once.</p> + +<p class="normal">I began to cool down in more ways than one while I waited. It seemed +to me very likely that I had come upon a fool's errand. After all, +what had I got to go upon but a German accent, a low, sharp whistle, +and an electric torch? I waited about half an hour before Bowyer came +in. He was a big man, with a strong face and a fair moustache, +capable, but not imaginative; and I began my story with a good deal of +diffidence. But I had not got far before his face became serious, +though he said not a word until I had done.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Bradley Rymer's house," he then remarked. "I know it." He went out +into the passage, and I heard his voice at the telephone. He came back +in a moment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have sent for some men," he said, "and a car. Will you wait here +while I change?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">I glanced at the clock. For now that he took the affair seriously all +my fears had returned.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What time did you leave the house?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nine."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And it's now eleven. Yes, we must hurry. Bradley Rymer's house! So +that's where they are."</p> + +<p class="normal">He hurried away. But before he had changed his clothes a great touring +motor-car whirred and stopped in front of the door. When we went out +on to the steps of the house there were four constables waiting. We +climbed into the car, and the hilly road to Streatley, which had taken +me so long and painful a time to traverse, now rose and fell beneath +the broad wheels like the waves of a sea. At Streatley we turned +uphill along the Aldworth Road, and felt the fresh wind of the +downland upon our faces. Then for the first time upon the journey I +spoke.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You know these men?" I asked of Captain Bowyer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know of them," he answered, and he bent forwards to me. "With all +these kings and emperors in London for the funeral, of course a great +many precautions were taken on the Continent. All the known Anarchists +were marked down; most of them on some excuse or another were +arrested. But three slipped through the net and reached England."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But they would be in London," I urged.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So you would think. We were warned to-day, however, that they had +been traced into Berkshire and there lost sight of."</p> + +<p class="normal">A hundred questions rose to my lips, but I did not put them. We were +all in the dark together.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's the house," I said at length, and Captain Bowyer touched the +chauffeur on the shoulder.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We'll stop, then, by the road."</p> + +<p class="normal">Very quietly we got out of the car and crept up the hill. The night +was dark; only here and there in a chink of the clouds a star shone +feebly. Down in the village a dog barked and the wind whistled amongst +the grasses under our feet. We met no one. The lodge at the gates was +dark; we could not see the house itself, but a glare striking upon the +higher branches of the trees in the garden showed that a room was +brightly lit.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you know which room that is?" Bowyer asked of me in a whisper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The library."</p> + +<p class="normal">We spread out then and made a circuit of the garden wall. There was no +one any longer watching, and we heard no whistle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They have gone," I said to Bowyer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Or they are inside," he replied, and as he spoke we heard feet +brushing upon the grass and a constable loomed up in front of us.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This way, sir," he whispered. "They are inside."</p> + +<p class="normal">We followed him round to the back of the garden. Just about the middle +of that back wall the men stood in a cluster. We joined them, and saw +that an upright ladder rose to the parapet. On the other side of the +wall a thick coppice of trees grew, dark and high. Without a word, one +after another we mounted the ladder and let ourselves down by the +trees into the garden. A few paces took us to the edge of the coppice, +and the house stood in the open before us. Standing in the shadow of +the branches, we looked up. The house was in complete darkness but for +the long row of library windows upon the first floor. In these, +however, the curtains were not drawn, and the light blazed out upon +the green foliage. There was no sound, no sign of any disorder. Once +more I began to think that I had brought Bowyer and his men here upon +a fool's errand. I said as much to him in a whisper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But the ladder?" he answered, "my men found it there." And even while +he spoke there appeared at one of these windows a stranger. It was as +much as I could do in that awful moment to withhold a cry, I gripped +Bowyer's arm with so much violence that he could show me the bruises +of my fingers a week afterwards. But he stood like a rock now.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that Rymer?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No. I have never seen him in my life before."</p> + +<p class="normal">He was a dark man, and his hair and moustache were turning grey. He +had the look of a foreigner, and he lounged at the window with as much +assurance as if he owned the place. Then he turned his face towards +the room with a smile, and, as if in obedience to an order, carelessly +drew down the blinds.</p> + +<p class="normal">They were in the house, then--these men who had slipped through the +net of the Continental police; more, they were masters in the house; +and there was no sound. They were in peaceful possession. My heart +sank within me when I thought of Violet Rymer and her father. What had +become of them? In what plight were they?</p> + +<p class="normal">Bowyer made a sign, and, stepping carefully on the turf border and +keeping within the shadow of the trees, we crept round to the back of +the house. One of the party ran swiftly and silently across a gravel +path to the house-wall and followed it for a little way. Then as +swiftly he came back.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, there's a window open," he said. We crossed to it. It yawned +upon black emptiness. We listened; not a sound reached us.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What does it give on to?" asked Bowyer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A passage. At the end of the passage there's a swing door. Beyond the +swing door the hall."</p> + +<p class="normal">We climbed in through the window.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There should be a mastiff in the hall," I said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh!" and Bowyer came to a stop. "Do you think Rymer expected these +men?" he asked. I had begun to ask myself that question already. It +was clear the dog had not given any alarm. But we found out the reason +when we crept into the hall. He was lying dead upon the stone floor, +with a piece of meat at his side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Quick!" whispered Bowyer, and I led the way up the great staircase. +At the head of it at last we heard voices, and stopped, holding our +breath. A few words spoken in a foreign accent detached themselves +from the general murmur.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where is it? You won't say! Very well, then!" A muffled groan +followed the words, and once more the voice spoke. "Wait, Adolf! He +gives in. We shall know now," and as the voice continued, some one, it +was clear, between each question asked, answered with a sign, a shake +of the head, or a nod. "It is in the bookcase? Yes. Behind the books? +Good. There? No. To the right? Yes. Higher? Yes. On that shelf? Good. +Search well, Adolf!" And with that Bowyer burst into the room with his +men behind him. He held a revolver in his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall shoot the first man who moves," he said; and no one did move. +They stood like wax figures moulded in an attitude for ever. Imagine, +if you can, the scene which confronted me! On the library ladder, with +a hand thrust behind the books on one of the highest shelves, was +mounted one of the three foreigners. A second--he whom we had seen at +the window--stood over a chair into which Bradley Rymer was strapped +with a gag over his mouth. The third supported Violet. She was +standing in the middle of the room, with her hands tied behind her and +a rope in a noose about her neck. The end of the rope had been passed +through a big ring in the ceiling which had once carried a lamp. I +sprang towards her, cast off the noose, and she fainted there and then +in my arms.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the back of the bookshelf we found a slim little book of brown +morocco with a broken lock.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">At this point in Sir James Kelsey's story Dr. Murgatroyd leaned +forward and interrupted.</p> + +<p class="normal">"John Rymer's private case-book," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Exactly," replied Kelsey, "and also Bradley Rymer's boom in Canadian +land."</p> + +<p class="normal">There was a quick stir about that table, and then a moment of +uncomfortable silence. At last one spoke the thought in the minds of +all.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Blackmail!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">There was hardly a man in the room who had not some record of a case +locked away in a private drawer which was worth a fortune of gold, and +each one began to think of the security of his locks.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But where do your foreign revolutionaries come in?" asked Murgatroyd, +and Kelsey took up his tale again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Bowyer and I went through that brown book together in my house, after +the prisoners had been sent off. For a long time we could find no +explanation. But right at the end of the book there was a case which +puzzled me. A Mr. Johnson had entered Rymer's nursing-home on June +17th of the year before at five o'clock in the morning, a strange time +to arrive. But there it was, noted down with every other particular of +his case. Three days later Mr. Johnson was operated on for cancer of +the throat. The operation was remarkably successful, and the patient +left the home cured seven weeks later. I think it was the unusual time +of Mr. Johnson's arrival which first directed my suspicions; and the +more I thought of them the more credible they became. I had lighted a +fire in the sitting-room, for the morning had come, and it was chilly. +I said to Bowyer:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Just wait a moment here. I keep a file of <i>The Times</i>,' and I went +upstairs, blessing the methodical instinct which had made me for so +long keep in due order this record of events. I brought down the file +of June of the year before, and, turning over the pages, I found under +the date of June 14th the official paragraph of which I was in search. +I put it under Bowyer's eyes. He read it through and sprang to his +feet with a cry. The paragraph ran like this. I can remember every +word of it. I am inventing a name for the country, that's all, instead +of giving you the real one:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'The Crown Prince of Galicia left the capital yesterday for his +annual visit to his shooting-box in the Tyrol, where he will remain +for two months. This news effectually dispels the rumours that His +Royal Highness's recent indisposition was due to a malignant growth in +the throat.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Underneath this paragraph there was an editorial note:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'The importance of this news cannot be overrated. For by the +constitution of Galicia no one suffering from or tainted by any +malignant disease can ascend the throne.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Identify now Rymer's Mr. Johnson with the Crown Prince of Galicia, +and not only Bradley Rymer's fortune but the attack upon his house by +the revolutionaries was explained, for whether they meant to use the +Brown Book for blackmail as Bradley Rymer had done, or to upset a +monarchy, it would be of an inestimable value to them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'What are we to do?' asked Bowyer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'What John Rymer's executors would have done if the book had not been +stolen,' I answered, balancing it above the fire.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He hesitated. The official mind said 'No.' Then he realised the +stupendous character of the secret. He burst through forms and rules.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Yes, by Heaven,' he cried, 'destroy it!' And we sat there till the +last sheet blackened and curled up in the flames.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I had not a doubt as to what had happened. I took the half-truth +which the public knew and it fitted like a piece of a Chinese puzzle +with our discovery. John Rymer, assailed with a causeless fear of +penury, had consented for a huge fee to take the Crown Prince into his +home under the false name. Bradley Rymer had got wind of the +operation, had stolen the record of the case, and had the Galician +Crown and Government at his mercy. John Rymer's suicide followed +logically. Accused of bad faith, and already unbalanced, aware that a +deadly secret which he should have guarded with his life had escaped, +he had put the muzzle of a revolver into his mouth and blown his +brains out."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What became of the foreigners?" asked one of the guests, as Kelsey +finished.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They were kept under lock and key until the funeral was over. Then +they were sent out of the country."</p> + +<p class="normal">Kelsey rose from his chair. The hands of the clock pointed to eleven. +But before anyone else got up Dr. Murgatroyd asked a final question:</p> + +<p class="normal">"And what of Mr. Johnson?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Kelsey laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I told you Rymer was a great surgeon. Mr. Johnson has been King of +Galicia, as we are calling it, for the past ten years."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE REFUGE</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_refuge" href="#div1Ref_refuge">THE REFUGE</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The basket of <i>petits fours</i> had been removed; cigars and cigarettes +had been passed round; one or two of the half-dozen people gathered +about the small round table, rashly careless of a sleepless night, +were drinking coffee with their liqueurs; the conversation was +sprightly, at all events, if it was not witty, and laughter ran easily +in ripples; the little supper-party, in a word, was at its gayest when +Harry Caston suddenly pushed back his chair. Though the movement was +abrupt, it was not conspicuous; it did not interrupt the light +interchange of chaff and pleasantries for a moment. It was probably +not noticed, and certainly not understood by more than one in that +small company. The one, however, was a woman to whom Harry Gaston's +movements were a matter of much greater interest than he knew. Mrs. +Wordingham was sitting next to him, and she remarked quietly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"So you are not going on to the Mirlitons' dance, after all?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Caston turned to her in surprise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You're a witch," he replied. "I have only just made up my mind to go +home instead."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know," said Mrs. Wordingham.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then you oughtn't to," retorted Harry Caston carelessly. Mrs. +Wordingham flushed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wish I didn't," she answered in a low, submissive voice. She was +not naturally a submissive woman, and it was only in his ears that +this particular note was sounded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I meant that you had no right to be able to estimate so accurately +the hidden feelings of your brother-man," he answered awkwardly, and +wrapping up his awkwardness in an elaboration of words.</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Caston looked about the supper-room, with its walls of white and +gold, its clusters of bright faces, its flash of silver, its running +noise of merriment. His fingers twitched restlessly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I am going," he said. "I shall leave London to-morrow. I have a +house."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know that too--in the Isle of Wight."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not so very far, after all, is it?" he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"As far as Timbuctoo when you are there," replied Mrs. Wordingham. Her +great dark eyes rested wistfully upon his face; she leaned the least +little bit towards him. Harry Caston was silent for a moment. Then he +turned to her with a smile of apology.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You know me----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, don't I!" she cried in a low voice. "We shall see you no more +for--how many months?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Caston did not answer. His memories were busy with an afternoon +of early summer in that same year, when, as his motor-car slid down a +long straight slope into a village of red-brick cottages, he had seen, +on the opposite incline, a row of tall stone-pines, and glowing +beneath their shade the warm brown roof of a small and ancient house.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me about it," said Mrs. Wordingham, once more interpreting his +silence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There was a bridge at the bottom of the hill--a bridge across the +neck of a creek, with an old flour mill and a tiny roof at one side of +it. Inland of the bridge was a reach of quiet water running back +towards the downs through woods and meadows. Already I seemed to have +dropped from the crest of the hill into another century. Beyond the +bridge the road curved upwards. I went up on my second speed between +the hedge of a field which sloped down to the creek upon the one side, +and a low brick wall topped by a bank of grass upon the other. The +incline of the hill brought my head suddenly above the bank, and I +looked straight across a smooth lawn broken by great trees on to the +front of a house. And I stopped my car, believe me, almost with a +gasp. There was no fence or hedge to impede my view. I had come at +last across the perfect house, and I sat in the car and stared and +stared at it, not at first with any conscious desire to possess it, +but simply taken by the sheer beauty of the thing, just as one may +gaze at a jewel."</p> + +<p class="normal">The lights went suddenly out in the supper-room, as a gentle warning +that time was up, and then were raised again. Harry Caston, however, +seemed unaware of any change. He was at the moment neither of that +party nor of that room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was a small house of the E shape, raised upon a low parapet and +clothed in ivy. The middle part, set back a few feet behind flowers, +had big flat windows; the gabled ends had smaller ones and more of +them. Oh, I can't describe to you what I saw! The house in detail? +Yes. But that would not give you an idea of it. The woodwork of the +windows was painted white, and, where they stood open to the sunlight +and the air, they showed you deep embrasures of black oak within."</p> + +<p class="normal">He stumbled on awkwardly, impelled to describe the house, yet aware +that his description left all unsaid. The tiles of the roof were +mellowed by centuries, so that shade ran into shade; and here they +were almost purple, and there brown with a glint of gold. Two great +chimney stacks stood high, not rising from the roof, but from the +sides of the house, flanking it like sentinels, and over these, too, +the ivy climbed.</p> + +<p class="normal">But what had taken Caston by the throat was the glamour of repose on +that old house. Birds flickered about the lawn, and though the windows +stood open, and the grass was emerald green and smooth, no smoke rose +from any of the chimney-tops.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I ran on for a few yards," he went on, "until I saw a road which +branched off to the right. I drove up it, and came to a gate with a +notice that the house was to be sold. I went in, and at the back of +the house, in a second queer little grass garden, screened by big +trees upon three sides and a low red-brick wall upon the fourth, over +which you could see the upper reach of the estuary and the woods on +the further hill, I found a garrulous old gardener."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Wordingham leaned forward.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And what story had he to tell?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, none!" answered Caston with a laugh. "There's no tragic +or romantic history connected with the house. Of course, it's +haunted--that goes without saying. There's hardly a bedroom window +where the ivy does not tap upon the panes. But for history! Four old +ladies took it for a summer, and remained in it for forty years. The +last one of them died two years ago. That's all the history the +gardener knew. But he showed me over the house, the quaintest place +you ever dreamed of--a small stone-flagged hall, little staircases +rising straight and enclosed in the walls, great polished oak beams, +rooms larger than you would expect, and a great one on the first +floor, occupying the middle of the house and looking out upon the +grass garden at the back, and over the sunk road to the creek in +front. Anyway"--and he broke off abruptly--"I bought the house, and +I've furnished it, and now----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now you are going to shut yourself up in it," said Mrs. Wordingham.</p> + +<p class="normal">The lights were turned out now for the last time. The party sat almost +in darkness. Caston turned towards his companion. He could just see +the soft gleam of her dark eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For a little," he replied. "I have to, you know. I can't help it. I +enjoy all this. I like running about London as much as any man; I--I +am fond of my friends." The lady smiled with a little bitterness, and +Caston went on: "But the time comes when everything suddenly jars on +me--noise, company, everything--when I must get away with my books +into some refuge of my own, when I must take my bath of solitude +without anyone having a lien upon a single minute of my time. The +need has come on me to-night. The house is ready--waiting. I shall go +to-morrow."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Wordingham glanced at him with a quick anxiety. There was a +trifle of exasperation in his voice. He was suddenly on wires.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, you look tired," she said. The head waiter approached the table, +and the party broke up and mounted the steps into the hall. Caston +handed Mrs. Wordingham into her carriage.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall see you when I come back?" said he, and Mrs. Wordingham +answered with a well-assumed carelessness:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall be in London in the autumn. Perhaps you will have some story +to tell me of your old house. Has it a name?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, yes--Hawk Hill," replied Caston. "But there's no story about that +house," he repeated, and the carriage rolled away. Later on, however, +he was inclined to doubt the accuracy of his statement, confidently +though he had made it. And a little later still he became again aware +of its truth.</p> + +<p class="normal">Here, at all events, is what occurred. Harry Caston idled through his +mornings over his books, sailed his sloop down the creek and out past +the black booms into the Solent in the afternoon, and came back to a +solitary dinner in the cool of the evening. Thus he passed a month. He +was not at all tired with his own company. The inevitable demand for +comrades and a trifle of gaiety had not yet been whispered to his +soul. The fret of his nerves ceased; London sank away into the mists. +Even the noise of the motor-horns in the hidden road beneath his lawn +merely reminded him pleasantly that he was free of that whirlpool and +of all who whirled in it. If he needed conversation, there were +the boatmen on the creek, with their interest in tides and shoals, +or the homely politics of the village. But Caston needed very +little. He drifted back, as it seemed to him, into the reposeful, +lavender-scented life of a century and a half ago. For though the +house was of the true E shape, and had its origin in Tudor times, it +was with that later period that Caston linked it in his thoughts. +Tudor times were stirring, and the recollection of them uncongenial to +Caston's mood.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had furnished the house to suit his mood, and the room which he +chiefly favoured--a room at the back, with a great bay window thrown +out upon the grass, and the floor just a step below the level of the +garden--had the very look of some old parlour where Mr. Hardcastle +might have sipped his port, and Kate stitched at her samplers. Here he +was sitting at ten o'clock in the evening, about a month after he had +left London, when the first of the incidents occurred. It was nothing +very startling in itself--merely the sound of some small thing falling +upon the boards of the floor and rolling into a corner--a crisp, sharp +sound, as though a pebble had dropped.</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston looked up from his book, at the first hardly curious. But in a +minute or so, it occurred to him that he was alone, and that he had +dropped nothing. Moreover, the sound had travelled from the other side +of the room. He was not as yet curious enough to rise from his chair, +and a round satin-wood table impeded his view. But he looked about the +room, and could see nothing from which an ornament could have dropped. +He turned back to his book, but his attention wandered. Once or twice +he looked sharply up, as though he expected to find another occupant +in the room. Finally he rose, and walking round the table, he saw what +seemed to be a big glass bead sparkling in the lamplight on the +dark-stained boards in a corner of the room. He picked the object up, +and found it to be not a large bead, but a small knob or handle of +cut-glass. He knew now whence it had come.</p> + +<p class="normal">Against the wall stood a small Louis Seize table in white and gold, +which he remembered to have picked up at a sale, with some other +furniture, at some old mansion, across the water, in the New Forest. +He had paid no particular attention to the table, had never even +troubled to look inside of it. It had the appearance of being a lady's +secretaire or something of the kind. But there were three shallow +drawers, one above the other, in the middle part of it--it was what is +inelegantly called a kidney table--and these drawers were fitted with +small glass knobs such as that which he held in his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston went over to the table, and saw that one of the knobs was +missing. He stooped to replace it, and at once stood erect again, with +the knob in his hand and a puzzled expression upon his face. He had +expected that the handles would fit on to projecting screws. But he +found that they were set into brass rings, and firmly set. This one +which he held seemed to have been wrenched out of its setting by some +violent jerk. He tried the drawers, but they were locked. There were +some papers and books spread upon the top. He removed them, and found +upon the white polish a half-erased crest. It was plain that the +middle part of the top was a lid and lifted up, but it was now locked +down. Caston did not replace the books and papers. He returned to his +chair. The servants probably had been curious. No doubt they had tried +to open the drawers, and in the attempt had loosened one of the +handles.</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston was content with the explanation--for that night. But the next +evening, at the same hour, the legs of the table rattled on the wooden +floor. He sprang up from his seat. The table was shaking. He stepped +quickly across to it, and then stopped with his heart leaping in +his breast. The books and papers had not been replaced, and he had +seen--it might be that his eyes had played him a trick, but he had +<i>seen</i>--a small slim hand suddenly withdrawn from the lid of the +table. The hand had been lying flat upon its palm--Caston had just +time enough to see that--and it was the left hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's exactly the position," he said to himself, "in which one would +place the left hand to hold the table steady while one tried to force +the drawers open with one's right."</p> + +<p class="normal">He stood without a movement, but the hand did not appear again; and +then he found himself saying in a quiet voice of reassurance:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Can I help at all?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The sound of his own words stirred him abruptly to laughter. Common +sense reasserted itself; his eyes had played him a trick. Too much +tobacco, very likely, was the cause and origin of his romantic vision. +But, none the less, he remained standing quite still, with his eyes +fixed upon the table's polished lid, for some minutes; and when he +went back at last to his chair, from time to time he glanced abruptly +from his book, in the hope that he might once more detect the hand +upon the table. But he was disappointed.</p> + +<p class="normal">The next morning he saw the old gardener sweeping the leaves from the +front lawn, and he at once and rather eagerly went out to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think you told me, Hayes, that this house is supposed to be +haunted," he said, with a laugh at the supposition.</p> + +<p class="normal">The gardener took off his hat and scratched his head reflectively.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, they do say, sir, as it is. But I've never seen anything +myself, nor can I rightly say that I've ever come across anyone who +has. A pack o' nonsense, I call it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very likely, Hayes," said Caston. "And what sort of a person is it +who's supposed to walk?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"An old man in grey stockings," replied the gardener. "That's what +I've heard. But what he's supposed to be doing I don't know, sir, any +more than I know why there should be so much fuss about his wearing +grey stockings. Live men do that, after all."</p> + +<p class="normal">"To be sure," replied Caston. "You may count them by dozens on +bicycles if you stand for an hour or two above the road here." And he +went back to the house. It was quite clear that his visitant of last +night, if there had been one, was not the native spectre of this small +old manor-house.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The slim white hand I saw," Caston argued, "belonged to no old man in +grey stockings or out of them. It was the hand of a quite young woman. +But if she doesn't belong to the house, if she isn't one of the +fixtures to be taken on by the incoming tenant--if, in a word, she's a +trespasser--how in the world did she find her way here?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston suddenly saw an answer to the question--a queer and a rather +attractive answer, especially to a man who had fed for a month on +solitude and had grown liable to fancies. He had all through this +lonely month been gradually washing from his body and his mind the +dust of his own times. He had sought to reproduce the quiet of an +older age, and in the seeking had perhaps done more than reproduce. +That was his thought. He had, perhaps, by ever so little, penetrated +the dark veil which hides from men all days but their own--just +enough, say, to catch a glimpse of a hand. He himself was becoming +more and more harmonious with his house; the cries of the outer world +hardly reached his ears in that little parlour which opened on to the +hidden garden. It seemed to him that other times, through some +thinning out of the thick curtain of his senses, were becoming actual +and real just to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The first month passed," he said to himself. "I was undisturbed; no +sign was made. I was still too near to what I had left behind--London +and the rest of it. But now I pass more and more over the threshold +into that other century. First of all, I was only aware of a movement, +a presence; then I was able to see--nothing much, it is true--only a +small hand. But tonight I may see her to whom the hand belongs. In a +week I may be admitted into her company."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus he argued, pretending to himself the while that he was merely +playing with his fancy, pursuing it like a ball in a game, and ready +to let it fall and lie the moment that he was tired. But the sudden +hum of a motor-car upon his drive, and a joyous outcry of voices, soon +dispelled the pretence. A party of his friends invaded him, clamouring +for luncheon, and in his mind there sprang up a fear so strong that it +surprised him. They would thicken the thinning curtain between himself +and her whose hand had lain upon the table. They would drag him back +into his own century. The whole process of isolation would have to +begin again. The talk at luncheon was all of regattas and the tonnage +of yachts. Caston sat at the table with his fear increasing. His +visitors were friends he would have welcomed five weeks ago, and he +would have gaily taken his part in their light talk. Now it was every +moment on his lips to cry out:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hold your tongues and go!"</p> + +<p class="normal">They went off at three o'clock, and a lady of the party wisely nodded +a dainty head at him as he stood upon the steps, and remarked:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You hated us visiting you, Mr. Caston. You have someone in that +house--someone you won't show to us."</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston coloured to the roots of his hair.</p> + +<p class="normal">The lady laughed. "There--I knew I was right! Let me guess who it can +be."</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston raised his head in a quick protest.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, there is no one." He tried to laugh easily. "That's my trouble. +There is no one, I am afraid."</p> + +<p class="normal">They had driven his visitor away, without a doubt; and though he sat +very still in his arm-chair that night, careful as a hunter by no +abrupt movement to scare away his quarry, he sat undisturbed. He +waited until the light was grey and the birds singing upon the lawn. +He went to bed disappointed as a lover whose mistress had failed to +keep her tryst.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the next day he searched for and found the catalogue of the sale at +which he had bought the table. The sale had been held at a house +called Bylanes, some five miles from the Beaulieu river, and the +furniture was advertised as the property of Geoffrey Trimingham, Esq., +deceased, and sold by his young widow. Caston's memory was quickened +by these meagre details. He recollected stories which he had heard +during the three days of the sale. The Triminghams were a branch of +the old Norfolk family of that name, and had settled in the New Forest +so far back as the reign of the first George. Geoffrey Trimingham, +however, had delayed marriage until well sped in years, and then had +committed the common fault of marrying a young woman, who, with no +children and no traditions to detain her in a neighbourhood which she +considered gloomy, had, as soon as she was free, sold off house and +furniture--lock, stock, and barrel--so that she might retire to what +she considered the more elegant neighbourhood of Blandford Square.</p> + +<p class="normal">This was all very well, but it did not bring Harry Gaston very much +nearer to the identification of his visitor. She was a Trimingham, +probably, but even that was by no means certain; and to what +generation of Triminghams she belonged, he knew no more than he knew +her Christian name. He searched the house for the keys of the table, +but nowhere could he find them. He had never opened the drawers, he +had never raised the lid. It seemed to him that he must have bought +the table without the keys at all.</p> + +<p class="normal">He might have broken it open, of course, and from time to time, as the +evenings passed in an expectation which was not fulfilled, he was +tempted to take a chisel in his hand and set to work. But he resisted. +The table was not his. It was <i>hers</i>, and in her presence alone it +must be opened.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus Caston passed a week, and then one evening there fell a shadow +across the open page of his book. He looked swiftly up. He saw nothing +but the empty room, and the flame of the lamp burned bright and +steady. She was here, then, and as the conviction grew within him to a +veritable exultation, he was aware of rustling of a woman's gown. The +sound came from behind him. He turned with a leap of his heart, and +saw her--saw her from the crown of her small head, with its thick +brown hair, to the hem of her dress--not a shadow, not a vague shape +dimly to be apprehended, but as actual as flesh and blood could be. +She was dressed in a gown of pale blue satin of an ancient mode, and +was slender as a child. Her face, too, was the face of one little more +than a child, though pain and trouble had ravaged it.</p> + +<p class="normal">She stood as though she had just stepped from the garden on to the +window-seat, and so to the floor, and in her dark eyes there was a +look of the direst urgency. She moved swiftly across the room to the +table, pulled at the glass handles, and sought to lift the lid, and +all in a feverish haste, with her young and troubled face twitching as +though she were at pains to check her tears. Caston watched her +eagerly. He noticed that once more her left hand was pressed flat +upon the lid, as she tried to open the drawer, and then a flash of +gold caught and held his eyes. Young though she was, she wore a +wedding-ring. He had barely noticed it, when she turned from the table +and came straight towards him. Caston rose from his chair. He heard +himself saying once more:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Can I help?"</p> + +<p class="normal">But this time he did not laugh upon the words. She stood before him +with so pitiful an appeal, her hands clutched together in front of +her, her face convulsed. He spoke with the deference due to those who +have greatly suffered. Then came to him a whisper in reply, so low +that he barely heard it--so low that perhaps he only imagined it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston went across to the table, and, opening his knife, inserted it +under the lid. The girl stood at his side, a gleam of hope in her +eyes. Caston ran the blade of the knife along to the lock and turned +it, prising up the lid. There was a sound of the splitting of wood, +and the lock gave. Caston lifted the lid. It rose on hinges, and had +upon the under-side a bevelled mirror, and it disclosed, when open, a +fixed tray lined with blue velvet. The tray was empty.</p> + +<p class="normal">But now that the lid was raised in the centre of the table, the +side-pieces could be opened too. The girl opened the one at her hand. +Caston saw a well, lined, like the rest, with velvet, and filled with +the knick-knacks and belongings of a girl. She took them out +hurriedly, heaping them together on the tray--a walnut-wood housewife +shaped and shut like a large card-case, with scissors, thimble, +needle-case, tiny penknife, all complete--for she opened it, as she +opened everything in the haste and urgency of her search--a large +needle-case of ivory, a walnut-wood egg, which unscrewed and showed +within a reel with silk still wound upon it, and a little oval box +with a label on the top of it, and the royal arms. Caston read the +label:</p> +<br> + +<h4>STRINGER'S CANDY.<br> +PREPARED AND SOLD ONLY BY THE PROPRIETOR,<br> +R. STRINGER,<br> +DRUGGIST TO THE KING.</h4> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The top fell from the little box, and a shower of shells rattled out +of it. Bags of beads followed, wash-leather bags carefully tied up, +and some of them filled with the minutest of beads. It made Caston's +eyes ache to think of anyone stringing them together. In the end the +well was emptied, and, with a gesture of despair, the girl slipped +round to the other side of Caston. She turned back the flap upon this +side.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the other side were the implements of work; here was the finished +product. She lifted out two small anti-macassars, completely made up +of tiny beads in crystal and turquoise colours, and worked in the most +intricate patterns. They were extraordinarily heavy, and must have +taken months in the making. Under these were still more beads, in +boxes and in bags and coiled in long strings. She heaped them out upon +the tray, and looked into the well. Her face flashed into relief. She +thrust her hands in; she drew out from the very bottom a faded bundle +of letters. She clasped them for a moment close against her heart, +then very swiftly, as though she feared to be stopped, she took them +over to the fireplace.</p> + +<p class="normal">A fire was burning in the grate, for the night was chilly. She dropped +the bundle into the flames, and stood there while it was consumed. +Caston saw the glare of the flames behind the paper light up here and +there a word or a phrase, and then the edges curled over and the +sparks ran across the sheets, and the letters changed to white ashes +and black flakes. When all was done, she sighed and turned to Caston +with a wistful smile of thanks. She moved back to the table, and with +a queer orderliness which seemed somehow in keeping with her looks and +manner, she replaced the beads, the little boxes, and the +paraphernalia of her work carefully in the wells, and shut the table +up. She turned again to Caston at the end. Just for a second she stood +before him, her face not happy, but cleared of its trouble, and with a +smile upon her lips. She stood, surely a living thing. Caston advanced +to her. "You will stay now!" he cried, and she was gone.</p> + +<p class="normal">This is the story as Harry Caston told it to Mrs. Wordingham when he +returned to London in the autumn. She ridiculed it gently and with a +trifle of anxiety, believing that solitude had bred delusions.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Harry Caston grimly, and sitting up very erect. Mrs. +Wordingham changed her note.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's the most wonderful thing to have happened to you," she said. "I +should have been frightened out of my life. And you weren't?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Gaston's face hardly relaxed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You don't believe a word of it," he asserted sternly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course I do," she replied soothingly, "and I quite see that, with +us nowhere near you, all your senses became refined, and you +penetrated behind the curtain. Yes, I see all that, Harry. But she +might, perhaps, have told you a little more, mightn't she? As a story, +it almost sounds unfinished."</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Caston rose to his feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I tell you what you are doing," he said, standing over her--"you are +getting a little of your own back."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But such a very little, Harry," murmured Mrs. Wordingham; and Harry +Caston flung out of the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not refer to the subject again for some little while. But in +the month of December, on one foggy afternoon, he arrived with a new +book under his arm. He put it down on the floor beside his chair +rather ostentatiously, as one inviting questions. Mrs. Wordingham was +serenely unaware of the book.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where have you been, Harry?" she asked as she gave him a cup of tea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"In Norfolk--shooting," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Many birds?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"So few that we did not go out on the second day. We motored to a +church instead--a very old church with a beautiful clerestory."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Wordingham affected an intense interest.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Old churches are wonderful," she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You care no more about them than I do," said Harry Gaston brutally. +"I am not going to tell you about the church."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, aren't you?" said Mrs. Wordingham.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No. What I am going to tell you is this. The vicar is a friend of my +host, and happened to be in the church when we arrived. He showed us +the building himself, and then, taking us into the vestry, got out the +parish register. It dates back a good many years. Well, turning over +the leaves, I noticed quite carelessly an entry made by the vicar in +the year 1786. It was a note of a donation which he had made to the +parish as a thanksgiving for his recovery from a severe operation +which had been performed upon him in Norwich by a famous surgeon of +the day named Twiddy."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?" said Mrs. Wordingham.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That little entry occupied my mind much more than the church," +continued Caston. "I wondered what the vicar must have felt as he +travelled into Norwich in those days of no chloroform, no antiseptics, +of sloughing wounds, and hospital fevers. Not much chance of <i>his</i> +ever coming back again, eh? And then the revulsion when he did +recover--the return home to Frimley-next-the-Sea alive and well! It +must all have been pretty wonderful to the vicar in 1786, eh?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said Mrs. Wordingham submissively.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I couldn't get him out of my head and when I returned to London a +couple of days ago, I saw in a bookseller's this book."</p> + +<p class="normal">Caston picked the volume up from the floor.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It seems that Twiddy was no end of a swell with his knife, so some +one of his devoted descendants has had a life written of him, with all +his letters included. He kept up an extensive correspondence, as +people did in those days. He had a shrewd eye and a knack of telling a +story. There's one here which I wish you to read if you will. No, not +now--when I have gone. I have put a slip of paper in at the page. I +think it will interest you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Harry Caston went away. Mrs. Wordingham had her curtains closed and +her lamps lit. She drew her chair up to the fire, and she opened "The +Life and Letters of Mr. Edmund Twiddy, Surgeon, of Norwich," with a +shrug of the shoulders and a little grimace of discontent. But the +grimace soon left her face, and when her maid came with a warning that +she had accepted an invitation for that night to dinner, she found her +mistress with the book still open upon her knees, and her eyes staring +with a look of wonder into the fire. For this is what she had read in +"The Life and Letters of Mr. Edmund Twiddy."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have lately had a curious case under my charge, which has given me +more trouble than I care to confess. For sentiment is no part of the +equipment of a surgeon. It perplexed as well as troubled me, and some +clue to the explanation was only afforded me yesterday. Three months +ago my servant brought me word one evening that there was a lady very +urgent to see me, of the name of Mrs. Braxfield. I replied that my +work was done, and she must return at a more seasonable time. But +while I was giving this message the door was pushed open, and already +she stood in front of me. She was a slip of a girl, very pretty to +look at, and shrinking with alarm at her own audacity. Yet she held +her ground.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Mrs. Braxfield,' I cried, 'you have no right to be married--you are +much too young! Young girls hooked at your age ought to be put back.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I am ill,' she said, and I nodded to the servant to leave us.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Very well,' I said. 'What's the matter?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'My throat,' said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I looked at it. There was trouble, but the trouble was not so very +serious, though I recognised that at some time treatment would be +advisable.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'There's no hurry at all about it,' I said, when my examination was +concluded, 'but, on the whole, you are right to get it looked to +soon.' I spoke roughly, for I shrank a little from having this tender +bit of a girl under my knife. 'Where's your husband?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'He is in Spain,' she replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Oh, indeed!' said I with some surprise. 'Well, when he returns, we +can talk about it.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mrs. Braxfield shook her head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'No, I want it done now, while he's away,' she said, and nothing that +I could say would shake her from her purpose. I fathered her, and +bullied her, and lectured her, but she stood her ground. Her lips +trembled; she was afraid of me, and still more desperately afraid of +what waited for her. I could see her catch her breath and turn pale as +she thought upon the ordeal. But the same sort of timid courage which +had made her push into my room before I could refuse to see her, +sustained her now. I raised my hands at last in despair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Very well,' I said. 'Give me your husband's address. I will send a +letter to him, and if he consents, we will not wait for his return.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'No,' she insisted stubbornly, 'I do not want him to know anything +about it. But if you will not attend me, no doubt someone else will.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was my trouble. The throat, look at it how you will, is a +ticklish affair. If she went away from me, Heaven knows into whose +hands she might fall. She had some money and was well dressed. Some +quack would have used his blundering knife. I could have shaken her +for her obstinacy, and would have, if I had had a hope that I would +shake it out of her. But she had screwed herself up to a pitch of +determination almost unbelievable in her. I could make her cry; I +could not make her draw back from her resolve. Nor, on the other hand, +could I allow her to go out of my house and hand herself over to be +butchered by any Tom, Dick, or Harry of a barber on the look-out for a +fat fee. So I gave in.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I got her a lodging in this town, and a woman to look after her, and +I did what needed to be done with as little pain as might be.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'You won't hurt me more than you can help,' she said in a sort of +childish wail. And then she shut her eyes and bore it with an +extraordinary fortitude; while, for my part, I never worked more +neatly or more quickly in my life, and in a few days she was quite +comfortable again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But here she began to perplex me. For though the wound healed, and +there was no fever, she did not mend. She lay from day to day in an +increasing weakness, for which I could not account. I drew a chair up +to her bed one morning and took my seat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'My dear,' I said, 'a good many of us are father-confessors as well +as doctors. We needs must be at times if our patients are to get well +and do us credit. You are lying here surely with a great trouble on +your mind. It shall be sacred to me, but I must know it if I am to +cure you.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"The girl looked at me with a poor little smile.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'No, there's nothing at all,' she said; and even while she spoke she +lifted her head from the pillow, and a light dawned in her eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Listen!' she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I heard a step coming nearer and nearer along the pavement outside. +As it grew louder, she raised herself upon her elbow, and when the +footsteps ceased outside the door, her whole soul leapt into her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'There will be a letter for me!' she cried, with a joyous clapping of +her hands.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The footsteps moved on and became fainter and more faint. The girl +remained propped up, with her eyes fixed upon the door. But no one +came.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'It has been left in the hall,' she said, turning wistfully to me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I will send it up if it is there,' said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I went downstairs rather heavy at heart. Here was the reason why she +did not mend. Here it was, and I saw no cure for it. There was no +letter in the hall, nor did I expect to find one. I sent for the woman +who waited upon her. 'Does she always expect a letter?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"The woman nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'She knows the postman's step, sir, even when he is a long way off. +She singles it out from all other sounds. If he stops at the door, I +must run down upon the instant. But whether he stops or not, it is +always the same thing--there is no letter for her.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"I went upstairs again and into her room. The girl was lying upon her +side, with her faced pressed into the pillow, and crying. I patted her +shoulder.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Come, Mrs. Braxfield, you must tell me what the trouble is, and we +will put our heads together and discover a remedy.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"But she drew away from me. 'There is nothing,' she repeated. 'I am +weak--that is all.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"I could get no more from her, and the next day I besought her to tell +me where I might find her husband. But upon that point, too, she was +silent. Then came a night, about a week later, when she fell into a +delirium, and I sat by her side and wrestled with death for her. I +fought hard with what resources I had, for there was no reason why she +should die but the extreme weakness into which she had fallen.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I sat by the bed, thinking that now at last I should learn the secret +which ravaged her. But there was no coherency in what she said. She +talked chiefly, I remember, of a work-table and of something hidden +there which she must destroy. She was continually, in her delirium, +searching its drawers, opening the lid and diving amongst her +embroidery and beads, as though she could not die and let the thing be +found.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So till the grey of the morning, when she came out of her delirium, +turned very wistfully to me with a feeble motion of her hands, and +said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'You have been very good to me, doctor.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"She lay thus for a few moments, and then she cried in a low sad +voice: 'Oh, Arthur, Arthur!' And with that name upon her lips she +died.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She carried her secret with her, leaving me in the dark as to who she +was and how I was to lay my hands upon one of her relations. I buried +the poor girl here, and I advertised for her husband in <i>The London +Newsletter</i>, and I made inquiries of our ambassador in Spain. A week +ago Mr. Braxfield appeared at my house. He was a man of sixty years of +age, and his Christian name was Robert.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He gave me some few details about his marriage, and from them I am +able to put together the rest of the story. Mr. Braxfield is a Spanish +merchant of means, and the girl, a Trimingham of that branch of the +family which moved a long while since into Hampshire, was, no doubt, +pressed into marriage with him owing to the straitened position of her +parents. Mr. Braxfield and his young wife took up their residence in +Soho Square, in London, until, at the beginning of this year, business +called him once more to Spain for some months.</p> + +<p class="normal">"His wife thereupon elected to return to her home, and there Mr. +Braxfield believed her to be, until chance threw one of my +advertisements in his way. Her own parents, for their part, understood +that she had returned to her house in Soho Square. To me, then, the +story is clear. Having married without love, she had given her heart +to someone, probably after her return to her own home--someone called +Arthur. Whether he had treated her ill, I cannot say. But I take it +that he had grown cold, and she had looked upon this trouble with her +throat as her opportunity to hold him. The risk, the suffering--these +things, one can imagine her believing, must make their appeal. She had +pretended to return to London. She had travelled, instead, to Norwich, +letting him and him alone know what she was about. The great +experiment failed. She looked for some letter; no letter came. But had +letters passed? Are these letters locked up amongst the embroidery and +the beads in that work-table, I wonder? Let us hope that, if they are, +they trouble her no longer."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>PEIFFER</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_peiffer" href="#div1Ref_peiffer">PEIFFER</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">For a moment I was surprised to see the stout and rubicund Slingsby in +Lisbon. He was drinking a vermouth and seltzer at five o'clock in the +afternoon at a café close to the big hotel. But at that time Portugal +was still a neutral country and a happy hunting ground for a good many +thousand Germans. Slingsby was lolling in his chair with such +exceeding indolence that I could not doubt his business was pressing +and serious. I accordingly passed him by as if I had never seen him in +my life before. But he called out to me. So I took a seat at his +table.</p> + +<p class="normal">Of what we talked about I have not the least recollection, for my eyes +were quite captivated by a strange being who sat alone fairly close to +Slingsby, at one side and a little behind him. This was a man of +middle age, with reddish hair, a red, square, inflamed face and a +bristly moustache. He was dressed in a dirty suit of grey flannel; +he wore a battered Panama pressed down upon his head; he carried +pince-nez on the bridge of his nose, and he sat with a big bock of +German beer In front of him. But I never saw him touch the beer. He +sat in a studied attitude of ferocity, his elbow on the table, his +chin propped on the palm of his hand, his head pushed aggressively +forward, and he glared at Slingsby through his glasses with the fixed +stare of hatred and fury which a master workman in wax might give to a +figure in a Chamber of Horrors. Indeed, it seemed to me that he must +have rehearsed his bearing in some such quarter, for there was nothing +natural or convinced in him from the brim of his Panama to the black +patent leather tips of his white canvas shoes.</p> + +<p class="normal">I touched Slingsby on the arm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is that man, and what have you done to him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby looked round unconcernedly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, that's only Peiffer," he replied. "Peiffer making frightfulness."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Peiffer?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The name was quite strange to me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. Don't you know him? He's a product of 1914," and Slingsby leaned +towards me a little. "Peiffer is an officer in the German Navy. You +would hardly guess it, but he is. Now that their country is at war, +officers in the German Navy have a marked amount of spare time which +they never had before. So Peiffer went to a wonderful Government +school in Hamburg, where in twenty lessons they teach the gentle art +of espionage, a sort of Berlitz school. Peiffer ate his dinners and +got his degrees, so to speak, and now he's at Lisbon putting obi on +me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It seems rather infantile, and must be annoying," I said; but +Slingsby would only accept half the statement. "Infantile, yes. +Annoying, not at all. For so long as Peiffer is near me, being +frightful, I know he's not up to mischief."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mischief!" I cried. "That fellow? What mischief can he do?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby viciously crushed the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A deuce of a lot, my friend. Don't make any mistake. Peiffer's +methods are infantile and barbaric, but he has a low and fertile +cunning in the matter of ideas. I know. I have had some."</p> + +<p class="normal">And Slingsby was to have more, very much more: in the shape of a great +many sleepless nights, during which he wrestled with a dreadful +uncertainty to get behind that square red face and those shining +pince-nez, and reach the dark places of Peiffer's mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">The first faint wisp of cloud began to show six weeks later, when +Slingsby happened to be in Spain.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Something's up," he said, scratching his head. "But I'm hanged if I +can guess what it is. See what you can make of it"; and here is the +story which he told.</p> + +<p class="normal">Three Germans dressed in the black velvet corduroy, the white +stockings and the rope-soled white shoes of the Spanish peasant, +arrived suddenly in the town of Cartagena, and put up at an inn in a +side-street near the harbour. Cartagena, for all that it is one of the +chief naval ports of Spain, is a small place, and the life of it ebbs +and flows in one narrow street, the Calle Mayor; so that very little +can happen which is not immediately known and discussed. The arrival +of the three mysterious Germans provoked, consequently, a deal of +gossip and curiosity, and the curiosity was increased when the German +Consul sitting in front of the Casino loudly professed complete +ignorance of these very doubtful compatriots of his, and an exceeding +great contempt for them. The next morning, however, brought a new +development. The three Germans complained publicly to the Alcalde. +They had walked through Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia in search of +work, and everywhere they had been pestered and shadowed by the +police.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Our Consul will do nothing for us," they protested indignantly. "He +will not receive us, nor will any German in Cartagena. We are poor +people." And having protested, they disappeared in the night.</p> + +<p class="normal">But a few days later the three had emerged again at Almeria, and at a +mean café in one of the narrow, blue-washed Moorish streets of the old +town. Peiffer was identified as one of the three--not the Peiffer who +had practised frightfulness in Lisbon, but a new and wonderful +Peiffer, who inveighed against the shamelessness of German officials +on the coasts of Spain. At Almeria, in fact, Peiffer made a scene at +the German Vice-Consulate, and, having been handed over to the police, +was fined and threatened with imprisonment. At this point the story +ended.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you make of it?" asked Slingsby.</p> + +<p class="normal">"First, that Peiffer is working south; and, secondly, that he is +quarrelling with his own officials."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, but quarrelling with marked publicity," said Slingsby. "That, I +think we shall find, is the point of real importance. Peiffer's +methods are not merely infantile; they are elaborate. He is working +down South. I think that I will go to Gibraltar. I have always wished +to see it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Whether Slingsby was speaking the truth, I had not an idea. But he +went to Gibraltar, and there an astonishing thing happened to him. He +received a letter, and the letter came from Peiffer. Peiffer was at +Algeciras, just across the bay in Spain, and he wanted an interview. +He wrote for it with the most brazen impertinence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I cannot, owing to this with-wisdom-so-easily-to-have-been-avoided +war, come myself to Gibraltar, but I will remain at your disposition +here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>That</i>," said Slingsby, "from the man who was making frightfulness at +me a few weeks ago, is a proof of some nerve. We will go and see +Peiffer. We will stay at Algeciras from Saturday to Monday, and we +will hear what he has to say."</p> + +<p class="normal">A polite note was accordingly dispatched, and on Sunday morning +Peiffer, decently clothed in a suit of serge, was shown into +Slingsby's private sitting-room. He plunged at once into the story of +his wanderings. We listened to it without a sign that we knew anything +about it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So?" from time to time said Slingsby, with inflections of increasing +surprise, but that was all. Then Peiffer went on to his grievances.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps you have heard how I was treated by the Consuls?" he +interrupted himself to ask suddenly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," Slingsby replied calmly. "Continue!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Peiffer wiped his forehead and his glasses. We were each one, in his +way, all working for our respective countries. The work was +honourable. But there were limits to endurance. All his fatigue and +perils went for nothing in the eyes of comfortable officials sure of +their salary. He had been fined; he had been threatened with +imprisonment. It was <i>unverschämt</i> the way he had been treated.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So?" said Slingsby firmly. There are fine inflections by which that +simple word may be made to express most of the emotions. Slingsby's +"So?" expressed a passionate agreement with the downtrodden Peiffer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Flesh and blood can stand it no longer," cried Peiffer, "and my heart +is flesh. No, I have had enough."</p> + +<p class="normal">Throughout the whole violent tirade, in his eyes, in his voice, in his +gestures, there ran an eager, wistful plea that we should take him at +his face value and believe every word he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So I came to you," he said at last, slapping his knee and throwing +out his hand afterwards like a man who has taken a mighty resolution. +"Yes. I have no money, nothing. And they will give me none. It is +<i>unverschämt</i>. So," and he screwed up his little eyes and wagged a +podgy forefinger--"so the service I had begun for my Government I will +now finish for you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby examined the carpet curiously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, there are possibly some shillings to be had if the service is +good enough. I do not know. But I cannot deal in the dark. What sort +of a service is it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Peiffer hitched his chair nearer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is a question of rifles--rifles for over there," and, looking out +through the window, he nodded towards Gibel Musa and the coast of +Morocco.</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby did not so much as flinch. I almost groaned aloud. We were to +be treated to the stock legend of the ports, the new edition of the +Spanish prisoner story. I, the mere tourist in search of health, could +have gone on with Peiffer's story myself, even to the exact number of +the rifles.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was a great plan," Peiffer continued. "Fifty thousand rifles, no +less." There always were fifty-thousand rifles. "They are buried--near +the sea." They always were buried either near the sea or on the +frontier of Portugal. "With ammunition. They are to be landed outside +Melilla, where I have been about this very affair, and distributed +amongst the Moors in the unsubdued country on the edge of the French +zone."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So?" exclaimed Slingsby with the most admirable imitation of +consternation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, but you need not fear. You shall have the rifles--when I know +exactly where they are buried."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!" said Slingsby.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had listened to the familiar rigmarole, certain that behind it +there was something real and sinister which he did not know--something +which he was desperately anxious to find out.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then you do not know where they are buried?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, but I shall know if--I am allowed to go into Gibraltar. Yes, +there is someone there. I must put myself into relations with him. +Then I shall know, and so shall you."</p> + +<p class="normal">So here was some part of the truth, at all events. Peiffer wanted to +get into Gibraltar. His disappearance from Lisbon, his reappearance in +corduroys, his quarrelsome progress down the east coast, his letter to +Slingsby, and his story, were all just the items of an elaborate piece +of machinery invented to open the gates of that fortress to him. +Slingsby's only movement was to take his cigarette-case lazily from +his pocket.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But why in the world," he asked, "can't you get your man in Gibraltar +to come out here and see you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Peiffer shook his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He would not come. He has been told to expect me, and I shall give +him certain tokens from which he can guess my trustworthiness. If I +write to him, 'Come to me,' he will say 'This is a trap.'"</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby raised another objection:</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I shouldn't think that you can expect the authorities to give you +a safe conduct into Gibraltar upon your story."</p> + +<p class="normal">Peiffer swept that argument aside with a contemptuous wave of his +hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have a Danish passport. See!" and he took the document from his +breast pocket. It was complete, to his photograph.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, you can certainly come in on that," said Slingsby. He reflected +for a moment before he added: "I have no power, of course. But I have +some friends. I think you may reasonably reckon that you won't be +molested."</p> + +<p class="normal">I saw Peiffer's eyes glitter behind his glasses.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But there's a condition," Slingsby continued sharply. "You must +not leave Gibraltar without coming personally to me and giving me +twenty-four hours' notice."</p> + +<p class="normal">Peiffer was all smiles and agreement.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But of course. We shall have matters to talk over--terms to arrange. +I must see you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Exactly. Cross by the nine-fifty steamer tomorrow morning. Is that +understood?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, sir." And suddenly Peiffer stood up and actually saluted, as +though he had now taken service under Slingsby's command.</p> + +<p class="normal">The unexpected movement almost made me vomit. Slingsby himself moved +quickly away, and his face lost for a second the mask of impassivity. +He stood at the window and looked across the water to the city of +Gibraltar.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby had been wounded in the early days of the war, and ever since +he had been greatly troubled because he was not still in the trenches +in Flanders. The casualty lists filled him with shame and discontent. +So many of his friends, the men who had trained and marched with him, +were laying down their gallant lives. He should have been with them. +But during the last few days a new knowledge and inspiration had come +to him. Gibraltar! A tedious, little, unlovely town of yellow houses +and coal sheds, with an undesirable climate. Yes. But above it was the +rock, the heart of a thousand memories and traditions which made it +beautiful. He looked at it now with its steep wooded slopes, scarred +by roads and catchments and the emplacements of guns. How much of +England was recorded there! To how many British sailing on great ships +from far dominions this huge buttress towering to its needle-ridge was +the first outpost of the homeland! And for the moment he seemed to be +its particular guardian, the ear which must listen night and day lest +harm come to it. Harm the Rock, and all the Empire, built with such +proud and arduous labour, would stagger under the blow, from St. Kilda +to distant Lyttelton. He looked across the water and imagined +Gibraltar as it looked at night, its houselights twinkling like a +crowded zone of stars, and its great search-beams turning the ships in +the harbour and the stone of the moles into gleaming silver, and +travelling far over the dark waters. No harm must come to Gibraltar. +His honour was all bound up in that. This was his service, and as he +thought upon it he was filled with a cold fury against the traitor who +thought it so easy to make him fail. But every hint of his anger had +passed from his face as he turned back into the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"If you bring me good information, why, we can do business," he said; +and Peiffer went away.</p> + +<p class="normal">I was extremely irritated by the whole interview, and could hardly +wait for the door to close.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What knocks me over," I cried, "is the impertinence of the man. Does +he really think that any old yarn like the fifty thousand rifles is +going to deceive you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby lit a cigarette.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Peiffer's true to type, that's all," he answered imperturbably. "They +are vain, and vanity makes them think that you will at once believe +what they want you to believe. So their deceits are a little crude." +Then a smile broke over his face, and to some tune with which I was +unfamiliar he sang softly: "But he's coming to Gibraltar in the +morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You think he will?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sure of it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And," I added doubtfully--it was not my business to criticise--"on +conditions he can walk out again?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby's smile became a broad grin.</p> + +<p class="normal">"His business in Gibraltar, my friend, is not with me. He will not +want to meet us any more; as soon as he has done what he came for he +will go--or try to go. He thinks we are fools, you see."</p> + +<p class="normal">And in the end it seemed almost as though Peiffer was justified of his +belief. He crossed the next morning. He went to a hotel of the second +class; he slept in the hotel, and next morning he vanished. Suddenly +there was no more Peiffer. Peiffer was not. For six hours Peiffer was +not; and then at half-past five in the afternoon the telephone bell +rang in an office where Slingsby was waiting. He rushed to the +instrument.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is it?" he cried, and I saw a wave of relief surge into his face. +Peiffer had been caught outside the gates and within a hundred yards +of the neutral zone. He had strolled out in the thick of the dockyard +workmen going home to Linea in Spain.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Search him and bring him up here at once," said Slingsby, and he +dropped into his chair and wiped his forehead. "Phew! Thirty seconds +more and he might have snapped his fingers at us." He turned to me. "I +shall want a prisoner's escort here in half an hour."</p> + +<p class="normal">I went about that business and returned in time to see Slingsby giving +an admirable imitation of a Prussian police official.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So, Peiffer," he cried sternly, "you broke your word. Do not deny it. +It will be useless."</p> + +<p class="normal">The habit of a lifetime asserted itself in Peiffer. He quailed before +authority when authority began to bully.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I did not know I was outside the walls," he faltered. "I was taking a +walk. No one stopped me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So!" Slingsby snorted. "And these, Peiffer--what have you to say of +these?"</p> + +<p class="normal">There were four separate passports which had been found in Peiffer's +pockets. He could be a Dane of Esbjerg, a Swede of Stockholm, a +Norwegian of Christiania, or a Dutchman from Amsterdam. All four +nationalities were open to Peiffer to select from.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They provide you with these, no doubt, in your school at Hamburg," +and Slingsby paused to collect his best German. "You are a prisoner of +war. <i>Das ist genug</i>," he cried, and Peiffer climbed to the internment +camp.</p> + +<p class="normal">So far so good. Slingsby had annexed Peiffer, but more important than +Peiffer was Peiffer's little plot, and that he had not got. Nor did +the most careful inquiry disclose what Peiffer had done and where he +had been during the time when he was not. For six hours Peiffer had +been loose in Gibraltar, and Slingsby began to get troubled. He tried +to assume the mentality of Peiffer, and so reach his intention, but +that did not help. He got out all the reports in which Peiffer's name +was mentioned and read them over again.</p> + +<p class="normal">I saw him sit back in his chair and remain looking straight in front +of him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he said thoughtfully, and he turned over the report to me, +pointing to a passage. It was written some months before, at Melilla, +on the African side of the Mediterranean, and it ran like this:</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"Peiffer frequents the low houses and cafés, where he spends a good +deal of money and sometimes gets drunk. When drunk he gets very +arrogant, and has been known to boast that he has been three times in +Bordeaux since the war began, and, thanks to his passports, can travel +as easily as if the world were at peace. On such occasions he +expresses the utmost contempt for neutral nations. I myself have heard +him burst out: 'Wait until we have settled with our enemies. Then we +will deal properly with the neutral nations. They shall explain to us +on their knees. Meanwhile,' and he thumped the table, making the +glasses rattle, 'let them keep quiet and hold their tongues. We shall +do what we like in neutral countries.'"</p> + +<p class="normal">I read the passage.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you see that last sentence? 'We shall do what we like in neutral +countries.' No man ever spoke the mind of his nation better than +Peiffer did that night in a squalid café in Melilla."</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby looked out over the harbour to where the sun was setting on +the sierras. He would have given an arm to be sure of what Peiffer had +set on foot behind those hills.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wonder," he said uneasily, and from that day he began to sleep +badly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then came another and a most disquieting phase of the affair. Peiffer +began to write letters to Slingsby. He was not comfortable. He was not +being treated as an officer should be. He had no amusements, and his +food was too plain. Moreover, there were Germans and Austrians up in +the camp who turned up their noses at him because their birth was +better than his.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You see what these letters mean?" said Slingsby. "Peiffer wants to be +sent away from the Rock."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are reading your own ideas into them," I replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Slingsby was right. Each letter under its simple and foolish +excuses was a prayer for translation to a less dangerous place. For as +the days passed and no answer was vouchsafed, the prayer became a real +cry of fear.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I claim to be sent to England without any delay. I must be sent," he +wrote frankly and frantically.</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby set his teeth with a grim satisfaction.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, my friend, you shall stay while the danger lasts. If it's a year, +if you are alone in the camp, still you shall stay. The horrors you +have planned you shall share with every man, woman and child in the +town."</p> + +<p class="normal">We were in this horrible and strange predicament. The whole colony was +menaced, and from the Lines to Europa Point only two men knew of the +peril. Of those two, one, in an office down by the harbour, +ceaselessly and vainly, with a dreadful anxiety, asked "When?" The +other, the prisoner, knew the very hour and minute of the catastrophe, +and waited for it with the sinking fear of a criminal awaiting the +fixed moment of his execution.</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus another week passed.</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby became a thing of broken nerves. If you shut the door noisily +he cursed; if you came in noiselessly he cursed yet louder, and one +evening he reached the stage when the sunset gun made him jump.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That's enough," I said sternly. "To-day is Saturday. To-morrow we +borrow the car"--there is only one worth talking about on the +Rock--"and we drive out."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I can't do it," he cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">I continued:</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will lunch somewhere by the road, and we will go on to the country +house of the Claytons, who will give us tea. Then in the afternoon we +will return."</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby hesitated. It is curious to remember on how small a matter so +much depended. I believe he would have refused, but at that moment the +sunset gun went off and he jumped out of his chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I am fairly rocky," he admitted. "I will take a day off."</p> + +<p class="normal">I borrowed the car, and we set off and lunched according to our +programme. It was perhaps half an hour afterwards when we were going +slowly over a remarkably bad road. A powerful car, driven at a furious +pace, rushed round a corner towards us, swayed, lurched, and swept +past us with a couple of inches to spare, whilst a young man seated at +the wheel shouted a greeting and waved his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who the dickens was that?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know," replied Slingsby. "It's Morano. He's a count, and will be a +marquis and no end of a swell if he doesn't get killed motoring. +Which, after all, seems likely."</p> + +<p class="normal">I thought no more of the man until his name cropped up whilst we were +sitting at tea on the Claytons' veranda.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We passed Morano," said Slingsby. And Mrs. Clayton said with some +pride--she was a pretty, kindly woman, but she rather affected the +Spanish nobility:</p> + +<p class="normal">"He lunched with us to-day. You know he is staying in Gibraltar."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I know that," said Slingsby. "For I met him a little time ago. +He wanted to know if there was a good Government launch for sale."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mrs. Clayton raised her eyebrows in surprise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A launch? Surely you are wrong. He is devoting himself to aviation."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is he?" said Slingsby, and a curious look flickered for a moment over +his face.</p> + +<p class="normal">We left the house half an hour afterwards, and as soon as we were out +of sight of it Slingsby opened his hand. He was holding a visiting +card.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I stole this off the hall table," he said. "Mrs. Clayton will never +forgive me. Just look at it."</p> + +<p class="normal">His face had become extraordinarily grave. The card was Morano's, and +it was engraved after the Spanish custom. In Spain, when a woman +marries she does not lose her name. She may be in appearance more +subject to her husband than the women of other countries, though you +will find many good judges to tell you that women rule Spain. In any +case her name is not lost in that of her husband; the children will +bear it as well as their father's, and will have it printed on their +cards. Thus, Mr. Jones will call on you, but on the card he leaves he +will be styled:</p> +<br> + +<h4><span class="sc">Mr. Jones and Robinson</span>,</h4> +<br> + +<p class="hang1">if Robinson happens to be his mother's name, and if you are scrupulous +in your etiquette you will so address him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Now, on the card which Slingsby had stolen, the Count Morano was +described:</p> +<br> + +<h4>MORANO Y GOLTZ</h4> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"I see," I replied. "Morano had a German mother."</p> + +<p class="normal">I was interested. There might be nothing in it, of course. A noble of +Spain might have a German mother and still not intrigue for the +Germans against the owners of Gibraltar. But no sane man would take a +bet about it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The point is," said Slingsby, "I am pretty sure that is not the card +which he sent in to me when he came to ask about a launch. We will go +straight to the office and make sure."</p> + +<p class="normal">By the time we got there we were both somewhat excited, and we +searched feverishly in the drawers of Slingsby's writing-table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shouldn't be such an ass as to throw it away," he said, turning +over his letters. "No! Here it is!" and a sharp exclamation burst from +his lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He laid the card he had stolen side by side with the card which he had +just found, and between the two there was a difference--to both of us +a veritable world of difference. For from the second card the "y +Goltz," the evidence that Morano was half-German, had disappeared.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And it's not engraved," said Slingsby, bending down over the table. +"It's just printed--printed in order to mislead us."</p> + +<p class="normal">Slingsby sat down in his chair. A great hope was bringing the life +back to his tired face, but he would not give the reins to his hope.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let us go slow," he said, warned by the experience of a hundred +disappointments. "Let us see how it works out. Morano comes to +Gibraltar and makes a prolonged stay in a hotel. Not being a fool, he +is aware that I know who is in Gibraltar and who is not. Therefore he +visits me with a plausible excuse for being in Gibraltar. But he takes +the precaution to have this card specially printed. Why, if he is +playing straight? He pretends he wants a launch, but he is really +devoting himself to aviation. Is it possible that the Count Morano, +not forgetting Goltz, knows exactly how the good Peiffer spent the six +hours we can't account for, and what his little plan is?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I sprang up. It did seem that Slingsby was getting at last to the +heart of Peiffer's secret.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will now take steps," said Slingsby, and telegrams began to fly +over the wires. In three days' time the answers trickled in.</p> + +<p class="normal">An agent of Morano's had bought a German aeroplane in Lisbon. A German +aviator was actually at the hotel there. Slingsby struck the table +with his fist.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a fool I am!" he cried. "Give me a newspaper."</p> + +<p class="normal">I handed him one of that morning's date. Slingsby turned it feverishly +over, searching down the columns of the provincial news until he came +to the heading "Portugal."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here it is!" he cried, and he read aloud. "'The great feature of the +Festival week this year will be, of course, the aviation race from +Villa Real to Seville. Amongst those who have entered machines is the +Count Morano y Goltz.'"</p> + +<p class="normal">He leaned back and lit a cigarette.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We have got it! Morano's machine, driven by the German aviator, rises +from the aerodrome at Villa Real in Portugal with the others, heads +for Seville, drops behind, turns and makes a bee-line for the Rock, +Peiffer having already arranged with Morano for signals to be made +where bombs should be dropped. When is the race to be?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I took the newspaper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ten days from now."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Once more the telegrams began to fly. A week later Slingsby told me +the result.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Owing to unforeseen difficulties, the Festival committee at Villa +Real has reorganised its arrangements, and there will be no aviation +race. Oh, they'll do what they like in neutral countries, will they? +But Peiffer shan't know," he added, with a grin. "Peiffer shall eat of +his own frightfulness."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE EBONY BOX</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_ebony" href="#div1Ref_ebony">THE EBONY BOX</a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">"No, no," said Colonel von Altrock, abruptly. "It is not always true."</p> + +<p class="normal">The conversation died away at once, and everyone about that dinner +table in the Rue St. Florentin looked at him expectantly. He played +nervously with the stem of his wineglass for a few moments, as though +the complete silence distressed him. Then he resumed with a more +diffident air:</p> + +<p class="normal">"War no doubt inspires noble actions and brings out great qualities in +men from whom you expected nothing. But there is another side to it +which becomes apparent, not at once, but after a few months of +campaigning. Your nerves get over-strained, fatigue and danger tell +their tale. You lose your manners, sometimes you degenerate into a +brute. I happen to know. Thirty years have passed since the siege of +Paris, yet even to-day there is no part of my life which I regret so +much as the hours between eleven and twelve o'clock of Christmas night +in the year 'Seventy. I will tell you about it if you like, although +the story may make us late for the opera."</p> + +<p class="normal">The opera to be played that evening was "Faust," which most had heard, +and the rest could hear when they would. On the other hand Colonel von +Altrock was habitually a silent man. The offer which he made now he +was not likely to repeat. It was due, as his companions understood, to +the accident that this night was the first which he had spent in Paris +since the days of the great siege.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It will not matter if we are a little late," said his hostess, the +Baroness Hammerstein, and her guests agreed with her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is permitted to smoke?" asked the Colonel. For a moment the flame +of a match lit up and exaggerated the hollows and the lines upon his +lean, rugged face. Then, drawing his chair to the table, he told his +story.</p> + +<p class="normal">I was a lieutenant of the fifth company of the second battalion of the +103rd Regiment, which belonged to the 23rd Infantry Division. It is as +well to be exact. That division was part of the 12th Army Corps under +the Crown Prince of Saxony, and in the month of December formed the +south-eastern segment of our circle about Paris. On Christmas night I +happened to be on duty at a forepost in advance of Noisy-le-Grand. The +centrigrade thermometer was down to twelve degrees below zero, and our +little wooden hut with the sloping roof, which served us at once as +kitchen, mess-room, and dormitory, seemed to us all a comfortable +shelter. Outside its door the country glimmered away into darkness, a +white silent plain of snow. Inside, the camp-bedsteads were neatly +ranged along the wall where the roof was lowest. A long table covered +with a white cloth--for we were luxurious on Christmas night--occupied +the middle of the floor. A huge fire blazed up the chimney, chairs of +any style, from a Louis Quatorze fauteuil borrowed from the <i>salon</i> of +a château to the wooden bench of a farm-house, were placed about the +table, and in a corner stood a fine big barrel of Bavarian beer which +had arrived that morning as a Christmas present from my mother at +Leipzig. We were none of us anxious to turn out into the bitter cold, +I can tell you. But we were not colonels in those days, and while the +Hauptmann was proposing my mother's health the door was thrust open +and an orderly muffled up to the eyes stood on the threshold at the +salute.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The Herr Oberst wishes to see the Herr Lieutenant von Altrock," said +he, and before I had time even to grumble he turned on his heels and +marched away.</p> + +<p class="normal">I took down my great-coat, drew the cape over my head, and went out of +the hut. There was no wind, nor was the snow falling, but the cold was +terrible, and to me who had come straight from the noise of my +companions the night seemed unnaturally still. I plodded away through +the darkness. Behind me in the hut the Hauptmann struck up a song, and +the words came to me quite clearly and very plaintively across the +snow:</p> +<div class="poem2"> +<p class="t0">Ich hatte einen Kamaraden<br> +Einen besseren findest du nicht.</p> +</div> + +<p class="normal">I wondered whether in the morning, like that comrade, I should be a +man to be mentioned in the past tense. For more than once a sentinel +had been found frozen dead at his post, and I foresaw a long night's +work before me. My Colonel had acquired a habit of choosing me for +special services, and indeed to his kindness in this respect I owed my +commission. For you must understand that I was a student at Heidelberg +when the newsboys came running down the streets one evening in July +with the telegram that M. Benedetti had left Ems. I joined the army as +a volunteer, and I fought in the ranks at Gravelotte. However, I felt +no gratitude to my Colonel that Christmas night as I tramped up the +slope of Noisy-le-Grand to the château where he had his quarters.</p> + +<p class="normal">I found him sitting at a little table drawn close to the fire in a +bare, dimly-lighted room. A lamp stood on the table, and he was +peering at a crumpled scrap of paper and smoothing out its creases. So +engrossed was he, indeed, in his scrutiny that it was some minutes +before he raised his head and saw me waiting for his commands.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Lieutenant von Altrock," he said, "you must ride to Raincy."</p> + +<p class="normal">Raincy was only five miles distant, as the crow flies. Yes, but the +French had made a sortie on the 21st, they had pushed back our lines, +and they now held Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche between Raincy and +Noisy-le-Grand. I should have to make a circuit; my five miles became +ten. I did not like the prospect at all. I liked it still less when +the Colonel added:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must be careful. More than one German soldier has of late been +killed upon that road. There are <i>francs-tireurs</i> about, and you +<i>must</i> reach Raincy."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a verbal message which he gave me, and I was to deliver it in +person to the commandant of the battery at Raincy. It bore its fruit +upon the 27th, when the cross-fire from Raincy and Noisy-le-Grand +destroyed the new French fort upon Mount Avron in a snowstorm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is a horse ready for you at the stables," said the Colonel, and +with a nod he turned again to his scrap of paper. I saluted and walked +to the door. As my hand was on the knob he called me back.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you make of it?" he asked, holding the paper out to me. "It +was picked out of the Marne in a sealed wine-bottle."</p> + +<p class="normal">I took the paper, and saw that a single sentence was written upon it +in a round and laborious hand with the words mis-spelt. The meaning of +the sentence seemed simple enough. It was apparently a message from a +M. Bonnet to his son in the Mobiles at Paris, and it stated that the +big black sow had had a litter of fifteen.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you make of it?" repeated the Colonel.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, that M. Bonnet's black sow has farrowed fifteen," said I.</p> + +<p class="normal">I handed the paper back. The Colonel looked at it again, shrugged his +shoulders, and laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, after all, perhaps it does mean no more than that," said he.</p> + +<p class="normal">But for the Colonel's suspicions I should not have given another +thought to that mis-spelt scrawl. M. Bonnet was probably some little +farmer engrossed in his pigs and cows, who thought that no message +could be more consoling to his son locked up in Paris than this great +news about the black sow. The Colonel's anxiety, however, fixed it for +awhile in my mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">The wildest rumours were flying about our camp at that time, as I +think will always happen when you have a large body of men living +under a great strain of cold and privation and peril. They perplexed +the seasoned officers and they were readily swallowed by the +youngsters, of whom I was one. Now, this scrap of paper happened to +fit in with the rumour which most of all exercised our imaginations.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was known that in spite of all our precautions news was continually +leaking into Paris which we did not think it good for the Parisians to +have. What we did think good for them--information, for instance, of +the defeat of the Army of the Loire--we ourselves sent in without +delay. But we ascertained from our prisoners that Paris was +enlightened with extraordinary rapidity upon other matters which we +wished to keep to ourselves. On that very Christmas Day they already +knew that General Faidherbe, at Pont Noyelles, had repulsed a portion +of our first army under General Manteuffel. How did they know? We were +not satisfied that pigeons and balloons completely explained the +mystery. No, we believed that the news passed somewhere through our +lines on the south-east of Paris. There was supposed to exist a +regular system like the underground road in the Southern States of +America during the slavery days. There the escaped slave was quickly +and secretly passed on from appointed house to appointed house, until +he reached freedom. Here it was news in cipher which was passed on and +on to a house close to our lines, whence, as occasion served, it was +carried into Paris.</p> + +<p class="normal">That was the rumour. There may have been truth in it, or it may have +been entirely false. But, at all events, it had just the necessary +element of fancy to appeal to the imagination of a very young man, and +as I walked to the stables and mounted the horse which the Colonel had +lent me, I kept wondering whether this message, so simple in +appearance, had travelled along that underground road and was covering +its last stage between the undiscovered château and Paris in the +sealed wine-bottle. I tried to make out what the black sow stood for +in the cipher, and whose identity was concealed under the pseudonym of +M. Bonnet. So I rode down the slope of Noisy-le-Grand.</p> + +<p class="normal">But at the bottom of the slope these speculations passed entirely from +my mind. In front, hidden away in the darkness, lay the dangers of +Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche. German soldiers had ridden along this +path and had not returned; the <i>francs-tireurs</i> were abroad. Yet I +must reach Raincy. Moreover, in my own mind, I was equally convinced +that I must return. I saw the little beds against the wall of the hut +under the sloping roof. I rode warily, determined to sleep in one of +them that night, determined to keep my life if it could be kept. I +believe I should have pistolled my dearest friend without a tinge of +remorse had he tried to delay me for a second. Three months of +campaigning, in a word, had told their tale.</p> + +<p class="normal">I crossed the Marne and turned off the road into a forest path. Ville +Evrart with its French garrison lay now upon my left behind the screen +of trees. Fortunately there was no moon that night, and a mist hung in +the air. The snow, too, deadened the sound of my horse's hoofs. But I +rode, nevertheless, very gently and with every sense alert. Each +moment I expected the challenge of a sentinel in French. From any of +the bushes which I passed I might suddenly see the spurt of flame from +a <i>franc-tireur's chassepot</i>. If a twig snapped in the frost at my +side I was very sure the foot of an enemy was treading there.</p> + +<p class="normal">I came to the end of the wood and rode on to Chesnay. Here the country +was more open, and I had passed Ville Evrart. But I did not feel any +greater security. I was possessed with a sort of rage to get my +business done and live--yes, at all costs live. A mile beyond Chesnay +I came to cross-roads, and within the angle which the two roads made a +little cabin stood upon a plot of grass. I was in doubt which road to +take. The cabin was all dark, and riding up to the door I hammered +upon it with the butt of my pistol. It was not immediately opened. +There must indeed have been some delay, since the inmates were +evidently in bed. But I was not in any mood to show consideration. I +wanted to get on--to get on and live. A little window was within my +reach. I dashed the butt of the pistol violently through the glass.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will that waken you, eh?" I cried, and almost before I had finished I +heard a shuffling footstep in the passage and the door was opened. A +poor old peasant-woman, crippled with rheumatism, stood in the doorway +shading a lighted candle with a gnarled, trembling hand. In her haste +to obey she had merely thrown a petticoat over the shoulders of her +nightdress, and there she stood with bare feet, shivering in the cold, +an old bent woman of eighty, and apologised.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sorry, monsieur," she said, meekly. "But I cannot move as +quickly as I could when I was young. How can I serve monsieur?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Not a word of reproach about her broken window. You would think that +the hardest man must have felt some remorse. I merely broke in upon +her apologies with a rough demand for information.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The road upon your right leads to Chelles, monsieur," she answered. +"That upon your left to Raincy."</p> + +<p class="normal">I rode off without another word. It is not a pretty description which +I am giving to you, but it is a true one. That is my regret--it is a +true one. I forgot the old peasant woman the moment I had passed the +cabin. I thought only of the long avenues of trees which stretched +across that flat country, and which could hide whole companies of +<i>francs-tireurs</i>. I strained my eyes forwards. I listened for the +sound of voices. But the first voice which I heard spoke in my own +tongue.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was the voice of a sentry on the outposts of Raincy, and I could +have climbed down from my saddle and hugged him to my heart. Instead, +I sat impassively in my saddle and gave him the countersign. I was +conducted to the quarters of the commandant of artillery and I +delivered my message.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have come quickly," he said. "What road did you take?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That of Chesnay and Gagny."</p> + +<p class="normal">The commandant looked queerly at me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you?" said he. "You are lucky. You will return by Montfermeil +and Chelles, Lieutenant von Altrock, and I will send an escort with +you. Apparently we are better informed at Raincy than you are at +Noisy-le-Grand."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I knew there was danger, sir," I replied.</p> + +<p class="normal">A regiment of dragoons was quartered at Raincy, and from it two +privates and a corporal were given me for escort. In the company of +these men I started back by the longer road in the rear of our lines. +And it was a quarter to ten when I started. For I noticed the time of +a clock in the commandant's quarters. I should think that it must have +taken three-quarters of an hour to reach Montfermeil, for the snow was +deep here and the mist very thick. Beyond Montfermeil, however, we +came to higher ground; there were fewer drifts of snow, and the +night began to clear, so that we made better going. We were now, of +course, behind our lines, and the only risk we ran was that a few +peasants armed with rifles from a battlefield or a small band of +<i>francs-tireurs</i> might be lurking on the chance of picking off a +straggler. But that risk was not very great now that there were four +of us. I rode therefore with an easier mind, and the first thing which +entered my thoughts was--what do you think? The old peasant-woman's +cabin with the broken window? Not a bit of it. No, it was M. Bonnet's +black sow. Had M. Bonnet's sow farrowed fifteen? Or was that litter of +fifteen intended to inform the people in Paris by some system of +multiplication of the exact number of recruits which had joined one of +the French armies still in the field--say, General Faidherbe's, at +Bapaume, and so to keep up their spirits and prolong the siege? I was +still puzzling over this problem when in a most solitary place I came +suddenly upon a château with lighted windows. This was the Château +Villetaneuse. I reined in my horse and stopped. My escort halted +behind me. It was after all an astonishing sight. There were many +châteaux about Paris then, as there are now, but not one that I had +ever come across was inhabited by more than a caretaker. The owners +had long since fled. Breached walls, trampled gardens, gaping roofs, +and silence and desertion--that is what we meant when we spoke of a +chateâu near Paris in those days. But here was one with lighted +windows on the first and second storeys staring out calmly on the snow +as though never a Prussian soldier had crossed the Rhine. A thick +clump of trees sheltered it behind, and it faced the eastern side of +the long ridge of Mont Guichet, along the foot of which I rode--the +side farthest from Paris. From the spot where I and my escort had +halted an open park stretched level to the door. The house had, no +doubt, a very homelike look on that cold night. It should have spoken +to me, no doubt, of the well-ordered family life and the gentle +occupations of women. But I was thinking of M. Bonnet's black sow. I +was certain that none of our officers were quartered there and making +the best of their Christmas night in France. Had that been the case, +black paths and ruts would have been trampled in the snow up to the +door, and before now I should have been challenged by a sentinel. No! +The more I looked at the house and its lighted windows, the more I +thought of M. Bonnet's sow. Was this solitary château the undiscovered +last station on the underground road through which the news passed +into Paris? If not, why was it still inhabited? Why did the lights +blaze out upon the snow so late?</p> + +<p class="normal">I commanded my escort to be silent. We rode across the park, and +half-way to the door we came upon a wire fence and a gate. There we +dismounted, and walked our horses. We tethered them to a tree about +twenty yards from the house. I ordered one of my dragoons to go round +the house, and watch any door which he might find at the back. I told +the other two to stay where they were, and I advanced alone to the +steps, but before I had reached them the front door was thrown open, +and a girl with a lantern in her hand came out.</p> + +<p class="normal">She held the lantern high above her head and peered forward, so that +the light fell full upon her hair, her face, and dress. She was a tall +girl and slight of figure, with big, dark eyes, and a face pretty and +made for laughter. It was very pale now, however, and the brows were +drawn together in a frown. She wore a white evening frock, which +glistened in the lantern light, and over her bare shoulders she had +flung a heavy, black, military cloak. So she stood and swung the +lantern slowly from side to side as she stared into the darkness, +while the lights and shadows chased each other swiftly across her +white frock, her anxious face, and the waves of her fair hair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Whom do you expect at this hour, mademoiselle?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">I was quite close to her, but she had not seen me, for I stood at the +bottom of the steps and she was looking out over my head. Yet she did +not start or utter any cry. Only the lantern rattled in her hand. Then +she stood quite still for a moment or two, and afterwards lowered her +arm until the light shone upon me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are Prussian?" she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A lieutenant of foot," I answered. "You have nothing to fear."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am not afraid," she replied, quietly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yet you tremble, mademoiselle. Your hand shakes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is the cold," said she.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Whom did you expect?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No one," she replied. "I thought that I heard the rattle of iron as +though a horse moved and a stirrup rang. It is lonely here since our +neighbours have fled. I came out to see."</p> + +<p class="normal">"The lantern then was not a signal, mademoiselle?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">She looked at me in perplexity, and certainly the little piece of +acting, I thought, was very well done. Many a man might have been +taken in by it. But it was thrown away upon me, for I had noticed that +heavy military cloak. How did it come to lie so conveniently to her +hand in the hall?</p> + +<p class="normal">"A signal?" she repeated. "To whom?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"To some man hiding in the woods of Mont Guichet, a signal to him +that he may come and fetch the news for Paris that has lately--very +lately--been brought to the house."</p> + +<p class="normal">She bent forward and peered down at me, drawing the cloak closer about +her neck.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are under some strange mistake, monsieur," she said. "No news for +Paris has been brought to this house by anyone."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Indeed?" I answered. "And is that so?" Then I stretched out my hand +and said triumphantly: "You will tell me perhaps that the cloak upon +your shoulders is a woman's cloak?"</p> + +<p class="normal">And she laughed! It was humiliating; it is always humiliating to a +young man not to be taken seriously, isn't--especially if he is a +conqueror? There was I thinking that I had fairly cross-examined her +into a trap, and she laughed indulgently. Of course, a girl always +claims the right to be ever so much older than a man of her own age, +but she stood on the top of the steps and laughed down at me as though +she had the advantage of as many years as there were steps between us. +And she explained indulgently, too.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The cloak I am wearing belongs to a wounded French officer who was +taken prisoner and released upon parole. He is now in our house."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I think I will make his acquaintance," I said, and over my +shoulder I called to the corporal. As he advanced to my side a look of +alarm came into the girl's face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are not alone," she said, and suddenly her face became wistful +and her voice began to plead. "You have not come for him? He has done +no harm. He could not, even if he would. And he would not, for he has +given his parole. Oh, you are not going to take him away?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That we shall see, mademoiselle."</p> + +<p class="normal">I left one dragoon at the door. I ordered the corporal to wait in the +hall, and I followed the girl up the stairs to the first floor. All +her pride had gone; she led the way with a submission of manner which +seemed to me only a fresh effort to quiet my suspicions. But they were +not quieted. I distrusted her; I believed that I had under my fingers +the proof of that rumour which flew about our camp. She stopped at a +door, and as she turned the handle she said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"This is my own parlour, monsieur. We all use it now, for it is warmer +than the others, and all our servants but one have fled."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a pretty room, and cheery enough to a young man who came into +it from the darkness and the snow. A piano stood open in a corner with +a rug thrown upon it to protect the strings from the cold; books lay +upon the tables, heavy curtains were drawn close over the windows, +there were cushioned sofas and deep armchairs, and a good fire of logs +blazed upon the hearth. These details I took in at once. Then I looked +at the occupants. A youth lay stretched upon a sofa close to the fire +with a wrap covering his legs. The wrap was raised by a cradle to keep +off its weight. His face must have been, I think, unusually handsome +when he had his health; at the moment it was so worn and pale, and the +eyes were so sunk, that all its beauty had gone. The pallor was +accentuated by a small black moustache he wore and his black hair. He +lay with his head supported upon a pillow, and was playing a game of +chess with an old lady who sat at a little table by his side. This old +lady was actually making a move as I entered the room, for as she +turned and stared at me she was holding a chessman in her hand. I +advanced to the fire and warmed my hands at it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You, sir, are the wounded officer on parole?" I said in French. The +officer bowed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you, madame?" I asked of the old lady. The sight of my uniform +seemed to have paralysed her with terror. She sat still holding the +chessman in her hand, and staring at me with her mouth half-open.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come, come, madame," I explained, impatiently; "it is a simple +question."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Monsieur, you frighten her," said the young lady. "It is my aunt, the +Baroness Granville."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You tell me nothing of yourself," I said to her, and she looked at me +in surprise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Since you have come with an escort to this house I imagined you must +know to whom it belonged. I am Sophie de Villetaneuse."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Exactly," I replied, as though I had known all along, and had merely +asked the question to see whether she would speak the truth. "Now, +mademoiselle, will you please explain to me how it is that while your +neighbours have fled you remain at your château?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is quite simple," she answered. "My mother is bedridden. She could +not be moved. She could not be left alone."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will pardon me," said I, "if I test the statement."</p> + +<p class="normal">The wounded officer raised himself upon his elbow as though to +protest, but Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse put out a hand and checked +him. She showed me a face flushed with anger, but she spoke quite +quietly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will myself take you to my mother's room."</p> + +<p class="normal">I laughed. I said: "That is just what I expected. You will take me to +your mother's room and leave your friends here to make any little +preparations in the way of burning awkward letters which they may +think desirable. Thank you, no! I am not so easily caught."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mademoiselle Sophie was becoming irritated.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There are no awkward letters!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That statement, too, I shall put to the test."</p> + +<p class="normal">I went to the door, and standing so that I could still keep an eye +upon the room, I called the corporal.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will search the house thoroughly," I said, "and quickly. Bring me +word how many people you find in it. You, mademoiselle, will remain in +the room with us."</p> + +<p class="normal">She shrugged her shoulders as I closed the door and came back into the +room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You were wounded, monsieur," I said to the Frenchman. "Where?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the sortie on Le Bourget."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you came here the moment you were released on your parole?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The wounded officer turned with a smile to Mademoiselle Sophie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, for here live my best friends."</p> + +<p class="normal">He took her hand, and with a Frenchman's grace he raised it to his +lips and kissed it. And I was suddenly made acquainted with the +relationship in which these two, youth and maid, stood to one another. +Mademoiselle Sophie had cried out on the steps against the possibility +that I might have come to claim my prisoner. But though she spoke no +word, she was still more explicit now. With the officer that caress +was plainly no more than a pretty way of saying thanks; it had the +look of a habit, it was so neatly given, and he gave it without +carelessness, it is true, but without warmth. She, however, received +it very differently. He did not see, because his head was bent above +her hand, but I did.</p> + +<p class="normal">I saw the look of pain in her face, the slight contraction of her +shoulders and arms, as if to meet a blow. The kiss hurt her--no, not +the kiss, but the finished grace with which it was given, the proof, +in a word, that it was a way of saying "Thanks"--and nothing more. +Here was a woman who loved and a man who did not love, and the woman +knew. So much was evident to me who looked on, but when the officer +raised his head there was nothing for him to see, and upon her lips +only the conventional remark:</p> + +<p class="normal">"We should have been hurt if you had not come."</p> + +<p class="normal">I resumed my questions:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your doctor, monsieur, is in the house?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"At this hour? No."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah. That is a pity."</p> + +<p class="normal">The young man lifted his head from his pillow and looked me over from +head to foot with a stare of disdain.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do not quite understand. You doubt my word, monsieur?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why not?" I asked sharply.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was quite possible that the cradle, this rug across his legs, the +pillow, were all pretences. Many a soldier in those days was pale and +worn and had sunken eyes, and yet was sound of limb and could do a +day's work of twenty-four hours if there were need. I had my theory +and as yet I had come upon nothing to disprove it. This young officer +might very well have brought in a cipher message to the Château +Villetaneuse. Mademoiselle Sophie might very well have waved her +lantern at the door to summon a fresh messenger.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No; why should I not doubt your word?" I repeated.</p> + +<p class="normal">He turned his face to the old lady. "It is your move, Baronne," he +said, and she placed the piece she held upon a square of the board. +Mademoiselle Sophie took her stand by the table between the players, +and the game went on just as though there were no intruder in the +room. It was uncomfortable for me. I shifted my feet. I tried to +appear at my ease; finally I sat down in a chair. They took no notice +of me whatever. But that I felt hot upon a discovery, but that I knew +if I could bring back to Noisy-le-Grand proof of where the leakage +through our lines occurred, I should earn approval and perhaps +promotion, I should very deeply have regretted my entrance into the +Château Villetaneuse. And I was extremely glad when at last the +corporal opened the door. He had searched the house--he had found no +one but Madame de Villetaneuse and an old servant who was watching by +her bed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well," said I, and the corporal returned to the hall.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mademoiselle Sophie moved away from the chess-table. She came and +stood opposite to me, and though her face was still, her eyes were +hard with anger.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And now perhaps you will tell me to what I owe your visit?" she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly," I returned. I fixed my eyes on her, and I said slowly, "I +have come to ask for more news of M. Bonnet's black sow."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mademoiselle Sophie stared as if she were not sure whether I was mad +or drunk, but was very sure I was one or the other. The young +Frenchman started upon his couch, with the veins swelling upon his +forehead and a flushed face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This is an insult," he cried savagely, and no less savagely I +answered him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hold your tongue!" I cried. "You forget too often that though you are +on parole you are still a prisoner."</p> + +<p class="normal">He fell back upon the sofa with a groan of pain, and the girl hurried +to his side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your leg hurts you. You should not have moved," she cried.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is nothing," he said, faintly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile I had been looking about the room for a box or a case where +the cipher messages might be hid. I saw nothing of the kind. Of course +they might be hidden between the pages of a book. I went from table to +table, taking them by the boards and shaking the leaves. Not a scrap +of paper tumbled out. There was another door in the room besides that +which led on to the landing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mademoiselle, what room is that?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My bedroom," she answered, simply, and with a gesture full of dignity +she threw open the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">I carried the mud and snow and the grime of a camp without a scruple +of remorse into that neat and pretty chamber. Mademoiselle Sophie +followed me as I searched wardrobe and drawer and box. At last I came +to one drawer in her dressing-table which was locked. I tried the +handle again to make sure. Yes, it was locked. I looked suddenly at +the young lady. She was watching me out of the corners of her eyes +with a peculiar intentness. I felt at once that I was hot.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Open that drawer, mademoiselle," I said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It contains only some private things."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Open that drawer or I burst it open."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she cried, as I jerked the handle. "I will open it."</p> + +<p class="normal">She fetched the key out of another drawer which was unlocked, and +fitted it into the lock of the dressing-table. And all the while I saw +that she was watching me. She meant to play me some trick, I was +certain. So I watched too, and I did well to watch. She turned the +key, opened the drawer, and then snatched out something with +extraordinary rapidity and ran as hard as she could to the door--not +the door through which we had entered, but a second door which gave on +to the passage. She ran very fast and she ran very lightly, and she +did not stumble over a chair as I did in pursuit of her. But she had +to unlatch the door and pull it open. I caught her up and closed my +arms about her. It was a little, carved, ebony box which she held, the +very thing for which I searched.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I thought so," I cried with a laugh. "Drop the box, mademoiselle. +Drop it on the floor!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The noise of our struggle had been heard in the next room. The +Baroness rushed through the doorway.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What has happened?" she cried. "Mon Dieu! you are killing her!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Drop the box, mademoiselle!"</p> + +<p class="normal">And as I spoke she threw it away. She threw it through the doorway; +she tried to throw it over the banisters of the stairs, but my arms +were about hers, and it fell into the passage just beyond the door. I +darted from her and picked it up. When I returned with it she was +taking a gold chain from her neck. At the end of the chain hung a +little golden key. This she held out to me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Open it here," she said in a low, eager voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sudden change only increased my suspicions, or rather my +conviction that I had now the proof which I needed. A minute ago she +was trying as hard as she could to escape with the box, now she was +imploring me to open it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, if you are so eager to show me the contents, did you try to +throw it away?" I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I tried to throw it down into the hall," she answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My corporal would have picked it up."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, what would that matter?" she exclaimed, impatiently. "You would +have opened it in the hall. That was what I wanted. Open it here! At +all events open it here!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The very urgency of her pleading made me determined to refuse the +plea.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, you have some other ruse, mademoiselle," said I. "Perhaps you +wish to gain time for your friend in the next room. No, we will return +here and open it comfortably by the fire."</p> + +<p class="normal">I kept a tight hold upon the box. I shook it. To my delight I felt +that there were papers within it. I carried it back to the fireside +and sat down on a chair. Mademoiselle Sophie followed me close, and as +I fixed the little gold key into the lock she laid her hand very +gently upon my arm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I beg you not to unlock that box," she said; "if you do you will +bring upon me a great humiliation and upon yourself much remorse. +There is nothing there which concerns you. There are just my little +secrets. A girl may have secrets, monsieur, which are sacred to her."</p> + +<p class="normal">She was standing quite close to me, and her back was towards the +French officer and her aunt. They could not see her face and they +could hardly have heard more than a word here and there of what she +said. For always she spoke in a low voice, and at times that low voice +dropped to a whisper, so that I myself had to watch her lips. I +answered her only by turning the key in the lock. She took her hand +from my arm and laid it on the lid to hinder me from opening it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wore the key on a chain about my neck, monsieur," she whispered. +"Does that teach you nothing? Even though you are young, does it teach +you nothing? I said that if you unlocked that box you would cause me +great humiliation, thinking that would be enough to stop you. But I +see I must tell you more. Read the letters, monsieur, question me +about them, and you will make my life a very lonely one. I think so. I +think you will destroy my chance of happiness. You would not wish +that, monsieur? It is true that we are enemies, but some day this war +will end, and you would not wish to prolong its sufferings beyond the +end. Yet you will be doing that, monsieur, if you open that box. You +would be sorry afterwards when you were back at home to know that a +girl in France was suffering from a needless act of yours. Yes, you +will be sorry if you open that box."</p> + +<p class="normal">It seems now almost impossible to me that I could have doubted her +sincerity; she spoke with so much simplicity, and so desperate an +appeal looked out from her dark eyes. Ever since that Christmas night +I can see her quite clearly at will, standing as she stood then--all +the sincerity of her which I would not acknowledge, all the appeal +which I would not hear; and I see her many times when for my peace I +would rather not. Much remorse, she said very wisely, would be the +consequence for me. She was pleading for her pride, and to do that the +better she laid her pride aside; yet she never lost her dignity. She +was pleading for her chance of happiness, foreseeing that it was +likely to be destroyed, without any reason or any profit to a living +being, by a stranger who would the next moment pass out of her life. +Yet there was no outcry, and there were no tears. Had it been a +trick--I ask the ladies--would there not have been tears?</p> + +<p class="normal">But I thought it was a trick and a cheap one. She was trying to make +me believe that there were love-letters in the box--compromising +love-letters. Now, I <i>know</i> that there were no love-letters in the +box. I had seen the Frenchman's pretty way of saying thanks. I had +noticed how the caress hurt her just through what it lacked. He was +the friend, you see, and nothing more; she was the lover and the only +lover of the pair. There could be no love-letters in the box unless +she had written them herself and kept them. But I did not think she +was the girl to do that. There was a dignity about her which would +have stopped her pen.</p> + +<p class="normal">I opened the box accordingly. Mademoiselle Sophie turned away +abruptly, and sitting down in a chair shaded her eyes with her hand. I +emptied the letters out on to a table, turning the box upside down, +and thus the first which I took up and read was the one which lay at +the very bottom. As I read it it seemed that every suspicion I had +formed was established. She had hinted at love-letters, she had spoken +of secrets sacred to a girl; and the letter was not even addressed to +her. It was addressed to Madame de Villetaneuse; it was a letter +which, if it meant no more than what was implied upon the surface, +would have long since found destruction in the waste-paper basket. For +it purported to be merely the acceptance of an invitation to dinner at +the town house of Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain. +It was signed only by a Christian name, "Armand," and the few +sentences which composed the letter explained that M. Armand was a +distant kinsman of Madame de Villetaneuse who had just come to Paris +to pursue his studies, and who, up till now, had no acquaintance with +the family.</p> + +<p class="normal">I looked at Mademoiselle Sophie sternly. "So all this pother was about +a mere invitation to dinner! Once let it be known that M. Armand will +dine with Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain, and you +are humiliated, you lose your chance of happiness, and I, too, shall +find myself in good time suffering the pangs of remorse," and I read +the letter slowly aloud to her, word by word.</p> + +<p class="normal">She returned no answer. She sat with her hand shading her face, and +she rocked her head backwards and forwards continually and rather +quickly, like a child with a racking headache. Of course, to my mind +all that was part of the game. The letter was dated two years back, +but the month was December, and, of course, to antedate would be the +first precaution.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come, mademoiselle," I said, changing my tone, "I invite you very +seriously to make a clean breast of it. I wish to take no harsh +measures with you if I can avoid them. Tell me frankly what news this +letter plainly translated gives to General Trochu in Paris."</p> + +<p class="normal">"None," she answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well," said I, and I took up the next letter. Ah, M. Armand +writes again a week later. It was evidently a good dinner and M. +Armand is properly grateful.</p> + +<p class="normal">The gratitude, indeed, was rather excessive, rather provincial. +It was just the effusion which a young man who had not yet learned +self-possession might have written on his first introduction to the +highest social life of Paris. Certainly the correspondence was very +artfully designed. But what did it hide? I puzzled over the question; +I took the words and the dates, and it seemed to me that I began to +see light. So much stress was laid upon the dinner, that the word must +signify some event of importance. The first letter spoke of a dinner +in the future. I imagined that it had not been possible to pass this +warning into Paris. The second letter mentioned with gratitude that +the dinner had been successful. Well, suppose "dinner" stood for +"engagement"! The letter would refer to the sortie from Paris which +pushed back our lines and captured Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche. +That seemed likely. Madame de Villetaneuse gave the dinner; General +Trochu made the sortie. Then "Madame de Villetaneuse" stood for +"General Trochu." Who would be Armand? Why, the French people outside +Paris--the provincials! I had the explanation of that provincial +expression of gratitude. Ah, no doubt it all seems far-fetched now +that we sit quietly about this table. But put yourselves in the thick +of war and take twenty years off your lives! Suppose yourselves young +and green, eager for advancement, and just off your balance for want +of sleep, want of food, want of rest, want of everything, and brutal +from the facts of war. There are very few things which would seem +far-fetched. It seemed to me that I was deciphering these letters with +absolute accuracy. I saw myself promoted to captain, seconded to the +General Staff. M. Armand represented the French people in the +provinces. No doubt they would be grateful for that sortie. The only +point which troubled me arose from M. Armand's presence at that +dinner-party. Now, the one defect from the French point of view in +that sortie on Ville Evrart was that the French outside Paris did not +come to General Trochu's help. They were expected, but they did not +take part in that dinner-party.</p> + +<p class="normal">I went on with the letters, hoping to find an explanation there. The +third letter was addressed to Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse, who had +evidently written to M. Armand on behalf of her mother, inviting him +to her box at the opera. M. Armand regretted that he had not been +fortunate enough to call at a time when mademoiselle was at home, and +would look forward to the pleasure of seeing her at the opera. Was +that an apology? I asked myself. An apology for absence at Ville +Evrart and a pledge to be present at the next engagement!</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mademoiselle," I cried, "what does the opera stand for?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mademoiselle Sophie laughed disdainfully.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For music, monsieur, for art, for refinement, for many things you do +not understand."</p> + +<p class="normal">I sprang up in excitement. What did it matter what she said? M. Armand +stood for the Army of the Loire. It was that army which had been +expected at Ville Evrart. Here was a pledge that it would be reformed, +that it would come to the help of Paris at the next sortie. That was +valuable news--it could not but bring recognition to the man who +brought evidence of it into the Prussian lines. I hurriedly read +through the other letters, quoting a passage here and there, trying to +startle Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse into a confession. But she never +changed her attitude, she did not answer a word.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her conduct was the more aggravating, for I began to get lost among +these letters. They were all in the same handwriting; they were all +signed "Armand," and they seemed to give a picture of the life of a +young man in Paris during the two years which preceded the war. They +recorded dinner-parties, visits to the theatres, examinations passed, +prizes won and lost, receptions, rides in the Bois, and Sunday +excursions into the country. All these phrases, these appointments, +these meetings, might have particular meanings. But if so, how +stupendous a cipher! Besides, how was it that none of these messages +had been passed into Paris? Very reluctantly I began to doubt my own +conjecture. I read some more letters, and then I suddenly turned back +to the earlier ones. I compared them with the later notes. I began to +be afraid the correspondence after all was genuine, for the tone of +the letters changed and changed so gradually, and yet so clearly, that +the greatest literary art could hardly have deliberately composed +them. I seemed to witness the actual progress of M. Armand, a +hobbledehoy from the provinces losing his awkwardness, acquiring ease +and polish in his contact with the refinement of Paris. Gratitude was +now expressed without effusion, he was no longer gaping with +admiration at the elegance of the women, a knowledge of the world +began to show itself in his comments. M. Armand was growing master of +himself, he had gained a facility of style and a felicity of phrase. +The last letters had the postmark of Paris, the first that of +Auvergne.</p> + +<p class="normal">They were genuine, then. And they were not love-letters. I looked at +Mademoiselle Sophie with an increased perplexity. Why did she now sit +rocking her head like a child in pain? Why had she so struggled to +hinder me from opening them? They recorded a beginning of +acquaintanceship and the growth of that into friendship between a +young man and a young girl--nothing more. The friendship might +eventually end in marriage no doubt if left to itself, but there was +not a word of that in the letters. I was still wondering, when the +French officer raised himself from his sofa and dragged himself across +the room to Mademoiselle Sophie's chair. His left trouser leg had been +slit down the side from the knee to the foot and laced lightly so as +to make room for a bandage. He supported himself from chair to chair +with evident pain, and I could not doubt that his wound was as genuine +as the letters.</p> + +<p class="normal">He bent down and gently took her hand away from her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Sophie," he said, "I did not dare to think that you kept this place +for me in your thoughts. A little more courage and I should long since +have said to you what I say now. I beg your permission to ask Madame +de Villetaneuse to-morrow for your hand in marriage."</p> + +<p class="normal">My house of cards tumbled down in a second. The French officer was M. +Armand. With the habit women have of treasuring tokens of the things +which have happened, Mademoiselle Sophie had kept all these trifling +notes and messages, and had even gathered to them the letters written +by him to her mother, so that the story might be complete. But without +M. Armand's knowledge; he was not to know; her pride must guard her +secret from him. For she was the lover and he only the friend, and she +knew it. Even in the little speech which he had just made, there was +just too much formality, just too little sincerity of voice. I +understood why she had tried to throw the ebony box down into the hall +so that I might open it there--I understood that I had caused her +great humiliation. But that was not all there was for me to +understand.</p> + +<p class="normal">In answer to Armand she raised her eyes quietly, and shook her head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You wish to spare me shame," she said, "and I thank you very much. +But it is because of these letters that you spoke. I must think that. +I must always think it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But yes," she replied firmly. "If monsieur had not unlocked that +box--I don't know--but some day perhaps--oh, not yet, no, not yet--but +some day perhaps you might have come of your own accord and said what +you have just said. And I should have been very happy. But now you +never must. For you see I shall always think that the letters are +prompting you."</p> + +<p class="normal">And M. Armand bowed.</p> + +<p class="normal">I had taken from her her chance of happiness. The friendship between +them might have ended in marriage if left to itself. But I had not +left it to itself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mademoiselle," I said, "I am very sorry."</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned her dark eyes on me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Monsieur, I warned you. It is too late to be sorry," and as I stood +shuffling awkwardly from one foot to the other, she added, gently, +"Will you not go, monsieur?"</p> + +<p class="normal">I went out of the room, called together my escort, mounted and rode +off. It was past midnight now, and the night was clear. But I thought +neither of the little beds under the slope of the roof nor of any +danger on the road. There might have been a <i>franc-tireur</i> behind +every tree. I would never have noticed it until one of them had +brought me down. Remorse was heavy upon me. I had behaved without +consideration, without chivalry, without any manners at all. I had not +been able to distinguish truth when it stared me in the face, or to +recognise honesty when it looked out from a young girl's dark eyes. I +had behaved, in a word, like the brute six months of war had made of +me. I wondered with a vague hope whether after all time might not set +matters right between M. Armand and Mademoiselle Sophie. And I wonder +now whether it has. But even if I knew that it had, I should always +remember that Christmas night of 1870 with acute regret. The only +incident, indeed, which I can mention with the slightest satisfaction +is this: On the way back to Noisy-le-Grand I came to a point where the +road from Chelles crossed the road from Montfermeil. I halted at a +little cabin which stood upon a grass-plot within the angle of the +roads, and tying up all the money I had on me in a pocket-handkerchief +I dropped the handkerchief through a broken window-pane.</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The Colonel let the end of his cigar fall upon his plate, and pushed +back his chair from the table. "But I see we shall be late for the +opera," he said, as he glanced at the clock.</p> + +<p class="normal"><i>November</i>, 1905.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>THE AFFAIR<br> +AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_affair" href="#div1Ref_affair">THE AFFAIR<br> +AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL</a></h2> +<br> + +<h3>I</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo, when the excitements of the Villa Rose were done with, +returned to Grosvenor Square and resumed the busy, unnecessary life of +an amateur. But the studios had lost their savour, artists their +attractiveness, and even the Russian opera seemed a trifle flat. Life +was altogether a disappointment; Fate, like an actress at a +restaurant, had taken the wooden pestle in her hand and stirred all +the sparkle out of the champagne; Mr. Ricardo languished--until one +unforgettable morning.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was sitting disconsolately at his breakfast-table when the door was +burst open and a square, stout man, with the blue, shaven face of a +French comedian, flung himself into the room. Ricardo sprang towards +the new-comer with a cry of delight.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dear Hanaud!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He seized his visitor by the arm, feeling it to make sure that here, +in flesh and blood, stood the man who had introduced him to the +acutest sensations of his life. He turned towards his butler, who was +still bleating expostulations in the doorway at the unceremonious +irruption of the French detective.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Another place, Burton, at once," he cried, and as soon as he and +Hanaud were alone: "What good wind blows you to London?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the +line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a +holiday."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the +line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a +holiday."</p> + +<p class="normal">A light had suddenly flashed in Mr. Ricardo's eyes, and was now no +less suddenly extinguished. Hanaud paid no attention whatever to his +friend's disappointment. He pounced upon a piece of silver which +adorned the tablecloth and took it over to the window.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Everything is as it should be, my friend," he exclaimed, with a grin. +"Grosvenor Square, the <i>Times</i> open at the money column, and a false +antique upon the table. Thus I have dreamed of you. All Mr. Ricardo is +in that sentence."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo laughed nervously. Recollection made him wary of Hanaud's +sarcasms. He was shy even to protest the genuineness of his silver. +But, indeed, he had not the time. For the door opened again and once +more the butler appeared. On this occasion, however, he was alone.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Calladine would like to speak to you, sir," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Calladine!" cried Ricardo in an extreme surprise. "That is the most +extraordinary thing." He looked at the clock upon his mantelpiece. It +was barely half-past eight. "At this hour, too?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Calladine is still wearing evening dress," the butler remarked.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo started in his chair. He began to dream of possibilities; and +here was Hanaud miraculously at his side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where is Mr. Calladine?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have shown him into the library."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good," said Mr. Ricardo. "I will come to him."</p> + +<p class="normal">But he was in no hurry. He sat and let his thoughts play with this +incident of Calladine's early visit.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is very odd," he said. "I have not seen Calladine for months--no, +nor has anyone. Yet, a little while ago, no one was more often seen."</p> + +<p class="normal">He fell apparently into a muse, but he was merely seeking to provoke +Hanaud's curiosity. In this attempt, however, he failed. Hanaud +continued placidly to eat his breakfast, so that Mr. Ricardo was +compelled to volunteer the story which he was burning to tell.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Drink your coffee, Hanaud, and you shall hear about Calladine."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud grunted with resignation, and Mr. Ricardo flowed on:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Calladine was one of England's young men. Everybody said so. He was +going to do very wonderful things as soon as he had made up his mind +exactly what sort of wonderful things he was going to do. Meanwhile, +you met him in Scotland, at Newmarket, at Ascot, at Cowes, in the box +of some great lady at the Opera--not before half-past ten in the +evening <i>there</i>--in any fine house where the candles that night +happened to be lit. He went everywhere, and then a day came and he +went nowhere. There was no scandal, no trouble, not a whisper against +his good name. He simply vanished. For a little while a few people +asked: 'What has become of Calladine?' But there never was any answer, +and London has no time for unanswered questions. Other promising young +men dined in his place. Calladine had joined the huge legion of the +Come-to-nothings. No one even seemed to pass him in the street. Now +unexpectedly, at half-past eight in the morning, and in evening dress, +he calls upon me. 'Why?' I ask myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo sank once more into a reverie. Hanaud watched him with a +broadening smile of pure enjoyment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And in time, I suppose," he remarked casually, "you will perhaps ask +him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo sprang out of his pose to his feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Before I discuss serious things with an acquaintance," he said with a +scathing dignity, "I make it a rule to revive my impressions of his +personality. The cigarettes are in the crystal box."</p> + +<p class="normal">"They would be," said Hanaud, unabashed, as Ricardo stalked from the +room. But in five minutes Mr. Ricardo came running back, all his +composure gone.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is the greatest good fortune that you, my friend, should have +chosen this morning to visit me," he cried, and Hanaud nodded with a +little grimace of resignation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There goes my holiday. You shall command me now and always. I will +make the acquaintance of your young friend."</p> + +<p class="normal">He rose up and followed Ricardo into his study, where a young man was +nervously pacing the floor.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Calladine," said Ricardo. "This is Mr. Hanaud."</p> + +<p class="normal">The young man turned eagerly. He was tall, with a noticeable elegance +and distinction, and the face which he showed to Hanaud was, in spite +of its agitation, remarkably handsome.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am very glad," he said. "You are not an official of this country. +You can advise--without yourself taking action, if you'll be so good."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud frowned. He bent his eyes uncompromisingly upon Calladine.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What does that mean?" he asked, with a note of sternness in his +voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It means that I must tell someone," Calladine burst out in quivering +tones. "That I don't know what to do. I am in a difficulty too big for +me. That's the truth."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud looked at the young man keenly. It seemed to Ricardo that he +took in every excited gesture, every twitching feature, in one +comprehensive glance. Then he said in a friendlier voice:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Sit down and tell me"--and he himself drew up a chair to the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was at the Semiramis last night," said Calladine, naming one of the +great hotels upon the Embankment. "There was a fancy-dress ball."</p> + +<p class="normal">All this happened, by the way, in those far-off days before the +war--nearly, in fact, three years ago today--when London, flinging +aside its reticence, its shy self-consciousness, had become a city of +carnivals and masquerades, rivalling its neighbours on the Continent +in the spirit of its gaiety, and exceeding them by its stupendous +luxury. "I went by the merest chance. My rooms are in the Adelphi +Terrace."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There!" cried Mr. Ricardo in surprise, and Hanaud lifted a hand to +check his interruptions.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," continued Calladine. "The night was warm, the music floated +through my open windows and stirred old memories. I happened to have a +ticket. I went."</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine drew up a chair opposite to Hanaud and, seating himself, +told, with many nervous starts and in troubled tones, a story which, +to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was as fabulous as any out of the "Arabian +Nights."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I had a ticket," he began, "but no domino. I was consequently stopped +by an attendant in the lounge at the top of the staircase leading down +to the ballroom.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'You can hire a domino in the cloakroom, Mr. Calladine,' he said to +me. I had already begun to regret the impulse which had brought me, +and I welcomed the excuse with which the absence of a costume provided +me. I was, indeed, turning back to the door, when a girl who had at +that moment run down from the stairs of the hotel into the lounge, +cried gaily: 'That's not necessary'; and at the same moment she flung +to me a long scarlet cloak which she had been wearing over her own +dress. She was young, fair, rather tall, slim, and very pretty; her +hair was drawn back from her face with a ribbon, and rippled down her +shoulders in heavy curls; and she was dressed in a satin coat and +knee-breeches of pale green and gold, with a white waistcoat and +silk stockings and scarlet heels to her satin shoes. She was as +straight-limbed as a boy, and exquisite like a figure in Dresden +china. I caught the cloak and turned to thank her. But she did not +wait. With a laugh she ran down the stairs a supple and shining +figure, and was lost in the throng at the doorway of the ballroom. I +was stirred by the prospect of an adventure. I ran down after her. She +was standing just inside the room alone, and she was gazing at the +scene with parted lips and dancing eyes. She laughed again as she saw +the cloak about my shoulders, a delicious gurgle of amusement, and I +said to her:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'May I dance with you?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Oh, do!' she cried, with a little jump, and clasping her hands. She +was of a high and joyous spirit and not difficult in the matter of an +introduction. 'This gentleman will do very well to present us,' she +said, leading me in front of a bust of the God Pan which stood in a +niche of the wall. 'I am, as you see, straight out of an opera. My +name is Celymène or anything with an eighteenth century sound to it. +You are--what you will. For this evening we are friends.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'And for to-morrow?' I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I will tell you about that later on,' she replied, and she began to +dance with a light step and a passion in her dancing which earned me +many an envious glance from the other men. I was in luck, for Celymène +knew no one, and though, of course, I saw the faces of a great many +people whom I remembered, I kept them all at a distance. We had been +dancing for about half an hour when the first queerish thing happened. +She stopped suddenly in the midst of a sentence with a little gasp. I +spoke to her, but she did not hear. She was gazing past me, her eyes +wide open, and such a rapt look upon her face as I had never seen. She +was lost in a miraculous vision. I followed the direction of her eyes +and, to my astonishment, I saw nothing more than a stout, short, +middle-aged woman, egregiously over-dressed as Marie Antoinette.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'So you do know someone here?' I said, and I had to repeat the words +sharply before my friend withdrew her eyes. But even then she was not +aware of me. It was as if a voice had spoken to her whilst she was +asleep and had disturbed, but not wakened her. Then she came +to--there's really no other word I can think of which describes her at +that moment--she came to with a deep sigh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'No,' she answered. 'She is a Mrs. Blumenstein from Chicago, a widow +with ambitions and a great deal of money. But I don't know her.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Yet you know all about her,' I remarked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'She crossed in the same boat with me,' Celymène replied. 'Did I tell +you that I landed at Liverpool this morning? She is staying at the +Semiramis too. Oh, let us dance!'</p> + +<p class="normal">"She twitched my sleeve impatiently, and danced with a kind of +violence and wildness as if she wished to banish some sinister +thought. And she did undoubtedly banish it. We supped together and +grew confidential, as under such conditions people will. She told me +her real name. It was Joan Carew.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I have come over to get an engagement if I can at Covent Garden. I +am supposed to sing all right. But I don't know anyone. I have been +brought up in Italy.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'You have some letters of introduction, I suppose?' I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Oh, yes. One from my teacher in Milan. One from an American +manager.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"In my turn I told her my name and where I lived, and I gave her my +card. I thought, you see, that since I used to know a good many +operatic people, I might be able to help her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Thank you,' she said, and at that moment Mrs. Blumenstein, followed +by a party, chiefly those lap-dog young men who always seem to gather +about that kind of person, came into the supper-room and took a table +close to us. There was at once an end of all confidences--indeed, of +all conversation. Joan Carew lost all the lightness of her spirit; she +talked at random, and her eyes were drawn again and again to the +grotesque slander on Marie Antoinette. Finally I became annoyed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Shall we go?' I suggested impatiently, and to my surprise she +whispered passionately:</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Yes. Please! Let us go.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"Her voice was actually shaking, her small hands clenched. We went +back to the ballroom, but Joan Carew did not recover her gaiety, and +half-way through a dance, when we were near to the door, she stopped +abruptly--extraordinarily abruptly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I shall go,' she said abruptly. 'I am tired. I have grown dull.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"I protested, but she made a little grimace.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'You'll hate me in half an hour. Let's be wise and stop now while we +are friends,' she said, and whilst I removed the domino from my +shoulders she stooped very quickly. It seemed to me that she picked up +something which had lain hidden beneath the sole of her slipper. She +certainly moved her foot, and I certainly saw something small and +bright flash in the palm of her glove as she raised herself again. But +I imagined merely that it was some object which she had dropped.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Yes, we'll go,' she said, and we went up the stairs into the lobby. +Certainly all the sparkle had gone out of our adventure. I recognized +her wisdom.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'But I shall meet you again?' I asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Yes. I have your address. I'll write and fix a time when you will be +sure to find me in. Good-night, and a thousand thanks. I should have +been bored to tears if you hadn't come without a domino.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"She was speaking lightly as she held out her hand, but her grip +tightened a little and--clung. Her eyes darkened and grew troubled, +her mouth trembled. The shadow of a great trouble had suddenly closed +about her. She shivered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I am half inclined to ask you to stay, however dull I am; and dance +with me till daylight--the safe daylight,' she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was an extraordinary phrase for her to use, and it moved me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Let us go back then!' I urged. She gave me an impression suddenly of +someone quite forlorn. But Joan Carew recovered her courage. 'No, no,' +she answered quickly. She snatched her hand away and ran lightly up +the staircase, turning at the corner to wave her hand and smile. It +was then half-past one in the morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">So far Calladine had spoken without an interruption. Mr. Ricardo, it +is true, was bursting to break in with the most important questions, +but a salutary fear of Hanaud restrained him. Now, however, he had an +opportunity, for Calladine paused.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Half-past one," he said sagely. "Ah!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And when did you go home?" Hanaud asked of Calladine.</p> + +<p class="normal">"True," said Mr. Ricardo. "It is of the greatest consequence."</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine was not sure. His partner had left behind her the strangest +medley of sensations in his breast. He was puzzled, haunted, and +charmed. He had to think about her; he was a trifle uplifted; sleep +was impossible. He wandered for a while about the ballroom. Then he +walked to his chambers along the echoing streets and sat at his +window; and some time afterwards the hoot of a motor-horn broke the +silence and a car stopped and whirred in the street below. A moment +later his bell rang.</p> + +<p class="normal">He ran down the stairs in a queer excitement, unlocked the street door +and opened it. Joan Carew, still in her masquerade dress with her +scarlet cloak about her shoulders, slipped through the opening.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shut the door," she whispered, drawing herself apart in a corner.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your cab?" asked Calladine.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It has gone."</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine latched the door. Above, in the well of the stairs, the +light spread out from the open door of his flat. Down here all was +dark. He could just see the glimmer of her white face, the glitter of +her dress, but she drew her breath like one who has run far. They +mounted the stairs cautiously. He did not say a word until they were +both safely in his parlour; and even then it was in a low voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What has happened?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You remember the woman I stared at? You didn't know why I stared, but +any girl would have understood. She was wearing the loveliest pearls I +ever saw in my life."</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan was standing by the edge of the table. She was tracing with her +finger a pattern on the cloth as she spoke. Calladine started with a +horrible presentiment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," she said. "I worship pearls. I always have done. For one thing, +they improve on me. I haven't got any, of course. I have no money. But +friends of mine who do own pearls have sometimes given theirs to me to +wear when they were going sick, and they have always got back their +lustre. I think that has had a little to do with my love of them. Oh, +I have always longed for them--just a little string. Sometimes I have +felt that I would have given my soul for them."</p> + +<p class="normal">She was speaking in a dull, monotonous voice. But Calladine recalled +the ecstasy which had shone in her face when her eyes first had fallen +on the pearls, the longing which had swept her quite into another +world, the passion with which she had danced to throw the obsession +off.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I never noticed them at all," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yet they were wonderful. The colour! The lustre! All the evening they +tempted me. I was furious that a fat, coarse creature like that should +have such exquisite things. Oh, I was mad."</p> + +<p class="normal">She covered her face suddenly with her hands and swayed. Calladine +sprang towards her. But she held out her hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, I am all right." And though he asked her to sit down she would +not. "You remember when I stopped dancing suddenly?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. You had something hidden under your foot?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The girl nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Her key!" And under his breath Calladine uttered a startled cry.</p> + +<p class="normal">For the first time since she had entered the room Joan Carew raised +her head and looked at him. Her eyes were full of terror, and with the +terror was mixed an incredulity as though she could not possibly +believe that that had happened which she knew had happened.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A little Yale key," the girl continued. "I saw Mrs. Blumenstein +looking on the floor for something, and then I saw it shining on the +very spot. Mrs. Blumenstein's suite was on the same floor as mine, and +her maid slept above. All the maids do. I knew that. Oh, it seemed to +me as if I had sold my soul and was being paid."</p> + +<p class="normal">Now Calladine understood what she had meant by her strange +phrase--"the safe daylight."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I went up to my little suite," Joan Carew continued. "I sat there +with the key burning through my glove until I had given her time +enough to fall asleep"--and though she hesitated before she spoke the +words, she did speak them, not looking at Calladine, and with a +shudder of remorse making her confession complete. "Then I crept out. +The corridor was dimly lit. Far away below the music was throbbing. Up +here it was as silent as the grave. I opened the door--her door. I +found myself in a lobby. The suite, though bigger, was arranged like +mine. I slipped in and closed the door behind me. I listened in the +darkness. I couldn't hear a sound. I crept forward to the door in +front of me. I stood with my fingers on the handle and my heart +beating fast enough to choke me. I had still time to turn back. But I +couldn't. There were those pearls in front of my eyes, lustrous and +wonderful. I opened the door gently an inch or so--and then--it all +happened in a second."</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew faltered. The night was too near to her, its memory too +poignant with terror. She shut her eyes tightly and cowered down in a +chair. With the movement her cloak slipped from her shoulders and +dropped on to the ground. Calladine leaned forward with an exclamation +of horror; Joan Carew started up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is it?" she asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing. Go on."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I found myself inside the room with the door shut behind me. I had +shut it myself in a spasm of terror. And I dared not turn round to +open it. I was helpless."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you mean? She was awake?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew shook her head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There were others in the room before me, and on the same +errand--men!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine drew back, his eyes searching the girl's face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?" he said slowly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I didn't see them at first. I didn't hear them. The room was quite +dark except for one jet of fierce white light which beat upon the door +of a safe. And as I shut the door the jet moved swiftly and the light +reached me and stopped. I was blinded. I stood in the full glare of +it, drawn up against the panels of the door, shivering, sick with +fear. Then I heard a quiet laugh, and someone moved softly towards me. +Oh, it was terrible! I recovered the use of my limbs; in a panic I +turned to the door, but I was too late. Whilst I fumbled with the +handle I was seized; a hand covered my mouth. I was lifted to the +centre of the room. The jet went out, the electric lights were turned +on. There were two men dressed as apaches in velvet trousers and red +scarves, like a hundred others in the ballroom below, and both were +masked. I struggled furiously; but, of course, I was like a child in +their grasp. 'Tie her legs,' the man whispered who was holding me; +'she's making too much noise.' I kicked and fought, but the other man +stooped and tied my ankles, and I fainted."</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine nodded his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?" he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"When I came to, the lights were still burning, the door of the safe +was open, the room empty; I had been flung on to a couch at the foot +of the bed. I was lying there quite free."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Was the safe empty?" asked Calladine suddenly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I didn't look," she answered. "Oh!"--and she covered her face +spasmodically with her hands. "I looked at the bed. Someone was lying +there--under a sheet and quite still. There was a clock ticking in the +room; it was the only sound. I was terrified. I was going mad with +fear. If I didn't get out of the room at once I felt that I should +go mad, that I should scream and bring everyone to find me alone +with--what was under the sheet in the bed. I ran to the door and +looked out through a slit into the corridor. It was still quite empty, +and below the music still throbbed in the ballroom. I crept down the +stairs, meeting no one until I reached the hall. I looked into the +ballroom as if I was searching for someone. I stayed long enough to +show myself. Then I got a cab and came to you."</p> + +<p class="normal">A short silence followed. Joan Carew looked at her companion in +appeal. "You are the only one I could come to," she added. "I know no +one else."</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine sat watching the girl in silence. Then he asked, and his +voice was hard:</p> + +<p class="normal">"And is that all you have to tell me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are quite sure?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew looked at him perplexed by the urgency of his question. She +reflected for a moment or two.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Quite."</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine rose to his feet and stood beside her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then how do you come to be wearing this?" he asked, and he lifted a +chain of platinum and diamonds which she was wearing about her +shoulders. "You weren't wearing it when you danced with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew stared at the chain.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No. It's not mine. I have never seen it before." Then a light came +into her eyes. "The two men--they must have thrown it over my head +when I was on the couch--before they went." She looked at it more +closely. "That's it. The chain's not very valuable. They could spare +it, and--it would accuse me--of what they did."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, that's very good reasoning," said Calladine coldly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew looked quickly up into his face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, you don't believe me," she cried. "You think--oh, it's +impossible." And, holding him by the edge of his coat, she burst into +a storm of passionate denials.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you went to steal, you know," he said gently, and she answered +him at once:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, I did, but not this." And she held up the necklace. "Should I +have stolen this, should I have come to you wearing it, if I had +stolen the pearls, if I had"--and she stopped--"if my story were not +true?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine weighed her argument, and it affected him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, I think you wouldn't," he said frankly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Most crimes, no doubt, were brought home because the criminal had made +some incomprehensibly stupid mistake; incomprehensibly stupid, that +is, by the standards of normal life. Nevertheless, Calladine was +inclined to believe her. He looked at her. That she should have +murdered was absurd. Moreover, she was not making a parade of remorse, +she was not playing the unctuous penitent; she had yielded to a +temptation, had got herself into desperate straits, and was at her +wits' ends how to escape from them. She was frank about herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine looked at the clock. It was nearly five o'clock in the +morning, and though the music could still be heard from the ballroom +in the Semiramis, the night had begun to wane upon the river.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must go back," he said. "I'll walk with you."</p> + +<p class="normal">They crept silently down the stairs and into the street. It was only a +step to the Semiramis. They met no one until they reached the Strand. +There many, like Joan Carew in masquerade, were standing about, or +walking hither and thither in search of carriages and cabs. The whole +street was in a bustle, what with drivers shouting and people coming +away.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You can slip in unnoticed," said Calladine as he looked into the +thronged courtyard. "I'll telephone to you in the morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will?" she cried eagerly, clinging for a moment to his arm.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, for certain," he replied. "Wait in until you hear from me. I'll +think it over. I'll do what I can."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," she said fervently.</p> + +<p class="normal">He watched her scarlet cloak flitting here and there in the crowd +until it vanished through the doorway. Then, for the second time, he +walked back to his chambers, while the morning crept up the river from +the sea.</p> +<br> + +<p style="text-align:center; letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p> +<br> + +<p class="normal">This was the story which Calladine told in Mr. Ricardo's library. Mr. +Ricardo heard it out with varying emotions. He began with a thrill of +expectation like a man on a dark threshold of great excitements. The +setting of the story appealed to him, too, by a sort of brilliant +bizarrerie which he found in it. But, as it went on, he grew puzzled +and a trifle disheartened. There were flaws and chinks; he began to +bubble with unspoken criticisms, then swift and clever thrusts which +he dared not deliver. He looked upon the young man with disfavour, as +upon one who had half opened a door upon a theatre of great promise +and shown him a spectacle not up to the mark. Hanaud, on the other +hand, listened imperturbably, without an expression upon his face, +until the end. Then he pointed a finger at Calladine and asked him +what to Ricardo's mind was a most irrelevant question.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You got back to your rooms, then, before five, Mr. Calladine, and it +is now nine o'clock less a few minutes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yet you have not changed your clothes. Explain to me that. What did +you do between five and half-past eight?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine looked down at his rumpled shirt front.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Upon my word, I never thought of it," he cried. "I was worried out of +my mind. I couldn't decide what to do. Finally, I determined to talk +to Mr. Ricardo, and after I had come to that conclusion I just waited +impatiently until I could come round with decency."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud rose from his chair. His manner was grave, but conveyed no +single hint of an opinion. He turned to Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let us go round to your young friend's rooms in the Adelphi," he +said; and the three men drove thither at once.</p> +<br> + +<h3>II</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Calladine lodged in a corner house and upon the first floor. His +rooms, large and square and lofty, with Adams mantelpieces and a +delicate tracery upon their ceilings, breathed the grace of the +eighteenth century. Broad high windows, embrasured in thick walls, +overlooked the river and took in all the sunshine and the air which +the river had to give. And they were furnished fittingly. When the +three men entered the parlour, Mr. Ricardo was astounded. He had +expected the untidy litter of a man run to seed, the neglect and the +dust of the recluse. But the room was as clean as the deck of a yacht; +an Aubusson carpet made the floor luxurious underfoot; a few coloured +prints of real value decorated the walls; and the mahogany furniture +was polished so that a lady could have used it as a mirror. There was +even by the newspapers upon the round table a china bowl full of fresh +red roses. If Calladine had turned hermit, he was a hermit of an +unusually fastidious type. Indeed, as he stood with his two companions +in his dishevelled dress he seemed quite out of keeping with his +rooms.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So you live here, Mr. Calladine?" said Hanaud, taking off his hat and +laying it down.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"With your servants, of course?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They come in during the day," said Calladine, and Hanaud looked at +him curiously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you mean that you sleep here alone?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But your valet?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't keep a valet," said Calladine; and again the curious look +came into Hanaud's eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yet," he suggested gently, "there are rooms enough in your set of +chambers to house a family."</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine coloured and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the +other.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I prefer at night not to be disturbed," he said, stumbling a little +over the words. "I mean, I have a liking for quiet."</p> + +<p class="normal">Gabriel Hanaud nodded his head with sympathy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, yes. And it is a difficult thing to get--as difficult as +my holiday," he said ruefully, with a smile for Mr. Ricardo. +"However"--he turned towards Calladine--"no doubt, now that you are at +home, you would like a bath and a change of clothes. And when you are +dressed, perhaps you will telephone to the Semiramis and ask Miss +Carew to come round here. Meanwhile, we will read your newspapers and +smoke your cigarettes."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud shut the door upon Calladine, but he turned neither to the +papers nor the cigarettes. He crossed the room to Mr. Ricardo, who, +seated at the open window, was plunged deep in reflections.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have an idea, my friend," cried Hanaud. "It demands to express +itself. That sees itself in your face. Let me hear it, I pray."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo started out of an absorption which was altogether assumed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was thinking," he said, with a faraway smile, "that you might +disappear in the forests of Africa, and at once everyone would be very +busy about your disappearance. You might leave your village in +Leicestershire and live in the fogs of Glasgow, and within a week the +whole village would know your postal address. But London--what a city! +How different! How indifferent! Turn out of St. James's into the +Adelphi Terrace and not a soul will say to you: 'Dr. Livingstone, I +presume?'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But why should they," asked Hanaud, "if your name isn't Dr. +Livingstone?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo smiled indulgently.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Scoffer!" he said. "You understand me very well," and he sought to +turn the tables on his companion. "And you--does this room suggest +nothing to you? Have you no ideas?" But he knew very well that Hanaud +had. Ever since Hanaud had crossed the threshold he had been like a +man stimulated by a drug. His eyes were bright and active, his body +alert.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he said, "I have."</p> + +<p class="normal">He was standing now by Ricardo's side with his hands in his pockets, +looking out at the trees on the Embankment and the barges swinging +down the river.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are thinking of the strange scene which took place in this room +such a very few hours ago," said Ricardo. "The girl in her masquerade +dress making her confession with the stolen chain about her +throat----"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud looked backwards carelessly. "No, I wasn't giving it a +thought," he said, and in a moment or two he began to walk about the +room with that curiously light step which Ricardo was never able to +reconcile with his cumbersome figure. With the heaviness of a bear he +still padded. He went from corner to corner, opened a cupboard here, a +drawer of the bureau there, and--stooped suddenly. He stood erect +again with a small box of morocco leather in his hand. His body from +head to foot seemed to Ricardo to be expressing the question, "Have I +found it?" He pressed a spring and the lid of the box flew open. +Hanaud emptied its contents into the palm of his hand. There were two +or three sticks of sealing-wax and a seal. With a shrug of the +shoulders he replaced them and shut the box.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are looking for something," Ricardo announced with sagacity.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am," replied Hanaud; and it seemed that in a second or two he found +it. Yet--yet--he found it with his hands in his pockets, if he had +found it. Mr. Ricardo saw him stop in that attitude in front of the +mantelshelf, and heard him utter a long, low whistle. Upon the +mantelshelf some photographs were arranged, a box of cigars stood at +one end, a book or two lay between some delicate ornaments of china, +and a small engraving in a thin gilt frame was propped at the back +against the wall. Ricardo surveyed the shelf from his seat in the +window, but he could not imagine which it was of these objects that so +drew and held Hanaud's eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud, however, stepped forward. He looked into a vase and turned it +upside down. Then he removed the lid of a porcelain cup, and from the +very look of his great shoulders Ricardo knew that he had discovered +what he sought. He was holding something in his hands, turning it +over, examining it. When he was satisfied he moved swiftly to the door +and opened it cautiously. Both men could hear the splashing of water +in a bath. Hanaud closed the door again with a nod of contentment and +crossed once more to the window.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, it is all very strange and curious," he said, "and I do not +regret that you dragged me into the affair. You were quite right, my +friend, this morning. It is the personality of your young Mr. +Calladine which is the interesting thing. For instance, here we are in +London in the early summer. The trees out, freshly green, lilac and +flowers in the gardens, and I don't know what tingle of hope and +expectation in the sunlight and the air. I am middle-aged--yet there's +a riot in my blood, a recapture of youth, a belief that just round the +corner, beyond the reach of my eyes, wonders wait for me. Don't you, +too, feel something like that? Well, then--" and he heaved his +shoulders in astonishment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Can you understand a young man with money, with fastidious tastes, +good-looking, hiding himself in a corner at such a time--except for +some overpowering reason? No. Nor can I. There is another thing--I put +a question or two to Calladine."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He has no servants here at night. He is quite alone and--here is what +I find interesting--he has no valet. That seems a small thing to you?" +Hanaud asked at a movement from Ricardo. "Well, it is no doubt a +trifle, but it's a significant trifle in the case of a young rich man. +It is generally a sign that there is something strange, perhaps even +something sinister, in his life. Mr. Calladine, some months ago, +turned out of St. James's into the Adelphi. Can you tell me why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," replied Mr. Ricardo. "Can you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud stretched out a hand. In his open palm lay a small round hairy +bulb about the size of a big button and of a colour between green and +brown.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look!" he said. "What is that?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo took the bulb wonderingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It looks to me like the fruit of some kind of cactus."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is. You will see some pots of it in the hothouses of any really +good botanical gardens. Kew has them, I have no doubt. Paris certainly +has. They are labelled. 'Anhalonium Luinii.' But amongst the Indians +of Yucatan the plant has a simpler name."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What name?" asked Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mescal."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo repeated the name. It conveyed nothing to him whatever.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There are a good many bulbs just like that in the cup upon the +mantelshelf," said Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo looked quickly up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?" he asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mescal is a drug."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo started.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, you are beginning to understand now," Hanaud continued, "why +your young friend Calladine turned out of St. James's into the Adelphi +Terrace."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo turned the little bulb over in his fingers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You make a decoction of it, I suppose?" he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Or you can use it as the Indians do in Yucatan," replied Hanaud. +"Mescal enters into their religious ceremonies. They sit at night in a +circle about a fire built in the forest and chew it, whilst one of +their number beats perpetually upon a drum."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud looked round the room and took notes of its luxurious carpet, +its delicate appointments. Outside the window there was a thunder in +the streets, a clamour of voices. Boats went swiftly down the river on +the ebb. Beyond the mass of the Semiramis rose the great grey-white +dome of St. Paul's. Opposite, upon the Southwark bank, the giant +sky-signs, the big Highlander drinking whisky, and the rest of them +waited, gaunt skeletons, for the night to limn them in fire and give +them life. Below the trees in the gardens rustled and waved. In the +air were the uplift and the sparkle of the young summer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's a long way from the forests of Yucatan to the Adelphi Terrace of +London," said Hanaud. "Yet here, I think, in these rooms, when the +servants are all gone and the house is very quiet, there is a little +corner of wild Mexico."</p> + +<p class="normal">A look of pity came into Mr. Ricardo's face. He had seen more than one +young man of great promise slacken his hold and let go, just for this +reason. Calladine, it seemed, was another.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's like bhang and kieff and the rest of the devilish things, I +suppose," he said, indignantly tossing the button upon the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud picked it up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," he replied. "It's not quite like any other drug. It has a +quality of its own which just now is of particular importance to you +and me. Yes, my friend"--and he nodded his head very seriously--"we +must watch that we do not make the big fools of ourselves in this +affair."</p> + +<p class="normal">"There," Mr. Ricardo agreed with an ineffable air of wisdom, "I am +entirely with you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now, why?" Hanaud asked. Mr. Ricardo was at a loss for a reason, but +Hanaud did not wait. "I will tell you. Mescal intoxicates, yes--but it +does more--it gives to the man who eats of it colour-dreams."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Colour-dreams?" Mr. Ricardo repeated in a wondering voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, strange heated charms, in which violent things happen vividly +amongst bright colours. Colour is the gift of this little prosaic +brown button." He spun the bulb in the air like a coin, and catching +it again, took it over to the mantelpiece and dropped it into the +porcelain cup.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you sure of this?" Ricardo cried excitedly, and Hanaud raised his +hand in warning. He went to the door, opened it for an inch or so, and +closed it again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am quite sure," he returned. "I have for a friend a very learned +chemist in the Collège de France. He is one of those enthusiasts who +must experiment upon themselves. He tried this drug."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," Ricardo said in a quieter voice. "And what did he see?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"He had a vision of a wonderful garden bathed in sunlight, an old +garden of gorgeous flowers and emerald lawns, ponds with golden lilies +and thick yew hedges--a garden where peacocks stepped indolently and +groups of gay people fantastically dressed quarrelled and fought with +swords. That is what he saw. And he saw it so vividly that, when the +vapours of the drug passed from his brain and he waked, he seemed to +be coming out of the real world into a world of shifting illusions."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud's strong quiet voice stopped, and for a while there was a +complete silence in the room. Neither of the two men stirred so much +as a finger. Mr. Ricardo once more was conscious of the thrill of +strange sensations. He looked round the room. He could hardly believe +that a room which had been--nay was--the home and shrine of mysteries +in the dark hours could wear so bright and innocent a freshness in the +sunlight of the morning. There should be something sinister which +leaped to the eyes as you crossed the threshold.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Out of the real world," Mr. Ricardo quoted. "I begin to see."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, you begin to see, my friend, that we must be very careful not to +make the big fools of ourselves. My friend of the Collège de France +saw a garden. But had he been sitting alone in the window-seat where +you are, listening through a summer night to the music of the +masquerade at the Semiramis, might he not have seen the ballroom, the +dancers, the scarlet cloak, and the rest of this story?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You mean," cried Ricardo, now fairly startled, "that Calladine came +to us with the fumes of mescal still working in his brain, that the +false world was the real one still for him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do not know," said Hanaud. "At present I only put questions. I ask +them of you. I wish to hear how they sound. Let us reason this problem +out. Calladine, let us say, takes a great deal more of the drug than +my professor. It will have on him a more powerful effect while it +lasts, and it will last longer. Fancy dress balls are familiar things +to Calladine. The music floating from the Semiramis will revive old +memories. He sits here, the pageant takes shape before him, he sees +himself taking his part in it. Oh, he is happier here sitting quietly +in his window-seat than if he was actually at the Semiramis. For he is +there more intensely, more vividly, more really, than if he had +actually descended this staircase. He lives his story through, the +story of a heated brain, the scene of it changes in the way dreams +have, it becomes tragic and sinister, it oppresses him with horror, +and in the morning, so obsessed with it that he does not think to +change his clothes, he is knocking at your door."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo raised his eyebrows and moved.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! You see a flaw in my argument," said Hanaud. But Mr. Ricardo was +wary. Too often in other days he had been leaped upon and trounced for +a careless remark.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let me hear the end of your argument," he said. "There was then to +your thinking no temptation of jewels, no theft, no murder--in a word, +no Celymène? She was born of recollections and the music of the +Semiramis."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No!" cried Hanaud. "Come with me, my friend. I am not so sure that +there was no Celymène."</p> + +<p class="normal">With a smile upon his face, Hanaud led the way across the room. He had +the dramatic instinct, and rejoiced in it. He was going to produce a +surprise for his companion and, savouring the moment in advance, he +managed his effects. He walked towards the mantelpiece and stopped a +few paces away from it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo looked and saw a broad Adams mantelpiece. He turned a +bewildered face to his friend.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You see nothing?" Hanaud asked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look again! I am not sure--but is it not that Celymène is posing +before you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo looked again. There was nothing to fix his eyes. He saw a +book or two, a cup, a vase or two, and nothing else really expect a +very pretty and apparently valuable piece of--and suddenly Mr. Ricardo +understood. Straight in front of him, in the very centre of the +mantelpiece, a figure in painted china was leaning against a china +stile. It was the figure of a perfectly impossible courtier, feminine +and exquisite as could be, and apparelled also even to the scarlet +heels exactly as Calladine had described Joan Carew.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud chuckled with satisfaction when he saw the expression upon Mr. +Ricardo's face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah, you understand," he said. "Do you dream, my friend? At +times--yes, like the rest of us. Then recollect your dreams? Things, +people, which you have seen perhaps that day, perhaps months ago, pop +in and out of them without making themselves prayed for. You cannot +understand why. Yet sometimes they cut their strange capers there, +logically, too, through subtle associations which the dreamer, once +awake, does not apprehend. Thus, our friend here sits in the window, +intoxicated by his drug, the music plays in the Semiramis, the curtain +goes up in the heated theatre of his brain. He sees himself step upon +the stage, and who else meets him but the china figure from his +mantelpiece?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo for a moment was all enthusiasm. Then his doubt returned +to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What you say, my dear Hanaud, is very ingenious. The figure upon the +mantelpiece is also extremely convincing. And I should be absolutely +convinced but for one thing."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?" said Hanaud, watching his friend closely.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am--I may say it, I think, a man of the world. And I ask +myself"--Mr. Ricardo never could ask himself anything without assuming +a manner of extreme pomposity--"I ask myself, whether a young man who +has given up his social ties, who has become a hermit, and still more +who has become the slave of a drug, would retain that scrupulous +carefulness of his body which is indicated by dressing for dinner when +alone?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud struck the table with the palm of his hand and sat down in a +chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. That is the weak point in my theory. You have hit it. I knew it +was there--that weak point, and I wondered whether you would seize it. +Yes, the consumers of drugs are careless, untidy--even unclean as a +rule. But not always. We must be careful. We must wait."</p> + +<p class="normal">"For what?" asked Ricardo, beaming with pride.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For the answer to a telephone message," replied Hanaud, with a nod +towards the door.</p> + +<p class="normal">Both men waited impatiently until Calladine came into the room. He +wore now a suit of blue serge, he had a clearer eye, his skin a +healthier look; he was altogether a more reputable person. But he was +plainly very ill at ease. He offered his visitors cigarettes, he +proposed refreshments, he avoided entirely and awkwardly the object of +their visit. Hanaud smiled. His theory was working out. Sobered by his +bath, Calladine had realised the foolishness of which he had been +guilty.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You telephone, to the Semiramis, of course?" said Hanaud cheerfully.</p> + +<p class="normal">Calladine grew red.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he stammered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yet I did not hear that volume of 'Hallos' which precedes telephonic +connection in your country of leisure," Hanaud continued.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I telephoned from my bedroom. You would not hear anything in this +room."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, yes; the walls of these old houses are solid." Hanaud was +playing with his victim. "And when may we expect Miss Carew?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I can't say," replied Calladine. "It's very strange. She is not in +the hotel. I am afraid that she has gone away, fled."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo and Hanaud exchanged a look. They were both satisfied now. +There was no word of truth in Calladine's story.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then there is no reason for us to wait," said Hanaud. "I shall have +my holiday after all." And while he was yet speaking the voice of a +newsboy calling out the first edition of an evening paper became +distantly audible. Hanaud broke off his farewell. For a moment he +listened, with his head bent. Then the voice was heard again, +confused, indistinct; Hanaud picked up his hat and cane and, without +another word to Calladine, raced down the stairs. Mr. Ricardo followed +him, but when he reached the pavement, Hanaud was half down the little +street. At the corner, however, he stopped, and Ricardo joined him, +coughing and out of breath.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What's the matter?" he gasped.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Listen," said Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the bottom of Duke Street, by Charing Cross Station, the newsboy +was shouting his wares. Both men listened, and now the words came to +them mispronounced but decipherable.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mysterious crime at the Semiramis Hotel."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo stared at his companion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You were wrong then!" he cried. "Calladine's story was true."</p> + +<p class="normal">For once in a way Hanaud was quite disconcerted.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't know yet," he said. "We will buy a paper."</p> + +<p class="normal">But before he could move a step a taxi-cab turned into the Adelphi +from the Strand, and wheeling in front of their faces, stopped at +Calladine's door. From the cab a girl descended.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let us go back," said Hanaud.</p> +<br> + +<h3>III</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo could no longer complain. It was half-past eight when +Calladine had first disturbed the formalities of his house in +Grosvenor Square. It was barely ten now, and during that short time he +had been flung from surprise to surprise, he had looked underground on +a morning of fresh summer, and had been thrilled by the contrast +between the queer, sinister life below and within and the open call to +joy of the green world above. He had passed from incredulity to +belief, from belief to incredulity, and when at last incredulity was +firmly established, and the story to which he had listened proved the +emanation of a drugged and heated brain, lo! the facts buffeted him in +the face, and the story was shown to be true.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am alive once more," Mr. Ricardo thought as he turned back with +Hanaud, and in his excitement he cried his thought aloud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you?" said Hanaud. "And what is life without a newspaper? If you +will buy one from that remarkably raucous boy at the bottom of the +street I will keep an eye upon Calladine's house till you come back."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo sped down to Charing Cross and brought back a copy of the +fourth edition of the <i>Star</i>. He handed it to Hanaud, who stared at it +doubtfully, folded as it was.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shall we see what it says?" Ricardo asked impatiently.</p> + +<p class="normal">"By no means," Hanaud answered, waking from his reverie and tucking +briskly away the paper into the tail pocket of his coat. "We will hear +what Miss Joan Carew has to say, with our minds undisturbed by any +discoveries. I was wondering about something totally different."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?" Mr. Ricardo encouraged him. "What was it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was wondering, since it is only ten o'clock, at what hour the first +editions of the evening papers appear."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is a question," Mr. Ricardo replied sententiously, "which the +greatest minds have failed to answer."</p> + +<p class="normal">And they walked along the street to the house. The front door stood +open during the day like the front door of any other house which is +let off in sets of rooms. Hanaud and Ricardo went up the staircase and +rang the bell of Calladine's door. A middle-aged woman opened it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mr. Calladine is in?" said Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will ask," replied the woman. "What name shall I say?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It does not matter. I will go straight in," said Hanaud quietly. "I +was here with my friend but a minute ago."</p> + +<p class="normal">He went straight forward and into Calladine's parlour. Mr. Ricardo +looked over his shoulder as he opened the door and saw a girl turn to +them suddenly a white face of terror, and flinch as though already she +felt the hand of a constable upon her shoulder. Calladine, on the +other hand, uttered a cry of relief.</p> + +<p class="normal">"These are my friends," he exclaimed to the girl, "the friends of whom +I spoke to you"; and to Hanaud he said: "This is Miss Carew."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud bowed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall tell me your story, mademoiselle," he said very gently, and +a little colour returned to the girl's cheeks, a little courage +revived in her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you have heard it," she answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not from you," said Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">So for a second time in that room she told the history of that night. +Only this time the sunlight was warm upon the world, the comfortable +sounds of life's routine were borne through the windows, and the girl +herself wore the inconspicuous blue serge of a thousand other girls +afoot that morning. These trifles of circumstance took the edge of +sheer horror off her narrative, so that, to tell the truth, Mr. +Ricardo was a trifle disappointed. He wanted a crescendo motive in his +music, whereas it had begun at its fortissimo. Hanaud, however, was +the perfect listener. He listened without stirring and with most +compassionate eyes, so that Joan Carew spoke only to him, and to him, +each moment that passed, with greater confidence. The life and sparkle +of her had gone altogether. There was nothing in her manner now to +suggest the waywardness, the gay irresponsibility, the radiance, which +had attracted Calladine the night before. She was just a very young +and very pretty girl, telling in a low and remorseful voice of the +tragic dilemma to which she had brought herself. Of Celymène all that +remained was something exquisite and fragile in her beauty, in the +slimness of her figure, in her daintiness of hand and foot--something +almost of the hot-house. But the story she told was, detail for +detail, the same which Calladine had already related.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Hanaud when she had done. "Now I must ask you two +questions."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will answer them."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo sat up. He began to think of a third question which he +might put himself, something uncommonly subtle and searching, which +Hanaud would never have thought of. But Hanaud put his questions, and +Ricardo almost jumped out of his chair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will forgive me. Miss Carew. But have you ever stolen before?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew turned upon Hanaud with spirit. Then a change swept over +her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have a right to ask," she answered. "Never." She looked into his +eyes as she answered. Hanaud did not move. He sat with a hand upon +each knee and led to his second question.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Early this morning, when you left this room, you told Mr. Calladine +that you would wait at the Semiramis until he telephoned to you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yet when he telephoned, you had gone out?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will tell you," said Joan Carew. "I could not bear to keep the +little diamond chain in my room."</p> + +<p class="normal">For a moment even Hanaud was surprised. He had lost sight of that +complication. Now he leaned forward anxiously; indeed, with a greater +anxiety than he had yet shown in all this affair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was terrified," continued Joan Carew. "I kept thinking: 'They must +have found out by now. They will search everywhere.' I didn't reason. +I lay in bed expecting to hear every moment a loud knocking on the +door. Besides--the chain itself being there in my bedroom--her +chain--the dead woman's chain--no, I couldn't endure it. I felt as if +I had stolen it. Then my maid brought in my tea."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You had locked it away?" cried Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. My maid did not see it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew explained how she had risen, dressed, wrapped the chain in +a pad of cotton-wool and enclosed it in an envelope. The envelope had +not the stamp of the hotel upon it. It was a rather large envelope, +one of a packet which she had bought in a crowded shop in Oxford +Street on her way from Euston to the Semiramis. She had bought the +envelopes of that particular size in order that when she sent her +letter of introduction to the Director of the Opera at Covent Garden +she might enclose with it a photograph.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And to whom did you send it?" asked Mr. Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"To Mrs. Blumenstein at the Semiramis. I printed the address +carefully. Then I went out and posted it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where?" Hanaud inquired.</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the big letter-box of the Post Office at the corner of Trafalgar +Square."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud looked at the girl sharply.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You had your wits about you, I see," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What if the envelope gets lost?" said Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud laughed grimly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"If one envelope is delivered at its address in London to-day, it will +be that one," he said. "The news of the crime is published, you see," +and he swung round to Joan.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did you know that, Miss Carew?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she answered in an awe-stricken voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, then, it is. Let us see what the special investigator has to +say about it." And Hanaud, with a deliberation which Mr. Ricardo found +quite excruciating, spread out the newspaper on the table in front of +him.</p> +<br> +<br> +<h3>IV</h3> +<br> + +<p class="normal">There was only one new fact in the couple of columns devoted to the +mystery. Mrs. Blumenstein had died from chloroform poisoning. She was +of a stout habit, and the thieves were not skilled in the +administration of the anæsthetic.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's murder none the less," said Hanaud, and he gazed straight at +Joan, asking her by the direct summons of his eyes what she was going +to do.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must tell my story to the police," she replied painfully and +slowly. But she did not hesitate; she was announcing a meditated plan.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud neither agreed nor differed. His face was blank, and when he +spoke there was no cordiality in his voice. "Well," he asked, "and +what is it that you have to say to the police, miss? That you went +into the room to steal, and that you were attacked by two strangers, +dressed as apaches, and masked? That is all?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And how many men at the Semiramis ball were dressed as apaches and +wore masks? Come! Make a guess. A hundred at the least?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should think so."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then what will your confession do beyond--I quote your English +idiom--putting you in the coach?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo now smiled with relief. Hanaud was taking a definite line. +His knowledge of idiomatic English might be incomplete, but his heart +was in the right place. The girl traced a vague pattern on the +tablecloth with her fingers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yet I think I must tell the police," she repeated, looking up and +dropping her eyes again. Mr. Ricardo noticed that her eyelashes were +very long. For the first time Hanaud's face relaxed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I think you are quite right," he cried heartily, to Mr. Ricardo's +surprise. "Tell them the truth before they suspect it, and they will +help you out of the affair if they can. Not a doubt of it. Come, I +will go with you myself to Scotland Yard."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Joan, and the pair drove away in a cab together.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud returned to Grosvenor Square alone and lunched with Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was all right," he said. "The police were very kind. Miss Joan +Carew told her story to them as she had told it to us. Fortunately, +the envelope with the aluminium chain had already been delivered, and +was in their hands. They were much mystified about it, but Miss Joan's +story gave them a reasonable explanation. I think they are inclined to +believe her; and, if she is speaking the truth, they will keep her out +of the witness-box if they can."</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is to stay here in London, then?" asked Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, yes; she is not to go. She will present her letters at the Opera +House and secure an engagement, if she can. The criminals might be +lulled thereby into a belief that the girl had kept the whole strange +incident to herself, and that there was nowhere even a knowledge of +the disguise which they had used." Hanaud spoke as carelessly as if +the matter was not very important; and Ricardo, with an unusual flash +of shrewdness, said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is clear, my friend, that you do not think those two men will ever +be caught at all."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is always a chance. But listen. There is a room with a +hundred guns, one of which is loaded. Outside the room there are a +hundred pigeons, one of which is white. You are taken into the room +blind-fold. You choose the loaded gun and you shoot the one white +pigeon. That is the value of the chance."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But," exclaimed Ricardo, "those pearls were of great value, and I +have heard at a trial expert evidence given by pearl merchants. All +agree that the pearls of great value are known; so, when they come +upon the market----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is true," Hanaud interrupted imperturbably. "But how are they +known?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"By their weight," said Mr. Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Exactly," replied Hanaud. "But did you not also hear at this trial of +yours that pearls can be peeled like an onion? No? It is true. Remove +a skin, two skins, the weight is altered, the pearl is a trifle +smaller. It has lost a little of its value, yes--but you can no longer +identify it as the so-and-so pearl which belonged to this or that +sultan, was stolen by the vizier, bought by Messrs. Lustre and +Steinopolis, of Hatton Garden, and subsequently sold to the wealthy +Mrs. Blumenstein. No, your pearl has vanished altogether. There is a +new pearl which can be traded." He looked at Ricardo. "Who shall say +that those pearls are not already in one of the queer little back +streets of Amsterdam, undergoing their transformation?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo was not persuaded because he would not be. "I have some +experience in these matters," he said loftily to Hanaud. "I am sure +that we shall lay our hands upon the criminals. We have never failed."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud grinned from ear to ear. The only experience which Mr. Ricardo +had ever had was gained on the shores of Geneva and at Aix under +Hanaud's tuition. But Hanaud did not argue, and there the matter +rested.</p> + +<p class="normal">The days flew by. It was London's play-time. The green and gold of +early summer deepened and darkened; wondrous warm nights under +England's pale blue sky, when the streets rang with the joyous feet of +youth, led in clear dawns and lovely glowing days. Hanaud made +acquaintance with the wooded reaches of the Thames; Joan Carew sang +"Louise" at Covent Garden with notable success; and the affair of the +Semiramis Hotel, in the minds of the few who remembered it, was +already added to the long list of unfathomed mysteries.</p> + +<p class="normal">But towards the end of May there occurred a startling development. +Joan Carew wrote to Mr. Ricardo that she would call upon him in +the afternoon, and she begged him to secure the presence of Hanaud. +She came as the clock struck; she was pale and agitated; and in the +room where Calladine had first told the story of her visit she told +another story which, to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was yet more strange +and--yes--yet more suspicious.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It has been going on for some time," she began. "I thought of coming +to you at once. Then I wondered whether, if I waited--oh, you'll never +believe me!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let us hear!" said Hanaud patiently.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I began to dream of that room, the two men disguised and masked, the +still figure in the bed. Night after night! I was terrified to go to +sleep. I felt the hand upon my mouth. I used to catch myself falling +asleep, and walk about the room with all the lights up to keep myself +awake."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you couldn't," said Hanaud with a smile. "Only the old can do +that."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, I couldn't," she admitted; "and--oh, my nights were horrible +until"--she paused and looked at her companions doubtfully--"until one +night the mask slipped."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What--?" cried Hanaud, and a note of sternness rang suddenly in his +voice. "What are you saying?"</p> + +<p class="normal">With a desperate rush of words, and the colour staining her forehead +and cheeks, Joan Carew continued:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is true. The mask slipped on the face of one of the men--of +the man who held me. Only a little way; it just left his forehead +visible--no more."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well?" asked Hanaud, and Mr. Ricardo leaned forward, swaying between +the austerity of criticism and the desire to believe so thrilling a +revelation.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I waked up," the girl continued, "in the darkness, and for a moment +the whole scene remained vividly with me--for just long enough for me +to fix clearly in my mind the figure of the apache with the white +forehead showing above the mask."</p> + +<p class="normal">"When was that?" asked Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A fortnight ago."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why didn't you come with your story then?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I waited," said Joan. "What I had to tell wasn't yet helpful. I +thought that another night the mask might slip lower still. Besides, +I--it is difficult to describe just what I felt. I felt it important +just to keep that photograph in my mind, not to think about it, not to +talk about it, not even to look at it too often lest I should begin to +imagine the rest of the face and find something familiar in the man's +carriage and shape when there was nothing really familiar to me at +all. Do you understand that?" she asked, with her eyes fixed in appeal +on Hanaud's face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," replied Hanaud. "I follow your thought."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I thought there was a chance now--the strangest chance--that the +truth might be reached. I did not wish to spoil it," and she turned +eagerly to Ricardo, as if, having persuaded Hanaud, she would now turn +her batteries on his companion. "My whole point of view was changed. I +was no longer afraid of falling asleep lest I should dream. I wished +to dream, but----"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you could not," suggested Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, that is the truth," replied Joan Carew. "Whereas before I was +anxious to keep awake and yet must sleep from sheer fatigue, now that +I tried consciously to put myself to sleep I remained awake all +through the night, and only towards morning, when the light was coming +through the blinds, dropped off into a heavy, dreamless slumber."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is a very perverse world, Miss Carew, and things go by +contraries."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo listened for some note of irony in Hanaud's voice, some look +of disbelief in his face. But there was neither the one nor the other. +Hanaud was listening patiently.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then came my rehearsals," Joan Carew continued, "and that wonderful +opera drove everything else out of my head. I had such a chance, if +only I could make use of it! When I went to bed now, I went with that +haunting music in my ears--the call of Paris--oh, you must remember +it. But can you realise what it must mean to a girl who is going to +sing it for the first time in Covent Garden?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo saw his opportunity. He, the connoisseur, to whom the +psychology of the green room was as an open book, could answer that +question.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is true, my friend," he informed Hanaud with quiet authority. "The +great march of events leaves the artist cold. He lives aloof. While +the tumbrils thunder in the streets he adds a delicate tint to the +picture he is engaged upon or recalls his triumph in his last great +part."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Hanaud gravely. "And now Miss Carew may perhaps +resume her story."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was the very night of my début," she continued. "I had supper with +some friends. A great artist. Carmen Valeri, honoured me with her +presence. I went home excited, and that night I dreamed again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"This time the chin, the lips, the eyes were visible. There was only a +black strip across the middle of the face. And I thought--nay, I was +sure--that if that strip vanished I should know the man."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And it did vanish?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Three nights afterwards."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you did know the man?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The girl's face became troubled. She frowned.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I knew the face, that was all," she answered. "I was disappointed. I +had never spoken to the man. I am sure of that still. But somewhere I +have seen him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You don't even remember when?" asked Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No." Joan Carew reflected for a moment with her eyes upon the carpet, +and then flung up her head with a gesture of despair. "No. I try all +the time to remember. But it is no good."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo could not restrain a movement of indignation. He was being +played with. The girl with her fantastic story had worked him up to a +real pitch of excitement only to make a fool of him. All his earlier +suspicions flowed back into his mind. What if, after all, she was +implicated in the murder and the theft? What if, with a perverse +cunning, she had told Hanaud and himself just enough of what she knew, +just enough of the truth, to persuade them to protect her? What if her +frank confession of her own overpowering impulse to steal the necklace +was nothing more than a subtle appeal to the sentimental pity of men, +an appeal based upon a wider knowledge of men's weaknesses than a girl +of nineteen or twenty ought to have? Mr. Ricardo cleared his throat +and sat forward in his chair. He was girding himself for a singularly +searching interrogatory when Hanaud asked the most irrelevant of +questions:</p> + +<p class="normal">"How did you pass the evening of that night when you first dreamed +complete the face of your assailant?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew reflected. Then her face cleared.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know," she exclaimed. "I was at the opera."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And what was being given?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>The Jewels of the Madonna</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud nodded his head. To Ricardo it seemed that he had expected +precisely that answer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now," he continued, "you are sure that you have seen this man?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well," said Hanaud. "There is a game you play at children's +parties--is there not?--animal, vegetable, or mineral, and always you +get the answer. Let us play that game for a few minutes, you and I."</p> + +<p class="normal">Joan Carew drew up her chair to the table and sat with her chin +propped upon her hands and her eyes fixed on Hanaud's face. As he put +each question she pondered on it and answered. If she answered +doubtfully he pressed it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You crossed on the <i>Lucania</i> from New York?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Picture to yourself the dining-room, the tables. You have the picture +quite clear?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Was it at breakfast that you saw him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">"At luncheon?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">"At dinner?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She paused for a moment, summoning before her eyes the travellers at +the tables.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not in the dining-table at all, then?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the library, when you were writing letters, did you not one day +lift your head and see him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">"On the promenade deck? Did he pass you when you sat in your +deck-chair, or did you pass him when he sat in his chair?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">Step by step Hanaud took her back to New York to her hotel, to +journeys in the train. Then he carried her to Milan where she had +studied. It was extraordinary to Ricardo to realise how much Hanaud +knew of the curriculum of a student aspiring to grand opera. From +Milan he brought her again to New York, and at the last, with a start +of joy, she cried: "Yes, it was there."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ouf!" he grunted. "To concentrate the mind on a day like this, it +makes one hot, I can tell you. Now, Miss Carew, let us hear."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was at a concert at the house of a Mrs. Starlingshield in Fifth +Avenue and in the afternoon. Joan Carew sang. She was a stranger to +New York and very nervous. She saw nothing but a mist of faces whilst +she sang, but when she had finished the mist cleared, and as she left +the improvised stage she saw the man. He was standing against the wall +in a line of men. There was no particular reason why her eyes should +single him out, except that he was paying no attention to her singing, +and, indeed, she forgot him altogether afterwards.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I just happened to see him clearly and distinctly," she said. "He was +tall, clean-shaven, rather dark, not particularly young--thirty-five +or so, I should say--a man with a heavy face and beginning to grow +stout. He moved away whilst I was bowing to the audience, and I +noticed him afterwards walking about, talking to people."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you remember to whom?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did he notice you, do you think?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am sure he didn't," the girl replied emphatically. "He never looked +at the stage where I was singing, and he never looked towards me +afterwards."</p> + +<p class="normal">She gave, so far as she could remember, the names of such guests and +singers as she knew at that party. "And that is all," she said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," said Hanaud. "It is perhaps a good deal. But it is +perhaps nothing at all."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will let me hear from you?" she cried, as she rose to her feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Miss Carew, I am at your service," he returned. She gave him her hand +timidly and he took it cordially. For Mr. Ricardo she had merely a +bow, a bow which recognised that he distrusted her and that she had no +right to be offended. Then she went, and Hanaud smiled across the +table at Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he said, "all that you are thinking is true enough. A man who +slips out of society to indulge a passion for a drug in greater peace, +a girl who, on her own confession, tried to steal, and, to crown all, +this fantastic story. It is natural to disbelieve every word of it. +But we disbelieved before, when we left Calladine's lodging in the +Adelphi, and we were wrong. Let us be warned."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have an idea?" exclaimed Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps!" said Hanaud. And he looked down the theatre column of the +<i>Times</i>. "Let us distract ourselves by going to the theatre."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are the most irritating man!" Mr. Ricardo broke out impulsively. +"If I had to paint your portrait, I should paint you with your finger +against the side of your nose, saying mysteriously: '<i>I</i> know,' when +you know nothing at all."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud made a schoolboy's grimace. "We will go and sit in your box at +the opera to-night," he said, "and you shall explain to me all through +the beautiful music the theory of the tonic sol-fa."</p> + +<p class="normal">They reached Covent Garden before the curtain rose. Mr. Ricardo's box +was on the lowest tier and next to the omnibus box.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We are near the stage," said Hanaud, as he took his seat in the +corner and so arranged the curtain that he could see and yet was +hidden from view. "I like that."</p> + +<p class="normal">The theatre was full; stalls and boxes shimmered with jewels and +satin, and all that was famous that season for beauty and distinction +had made its tryst there that night.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, this is wonderful," said Hanaud. "What opera do they play?" He +glanced at his programme and cried, with a little start of surprise: +"We are in luck. It is <i>The Jewels of the Madonna</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you believe in omens?" Mr. Ricardo asked coldly. He had not yet +recovered from his rebuff of the afternoon.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, but I believe that Carmen Valeri is at her best in this part," +said Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo belonged to that body of critics which must needs spoil +your enjoyment by comparisons and recollections of other great +artists. He was at a disadvantage certainly to-night, for the opera +was new. But he did his best. He imagined others in the part, and when +the great scene came at the end of the second act, and Carmen Valeri, +on obtaining from her lover the jewels stolen from the sacred image, +gave such a display of passion as fairly enthralled that audience, Mr. +Ricardo sighed quietly and patiently.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How Calvé would have brought out the psychological value of that +scene!" he murmured; and he was quite vexed with Hanaud, who sat with +his opera glasses held to his eyes, and every sense apparently +concentrated on the stage. The curtains rose and rose again when the +act was concluded, and still Hanaud sat motionless as the Sphynx, +staring through his glasses.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is all," said Ricardo when the curtains fell for the fifth time.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They will come out," said Hanaud. "Wait!" And from between the +curtains Carmen Valeri was led out into the full glare of the +footlights with the panoply of jewels flashing on her breast. Then at +last Hanaud put down his glasses and turned to Ricardo with a look of +exultation and genuine delight upon his face which filled that +season-worn dilettante with envy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a night!" said Hanaud. "What a wonderful night!" And he +applauded until he split his gloves. At the end of the opera he cried: +"We will go and take supper at the Semiramis. Yes, my friend, we will +finish our evening like gallant gentlemen. Come! Let us not think of +the morning." And boisterously he slapped Ricardo in the small of the +back.</p> + +<p class="normal">In spite of his boast, however, Hanaud hardly touched his supper, and +he played with, rather than drank, his brandy and soda. He had a +little table to which he was accustomed beside a glass screen in the +depths of the room, and he sat with his back to the wall watching the +groups which poured in. Suddenly his face lighted up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here is Carmen Valeri!" he cried. "Once more we are in luck. Is it +not that she is beautiful?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo turned languidly about in his chair and put up his +eyeglass.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So, so," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah!" returned Hanaud. "Then her companion will interest you still +more. For he is the man who murdered Mrs. Blumenstein."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo jumped so that his eyeglass fell down and tinkled on its +cord against the buttons of his waistcoat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What!" he exclaimed. "It's impossible!" He looked again. "Certainly +the man fits Joan Carew's description. But--" He turned back to Hanaud +utterly astounded. And as he looked at the Frenchman all his earlier +recollections of him, of his swift deductions, of the subtle +imagination which his heavy body so well concealed, crowded in upon +Ricardo and convinced him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How long have you known?" he asked in a whisper of awe.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Since ten o'clock to-night."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But you will have to find the necklace before you can prove it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"The necklace!" said Hanaud carelessly. "That is already found."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo had been longing for a thrill. He had it now. He felt it +in his very spine.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's found?" he said in a startled whisper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo turned again, with as much indifference as he could assume, +towards the couple who were settling down at their table, the man with +a surly indifference, Carmen Valeri with the radiance of a woman who +has just achieved a triumph and is now free to enjoy the fruits of it. +Confusedly, recollections returned to Ricardo of questions put that +afternoon by Hanaud to Joan Carew--subtle questions into which the +name of Carmen Valeri was continually entering. She was a woman of +thirty, certainly beautiful, with a clear, pale face and eyes like the +night.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then she is implicated too!" he said. What a change for her, he +thought, from the stage of Covent Garden to the felon's cell, from the +gay supper-room of the Semiramis, with its bright frocks and its babel +of laughter, to the silence and the ignominious garb of the workrooms +in Aylesbury Prison!</p> + +<p class="normal">"She!" exclaimed Hanaud; and in his passion for the contrasts of drama +Ricardo was almost disappointed. "She has nothing whatever to do with +it. She knows nothing. André Favart there--yes. But Carmen Valeri! +She's as stupid as an owl, and loves him beyond words. Do you want to +know how stupid she is? You shall know. I asked Mr. Clements, the +director of the opera house, to take supper with us, and here he is."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud stood up and shook hands with the director. He was of the world +of business rather than of art, and long experience of the ways of +tenors and prima-donnas had given him a good-humoured cynicism.</p> + +<p class="normal">"They are spoilt children, all tantrums and vanity," he said, "and +they would ruin you to keep a rival out of the theatre."</p> + +<p class="normal">He told them anecdote upon anecdote.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And Carmen Valeri," Hanaud asked in a pause; "is she troublesome this +season?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Has been," replied Clements dryly. "At present she is playing at +being good. But she gave me a turn some weeks ago." He turned to +Ricardo. "Superstition's her trouble, and André Favart knows it. She +left him behind in America this spring."</p> + +<p class="normal">"America!" suddenly cried Ricardo; so suddenly that Clements looked at +him in surprise.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She was singing in New York, of course, during the winter," he +returned. "Well, she left him behind, and I was shaking hands with +myself when he began to deal the cards over there. She came to me in a +panic. She had just had a cable. She couldn't sing on Friday night. +There was a black knave next to the nine of diamonds. She wouldn't +sing for worlds. And it was the first night of <i>The Jewels of the +Madonna!</i> Imagine the fix I was in!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"What did you do?" asked Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The only thing there was to do," replied Clements with a shrug of the +shoulders. "I cabled Favart some money and he dealt the cards again. +She came to me beaming. Oh, she had been so distressed to put me in +the cart! But what could she do? Now there was a red queen next to the +ace of hearts, so she could sing without a scruple so long, of course, +as she didn't pass a funeral on the way down to the opera house. +Luckily she didn't. But my money brought Favart over here, and now I'm +living on a volcano. For he's the greatest scoundrel unhung. He never +has a farthing, however much she gives him; he's a blackmailer, he's a +swindler, he has no manners and no graces, he looks like a butcher and +treats her as if she were dirt, he never goes near the opera except +when she is singing in this part, and she worships the ground he walks +on. Well, I suppose it's time to go."</p> + +<p class="normal">The lights had been turned off, the great room was emptying. Mr. +Ricardo and his friends rose to go, but at the door Hanaud detained +Mr. Clements, and they talked together alone for some little while, +greatly to Mr. Ricardo's annoyance. Hanaud's good humour, however, +when he rejoined his friend, was enough for two.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I apologise, my friend, with my hand on my heart. But it was for your +sake that I stayed behind. You have a meretricious taste for melodrama +which I deeply deplore, but which I mean to gratify. I ought to leave +for Paris to-morrow, but I shall not. I shall stay until Thursday." +And he skipped upon the pavement as they walked home to Grosvenor +Square.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo bubbled with questions, but he knew his man. He would get +no answer to any one of them to-night. So he worked out the problem +for himself as he lay awake in his bed, and he came down to breakfast +next morning fatigued but triumphant. Hanaud was already chipping off +the top of his egg at the table.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So I see you have found it all out, my friend," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not all," replied Ricardo modestly, "and you will not mind, I am +sure, if I follow the usual custom and wish you a good morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not at all," said Hanaud. "I am all for good manners myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">He dipped his spoon into his egg.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I am longing to hear the line of your reasoning."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo did not need much pressing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Joan Carew saw André Favart at Mrs. Starlingshield's party, and saw +him with Carmen Valeri. For Carmen Valeri was there. I remember that +you asked Joan for the names of the artists who sang, and Carmen +Valeri was amongst them."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud nodded his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Exactly."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No doubt Joan Carew noticed Carmen Valeri particularly, and so took +unconsciously into her mind an impression of the man who was with her, +André Favart--of his build, of his walk, of his type."</p> + +<p class="normal">Again Hanaud agreed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She forgets the man altogether, but the picture remains latent in her +mind--an undeveloped film."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud looked up in surprise, and the surprise flattered Mr. Ricardo. +Not for nothing had he tossed about in his bed for the greater part of +the night.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then came the tragic night at the Semiramis. She does not consciously +recognise her assailant, but she dreams the scene again and again, and +by a process of unconscious cerebration the figure of the man becomes +familiar. Finally she makes her début, is entertained at supper +afterwards, and meets once more Carmen Valeri."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, for the first time since Mrs. Starlingshield's party," +interjected Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She dreams again, she remembers asleep more than she remembers when +awake. The presence of Carmen Valeri at her supper-party has its +effect. By a process of association, she recalls Favart, and the mask +slips on the face of her assailant. Some days later she goes to the +opera. She hears Carmen Valeri sing in <i>The Jewels of the Madonna</i>. No +doubt the passion of her acting, which I am more prepared to +acknowledge this morning than I was last night, affects Joan Carew +powerfully, emotionally. She goes to bed with her head full of Carmen +Valeri, and she dreams not of Carmen Valeri, but of the man who is +unconsciously associated with Carmen Valeri in her thoughts. The mask +vanishes altogether. She sees her assailant now, has his portrait +limned in her mind, would know him if she met him in the street, +though she does not know by what means she identified him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," said Hanaud. "It is curious the brain working while the body +sleeps, the dream revealing what thought cannot recall."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo was delighted. He was taken seriously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But of course," he said, "I could not have worked the problem out but +for you. You knew of André Favart and the kind of man he was."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. That is always my one little advantage. I know all the +cosmopolitan blackguards of Europe." His laughter ceased suddenly, and +he brought his clenched fist heavily down upon the table. "Here is one +of them who will be very well out of the world, my friend," he said +very quietly, but there was a look of force in his face and a hard +light in his eyes which made Mr. Ricardo shiver.</p> + +<p class="normal">For a few moments there was silence. Then Ricardo asked: "But have you +evidence enough?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your two chief witnesses, Calladine and Joan Carew--you said it +yourself--there are facts to discredit them. Will they be believed?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But they won't appear in the case at all," Hanaud said. "Wait, wait!" +and once more he smiled. "By the way, what is the number of +Calladine's house?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo gave it, and Hanaud therefore wrote a letter. "It is all for +your sake, my friend," he said with a chuckle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nonsense," said Ricardo. "You have the spirit of the theatre in your +bones."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, I shall not deny it," said Hanaud, and he sent out the letter +to the nearest pillar-box.</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo waited in a fever of impatience until Thursday came. At +breakfast Hanaud would talk of nothing but the news of the day. At +luncheon he was no better. The affair of the Semiramis Hotel seemed a +thousand miles from any of his thoughts. But at five o'clock he said +as he drank his tea:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You know, of course, that we go to the opera to-night?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. Do we?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. Your young friend Calladine, by the way, will join us in your +box."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is very kind of him, I am sure," said Mr. Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">The two men arrived before the rising of the curtain, and in the +crowded lobby a stranger spoke a few words to Hanaud, but what he said +Ricardo could not hear. They took their seats in the box, and Hanaud +looked at his programme.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! It is <i>Il Ballo de Maschera</i> to-night. We always seem to hit upon +something appropriate, don't we?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he raised his eyebrows.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh-o! Do you see that our pretty young friend, Joan Carew, is singing +in the rôle of the page? It is a showy part. There is a particular +melody with a long-sustained trill in it, as far as I remember."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo was not deceived by Hanaud's apparent ignorance of the +opera to be given that night and of the part Joan Carew was to take. +He was, therefore, not surprised when Hanaud added:</p> + +<p class="normal">"By the way, I should let Calladine find it all out for himself."</p> + +<p class="normal">Mr. Ricardo nodded sagely.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes. That is wise. I had thought of it myself." But he had +done nothing of the kind. He was only aware that the elaborate +stage-management in which Hanaud delighted was working out to the +desired climax, whatever that climax might be. Calladine entered the +box a few minutes later and shook hands with them awkwardly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It was kind of you to invite me," he said and, very ill at ease, he +took a seat between them and concentrated his attention on the house +as it filled up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There's the overture," said Hanaud. The curtains divided and were +festooned on either side of the stage. The singers came on in their +turn; the page appeared to a burst of delicate applause (Joan Carew +had made a small name for herself that season), and with a stifled cry +Calladine shot back in the box as if he had been struck. Even then Mr. +Ricardo did not understand. He only realised that Joan Carew was +looking extraordinarily trim and smart in her boy's dress. He had to +look from his programme to the stage and back again several times +before the reason of Calladine's exclamation dawned on him. When it +did, he was horrified. Hanaud, in his craving for dramatic effects, +must have lost his head altogether. Joan Carew was wearing, from the +ribbon in her hair to the scarlet heels of her buckled satin shoes, +the same dress as she had worn on the tragic night at the Semiramis +Hotel. He leaned forward in his agitation to Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must be mad. Suppose Favart is in the theatre and sees her. He'll +be over on the Continent by one in the morning."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, he won't," replied Hanaud. "For one thing, he never comes to +Covent Garden unless one opera, with Carmen Valeri in the chief part, +is being played, as you heard the other night at supper. For a second +thing, he isn't in the house. I know where he is. He is gambling in +Dean Street, Soho. For a third thing, my friend, he couldn't leave by +the nine o'clock train for the Continent if he wanted to. Arrangements +have been made. For a fourth thing, he wouldn't wish to. He has really +remarkable reasons for desiring to stay in London. But he will come to +the theatre later. Clements will send him an urgent message, with the +result that he will go straight to Clements' office. Meanwhile, we can +enjoy ourselves, eh?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Never was the difference between the amateur dilettante and the +genuine professional more clearly exhibited than by the behaviour of +the two men during the rest of the performance. Mr. Ricardo might have +been sitting on a coal fire from his jumps and twistings; Hanaud +stolidly enjoyed the music, and when Joan Carew sang her famous solo +his hands clamoured for an encore louder than anyone's in the boxes. +Certainly, whether excitement was keeping her up or no, Joan Carew had +never sung better in her life. Her voice was clear and fresh as a +bird's--a bird with a soul inspiring its song. Even Calladine drew his +chair forward again and sat with his eyes fixed upon the stage and +quite carried out of himself. He drew a deep breath at the end.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is wonderful," he said, like a man waking up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is very good," replied Mr. Ricardo, correcting Calladine's +transports.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will go round to the back of the stage," said Hanaud.</p> + +<p class="normal">They passed through the iron door and across the stage to a long +corridor with a row of doors on one side. There were two or three men +standing about in evening dress, as if waiting for friends in the +dressing-rooms. At the third door Hanaud stopped and knocked. The door +was opened by Joan Carew, still dressed in her green and gold. Her +face was troubled, her eyes afraid.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Courage, little one," said Hanaud, and he slipped past her into the +room. "It is as well that my ugly, familiar face should not be seen +too soon."</p> + +<p class="normal">The door closed and one of the strangers loitered along the corridor +and spoke to a call-boy. The call-boy ran off. For five minutes more +Mr. Ricardo waited with a beating heart. He had the joy of a man in +the centre of things. All those people driving homewards in their +motor-cars along the Strand--how he pitied them! Then, at the end of +the corridor, he saw Clements and André Favart. They approached, +discussing the possibility of Carmen Valeri's appearance in London +opera during the next season.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We have to look ahead, my dear friend," said Clements, "and though I +should be extremely sorry----"</p> + +<p class="normal">At that moment they were exactly opposite Joan Carew's door. It +opened, she came out; with a nervous movement she shut the door behind +her. At the sound André Favart turned, and he saw drawn up against the +panels of the door, with a look of terror in her face, the same gay +figure which had interrupted him in Mrs. Blumenstein's bedroom. There +was no need for Joan to act. In the presence of this man her fear was +as real as it had been on the night of the Semiramis ball. She +trembled from head to foot. Her eyes closed; she seemed about to +swoon.</p> + +<p class="normal">Favart stared and uttered an oath. His face turned white; he staggered +back as if he had seen a ghost. Then he made a wild dash along the +corridor, and was seized and held by two of the men in evening dress. +Favart recovered his wits. He ceased to struggle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What does this outrage mean?" he asked, and one of the men drew a +warrant and notebook from his pocket.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are arrested for the murder of Mrs. Blumenstein in the Semiramis +Hotel," he said, "and I have to warn you that anything you may say +will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Preposterous!" exclaimed Favart. "There's a mistake. We will go along +to the police and put it right. Where's your evidence against me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud stepped out of the doorway of the dressing-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the property-room of the theatre," he said.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the sight of him Favart uttered a violent cry of rage. "You are +here, too, are you?" he screamed, and he sprang at Hanaud's throat. +Hanaud stepped lightly aside. Favart was borne down to the ground, and +when he stood up again the handcuffs were on his wrists.</p> + +<p class="normal">Favart was led away, and Hanaud turned to Mr. Ricardo and Clements.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let us go to the property-room," he said. They passed along the +corridor, and Ricardo noticed that Calladine was no longer with them. +He turned and saw him standing outside Joan Carew's dressing-room.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He would like to come, of course," said Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Would he?" asked Hanaud. "Then why doesn't he? He's quite grown up, +you know," and he slipped his arm through Ricardo's and led him back +across the stage. In the property-room there was already a detective +in plain clothes. Mr. Ricardo had still not as yet guessed the truth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is it you really want, sir?" the property-master asked of the +director.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only the jewels of the Madonna," Hanaud answered.</p> + +<p class="normal">The property-master unlocked a cupboard and took from it the sparkling +cuirass. Hanaud pointed to it, and there, lost amongst the huge +glittering stones of paste and false pearls, Mrs. Blumenstein's +necklace was entwined.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then that is why Favart came always to Covent Garden when <i>The Jewels +of the Madonna</i> was being performed!" exclaimed Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud nodded.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He came to watch over his treasure."</p> + +<p class="normal">Ricardo was piecing together the sections of the puzzle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No doubt he knew of the necklace in America. No doubt he followed it +to England."</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud agreed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Mrs. Blumenstein's jewels were quite famous in New York."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But to hide them here!" cried Mr. Clements. "He must have been mad."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?" asked Hanaud. "Can you imagine a safer hiding-place? Who is +going to burgle the property-room of Covent Garden? Who is going to +look for a priceless string of pearls amongst the stage jewels of an +opera house?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You did," said Mr. Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I?" replied Hanaud, shrugging his shoulders. "Joan Carew's dreams led +me to André Favart. The first time we came here and saw the pearls of +the Madonna, I was on the look-out, naturally. I noticed Favart at the +back of the stalls. But it was a stroke of luck that I noticed those +pearls through my opera glasses."</p> + +<p class="normal">"At the end of the second act?" cried Ricardo suddenly. "I remember +now."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," replied Hanaud. "But for that second act the pearls would have +stayed comfortably here all through the season. Carmen Valeri--a fool +as I told you--would have tossed them about in her dressing-room +without a notion of their value, and at the end of July, when the +murder at the Semiramis Hotel had been forgotten, Favart would have +taken them to Amsterdam and made his bargain."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shall we go?"</p> + +<p class="normal">They left the theatre together and walked down to the grill-room of +the Semiramis. But as Hanaud looked through the glass door he drew +back.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will not go in, I think, eh?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why?" asked Ricardo.</p> + +<p class="normal">Hanaud pointed to a table. Calladine and Joan Carew were seated at it +taking their supper.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps," said Hanaud with a smile, "perhaps, my friend--what? Who +shall say that the rooms in the Adelphi will not be given up?"</p> + +<p class="normal">They turned away from the hotel. But Hanaud was right, and before the +season was over Mr. Ricardo had to put his hand in his pocket for a +wedding present.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>UNDER BIGNOR HILL</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><a name="div1_under" href="#div1Ref_under">UNDER BIGNOR HILL</a><a name="div2Ref_01" href="#div2_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a></h2> +<br> + +<p class="normal">The action of the play takes place on a night in summer at the foot of +Bignor Hill on the north side of the Sussex Downs. The time is that of +the Roman occupation of England. In the foreground is an open space of +turf surrounded with gorse-bushes. The turf rises in a steep bank at +the back and melts into the side of the hill. The left of the stage is +closed in by a wooded spur of the hill. The scene is wild and revealed +by a strong moonlight. A fallen tree-trunk lies on the right, and a +raised bank is at the left of the stage.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the summit of the hill the glow of a camp-fire is seen, and from +time to time a flame leaps up as though fuel had been added. Towards +the end of the play the fire dies down and goes out.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the curtain rises the stage is empty, but a sound of men marching +is faintly heard. The sound is heard in pauses throughout the first +part of the play.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Gleva enters from the R. She is a British princess, clothed in +skins. But she has added to her dress some of the refinements of +the conquerors--a shirt of fine linen, the high sandals of the +Roman lady, the Roman comb in her hair, some jewellery, a necklace +of stones, and bracelets. She is followed by three men of her +tribe, wild men in skins, armed with knives, and flint axes carried +at the waist. Gleva comes forward silently into the open space of +turf</i>.]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: No one!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: The trumpet has not sounded the last call on the hill.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: No. Yet the hour for it is past. By now the camp should be +asleep. (<i>She looks up the hill and then turns to her men</i>.) Be ready +to light the torch.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span>: Everything is strange to-day.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>He sits R. under the shelter of a bush, and with a flint and +steel kindles a tiny flame during the following scene. He has a +torch in his hand which he lays by his side. When the fire is +lighted he blows on it from time to time to keep it alight</i>.]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: Yes. And yesterday. For many months we have been left in quiet. +Now once more the soldiers march through Anderida.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>holds up her hand</i>): Listen!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>A pause. The sound of marching is heard quite clearly, but at a +distance</i>.]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: It does not stop, Princess.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: All yesterday, all through last night, all through this long +day! Listen to it, steady as a heart beating, steady and terrible. +(<i>She speaks with great discouragement, moving apart, L., and sitting +on tree bole</i>.)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span> (<i>lighting fire</i>): I crept to the edge of the forest to-day. +I lay very quiet behind the bushes and looked out across the clearing +to the road.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: You!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>A general exclamation of astonishment.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span>: Oh, it's not easy to frighten me, I can tell you. I fought +at Verulanium with the Iceni. I know. I carried a sling. (<i>He nods +majestically at his companions.</i>) And there you have it.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Yes, yes, good friend. But which way did the soldiers march? +What of the road?</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>She goes over to him.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span>: Mistress, there wasn't any road. There were only soldiers. +As far as my eyes could see, bright helmets and brown faces and +flashing shoulder plates bobbing up and down between the trees and a +smother of dust until my head whirled.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran and Both Attendants</span>: Oh!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: But which way did they go?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span>: I lost my dog, too--the brute. He ran from me and joined +the marching men. I dared not call to him.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: Yes, that is the way of dogs.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Did they go north towards the Wall? (<i>She shakes him.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span> (<i>who has been blowing on the fire, now sits up comfortably +and smiles upon Gleva, who is tortured with impatience</i>): God bless +you, mistress, there isn't any Wall. I know about the Romans; I know! +I fought at Verulanium. Now!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Gleva turns away in despair of getting any sense out of him. A +trumpet sounds on the top of Bignor Hill, faintly. All turn swiftly +towards it</i>.]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Ready!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>A sound of armed men moving, a clash of shields is heard from the +top of Bignor Hill.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">Now fire the torch. Give it me! (<i>She springs on to the bank and waves +it three times from side to side, steps down, and gives it back to an +attendant, who puts it out.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span> (<i>continuing placidly</i>): No, there's no Wall. There are a +great many mistakes made about the Romans. They are no longer the men +they were. I carried a sling at Verulanium, and there you have it. +I'll tell you something. The soldiers were marching to Regnum.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: To Regnum? Are you sure?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span>: Yes. Up over the great Down they went. I saw their armour +amongst the trees on the side of the hill, and the smoke of their +marching on the round bare top.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: They were going to Regnum and the sea. (<i>She speaks in +despair.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span>: I am afraid.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>turns on him scornfully</i>): You! Why should you fear if they +are marching to the sea?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span>: I have been afraid ever since yesterday. The noise of +the marching scattered my wits.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Gleva and the others laugh contemptuously.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">And because I was afraid--I killed. (<i>A low cry of consternation +bursts from Bran and Caransius.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: Madman! Madman!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: You killed one of the Romans!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span> (<i>stands before her</i>): I was afraid. It was by the old +forge in the forest. There's a brook by the forge.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: Yes.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span>: He had fallen out of the ranks. He was stooping over +the brook. I saw the sun sparkle upon his helmet as he dipped it into +the water, and his strong, brown neck as he raised it. I crept close +to him and struck at his neck as he drank.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span>: That was a good stroke.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: A mad stroke.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span>: He fell over without a cry, and all his armour +rattled once.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: It will be the fire for our barns, and death for every tenth man +of the tribe.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span>: No one saw.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Stand here!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>The third attendant stands before her.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">I gave an order.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Caransius</span>: Yet, mistress, it is better to strike against orders than +to leave one's friends and, like my dog, follow the marching men.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>A cry bursts from Bran. He seizes Caransius. Gleva stands with +her hand upon her knife. Then she turns away, and buries her face +in her hands. A whistle is heard from the hillside above her on the +left. She looks up, and her face changes. She turns to third +attendant.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Go up the hill--close to the camp, as close as you can creep, +and watch. So may you earn your pardon. (<i>He goes off</i>.) You two stand +aside--but not so far but that a cry may bring you instantly.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Bran</span>: We will be ready. (<i>Exeunt R.</i>)</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Gleva faces the spur of the hill on her left as if all her world +was there. There is a movement among the trees on the spur, a flash +of armour in the moonlight, and at the edge of the trees appears +Quintus Calpurnius Aulus, a Captain about thirty-five years old, +handsome, but in repose his face is stern and inscrutable. He is +active, lithe, self-confident. He comes out into the open just +below the trees, and stands quite still. His very attitude should +suggest strength.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Quintus</span>: I am here. (<i>He speaks with the voice of a man accustomed to +command, and to have his orders obeyed without question. Gleva stands +erect questioning his authority. Then she crosses her hands upon her +bosom and bows her head.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: My Lord Calpurnius.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Calpurnius laughs. He runs down the slope.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: That's well. (<i>He takes her in his arms.</i>) You have a +trick of saying "Calpurnius." I shall remember it till I die.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Gleva draws away from him.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">Say it again.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: With all my soul in the word. It is a prayer. Calpurnius!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Calpurnius is moved by the passion of her voice. He takes her +hands in his.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Yes. I shall remember till I die. (<i>They move towards the +bank.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: My lord is late to-night.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Late! A Roman soldier of fifteen years' service late. My +dear, let us talk sense. Come!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>The trumpet sounds again from the hill. Calpurnius stops.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Why does the trumpet sound?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: To call some straggler back to Rome.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Rome! (<i>With a cry.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Yes. For every one of us, the camp on the empty hill-top +there is Rome, and all Rome's in the trumpet call.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Is the sound so strange and moving?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Yes. Most strange, most moving. For I know that at this +actual minute every Roman soldier on guard throughout the world has +the sound of it in his ears, here in the forest of Anderida, far away +on some fortress wall in Syria. (<i>Throws off his seriousness.</i>) But I +am talking of sacred things, and that one should be shy to do. Come, +Gleva. We have little time. When the moon touches those trees I climb +again.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Yet, my lord, for one more moment think of me not as the +foolish, conquered slave. Listen! Turn your head this way and listen.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: What shall I hear? Some nightingale pouring out love upon +a moonlit night? He'll not say "Calpurnius" with so sweet a note as +you.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: You'll hear no nightingale, nor any sound that has one memory +of me in it. Listen, you'll hear--all Rome.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>He looks at her quickly. In the pause is heard the sound of men +marching.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">That speaks louder than the trumpets.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>He is very still.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">Calpurnius! (<i>She sits by him, and puts an arm about his shoulder. She +speaks his name as if she were afraid.</i>) The Romans flee from Britain.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>with a start of contempt</i>): Madness! It's one legion +going home. Another, with its rest still to earn, will take its place.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Which legion goes?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: How should I know? (<i>A pause.</i>) The Valeria Victrix.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Yours! (<i>She starts away from him.</i>) Calpurnius, yours!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Yes, mine. My legion goes to Rome. (<i>His voice thrills +with eagerness. He has been troubled through the scene how he shall +break the news. Now it is out, he cannot conceal his joy.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: But you--you stay behind.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>gently</i>): This is our last night together. Let us not +waste it. Never was there a night so made for love. (<i>He draws her +towards him.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: You go with your legion?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Before the dawn.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: It's impossible. No. You'll stay behind.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: No.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Listen to me. You shall be King with me.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>in a burst of contempt</i>): King here! In the forests of +Britain! I!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Yes. You'll lie quiet here. I by your side. Your hand in mine. +See! We'll forget the hours. The dawn will come.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: And find me a traitor!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: I am already one. There was a servant with me. He told me I was +like a dog that leaves its own people to follow the marching men.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>sits up</i>): And you let him live, with this knife ready in +your girdle?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: He spoke the truth.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: The truth! (<i>Contemptuously.</i>) There's a word for you! +Child! There's a greater thing in the world than truth. Truth wins no +battles.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: What's this greater thing?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Discipline! You should have struck.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: I wish I had. For he might have struck back.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Discipline! So I go with my legion.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>with a cry accusingly</i>): You want to go.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>springs up</i>): By all the gods I do. For ten years I have +toiled in Britain building roads--roads--roads--till I'm sick of them. +First the pounded earth, then the small stones, next the rubble, then +the concrete, and last of all the pavement; here in Anderida, there +across the swamps to Londinium, northwards through the fens to +Eboracum--ten years of it. And now--Rome--the mother of me!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Rome? (<i>She speaks despairingly. Calpurnius has forgotten her: +he answers her voice, not her.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Just for a little while. Oh, I shall go out again, but +just for a little while--to rise when I want to, not at the trumpet's +call, the house all quiet till I clap my hands--to have one's mornings +free--to saunter through the streets, picking up the last new thing of +Juvenal in the Argiletum, or some fine piece of Corinthian bronze in +the Campus Martius, and stopping on the steps of the Appian Way to +send a basket of flowers or a bottle of new scent to some girl that +has caught one's fancy. To go to the theatre, and see the new play, +though, to be sure, people write to me that there are no plays +nowadays.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Plays?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: And in the evening with a party of girls in their bravest, +all without a care, to gallop in the cool along the Appian Way to +Baiae and crowned with roses and violets have supper by the sea. Oh, +to see one's women again--Lydia'll be getting on, by the way!--women +dressed, jewelled, smelling of violets. Oh, just for a little while! +By Castor and Pollux, I have deserved it.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>who has been listening in grief</i>): Yes, you must go. (<i>She +goes to him and sits at his side.</i>) I have a plan.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Yes. (<i>Absently.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Listen to me!--Calpurnius.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>He laughs affectionately at her pronunciation of his name.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Let me hear this wise plan!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: I will go with you.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>rising</i>): What?</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Gleva pulls him down.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Yes, I'll give up my kingdom here, sacrifice it all, and go to +Rome with you. Calpurnius (<i>in a whisper</i>), I'll be your Lydia. Oh, to +drive with you on such a night as this, all crowned with roses, from +Rome to Baiae on the sea.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: These are dreams.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>passionately</i>): Why? Why? Are these women in Rome more +beautiful than I? Look! (<i>She rises.</i>) I can dress, too, as the Roman +women do. I wear the combs you gave me. I don't think they are pretty, +but I wear them. See, I wear, too, the sandals, the bracelets.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: No. There are no women in Rome more beautiful than +you--but--but----</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>all her passion dying away</i>): You would be ashamed of me.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Calpurnius is uncomfortable.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: You would be--unusual. People would turn and stare. Other +women would laugh. Some scribbler would write a lampoon. Oh, you are +beautiful, but this is your place, not Rome. Each to his own in the +end, Gleva. I to Rome--you to your people.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: My people! Oh, you did right to laugh at the thought of +reigning here. What are my people? Slaves for your pleasure. It can't +be! You to Rome, the lights, the women--oh, how I hate them! You would +not reproach me because my knife hangs idle, had I your Roman women +here! Calpurnius, be kind. From the first morning when I saw you in +the forest, shining in brass, a god, there has been no kingdom, no +people for me but you. I have watched you, learnt from you. Oh! I am +of the Romans--I'll----</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Each to his own in the end. That's the law.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: A bitter, cruel one.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Very likely. But it can't be changed. So long as the world +lasts, centuries hence, wherever soldiers are, still it will be the +law.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Soldiers! Say soldiers, and all must be forgiven!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Much, at all events, by those with understanding. Hear +what a soldier is. You see him strong, browned by the sun, flashing in +armour, tramping the earth, a conqueror--a god, yes, a god! Ask his +centurion who drills him in the barrack square.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: But the centurion----</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: The centurion's the god, then? Ask me, his Captain, who +tells him off. Am I the god, then? Ask my Colonel, who tells me off. +Is it my Colonel, my General? Ask the Emperor in Rome who, for a +fault, strips them of their command and brings them home. Soldiers are +men trained to endurance by a hard discipline, cursed, ridiculed, +punished like children but with a man's punishments, so that when the +great ordeal comes they may move, fight, die, like a machine. The +soldier! He suffers discomfort, burns in the desert, freezes in the +snow at another's orders. He has no liberty, he must not argue, he +must not answer; and he gets an obol a day, and in the end--in the +end, a man, he gives his life without complaint, without faltering, +gladly as a mere trifle in the business of the day, so that his +country may endure. And what's his reward? What does he get? A woman's +smile in his hour of furlough. That's his reward. He takes it. Blame +him who will. The woman thinks him a god, and he does not tell her of +the barrack square. Good luck to him and her, I say. But at the last, +there's the long parting, just as you and I part in the forest of +Anderida to-night. Other soldiers will say good-bye here on this spot +to other women in centuries from now. Their trouble will be heavy, my +dear, but they'll obey the soldier's law.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Very well, then! Each to his own! I, too, will obey that law. +(<i>She confronts him, erect and, strong.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: You will? (<i>Doubtfully.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: To the letter. To the very last letter. I'll gather my men. +There shall be no more Romans in Anderida. There shall be only stubble +in the fields where the scythes of my chariots have run.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Silence! (<i>Sternly.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: I learn my lesson from my Lord Calpurnius. Why should my +teacher blame me if I learn it thoroughly?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Gleva, you cannot conquer Rome. (<i>He speaks gently. She +stands stubbornly.</i>) How shall I prove it to you--you who know only +one wild corner of Britain! (<i>Thinks.</i>) There is that road where the +soldiers march. You know--how much of it?--a few miles where it passes +through the forest. That's all. But it runs to the Wall in the north.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>scornfully</i>): Is there a Wall?</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Is there a Wall? Ye gods! I kept my watch upon it through +a winter under the coldest stars that ever made a night unfriendly. I +freeze now when I think of it. Yes, there's a Wall in the north, and +that road runs to it; and in the south, it does not end at Regnum.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Doesn't it? Wonderful road!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Yes, wonderful road. For on the other side at the very +edge of the sea in Gaul it lives again--yes, that's the word--the +great road lives and runs straight as a ruled line to Rome. For forty +days you drive, inns by the road-side, post horses ready and a cloud +of traffic, merchants on business, governors on leave, pedlars, +musicians and actors for the fairs, students for the universities, +Jews, explorers, soldiers, pack-horses and waggons, gigs and litters. +Oh, if I could make you see it--always on each side the shade of +trees, until on its seven hills springs Rome. Nor does the road end +there.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: This same road? (<i>Her scorn has gone. She speaks doubtfully.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: This same road which runs by the brook down here in the +forest. (<i>Pointing L.</i>) It crosses Rome and goes straight to the sea +again--again beyond the sea it turns and strikes to Jerusalem four +thousand miles from where we stand to-night, Rome made it. Rome guards +it, and where it runs Rome rules. You cannot conquer Rome--until the +road's destroyed.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: I will destroy it.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Only Rome can destroy it. (<i>A pause.</i>) Gleva, let what I +say sink deep into your heart. A minute ago I sneered at the road. I +blasphemed. The roads are my people's work. While it builds roads, +it's Rome, it's the Unconquerable. But when there are no new roads in +the making and the weeds sprout between the pavements of the old ones, +then your moment's coming. When the slabs are broken and no company +marches down from the hill to mend them, it has come. Launch your +chariots then, Gleva! Rome's day is over, her hand tired. She has +grown easy and forgotten. But while Rome does Rome's appointed work, +beware of her! Not while the road runs straight from Regnum to the +Wall, shall you or any of you prevail.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>looking inscrutably.</i>) No, I cannot conquer Rome.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>A moment's pause.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Listen!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: The sound upon the road has ceased.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: There are no longer men marching.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: All have gone over the hill to the sea.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Yes. There's a freshness in the air, a breath of wind. The +morning comes----</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: I cannot conquer Rome.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>A trumpet rings out clear from the top of the hill. The morning +is beginning to break. There is the strange light which comes when +moonlight and the dawn meet.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: The reveillé! (<i>He turns to her.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: And----</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>nods</i>): My summons. Gleva!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: My Lord will bid farewell to his slaves. (<i>She calls aloud</i>): +Bran, Caransius.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Oh, before they come! (<i>He holds out his arms to her.</i>) +Gleva! (<i>She comes slowly into his embrace.</i>) I shall remember this +night. Some of our poets say that we are born again in another age. So +may it be with us! We shall grow old and die, you here, I where my +Emperor shall send me. May we be born again, love again, under a +happier star.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>He kisses her, she clings to him. Behind enter Bran, Caransius. +They approach carefully.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">But now there's Rome in front of me.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>He tries to draw away from her. She clings about his neck.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">And I must go.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Not yet, my Lord--Calpurnius.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Farewell! and the Gods prosper you. (<i>He is seized from +behind on a gesture from Gleva. She utters a cry.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Do him no hurt! Yet hold him safe. (<i>They bind him. Calpurnius +struggles.</i>)</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span>: Help! Romans, help!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>The two men gag him.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Do him no hurt!</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>They lay him on the bank. Gleva goes to him.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang2">No, I cannot conquer Rome, but one Roman--yes. You taught me, +Calpurnius, the lesson of the road. I thank you. I learn another +lesson. (<i>She is speaking very gently.</i>) On that long, crowded way +from the edge of Gaul to Rome many a soldier of your legion will be +lost--lost and remain unheard of. Calpurnius, you shall stay with me, +reign with me, over me. You shall forget Rome.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Once more the trumpet sounds only more faintly. Calpurnius utters +a stifled groan. The morning broadens. A cracking of bushes is +heard. From the right enters third attendant excitedly.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Attendant</span>: Mistress! Mistress!</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: Well?</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>She turns, stands between Calpurnius and attendants, e. g.</i>:</p> + +<p style="margin-left:13%"><span class="sc">Bran</span>.</p> + +<p class="hang2"><span class="sc">Third Attendant. Gleva. Calpurnius. + +Caransius.</span>]</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Footlights.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Attendant</span>: They have gone! The hill is empty; the camp is scattered.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: They march to the coast. The Valeria Victrix.</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>A movement from Calpurnius, who is working his hands free.</i>]</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span>: They are putting out to sea. The harbour's black with +ships. Some have reached the open water.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span>: All have gone.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Third Attendant</span>: All. Already there's a wolf in the camp on the hill.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Calpurnius</span> (<i>freeing his hands and mouth, plucks out his sword. He +buries it in his heart.</i>) Rome! Rome! (<i>In a whisper.</i>)</p> + +<p class="stage">[<i>Gleva turns and sees Calpurnius dead. She stands motionless. Then +she waves her attendants away. They go silently. Gleva seats +herself by Calpurnius's side. She runs her hand over his hair.</i>]</p> + +<p class="normal"><p class="hang1"><span class=sc>Gleva</span> (<i>with a sob</i>): My Lord Calpurnius!</p> + +<p class="center">[<span class="sc">The Curtain Falls Slowly.</span>]</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>FOOTNOTE:</h3> +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2_01" href="#div2Ref_01">Footnote 1</a>: Acting rights of this play are reserved.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Four Corners of the World, by +A. E. W. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Four Corners of the World + +Author: A. E. W. (Alfred Edward Woodley) Mason + +Release Date: January 25, 2012 [EBook #38664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + +no gutcheck/jeebies/gutspell + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + 1. Page scan source: + http://www.archive.org/details/fourcornersof00masoiala + + + + + + + BOOKS BY A. E. W. MASON + + Published By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + * * * * * + +THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD. _net_ $1.50 +THE BROKEN ROAD. _net_ $1.35 +AT THE VILLA ROSE. Illustrated. _net_ $1.35 +THE TURNSTILE. _net_ $1.35 +THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE. _net_ $1.35 + + + + + + + THE FOUR CORNERS + + OF THE WORLD + + + + + + + THE FOUR CORNERS + + OF THE WORLD + + + + + BY + + A. E. W. MASON + + + + + + CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS + NEW YORK :: :: :: 1917 + + + + + + + Copyright, 1917, by + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + * * * + + Published October, 1917 + + Copyright, 1909, by THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. + Copyright, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1917, By A. E. W. MASON + Copyright, 1914, 1915, 1917, By THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE CO. + + + + + + + CONTENTS + + +The Clock. + +Green Paint. + +North of the Tropic of Capricorn. + +One of Them. + +Raymond Byatt. + +The Crystal Trench. + +The House of Terror. + +The Brown Book. + +The Refuge. + +Peiffer. + +The Ebony Box. + +The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel. + +Under Bignor Hill. + + + + + + THE CLOCK + + + + + THE CLOCK + + + I + +Mr. Twiss was a great walker, and it was his habit, after his day's +work was done, to walk from his pleasant office in the Adelphi to his +home at Hampstead. On an afternoon he was detained to a later hour +than usual by one of his clients, a Captain Brayton, over some matter +of a mortgage. Mr. Twiss looked at his office clock. + +"You are going west, I suppose?" he said. "I wonder if you would walk +with me as far as Piccadilly? It will not be very much out of your +way, and I have a reason for wishing your company." + +"By all means," replied Captain Brayton, and the two men set forth. + +Mr. Twiss, however, seemed in a difficulty as to how he should broach +his subject, and for a while the pair walked in silence. They, indeed, +reached Pall Mall, and were walking down that broad thoroughfare, +before a word of any importance was uttered. And even then it was +chance which furnished the occasion. A young man of Captain Brayton's +age came down from the steps of a club and walked towards them. As he +passed beneath a street lamp, Mr. Twiss noticed his face, and ever so +slightly started with surprise. At almost the same moment, the young +man swerved across the road at a run, as though suddenly he remembered +a very pressing appointment. The two men walked on again for a few +paces, and then Captain Brayton observed: "There is a screw loose +there, I am afraid." + +Mr. Twiss shook his head. + +"I am sorry to hear you say so," he replied. "It was, indeed, about +Archie Cranfield that I was anxious to speak to you. I promised his +father that I would be something more than Archie's mere man of +affairs, if I were allowed, and I confess that I am troubled by him. +You know him well?" + +Captain Brayton nodded his head. + +"Perhaps I should say that I did know him well," he returned. "We were +at the same school, we passed through Chatham together, but since he +has relinquished actual service we have seen very little of one +another." Here he hesitated, but eventually made up his mind to +continue in a guarded fashion. "Also, I am bound to admit that there +has been cause for disagreement. We quarrelled." + +Mr. Twiss was disappointed. "Then you can tell me nothing of him +recently?" he asked, and Captain Brayton shrugged his shoulders. + +"Nothing but what all the little world of his acquaintances already +knows. He has grown solitary, forbidding in his manner, and, what is +most noticeable, sly--extraordinarily sly. While he is speaking with +you, he will smile at some secret thought of his; the affairs of the +world have lost their interest for him; he hardly listens and seldom +speaks. He is concerned with some private matter, and he hides it +cunningly. That is the character, at all events, which his friends +give of him." + +They had now reached the corner of St. James's Street, and as they +turned up the hill, Mr. Twiss took up the tale. + +"I am not surprised at what you tell me. It is a great pity, for we +both remember him ambitious and a good soldier. I am inclined to blame +the house in the country for the change in him." + +Captain Brayton, however, did not agree. + +"It goes deeper than that," he said. "Men who live alone in the +country may show furtive ways in towns, no doubt. But why does he live +alone in the country? No, that will not do"; and at the top of St. +James's Street the two men parted. + +Mr. Twiss walked up Bond Street, and the memory of that house in the +country in which Archie Cranfield chose to bury himself kept him +company. Mr. Twiss had travelled down into the eastern counties to see +it for himself one Saturday afternoon when Cranfield was away from +home, and a walk of six miles from the station had taken him to its +door. It stood upon the borders of Essex and Suffolk, a small +Elizabethan house backed upon the Stour, a place of black beams and +low ceilings and great fireplaces. It had been buttressed behind, +where the ground ran down to the river-bank, and hardly a window was +on a level with its neighbour. A picturesque place enough, but Mr. +Twiss was a lover of towns and of paved footways and illuminated +streets. He imagined it on such an evening as this, dark, and the rain +dripping cheerlessly from the trees. He imagined its inmate crouching +over the fire with his sly smile upon his face, and of a sudden the +picture took on a sinister look, and a strong sense of discomfort made +Mr. Twiss cast an uneasy glance behind him. He had in his pocket a +letter of instructions from Archie Cranfield, bidding him buy the +house outright with its furniture, since it had now all come into the +market. + +It was a week after this when next Captain Brayton came to Mr. Twiss's +office, and, their business done, he spoke of his own accord of Archie +Cranfield. + +"I am going to stay with him," he said. "He wrote to me on the night +of the day when we passed him in Pall Mall. He told me that he would +make up a small bachelor party. I am very glad, for, to tell the +truth, our quarrel was a sufficiently serious one, and here, it seems, +is the end to it." + +Mr. Twiss was delighted, and shook his client warmly by the hand. + +"You shall bring me news of Archie Cranfield," he said--"better news +than I have," he added, with a sudden gravity upon his face. For in +making the arrangements for the purchase of the house, he had come +into contact with various neighbours of Archie Cranfield, and from all +of them he had had but one report. Cranfield had a bad name in those +parts. There were no particular facts given to account for his +reputation. It was all elusive and vague, an impression conveyed by +Archie Cranfield himself, by something strange and sly in his +demeanour. He would sit chuckling in a sort of triumph, to which no +one had the clue, or, on the other hand, he fell into deep silences +like a man with a trouble on his mind. + +"Be sure you come to see me when you return," said Mr. Twiss, and +Captain Brayton replied heartily: "Surely I will." But he never did. +For in a few days the newspapers were busy with the strange enigma of +his death. + + + II + +The first hint of this enigma was conveyed to Mr. Twiss late one night +at his private address. It came in the shape of a telegram from Archie +Cranfield, which seemed to the agitated solicitor rather a cry of +distress than a message sent across the wires. + +"Come at once. I am in terrible need.--Cranfield." + +There were no trains at so late an hour by which Mr. Twiss could reach +his client; he must needs wait until the morning. He travelled, +however, by the first train from Liverpool Street. Although the +newspapers were set out upon the bookstall, not one of them contained +a word of anything amiss at Archie Cranfield's house, and Mr. Twiss +began to breathe more freely. It was too early for a cab to be in +waiting at the station, and Mr. Twiss set out to walk the six miles. +It was a fine, clear morning of November; but for the want of leaves +and birds, and the dull look of the countryside, Mr. Twiss might have +believed the season to be June. His spirits rose as he walked, his +blood warmed to a comfortable glow, and by the time he came to the +gates of the house, Cranfield's summons had become a trifling thing. +As he walked up to the door, however, his mood changed, for every +blind in the house was drawn. The door was opened before he could +touch the bell, and it was opened by Cranfield himself. His face was +pale and disordered, his manner that of a man at his wits' end. + +"What has happened?" asked Mr. Twiss as he entered the hall. + +"A terrible thing!" replied Cranfield. "It's Brayton. Have you +breakfasted? I suppose not. Come, and I will tell you while you eat." + +He walked up and down the room while Mr. Twiss ate his breakfast, and +gradually, by question and by answer, the story took shape. +Corroboration was easy and was secured. There was no real dispute +about the facts; they were simple and clear. + +There were two other visitors in the house besides Captain Brayton, +one a barrister named Henry Chalmers, and the second, William +Linfield, a man about town as the phrase goes. Both men stood in much +the same relationship to Archie Cranfield as Captain Brayton did--that +is to say, they were old friends who had seen little of their host of +late, and were somewhat surprised to receive his invitation after so +long an interval. They had accepted it in the same spirit as Brayton, +and the three men arrived together on Wednesday evening. On Thursday +the party of four shot over some turnip fields and a few clumps of +wood which belonged to the house, and played a game of bridge in the +evening. In the opinion of all, Brayton was never in better spirits. +On Friday the four men shot again and returned to the house as +darkness was coming on. They took tea in the smoking-room, and after +tea Brayton declared his intention to write some letters before +dinner. He went upstairs to his room for that purpose. + +The other three men remained in the smoking-room. Of that there was no +doubt. Both Chalmers and Linfield were emphatic upon the point. +Chalmers, in particular, said: + +"We sat talking on a well-worn theme, I in a chair on one side of the +fireplace, Archie Cranfield in another opposite to me, and Linfield +sitting on the edge of the billiard-table between us. How the subject +cropped up I cannot remember, but I found myself arguing that most men +hid their real selves all their lives even from their most intimate +friends, that there were secret chambers in a man's consciousness +wherein he lived a different life from that which the world saw and +knew, and that it was only by some rare mistake the portals of that +chamber were ever passed by any other man. Linfield would not hear of +it. If this hidden man were the real man, he held, in some way or +another the reality would triumph, and some vague suspicion of the +truth would in the end be felt by all his intimates. I upheld my view +by instances from the courts of law, Linfield his by the aid of a +generous imagination, while Cranfield looked from one to the other of +us with his sly, mocking smile. I turned to him, indeed, in some heat. + +"'Well, since you appear to know, Cranfield, tell me which of us is +right,' and his pipe fell from his fingers and broke upon the hearth. +He stood up, with his face grown white and his lips drawn back from +his teeth in a kind of snarl. + +"'What do you mean by that?' he asked; and before I could answer, the +door was thrown violently open, and Cranfield's man-servant burst into +the room. He mastered himself enough to say: + +"'May I speak to you, sir?' + +"Cranfield went outside the door with him. He could not have moved six +paces from the door, for though he closed it behind him, we heard the +sound of his voice and of his servant's speaking in low tones. +Moreover, there was no appreciable moment of time between the +cessation of the voices and Cranfield's reappearance in the room. He +came back to the fireplace and said very quietly: + +"'I have something terrible to tell you. Brayton has shot himself.' + +"He then glanced from Linfield's face to mine, and sat down in a chair +heavily. Then he crouched over the fire shivering. Both Linfield and +myself were too shocked by the news to say a word for a moment or two. +Then Linfield asked: + +"'But is he dead?' + +"'Humphreys says so,' Cranfield returned. 'I have telephoned to the +police and to the doctor.' + +"'But we had better go upstairs ourselves and see,' said I. And we +did." + +Thus Chalmers. Humphreys, the man-servant, gave the following account: + +"The bell rang from Captain Brayton's room at half-past five. I +answered it at once myself, and Captain Brayton asked me at what hour +the post left. I replied that we sent the letters from the house to +the post-office in the village at six. He then asked me to return at +that hour and fetch those of his which would be ready. I returned +precisely at six, and I saw Captain Brayton lying in a heap upon the +rug in front of the fire. He was dead, and he held a revolver tightly +clenched in his hand. As I stepped over him, I smelt that something +was burning. He had shot himself through the heart, and his clothes +were singed, as if he had held the revolver close to his side." + +These stories were repeated at the inquest, and at this particular +point in Humphreys' evidence the coroner asked a question: + +"Did you recognise the revolver?" + +"Not until Captain Brayton's hand was unclenched." + +"But then you did?" + +"Yes," said Humphreys. + +The coroner pointed to the table on which a revolver lay. + +"Is that the weapon?" + +Humphreys took it up and looked at the handle, on which two initials +were engraved--"A. C." + +"Yes," said the man. "I recognised it as Mr. Cranfield's. He kept it +in a drawer by his bedside." + +No revolver was found amongst Captain Brayton's possessions. + +It became clear that, while the three men were talking in the +billiard-room, Captain Brayton had gone to Cranfield's room, taken his +revolver, and killed himself with it. No evidence, however, was +produced which supplied a reason for Brayton's suicide. His affairs +were in good order, his means sufficient, his prospects of advancement +in his career sound. Nor was there a suggestion of any private +unhappiness. The tragedy, therefore, was entered in that list of +mysteries which are held insoluble. + +"I might," said Chalmers, "perhaps resume the argument which Humphreys +interrupted in the billiard-room, with a better instance than any +which I induced--the instance of Captain Brayton." + + + III + +"You won't go?" Archie Cranfield pleaded with Mr. Twiss. "Linfield and +Chalmers leave to-day. If you go too, I shall be entirely alone." + +"But why should you stay?" the lawyer returned. + +"Surely you hardly propose to remain through the winter in this +house?" + +"No, but I must stay on for a few days; I have to make arrangements +before I can go," said Cranfield; and seeing that he was in earnest in +his intention to go, Mr. Twiss was persuaded. He stayed on, and +recognised, in consequence, that the death of Captain Brayton had +amongst its consequences one which he had not expected. The feeling in +the neighbourhood changed towards Archie Cranfield. It cannot be said +that he became popular--he wore too sad and joyless an air--but +sympathy was shown to him in many acts of courtesy and in a greater +charity of language. + +A retired admiral, of a strong political complexion, who had been one +of the foremost to dislike Archie Cranfield, called, indeed, to offer +his condolences. Archie Cranfield did not see him, but Mr. Twiss +walked down the drive with him to the gate. + +"It's hard on Cranfield," said the admiral. "We all admit it. It +wasn't fair of Brayton to take his host's revolver. But for the +accident that Cranfield was in the billiard-room with Linfield and +Chalmers, the affair might have taken on quite an ugly look. We all +feel that in the neighbourhood, and we shall make it up to Cranfield. +Just tell him that, Mr. Twiss, if you will." + +"It is very kind of you all, I am sure," replied Mr. Twiss, "but I +think Cranfield will not continue to live here. The death of Captain +Brayton has been too much of a shock for him." + +Mr. Twiss said "Good-bye" to the admiral at the gate, and returned to +the house. He was not easy in his mind, and as he walked round the +lawn under the great trees, he cried to himself: + +"It is lucky, indeed, that Archie Cranfield was in the billiard-room +with Linfield and Chalmers; otherwise, Heaven knows what I might have +been brought to believe myself." + +The two men had quarrelled; Brayton himself had imparted that piece of +knowledge to Mr. Twiss. Then there was the queer change in Archie +Cranfield's character, which had made for him enemies of strangers, +and strangers of his friends--the slyness, the love of solitude, the +indifference to the world, the furtive smile as of a man conscious of +secret powers, the whole indescribable uncanniness of him. Mr. Twiss +marshalled his impressions and stopped in the avenue. + +"I should have had no just grounds for any suspicion," he concluded, +"but I cannot say that I should not have suspected," and slowly he +went on to the door. + +He walked through the house into the billiard-room, and so became the +witness of an incident which caused him an extraordinary disquiet. The +room was empty. Mr. Twiss lit his pipe and took down a book from one, +of the shelves. A bright fire glowed upon the hearth, and drawing up a +chair to the fender, he settled down to read. But the day was dull, +and the fireplace stood at the dark end of the room. Mr. Twiss carried +his book over to the window, which was a bay window with a broad seat. +Now, the curtains were hung at the embrasure of the window, so that, +when they were drawn, they shut the bay off altogether from the room, +and when they were open, as now, they still concealed the corners of +the window-seats. It was in one of these corners that Mr. Twiss took +his seat, and there he read quietly for the space of five minutes. + +At the end of that time he heard the latch of the door click, and +looking out from his position behind the curtain, he saw the door +slowly open. Archie Cranfield came through the doorway into the room, +and shut the door behind him. Then he stood for a while by the door, +very still, but breathing heavily. Mr. Twiss was on the point of +coming forward and announcing his presence, but there was something so +strange and secret in Cranfield's behaviour that, in spite of certain +twinges of conscience, he remained hidden in his seat. He did more +than remain hidden. He made a chink between the curtain and the wall, +and watched. He saw Cranfield move swiftly over to the fireplace, +seize a little old-fashioned clock in a case of satinwood which stood +upon the mantelshelf, raise it in the air, and dash it with an +ungovernable fury on to the stone hearth. Having done this +unaccountable thing, Cranfield dropped into the chair which Mr. Twiss +had drawn up. He covered his face with his hands and suddenly began to +sob and wail in the most dreadful fashion, rocking his body from side +to side in a very paroxysm of grief. Mr. Twiss was at his wits' end to +know what to do. He felt that to catch a man sobbing would be to earn +his undying resentment. Yet the sound was so horrible, and produced in +him so sharp a discomfort and distress, that, on the other hand, he +could hardly keep still. The paroxysm passed, however, almost as +quickly as it had come, and Cranfield, springing to his feet, rang the +bell. Humphreys answered it. + +"I have knocked the clock off the mantelshelf with my elbow, +Humphreys," he said. "I am afraid that it is broken, and the glass +might cut somebody's hand. Would you mind clearing the pieces away?" + +He went out of the room, and Humphreys went off for a dustpan. Mr. +Twiss was able to escape from the billiard-room unnoticed. But it was +a long time before he recovered from the uneasiness which the incident +aroused in him. + +Four days later the two men left the house together. The servants had +been paid off. Humphreys had gone with the luggage to London by an +earlier train. Mr. Twiss and Archie Cranfield were the last to go. +Cranfield turned the key in the lock of the front door as they stood +upon the steps. + +"I shall never see the inside of that house again," he said with a +gusty violence. + +"Will you allow me to get rid of it for you?" asked Mr. Twiss; and for +a moment Cranfield looked at him with knotted brows, blowing the while +into the wards of the key. + +"No," he said at length, and, running down to the stream at the back +of the house, he tossed the key into the water. "No," he repeated +sharply; "let the house rot empty as it stands. The rats shall have +their will of it, and the sooner the better." + +He walked quickly to the gate, with Mr. Twiss at his heels, and as +they covered the six miles to the railway station, very little was +said between them. + + + IV + +Time ran on, and Mr. Twiss was a busy man. The old house by the Stour +began to vanish from his memory amongst the mists and the veils of +rain which so often enshrouded it. Even the enigma of Captain +Brayton's death was ceasing to perplex him, when the whole affair was +revived in the most startling fashion. A labourer, making a short cut +to his work one summer morning, passed through the grounds of +Cranfield's closed and shuttered house. His way led him round the back +of the building, and as he came to that corner where the great brick +buttresses kept the house from slipping down into the river, he saw +below him, at the edge of the water, a man sleeping. The man's back +was turned towards him; he was lying half upon his side, half upon his +face. The labourer, wondering who it was, went down to the river-bank, +and the first thing he noticed was a revolver lying upon the grass, +its black barrel and handle shining in the morning sunlight. The +labourer turned the sleeper over on his back. There was some blood +upon the left breast of his waistcoat. The sleeper was dead, and from +the rigidity of the body had been dead for some hours. The labourer +ran back to the village with the astounding news that he had found Mr. +Cranfield shot through the heart at the back of his own empty house. +People at first jumped naturally to the belief that murder had been +done. The more judicious, however, shook their heads. Not a door nor a +window was open in the house. When the locks were forced, it was seen +that the dust lay deep on floor and chair and table, and nowhere was +there any mark of a hand or a foot. Outside the house, too, in the +long neglected grass, there were but two sets of footsteps visible, +one set leading round the house--the marks made by the labourer on his +way to his work--the other set leading directly to the spot where +Archie Cranfield's body was found lying. Rumours, each contradicting +the other, flew from cottage to cottage, and the men gathered about +the police-station and in the street waiting for the next. In an hour +or two, however, the mystery was at an end. It leaked out that upon +Archie Cranfield's body a paper had been discovered, signed in his +hand and by his name, with these words: + +"I have shot myself with the same revolver with which I murdered +Captain Brayton." + +The statement created some stir when it was read out in the +billiard-room, where the coroner held his inquest. But the coroner who +presided now was the man who had held the court when Captain Brayton +had been shot. He was quite clear in his recollection of that case. + +"Mr. Cranfield's alibi on that occasion," he said, "was +incontrovertible. Mr. Cranfield was with two friends in this very room +when Captain Brayton shot himself in his bedroom. There can be no +doubt of that." And under his direction the jury returned a verdict of +"Suicide while of unsound mind." + +Mr. Twiss attended the inquest and the funeral. But though he welcomed +the verdict, at the bottom of his mind he was uneasy. He remembered +vividly that extraordinary moment when he had seen Cranfield creep +into the billiard-room, lift the little clock in its case of satinwood +high above his head, and dash it down upon the hearth in a wild gust +of fury. He recollected how the fury had given way to despair--if it +were despair and not remorse. He saw again Archie Cranfield dropping +into the chair, holding his head and rocking his body in a paroxysm of +sobs. The sound of his wailing rang horribly once more in the ears of +Mr. Twiss. He was not satisfied. + +"What should take Cranfield back to that deserted house, there to end +his life, if not remorse," he asked himself--"remorse for some evil +done there"? + +Over that question for some days he shook his head, finding it waiting +for him at his fireside and lurking for him at the corner of the +roads, as he took his daily walk between Hampstead and his office. It +began to poison his life, a life of sane and customary ways, with +eerie suggestions. There was an oppression upon his heart of which he +could not rid it. On the outskirts of his pleasant world dim horrors +loomed; he seemed to walk upon a frail crust, fearful of what lay +beneath. The sly smile, the furtive triumph, the apparent +consciousness of secret power--did they point to some corruption of +the soul in Cranfield, of which none knew but he himself? + +"At all events, he paid for it," Mr. Twiss would insist, and from that +reflection drew, after all, but little comfort. The riddle began even +to invade his business hours, and take a seat within his private +office, silently clamouring for his attention. So that it was with a +veritable relief that he heard one morning from his clerk that a man +called Humphreys wished particularly to see him. + +"Show him in," cried Mr. Twiss, and for his own ear he added: "Now I +shall know." + +Humphreys entered the room with a letter in his hand. He laid the +letter on the office table. Mr. Twiss saw at a glance that it was +addressed in Archie Cranfield's hand. He flung himself upon it and +snatched it up. It was sealed by Cranfield's seal. It was addressed to +himself, with a note upon the left-hand corner of the envelope: + +"To be delivered after my death." + +Mr. Twiss turned sternly to the man. + +"Why did you not bring it before?" + +"Mr. Cranfield told me to wait a month," Humphreys replied. + +Mr. Twiss took a turn across the room with the letter in his hand. + +"Then you knew," he cried, "that your master meant to kill himself? +You knew, and remained silent?" + +"No, sir, I did not know," Humphreys replied firmly. "Mr. Cranfield +gave me the letter, saying that he had a long railway journey in front +of him. He was smiling when he gave it me. I can remember the words +with which he gave it: 'They offer you an insurance ticket at the +booking-office, when they sell you your travelling ticket, so there is +always, I suppose, a little risk. And it is of the utmost importance +to me that, in the event of my death, this should reach Mr. Twiss.' He +spoke so lightly that I could not have guessed what was on his mind, +nor, do I think, sir, could you." + +Mr. Twiss dismissed the man and summoned his clerk. "I shall not be in +to anyone this afternoon," he said. He broke the seal and drew some +closely written sheets of note-paper from the envelope. He spread the +sheets in front of him with a trembling hand. + +"Heaven knows in what spirit and with what knowledge I shall rise from +my reading," he thought; and looking out of his pleasant window upon +the barges swinging down the river on the tide, he was in half a mind +to fling the sheets of paper into the fire. "But I shall be plagued +with that question all my life," he added, and he bent his head over +his desk and read. + + + V + +"My dear Friend,--I am writing down for you the facts. I am not +offering any explanation, for I have none to give. You will probably +rise up, after reading this letter, quite incredulous, and with the +conviction in your mind that you have been reading the extravagancies +of a madman. And I wish with all my heart that you could be right. But +you are not. I have come to the end to-day. I am writing the last +words I ever shall write, and therefore I am not likely to write a +lie. + +"You will remember the little manor-house on the borders of Essex, for +you were always opposed to my purchase of it. You were like the +British jury, my friend. Your conclusion was sound, but your reason +for it very far from the mark. You disliked it for its isolation and +the melancholy of its dripping trees, and I know not what other +town-bred reasonings. I will give you a more solid cause. Picture to +yourself the billiard-room and how it was furnished when I first took +the house--the raised settee against the wall, the deep leather chairs +by the fire, the high fender, and on the mantelshelf--what?--a little +old-fashioned clock in a case of satinwood. You probably never noticed +it. I did from the first evenings which I passed in the house. For I +spent those evenings alone, smoking my pipe by the fire. It had a +queer trick. For a while it would tick almost imperceptibly, and then, +without reason, quite suddenly, the noise would become loud and +hollow, as though the pendulum in its swing struck against the wooden +case. To anyone sitting alone for hours in the room, as I did, this +tick had the queerest effect. The clock almost became endowed with +human qualities. At one time it seemed to wish to attract one's +attention, at another time to avoid it. For more than once, disturbed +by the louder knocking, I rose and moved the clock. At once the +knocking would cease, to begin again when I had settled afresh to my +book, in a kind of tentative, secret way, as though it would accustom +my ears to the sound, and so pass unnoticed. And often it did so pass, +until one knock louder and more insistent than the rest would drag me +in annoyance on to my feet once more. In a week, however, I got used +to it, and then followed the strange incident which set in motion that +chain of events of which tomorrow will see the end. + +"It happened that a couple of my neighbours were calling on me. One of +them you have met--Admiral Palkin, a prolix old gentleman, with a +habit of saying nothing at remarkable length. The other was a Mr. +Stiles, a country gentleman who had a thought of putting up for +that division of the county. I led these two gentlemen into the +billiard-room, and composed myself to listen while the admiral +monologued. But the clock seemed to me to tick louder than ever, +until, with one sharp and almost metallic thump, the sound ceased +altogether. At exactly the same moment. Admiral Palkin stopped dead in +the middle of a sentence. It was nothing of any consequence that he +was saying, but I remember the words at which he stopped. 'I have +often----' he said, and then he broke off, not with any abrupt start, +or for any lack of words, but just as if he had completed all that he +had meant to say. I looked at him across the fireplace, but his face +wore its usual expression of complacent calm. He was in no way put +out. Nor did it seem that any new train of thought had flashed into +his mind and diverted it. I turned my eyes from him to Mr. Stiles. Mr. +Stiles seemed actually to be unaware that the admiral had stopped +talking at all. Admiral Palkin, you will remember, was a person of +consequence in the district, and Mr. Stiles, who would subsequently +need his vote and influence and motorcar, had thought fit to assume an +air of great deference. From the beginning he had leaned towards the +admiral, his elbow upon his knee, his chin propped upon his hand, and +his head now and again nodding a thoughtful assent to the admiral's +nothings. In this attitude he still remained, not surprised, not even +patiently waiting for the renewal of wisdom, but simply attentive. + +"Nor did I move, for I was amused. The two men looked just like a +couple of wax figures in Madame Tussaud's, fixed in a stiff attitude +and condemned so to remain until the building should take fire and the +wax run. I sat watching them for minutes, and still neither moved nor +spoke. I never saw in my life a couple of people so entirely +ridiculous. I tried hard to keep my countenance--for to laugh at these +great little men in my own house would not only be bad manners, but +would certainly do for me in the neighbourhood--but I could not help +it. I began to smile, and the smile became a laugh. Yet not a muscle +on the faces of my visitors changed. Not a frown overshadowed the +admiral's complacency; not a glance diverted the admiring eyes of Mr. +Stiles. And then the clock began to tick again, and, to my infinite +astonishment, at the very same moment the admiral continued. + +"'--said to myself in my lighter moments---- And pray, sir, at what +are you laughing?' + +"Mr. Stiles turned with an angry glance towards me. Admiral Palkin had +resumed his conversation, apparently unaware that there had been any +interval at all. My laughter, on the other hand, had extended beyond +the interval, had played an accompaniment to the words just spoken. I +made my excuses as well as I could, but I recognised that they were +deemed insufficient. The two gentlemen left my house with the coldest +farewells you can imagine. + +"The same extraordinary incident was repeated with other visitors, but +I was on my guard against any injudicious merriment. Moreover, I had +no longer any desire to laugh. I was too perplexed. My visitors never +seemed to notice that there had been a lengthy interval or indeed any +interval at all, while I, for my part, hesitated to ask them what had +so completely hypnotised them. + +"The next development took place when I was alone in the room. It was +five o'clock in the afternoon. I had been out shooting a covert close +to the house, and a few minutes after I had rung the bell, I +remembered that I had forgotten some instructions which I had meant to +give to the keeper. So I got up at once, thinking to catch him in the +gun-room before he went home. As I rose from my chair, the clock, +which had been ticking loudly--though, as I have said, it was rather a +hollow, booming sound, as though the pendulum struck the wood of the +case, than a mere ticking of the clock-work--ceased its noise with the +abruptness to which I was growing used. I went out of the room into +the hall, and I saw Humphreys with the tea-tray in his hands in the +hall. He was turned towards the billiard-room door, but to my +astonishment he was not moving. He was poised with one foot in the +air, as though he had been struck, as the saying is, with a step half +taken. You have seen, no doubt, instantaneous photographs of people in +the act of walking. Well, Humphreys was exactly like one of those +photographs. He had just the same stiff, ungainly look. I should have +spoken to him, but I was anxious to catch my keeper before he went +away. So I took no notice of him. I crossed the hall quickly and went +out by the front door, leaving it open. The gun-room was really a +small building of corrugated iron, standing apart at the back of the +house. I went to it and tried the door. It was locked. I called aloud: +'Martin! Martin!' + +"But I received no answer. I ran round the house again, thinking that +he might just have started home, but I saw no signs of him. There were +some outhouses which it was his business to look after, and I visited +them, opening the door of each of them and calling him by name. Then I +went down the drive to the gate, thinking that I might perhaps catch a +glimpse of him upon the road, but again I was disappointed. I then +returned to the house, shut the front door, and there in the hall +still stood Humphreys in his ridiculous attitude with the tea-tray in +his hands. I passed him and went back into the billiard-room. He took +no notice of me whatever. I looked at the clock upon the mantelshelf, +and I saw that I had been away just fourteen minutes. For fourteen +minutes Humphreys had been standing on one leg in the hall. It seemed +as incredible as it was ludicrous. Yet there was the clock to bear me +out. I sat down on my chair with my hands trembling, my mind in a +maze. The strangest thought had come to me, and while I revolved it in +my mind, the clock resumed its ticking, the door opened, and Humphreys +appeared with the tea-tray in his hand. + +"'You have been a long time, Humphreys,' I said, and the man looked at +me quickly. My voice was shaking with excitement, my face, no doubt, +had a disordered look. + +"'I prepared the tea at once, sir,' he answered. + +"'It is twenty minutes by the clock since I rang the bell,' I said. + +"Humphreys placed the tea on a small table at my side and then looked +at the clock. An expression of surprise came over his face. He +compared it with the dial of his own watch. + +"'The clock wants regulating, sir,' he said. 'I set it by the kitchen +clock this morning, and it has gained fourteen minutes.' + +"I whipped my own watch out of my pocket and stared at it. Humphreys +was quite right; the clock upon the mantelshelf had gained fourteen +minutes upon all our watches. Yes, but it had gained those fourteen +minutes in a second, and that was the least part of the marvel. I +myself had had the benefit of those fourteen minutes. I had snatched +them, as it were, from Time itself. I had looked at my watch when I +rang the bell. It had marked five minutes to five. I had remained yet +another four minutes in the room before I had remembered my forgotten +instructions to the keeper. I had then gone out. I had visited the +gun-room and the outhouses, I had walked to the front gate, I had +returned. I had taken fourteen minutes over my search--I could not +have taken less--and here were the hands of my watch now still +pointing towards five, still short of the hour. Indeed, as I replaced +my watch in my pocket, the clock in the hall outside struck five. + +"'As you passed through the hall, Humphreys, you saw no one, I +suppose?' I said. + +"Humphreys raised his eyebrows with a look of perplexity. 'No, sir, I +saw no one,' he returned, 'but it seemed to me that the front door +banged. I think it must have been left open.' + +"'Very likely,' said I. 'That will do,' and Humphreys went out of the +room. + +"Imagine my feelings. Time is relative, it is a condition of our +senses, it is nothing more--that we know. But its relation to me was +different from its relation to others. The clock had given me fourteen +minutes, which it denied to all the world besides. Fourteen full +minutes for me, yet they passed for others in less than the fraction +of a second. And not once only had it made me this gift, but many +times. The admiral's pause, unnoticed by Mr. Stiles, was now explained +to me. He had not paused; he had gone straight on with his flow of +talk, and Mr. Stiles had gone straight on listening. But between two +of Admiral Palkin's words. Time had stood still for me. Similarly, +Humphreys had not poised himself upon one ridiculous leg in the hall. +He had taken a step in the usual way, but while his leg was raised, +fourteen minutes were given to me. I had walked through the hall, I +had walked back through the hall, yet Humphreys had not seen me. He +could not have seen me, for there had been no interval of time for him +to use his eyes. I had gone and come quicker than any flash, for even +a flash is appreciable as some fraction of a second. + +"I asked you to imagine my feelings. Only with those which I first +experienced would you, from your sane and comfortable outlook upon +life, have any sympathy, for at the beginning I was shocked. I had +more than an inclination then to dash that clock upon the hearth and +deny myself its bizarre and unnatural gift. Would that I had done so! +But the inclination was passed, and was succeeded by an incredible +lightness of spirit. I had a gift which raised me above kings, which +fanned into a flame every spark of vanity within me. I had so much +more of time than any other man. I amused myself by making plans to +use it, and thereupon I suffered a disappointment. For there was so +little one could do in fourteen minutes, and the more I realised how +little there was which I could do in my own private special stretch of +time, the more I wanted to do, the more completely I wished to live in +it, the more I wished to pluck power and advantage from it. Thus I +began to look forward to the sudden cessation of the ticking of the +clock; I began to wait for it, to live for it, and when it came, I +could make no use of it. I gained fourteen minutes now and then, but I +lost more and more of the hours which I shared with other men. They +lost their salt for me. I became tortured with the waste of those +minutes of my own. I had the power; what I wanted now was to employ +it. The desire became an obsession occupying my thoughts, harassing my +dreams. + +"I was in this mood when I passed Brayton and yourself one evening in +Pall Mall. I wrote to him that night, and I swear to you upon my +conscience that I had no thought in writing but to put an end to an +old disagreement, and re-establish, if possible, an old friendship. I +wrote in a sudden revulsion of feeling. The waste of my days was +brought home to me. I recognised that the great gift was no more than +a perpetual injury. I proposed to gather my acquaintances about me, +discard my ambition for some striking illustration of my power, and +take up once more the threads of customary life. Yet my determination +lasted no longer than the time it took me to write the letter and run +out with it to the post. I regretted its despatch even as I heard it +fall to the bottom of the pillar-box. + +"Of my quarrel with Brayton I need not write at length. It sprang from +a rancorous jealousy. We had been friends and class-mates in the +beginning. But as step by step he rose just a little above me, the +friendship I had turned to gall and anger. I was never more than the +second, he always the first. Had I been fourth or fifth, I think I +should not have minded; but there was so little to separate us in +merit or advancement. Yet there was always that little, and I dreaded +the moment when he should take a bound and leave me far behind. The +jealousy grew to a real hatred, made still more bitter to me by the +knowledge that Brayton himself was unaware of it, and need not have +been troubled had he been aware. + +"After I left the Army and lost sight of him, the flame burnt low. I +believed it was extinguished when I invited him to stay with me; but +he had not been an hour in the house when it blazed up within me. His +success, the confidence which it had given him, his easy friendliness +with strangers, the talk of him as a coming man, bit into my soul. The +very sound of his footstep sickened me. I was in this mood when the +clock began to boom louder and louder in the billiard-room. Chalmers +and Linfield were talking. I did not listen to them. My heart beat +louder and louder within my breast, keeping pace with the clock. I +knew that in a moment or two the sound would cease, and the doors of +my private kingdom would be open for me to pass through. I sat back in +my chair waiting while the devilish inspiration had birth and grew +strong. Here was the great chance to use the power I had--the only +chance which had ever come to me. Brayton was writing letters in his +room. The room was in a wing of the house. The sound of a shot would +not be heard. There would be an end of his success; there would be for +me such a triumphant use of my great privilege as I had never dreamed +of. The clock suddenly ceased. I slipped from the room and went +upstairs. I was quite leisurely. I had time. I was back in my chair +again before seven minutes had passed. + + "Archie Cranfield." + + + + + + GREEN PAINT + + + + + GREEN PAINT + + + I + +I came up by the lift from the lower town, Harry Vandeleur strolled +from his more respectable lodging in the upper quarter, and we met +unexpectedly in Government Square. It was ten o'clock in the morning, +and the Square, a floor of white within a ragged border of trees, +glared blindingly under the tropical sun. On each side of the +President's door a diminutive soldier rattled a rifle from time to +time. + +"What? Has he sent for you too?" said Harry, pointing to the +President's house. + +"Juan Ballester. Yes," said I, and Harry Vandeleur stopped with a +sudden suspicion on his face. + +"What does he want with us?" he asked. + +"We volunteered in the war," said I. "We were both useful to him." + +Harry Vandeleur shook his head. + +"He is at the top of his power. He has won his three-weeks war. The +Army has made him President for the second time. He has so skilfully +organised his elections that he has a Parliament, not merely without +an Opposition, but without a single man of any note in it except +Santiago Calavera. It is not from such that humble people like us can +expect gratitude." + +Juan Ballester was, in fact, a very remarkable person. Very few people +who had dealings with him ever forgot him. There was the affair of the +Opera House, for instance, and a hundred instances. Who he really was +I should think no one knew. He used to say that he was born in Mexico +City, and when he wished to get the better of anyone with a +sentimental turn, he would speak of his old mother in a broken voice. +But since he never wrote to his old mother, nor she to him, I doubt +very much whether she existed. The only certain fact known about him +was that some thirteen years before, when he was crossing on foot a +high pass of the Cordilleras without a dollar in his pocket, he met a +stranger--but no! I have heard him attribute so many different +nationalities to that stranger that I wouldn't kiss the Bible even on +that story. Probably he _was_ a Mexican and of a good stock. Certainly +no Indian blood made a flaw in him. For though his hair was black and +a pencil-line of black moustache decorated his lip, his skin was fair +like any Englishman's. He was thirty-eight years old, five feet eleven +in height, strongly but not thickly built, and he had a pleasant, +good-humoured face which attracted and deceived by its look of +frankness. For the rest of him the story must speak. + +He received us in a great room on the first floor overlooking the +Square; and at once he advanced and laid a hand impressively upon my +shoulder. He looked into my face silently. Then he said: + +"Carlyon, I want you." + +I did not believe him for a moment. But from time to time Juan +Ballester did magnanimous things; not from magnanimity, of which +quality he was entirely devoid, but from a passion for the _bran +geste_. He would see himself a shining figure before men's eyes, the +perfect cavalier; and the illusion would dazzle him into generosity. +Accordingly, my hopes rose. I was living on credit in a very inferior +hotel. "I had thought my work was done," he continued. "I had hoped to +retire, like Cincinnatus, to my plough," and he gazed sentimentally +out of the window across the city to the wooded hills of Santa Paula. +"But since my country calls me, I must have someone about me whom I +can trust." He broke off to ask: "I suppose your police are no longer +searching for you?" + +"They never were, your Excellency," I protested hotly. + +"Well, perhaps not," he said indulgently. "No doubt the natural +attractions of Maldivia brought you here. You did me some service in +the war. I am not ungrateful. I appoint you my private secretary." + +"Your Excellency!" I cried. + +He shook hands with me and added carelessly: + +"There is no salary attached to the post, but there are +opportunities." + +And there were. That is why I now live in a neat little villa at +Sorrento. + +Ballester turned to Harry Vandeleur and took him by the arm. He looked +from one to the other of us. + +"Ever since the day when I walked over a high pass of the Cordilleras +with nothing but the clothes I stood up in, and an unknown Englishman +gave me the railway fare to this city, I have made what return I could +to your nation. You, too, have served me, Senor Vandeleur. I pay some +small portion of my debt. Money! I have none to give you"; and he +uttered the words without a blush, although the half a million pounds +sterling received as war indemnity had already been paid into his +private account. + +"Nor would you take it if I had," Juan resumed. "But I will give you +something of equal value." + +He led Vandeleur to the window, and waving his hand impressively over +the city, he said: + +"I will give you the monopoly of green paint in the city of Santa +Paula." + +I stifled a laugh. Harry Vandeleur got red in the face. For, after +all, no man likes to look a greater fool than he naturally is. He had, +moreover, a special reason for disappointment. + +"I don't suppose that there are twenty bucketsful used in Santa Paula +in the year," he exclaimed bitterly. + +"Wait, my friend," said Ballester; "there will be." + +And a week afterwards the following proclamation appeared upon the +walls of the public buildings: + +"Owing to the numerous complaints which have been received of the +discomfort produced by the glare of a tropical sun, the Government of +the day, ever solicitous to further the wishes of its citizens, now +orders that every house in Santa Paula, with the exception of the +Government buildings, be painted in green paint within two months of +the issue of this proclamation, and any resident who fails to obey +this enactment shall be liable to a fine of fifty dollars for every +day after the two months have elapsed until the order is carried out." + +Juan Ballester was, no doubt, a very great man, but I cannot deny that +he strained the loyalty of his friends by this proclamation. +Grumblings were loud. No one could discover who had complained of the +glare of the streets--for the simple reason that no one had complained +at all. However, the order was carried out. Daily the streets of Santa +Paula grew greener and greener, until the town had quite a restful +look, and sank into its background and became a piece with its +surroundings. Meanwhile, Harry Vandeleur sat in an office, rubbed his +hands, and put up the price of green paint. But, like most men upon +whom good fortune has suddenly shone, he was not quite contented. He +found his crumpled rose-leaf in the dingy aspect of the Government +buildings and the President's house. They alone now reared fronts of +dirty plaster and cracked stucco. I remember him leaning out of Juan +Ballester's window and looking up and down with a discontented eye. + +"Wants a coat of green paint, doesn't it?" he said with a sort of +jocular eagerness. + +Juan never even winked. + +"There ought to be a distinction between this house and all the +others," he said gravely. "The President is merely the butler of the +citizens. They ought to know at a glance where they can find him." + +Harry Vandeleur burst suddenly into a laugh. He was an impulsive +youth, a regular bubble of high spirits. + +"I am an ungrateful beast, and that's the truth," he said. "You have +done a great deal for me, more than you know." + +"Have I?" asked Juan Ballester drily. + +"Yes," cried Harry Vandeleur, and out the story tumbled. + +He was very anxious to marry Olivia Calavera--daughter, by the way, of +Santiago Calavera, Ballester's Minister of the Interior--and Olivia +Calavera was very anxious to marry him. Olivia was a dream. He, Harry +Vandeleur, was a planter in a small way in Trinidad. Olivia and her +father came from Trinidad. He had followed her from Trinidad, but Don +Santiago, with a father's eye for worldly goods, had been obdurate. It +was all very foolish and very young, and rather pleasant to listen to. + +"Now, thanks to your Excellency," cried Harry, "I am an eligible +suitor. I shall marry the Senorita Olivia." + +"Is that so?" said Juan Ballester, with a polite congratulation. But +there was just a suspicion of a note in his voice which made me lift +my head sharply from the papers over which I was bending. It was +impossible, of course--and yet he had drawled the words out in a slow, +hard, quiet way which had startled me. I waited for developments, and +they were not slow in coming. + +"But before you marry," said Juan Ballester, "I want you to do me a +service. I want you to go to London and negotiate a loan. I can trust +you. Moreover, you will do the work more speedily than another, for +you will be anxious to return." + +With a friendly smile he took Harry Vandeleur by the arm and led him +into his private study. Harry could not refuse. The mission was one of +honour, and would heighten his importance in Don Santiago's eyes. He +was, besides, under a considerable obligation to Ballester. He +embarked accordingly at Las Cuevas, the port of call half an hour away +from the city. + +"Look after Olivia for me," he said, as we shook hands upon the deck +of the steamer. + +"I will do the best I can," I said, and I went down the gangway. + +Harry Vandeleur travelled off to England. He was out of the way. +Meanwhile, I stayed in Maldivia and waited for more developments. But +this time they were not so quick in coming. + + + II + +Ballester, like greater and lesser men, had his inconsistencies. +Although he paid his private secretary with "opportunities" and bribed +his friends with monopolies; although he had shamelessly rigged the +elections, and paid as much of the country's finances as he dared into +his private banking account; and although there was that little affair +of the Opera House, he was genuinely and sincerely determined to give +to the Republic a cast-iron Constitution. He had an overpowering faith +in law and order--for other people. + +We hammered out the Constitution day and night for another fortnight, +and then Ballester gabbled it over to a Council of his Ministers. Not +one of them could make head or tail of what he was reading, with the +exception of Santiago Calavera, a foxy-faced old rascal with a white +moustache, who sat with a hand curved about his ear and listened to +every word. I had always wondered why Ballester had given him office +at all. At one point he interrupted in a smooth, smiling voice: + +"But, your Excellency, that is not legal." + +"Legal or not legal," said the President with a snap, "it is going +through, Senor Santiago"; and the Constitution was duly passed by a +unanimous vote, and became the law of Maldivia. + +That event took place a couple of months after Harry Vandeleur had +sailed for England. I stretched my arms and looked about for +relaxation. The Constitution was passed at six o'clock in the evening. +There was to be a ball that night at the house of the British +Minister. I made up my mind to go. For a certainty I should find +Olivia there; and I was seized with remorse. For, in spite of my +promise to Harry Vandeleur, I had hardly set eyes upon her during the +last two months. + +I saw her at ten o'clock. She was dancing--a thing she loved. She was +dressed in a white frock of satin and lace, with a single rope of +pearls about her throat, and she looked divinely happy. She was a girl +of nineteen years, fairly tall, with black hair, a beautiful white +face, and big, dark eyes which shone with kindness. She had the hand +and foot of her race, and her dancing was rather a liquid movement of +her whole supple body than a matter of her limbs. I watched her for a +few moments from a corner. She had brains as well as beauty, and +though she spoke with a pleading graciousness, at the back of it one +was aware of a pride which would crack the moon. She worked, too, as +few girls of her station work in the Republics of South America. For +her father, from what I then thought to be no better than parsimony, +used her as his secretary. As she swung by my corner for the second +time she saw me and stopped. + +"Senor Carlyon, it is two months since I have seen you," she said +reproachfully. + +"Senorita, it is only four hours since our brand new Constitution was +passed into law, and already I am looking for you." + +She shook her head. + +"You have neglected me." + +"I regret to notice," said I, "that my neglect has in no way impaired +your health." + +Olivia laughed. She had a taking laugh, and the blood mounted very +prettily into her cheeks. + +"I could hardly be ill," she said. "I had a letter to-day." + +"Lucky man to write you letters," said I. "Let me read it, Senorita." + +She drew back swiftly and her hand went to her bosom. + +"Oh, it is there!" said I. + +Again she laughed, but this time with a certain shyness, and the +colour deepened on her cheeks. + +"He sails to-day," said she. + +"Then I have still three weeks," said I lightly. "Will you dance with +me for the rest of the evening?" + +"Certainly not," she answered with decision. "But after the fifth +dance from now, you will find me, Senor Carlyon, here"; and turning +again to her partner, she was caught up into the whirl of dancers. + +After the fifth dance I returned to that corner of the ballroom. I +found Olivia waiting. But it was an Olivia whom I did not know. The +sparkle and the freshness had gone out of her; fear and not kindness +shone in her eyes. + +Her face lit up for a moment when she saw me, and she stepped eagerly +forward. + +"Quick!" she said. "Somewhere where we shall be alone!" + +Her hand trembled upon my arm. She walked quickly from the room, +smiling as she went. She led me along a corridor into the garden of +the house, a place of palms and white magnolias on the very edge of +the upper town. She went without a word to the railings at the end of +the garden, whence one looks straight down upon the lights of the +lower town along the river bank. Then she turned. A beam of light from +the windows shone upon her face. The smile had gone from it. Her lips +shook. + +"What has happened?" I asked. + +She spoke in jerks. + +"He came to me to-night.... He danced with me...." + +"Who?" I asked. + +"Juan Ballester," said she. + +I had half expected the name. + +"He spoke of himself," she resumed. "Sometimes it is not easy to tell +whether he is acting or whether he is serious. It was easy to-night. +He was serious." + +"What did he say?" + +"That up till to-night all had been work with him.... That to-night +had set the crown upon his work.... That now for the first time he +could let other hopes, other thoughts, have play...." + +"Yes, I see," I replied slowly. "Having done his work, he wants his +prize. He would." + +Ballester had toiled untiringly for thirteen years in both open and +devious ways, and, as the consequence of his toil, he had lifted his +Republic into an importance which it had never possessed before. He +had succeeded because what he wanted, he wanted very much. It +certainly looked as if there were considerable trouble in front of +Olivia and Harry Vandeleur--especially Harry Vandeleur. + +"So he wants you to marry him," I said; and Olivia gave me one swift +look and turned her head away. + +"No," she answered in a whisper. "He wants his revenge, too." + +"Revenge?" I exclaimed. + +Olivia nodded her head. + +"He told me that I must go up to Benandalla"; and the remark took my +breath away. Benandalla was the name of a farm which Ballester owned, +up in the hills two hours away from Santa Paula; and the less said +about it the better. Ballester was accustomed to retreat thither after +any spell of unusually arduous work; and the great feastings which +went on, the babel of laughter, the noise of music and castanets and +the bright lights blazing upon the quiet night till dawn had made the +farm notorious. Even at this moment, I knew, it was not nearly +uninhabited. + +"At Benandalla ... you?" I cried; and, indeed, it seemed to me that +the mere presence of Olivia must have brought discomfort into those +coarse orgies, so set apart was she by her distinction. "And he tells +you to go," I continued, "as if you were his maidservant!" + +Olivia clenched her small hands together and leaned upon the railings. +Her eyes travelled along the river below and sought a brightness in +the distant sky--the loom of the lights of Las Cuevas. For a little +while, she was strengthened by thoughts of escape, and then once more +she drooped. + +"I am frightened," she said, and coming from her, the whispered and +childish cry filled me with consternation. It was her manner and what +she left unsaid rather than her words, which alarmed me. Where I +should have expected pride and a flame of high anger, I found sheer +terror, and the reason of that terror she had not yet given me. + +"He spoke of Harry," she resumed. "He said that Harry must not +interfere.... He used threats." + +Yes, I thought, Juan Ballester would do that. It was not the usual way +of conducting a courtship; but Juan Ballester's way was not the usual +way of governing a country. + +"What kind of threats?" + +"Prisons," she answered with a break in her voice. + +"What?" I exclaimed. + +"Yes," she said. "Prisons--especially in the Northern Republics +of South America.... He explained that, though you have more liberty +here than anywhere else so long as you are free, you are more +completely--destroyed--here than anywhere else if you once get into +prison." From her hesitation I could guess that "destroyed" was a +milder word than Juan Ballester had used. + +"He described them to me," she went on. "Hovels where you sleep in the +mud at night, and whence you are leased out by day to work in the +fields without a hat--until, in a month or so, the sun puts an end to +your misery." + +I knew there was truth in that description. But it was not possible +that Ballester could put his threat into force. It was anger now, not +consternation, which filled me. + +"Senorita, reflect!" I cried. "In whose garden are you standing now? +The British Minister's--and Harry Vandeleur is an Englishman. It was +no more than a brutal piece of bullying by Ballester. See! I am his +secretary"--and she suddenly turned round towards me with a gleam in +her eyes. + +"Yes," she interrupted. "You are his secretary and Harry's friend. +Will you help us, I wonder?" + +"Show me how!" said I. + +"It is not Harry whom he threatens, but my father"; and she lowered +her eyes from mine and was silent. + +"My father"; and her answer made my protestations mere vapourings and +foolishness. + +The danger was real. The British Minister could hold no shield in +front of Santiago Calavera, even if there were no guilt upon him for +which he could be properly imprisoned. But Olivia's extremity of +terror and my knowledge of Santiago warned me that this condition was +little likely to exist. I took Olivia's hands. They clung to mine in a +desperate appeal for help. + +"Come, Senorita," I said gravely. "If I am to help you, I must have +the truth. What grounds had Ballester for his threat?" + +She raised her head suddenly with a spurt of her old pride. + +"My father is a good man," she said, challenging me to deny it. "What +he did, he thought right to do. I am not ashamed of him. No!"--and +then she would have stopped. But I would not let her. I dared not let +her. + +"Go on, please!" I insisted, and the pride died out of her face, and +she turned in a second to pleading. + +"But perhaps he was indiscreet--in what he wrote. He thought, perhaps, +too much of his country, too little of those who governed it." + +I dropped her hands. I had enough of the truth now. Rumour had always +spoken of Santiago Calavera as an intriguer. His daughter was now +telling me he was a traitor, too. + +"We must find your father," I cried. "He brought you to the ball." + +"Yes," said she. "He will be waiting to take me home." + +We hurried back to the house and searched the rooms. Calavera was +nowhere to be found. + +"He cannot have gone!" cried Olivia, wringing her hands. In both of +our minds the same question was urgent. + +"Has he been taken away?" + +I questioned the servants, and the door-keeper replied. A messenger +had come for Don Santiago early in the evening. I found the British +Minister at Olivia's side when I returned, and a smile of relief upon +her face. + +"My father made his excuses and went home," she said. "Important +business came. He has sent the carriage back." + +"May I take you home?" I asked. + +"Thank you," said she. + +It was getting near to dawn when we drove away. The streets were +empty, the houses dark. Olivia kept her face close to the window, and +never stirred until we turned the corner into the Calle Madrid. Then +she drew back with a low cry of joy. The windows of the great house +were ablaze with light. I helped her out of the carriage and rang the +bell. We stood in front of the door talking while the coachman drove +away to his stables. + +"Say nothing to my father," Olivia pleaded. "Promise me, Senor." + +I promised readily enough. + +"I will come in with you, Senorita," I said. "I must talk with your +father"; and I turned impatiently to the door and rang the bell again. + +"To-night?" said she. + +"Yes," said I. "I promised Harry Vandeleur to look after you." + +"Did you?" said she, and though her anxieties were heavy upon her, a +tender smile parted her lips. + +Still no one came to the door. + +"They must have gone to bed," I said, pushing against the panels. To +my surprise the door yielded and quietly swung wide. We looked into a +hall silent and empty and brightly lit. We were both in a mood to +count each new phenomenon a disaster. To both of us there was +something eerie in the silent swinging-in of the door, in the +emptiness and bright illumination of the hall. We looked at one +another in dismay. Then Olivia swept in, and I followed. She walked +straight to a door at the back of the hall, hesitated with her hand +upon the knob for just the fraction of a second, and flung it open. We +went into a room furnished as a study. But the study, too, was empty +and brightly lit. There was a green-shaded reading-lamp beside an +armchair, as though but now the occupant had sat there and read. +Olivia stood in the centre of the room and in a clear and ringing +voice she cried: + +"Father!" + +Her voice echoed along the passages and up the stairs. And no answer +came. She turned abruptly, and, moving with a swift step, she opened +door after door. Each door opened upon a brightly lit and empty room. +She ran a few steps up the stairs and stood poised, holding up in her +white gloved hand the glistening skirt of her white frock. One by one +she called upon the servants by name, looking upwards. Not a door was +opened above our heads. Not a sound of any movement reached our ears. + +Olivia ran lightly up the stairs. I heard the swift rustle of her gown +as she moved from room to room; and suddenly she was upon the stairs +again looking down at me, with her hand like a flake of snow upon the +bannister. She gleamed against the background of dark wood, a thing of +silver. + +"There is no one in the house," she said simply, in a strange and +quiet voice. She moved down the stairs and held out her hand to me. + +"Good night," she said. + +Though her voice never shook, her eyes shone with tears. She was but +waiting until I went, to shed them. + +"I will come to-morrow," I stammered; "in the morning. I may have news +for you," and I bent over her hand and kissed it. + +"Good night," she said again, and she stood with her hand upon the +latch of the door. I went out. She closed the door behind me. I heard +the key turn in the lock, the bolt shoot into its socket. There was a +freshness in the air, a paling of the stars above my head. I waited +for a while in the street, but no figure appeared at any window, nor +was any light put out. I left her alone in that empty and illumined +house, its windows blazing on the dawn. + + + III + +I walked back to the President's house and sat comfortably down in my +office to think the position over with the help of a pipe. But I had +hardly struck the match when the President himself came in. He had +changed his dress-coat for a smoking-jacket, and carried a few papers +in his hand. + +"I am glad to see that you are not tired," he said, "for I have still +some work for you to do. I have been looking through some letters, and +there are half-a-dozen of so much importance that I should like copies +made of them before you go to bed." + +He laid them on my writing-table with an intimation that he would +return for them in an hour. I rose up with alacrity. I was in no mood +for bed, and the mechanical work of copying a few letters appealed to +me at the moment. A glance at them, however, startled me into an even +greater wakefulness. They were letters, typewritten for the most part, +but undoubtedly signed by Santiago Calavera, and all of them dated +just before the outbreak of the war. They were addressed to the War +Minister of Esmeralda, and they gave details as to where Maldivia was +weak, where strong, what roads to the capital were unguarded, and for +how many troops provisions could be requisitioned on the way. There +was, besides, a memorandum, written, I rejoiced to see, from beginning +to end in Santiago's own hand--a deadly document naming some twenty +people in Santa Paula who would need attention when Juan Ballester had +been overthrown. It was impossible to misunderstand the phrase. Those +twenty citizens of Santa Paula were to be shot out of hand against the +nearest wall. I was appalled as I copied it out. There was enough +treachery here to convict a regiment. No wonder the great house in the +Calle Madrid stood empty! No wonder that Calavera---- But while I +argued, the picture of the daughter in her shining frock, alone amidst +the glitter and the silence, smote upon me as pitiful, and struck the +heart out of all my argument. + +Juan Ballester was at my elbow the moment after I had finished. + +"It is five o'clock," he said, as he gathered the letters and copies +together, "and no doubt you will want to be on foot early. You can +tell her that I sent her father in a special train last night to the +frontier. He is no doubt already with his friends in Esmeralda." + +"Then the prisons----" I exclaimed. + +"A lover's embroideries--nothing more," said Ballester, with a smile. +"But it is interesting to know that you are so thoroughly acquainted +with the position of affairs." And he took himself off to bed. + +His last remark, however, forced me to consider my own position, and +reflection showed it to be delicate. On the one hand I was Ballester's +servant, on the other I was Harry Vandeleur's friend. I could not side +with both, and I must side with one. If I threw in my lot with Juan +Ballester, I became a scoundrel. If I helped Olivia, I might lose my +bread and butter. I hope that in any case I should have decided as I +did, but there was a good deal of virtue in the "might." For, after +all, Juan seemed to recognise that I should be against him and to bear +no malice. He had even bidden me relieve Olivia of her fears +concerning her father's disappearance. He was a brute, but a brute on +rather a grand scale, who took what he wanted but, in spite of Olivia, +disdained revenge. I decided to help Olivia, and before nine the next +morning I knocked upon her house-door. She opened it herself. + +"You have news?" she asked, watching me with anxious eyes, and she +stood aside in the shadow of the door while I went in. + +"Your father is safe. He was sent to the frontier last night on a +special train. He is free." + +She had been steel to meet a blow. Now that it did not fall, her +strength for a moment failed her. She leaned against a table with her +hand to her heart; and her face suddenly told me that she had not +slept. + +"I will follow him," she said, and she hurried up the stairs. I looked +out a train. One left Santa Paula in an hour's time. I went out, +leaving the door ajar, and fetched a carriage. Then I shouted up the +stairs to Olivia, and she came down in a travelling dress of light +grey and a big black hat. Excitement had kindled her. I could no +longer have guessed that she had not slept. + +"You will see me off?" she said, as she handed me her bag; and she +stepped gaily into the carriage. + +"I will," I answered, and I jumped in behind her. + +The die was cast now. + +"Drive down to the station!" I cried. + +It was an open carriage. There were people in the street. Juan +Ballester would soon learn that he had played the grand gentleman to +his discomfiture. + +"Yes, I will see you off, Senorita," I said. "But I shall have a bad +half-hour with Ballester afterwards." + +"Oh!" cried Olivia, with a start. She looked at me as though for the +first time my existence had come within her field of vision. + +"I am quite aware that you have never given a thought to me," I said +sulkily, "but you need hardly make the fact so painfully obvious." + +Olivia's hand fell lightly upon mine and pressed. + +"My friend!" she said, and her eyes dwelt softly upon mine. Oh, she +knew her business as a woman! Then she looked heavenwards. + +"A man who helps a woman in trouble----" she began. + +"Yes," I interrupted. "He must look up there for his reward. +Meanwhile, Senorita, I am envying Harry Vandeleur," and I waved my +hand to the green houses. "For he has not only got you, but he has +realised his nice little fortune out of green paint." And all Olivia +did was to smile divinely; and all she said was "Harry." But there! +She said it adorably, and I shook her by the hand. + +"I forgive you," she said sweetly. Yes, she had nerve enough for that! + +We were driving down to the lower town. I began to consider how much +of the events of the early morning I should tell her. Something of +them she must know, but it was not easy for the informant. I told her +how Juan Ballester had come to me with letters signed by her father +and a memorandum in his handwriting. + +"The President gave them to me to copy out," I continued; and Olivia +broke in, rather quickly: + +"What did you do with them?" + +I stared at her. + +"I copied them out, of course." + +Olivia stared now. Her brows puckered in a frown. + +"You--didn't--destroy them when you had the chance?" she asked +incredulously. + +I jumped in my seat. + +"Destroy them?" I cried indignantly. "Really, Senorita!" + +"You are Harry's friend," she said. "I thought men did little things +like that for one another." + +"Little things!" I gasped. But I recognised that it would be waste of +breath to argue against a morality so crude. + +"You shall take Harry's opinion upon that point," said I. + +"Or perhaps Harry will take mine," she said softly, with a far-away +gaze; and the fly stopped at the station. I bought Olivia's ticket, I +placed her bag in the carriage, I stepped aside to let her mount the +step; and I knocked against a brilliant creature with a sword at his +side--he was merely a railway official. I begged his pardon, but he +held his ground. + +"Senor, you have, no doubt, his Excellency's permit for the Senorita +to travel," he said, holding out his hand. + +I was fairly staggered, but I did not misunderstand the man. Ballester +had foreseen that Olivia would follow her father, and he meant to keep +her in Santa Paula. I fumbled in my pocket to cover my confusion. + +"I must have left it behind," I said lamely. "But of course you know +me--his Excellency's secretary." + +"Who does not?" said the official, bowing politely. "And there is +another train in the afternoon, so that the Senorita will, I hope, not +be greatly inconvenienced." + +We got out of the station somehow. I was mad with myself. I had let +myself be misled by the belief that Ballester was indulging in one of +his exhibitions as a great gentleman. Whereas he was carefully +isolating Olivia so that she might be the more helplessly at his +disposition. We stumbled back again into a carriage. I dared not look +at Olivia. + +"The Calle Madrid!" I called to the driver, and Olivia cried "No!" She +turned to me, with a spot of colour burning in each cheek, and her +eyes very steady and ominous. + +"Will you tell him to drive to the President's?" she said calmly. + +The conventions are fairly strict in Maldivia. Young ladies do not as +a rule drop in casually upon men in the morning, and certainly not +upon Presidents. However, conventions are for the unharassed. We drove +to the President's. A startled messenger took in Olivia's name, and +she was instantly admitted. I went to my office, but I left the door +ajar. For down the passage outside of it Olivia would come when she +had done with Juan Ballester. I waited anxiously for a quarter of an +hour. Would she succeed with him? I had no great hopes. Anger so well +became her. But as the second quarter drew on, my hopes rose; and when +I heard the rustle of her dress, I flung open the door. A messenger +was escorting her, and she just shook her head at me. + +"What did he say?" I asked in English, and she replied in the same +language. + +"He will not let me go. He was--passionate. Underneath the passion he +was hard. He is the cruellest of men." + +"I will see you this afternoon," said I; and she passed on. I +determined to have it out with Ballester at the earliest possible +moment. And within the hour he gave me the opportunity. For he came +into the room and said: + +"Carlyon, I have not had my letters this morning. + +"No, your Excellency," I replied. I admit that my heart began to beat +more quickly than usual. "I took the Senorita Olivia to the station, +where we were stopped." + +"I thought you would," he said, with a grin. "But it is impossible +that the Senorita should leave Santa Paula." + +"But you can't keep her here!" I cried. "It's--it's----" "Tyrannical" +would not do, nor would "autocratic." Neither epithet would sting him. +At last I got the right one. + +"Your Excellency, it's barbaric!" + +Juan Ballester flushed red. I had touched him on the raw. To be a +thoroughly civilised person conducting a thoroughly civilised +Government over a thoroughly civilised community--that was his wild, +ambitious dream, and in rosy moments he would even flatter himself +that his dream was realised. + +"It's nothing of the kind," he exclaimed. "Don Santiago is a dangerous +person. I was moved by chivalry, the most cultured of virtues, to let +him go unpunished. But I am bound, from the necessities of the State, +to retain some pledge for his decent behaviour." + +The words sounded very fine and politic, but they could not obscure +the springs of his conduct. He had first got Harry Vandeleur out of +the way; then, and not till then, he had pounced upon Don Santiago. +His aim had been to isolate Olivia. There was very little chivalry +about the matter. + +"Besides," he argued, "if there were any barbarism--and there +isn't--the Senorita can put an end to it by a word." + +"But she won't say it!" I cried triumphantly. "No, she is already +pledged. She won't say it." + +Juan Ballester looked at me swiftly with a set and lowering face. No +doubt I had gone a step too far with him. But I would not have taken +back a word at that moment--no, not for the monopoly of green paint. I +awaited my instant dismissal, but he suddenly tilted back his chair +and grinned at me like a schoolboy. + +"I like a good spirit," he said, "whether it be in the Senorita or in +my private secretary." + +It was apparent that he did not think much of me as an antagonist. + +"Well," I grumbled, "Harry Vandeleur will be back in three weeks, and +your Excellency must make your account with him." + +"Yes, that's true," said Ballester, and--I don't know what it was in +him. It was not a gesture, for he did not move; it was not a smile, +for his face did not change. But I was immediately and absolutely +certain that it was not true at all. Reflection confirmed me. He had +taken so much pains to isolate Olivia that he would not have +overlooked Harry Vandeleur's return. Somewhere, on some pretext, at +Trinidad, or at our own port here, Las Cuevas, Harry Vandeleur would +be stopped. I was sure of it. The net was closing tightly round +Olivia. This morning the affair had seemed so simple--a mere matter of +a six hours' journey in a train. Now it began to look rather grim. I +stole a glance at Juan. He was still sitting with his chair tilted +back and his hands in his pockets, but he was gazing out of the +window, and his face was in repose. I recalled Olivia's phrase: "He is +the cruellest of men." Was she right? I wondered. In any case, yes, +the affair certainly began to look rather grim. + + + IV + +I was not free until five that afternoon. But I was in the Calle +Madrid before the quarter after five had struck. Again Olivia herself +admitted me. She led the way to her father's study at the back of the +house. Though I had hurried to the house, I followed her slowly into +the study. + +"You are still alone?" I asked. + +"An old woman--we once befriended her--will come in secretly for an +hour in the morning." + +"Secretly?" + +"She dare not do otherwise." + +I was silent. There was a refinement about Juan Ballester's +persecution which was simply devilish. He would not molest her, he +left her apparently free. But he kept her in a great, empty house in +the middle of the town, without servants, without power to leave, +without--oh, much more than I had any idea of at the time. He marooned +her in the midst of a great town even as Richard the Third did with +Jane Shore in the old play. But, though I did not know, I noticed that +she had changed since the morning. She had come out from her interview +with Juan Ballester holding her head high. Now she stood in front of +me twisting her hands, a creature of fear. + +"You must escape," I said. + +Her great eyes looked anxiously at me from a wan face. + +"I must," she said. "Yes, I must." Then came a pause, and with a break +in her voice she continued. "He warned me not to try. He said that it +would not be pleasant for me if I were caught trying." + +"A mere threat," I said contemptuously, "like the prisons." But I did +not believe my own words, and my blood ran cold. It would be easy to +implicate Olivia in the treachery of her father. And the police in +Maldivia are not very gentle in their handling of their prisoners, +women or men. Still, that risk must be run. + +"The _Ariadne_--an English mail-steamer--calls at Las Cuevas in a +fortnight," I said. "We must smuggle you out on her." + +Olivia stared at me in consternation. She stood like one transfixed. + +"A fortnight!" she said. Then she sat down in a chair clasping her +hands together. "A fortnight!" she whispered to herself, and as I +listened to her, and watched her eyes glancing this way and that like +an animal trapped in a cage, it was borne in on me that since this +morning some new thing had happened to frighten the very soul of her. +I begged her to tell it me. + +"No," she said, rising to her feet. "No doubt I can wait for a +fortnight." + +"That's right, Olivia," I said. "I will arrange a plan. Meanwhile, +where can I hear from you and you from me? It will not do for us to +meet too often. Have you friends who will be staunch?" + +"I wonder," she said slowly. "Enrique Gimeno and his wife, perhaps." + +"We will not strain their friendship very much. But we can meet at +their house. You can leave a letter for me there, perhaps, and I one +for you." + +Enrique Gimeno was a Spanish merchant and a gentleman. So far, I felt +sure, we could trust him. There was one other man in Santa Paula on +whom I could rely, the agent of the steamship company to which the +_Ariadne_ belonged. I rang him up on the telephone that afternoon and +arranged a meeting after dark in a back room of that very inferior +hotel in the lower town where for some weeks I had lived upon credit. +The agent, a solid man with business interests of his own in Maldivia, +listened to my story without a word of interruption. Then he said: + +"There are four things I can do for you, and no more. In the first +place, I can receive here the lady's luggage in small parcels and put +it together for her. In the second, I can guarantee that the _Ariadne_ +shall not put into Las Cuevas until dusk, and shall leave the same +night. In the third, I will have every bale of cargo already loaded +into her before the passenger train comes alongside from Santa Paula. +And in the fourth, I will arrange that the _Ariadne_ shall put to sea +the moment the last of her passengers has crossed the gangway. The +rest you must do for yourself." + +"Thank you," said I. "That's a great deal." + +But the confidence was all in my voice and none of it at all in my +heart. I went back to Juan Ballester and tried persuasion with him. + +"I have seen Olivia Calavera this afternoon," I said to him. + +"I know," said he calmly. + +I had personally no longer any fear that he might dismiss me. I would, +I think, have thrown up my job myself, but that I seemed to have a +better chance of helping the girl by staying on. + +"You will never win her," I continued, "your Excellency, by your way +of wooing." + +"Oh, and why not?" he asked. + +"She thinks you a brute," I said frankly. + +Juan Ballester reflected. + +"I don't much mind her thinking that," he answered slowly. + +"She hates you," I went on. + +"And I don't seriously object to her thinking that," he replied. + +"She despises you," I said in despair. + +"Ah!" said Ballester, with a change of voice. "I should object to her +doing that. But then it isn't true." + +I gave up efforts to persuade him. After all, the brute knew something +about women. + +I was thrown back upon the first plan. Olivia must escape from the +country on the _Ariadne_. How to smuggle her unnoticed out of her +empty house, down to Las Cuevas, and on board the steamer? That was +the problem; but though I lay awake over it o' nights, and pondered it +as I sat at my writing-table, the days crept on and brought me no +nearer to a solution. + +Meanwhile, the world was going very ill with Olivia. Santa Paula, +fresh from its war, was aflame with patriotism. The story of Santiago +Calavera's treachery had gone abroad--Juan Ballester had seen to +that--and since his daughter had been his secretary, she too was +tarnished. Her friends, with the exception of Enrique Gimeno, closed +their doors upon her. If she ventured abroad, she was insulted in the +street, and at night a lamp in a window of her house would bring a +stone crashing through the pane. Whenever I saw her, I noticed with an +aching heart the tension under which she laboured. Her face grew thin, +the tone had gone from her voice, the lustre from her eyes, the very +gloss from her hair. Sometimes it seemed to me that she must drop into +Ballester's net. I raged vainly over the problem, and the more because +I knew that Ballester would reap prestige instead of shame if she did. +The conventions were heavy on women in Maldivia, but they were not the +outward signs of any spiritual grace in the population. On the +contrary, they were evidence that the spiritual grace was lacking. If +Olivia found her way in the end to the Benandalla farm, Ballester +would be thought to have combined pleasure with the business of +revenge in a subtle and enviable way. The thought made me mad. I could +have knocked the heads together of the diminutive soldiers at the +sides of the President's doorway whenever I went in and out. And then, +when I was at my wits' end, a trivial incident suddenly showed me a +way out. + +I passed down the Calle Madrid one night, and the sight of the big, +dark house, with here and there a broken window, brought before my +mind so poignant a picture of the girl sitting in some back room alone +and in misery, and contrasted that picture so vividly with another +made familiar to me by many an evening in Santa Paula--that of a girl +shining exquisite beyond her peers in the radiance and the clean +strength of her youth--that upon returning to my room I took the +receiver from the telephone with no other thought than to talk to her +for a few moments and encourage her to keep a good heart. I gave the +number of her house to the Exchange, and the answer came promptly +back: + +"The line is out of order." + +I might have known that it would be. Olivia was to be marooned in her +great town-house as effectively as though she had been set down in a +lone island of the coral seas. I hung up the receiver again, and as I +hung it up suddenly I saw part of the way clear. I suppose that I had +used that telephone a hundred times during the past week. It had stood +all day at my elbow. Yet not until to-night had it reminded me of that +little matter of the Opera House--one of those matters in which +dealings with Ballester had left their mark. I had the answer to a +part of the problem which troubled me. I saw a way to smuggle Olivia +from Santa Paula on board the _Ariadne_. The more I thought upon it, +the clearer grew that possibility. There still remained the question: +How to get Olivia unnoticed from her house in the middle of a busy, +narrow street on the night when the _Ariadne_ was to sail. The +difficulties there brought me to a stop. And I was still revolving the +problem in my mind when the private bell rang from Ballester's room. I +went to see what he wanted; and I had not been five minutes in his +presence before, with a leaping heart, I realised that this question +was being answered too. + +Juan had of late been troubled. But not at all about Olivia. As far as +she was concerned, he ate his meals, went about his business, and +slept o' nights like any good man who has not a girl in torment upon +his conscience. But he was troubled about a rumour which was spreading +through the town. + +"You have heard of it?" he asked of me. "It is said that I am +proposing to run away secretly from Maldivia." + +I nodded. + +"I have laughed at it, of course." + +"Yes," said he, with his face in a frown. "But the rumour grows. I +doubt if laughter is enough"; and then he banged his fist violently +upon the table and cried: "I suppose Santiago Calavera is at the +bottom of it!" + +Santiago had become something of an obsession to the President. I +think he excused to himself his brutality towards Olivia by imagining +everywhere Don Santiago's machinations. As a fact, the rumour was +spontaneous in Santa Paula. It was generally suspected that the +President had annexed the war indemnity and any other portions of the +revenue which he could without too open a scandal. He was a bachelor. +The whole of Santa Paula put itself in his place. What else should he +do but retire secretly and expeditiously to some country where he +could enjoy the fruits of his industry in peace and security? Calavera +had nothing whatever to do with the story. But I did not contradict +Ballester, and he continued: + +"It is said that I have taken my passage in the _Ariadne_." + +I started, but he was not looking at me. + +"I must lay hold upon this rumour," he said, "and strangle it. I have +thought of a way. I will give a party here on the evening of the day +the _Ariadne_ calls at Las Cuevas. I will spend a great deal of money +on that party. It will be plain that I have no thought of sailing on +the _Ariadne_. I hope it will be plain that I have no thought of +sailing at all. For I think everyone in Santa Paula," he added with a +grim laugh, "knows me well enough to feel sure that I should not spend +a great deal of money on a party if I meant to run away from the place +afterwards." + +Considering Santa Paula impartially, I found the reasoning to be +sound. Juan Ballester was not a generous man. He took, but he did not +give. + +"This is what I propose," he said, and he handed me a paper on which +he had jotted down his arrangements. He had his heart set on his +Republic, that I knew. But I knew too that it must have been a fearful +wrench for him to decide upon the lavish expenditure of this +entertainment. There was to be dancing in the ballroom, a conjuror +where the Cabinet met--that seemed to be a happy touch--supper in a +marquee, fairy lights and fireworks in the garden, and buffets +everywhere. + +"You yourself will see after the invitations," he said, with a grin. + +"Certainly, your Excellency," I answered. They would come within the +definition of opportunities. + +"But here," he continued, "is a list of those who must be asked"; and +it was not until I had the list in my hand that I began to see that +here I might find an answer to my question. I looked quickly down the +names. + +"Yes, she's there," said Juan Ballester; and there she was, as plain +as a pikestaff--Olivia Calavera. I was not surprised. Ballester never +troubled about such trifles as consistency. He wanted her, so he +invited her. Nevertheless, I could have danced a _pas seul_. For +though Olivia could hardly slip out of her own house in any guise +without detection since she had no visitors, she would have a good +chance of escaping from the throng of guests at the President's party. +I left Juan Ballester with a greatly lightened heart. I looked at my +watch. It was not yet eleven. Full of my idea, nothing would serve me +but I must this moment set it in motion. I went downstairs into the +Square. Though the night was hot, I had slipped on an overcoat to +conceal the noticeable breastplate of a white shirt, and I walked +quickly for half a mile until I came opposite to a high and neglected +building, a place of darkness and rough shutters. This was the Opera +House. Beside the Opera House was a little dwelling. I rang the bell, +and the door was opened by a tall, lean gentleman in a frock-coat. For +the third time that night good luck had stood my friend. + +"Mr. Henry P. Crowninshield," I said, "the world-famous _impresario_, +I believe?" + +"And you, Mr. Carlyon, are the President's private secretary?" he said +coldly. + +"Not to-night," said I. + +With a grunt Mr. Crowninshield led the way into his parlour and stood +with his finger-tips resting on the table and his long body bent over +it. Mr. Crowninshield came from New York City, and I did not beat +about the bush with him. I told him exactly the story of Olivia and +Juan Ballester. + +"She is in great trouble," I concluded. "There is something which I do +not understand. But it comes to this. She must escape. The railways +are watched, so is her house. There is only one way of escape--and +that is on the seventeenth, the night when the _Ariadne_ calls at Las +Cuevas and the President gives his party." + +Mr. Crowninshield nodded, and his long body slid with a sort of fluid +motion into a chair. + +"Go on, sir," he said; "I am interested." + +"And I encouraged," said I. "Let us follow the Senorita's proceedings +on the night of the seventeenth. She goes dressed in her best to the +President's party. She is on view to the last possible moment. She +then slips quietly out into the garden. In the garden wall there is a +private door, of which I have a key. I let her out by that door. +Outside that door there is a closed, inconspicuous carriage waiting +for her. She slips into that carriage--and that is where you come in." + +"How?" asked Mr. Crowninshield. + +"Inside the carriage she finds a disguise--dress, wig, everything +complete--a disguise easy to slip on over her ball-gown and sufficient +to baffle a detective half a yard away." + +"You shall have it, sir! My heart bleeds for that young lady!" cried +Mr. Crowninshield, and he grasped my hand in the noblest fashion. He +had been a baritone in his day. "Besides," and he descended swiftly to +the mere level of a human being, "I have a score against Master Juan, +and I should like to get a little of my own back." + +That was precisely the point of view upon which I had counted. +Throughout his first term of office Juan Ballester had hired a box at +the Opera. Needless to say, he had never paid for it, and Mr. +Crowninshield unwisely pressed for payment. When requests failed, Mr. +Crowninshield went to threats. He threatened the Law, the American +Eagle, and the whole of the United States Navy. Ballester's reply had +been short, sharp, and decisive. The State telephone system was being +overhauled. Juan Ballester moved the Exchange to a building on the +other side of the Opera House, and then summarily closed the Opera +House on the ground that the music prevented the operators from +hearing the calls. It was not astonishing that Mr. Crowninshield was +eager to help Olivia Calavera. He lit a candle and led me through his +private door across the empty theatre, ghostly with its sheeted +benches, to the wardrobe-room. We chose a nun's dress, long enough to +hide Olivia's gown, and a coif which would conceal her hair and +overshadow her face. + +"In that her own father wouldn't know her. It will be dark; the Quay +is ill-lighted, she has only to shuffle like an old woman; she will go +third-class, of course, in the train. Who is to see her off?" + +"No one," I answered. "I dread that half-hour in the train for her +without a friend at her side. The Quay will be watched, too. She must +run the gauntlet alone. Luckily there will be a crowd of harvesters +returning to Spain. Luckily, also, she has courage. But it will be the +worst of her trials. My absence would be noticed. I can't go." + +"No, but I can!" cried Mr. Crowninshield. "An old padre seeing off an +old nun to her new mission--eh? Juan will be gritting his teeth in the +morning because I am an American citizen." + +Mr. Crowninshield was aflame with his project. He took a stick and +tottered about the room in the most comical fashion. "I will bring the +carriage myself to the garden door," said he. "I will be inside of it. +My property man--he comes from Poughkeepsie--shall be the driver. I +will dress the young lady as we drive slowly to the station, and +Sister Pepita and the Padre Antonio will direct their feeble steps to +the darkest corner of the worst-lit carriage in the train." + +I thanked him with all my heart. It had seemed to me terrible that +Olivia should have to make her way alone on board the steamer. Now she +would have someone to enhearten and befriend her. I met Olivia once at +the house of Enrique Gimeno, and made her acquainted with the scheme, +and on the night of the sixteenth the steamship agent rang me up on +the telephone. + +"The _Ariadne_ will arrive at nine to-morrow night. The passengers +will leave Santa Paula at half-past ten. Good luck!" + +I went to the window and looked out over the garden. The marquee was +erected, the fairy lights strung upon the trees, a set piece with the +portrait of Juan Ballester and a Latin motto--_semper fidelis_--raised +its monstrous joinery against the moon. Twenty-four hours more and, if +all went well, Olivia would be out upon the high seas, on her way to +Trinidad. Surely all must go well. I went over in my mind every detail +of our preparations. I recognised only one chance of failure--the +chance that Mr. Crowninshield in his exuberance might over-act his +part. But I was wrong. It was, after all, Olivia who brought our fine +scheme to grief. + + + V + +There is no doubt about it. Women are not reasonable beings. Otherwise +Olivia would never have come to the President's party in a white lace +coat over a clinging gown of white satin. She looked beautiful, but I +was dismayed when I saw her. She had come with the Gimenos, and I took +her aside, and I am afraid that I scolded her. + +"But you told me," she expostulated, "I was to spare no pains. There +must be nothing of the traveller about me"; and there was not. From +the heels of her satin slippers to the topmost tress of her hair she +was dressed as she alone could dress in Santa Paula. + +"But of course I meant you to wear black," I whispered. + +"Oh, I didn't think of it," Olivia exclaimed wearily. "Please don't +lecture"; and she dropped into a chair with such a lassitude upon her +face that I thought she was going to faint. + +"It doesn't matter," I said hastily. "No doubt the disguise will cover +it. At ten o'clock, slip down into the garden. Until then, dance!" + +"Dance!" she exclaimed, looking piteously up into my face. + +"Yes," I insisted impatiently, and taking her hand, I raised her from +her chair. + +She had no lack of partners, for the President himself singled her out +and danced in a quadrille with her. Others timorously followed his +example. But though she did dance, I was grievously disappointed--for +a time. It seemed that her soul was flickering out in her. Just when +she most needed her courage and her splendid spirit, she failed of +them. + +There were only two more hours after a long fortnight of endurance. +Yet those two last hours, it seemed, she could not face. I know now +that I never acted with greater cruelty than on that night when I kept +her dancing. But even while she danced, there came to me some fear +that I had misjudged her. I watched her from a corner of the ballroom. +There was a great change in her. Her face seemed to me smaller, her +eyes bigger, darker even, and luminous with some haunting look. But +there was more. I could not define the change--at first. Then the word +came to me. There was a spirituality in her aspect which was new to +her, an unearthliness. Surely, I thought, the fruit of great +suffering; and blundering, with the truth under my very nose, I began +to ask myself a foolish question. Had Harry Vandeleur played her +false? + +A movement of the company awakened me. A premonitory sputter of +rockets drew the guests to the cloak-room, from the cloak-room to the +garden. I saw Olivia fetch her lace coat and slip it over her +shoulders like the rest. It was close upon ten. The Fates were +favouring us, or perhaps I was favouring the Fates. For I had arranged +that the fireworks should begin just a few minutes before the hour +struck. In the darkness of the garden Olivia could slip away, and her +absence would not afterwards be noticed. + +I waited at the garden door. I heard the clock strike. I saw Juan +Ballester's profile in fire against a dark blue sky of velvet and +stars. I shook hands with myself in that the moon would not rise till +one. And then a whiteness gleamed between the bushes, and Olivia was +at my side. Her hand sought mine and clung to it. I opened the postern +and looked out into a little street. The lamps of a closed carriage +shone twenty yards away, and but for the carriage the street was +empty. + +"Now!" I whispered. + +We ran out. I opened the carriage door. I caught a glimpse of horn +spectacles, a lantern-jawed, unshaven face, a shovel hat; and I heard +a stifled oath. Mr. Crowninshield, too, had noticed Olivia's white +gown. She jumped in, I shut the door, and the carriage rolled away. I +went back into the garden, where Juan Ballester's profile was growing +ragged. + +Of the next hour or two I have only confused memories. I counted +stages in Olivia's progress as I passed from room to room among the +guests. Now she would have reached the station; now the train had +stopped on the Quay at Las Cuevas; now, perhaps, the gangway had been +withdrawn and the great ship was warping out into the river. At one +o'clock I smoked a cigarette in the garden. From the marquee came the +clatter of supper. In the sky the moon was rising. And somewhere +outside the three-mile limit a rippling path of silver struck across +the _Ariadne's_ dark bows. I was conscious of a swift exultation. I +heard the throb of the screw and saw the water flashing from the +ship's sides. + +Then I remembered that I had left the garden door unlocked. I went to +it and by chance looked out into the street. I received a shock. For, +twenty yards away, the lights of a closed carriage shone quietly +beside the kerb. I wondered whether the last few hours had been really +the dream of a second. I even looked back into the garden, to make +sure that the profile of Juan Ballester was not still sputtering in +fire. Then a detail or two brought me relief. The carriage was clearly +a private carriage; the driver on the box wore livery--at all events, +I saw a flash of bright buttons on his coat. In my relief I walked +from the garden towards the carriage. The driver recognised me most +likely--recognised, at all events, that I came from the private door +of the President's garden. For he made some kind of salute. + +I supposed that he had been told to wait at this spot, away from the +park of carriages, and I should have turned back but for a +circumstance which struck me as singular. It was a very hot night, and +yet not only were the windows of the carriage shut, but the blinds +were drawn close besides. I could not see into the carriage, but there +was light at the edges of the blinds. A lamp was burning inside. I +stood on the pavement, and a chill struck into my blood and made me +shiver. I listened. There was no sound of any movement within the +carriage. It must be empty. I assured myself and again doubted. The +little empty street, the closed carriage with the light upon the edges +of the blinds, the absolute quiet, daunted me. I stepped forward and +gently opened the door. I saw Olivia. There was no trace of the nun's +gown, nor the coif. But that her hair was ruffled she might this +moment have left Juan Ballester's drawing-room. + +She turned her face to me, shook her head, and smiled. + +"It was of no use, my friend," she said gently. "They were on the +watch at Las Cuevas. An officer brought me back. He has gone in to ask +Juan what he shall do with me." + +Olivia had given up the struggle--that was clear. + +"It was Crowninshield's fault!" I cried. + +"No, it was mine," she answered. + +And here is what had happened, as I learnt it afterwards. All had gone +well until the train reached Las Cuevas. There the police were on the +look-out for her. The Padre Antonio, however, excited no suspicion, +and very likely Sister Pepita would have passed unnoticed too. But as +she stepped down from the carriage on to the step, and from the step +to the ground, an officer was startled by the unexpected appearance of +a small foot in a white silk stocking and a white satin slipper. Now, +the officer had seen nuns before, old and young, but never had he seen +one in white satin shoes, to say nothing of the silk stockings. He +became more than curious. He pointed her out to his companions. Sister +Pepita was deftly separated in the crowd from the Padre Antonio--cut +out, to borrow the old nautical phrase--and arrested. She was +conducted towards a room in the station, but the steamer's siren +hooted its warning to the passengers, and despair seized upon Olivia. +She made a rush for the gangway, she was seized, she was carried +forcibly into the room and stripped of her nun's disguise and coif. +She was kept a prisoner in the room until the _Ariadne_ had left the +Quay. Then she was placed in a carriage and driven back, with an +officer of the police at her side, to the garden door of the +President's house. + +Something of this Olivia told me at the time, but she was interrupted +by the return of the officer and a couple of Juan Ballester's +messengers. + +"His Excellency will see you," said the officer to her. He conducted +her through the garden and by the private doorway into Ballester's +study. I had followed behind the servants and I remained in the room. +We waited for a few minutes, and Juan himself came in. He went quickly +over to Olivia's side. His voice was all gentleness. But that was his +way with her, and I set no hopes on it. + +"I am grieved, Senorita, if you have suffered rougher treatment than +befits you. But you should not have tried to escape." + +Olivia looked at him with a piteous helplessness in her eyes. "What am +I to do, then?" she seemed to ask, and, with the question, to lose the +last clutch upon her spirit. For her features quivered, she dropped +into a chair, laid her arms upon the table, and, burying her face in +them, burst into tears. + +It was uncomfortable--even for Juan Ballester. There came a look of +trouble in his face, a shadow of compunction. For myself, the heaving +of her young shoulders hurt my eyes, the sound of her young voice +breaking in sobs tortured my ears. But this was not the worst of it, +for she suddenly threw herself back in her chair with the tears wet +upon her cheeks, and, beating the table piteously with the palms of +her hands, she cried: + +"I am hungry--oh, so hungry!" + +"Good Heavens!" cried Ballester. He started forward, staring into her +face. + +"But you knew," said Olivia, and he turned away to one of the +messengers, and bade him bring some supper into the room. + +"And be quick," said I. + +"Yes, yes, be quick," said Juan. + +At last I had the key to her. She had been starving, in that great, +empty house in the Calle Madrid. "A fortnight!" she had cried in +dismay. I understood now the reason of her terror. She had known that +she would have to starve. And she had held her head high, making no +complaint, patiently enduring. It was not her spirit which had failed +her. I cursed myself for a fool as once more I enthroned her. Her face +had grown smaller, her eyes bigger. There was a look of spirituality +which I had not seen before. I had noticed the signs, and I had +misread them. Her lassitude this evening, her vain struggle with the +police, her apathy under their treatment of her, were all explained. +Not her courage, but her body had failed her. She was starving. + +A tray was brought in and placed before her. She dried her eyes and +with a sigh she drew her chair in to the table and ate, indifferent to +the presence of Ballester, of the officer who remained at the door, +and of myself. Ballester stood and watched her. "Good Heavens!" he +said again softly, and going to her side he filled her glass with +champagne. + +She nodded her thanks and raised it to her lips almost before he had +finished pouring. A little colour came into her cheeks and she turned +again to her supper. She was a healthy girl. There never had been +anything of the drooping lily about Olivia. She had always taken an +interest in her meals, however dainty she might look. The knowledge of +that made her starvation doubly cruel--not only to her. Juan sat down +opposite to her. There was no doubt now about the remorse in his face. +He never took his eyes from her as she ate. Once she looked up and saw +him watching her. + +"But you knew," she said. "I was alone in the house. How much money +did you leave there for me when you took my father away? A few dollars +which your men had not discovered." + +"But you yourself----" he stammered. + +"I was at a ball," said Olivia scornfully. "How much money does a girl +take with her to a ball? Where would she put it?" + +There was no answer to that question. + +"The next day I went to the bank," she continued. "My father's money +was impounded. You had seen to that. All the unpaid bills came in in a +stream. I couldn't pay them. I could get no credit. You had seen to +that. My friends left me alone. Of course I starved; you knew that I +should. You meant me to," and, with the air of one who has been +wasting time, she turned again to her supper. + +"I never thought that you would hold out," stammered Ballester. I had +never seen him in an apologetic mood before, and he looked miserable. +"I hadn't _seen_ that you were starving." + +Olivia looked up at him. It was not so much that her face relented, as +that it showed an interest in something beyond her supper. + +"Yes," she said, nodding at him. "I think that's true. You hadn't seen +with your own eyes that I was starving. So my starving wasn't very +real to you." + +Ballester changed her plate and filled her glass again. + +"Ah!" said Olivia with satisfaction, hitching up her chair still +closer. She was really having a good square meal. + +"But why didn't you tell me?" I asked. + +"I told no one," said Olivia, shaking her head. "I thought that I +could manage till to-night. Once or twice I called on the Gimenos at +luncheon-time, and I had one or two dollars. No; I would tell no one." + +"Yes," said Juan, "I understand that. It's the reason why I wanted +you." And at this sign of his comprehension of her, Olivia again +looked at him, and again the interest in her eyes was evident. + +At last she pushed back her chair. The tray was removed. Ballester +offered her a cigarette. She smiled faintly as she took it. Certainly +her supper had done her a world of good. She lit her cigarette and +leaned her elbows on the table. + +"And now," she said, "what do you mean to do with me?" + +Ballester went to his bureau, wrote on a sheet of paper and brought +the paper to Olivia. + +"You can show this at the railway-station to-morrow," he said, and he +laid the permit on the table and turned away. + +Women are not reasonable people. For the second time that night Olivia +forced me to contemplate that trite reflection. For now that she had +got what she had suffered hunger and indignities to get, she merely +played with it with the tips of her fingers, looking now upon the +table, now at Juan Ballester's back, and now upon the table again. + +"And you?" she said gently. "What will become of you?" + +I suppose Ballester was the only one in the room who did not notice +the softness of her voice. To me it was extraordinary. He had tortured +her with hunger, exposed her to the gentle methods of his police, yet +the fact that he did these things because he wanted her seemed to make +him suddenly valuable to her now that she was free of him. + +Ballester turned round and leaned against the wall with his hands in +his pockets. + +"I?" he said. "I shall just stay on alone here until some day someone +gets stronger than I am, perhaps, and puts me up against the wall +outside----" + +"Oh, no!" cried Olivia, interrupting him. + +"Well, one never knows," said his Excellency, shrugging his shoulders. +He turned to the window and drew aside the curtains. The morning had +come. It was broad daylight outside. + +"Unless, Olivia," he added, turning again towards her, "you will +reconsider your refusal to marry me. Together we could do great +things." + +It was the most splendid performance of the grand gentleman which +Ballester ever gave. And he knew it. You could see him preening +himself as he spoke. His gesture was as noble as his words. From head +to foot he was the perfect cavalier, and consciousness of the +perfection of his chivalry shone out from him like a nimbus. I looked +quickly towards Olivia--in some alarm for Harry Vandeleur. She had +lowered her head, so that it was impossible to see how she had taken +Ballester's honourable amendment. But when she raised her head again a +smile of satisfaction was just disappearing from her face; and the +smile betrayed her. She had been playing for this revenge from the +moment when she had finished her supper. + +"I am honoured, Senor Juan," she said sedately, "but I am already +promised." + +Ballester turned abruptly away. Whether he had seen the smile, +whether, if he had seen it, he understood it, I never knew. + +"You had better get the Senorita a carriage," he said to the officer +at the door. As the man went out, the music from the ballroom floated +in. Juan Ballester hesitated, and no shock which Olivia had given to +me came near the shock which his next words produced. + +"Don Santiago shall have his money. You can draw on it, Senorita, +to-morrow, before you go." + +"Thank you," she said. + +The messenger reappeared. A carriage was waiting. Olivia rose and +looked at Juan timidly. He walked ceremoniously to the door and held +it open. + +"Good night," she said. + +He bowed and smiled in a friendly fashion enough, but he did not +answer. It seemed that he had spoken his last word to her. She +hesitated and went out. At once the President took a quick step +towards me. + +"Do you know what is said to-night?" he said violently. + +I drew back. I could not think what he meant. To tell the truth, I +found him rather alarming. + +"No," I answered. + +"Why, that I have given this party as a farewell; that I am still +going to bolt from Maldivia. Do you see? I have spent all this money +for nothing." + +I drew a breath of relief. His violence was not aimed against me. + +"That's a pity," I said. "But the rumour can still be killed. I +thought of a way yesterday." + +"Will it cost much?" he asked. + +"Very little." + +"What am I to do?" + +"Paint the Presidential House," said I. "It wants it badly, and all +Santa Paula will be very sure that you wouldn't spend money in paint +if you meant to run away." + +"That's a good idea," said he, and he sat down at once and began to +figure out the expense. "A couple of hundred dollars will do it." + +"Not well," said I. + +"We don't want it done well," said Juan. "Two men on a plank will, be +enough. A couple of hundred dollars is too much. Half that will be +quite sufficient. By the way"--and he sat with his pen poised--"just +run after--her--and tell her that Vandeleur is landing to-morrow at +Trinidad. I invented some business for him there." + +He bent down over the desk. His back was towards the door. As I turned +the handle, someone was opening it from the other side. It was Olivia +Calavera. + +"I came back," she said, with the colour mantling in her face. "You +see, I am going away to-morrow--and I hadn't said 'Good-bye.'" + +Juan must have heard her voice. + +"Please go and give that message," he said sharply. "And shut the +door! I don't want to be disturbed." + +Olivia drew back quickly. I was amazed to see that she was hurt. + +"His message is for you," I said severely. "Harry Vandeleur lands at +Trinidad to-morrow." + +"Thank you," she said slowly; she turned away and walked as slowly +down the passage. "Goodbye," she said, with her back towards me. + +"I will see you off to-morrow, Senorita," I said; and she turned back +to me. + +"No," she said gently. "Don't do that! We will say 'Good-bye' here." + +She gave me her hand--she had been on the point of going without even +doing that. "Thank you very much," she added, and she walked rather +listlessly away. She left me with an uneasy impression that her thanks +were not very sincere. I am bound to admit that Olivia puzzled me that +night. To extract the proposal of marriage from Ballester was within +the rules of the game and good play into the bargain. But to come back +again as she had done, was not quite fair. However, as I watched her +go, I thought that I would keep my bewilderment to myself. I have +never asked Harry Vandeleur, for instance, whether he could explain +it. I went back to the study. + +"I think fifty dollars will be ample," said Ballester, still figuring +on his paper. "Has she gone?" + +"She is going," said I. He rose from his chair, broke off a rose from +a bowl of flowers which, on this night only, decorated the room. Then +he opened the window and leaned out. Olivia, I reckoned, would be just +at this moment stepping into the carriage. He tossed the rose down and +drew back quickly out of sight. + +"Shall it be green paint, your Excellency?" I asked. + +His Excellency, I regret to say, swore loudly. + +"Never in this world!" said he. + +I had left the door open. The music of a languorous and melting waltz +filled the room. + +"I do loathe music!" cried Juan Ballester violently. It was the +nearest approach to a sentimental remark that I had ever heard him +make. + + + + + + NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF + CAPRICORN + + + + + NORTH OF THE TROPIC OF + CAPRICORN + + +The strong civic spirit of the Midlands makes them fertile in +reformers; and Mr. Endicott even in his early youth was plagued by the +divine discontent with things as they are. Neither a happy marriage, +nor a prosperous business, nor an engaging daughter appeased him. But +he was slow in discovering a remedy. The absence of any sense of +humour blunted his wits and he lived in a vague distress, out of which +it needed the death of his wife to quicken him. "Some result must come +out of all these years of pondering and discomfort, if only as a +memorial to her," he reflected, and he burrowed again amongst the +innumerable panaceas. Then at last he found it--on an afternoon walk +in June when the sharp contrast between the grime of the town and the +loveliness of green and leaf which embowered it so closely, smote upon +him almost with pain. The Minimum Wage. Like Childe Roland's Dark +Tower, it had lain within his vision for many a long mile of his +pilgrimage. His eyes had rested on it and had never taken it in; so +simple and clear it was to the view. + +Thereafter he was quick to act. Time was running on. He was forty-two. +He disposed of his business, and a year later was elected to +Parliament. Once in the House he walked warily. He had no personal +ambition, but he was always afraid lest some indiscretion should set +the House against him and delay his cause. Mr. Endicott had his plan +quite clear in his mind. Samuel Plimsoll was his model. The great Bill +for the establishment of the Minimum Wage should be a private member's +Bill moved from the back benches session after session if need be, and +driven through Parliament into Law at last by the sheer weight of its +public value. + +Accordingly for a year he felt his way, learning the rules and orders, +speaking now and then without subservience and without impertinence; +and after the prorogation of the House for the summer, he took his +daughter with him to a farm-house set apart in a dale of Cumberland. +In that solitary place, inspired by the brown fells and the tumbling +streams, and with the one person he loved as his companion, he +proposed finally to smooth and round his Bill. + +Accident or destiny, however--whichever you like to call the beginning +of tragic things--put an Australian in the same compartment of the +railway-carriage; and the Australian was led to converse by the sight +of various cameras on the luggage rack. + +"My father is very fond of photography," said Elsie Endicott. "It +amuses him, and the pictures which he takes if the day is clear, are +sometimes quite recognisable." + +"My dear!" said Mr. Endicott. + +Elsie turned to the window and shook hands with two young men who had +come to see her off. One of them, whom Mr. Endicott vaguely remembered +to have seen at meals in his house, climbed on the footboard. + +"You will take care of Miss Endicott, sir," he said firmly. "She has +been overdoin' it a bit, dancin', you know, and that sort of thing, +while you were at the House of Commons." + +Mr. Endicott chuckled. + +"I'll tell you something about my daughter," he replied. "She may look +like china, but she is pretty solid earthenware really. And if there +are any others as anxious about her as you are you might spread the +good news." + +The train moved off. "So you are in the House of Commons," said the +Australian, and he began to talk. "Our great trouble--yours and +mine--is----" + +"I know it," Mr. Endicott interrupted with a smile of confidence. + +"Of course you do," replied the Australian. "It's the overcrowding of +the East under the protective rule of the British." + +"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Endicott blankly. + +"We could help a good deal," the Australian continued, "if only our +Government had got a ha'porth of common sense. North of the Tropic of +Capricorn, there's land and to spare which coloured labour could +cultivate and white labour can't." + +This was strange talk to Mr. Endicott. He was aware, but not conscious +of great dominions and possessions outside the British Islands. He had +indeed avoided the whole subject. He was shy of the phrase which +described them, as a horse is shy of a newspaper blown about the +street. The British Empire! The very words had a post-prandial sound. +Instead of suggesting to him vast territories with myriads of men and +women groping amongst enormous problems, they evoked a picture of a +flamboyant gentleman in evening dress standing at the head of a table, +his face congested with too much dinner, a glass of wine in his one +hand, a fat cigar in the other, and talking vauntingly. This +particular sentence of the Australian stuck inconveniently in his mind +and smouldered there. + +For instance. On the afternoon of their arrival Elsie was arranging +his developing dishes and his chemicals on a small rough table in a +corner of their one living-room. She put an old basket-chair by the +table and set around it a screen which she had discovered in one of +the bedrooms upstairs. + +"There!" she said. "You can make all your messes here, father, and we +can keep the room looking habitable, and I shan't get all my frocks +stained." + +"Very well, Elsie," said her father absently, and he spoke his own +thoughts. "That was a curious fear of the man in the train, Elsie. I +think there's no truth in it. No, the danger's here in this country; +here's what's to be done to avert it," and he slapped his hand down +upon his pile of statistics. + +"No doubt, father," said Elsie, and she went on with her work. + +The very next evening he returned again to the subject. It was after +dinner and about half-past nine o'clock. The blinds had not been +lowered and Endicott looked out through the open windows on to a great +flank of Scawfell which lay drenched in white moonlight a couple of +fields away. + +"North of the Tropic of Capricorn," he said, "I wish we had an atlas, +Elsie." + +"I'll write to London and buy one," said the girl. "We haven't got +more than a 'Handy Gazetteer' even at home. It'll be amusing to plan +out some long journeys which we can take together when you have passed +your Bill into law." + +Endicott smiled grimly at his daughter. + +"I reckon we won't take many journeys together, Elsie. Oh, you needn't +look surprised and hurt! I am not taken in by you a bit, my dear. That +young spark on the footboard who told me I didn't take enough care of +you"--and Elsie gurgled with laughter at the recollection--"threw a +dreadful light upon your character and gave me a clue besides to the +riddle of your vast correspondence. I hope you are telling them all +that my persistent unkindness is not driving you into a decline." + +Elsie paused in the act of addressing an envelope--there was a +growing pile of letters in front of her--to reassure her father. + +"I tell them all," she replied, "that you neither beat me nor starve +me, and that if you weren't so very messy with your chemicals in the +corner over there, I should have very little reason to change my +home." + +"Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Endicott. He was very proud of his +daughter and especially of her health. With her dark rebellious hair, +the delicate colour in her cheeks, and her starry eyes, she had a +quite delusive look of fragility. But she could dance any youth of her +acquaintance to a standstill without ruffling her curls, as he very +well knew. He gazed at her lowered head with a smile. + +"However, all this doesn't help me with the Minimum Wage," he +continued, and he turned again to the papers on his desk by the +window, while Elsie at the table in the middle of the big low-roofed +room, continued to write her letters. + +They were still engaged in these pursuits when Mrs. Tyson, their +landlady, came into the room to lower the blinds. + +"No, please leave them up," said Endicott, in an irritable voice. +"I'll draw them down myself before we go to bed." + +Mrs. Tyson accordingly left the blinds alone. + +"And you'll be careful of the Crown Derby," she said imperturbably, +nodding towards a china tea-set ranged in an open cabinet near to the +door. "Gentlemen from London have asked me to sell it over and over. +For it's of great value. But I won't, as I promised my mother. She, +poor woman----" + +"Yes, yes," interposed Mr. Endicott, "we'll be very careful. You may +remember you told us all about it yesterday." + +Mrs. Tyson turned down a little lower the one oil lamp which, with the +candles upon Endicott's desk, lighted the room, and went back to the +inner door. + +"Will you be wanting anything more for a little while?" she asked. +"For my girl's away, and I must go down the valley. I am sending some +sheep away to market to-morrow morning." + +"No, we want nothing at all," said Elsie, without paying much +attention to what the woman was saying. Mrs. Tyson was obviously +inclined to fuss, and would have to be suppressed. But she went out +now without another word. There were two doors to the room at opposite +ends, the inner one leading to a small hall, the kitchen and the +staircase, the other, and outer door, opening directly close by the +window on to a tiny garden with a flagged pathway. At the end of the +path there was a gate, and a low garden wall. Beyond the gate a narrow +lane and a brook separated the house from the fields and the great +flank of fell. + +The night was hot, and Endicott, unable to concentrate his attention +upon his chosen theme, had the despairing sensation that he had lost +grip of it altogether: his eyes wandered from his papers so +continually to the hillside asleep in the bright moonlight. Here a +great boulder threw a long motionless shadow down the slope, like a +house; there a sharp rock-ridge cropping out of the hill, raised +against the sky a line of black pinnacles like a file of soldiers. + +"I can't work to-night, Elsie, and that's the truth," cried Endicott +passionately, "though this is just the night when one ought to be most +alive to the millions of men cooped in hot cities and living +wretchedly. I'll go out of doors. Will you come?" + +Elsie hesitated. Mr. Endicott was to carry that poignant recollection +to his death. One word of persuasion and she would have come with him. +But he did not speak it, and Elsie bent her head again to her work. + +"No, thanks, father," she said. "I'll finish these letters. They must +go off to-morrow morning." + +Endicott blew out his candles, lit his pipe, and took up his cap. He +was still smiling over her important air as of someone with great and +urgent business. He went out into the garden. Elsie heard the latch of +the gate click. He walked across the little bridge over the brook and +at once his mood changed. He wandered across the fields and up the +hillside, sorely discontented with himself. He had lost interest in +the Minimum Wage. So much he admitted. The surroundings which were to +inspire him had, on the contrary, merely provoked a disinclination to +do any work whatever. The reaction after the strain of the Session was +making itself felt. The question in his mind was "Why bother?" High up +the hill he sat down upon a boulder to have it out with himself. + +The sound of the stream dropping from pool to pool of rock on its way +down the valley rose in a continuous thunder to his ears. He looked +down at the little farm-house beneath him, and the golden light of the +lamp within the windows of the sitting-room. + +As he looked the light moved. Then it diminished; then it vanished +altogether. Endicott chuckled and lit a second pipe, holding the +lighted match in the hollow of his hands and bending his head close +over it, because of a whisper of air. Elsie had finished her letters +to the youths who besieged her and was off to bed. Only the moonlight +blazed upon the windows now and turned them into mirrors of burnished +silver. + +Endicott smoked a third pipe whilst he wrestled with himself upon the +hillside. To-morrow he would get up very early, bathe in the big deep +pool, transparent to the lowest of its thirty feet of water, and then +spend a long morning with the wage-lists of the chain-making industry. +That was settled. Nothing should change his plan. Meanwhile it was +very pleasant up here under the cool sky of moonlight and faint stars. + +He dragged himself up reluctantly from his seat, and went down towards +the farm. There was a little stone bridge to cross over one of the +many mountain streams which went to the making of the small river on +the other side of the house. Then came the lane and the garden-gate. +He closed the door behind him when he had gone in. Although there was +no lamp burning, the room was not dark. A twilight, vaporous and +silvery, crept into it, darkening towards the inner part and filling +the corners with mystery; while the floor by the window was chequered +with great panels of light precise and bright as day. + +On the hillside Endicott had seen the light go out in the room, and he +crossed over to the big table for the lamp. But it was no longer +there. Elsie had taken it, no doubt, into the hall with her letters +for the morning post and had not brought it back. He moved to his own +table where the candles stood; and with a shock he perceived that he +was not alone in that unlighted room. A movement amongst the shadows +by the inner door caught and held his eyes. + +He swung round and faced the spot. He saw against the wall near the +screen which hid his photographic paraphernalia, a man standing, +straight, upright and very still. The figure was vague and blurred, +but Endicott could see that his legs were clothed in white, and that +he wore some bulky and outlandish gear upon his head. Endicott quickly +struck a match. At the scratch and spurt of flame, the man in the +shadow ran forward towards the door with extraordinary swiftness. But +his shoulder caught the case in which Mrs. Tyson's Crown Derby china +was standing, and brought it with a crash of broken crockery to the +floor. Before the intruder could recover, Endicott set his back +against the door and held the burning match above his head. He was +amazed by what he saw. + +The intruder was an Asiatic with the conventional hawk-nose of the Jew +in the shape of his face; a brown man wearing a coloured turban upon +his head, an old tweed jacket on his shoulders, and a pair of dirty +white linen trousers on his legs, narrowing until they fitted closely +round his ankles. He wore neither shoes nor stockings. And he stood +very still watching Endicott with alert, bright eyes. Endicott, +without moving from the door, reached out and lit the candles upon the +table. + +"What are you doing here?" he demanded curiously. He had no personal +fear, and he was not much troubled by the man's hiding in the room. +Elsie, whom the fellow might have frightened, had long since gone to +bed, and there was nothing of value, except the Crown Derby, which he +could have stolen. On the other hand Endicott was immensely puzzled by +the presence of an Asiastic at all in this inland and lonely valley +far from railways and towns, at half-past ten of the night. + +"I pass the house," the man answered in English which was +astonishingly good. "I think you give me one piece opium to go on +with." + +"Opium!" cried Mr. Endicott, as if he had been stung. How many times +had he voted for the suppression of everything to do with opium. +"You'll find none of that abominable drug here!" + +He surveyed the Asiatic, outraged in every feeling. He lifted the +latch. He was on the point of flinging open the door. He had actually +begun to open it, when his mood changed. North of the Tropic of +Capricorn. The lilt of the words was in his ears. He remembered the +talk of the Australian in the railway-carriage about the overcrowding +of the East. The coming of this strange brown man seemed to him of a +sudden curiously relevant. He closed the door again. + +"You passed the house? Where do you come from? Who are you? How do you +come here?" + +The Asiatic, who had stood gathered like a runner at the +starting-point while the door was being opened, now cringed and +smiled. + +"Protector of the poor, I tell you my story"; and Mr. Endicott found +himself listening in that quiet farm-house of the Cumberland dales to +a most enlightening Odyssey. + +The man's name was Ahmed Ali, and he was a Pathan of the hills. His +home was in the middle country between Peshawur and the borders of +Afghanistan, and he belonged to a tribe of seven hundred men, every +one of whom had left his home and his wife and his children behind +him, and had gone down to Bombay to seek his livelihood in the +stokeholds of ships. Ahmed had been taken on a steamer of the +Peninsula and Oriental Line bound for Australia, where he hoped to +make his fortune. But neither at Sydney nor at Melbourne had he been +allowed to land. + +"But I am a British citizen," he said, having acquired some English. + +"Well, and what of it?" said the Port authorities. + +Nevertheless the night before the boat sailed he slipped overboard and +swam ashore, to be caught when the smoke of that steamer was no more +than a stain on the horizon. He was held in custody and would have +been returned by the next steamer to India. But there was already in +the harbour a cargo boat of the Clan Line bound for Quebec round the +Cape; and the boat was short of its complement in the stokehold. + +Ahmed Ali, accordingly, signed on, and sailed in her and acquired more +English to help him on in the comfortable life he now proposed to make +for himself in Canada. + +"But again they would not let me go away into the country," he +continued. "I told them I was British citizen, but it did not help me; +no, not any more than in Australia. They put me on a ship for England, +and I came to Liverpool steerage like a genelman. And at Liverpool I +landed boldly. For I was a British citizen." + +"Ah!" interjected Mr. Endicott proudly. "Here, in England, you see the +value of being a British citizen." + +"But, no, my genelman. For here there's no work for British citizen. I +land and I walk about and I ask for work. But everyone says, 'Why +don't you stay in your own country?' So I come away across the fields, +and no man give me one piece opium." + +Mr. Endicott nodded his head when the story was ended. + +"Well, after all, why don't you stay in your own country?" he asked. + +Mr. Endicott had already had his answer from the Australian, but he +was now thirsty for details, and his ears in consequence were +afflicted with a brief description of British rule from the Pathan's +point of view. + +"The all-wise one will pardon me. You keep the peace. Therefore we +cannot stay in our own country. For we grow crowded and there is no +food. In old times, when we were crowded and hungry, we went down into +the plains and took the land and the wives of the people of the plains +and killed the men. But the raj does not allow it. It holds a sword +between us and the plains, a sword with the edge towards us. Neither, +on the other hand, does it feed us." + +Mr. Endicott was aghast at the perverted views thus calmly announced +to him. + +"But we can't allow you to come down into India murdering and robbing +and taking the wives." + +The Asiatic shrugged his shoulders. + +"It is the law." + +Mr. Endicott was silent. If it were not the law, there were certainly +a great many precedents. The men of the hills and the people of the +plains--yes, history would say it _was_ the law. Mr. Endicott's eyes +were opening upon unknown worlds. The British Power stood in India +then cleaving a law of nature? + +"Also, you send your doctors and make cures when the plague and the +cholera come, so that fewer people die. Also, when the crops fail and +there is famine, you distribute food, so that again fewer people die. +No, there is no room now for us in our own country because of you, and +you will not let us into yours." + +"But we can't do anything else," cried Mr. Endicott. "We keep the +peace, we feed when there is famine, we send our doctors when there is +plague, because that is the law, also--the law of our race." + +Ahmed Ali did not move. He had placed the dilemma before Endicott. He +neither solved nor accepted it. Nor Was Endicott able to find any +answer. There must be one, since his whole race was arraigned just for +what it most prided itself upon--oh, no doubt there was an answer. But +Mr. Endicott could not find it. His imagination, however, grasped the +problem. He saw those seven hundred tribesmen travelling down the +passes to the rail head, loading the Bombay train and dispersing upon +the steamers. But he had no answer, and because he had no answer he +was extremely uncomfortable. He had lived for a year in the world of +politicians where, as a rule, there are answers all ready-made for any +question, answers neatly framed in aphorisms and propositions and +provided for our acceptance by thoughtful organisations. But he +could not remember one to suit this occasion. He was at a loss, and he +took the easy way to rid himself of discomfort. He dived into his +trouser-pocket and fished out a handful of silver. + +"Here!" he said. "This'll help you on a bit. Now go!" + +He stood aside from the door and the Asiatic darted to it with an +extraordinary eagerness. But once he had unlatched it, once it stood +open to the hillside and the sky, and he free in the embrasure, he +lost all his cringing aspect. He turned round upon Mr. Endicott. + +"I go now," he cried in a high arrogant voice. "But I shall come back +very soon, and all our peoples will come with me, all our hungry +peoples from the East. Remember that, you genelman!" And then he ran +noiselessly out of the house and down the pathway to the gate. + +He ran with extraordinary swiftness; so that Endicott followed him to +the gate and watched him go. He flew down the road, his shadow +flitting in the moonlight like a bird. Once he looked over his +shoulder, and seeing Endicott at the gate he leapt into the air. A few +yards farther he doubled on his steps, climbed down into the little +stream beside the lane and took to the hills. And in another moment he +was not. The broad and kindly fell took him to its bosom. He was too +tiny an atom to stand out against that great towering slope of grass +and stones. Indeed, he vanished so instantly that it seemed he must +have dived into a cave. The next moment Endicott almost doubted +whether he had ever been at all, whether he was not some apparition +born of his own troubled brain and the Australian's talk. But, as he +turned back into the house, he saw upon the flags of the garden path +the marks of the man's wet, bare feet. Not only had Ahmed Ali been to +the farm-house, but he had crossed the stream to get there. + +Mr. Endicott went back to his table in the window and seated himself +in front of his lighted candles, more from habit than with any thought +of work. He felt suddenly rather tired. He had not been conscious of +any fear while Ahmed Ali was in the room, or indeed of any strain. But +strain, and perhaps fear, there had been. Certainly a vague fear began +to get hold of him now. He had a picture before his eyes of the +Asiatic leaping into the air upon the road, and then doubling for the +hills. Why had he fled so fast? + +"North of the Tropic of Capricorn!" + +He repeated the words to himself aloud. Was the Australian right after +all? And would they come from the East--those hungry people? Mr. +Endicott seemed to feel the earth tremble beneath the feet of the +myriads of Asia. He bent his ear and seemed to hear the distant +confusion of their approach. He looked down at his papers and +flicked them contemptuously. Of what use would be his fine Bill +for the establishment of a Minimum Wage? Why, everything would go +down--civilisation, the treasures of art, twenty centuries of man's +painful growth--just as that Derby China teapot with its wonderful +colour of dark blue and red and gold. The broken fragments of the +teapot became a symbol to Endicott. + +"And the women would go down too," he thought with a shiver. "They +would take the wives." + +He had come to this point in his speculations when the inner door +opened, and the light broadened in the room. He heard Mrs. Tyson +shuffle in, but he did not turn towards her. He sat looking out upon +the fell. + +"I found the lamp burning on the hall table by the letters, sir," she +said, "and I thought you might want it." + +"Thank you," said Endicott vaguely, and he was roused by a little +gasping cry which she uttered. + +"Oh, yes! I am very sorry, Mrs. Tyson. Your teapot has been knocked +down. I went out. There was a man in the room when I came back. He +knocked it down. Of course I'll make its value good, though I doubt if +I can replace it." + +Mrs. Tyson made no answer. She placed the lamp on the table. Endicott +was still seated at his table in the window with his back to the room. +But he had thrown back his head, and he saw the circle of reflected +light upon the ceiling shake and quiver as Mrs. Tyson put the lamp +down. The glass chimney, too, rattled as though her hands were +shaking. + +"I am very sorry indeed," he continued. + +Mrs. Tyson dropped upon her knees and began to pick up the broken +pieces from the floor. + +"It doesn't matter at all, sir," she said, and Endicott was surprised +by the utter tonelessness of her voice. He knew that she set great +store upon this set of china; she had boasted of it. Yet now that it +was spoilt she spoke of it with complete indifference. He turned round +in his chair and watched her picking up the fragments--watched her +idly until she sobbed. + +"Good heavens," he cried, "I knew that you valued it, Mrs. Tyson, +but--" and then he stopped. For she turned to him and he knew that +there was more than the china teapot at the bottom of her trouble. Her +face, white and shaking and wet with tears, was terrible to see. There +was a horror upon it as though she had beheld things not allowed, and +a hopeless pain in her eyes as though she was sure that the appalling +vision would never pass. But all she did was to repeat her phrase. + +"It doesn't matter at all, sir." + +Endicott started up and laid his hand upon her shoulder. + +"What has happened, Mrs. Tyson?" + +"Oh, I can't tell you, sir." She knelt upon the floor and covered her +face with her hands and wept as Endicott had never dreamed that a +human being could weep. Fear seized upon him and held him till he +shivered with the chill of it. The woman had come in by the inner +door. In the hall, then, was to be found the cause of her horror. He +lifted the lamp and hurried towards it, but to reach the door he had +to pass the screen which Elsie had arranged on the day of their +coming. And at the screen he stopped. The terror which may come to a +man once in his life clutched his heart so that he choked. For behind +the screen he saw the gleam of a girl's white frock. + +"Elsie," he cried, "you have been all this while here--asleep." For he +would not believe the thing he knew. + +She was lying rather than sitting in the low basket chair in front of +the little table on which the chemicals were ranged, with her back +towards him, and her face buried in the padding of the chair. Endicott +stretched his arm over her and set down the lamp upon the table. Then +he spoke to her again chidingly and shaking her arm. + +"Elsie, wake up! Don't be ridiculous!" + +He slipped an arm under her waist, and lifting her, turned her towards +him. The girl's head rolled upon her shoulders, and there was a look +of such deadly horror upon her face that no pen could begin to +describe it. Endicott caught her to his breast. + +"Oh, my God," he cried hoarsely. "My poor girl! My poor girl!" + +Mrs. Tyson had come up behind him. + +"It was he," she whispered, "the man who was here. He killed her!" And +as Endicott turned his head towards the woman, some little thing +slipped from the chair on to the floor with a tiny rattle. Endicott +laid her down and picked up a small, yellow, round tablet. + +"No, he didn't," he said with a queer eagerness in his voice. The +tablet came from a small bottle on the table at the end of his row of +chemicals. It was labelled, "Intensifier" and "Poison," and the cork +was out of the bottle. The bottle had been full that afternoon. There +was more than one tablet missing now. + +"No, she killed herself. Those tablets are cyanide of potassium. He +never touched her. Look!" + +Upon the boards of the floor the wet and muddy feet of the Asiatic had +written the history of his movements beyond the possibility of +mistake. Here he had stood in front of her--not a step nearer. Mrs. +Tyson heard him whisper in her daughter's ear. "Oh, my dear, I thank +God!" He sank upon his knees beside her. Mrs. Tyson went out, and, +closing the door gently, left him with his dead. + +She sat and waited in the kitchen, and after a while she heard him +moving. He opened the door into the hall and came out and went slowly +and heavily up the stairs into Elsie's room. In a little while he came +down again and pushed open the kitchen door. He had aged by twenty +years, but his face and his voice were calm. + +"You found the lamp in the hall?" he said, in a low voice. "Beside the +letters? Come! We must understand this. My mind will go unless I am +quite sure." + +She followed him into the living-room and saw that his dead daughter +was no longer there. She stood aside whilst, with a patience which +wrung her heart, Endicott worked out by the footprints of the intruder +and this and that sure sign the events of those tragic minutes, until +there was no doubt left. + +"Elsie wrote eight letters," he said. "Seven are in the hall. Here is +the eighth, addressed and stamped upon the table where she wrote." + +The letters had to be sent down the valley to the inn early in the +morning. So when she had finished, she had carried them into the +hall--all of them, she thought--and she had taken the lamp to light +her steps. Whilst she was in the hall, and whilst all this side of the +house was in darkness Ahmed Ali had slipped into the room from the +lane by the brook. There were the marks of his feet coming from the +door. + +"But was that possible?" Endicott argued. "I was on the hillside, the +moon shining from behind my shoulders on to the house. There were no +shadows. It was all as clear as day. I must have seen the man come +along the little footpath to the door, for I was watching the house. I +saw the light in this room disappear. Wait a moment! Yes. Just after +the light went out I struck a match and lit my pipe." + +He had held the match close to his face in the hollow of his hands, +and had carefully lit the pipe; and after the match had burned out, +the glare had remained for a few seconds in his eyes. It was during +those seconds that the Asiatic had crossed the lane and darted in by +the door. + +The next step then became clear. Elsie, counting her letters in the +hall, had discovered that she had left one behind, she knew where she +had left it. She knew that the moonlight was pouring into the room; +and, leaving the lamp in the hall, she had returned to fetch it. In +the moonlit room she had come face to face with the Asiatic. + +He had been close to the screen when she met him, and there he had +stood. No doubt he had begun by asking her for opium. No doubt, +too--perhaps through some unanswered cry of hers, perhaps because +she never cried out at all, perhaps on account of a tense attitude +of terror not to be mistaken even in that vaporous silvery +light--somehow, at all events, he had become aware that she was alone +in the house; and his words and his demands had changed. She had +backed away from him against the wall, moving the screen and the +chair, and upsetting a book upon the table there. That was evident +from the disorder in this corner. Upon the table stood Endicott's +chemicals for developing his photographs. Endicott saw the picture +with a ghastly distinctness--her hand dropping for support upon the +table and touching the bottles which she had arranged herself. + +"Yes, she knew that that one nearest, the first she touched was the +poison, and meant--what? Safety! It's awful, but it's the truth. Very +probably she screamed, poor girl. But there was no one to hear her." + +The noise of the river leaping from rock pool to rock pool had drowned +any sound of it which might else have reached to Endicott's ears. The +scream had failed. In front of her was a wild and desperate Pathan +from the stokehold of a liner. Under her hand was the cyanide of +potassium. Endicott could see her furtively moving the cork from the +mouth of the bottle with the fingers of one hand, whilst she stood +watching in horror the man smiling at her in silence. + +"Don't you feel that that is just how everything happened? Aren't you +sure of it?" he asked, turning to Mrs. Tyson with a dreadful appeal in +his eyes. But she could answer it honestly. + +"Yes, sir, that is how it all happened," and for a moment Mr. Endicott +was comforted. But immediately afterwards he sat down on a chair like +a tired man and his fingers played upon the table. + +"It would all be over in a few seconds," he said lamentably +to Mrs. Tyson. "But, oh, those seconds! They would have been +terrible--terrible with pain." His voice trailed away into silence. He +sat still staring at the table. Then he raised his head towards Mrs. +Tyson, and his face was disfigured by a smile of torment. "Hard luck +on a young girl, eh, Mrs. Tyson?" and the very banality of the +sentence made it poignant. "Everything just beginning for her--the +sheer fun of life. Her beauty, and young men, and friends and dancing, +the whole day a burst of music--and then suddenly--quite alone--that's +so horrible--quite alone, in a minute she had to----" His voice choked +and the tears began to run down his face. + +"But the man?" Mrs. Tyson ventured. + +"Oh, the man!" cried Endicott. "I will think of him to-morrow." + +He went up the stairs walking as heavily as when he had carried his +daughter in his arms; and he went again into Elsie's room. Mrs. Tyson +blew out the candles upon his writing-table and arranged automatically +some disordered sheets of foolscap. They were notes on the great +principle of the Minimum Wage. + + + + + + ONE OF THEM + + + + + ONE OF THEM + + +At midnight on August 4th, Poldhu flung the news out to all ships, and +Anthony Strange, on the _Boulotte_, took the message in the middle of +the West Bay. He carried on accordingly past Weymouth, and in the +morning was confronted with the wall of great breakers off St. Alban's +Head. The little boat ran towards that barrier with extraordinary +swiftness. Strange put her at a gap close into the shore where the +waves broke lower, and with a lurch and a shudder she scooped the +water in over her bows and clothed herself to her brass gunwale-top in +a stinging veil of salt. Never had the _Boulotte_ behaved better than +she did that morning in the welter of the Race, and Strange, rejoicing +to his very finger-tips, forgot the news which was bringing all the +pleasure-boats, great and small, into the harbours of the south, +forgot even that sinking of the heart which had troubled him +throughout the night. But it was only in the Race that he knew any +comfort. He dropped his anchor in Poole Harbour by mid-day, and fled +through London to a house he owned on the Berkshire Downs. + +There for a few days he found life possible. It was true there were +sentries under the railway bridges, but the sun rose each day over a +country ripe for the harvest, and the smoke curled from the chimneys +of pleasant villages; and there was no sign of war. But soon the +nights became a torture. For from midnight on, at intervals of five to +ten minutes, the troop-trains roared along the Thames Valley towards +Avonmouth, and the reproach of each of them ceased only with the +morning. Strange leaned out of his window looking down the slopes +where the corn in the moonlight was like a mist. Not a light showed in +the railway carriages, but the sparks danced above the funnel of the +engine, and the glare of the furnace burnished the leaves of the +trees. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers on the road to France. Then +there came a morning when, not a hundred yards from his house, he saw +a string of horses in the road and others being taken from the +reaping-machines in a field. Strange returned to town and dined with a +Mrs. Kenway, his best friend, and to her he unburdened his soul. + +"I am ashamed ... don't know how to look people in the face.... I +never thought to be so utterly unhappy. I am thirty and useless. I +cumber the ground." + +The look of surprise with which his friend turned to him hurt him like +the cut of a whip. "Of course you can't help," it seemed to say. "The +world is for the strong, this year and the next, and for how many +more?" + +Strange had to lie on his back for some hours each day, and he +suffered off and on always. But that had been his lot since boyhood, +and he had made light of his infirmity and grown used to it until this +4th of August. He had consoled himself with the knowledge that to the +world he looked only rather delicate. He was tall, and not set apart +from his fellows. + +"Now," he said. "I wish that everybody knew. Yes, I wish that I showed +that service was impossible. To think of us sitting here round a +dinner-table--as we used to! Oh, I know what you'll think! I have the +morbid sensitiveness of sick men. Perhaps you are right." + +"I don't think it at all," she said, and she set herself to comfort +him. + +Strange went from the dinner-party to his club. There was the +inevitable crowd, fighting the campaign differently, cutting up the +conquered countries, or crying all was lost. Some of them had written +to the papers, all were somehow swollen with importance as though the +war was their private property. Strange began to take heart. + +"They are not ashamed," he thought. "They speak to me as if they +expected I should be here. Perhaps I am a fool." + +A friend sat down by his side. + +"Cross went yesterday," he said. "George Crawley was killed at Mons. +Of course you have heard." + +Strange had not heard, and there rose before his eyes suddenly a +picture of George Crawley, the youngest colonel in the army, standing +on the kerb in St. James's Street and with uplifted face blaspheming +to the skies at one o'clock in the morning because of a whiskered +degenerate dandy with a frilled shirt to whom he had just before been +introduced. But his friend was continuing his catalogue. + +"Chalmers is training at Grantham. He's with the new army. Linton has +joined the Flying Corps. Every day someone slips quietly away. God +knows how many of them will come back." + +Strange got up and walked out of the club. + +"I shall see you to-morrow," his friend cried after him. + +"No, I am going back to my boat." + +"For how long?" + +"Till the war's over." + +The resolution had been taken that instant. He loved the _Boulotte_ +better than anything else in the world. For on board of her he was +altogether a man. She was fifty-five feet long over all, fourteen +feet in beam, twenty-five tons by Thames measurement, and his debt to +her was enormous. He had found her in a shed in the Isle of Wight, +re-coppered her, given her a new boiler, fixed her up with forced +draught, and taken out for himself after a year's hard work a master's +certificate. He took her over to Holland, and since her bows worked +like a concertina in the heavy seaway between Dover and Dieppe he +strengthened them with cross-pieces. He never ceased to tinker with +her, he groused at her, and complained of her, and sneered at her, and +doted on her in the true sailor's fashion. For some years past life +had begun for him in the spring, when he passed Portland Bill bound +westward for Fowey and Falmouth and the Scillies, and had ended in the +late autumn, when he pulled the _Boulotte_ up on the mud of Wootton +Creek. Now he turned to her in his distress, and made a most miserable +Odyssey. He spent a month in the estuary above Salcombe, steamed +across to Havre, went down through the canals to Marseilles in the +autumn of 1914, and sought one of the neutral coasts of the +Mediterranean. Here, where men wore buttons in their coats inscribed, +"Don't speak to me of the war," he fancied that he might escape from +the shame of his insufficiency. He came to a pleasant harbour, with a +broad avenue of trees behind the quay, and a little ancient town +behind the trees. + +"I will drop my anchor here," he said, "until the war ends"; and he +remained, speaking to no one but his crew, sleeping in his little +cabin, and only going on shore to buy his newspapers and take his +coffee. And after five weeks the miracle began to happen. He was +sitting on his deck one morning reading a local newspaper. At right +angles to him half a dozen steamers, moored in a line, with their +sterns to the quay and their anchors out forward, were loading with +fruit. He looked up from his paper, and his eyes fell upon the nearest +ship, which was showing him her starboard broadside. He looked first +of all carelessly, then with interest, finally he laid his paper down +and walked forward. The boat had received on the lower part of her +hull, up to the Plimsoll line, a brilliant fresh coat of red paint. So +far, of course, there was nothing unusual, but forward, halfway +between her bows and her midships, and again aft on her quarter, she +had a broad perpendicular line of the same red paint standing out +vividly from the black of her upper plates. Strange called to his +engineer, John Shawe, and pointed to the streaks. + +"What do you make of them?" he asked. + +Shawe shrugged his shoulders. + +"Very wasteful it do seem, sir," he said; and to a casual glance it +did indeed appear as if the paint had been allowed, through some +carelessness on deck, to drip down the side at those two points. +Strange, however, was not satisfied. The bands of scarlet were too +regular, too broad. He had himself rowed out in his dinghy past the +steamer's bows. + +"That will do, Harry," he said. "We can go back." + +On the port bows and quarter of the steamer he had seen the same vivid +streaks. Strange spoke again to John Shawe. + +"Waste isn't the explanation, that's sure. You go about the town a +bit, don't you? You know some of the men about the port. You might +find out for me--quietly, you know--what you can about that boat"; and +the phrase "quietly, you know," made all at once a different man of +John Shawe. Strange at this time was really more moved by curiosity +than suspicion, but he did use the phrase, and John Shawe, a big, +simple, south countryman, who knew his engine and very little else, +swelled at once into a being of mystery, full of brow-twisting wisdom +and portentously sly. + +"I understand, sir," he said in a knowing whisper. "I know my dooty. +It shall be done." He put on his best brass-buttoned coat that +evening, and went down the three steps of the gangway ladder with a +secret air, a sleuth; but he brought back his news nevertheless. + +"All those boats, sir, are chartered by a German here named Rehnke." + +"But some of them are English. They are flying the red flag," cried +Strange in revolt. + +"It's God's truth, sir, and here's more of it. Every one of them's +bound for England, consigned to English firms. One's for Manchester, +two for Cardiff, one for Liverpool." + +"But it's impossible. It's trading with the enemy," Strange exclaimed. + +"That don't apply to the enemy in neutral countries, they say. Oh, +there's a deal of dirty work going on in England. Will you come on +deck?" + +Strange nodded. The saloon door opened into the cockpit, and the cabin +roof was the deck of the after-part of the _Boulotte_. They climbed by +a little ladder out of the cockpit. It was twelve o'clock on a night +of full moon. + +"Look, sir," said Shawe. + +The English boat had sailed that afternoon. The starboard side of its +neighbour was now revealed. Strange looked through his glasses and he +saw. Over the bows of that tramp steamer at midnight a man was +suspended on a plank, and he was painting a broad, perpendicular, red +streak. + +Strange thought over his discovery lying on his back in the saloon. +Distinguishing marks on a row of ships chartered by a German--there +was just one explanation for them! Strange did not even whisper it to +John Shawe, but he went ashore the next morning and called upon the +British Consul. + +His card was taken into a room where two men were speaking. At once +the conversation stopped, and it was not resumed. There was not a +whisper, nor the sound of any movement. Strange had a picture in his +mind of two men with their heads together staring at his card and +exchanging an unspoken question. Then the clerk appeared again. + +"Mr. Taylor will see you with pleasure," he said. + +As Strange entered the room a slim, elderly, indifferent gentleman, +seated at a knee-hole table, gazed vaguely at him through his +spectacles and offered him a chair. + +"What can I do for you, Mr. Strange?" he asked, and since Strange +hesitated, he turned towards his companion. + +"This is Major Slingsby," said the Consul. "He will not be in your +way." + +Major Slingsby, a square, short, rubicund man of forty, with the face +of a faun, bowed, and, without moving from his chair, seemed, +nevertheless, to remove himself completely from the room. + +"Not at all," said Strange. He had not an idea that he was in the +presence of the two shrewdest men in those parts. To him they were +just a couple of languid people whom it was his duty to arouse, and he +told his story as vividly as he could. + +"And what do you deduce from these mysterious signs?" asked the +Consul. + +Strange's answer was prompt. + +"German submarines in the Mediterranean." + +"Oh! And why not the Channel?" asked Mr. Taylor. "These steamers are +on their way there." + +To that question there was no reply. Strange rose. "I thought that I +ought to tell you what I had noticed," he said stiffly. + +"Thank you, yes. And I am very grateful," replied Taylor. + +Major Slingsby, however, followed Strange out of the room. + +"Will you lunch with me?" he asked, and the question sent the blood +rushing into Strange's face. He swung between his instinct to hide his +head from any man who was doing service and his craving to converse +with a fellow-countryman. The craving won. + +"I shall be very pleased," he stammered. + +"Right. It is half-past twelve now. Shall we say one at the Cafe de +Rome?" + +As they sat against the wall by the window of the cafe Slingsby talked +of ordinary matters, which any one of those in the chairs outside upon +the pavement might overhear and be none the wiser. But he talked +sagely, neither parading mysteries nor pretending disclosures. He let +the mere facts of companionship and nationality work, and before +luncheon was over Strange was won by them. He longed to confide, to +justify himself before a fellow-citizen of his miserable inertness. +Over the coffee, indeed, he would have begun, but Slingsby saw the +torrent of confession coming. + +"Do you often lunch here?" he said quickly. "I do whenever I happen to +be in the town. Sit in this window for an hour and you will see all +the town paraded before you like a show, its big men and little men, +its plots and its intrigues. There, for instance," and he nodded +towards a large, stout person with a blonde moustache, "is +Rehnke--yes, that's your man. Take a good look at him." + +Strange looked at the German hard. He looked also towards a youth who +had been sitting for the last hour over a cup of coffee and a +newspaper outside the window. Slingsby interpreted the look. + +"He's all right. He's trying to listen, of course. Most foreigners do, +whether they understand your language or not. And he doesn't--not a +word of it. I have been watching him. However, we may as well go, for +I would very much like you to show me your little boat." + +Strange, eager and enthusiastic, jumped up from the table. + +"Rather," he cried. "She's not big, of course, but she can keep the +sea, especially since I strengthened her bows." + +"Oh, you have done that, have you?" said Slingsby, as he paid the +bill. "That's interesting." + +They crossed the boulevard to the quay and went on board the +_Boulotte_. Every inch of brass on her, from the stanchions round the +deck to the engine-room telegraph, flashed, and she was varnished and +white and trim like a lady fresh from her maid. + +"What can you do with your forced draught?" asked Slingsby. + +"Thirteen," replied Strange proudly. "With a good wind astern +fourteen. Once I went out past the Needles buoy----" and off he went +in a glowing account of a passage to Cherbourg at the end of a stormy +September. Slingsby never once interrupted him. He followed meekly +from the rudder to the bow, where he examined with some attention the +famous struts and cross-pieces. + +"You have got a wireless, I see," he said, looking up to the aerial, +which, slackened and disconnected, dangled from the masthead. + +"Yes. But it's a small affair. However, I can hear four hundred miles +if the night's still. I can only send seventy." + +Slingsby nodded, and the two men returned to the saloon. There, at +last, over a whisky and soda. Strange was encouraged to unload his +soul. The torture of the August nights on the Berkshire Downs above +the Thames Valley, the intolerable sense of uselessness; the feeling +that he wore a brand of shame upon his forehead for all men to see, +and the poignancy of the remorse which had shrivelled him when a +wounded soldier from Ypres or Le Cateau limped past him in the street; +all tumbled from his lips in abrupt, half-finished sentences. + +"Therefore I ran away," he said. + +Slingsby sat back in his chair. + +"So that's it," he said, and he laughed in a friendly fashion. "Do you +know that we have all been greatly worried about you? Oh, you have +caused a deuce of a fluttering I can tell you." + +Strange flushed scarlet. + +"I was suspected!" he cried. "Good God!" It just wanted that to +complete his utter shame. He had been worse than useless; he had given +trouble. He sat with his eyes fixed, in the depths of abasement. Then +other words were spoken to him: + +"How long will it take you to bring your boat to Marseilles?" + +"You want it, then?" said Strange. + +"I can use you," said Slingsby. "What's more, you are necessary." + +Strange, with a buzzing head, got out his chart from a locker and +spread it on the table. He took paper and a lead pencil and his +compasses. He marked his course and measured it. + +"Forty-seven hours' steaming and six hours to get up steam. It's four +o'clock now, and the day's Tuesday. I can be at Marseilles on Thursday +afternoon at four." + +"I have done a good day's work," said Major Slingsby, as he rose to +his feet, and he meant it. Slingsby was an intelligence officer as +well as an officer of intelligence, and since he had neither boats to +dispose of nor money to buy them with, Anthony Strange was a Godsend +to him. "But I don't want you until to-day week. I shall want a little +time to make arrangements with the French." + +The _Bulotte_ steamed round the point at three o'clock on the +appointed afternoon. The pilot took her through the Naval Harbour into +the small basin where the destroyers lie, and by half-past she was +berthed against the quay. Strange had been for the best part of two +days on his bridge, but at eleven he was knocking at a certain door +without any inscription upon it in the Port office, and he was +admitted to a new Major Slingsby in a khaki uniform, with red tabs on +the collar, and clerks typewriting for dear life in a tiny room. + +"Hallo," said Slingsby. He looked into a letter-tray on the edge of +his desk and took a long envelope from it and handed it to Strange. +"You might have a look at this. I'll come on board to-morrow morning. +Meanwhile, if I were you I should go to bed, though I doubt if you'll +get much sleep." + +The reason for that doubt became more and more apparent as the evening +wore on. In the first place, when Strange returned, he found workmen +with drills and hammers and rivets spoiling the white foredeck of his +adored _Boulotte_. For a moment he was inclined, like Captain Hatteras +when his crew cut down his bulwarks for firewood, to stand aside and +weep, but he went forward, and when he saw the work which was going on +his heart exulted. Then he went back to the saloon, but as he +stretched himself out upon the cushions he remembered the envelope in +his pocket. It was stamped "On His Majesty's Service," and it +contained the announcement that one Anthony Strange had been granted a +commission as sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. +After that sleep was altogether out of the question. There was the +paper to be re-read at regular intervals lest its meaning should have +been misunderstood. And when its meaning was at last firmly and +joyfully fixed in Strange's mind there was the paper itself to be +guarded and continually felt, lest it should lose itself, be stolen, +or evaporate into air. Towards midnight, indeed, he did begin to doze +off, but then a lighter came alongside and dumped ten tons of Welsh +steam coal on board, all that he could hold, it's true, but that gave +him ten days' steaming at ordinary draught. And at eight o'clock to +the minute Slingsby hailed him from the quay. + +"You will go back now to your old harbour," he said. "You have been a +little cruise down the coast, that's all. Just look out for a sailing +schooner called the _Santa Maria del Pilar_. She ought to turn up in +seven days from now to take on board a good many barrels of carbonate +of soda. I'll come by train at the same time. If she arrives before +and takes her cargo on board, you can wire to me through the Consul +and then--act on your own discretion." + +Strange drew a long breath, and his eyes shone. + +"But she won't, I think," said Slingsby. "By the way, you were at +Rugby with Russell of my regiment, weren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"And you know Cowper, who was admiral out here?" + +"Yes, he's my uncle." + +"Exactly." + +Strange smiled. It was clear that a good many inquiries must have been +made about him over the telegraph wires during the last week. + +"Well, that's all, I think," said Slingsby. "You'll push off as soon +as you can, and good luck." + +But there was one further ceremony before the _Boulotte_ was ready for +sea. The small crew was signed on under the Naval Discipline Act. Then +she put out, rounded the point, and headed for her destination over a +smooth sunlit sea, with, by the way, an extra hand on board and a fine +new capstan on her foredeck. Two days later she was moored in her old +position, and Strange went to bed. The excitement was over, a black +depression bore him down; he was deadly tired, and his back hurt him +exceedingly. What was he doing at all with work of this kind? If he +had to "act on his own discretion," could he do it with any sort of +profit? Such questions plagued him for two days more, whilst he lay +and suffered. But then relief came. He slept soundly and without pain, +and rose the next morning in a terror lest the _Santa Maria del Pilar_ +should have come and gone. He went up on to the deck and searched the +harbour with his glasses. There was but one sailing boat taking in +cargo, and she a brigantine named the _Richard_, with the Norwegian +flag painted on her sides. Strange hurried to the Consul, and returned +with a mind at ease. The _Santa Maria del Pilar_ had not yet sailed in +between the moles. Nor did she come until the next afternoon, by which +time Slingsby was on board the _Boulotte_. + +"There she is," said Strange in a whisper of excitement, looking +seawards. She sailed in with the sunset and a fair wind, a white +schooner like a great golden bird of the sea, and she was nursed by a +tug into a berth on the opposite side of the harbour. Slingsby and +Strange dined at the Cafe de Rome and came on board again at nine. The +great globes of electric light on their high pillars about the quays +shone down upon the still, black water of the harbour. It was very +quiet. From the cockpit of the _Boulotte_ the two men looked across to +the schooner. + +"I think there's a lighter alongside of her, isn't there?" said +Slingsby. + +Strange, whose eyesight was remarkable, answered: + +"Yes, a lighter loaded with barrels." + +"Some carbonate of soda," said Slingsby, with a grin. They went into +the cockpit, leaving the door open. + +It was a hot night, and in a cafe beyond the trees a band was playing +the compelling music of _Louise_. Strange listened to it, deeply +stirred. Life had so changed for him that he had risen from the depths +during the last weeks. Then Slingsby raised his hand. + +"Listen!" + +With the distant music there mingled now the creaking of a winch. +Strange extinguished the light, and both men crept out from the +cockpit. The sound came from the _Santa Maria del Pilar_, and they +could see the spar of her hoisting tackle swing out over the lighter +and inboard over the ship's deck. + +"She's loading," said Strange, in a low voice. + +"Yes," answered Slingsby; "she's loading." And his voice purred like a +contented cat. + +He slept on a bed made up in the saloon that night. Strange in his +tiny cabin, and at nine o'clock the next morning, as they sat at +breakfast, they saw the _Santa Maria del Pilar_ make for the sea. + +"We ought to follow, oughtn't we?" said Strange anxiously. + +"There's no hurry." + +"But she'll do nine knots in this breeze." Strange watched her with +the eye of knowledge as she leaned over ever so slightly from the +wind. "She might give us the slip." + +Slingsby went on eating unconcernedly. + +"She will," he answered. "We are not after her, my friend. Got your +chart?" + +Strange fetched it from the locker and spread it out on the table. + +"Do you see a small island with a lighthouse?" + +"Yes." + +"Four miles west-south-west of the lighthouse. Got it?" + +"Yes." + +"How long will it take you to get to that point?" + +Strange measured his course. + +"Five to five and a half hours forced draught." + +"Good. Suppose we start at six this evening." + +The _Boulotte_ went away to the minute. At eight it began to grow +dark, but no steaming light was hoisted on the mast, and no sidelamps +betrayed her presence. In the failing light she became one with the +sea but for the tiniest wisp of smoke from her chimney, and soon the +night hid that. A lantern flashed for a while here and there on the +forward deck in the centre of a little group, and then Slingsby came +back to Strange at the wheel. + +"It's all right," he whispered softly. + +Nights at sea! The cool, dark tent of stars, the hiss and tinkle of +waves against the boat's side, the dinghy, slung out upon the davits, +progressing above the surface of the water, the lamp light from the +compass striking up on the brasswork of the wheel and the face of the +steersman; to nights at sea Strange owed all the spacious moments of +his crippled life. But this night was a sacred thing. He was admitted +to the band of the young strong men who serve, like a novice into the +communion of a church; and his heart sang within his breast as he kept +the _Boulotte_ to her course. At a quarter past eleven he rang the +telegraph and put the indicator to "slow." Five minutes later he +stopped the engine altogether. Four miles away to the north-eastward a +light brightened and faded. + +"We are there," he said, and he looked out over an empty sea. + +Under Slingsby's orders he steamed slowly round in a circle, ever +increasing the circumference, for an hour, and then the new hand--who, +by the way, was a master gunner--crept aft. + +"There it is, sir." + +A hundred yards from the port bow a dark mass floated on the sea. The +_Boulotte_ slid gently alongside of it. It was a raft made of barrels +lashed together. + +"We have seen those barrels before, my friend," said Slingsby, his +nose wrinkling up in a grin of delight. Before daybreak the work was +done. Fifty empty barrels floated loose; there was a layer of heavy +oil over the sea and a rank smell in the air. + +"Now," said Slingsby, In a whisper, "shall we have any luck, I +wonder?" + +He went forward. The capstan head had been removed, and in its place +sat a neat little automatic gun, which could fling two hundred and +seventy three-pound shells six thousand yards in a minute. For the +rest of that night the _Boulotte_ lay motionless without a light +showing or a word spoken. And just as the morning came, in the very +first unearthly grey of it, a wave broke--a long, placid roller which +had no right to break in that smooth, deep sea. Slingsby dipped his +hand into the cartridge box and made sure that the band ran free; the +gunner stood with one hand on the elevating wheel, the other on the +trigger; eight hundred yards away from the _Boulotte_ there was +suddenly a wild commotion of the water, and black against the misty +grey a conning tower and a long, low body of steel rose into view. +U-whatever-its-number was taken by surprise. The whole affair lasted a +few seconds. With his third shot the gunner found the range, and then, +planting his shells with precision in a level line like the +perforations of a postage stamp, he ripped the submarine from +amidships to its nose. Strange had a vision for a second of a couple +of men trying to climb out from the conning tower, and then the nose +went up in the air like the snout of some monstrous fish, and the sea +gulped it down. + +"One of 'em," said Slingsby. "But we won't mention it. Lucky you saw +those red streaks, my friend. If a destroyer had come prowling up this +coast instead of the harmless little _Boulotte_ there wouldn't have +been any raft on the sea or any submarine just here under the sea. +What about breakfast?" + +Strange set the boat's course for Marseilles, and the rest of that +voyage was remarkable only for a clear illustration of the difference +between the amateur and the professional. For whereas Strange could +not for the life of him keep still during one minute, Slingsby, +stretched at his ease on the saloon sofa, beguiled the time with +quotations from the "Bab Ballads" and "Departmental Ditties." + + + + + + RAYMOND BYATT + + + + + RAYMOND BYATT + + +Dorman Royle was the oddest hero for such an adventure. He followed +the profession of a solicitor, and the business he did was like +himself, responsible and a trifle heavy. No piratical dashes into the +Law Courts in the hope of a great haul were encouraged in his office. +Clients as regular in their morals as in their payments alone sought +his trustworthy and prosaic advice. Dorman Royle, in a word, was the +last man you would think ever to feel the hair lifting upon his scalp +or his heart sinking down into a fathomless pit of terror. Yet to him, +nevertheless, these sensations happened. It may be that he was +specially chosen just because of his unflighty qualities; that, at all +events, became his own conviction. Certainly those qualities stood him +in good stead. This, however, is surmise. The facts are beyond all +dispute. + +In June, Royle called upon his friend Henry Groome, and explained that +he wanted Groome's country house for the summer. + +"But it's very lonely," said Groome. + +"I don't mind that," replied Dorman Royle, and his face beamed with +the smile at once proud and sheepish and a little fatuous which has +only meant one thing since the beginning of the world. + +"You are going to be married!" said Groome. + +"How in the world did you guess?" asked Royle; but it must be supposed +that there had been some little note of regret or jealousy in his +friend's voice, for the smile died away, and he nodded his head in +comprehension. + +"Yes, old man. That's the way of it. It's the snapping of the old +ties--not a doubt. I shall meet you from time to time at the club in +the afternoon, and you will dine with us whenever you care to. But we +shall not talk very intimately any more of matters which concern us. +We shall be just a trifle on our guard against each other. A woman +means that--yes. However, I do what I can. I borrow your house for my +honeymoon." + +Groome heard the speech with surprise. He had not expected to be +understood with so much accuracy. He seemed to be looking at a new +man--a stranger, almost certainly no longer his friend, but a man who +had put friendship behind him and had reached out and grasped a +treasure which had transfigured all his world. + +"And whom are you going to marry?" Groome asked; and the answer +surprised him still more. + +"Ina Fayle." + +"Ina--you don't mean----?" + +"Yes, I do," said Royle, and the note of his voice was a challenge. +But Groome did not take it up. Ina Fayle, of course, he knew by sight +and by reputation, as who in London at that time did not? She was a +young actress who had not been content to be beautiful. + +"Yes, she's a worker," suddenly said Royle. "She has had to work since +she was sixteen, and what she is, sheer industry has made her. Now she +is going to give up all her success." + +Groome wondered for a moment how in the world she could bring herself +to do it. A girl of twenty-three, she had gained already so much +success that she must find the world a very pleasant place. She had +the joy of doing superbly the work she loved, and a reward besides, +tremendous because so immediate, in the adoration of the public, in +the great salary after she had been poor, and while she was young +enough to enjoy every penny of it. Groome was still wondering when +once more Royle broke in upon him. + +"Yes. It's the sort of renunciation which is much more surprising in a +girl than it would be in a man. For the art of the stage is of much +the same stuff as a woman's natural life, isn't it? I mean that +beauty, grace, the trick of wearing clothes, the power of swift +response to another's moods, play the same large part in both. But, +you see, she has character, as well as gifts--that's the explanation." + +Royle looked at his watch. + +"Come and see her, will you?" + +"Now?" + +"Yes. I promised that I would bring you round," and as he got up from +his chair he added: "Oh, by the way, as to your house, I ought to have +told you. Ina has a dog--a black spaniel--do you mind?" + +"Not a bit," said Groome, and he put on his hat. + +The two men walked northwards, Royle at once extremely shy and +inordinately proud. They crossed the Marylebone Road into Regent's +Park. + +"That's her house," said Royle, "the one at the end of the terrace." + +Ina Fayle lived with a companion; she was not quite so tall as Groome, +who had only seen her upon the stage, expected her to be. He had +thought to find a woman a trifle cadaverous and sallow. But she had +the clear eyes and complexion of a child, and her wealth of fair, +shining hair spoke of a resplendent health. She came across the room +and took Groome into a window. + +"You know Dorman very well, don't you? I want to show you something I +have bought for him. Oh, it's nothing--but do you think he will like +it?" + +She was simple and direct in her manner, with more of the comrade than +the woman. She showed Groome a gold cigarette-case. + +"Of course it will do. But you have already made him a better +wedding-gift than that," said Groome. + +"I?" Her forehead puckered in a frown. "What gift?" + +"A very remarkable gift of insight, which he never had before." + +She coloured a little with pleasure, and her eyes and her voice +softened together. + +"I am very glad," she answered. "One takes a great deal. It is +pleasant to give something in return." + +Dorman Royle and Ina Fayle were duly married towards the end of the +month, and began their life together in the house which Groome had +lent them. + +It stood on the top of a hill amongst bare uplands above the valley of +the Thames, in a garden of roses and green lawns. But the house was +new, and the trees about it small and of Groome's own planting, so +that every whisper of wind became a breeze up there, and whistled +about the windows. On the other hand, if the wind was still there was +nowhere a place more quiet, and the slightest sound which would never +have been heard in a street rang out loud with the presumption of a +boast. Especially this was so at night. The roar of the great trains +racing down to the west cleft the air like thunder; yet your eyes +could only see far away down in the river-valley, a tiny line of +bright lights winking amongst the trees. In this spot they stayed for +a week, and then Ina showed her husband a telegram summoning her to +the bedside of her mother. + +"It's not very serious, as you see," she said. "But she wants me, and +I think that for a day or two I must go." + +She went the next morning. Dorman Royle was left alone, and was +thoroughly bored until late on the night before Ina's return. It was, +in fact, not far from twelve o'clock when Royle began to be +interested. He was sitting in the library when he heard very +distinctly through the open window a metallic click. The sound was +unmistakable. Somewhere in the garden a gate had been opened and +allowed to swing back. What he had heard was the latch catching in the +socket. He was interested in his book, and for a moment paid no heed +to the sound. But after a second or two he began to wonder who at this +hour in that lonely garden had opened a gate. He sat up and listened +but the sound was not repeated. He was inclined to think, clear and +distinct though the sound had been, that he had imagined it, when his +eyes fell upon Ina's black spaniel. He could no longer believe in any +delusion of his senses. For the dog had heard the sound too. He had +been lying curled up on the varnished boards at the edge of the room, +his black, shining coat making him invisible to a careless glance. Now +he was sitting up, his ears cocked and his eyes upon the window with +the extraordinary intentness which dogs display. + +Dorman Royle rose from his chair. + +"Come," he said, in a whisper, but the spaniel did not move. He sat +with his nose raised and the lip of the lower jaw trembling, and his +eyes still fixed upon the window. Royle walked softly to the door of +the room. It opened on to a hall paved with black and white stone +which took up the middle part of the house. Upon his right a door +opened on to the drive, on his left another led out to a loggia and a +terrace. Royle opened this second door and called again in a whisper +to the spaniel: + +"Come, Duke! Seek him out!" + +This time the dog obeyed, running swiftly past his legs into the open +air. Royle followed. It was a bright, moonlit night, the stars hardly +visible in the clear sky. Royle looked out across the broad valley to +the forest-covered Chilterus, misty in the distance. Not a breath of +wind was stirring; the trees stood as though they had been metal. +Three brick steps led from the terrace to the tennis-lawn. On the +opposite side of the tennis-lawn a small gate opened on to a paddock +It was this gate which had opened and swung to. But there was no one +now on the lawn or in the paddock, and no tree stood near which could +shade an intruder. Royle looked at the dog. He stood upon the edge of +the terrace staring out over the lawn; Royle knew him to be a good +house-dog, yet now not a growl escaped him. He stood waiting to leap +forward--yes, but waiting also for a friendly call from a familiar +voice before he leapt forward; and as Royle realised that a strange +thought came to him. He had been lonely these last days; hardly a +moment had passed but he had been conscious of the absence of Ina; +hardly a moment when his heart had not ached for her and called her +back. What if he had succeeded? He played with the question as he +stood there in the quiet moonlight upon the paved terrace. It was she +who had sped across the paddock twelve hours before her time and +opened the gate. She had come so eagerly that she had not troubled to +close it. She had let it swing sharply to behind her. She was here +now, at his side. He reached out a hand to touch her, and take hers; +and suddenly he became aware that he was no longer playing with a +fancy--that he believed it. She was really here, close to him. He +could not see her--no. But that was his fault. There was too much +dross in Dorman Royle as yet for so supreme a gift. But that would +follow--follow with the greater knowledge of her which their life +together would bring. + +"Come, Duke," he said, and he went back into the house and sat late in +the smoking-room, filled with the wonder of this new, strange life +that was to be his. A month ago and now! He measured the difference of +stature between the Dorman Royle of those days and the Dorman Royle of +to-day, and he was sunk in humility and gratitude. But a few hours +later that night his mood changed. He waked up in the dark, and, +between sleep and consciousness, was aware of some regular, measured +movement in the room. In a moment he became wide awake, and understood +what had aroused him. The spaniel, lying on the coverlet at the foot +of the bed, was thumping with his tail--just as if someone he loved +was by him, fondling him. Royle sat up; the bed shook and creaked +under him, but the dog paid no heed at all. He went on wagging his +tail in the silence and darkness of the room. Someone must be there, +and suddenly Royle cried aloud, impetuously, so that he was surprised +to hear his own voice: + +"Ina! Ina!" and he listened, with his arms outstretched. + +But no answer came at all. It seemed that he had rashly broken a +spell. For the dog became still. Royle struck a match and lighted the +candle by his bed, straining his eyes to the corners of the room. But +there was no one visible. + +He blew out the candle and lay down again, and the darkness blotted +out all the room. But he could not sleep; and--and--he was very +careful not to move. It was not fear which kept him still--though fear +came later---but a thrilling expectation. He was on the threshold of a +new world. He had been made conscious of it already; now he was to +enter it--to see. But he saw nothing. Only in a little while the +spaniel's tail began once more to thump gently and regularly upon the +bed. It was just as if the dog had waited for him to go to sleep +before it once more resumed its invisible communion. This time he +spoke to the dog. + +"Duke!" he whispered, and he struck a match. The spaniel was lying +upon his belly, his neck stretched out, his jaws resting upon his +paws. "Duke, what is it?" + +The animal raised its head and turned a little to one side. The human +voice could not have said more clearly: + +"What's the matter? You are interrupting us." + +The match burned out between his forefinger and thumb. Royle did not +light another. He laid himself down again. But the pleasant fancy born +in him upon the moonlit terrace had gone altogether from his thoughts. +There was something to him rather sinister in the notion of the dog +waiting for him to go to sleep and then, without moving from its +place--so certain it was of the neighbourhood of some unseen being to +whom it gave allegiance--resuming a strange companionship. He no +longer thought of Ina--Ina as the visitor. He began to wonder how the +dog had come to her, who had owned it before her. He plunged into +vague and uncomfortable surmises. No doubt the darkness, the silence +of the night, and his own sleeplessness had their effects. He lay in a +strange exaltation of spirit, which deepened slowly and gradually into +fear. Yes, he was afraid now. He had a sense of danger, all the more +alarming because it was reasonless. There were low breathings about +his bed; now some one bent over him, now a hand lightly touched the +coverlet. He, the most unimpressionable of men, rejoiced when a grey +beam of light shot through a chink of the curtain and spread like a +fan into the room. He turned over on his side and slept until the sun +was high. + +In the clear light of a July morning Royle's thoughts took on a more +sober colour. None the less, he made a cautious inquiry or two that +day from the gardener, and from the shops in the village. The answer +in each case was the same. + +"The house had no history, no traditions. It had only been built ten +years back. There was nothing but a field then where the house now +stood. Even the trees had been planted at the time the house was +built." + +Indeed, the assurance was hardly needed; for the house was new and +bright as a hospital. There was hardly a dark corner anywhere, +certainly nowhere a harbour for dark thoughts. Royle began to revert +to his original fancy; and when that evening his wife returned, he +asked her: + +"Last night, just before midnight--what were you doing?" + +They were together in a small library upon the first floor, a room +with big windows opening upon the side of the house. The night was hot +and the windows stood open, and close to one of them at a little table +Ina was writing a letter. She looked up with a smile. + +"Last night--just before midnight? I was asleep." + +"Are you sure?" + +Some note of urgency in his voice made her smile waver. It disappeared +altogether as she gazed at him. + +"Of course," she answered, slowly, "I am sure;" and then, after a +little pause and with a slight but a noticeable hesitation, she added: +"Why do you ask?" + +Dorman Royle crossed over to her side and most unwisely told her: + +"Because at midnight the gate into the paddock was opened and swung to +without any hand to touch it. I had been thinking of you, Ina--wanting +you--and I wondered." + +He spoke half in jest, but there was no jesting reply. For a little +while, indeed, Ina did not answer him at all. He was standing just a +step behind her as she sat at the table in the window, so that he +could not see her face. But her body stiffened. + +"It must have been a delusion," she said, and he walked forward and +sat down in a chair by the table facing her. + +"If so, it was a delusion which the dog shared." + +She did not change her attitude; she did not stir. From head to foot +she sat as though carved in stone. Nor did her face tell him anything. +It became a mask; it seemed to him that she forced all expression out +of it, by some miracle of self-command. But her eyes shone more than +usually big, more than usually luminous; and they held their secret +too, if they had a secret to hold. Then she leaned forward and touched +his sleeve. + +"Tell me!" she said, and she had trouble to find her voice; and, +having found it, she could not keep it steady. + +"I am sorry, Ina," he said. "You are frightened. I should not have +said a word." + +"But you have," she replied. "Now I must know the rest." + +He told her all that there was to tell. Reduced to the simple terms of +narrative, the story sounded, even to him, thin and unconvincing. +There was so little of fact and event, so much of suggestion and vague +emotion. But his recollection was still vivid, and something of the +queer terror which he had felt as he had lain in the darkness was +expressed in his aspect and in the vibrations of his voice. So, at all +events, he judged. For he had almost expected her to laugh at the +solemnity of his manner, and yet Ina did not so much as smile. She +listened without even astonishment, paying close heed to every word, +now and then nodding her head in assent, but never interrupting. He +was vaguely reminded of clients listening to his advice in some grave +crisis of their affairs. But when he had finished she made no comment. +She just sat still and rigid, gazing at him with baffling and +inscrutable eyes. + +Dorman Royle rose. "So it wasn't you, Ina, who returned last night?" +he said. + +"No," she answered, in a voice which was low, but now quite clear and +steady. "I slept soundly last night--much more soundly than I usually +do." + +"That's strange," said Royle. + +"I don't think so," Ina answered. "I think it follows. _I was let +alone_. Yes, that's all of a piece with your story, don't you see?" + +Dorman Royle sprang up, and at his abrupt movement his wife's face +flashed into life and fear. + +"What are you saying?" he cried, and she shrank as if she realised now +what a dangerous phrase she had allowed her lips to utter. + +"Nothing, nothing!" she exclaimed, and she set herself obstinately to +her letter. + +Royle looked at the clock. + +"It's late," he said. "I'll take the dog out for a run." + +He went downstairs and out at the front of the house. To-night the air +was mistier, and the moon sailed through a fleece of clouds. Royle +walked to a gate on the edge of the hill. It may have been a quarter +of an hour before he whistled to the dog and turned back to the house. +From the gate to the house was perhaps a hundred yards, and as he +walked back first one, then another, of the windows of the library +upon the first floor came within his view. These windows stood wide +open to the night, and showed him, as in a miniature, this and that +corner of the room, the bookcases, the lamps upon the tables, and the +top-rails of the chair-backs, small but very clear. The one window +which he could not as yet see at all was that in which his wife sat. +For it was at the far end of the room and almost over the front door. +Royle came within view of it at last, and stopped dead. He gazed at +the window with amazement. Ina was still sitting at the writing-table +in the window, but she was no longer alone. Just where he himself had +stood a few minutes before, a step behind her shoulder, another man +was now standing--a man with a strong, rather square, dark face, under +a mane of black hair. He wore a dinner-jacket and a black tie, and he +was bending forward and talking to Ina very earnestly. Ina herself sat +with her hands pressed upon her face and her body huddled in her +chair, not answering, but beaten down by the earnestness of the +stranger's pleading. Thus they appeared within the frame of the +window, both extraordinarily distinct to Royle watching outside there +in the darkness. He could see the muscles working in the stranger's +face and the twitching of Ina's hands, but he could hear nothing. The +man was speaking in too low a voice. + +Royle did not move. + +"But I know the man," he was saying to himself. "I have seen him, at +all events. Where? Where?" And suddenly he remembered. It was at the +time of a General Election. He had arrived at King's Cross Station +from Scotland late one night, and, walking along the Marylebone +Road, he had been attracted by a throng of people standing about a +lamp-post, and above the throng the head and shoulders of a man +addressing it had been thrown into a clear light. He had stopped for a +moment to listen; He had asked a question of his neighbour. Yes, the +speaker was one of the candidates, and he was the man who now stood by +Ina's side. + +Royle tried to remember the name, but he could not. Then he began to +wonder whence the stranger had come. It was a good two miles to the +village. How, too, had he managed to get into the house? The servants +had gone to bed an hour before Royle had come out. The hall-door stood +open now. He had left it open. The man must have been waiting some +such opportunity--as he had done no doubt last night. Such a passion +of anger and jealousy flamed up in Royle as he had never known. He ran +into the hall and shot the bolts. He hurried up the stairs and flung +open the door. Ina was still sitting at the table, but she had +withdrawn her hands from her face, and, but for her, the room was +empty. + +"Ina!" he cried, and she turned to him. Her face was quiet, her eyes +steady; there was a smile upon her lips. + +"Yes?" + +She sat just as he had left her. Looking at her in his bewilderment, +he almost came to believe that his eyes had tricked him, that thus she +had sat all this while. Almost! For the violence of his cry had been +unmistakable, and she did not ask for the reason of it. He was out of +breath, too, his face no doubt disordered; yet she put no question; +she sat and smiled--tenderly. Yes, that was the word. Dorman Royle +stood in front of her. It seemed to him that his happiness was +crumbling down in ruins about him. + +"Ina!" he repeated, and the dog barked for admission underneath the +window. The current of his thoughts was altered by the sound. His +passion fell away from him. It seemed to him that he dived under ice. + +"Ina!" + +He sat quietly down in the chair on the other side of that table. + +"You have had that dog some time?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"How did you get it?" + +The answer came quite steadily but slowly, and after a long silence. + +"A friend gave it to me." + +"Who?" + +There was no longer any smile upon the girl's face. Nor, on the other +hand, was there any fear. Her eyes never for a second wavered from +his. + +"Why do you ask?" + +"I am curious," replied Royle. "Who?" + +"Raymond Byatt." + +The name conveyed nothing to Royle. He did not even recollect it. But +he spoke as if it were quite familiar to him. + +"Raymond Byatt? Didn't he stand for Parliament once in Marylebone?" + +"Yes. He was defeated." + +Royle rose from his chair. + +"Well, I had better go down and let the dog in," he said, and he went +to the door, where he turned to her again. + +"But if he's a friend of yours, you should ask him down," he remarked. +Ina drew herself up in her chair, her hands clinging to the arms of +it. + +"He killed himself a fortnight ago." + +The answer turned Royle into a figure of stone. The two people stared +at one another across the room in a dreadful silence; and it seemed as +if, having once spoken, Ina was forced by some terrible burden of +anguish to speak yet more. + +"Yes," she continued in a whisper, "a week before we married." + +"Did you care for him?" + +Ina shook her head. + +"Never." + +There were words upon the tip of Royle's tongue--words of bitterness: + +"It was he who came back last night. He came back for you. He was with +you to-night--the moment after I left you. I saw him." But he knew +they would be irrevocable words, and with an effort he held his +tongue. He went downstairs and let the dog in. When he returned to the +library Ina was standing up. + +"I'll go to bed," she said, and her voice pleaded for silence. "I am +tired. I have had a long journey;" and he let her go without a word. + +He sat late himself, wondering what in the morning he should do. The +house had become horrible to him. And unless Ina told him all there +was to tell, how could they go on side by side anywhere? When he went +upstairs Ina was in bed and asleep. He left the door wide open between +her room and his and turned in himself. But he slept lightly, and at +some time that night, whilst it was still dark, he was roused to +wakefulness. A light was burning in his wife's room, and through the +doorway he could see her. She had in her hand the glass of water which +usually stood on a little table beside her bed, and she was measuring +out into it from a bottle some crystals. He knew that they were +chloral crystals, for, since she slept badly, she always kept them by +her. He watched her shaking out the dose, and as he watched such a +fear clutched at his heart as made all the other terrors of that night +pale and of no account. Ina was measuring out deliberately enough +chloral into that tumbler of water to kill a company. Very cautiously +he drew himself up in his bed. He heard the girl stifle a sob, and as +she waited for the crystals to dissolve her face took on a look of +grief and despair which he had never in his life seen before. He +sprang out of bed, and in an instant was at her side. With a cry Ina +raised the glass to her lips, but his hand was already upon her wrist. + +"Let me go!" she cried, and she struggled to free herself. But he took +the glass from her, and suddenly all her self-command gave way in a +passion of tears. She became a frightened child. Her hands sought him, +she hid her face from him, and she would not let him go. + +"Ina," he whispered, "what were you doing?" + +"I was following," she said. "I had to. He stands by me, always, +commanding me." And she shook like one in a fever. + +"Good God!" he cried. + +"Oh, I have fought," she sobbed, "but he's winning. Yes, that's the +truth. Sooner or later I shall have to follow." + +"Tell me everything," said Royle. + +"No." + +But he held her close within the comfort of his arms and wrestled for +her and for himself. Gradually the story was told to him in broken +sentences and with long silences between them, during which she lay in +his clasp and shivered. + +"He wanted me to marry him. But I wouldn't. He had a sort of power +over me--the power of a bully who cares very much," she said; and a +little later she gave the strangest glimpse of the man. He would +hardly have believed it; but he had seen the man, and the story fitted +him. + +"I was in Paris for a few days--alone with my maid. I went to see a +play which was to be translated for me. He was in the same hotel, +quite alone as I was. It was after I had kept on refusing him. He +seemed horribly lonely--that was part of his power. I never saw anyone +who lived so completely in loneliness. He was shut away in it as if in +some prison of glass through which you could see but not hear. It made +him tragic--pitiful. I went up to him in the lounge and asked if we +couldn't be just friends, since we were both there alone. You'll never +imagine what he did. He stared at me without answering at all. He just +walked away and went to the hotel manager. He asked him how it was +that he allowed women in his hotel who came up and spoke to +strangers." + +"Ina--he didn't!" cried Royle. + +"He did. Luckily the manager knew me. And that night, though he +wouldn't speak to me in the lounge, he wrote me a terrible letter. +Then, when you and I were engaged, he killed himself--just a week +before we married. He tried to do it twice. He went down to an hotel +at Aylesbury and sat up all night, trying to do it. But the morning +came and he had failed. The servant who called him found him sitting +in his bedroom at the writing-table at which he had left him the night +before; and all night he had written not one word. Next day he went to +another hotel on the South Coast, and all that night he waited. But in +the morning--after he had been called--quite suddenly he found the +courage--yes----" and Ina's voice trailed away into silence. In a +little while she began again. + +"Ever since he has been at my side, saying 'I did it because of you. +You must follow.' There was the chloral always ready. I found myself +night after night, when you were asleep, reaching out my hand +obediently towards it--towards it----" + +"Except last night," Royle interrupted, suddenly finding at last the +explanation of some words of hers which had puzzled him, "when he came +here, and you were away." + +"And I slept soundly in consequence," she agreed. "Yes. But +to-night--if you hadn't been here--I should have obeyed altogether." + +"But I am here," said Royle, gently; and, looking up, he saw that the +morning had come. He rose and pulled aside the curtains so that the +clear light flooded the room. + +"Ina, do something for me," he pleaded, and she understood. She took +the bottle of crystals, poured them into the basin, and set the tap +running. + +"Stay with me," she said. "Now that I have told you, I believe that I +shall sleep, and sleep without fear. When you came into the room +before I was only pretending." + +She nestled down, and this time she did sleep. It seemed to Royle that +the victory was won. + +Some months later, however, a client talking over his affairs with +Royle in his private office mentioned Raymond Byatt's name. Royle +leaned forward with a start. + +"You knew that man?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied the client with a laugh. "He forged my name for a +thousand pounds--and not mine alone. He was clever with his pen. But +he came to the end of his tether at last. He saved himself from penal +servitude by blowing his brains out." + +Royle jumped out of his chair. + +"Is that true?" + +"Absolutely." + +And Royle sat down suddenly. + +"That's the best piece of news I have ever had in my life," he cried. +Now for a sure thing the victory was his. He went home that evening in +the highest spirits. + +"What do you think, Ina, I discovered to-day?" he blurted out. "You'll +be as glad to hear as I was. Raymond Byatt didn't kill himself for +you, after all. He did it to save himself from a prosecution for +forgery." + +There was a moment's silence, and then Ina replied: + +"Indeed!" and that was all. But Dorman Royle, to his perplexity, +detected a certain unexpected iciness in her voice. Somehow that new +insight which Groome had discovered in him had on this evening failed +him altogether. + + + + + + THE CRYSTAL TRENCH + + + + + THE CRYSTAL TRENCH + + + I + +It was late in the season, and for the best part of a week the weather +had been disheartening. Even to-day, though there had been no rain +since last night, the mists swirled in masses over a sunless valley +green as spring, and the hill-sides ran with water. It pleased Dennis +Challoner, however, to believe that better times were coming. He stood +at a window of the Riffelalp Hotel, and imagined breaches in the dark +canopy of cloud. + +"Yes," he said, hopefully, "the weather is taking up." + +He was speaking to a young girl whose name he did not know, a +desultory acquaintance made during the twelve hours which he had +passed at the hotel. + +"I believe it is," she answered. She looked out of the window at two +men who were sitting disconsolately on a bench. "Those are your men, +aren't they? So you climb with guides!" + +There was, a note of deprecation in her voice quite unmistakable. She +was trying not to show scorn, but the scorn was a little too strong +for her. Challoner laughed. + +"I do. With guides I can go where I like, when I like. I don't have to +hunt for companions or make arrangements beforehand. I have climbed +with the Blauers for five years now, and we know each other's ways." + +He broke off, conscious that in her eyes he was making rather feeble +excuses to cover his timidity and incompetence. + +"I have no doubt you are quite right," she replied. There was a gentle +indulgence in her voice, and a smile upon her lips which cried as +plainly as words, "I could tell you something if I chose." But she was +content to keep her triumphant secret to herself. She laid her hand +upon the ledge of the window, and beat a little tattoo with her +finger-tips, so that Challoner could not but look at them. When he +looked he understood why she thus called his attention. She wore a +wedding-ring. + +Challoner was surprised. For she was just a tall slip of a girl. He +put her age at nineteen or less. She was clear-eyed and pretty, with +the tremendous confidence of one who looks out at life from the secure +shelter of a school-room. Then, with too conscious an unconsciousness, +she turned away, and Challoner saw no more of her that day. + +But the hotel was still full, though most of the climbers had gone, +and in the garden looking over the valley of Zermatt, at six o'clock +that evening, a commotion broke out about the big telescope. Challoner +was discussing plans for the morrow with his guides by the parapet at +the time, and the three men turned as one towards the centre of the +clamour. A German tourist was gesticulating excitedly amidst a group +of his compatriots. He broke through the group and came towards +Challoner, beaming like a man with good news. + +"You should see--through the telescope--since you climb. It is very +interesting. But you must be quick, or the clouds will close in +again." + +"What do you mean?" Challoner asked. + +"There, on the top of the Weisshorn, I saw two men." + +"Now? At six o'clock in the evening--on a day of storm?" Challoner +cried. "It's impossible." + +"But I have seen them, I tell you." + +Challoner turned and looked down and across the valley. The great +curtain of cloud hung down in front of the hills like wool. The lower +slopes of dark green met it, and on them the black pines marched up +into the mist. Of rock and glacier and soaring snow not an inch was +visible. But the tourist clung to his story. + +"It is my first visit to the mountains. I was never free before, and I +must go down to-morrow morning. I thought that even now I should never +see them--all the time I have been here the weather has been terrible. +But at the last moment I have had the good fortune. Oh, I am very +pleased." + +The enthusiasm of this middle-aged German business man, an enthusiasm +childlike as it was sincere, did not surprise Challoner. He looked +upon that as natural. But he doubted the truth of the man's vision. He +wanted so much to see what he saw. + +"Tell me exactly what you saw," Challoner asked, and this was the +story which the tourist told. + +He was looking through the telescope when suddenly the clouds thinned, +and through a film of vapour he saw, very far away and dimly, a +soaring line of black like a jagged reef, and a great white slope more +solid than the clouds, and holding light. He kept his eye to the lens, +hoping with all his soul that the wonderful vision might be vouchsafed +to him, and as he looked, the screen of vapour vanished, and he saw +quite clearly the exquisite silver pyramid of the Weisshorn soaring up +alone in the depths of a great cavern of grey cloud. For a little +while he continued to watch, hoping for a ray of sunlight to complete +a picture which he was never to forget, and then, to his amazement and +delight, two men climbed suddenly into his vision on to the top of the +peak. They came from the south or the south-west. + +"By the Schalligrat!" exclaimed Challoner. "It's not possible!" + +"Yes," the tourist protested. He was sure. There was no illusion at +all. The two men did not halt for a second on the top. They crossed +it, and began to descend the long ridge towards the St. Nicholas +valley. + +"I am sure," he continued. "One of the climbers, the one in front, was +moving very slowly and uncertainly like a man in an extremity of +weakness. The last was strong. I saw him lift the rope between them, +which was slack, and shake the snow off it----" + +"You saw that?" exclaimed Challoner. "What then?" + +"Nothing. The clouds closed again over the peak, and I saw no more." + +Challoner had listened to the story with a growing anxiety. He took +the chair behind the telescope, and sat with his eye to the lens for a +long while. But he saw only writhing mists in a failing light. He rose +and moved away. There was no mountaineer that day in the hotel except +himself. Not one of the group about the telescope quite understood the +gravity of the story which had been told them--if it were true. But it +could not be true, Challoner assured himself. + +It was just possible, of course, that on a fine day some party which +had adventured upon a new ascent might find itself on the top of the +Weisshorn at six o'clock in the evening. But on a day like this no man +in his senses would be on any ridge or face of that mountain at all, +even in the morning. Yet the tourist's story was circumstantial. That +was the fact which troubled Challoner. The traverse of the Weisshorn +from the Schallijoch, for instance, was one of the known difficult +climbs of the Pennine Alps. There was that little detail, too, of the +last man shaking the snow from the slack of the rope. But no doubt the +tourist had read the year-books of the Austrian Alpine Club. Certainly +he must have been mistaken. He wanted to see; therefore he saw. It was +inconceivable that the story should be true. + +Thus Challoner thought all through that evening and the next day. But +as he left the dining-room the manageress met him with a grave face, +and asked him into her office. She closed the door when he had entered +the room, and said: + +"There has been an accident." + +Challoner's thoughts flew back to the story of the tourist. + +"On the Weisshorn?" + +"Yes. It is terrible!" And the woman sat down, while the tears came +into her eyes and ran down her cheeks. + +Two young Englishmen, it appeared, Mark Frobisher and George Liston, +had come up from the valley a week ago. They would not hear of guides. +They had climbed from Wasdale Head and in the Snowdon range. The +Alpine Club was a body of old fogies. They did not think much of the +Alps. + +"They were so young--boys! Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him." + +"A wife?" exclaimed Challoner. + +"Yes. She was still younger than he was, and she spoke as he +did--knowing nothing, but full of pride in her husband, and quite +confident in his judgment. They were children--that is the truth--and +very likely we might have persuaded them that they were wrong--if only +Herr Ranks had not come, too, from Vienna about the same time." + +Challoner began dimly to understand the tragedy which had happened. +Ranks was well known amongst mountaineers. Forty years old, the right +age for endurance, he was known for a passion for long expeditions +undertaken with very small equipment; and for a rather dangerous +indifference as to the companions he climbed with. He had at once +proposed the Schalligrat ascent to the two Englishmen. They had gone +down to Randa, slept the night there, and in bad weather had walked up +to the Weisshorn hut, with provisions for three days. Nothing more had +been heard of the party until this very afternoon, when Ranks and +George Listen, both exhausted and the latter terribly frost-bitten, +staggered into the Randa hotel. + +"That's terrible," said Challoner. But still more terrible was the +story which the Austrian had to tell. He had written it out at once +very briefly, and sent it up to the Riffelalp. The manageress handed +the letter to Challoner. + +"We stayed in the hut two days," it ran, "hoping that the weather +would lift. The next morning there were promising signs, and taking +our blankets we crossed the Schalliberg glacier, and camped on the +usual spur of the Schallihorn. We had very little food left, and I +know now that we ought to have returned to Randa. But I did not think +of the youth of my companions. It was very cold during the night, but +no snow fell, and in the morning there was a gleam of sunshine. +Accordingly we started, and reached the Schallijoch in four hours and +a half. Under the top of the col we breakfasted, and then attacked the +ridge. The going was very difficult; there was often a glaze of black +ice upon the rocks, and as not one of us knew the ridge at all, we +wasted much time in trying to traverse some of the bigger gendarmes on +the western side, whereas they were only possible on the east. +Moreover, the sunlight did not keep its promise: it went out +altogether at half-past ten; the ridge became bitterly and dangerously +cold, and soon after midday the wind rose. We dared not stop anywhere, +and our food was now altogether exhausted. At two o'clock we found a +shelter under a huge tower of red rock, and there we rested. Frobisher +complained of exhaustion, and was clearly very weak. Liston was +stronger, but not in a condition for a climb which I think must always +be difficult and was now hazardous in the extreme. The cold had made +him very sleepy. We called a council of war. But it was quite evident +to me that we could not get down in the state in which we were, and +that a night upon the ridge without food or drink was not to be +thought of. I was certain that we were not very far from the top, and +I persuaded my friends to go forward. I climbed up and over the red +tower by a small winding crack in its face, and with great difficulty +managed, by the help of the rope, to draw my friends up after me. But +this one tower took more than an hour to cross, and on a little +snow-col like a knife-edge on the farther side of it, Frobisher +collapsed altogether. What with the cold and his exhaustion his heart +gave out. I swear that we stayed with him until he died--yes, I swear +it--although the wind was very dangerous to the rest of us, and he was +evidently dying. We stayed with him--yes. When all was over, I tied +him by the waist with a piece of spare rope we carried to a splinter +of rock which cropped out of the col, and went on with Liston. I did +not think that we should either of us now escape, but the rock-towers +upon the arete came to an end at last, and at six o'clock we stood on +the mountain-top. Then we changed the order, Liston going now first +down the easy eastern ridge. The snow was granulated and did not bind, +and we made very slow progress. We stopped for the night at a height, +I should think, of thirteen thousand feet, with very little protection +from the wind. The cold was terrible, and I did not think that Liston +would live through the night. But he did, and today there was +sunlight, and warmth in the sunlight, so that moving very carefully we +got down to the hut by midday. There, by a happy chance, we found some +crusts and odds and ends of food which we had left behind; and after a +rest were able to come on to Randa, getting some milk at the half-way +chalet on the way down. Liston is frost-bitten in the feet and hands, +but I think will be able to be moved down to the clinic at Lucerne in +a couple of days. It is all my fault. Yes. I say that frankly. I alone +am to blame. I take it all upon my shoulders. You can say so freely at +the Riffelalp. 'Ranks takes all the blame.' I shall indeed write +to-morrow to the Zurich papers to say that the fault is mine." + +Challoner read the message through again. The assumption of +magnanimity in the last few lines was singularly displeasing, and the +eager assertion that the party had not left Frobisher until he was +actually dead seemed to protest overmuch. + +"That's a bad letter," said Challoner. "He left Frobisher still alive +upon the ridge," and the desolation of that death in the cold and the +darkness and the utter loneliness of those storm-riven pinnacles +soaring above the world seemed to him appalling. But the manageress +had no thoughts to spare for the letter. + +"Who will tell her?" she asked, rocking her body to and fro, and +fixing her troubled eyes on Challoner. "It is you. You are her +countryman." + +Challoner was startled. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I told you. Mr. Frobisher brought a wife with him. Yes. They had only +been married a couple of months. She is a year or two younger than he +is--a child. Oh, and she was so proud of him. For my part I did not +like him very much. I would not have trusted him with the happiness of +anyone I cared for. But she had given him all her heart. And now she +must be told!" + +"She is in the hotel now?" Challoner asked. + +"Yes. You were talking to her yesterday." + +Challoner did not need the answer. + +"Very well. I will tell her." And he turned away, his heart sick at +the task which lay before him. But before he had reached the door the +woman called him back. + +"Could we not give her just one more night of confidence and +contentment? Nothing can be done until to-morrow. No one in the hotel +knows but you and I. She will have sorrow enough. She need not begin +to suffer before she must. Just one more night of quiet sleep." + +So she pleaded, and Challoner clutched at the plea. He was twenty-six, +and up to the moment life had hidden from him her stern ordeals. How +should he break the news? He needed time carefully to prepare the way. +He shrank from the vision of the pain which he must inflict. + +"Yes, it can all wait until to-morrow," he said, and he went out of +the office into the hall. There was a sound of music in the big +drawing-room--a waltz, and the visitors were dancing to it. The noise +jarred upon his ears, and he crossed towards the garden door in order +to escape from it. But to reach the garden he had to pass the +ballroom, and as he passed it he looked in, and the irony of the world +shocked him so that he stood staring upon the company with a white +face and open-mouthed. Frobisher's widow was dancing. She was dancing +with all the supple grace of her nineteen years, her face flushed +and smiling, whilst up there, fourteen thousand feet high on the +storm-swept ridge of the Weisshorn, throughout that bitter night her +dead husband bestrode the snow, and nodded and swayed to the gale. As +she whirled past the door she saw him. She smiled with the pleasant +friendliness of a girl who is perfectly happy, and with just a hint of +condescension for the weaker vessel who found it necessary to climb +with guides. Challoner hurried out into the garden. + +He went up to her room the next morning and broke the news to her as +gently as he could. He was prepared for tears, for an overwhelming +grief. But she showed him neither. She caught at an arm of a chair, +and leaning upon it, seated herself when he began to speak. But after +that she listened, frowning at him in a perplexity like a child over +some difficult problem of her books. And when he had finished she drew +a long breath. + +"I don't know why you should try to frighten me," she said. "Of +course, it is not true." + +She would not believe--no, not even with Ranks's letter in her hand, +at which she stared and stared as though it needed decoding. + +"Perhaps I could read it if I were alone," she said at last, and +Challoner left her to herself. + +In an hour she sent for him again. Now indeed she knew, but she had no +tears wherewith to ease her knowledge. Challoner saw upon her face +such an expression of misery and torture as he hoped never to see +again. She spoke with a submission which was very strange. It was only +the fact of her youth, not her consciousness of it, which seemed to +protest against her anguish as against an injustice. + +"I was abrupt to you," she said. "I am sorry. You were kind to me. I +did not understand. But I understand now, and there is something which +I should like to ask you. You see, I do not know." + +"Yes?" + +"Would it be possible that he should be brought back to me?" + +She had turned to the window, and she spoke low, and with a world of +yearning in her voice. + +"We will try." + +"I should be so very grateful." + +She had so desolate a look that Challoner made a promise of it, even +though he knew well the rashness of the promise. + +"You will go yourself?" she asked, turning her face to him. + +"Of course." + +"Thank you. I have no friends here, you see, but you." + +Eight guides were collected that afternoon in the valley. Challoner +brought down his two, and the whole party, under the guide-chief, +moved up to the Weisshorn hut. Starting the next morning with a clear +sky of starlight above their heads, they crossed the mountain by the +eastern arete, and descending the Schalligrat, found young Frobisher +tied by the waist and shoulders to a splinter of rock as Ranks had +described. He was astride a narrow edge of snow, a leg dangling down +each precipice. His eyes stared at them, his mouth hung open, and when +any stray gust of wind struck the ridge, he nodded at them with a +dreadful pleasantry. He had the air, to Challoner's eyes, of a live +paralytic rather than of a man frozen and dead. His face was the +colour of cheese. + +With infinite trouble they lifted him back on to the mountain summit, +and roped him round in a piece of stout sacking. Then they dragged him +down the snow of the upper part of the ridge, carried him over the +lower section of rock, and, turning off the ridge to the right, +brought him down to the glacier. + +It was then three o'clock in the afternoon, and half an hour later the +grimmest episode of all that terrible day occurred. The lashing of the +rope got loose as they dragged the body down the glacier, and suddenly +it worked out of the sacking and slid swiftly past them down a steep +slope of ice. A cry of horror broke from the rescue party. For a +moment or two they watched it helplessly as it gathered speed and +leapt into the air from one little hummock to another, the arms +tossing and whirling like the arms of a man taken off his guard. Then +it disappeared with a crash into a crevasse, and the glacier was +empty. + +The party stood for a little while aghast, and the illusion which had +seized upon Challoner when he had first come in sight of the red +rock-tower on the other ridge attacked him again. He could not get it +out of his thoughts that this was a living man who had disappeared +from their gaze, so natural had all his movements been. + +The party descended to the lip of the crevasse, and a guide was +lowered into it. But he could not reach the bottom, and they drew him +up again. + +"That is his grave," said Joseph Blauer, solemnly; and they turned +away again and descended to Randa. + +"How shall I meet that girl?" Challoner asked himself, in a passion of +remorse. It seemed to him that he had betrayed a trust, and the sum of +treachery deepened in him when he did tell it that night at the +Riffelalp. For tears had their way with her at last. She buried her +face in her arms upon the table, and sobbed as though her heart would +burst. + +"I had so hoped that you would bring him back to me," she said. "I +cannot bear to think of him lying for ever in that loneliness of ice." + +"I am very sorry," Challoner stammered, and she was silent. "You have +friends coming out to you?" he asked. + +He went down into the hall, and a man whose face he remembered came +eagerly towards him. Challoner was able to identify him the next +moment. For the man cried out: + +"It is done. Yes, it is in all the Zurich papers. I have said that I +alone am to blame. I have taken the whole responsibility upon my +shoulders." Herr Ranks brimmed with magnanimity. + + + II + +Towards Christmas of that year Challoner, at his chambers in the +Temple, received a letter in an unfamiliar hand. It came from Mrs. +Frobisher. It was a letter of apology. She had run away into hiding +with her sorrow, and only during the last weeks had she grown +conscious of the trouble which Challoner had taken for her. She had +quite forgotten to thank him, but she did so now, though the thanks +were overlate. Challoner was very glad to receive the letter. From the +day when he had seen her off from the new station in the valley, he +had lost sight of her altogether, but the recollection of her pale and +wistful face at the carriage window had haunted him. With just that +look, he had thought, might some exile leave behind every treasured +thing and depart upon a long journey into perpetual banishment. This +letter, however, had a hint, a perfume of spring-time. Stella +Frobisher--by that name she signed--was beginning to recreate her +life. + +Challoner took a note of her address, and travelled into Dorsetshire +on the Saturday. Stella Frobisher lived in a long and ancient house, +half farm, half mansion, set apart in a rich country close to +Arishmell Cove. Through a doorway one looked into a garden behind the +house which even at that season was bright with flowers. She lived +with the roar of the waves upon the shingle in her ears and the +gorse-strewn downs before her eyes. Challoner had found a warm and +cheerful welcome at that house, and came back again to it. Stella +Frobisher neither played the hermit nor made a luxury out of her +calamitous loss. She rebuilt her little world as well as she could, +bearing herself with pride and courage. Challoner could not but admire +her; he began to be troubled by what seemed to him the sterility of a +valuable life. He could not but see that she looked forward to his +visits. Other emotions were roused in him, and on one morning of +summer, with the sea blue at her feet and the gorse a golden flame +about her, he asked her to marry him. + +Stella Frobisher's face grew very grave. + +"I am afraid that's impossible," she said, slowly, a little to his +surprise and a great deal to his chagrin. Perhaps she noticed the +chagrin, for she continued quickly, "I shall tell you why. Do you know +Professor Kersley?" + +Challoner looked at her with astonishment. + +"I have met him in the Alps." + +Stella Frobisher nodded. "He is supposed to know more than anyone else +about the movements of glaciers." + +Dimly Challoner began to understand, and he was startled. + +"Yes," he answered. + +"I went to call on him at Cambridge. He was very civil. I told him +about the accident on the Weisshorn. He promised to make a +calculation. He took a great deal of trouble. He sent for me again and +told me the month and the year. He even named a week, and a day in the +week." So far she had spoken quite slowly and calmly. Now, however, +her voice broke, and she looked away. "On July 21st, twenty-four years +from now, Mark will come out of the ice at the snout of the Hohlicht +glacier." + +Challoner did not dispute the prophecy. Computations of the kind had +been made before with extraordinary truth. + +"But you won't wait till then?" he cried, in protest. + +For a little while she found it difficult to speak. Her thoughts were +very far away from that shining sea and homely turf. + +"Yes," she said at last, in a whisper; "I am dedicated to that as a +nun to her service." And against that dead man wrapped in ice, his +unconquerable rival, Challoner strove in vain. + +"So you must look elsewhere," Stella said. "You must not waste your +life. I am not wasting mine. I live for an hour which will come." + +"I am in too deep, I am afraid, to look elsewhere," said Challoner, +gloomily. Stella Frobisher looked at him with a smile of humour +playing about her mouth. + +"I should like to feel sorry about that," she said. "But I am not +noble, and I can't." + +They went together down to the house, and she said: "However, you are +young. Many things will happen to you. You will change." + +But as a matter of fact he did not. He wanted this particular woman, +and not another. He cursed himself considerably for his folly in not +making sure, when the rescue party got down from the rocks on to the +glacier, that the rope about the sacking was not working loose. But +such reproaches did not help forward his suit. And the years slipped +away, each one a trifle more swiftly than that which had gone before. +But in the press of a rising practice he hardly noticed their passage. +From time to time Stella Frobisher came to town, sat in the Law Courts +while he argued, was taken to shop in Bond Street, and entertained at +theatres. Upon one such visit they motored--for motors had come +now--on an evening in June down the Portsmouth road, and dined at the +inn at Ockham. On their way she said, simply: + +"It is the year." + +"I know," replied Challoner. "Shall I come with you?" + +She caught his hand tightly for a moment. + +"Oh, if you could! I am a little afraid--now." + +He took her out to Randa. There were many changes in the valley. New +hotels had sprung up; a railway climbed nowadays to the Riffelalp; the +tourists came in hundreds instead of tens; the mountains were overrun. +But Challoner's eyes were closed to the changes. He went up through +the cleft of the hills to where the glaciers come down from the +Weisshorn and the Schallijoch and the Moming Pass; and as July drew +on, he pitched a camp there, and stood on guard like a sentinel. + +There came a morning when, coming out of his tent on to a knoll of +grass, he saw below him on the white surface of the glacier, and not +very far away, something small and black. + +"It's a pebble, no doubt," he thought, but he took his axe and climbed +down on to the ice. As he approached the object the surer he became. +It was a round pebble, polished black and smooth by the friction of +the ice. He almost turned back. But it was near, and he went on. Then +a ray of sunlight shot down the valley, and the thing flickered. +Challoner stooped over it curiously and picked it up. It was a gold +watch, lying with its dial against the ice, and its case blackened +save for a spot or two where it shone. The glass was missing and the +hands broken, and it had stopped. Challoner opened it at the back; the +tiny wheels, the coil of the mainspring, were as bright as on the day +when the watch was sold. It might have been dropped there out of a +pocket a day or two ago. But ice has its whims and vagaries. Here it +will grind to powder, there it will encase and preserve. The watch +might have come out of the ice during this past night. Was the glacier +indeed giving up its secrets? + +Challoner held the watch in his hand, gazing out with blind eyes over +the empty, silent world of rock and ice. The feel of it was magical. +It was as though he gazed into the sorcerer's pot of ink, so vivid and +near were those vanished days at the Riffelalp and the dreadful quest +on the silver peak now soaring high above his head. He continued his +search that morning. Late in the afternoon he burst into the hotel at +Randa. Stella Frobisher drew him away into the garden, where they were +alone. He gave the watch into her hands, and she clasped it swiftly +against her heart with an unearthly look of exaltation upon her face. + +"It is his?" asked Challoner. + +"Yes. I will go up." + +Challoner looked at her doubtfully. He had been prepared to refuse her +plea, but he had seen, and having seen, he consented. + +"To-morrow--early. Trust me. That will be time enough." + +He collected porters that evening, and at daybreak they walked out +from the chalets and up the bank of the glacier, left the porters by +his tent, and he led her alone across the glacier and stopped. + +"Here," he said. In front of her the glacier spread out like a vast +fan within the cup of the hills, but it was empty. + +"Where?" she asked, in a whisper, and Challoner looked at her out of +troubled eyes, and did not answer. Then she looked down, and at her +feet just below the surface of the glacier, as under a thick sheet of +crystal, she saw after all these years Mark Frobisher. She dropped on +her knees with a loud cry, and to Challoner the truth about all these +years came home with a dreadful shock. + +Under the ice Mark Frobisher lay quietly, like a youth asleep. The +twenty-four years had cut not a line about his mouth, not a wrinkle +about his eyes. The glacier had used him even more tenderly than it +had used his watch. The years had taken no toll of him. He was as +young, his features were as clear and handsome, as on the day when he +had set out upon his tragic expedition. And over him bent his wife, a +woman worn, lined, old. For the first time Challoner realised that all +her youth had long since gone, and he understood for the first time +that, as it was with her, so, too, it was with him. Often enough he +had said, "Oh, yes, I am getting on. The years are passing." But he +had used the words with a laugh, deferring to convention by the +utterance of the proper meaningless thing. Now he understood the +meaningless thing meant the best part of everything. Stella Frobisher +and he were just a couple of old people, and their good years had all +been wasted. + +He gently raised Stella Frobisher to her feet. + +"Will you stand aside for a little?" he said. "I will call you." + +She moved obediently a few yards away, and Challoner summoned the +porters. Very carefully they cut the ice away. Then he called aloud: + +"Stella!" And she returned. + +There was no sheet of ice between them now; the young man and the worn +woman who had spent a couple of months of their youth together met +thus at last. But the meeting was as brief as a spark. + +The airs, of heaven beat upon Mark Frobisher, and suddenly his face +seemed to quiver and his features to be obscured. Stella uttered a +scream of terror, and covered her face with her hands. For from head +to foot the youth crumbled into dust and was not. And some small +trifle tinkled on the ice with a metallic sound. + +Challoner saw it shining at the bottom of the shallow trench of ice. +It was a gold locket on a thin chain. It was still quite bright, for +it had been worn round the neck and under the clothes. Challoner +stooped and picked it up and opened it. A face stared boldly out at +him, the face of a girl, pretty and quite vulgar, and quite strange to +him. A forgotten saying took shape slowly in his memory. What was it +that the woman who had managed the hotel at the Riffelalp had said to +him of Frobisher? + +"I did not like him. I should not trust him." + +He looked up to see Stella Frobisher watching him with a white face +and brooding eyes. + +"What is that?" she asked. + +Challoner shut the locket. + +"A portrait of you," he said, hastily. + +"He had no locket with a portrait of me," said Stella Frobisher. + +Over the shoulder of a hill the sun leapt into the sky and flooded the +world with gold. + + + + + + THE HOUSE OF TERROR + + + + + THE HOUSE OF TERROR + + +There are eager spirits who enter upon each morning like adventurers +upon an unknown sea. Mr. Rupert Glynn, however, was not of that +company. He had been christened "Rupert" in an ironical moment, for he +preferred the day to be humdrum. Possessed of an easy independence, +which he had never done a stroke of work to enlarge, he remained a +bachelor, not from lack of opportunity to become a husband, but in +order that his comfort might not be disarranged. + +"A hunting-box in the Midlands," he used to say, "a set of chambers in +the Albany, the season in town, a cure in the autumn at some French +spa where a modest game of baccarat can be enjoyed, and a five-pound +note in my pocket at the service of a friend--these conditions satisfy +my simple wants, and I can rub along." + +Contentment had rounded his figure, and he was a little thicker in the +jaw and redder in the face than he used to be. But his eye was clear, +and he had many friends, a fact for which it was easy to account. For +there was a pleasant earthliness about him which made him restful +company. It seemed impossible that strange startling things could +happen in his presence; he had so stolid and comfortable a look, his +life was so customary and sane. "When I am frightened by queer +shuffling sounds in the dead of night," said a nervous friend of his, +"I think of Rupert Glynn and I am comforted." Yet just because of this +atmosphere of security which he diffused about him, Mr. Glynn was +dragged into mysteries, and made acquainted with terrors. + +In the first days of February Mr. Glynn found upon his breakfast-table +at Melton a letter which he read through with an increasing gravity. +Mr. Glynn being a man of method, kept a file of the _Morning Post_. He +rang the bell for his servant, and fetched to the table his pocket +diary. He turned back the pages until he read in the space reserved +for November 15th, "My first run of the year." + +Then he spoke to his servant, who was now waiting in the room: + +"Thompson, bring me the _Morning Post_ of November 16th." + +Mr. Glynn remembered that he had read a particular announcement in the +paper on the morning after his first run, when he was very stiff. +Thompson brought him the copy for which he had asked, and, turning +over the pages, he soon lighted upon the paragraph. + +"Mr. James Thresk has recovered from his recent breakdown, and left +London yesterday with Mrs. Thresk for North Uist." + +Glynn laid down his newspaper and contemplated the immediate future +with gloom. It was a very long way to the Outer Hebrides, and, +moreover, he had eight horses in his stable. Yet he could hardly +refuse to take the journey in the face of that paragraph. It was not, +indeed, in his nature to refuse. For the letter written by Linda +Thresk claimed his presence urgently. He took it up again. There was +no reason expressed as to why he was needed. And there were +instructions, besides, which puzzled him, very explicit instructions. +He was to bring his guns, he was to send a telegram from Loch +Boisdale, the last harbour into which the steamer from Oban put before +it reached North Uist, and from no other place. He was, in a word, to +pretend that he had been shooting in a neighbouring island to North +Uist, and that, since he was so near, he ventured to trespass for a +night or two on Mrs. Thresk's hospitality. All these precautions +seemed to Glynn ominous, but still more ominous was the style of the +letter. A word here, a sentence there--nay, the very agitation of the +handwriting, filled Glynn with uneasiness. The appeal was almost +pitiful. He seemed to see Linda Thresk bending over the pages of the +letter which he now held in his hand, writing hurriedly, with a +twitching, terrified face, and every now and then looking up, and to +this side and to that, with the eyes of a hunted animal. He remembered +Linda's appearance very well as he held her letter in his hand, +although three years had passed since he had seen her--a fragile, +slender woman with a pale, delicate face, big dark eyes, and masses of +dark hair--a woman with the look of a girl and an almost hot-house air +of refinement. + +Mr. Glynn laid the letter down again, and again rang for his servant. + +"Pack for a fortnight," he said. "And get my guns out. I am going +away." + +Thompson was as surprised as his self-respect allowed him to be. + +"Your guns, sir?" he asked. "I think they are in town, but we have not +used them for so long." + +"I know," said Mr. Glynn impatiently, "But we are going to use them +now." + +Thompson knew very well that Mr. Glynn could not hit a haystack twenty +yards away, and had altogether abandoned a sport in which he was so +lamentably deficient. But a still greater shock was to be inflicted +upon him. + +"Thompson," said Mr. Glynn, "I shall not take you with me. I shall go +alone." + +And go alone he did. Here was the five-pound note, in a word, at the +service of a friend. But he was not without perplexities, to keep his +thoughts busy upon his journey. + +Why had Linda Thresk sent for him out of all her friends? + +For since her marriage three years before, he had clean lost sight of +her, and even before her marriage he had, after all, been only one of +many. He found no answer to that question. On the other hand, he +faithfully fulfilled Mrs. Thresk's instructions. He took his guns with +him, and when the steamer stopped beside the little quay at Loch +Boisdale he went ashore and sent off his telegram. Two hours later he +disembarked at Lochmaddy in North Uist, and, hiring a trap at the inn, +set off on his long drive across that flat and melancholy island. The +sun set, the swift darkness followed, and the moon had risen before he +heard the murmurous thunder of the sea upon the western shore. It was +about ten minutes later when, beyond a turn of the road, he saw the +house and lights shining brightly in its windows. It was a small white +house with a few out-buildings at the back, set in a flat peat country +on the edge of a great marsh. Ten yards from the house a great brake +of reeds marked the beginning of the marsh, and beyond the reeds the +bog stretched away glistening with pools to the low sand-hills. Beyond +the sand-hills the Atlantic ran out to meet the darkness, a shimmering +plain of silver. One sapling stood up from the middle of the marsh, +and laid a finger across the moon. But except that sapling, there were +not any trees. + +To Glynn, fresh from the meadowlands of Leicestershire with their neat +patterns of hedges, white gates and trees, this corner of the Outer +Hebrides upon the edge of the Atlantic had the wildest and most +desolate look. The seagulls and curlews cried perpetually above the +marsh, and the quiet sea broke upon the sand with a haunting and +mournful sound. Glynn looked at the little house set so far away in +solitude, and was glad that he had come. To his southern way of +thinking, trouble was best met and terrors most easily endured in the +lighted ways of cities, where companionship was to be had by the mere +stepping across the threshold. + +When the trap drove up to the door, there was some delay in answering +Glynn's summons. A middle-aged man-servant came at last to the door, +and peered out from the doorway in surprise. + +"I sent a telegram," said Glynn, "from Loch Boisdale. I am Mr. Glynn." + +"A telegram?" said the man. "It will not come up until the morning, +sir." + +Then the voice of the driver broke in. + +"I brought up a telegram from Lochmaddy. It's from a gentleman who is +coming to visit Mrs. Thresk from South Uist." + +In the outer islands, where all are curious, news is not always to be +had, and the privacy of the telegraph system is not recognised. Glynn +laughed, and the same moment the man-servant opened an inner door of +the tiny hall. Glynn stepped into a low-roofed parlour which was +obviously the one living-room of the house. On his right hand there +was a great fireplace with a peat fire burning in the grate, and a +high-backed horsehair sofa in front of it. On his left at a small +round table Thresk and his wife were dining. + +Both Thresk and his wife sprang up as he entered. Linda advanced to +him with every mark of surprise upon her face. + +"You!" she cried, holding out her hand. "Where have you sprung from?" + +"South Uist," said Glynn, repeating his lesson. + +"And you have come on to us! That is kind of you! Martin, you must +take Mr. Glynn's bag up to the guest-room. I expect you will be +wanting your dinner." + +"I sent you a telegram asking you whether you would mind if I +trespassed upon your hospitality for a night or so." + +He saw Linda's eyes fixed upon him with some anxiety, and he continued +at once: + +"I sent it from Loch Boisdale." + +A wave of relief passed over Linda's face. + +"It will not come up until the morning," she said with a smile. + +"As a matter of fact, the driver brought it up with him," said Glynn. +And Martin handed to Mrs. Thresk the telegram. Over his shoulder, +Glynn saw Thresk raise his head. He had been standing by the table +listening to what was said. Now he advanced. He was a tall man, +powerfully built, with a strongly-marked, broad face, which was only +saved from coarseness by its look of power. They made a strange +contrast, the husband and wife, as they stood side by side--she slight +and exquisitely delicate in her colour, dainty in her movements, he +clumsy and big and masterful. Glynn suddenly recalled gossip which had +run through the town about the time of their marriage. Linda had been +engaged to another--a man whose name Glynn did not remember, but on +whom, so the story ran, her heart was set. + +"Of course you are very welcome," said Thresk, as he held out his +hand, and Glynn noticed with something of a shock that his throat was +bandaged. He looked towards Linda. Her eyes were resting upon him with +a look of agonised appeal. He was not to remark upon that wounded +throat. He took Thresk's hand. + +"We shall be delighted if you will stay with us as long as you can," +said Thresk, "We have been up here for more than three months. You +come to us from another world, and visitors from another world are +always interesting, aren't they, Linda?" + +He spoke his question with a quiet smile, like a man secretly amused. +But on Linda's face fear flashed out suddenly and was gone. It seemed +to Glynn that she was at pains to repress a shiver. + +"Martin will show you your room," said Thresk. "What's the matter?" + +Glynn was staring at the table in consternation. Where had been the +use of all the pretence that he had come unexpectedly on an +unpremeditated visit? His telegram had only this minute arrived--and +yet there was the table laid for three people. Thresk followed the +direction of his visitor's eyes. + +"Oh, I see," he said with a laugh. + +Glynn flushed. No wonder Thresk was amused. He had been sitting at the +table; and between himself and his wife the third place was laid. + +"I will go up and change," said Glynn awkwardly. + +"Well, don't be long!" replied Thresk. + +Glynn followed Martin to the guest-room. But he was annoyed. He did +not, under any circumstances, like to look a fool. But he had the +strongest possible objection to travelling three hundred miles in +order to look it. If he wanted to look a fool, he grumbled, he could +have managed it just as well in the Midlands. + +But he was to be more deeply offended. For when he came down into the +dining-room he walked to the table and drew out the vacant chair. At +once Thresk shot out his hand and stopped him. + +"You mustn't sit there!" he cried violently. Then his face changed. +Slowly the smile of amusement reappeared upon it. "After all, why +not?" he said. "Try, yes, try," and he watched Glynn with a strange +intentness. + +Glynn sat down slowly. A trick was being played upon him--of that he +was sure. He was still more sure when Thresk's face relaxed and he +broke into a laugh. + +"Well, that's funny!" he cried, and Glynn, in exasperation, asked +indignantly: + +"What's funny?" + +But Thresk was no longer listening. He was staring across the room +towards the front door, as though he heard outside yet another +visitor. Glynn turned angrily towards Linda. At once his anger died +away. Her face was white as paper, and her eyes full of fear. Her need +was real, whatever it might be. Thresk turned sharply back again. + +"It's a long journey from London to North Uist," he said pleasantly. + +"No doubt," replied Glynn, as he set himself to his dinner. "But I +have come from South Uist. However, I am just as hungry as if I had +come from London." + +He laughed, and Thresk joined in the laugh. + +"I am glad of that," he said, "for it's quite a long time since we +have seen you." + +"Yes, it is," replied Glynn carelessly. "A year, I should think." + +"Three years," said Thresk. "For I don't think that you have ever come +to see us in London." + +"We are so seldom there," interrupted Linda. + +"Three months a year, my dear," said Thresk. "But I know very well +that a man will take a day's journey in the Outer Island's to see his +friends, whereas he wouldn't cross the street in London. And, in any +case, we are very glad to see you. By the way," and he reached out his +hand carelessly for the salt, "isn't this rather a new departure for +you, Glynn? You were always a sociable fellow. A hunting-box in the +Midlands, and all the lighted candles in the season. The Outer Islands +were hardly in your line." And he turned quickly towards him. "You +have brought your guns?" + +"Of course," said Glynn, laughing as easily as he could under a +cross-examination which he began to find anything but comfortable. +"But I won't guarantee that I can shoot any better than I used to." + +"Never mind," said Thresk. "We'll shoot the bog to-morrow, and it +will be strange if you don't bring down something. It's full of duck. +You don't mind getting wet, I suppose? There was once a man named +Channing----" he broke off upon the name, and laughed again with that +air of secret amusement. "Did you ever hear of him?" he asked of +Glynn. + +"Yes," replied Glynn slowly. "I knew him." + +At the mention of the name he had seen Linda flinch, and he knew why +she flinched. + +"Did you?" exclaimed Thresk, with a keen interest. "Then you will +appreciate the story. He came up here on a visit." + +Glynn started. + +"He came here!" he cried, and could have bitten out his tongue for +uttering the cry. + +"Oh, yes," said Thresk easily, "I asked him," and Glynn looked from +Thresk to Thresk's wife in amazement. Linda for once did not meet +Glynn's eyes. Her own were fixed upon the tablecloth. She was sitting +in her chair rather rigidly. One hand rested upon the tablecloth, and +it was tightly clenched. Alone of the three James Thresk appeared at +ease. + +"I took him out to shoot that bog," he continued with a laugh. "He +loathed getting wet. He was always so very well dressed, wasn't he, +Linda? The reeds begin twenty yards from the front door, and within +the first five minutes he was up to the waist!" Thresk suddenly +checked his laughter. "However, it ceased to be a laughing matter. +Channing got a little too near the sapling in the middle." + +"Is it dangerous there?" asked Glynn. + +"Yes, it's dangerous." Thresk rose from his chair and walked across +the room to the window. He pulled up the blind and, curving his hands +about his eyes to shut out the light of the room, leaned his face +against the window-frame and looked out. "It's more than dangerous," +he said in a low voice. "Just round that sapling, it's swift and +certain death. You would sink to the waist," and he spoke still more +slowly, as though he were measuring by the utterance of the syllables +the time it would take for the disaster to be complete--"from the +waist to the shoulders, from the shoulders clean out of sight, before +any help could reach you." + +He stopped abruptly, and Glynn, watching him from the table, saw his +attitude change. He dropped his head, he hunched his back, and made a +strange hissing sound with his breath. + +"Linda!" he cried, in a low, startling voice, "Linda!" + +Glynn, unimpressionable man that he was, started to his feet. The long +journey, the loneliness of the little house set in this wild, flat +country, the terror which hung over it and was heavy in the very +atmosphere of the rooms, were working already upon his nerves. + +"Who is it?" he cried. + +Linda laid a hand upon his arm. + +"There's no one," she said in a whisper. "Take no notice." + +And, looking at her quivering face, Glynn was inspired to ask a +question, was wrought up to believe that the answer would explain to +him why Thresk leaned his forehead against the window-pane and called +upon his wife in so strange a voice. + +"Did Channing sink--by the sapling?" + +"No," said Linda hurriedly, and as hurriedly she drew away in her +chair. Glynn turned and saw Thresk himself standing just behind his +shoulder. He had crept down noiselessly behind them. + +"No," Thresk repeated. "But he is dead. Didn't you know that? Oh, yes, +he is dead," and suddenly he broke out with a passionate violence. "A +clever fellow--an infernally clever fellow. You are surprised to hear +me say that, Glynn. You underrated him like the rest of us. We thought +him a milksop, a tame cat, a poor, weak, interloping, unprofitable +creature who would sidle obsequiously into your house, and make his +home there. But we were wrong--all except Linda there." + +Linda sat with her head bowed, and said not a word. She was sitting so +that Glynn could see her profile, and though she said nothing, her +lips were trembling. + +"Linda was right," and Thresk turned carelessly to Glynn. "Did you +know that Linda was at one time engaged to Channing?" + +"Yes, I knew," said Glynn awkwardly. + +"It was difficult for most of us to understand," said Thresk. "There +seemed no sort of reason why a girl like Linda should select a man +like Channing to fix her heart upon. But she was right. Channing was a +clever fellow--oh, a very clever fellow," and he leaned over and +touched Glynn upon the sleeve, "for he died." + +Glynn started back. + +"What are you saying?" he cried. + +Thresk burst into a laugh. + +"That my throat hurts me to-night," he said. + +Glynn recovered himself with an effort. "Oh, yes," he said, as though +now for the first time he had noticed the bandage. "Yes, I see you +have hurt your throat. How did you do it?" + +Thresk chuckled. + +"Not very well done, Glynn. Will you smoke?" + +The plates had been cleared from the table, and the coffee brought in. +Thresk rose from his seat and crossed to the mantelshelf on which a +box of cigars was laid. As he took up the box and turned again towards +the table, a parchment scroll which hung on a nail at the side of the +fireplace caught his eye. + +"Do you see this?" he said, and he unrolled it. "It's my landlord's +family tree. All the ancestors of Mr. Robert Donald McCullough right +back to the days of Bruce. McCullough's prouder of that scroll than of +anything else in the world. He is more interested in it than in +anything else in the world." + +For a moment he fingered it, and in the tone of a man communing with +himself, he added: + +"Now, isn't that curious?" + +Glynn rose from his chair, and moved down the table so that he could +see the scroll unimpeded by Thresk's bulky figure. Thresk, however, +was not speaking any longer to his guest. Glynn sat down again. But he +sat down now in the chair which Thresk had used; the chair in which he +himself had been sitting between Thresk and Linda was empty. + +"What interests me," Thresk continued, like a man in a dream, "is what +is happening now--and very strange, queer, interesting things are +happening now--for those who have eyes to see. Yes, through centuries +and centuries, McCulloughs have succeeded McCulloughs, and lived in +this distant, little corner of the Outer Islands through forays and +wars and rebellions, and the oversetting of kings, and yet nothing has +ever happened in this house to any one of them half so interesting and +half so strange as what is happening now to us, the shooting tenants +of a year." + +Thresk dropped the scroll, and, coming out of his dream, brought the +cigar-box to the table. + +"You have changed your seat!" he said with a smile, as he offered the +box to Glynn. Glynn took out of it a cigar, and leaning back, cut off +the end. As he stooped forward to light it, he saw the cigar-box still +held out to him. Thresk had not moved. He seemed to have forgotten +Glynn's presence in the room. His eyes were fixed upon the empty +chair. He stood strangely rigid, and then he suddenly cried out: + +"Take care, Linda!" + +There was so sharp a note of warning in his voice that Linda sprang to +her feet, with her hand pressed upon her heart. Glynn was startled +too, and because he was startled he turned angrily to Thresk. + +"Of what should Mrs. Thresk take care?" + +Thresk took his eyes for a moment, and only for a moment, from the +empty chair. + +"Do you see nothing?" he asked, in a whisper, and his glance went back +again. "Not a shadow which leans across the table there towards Linda, +darkening the candle-light?" + +"No; for there's nothing to cast a shadow." + +"Is there not?" said Thresk, with a queer smile. "That's where you +make your mistake. Aren't you conscious of something very strange, +very insidious, close by us in this room?" + +"I am aware that you are frightening Mrs. Thresk," said Glynn roughly; +and, indeed, standing by the table, with her white face and her bosom +heaving under her hand, she looked the very embodiment of terror. +Thresk turned at once to her. A look of solicitude made his gross face +quite tender. He took her by the arm, and in a chiding, affectionate +tone he said very gently: + +"You are not frightened, Linda, are you? Interested--yes, just as I +am. But not frightened. There's nothing to be frightened at. We are +not children." + +"Oh, Jim," she said, and she leaned upon his arm. He led her across to +the sofa, and sat down beside her. + +"That's right. Now we are comfortable." But the last word was not +completed. It seemed that it froze upon his lips. He stopped, looked +for a second into space, and then, dropping his arm from about his +wife's waist, he deliberately moved aside from her, and made a space +between them. + +"Now we are in our proper places--the four of us," he said bitterly, + +"The three of us," Glynn corrected, as he walked round the table. +"Where's the fourth?" + +And then there came to him this extraordinary answer given in the +quietest voice imaginable. + +"Between my wife and me. Where should he be?" + +Glynn stared. There was no one in the room but Linda, Thresk, and +himself--no one. But--but--it was the loneliness of the spot, and its +silence, and its great distance from his world, no doubt, which +troubled him. Thresk's manner, too, and his words were having their +effect. That was all, Glynn declared stoutly to himself. But--but--he +did not wonder that Linda had written so urgently for him to come to +her. His back went cold, and the hair stirred upon his scalp. + +"Who is it, then?" he cried violently. + +Linda rose from the sofa, and took a quick step towards him.. Her eyes +implored him to silence. + +"There is no one," she protested in a low voice. + +"No," cried Glynn loudly. "Let us understand what wild fancy he has! +Who is the fourth?" + +Upon Thresk's face came a look of sullenness. + +"Who should he be?" + +"Who is he?" Glynn insisted. + +"Channing," said Thresk. "Mildmay Channing." He sat for a while, +brooding with his head sunk upon his breast. And Glynn started back. +Some vague recollection was stirring in his memory. There had been a +story current amongst Linda's friends at the time of her marriage. She +had been in love with Channing, desperately in love with him. The +marriage with Thresk had been forced on her by her parents--yes, and +by Thresk's persistency. It had been a civilised imitation of the Rape +of the Sabine Women. That was how the story ran, Glynn remembered. He +waited to hear more from James Thresk, and in a moment the words came, +but in a thoroughly injured tone. + +"It's strange that you can't see either." + +"There is some one else, then, as blind as I am?" said Glynn. + +"There was. Yes, yes, the dog," replied Thresk, gazing into the fire. +"You and the dog," he repeated uneasily, "you and the dog. But the dog +saw in the end, Glynn, and so will you--even you." + +Linda turned quickly, but before she could speak, Glynn made a sign to +her. He went over to her side. A glance at Thresk showed him that he +was lost in his thoughts. + +"If you want me to help you, you must leave us alone," he said. + +She hesitated for a moment, and then swiftly crossed the room and went +out at the door. Glynn, who had let his cigar go out, lit it again at +the flame of one of the candles on the dining-table. Then he planted +himself in front of Thresk. + +"You are terrifying your wife," he said. "You are frightening her to +death." + +Thresk did not reply to the accusation directly. He smiled quietly at +Glynn. + +"She sent for you." + +Glynn looked uncomfortable, and Thresk went on: + +"You haven't come from South Uist. You have come from London." + +"No," said Glynn. + +"From Melton, then. You came because Linda sent for you." + +"If it were so," stammered Glynn, "it would only be another proof that +you are frightening her." + +Thresk shook his head. + +"It wasn't because Linda was afraid that she sent for you," he said +stubbornly. "I know Linda. I'll tell you the truth," and he fixed his +burning eyes on Glynn's face. "She sent for you because she hates +being here with me." + +"Hates being with you!" cried Glynn, and Thresk nodded his head. Glynn +could hardly even so believe that he had heard aright. "Why, you must +be mad!" he protested. "Mad or blind. There's just one person of whom +your wife is thinking, for whom she is caring, for whose health she is +troubled. It has been evident to me ever since I have been in this +house--in spite of her fears. Every time she looks at you her eyes are +tender with solicitude. That one person is yourself." + +"No," said Thresk. "It's Channing." + +"But he's dead, man!" cried Glynn in exasperation. "You told me so +yourself not half an hour ago. He is dead." + +"Yes," answered Thresk. "He's dead. That's where he beat me. You don't +understand that?" + +"No, I don't," replied Glynn. + +He was speaking aggressively; he stood with his legs apart in an +aggressive attitude. Thresk looked him over from head to foot and +agreed. + +"No," he said, "and I don't see why you should. You are rather like +me, comfortable and commonplace, and of the earth earthy. Before men +of our gross stamp could believe and understand what I am going to +tell you, they would have to reach--do you mind if I say a +refinement?--by passing through the same fires which have tempered +me." + +Glynn made no reply. He shifted his position so that the firelight +might fall upon Thresk's face with its full strength. Thresk leaned +forward with his hands upon his knees, and very quietly, though now +and then a note of scorn rang in his voice, he told his story. + +"You tell me my wife cares for me. I reply that she would have cared, +if Channing had not died. When I first met Linda she was engaged to +him. You know that. She was devoted to him. You know that too. I knew +it and I didn't mind. I wasn't afraid of Channing. A poor, feeble +creature--heaps of opportunities, not one of them foreseen, not one of +them grasped when it came his way. A grumbler, a bag of envy, a beggar +for sympathy at any woman's lap! Why should I have worried my head +about Channing? And I didn't. Linda's people were all for breaking off +their engagement. After all, I was some good. I had made my way. I had +roughed it in South America; and I had come home a rich man--not such +a very easy thing, as the superior people who haven't the heart even +to try to be rich men are inclined to think. Well, the engagement was +broken off, Channing hadn't a penny to marry on, and nobody would give +him a job. Look here!" And he suddenly swung round upon Glynn. + +"I gave Channing his chance. I knew he couldn't make any use of it. I +wanted to prove he wasn't any good. So I put a bit of a railway in +Chili into his hands, and he brought the thing to the edge of +bankruptcy within twelve months. So the engagement was broken off. +Linda clung to the fellow. I knew it, and I didn't mind. She didn't +want to marry me. I knew it, and I didn't mind. Her parents broke her +down to it. She sobbed through the night before we were married. I +knew it, and I didn't mind. You think me a beast, of course," he +added, with a look at Glynn. "But just consider the case from my point +of view. Channing was no match for Linda. I was. I wanted time, that +was all. Give me only time, and I knew that I could win her." + +Boastful as the words sounded, there was nothing aggressive in +Thresk's voice. He was speaking with a quiet simplicity which robbed +them quite of offence. He was unassumingly certain. + +"Why?" asked Glynn. "Why, given time, were you sure that you could win +her?" + +"Because I wanted enough. That's my creed, Glynn. If you want enough, +want with every thought, and nerve, and pulse, the thing you want +comes along all right. There was the difference between Channing and +me. He hadn't the heart to want enough. I wanted enough to go to +school again. I set myself to learn the small attentions which mean so +much to women. They weren't in my line naturally. I pay so little heed +to things of that kind myself that it did not easily occur to me that +women might think differently. But I learnt my lesson, and I got my +reward. Just simple little precautions, like having a cloak ready for +her, almost before she was aware that she was cold. And I would see a +look of surprise on her face, and the surprise flush into a smile of +pleasure. Oh, I was holding her, Glynn, I can tell you. I went about +it so very warily," and Thresk laughed with a knowing air. "I didn't +shut my door on Channing either. Not I! I wasn't going to make a +martyr of him. I let him sidle in and out of the house, and I laughed. +For I was holding her. Every day she came a step or two nearer to me." + +He broke off suddenly, and his voice, which had taken on a tender and +wistful note, incongruous in so big a creature, rose in a gust of +anger. + +"But he died! He died and caught her back again." + +Glynn raised his hands in despair. + +"That memory has long since faded," he argued, and Thresk burst out in +a bitter laugh. + +"Memory," he cried, flinging himself into a chair. "You are one of the +imaginative people after all, Glynn." And Glynn stared in round-eyed +surprise. Here to him was conclusive proof that there was something +seriously wrong with Thresk's mind. Never had Mr. Glynn been called +imaginative before, and his soul revolted against the aspersion. +"Yes," said Thresk, pointing an accusing finger. "Imaginative! I am +one of the practical people. I don't worry about memories. Actual real +things interest me--such as Channing's presence now--in this house." +And he spoke suddenly, leaning forward with so burning a fire in his +eyes and voice that Glynn, in spite of himself, looked nervously +across his shoulder. He rose hastily from the sofa, and rather in +order to speak than with any thought of what he was saying, he asked: + +"When did he die?" + +"Four months ago. I was ill at the time." + +"Ah!" + +The exclamation sprang from Glynn's lips before he could check it. +Here to him was the explanation of Thresk's illusions. But he was +sorry that he had not kept silent. For he saw Thresk staring angrily +at him. + +"What did you mean by your 'Ah'?" Thresk asked roughly. + +"Merely that I had seen a line about your illness in a newspaper," +Glynn explained hastily. + +Thresk leaned back satisfied. + +"Yes," he resumed. "I broke down. I had had a hard life, you see, and +I was paying for it. I am right enough now, however," and his voice +rose in a challenge to Glynn to contradict him. + +Nothing was further from Glynn's thoughts. + +"Of course," he said quickly. + +"I saw Channing's death in the obituary column whilst I was lying in +bed, and, to tell you the truth, I was relieved by it." + +"But I thought you said you didn't mind about Channing?" Glynn +interrupted, and Thresk laughed with a little discomfort. + +"Well, perhaps I did mind a little more than I care to admit," Thresk +confessed. "At all events, I felt relieved at his death. What a fool I +was!" And he stopped for a moment as though he wondered now that his +mind was so clear, at the delusion which had beset him. + +"I thought that it was all over with Channing. Oh, what a fool I was! +Even after he came back and would sidle up to my bedside in his old +fawning style, I couldn't bring myself to take him seriously, and I +was only amused." + +"He came to your bedside!" exclaimed Glynn. + +"Yes," replied Thresk, and he laughed at the recollection. "He came +with his humble smirk, and pottered about the room as if he were my +nurse. I put out my tongue at him, and told him he was dead and done +for, and that he had better not meddle with the bottles on my table. +Yes, he amused me. What a fool I was! I thought no one else saw him. +That was my first mistake. I thought he was helpless.... That was my +second." + +Thresk got up from his chair, and, standing over the fireplace, +knocked the ash off his cigar. + +"Do you remember a great Danish boar-hound I used to have?" he asked. + +"Yes," replied Glynn, puzzled by the sudden change of subject. "But +what has the boar-hound to do with your story?" + +"A good deal," said Thresk. "I was very fond of that dog." + +"The dog was fond of you," said Glynn. + +"Yes. Remember that!" Thresk cried suddenly. "For it's true." Then he +relapsed again into a quiet, level voice. + +"It took me some time to get well. I was moved up here. It was the one +place where I wanted to be. But I wasn't used to sitting round and +doing nothing. So the time of my convalescence hung pretty heavily, +and, casting about for some way of amusing myself, I wondered whether +I could teach the dog to see Channing as I saw him. I tried. Whenever +I saw Channing come in at the door, I used to call the dog to my side +and point Channing out to him with my finger as Channing moved about +the room." + +Thresk sat down in a chair opposite to Glynn, and with a singular +alertness began to act over again the scenes which had taken place in +his sick room upstairs. + +"I used to say, 'Hst! Hst!' 'There! Do you see? By the window!' or if +Channing moved towards Linda I would turn the dog's head and make his +eyes follow him across the room. At first the dog saw nothing. Then he +began to avoid me, to slink away with his tail between his legs, to +growl. He was frightened. Yes, he was frightened!" And Thresk nodded +his head in a quick, interested way. + +"He was frightened of you," cried Glynn, "and I don't wonder." + +For even to him there was something uncanny and impish in Thresk's +quick movements and vivid gestures. + +"Wait a bit," said Thresk. "He was frightened, but not of me. He saw +Channing. His hair bristled under my fingers as I pointed the fellow +out. I had to keep one hand on his neck, you see, to keep him by me. +He began to yelp in a queer, panicky way, and tremble--a man in a +fever couldn't tremble and shake any more than that dog did. And then +one day, when we were alone together, the dog and I and Channing--the +dog sprang at my throat." + +"That's how you were wounded!" cried Glynn, leaping from his sofa. He +stood staring in horror at Thresk. "I wonder the dog didn't kill you." + +"He very nearly did," said Thresk. "Oh, very nearly." + +"You had frightened him out of his wits." + +Thresk laughed contemptuously. + +"That's the obvious explanation, of course," he said. "But it's not +the true one. I have been living amongst the subtleties of life. I +know about things now. The dog sprang at me because--" He stopped and +glanced uneasily about the room. When he raised his face again, there +was a look upon it which Glynn had not seen there before--a look of +sudden terror. He leaned forward that he might be the nearer to Glynn, +and his voice sank to a whisper--"well, because Channing set him on to +me." + +It was no doubt less the statement itself than the crafty look which +accompanied it, and the whisper which uttered it, that shocked Glynn. +But he was shocked. There came upon him--yes, even upon him, the sane, +prosaic Glynn--a sudden doubt whether, after all, Thresk was mad. It +occurred to him as a possibility that Thresk was speaking the mere, +bare truth. Suppose that it were the truth! Suppose that Channing were +here! In this room! Glynn felt the flesh creep upon his bones. + +"Ah, you are beginning to understand," said Thresk, watching his +companion. "You are beginning to get frightened, too." And he nodded +his head in comprehension. "I used not to know what fear meant. But I +knew the meaning well enough as soon as I had guessed why the dog +sprang at my throat. For I realised my helplessness." + +Throughout their conversation Glynn had been perpetually puzzled by +something unexpected in Thresk's conclusions. He followed his +reasoning up to a point, and then came a word which left him at a +loss. Thresk's fear he understood. But why the sense of helplessness? +And he asked for an explanation. + +"Because I had no weapons to fight Channing with," Thresk replied. "I +could cope with the living man and win every time. But against the +dead man I was helpless. I couldn't hurt him. I couldn't even +come to grips with him. I had just to sit by and make room. And that's +what I have been doing ever since. I have been sitting by and +watching--without a single resource, without a single opportunity of a +counterstroke. Oh, I had my time--when Channing was alive. But upon my +word, he has the best of it. Here I sit without raising a hand while +he recaptures Linda." + +"There you are wrong," cried Glynn, seizing gladly, in the midst of +these subtleties, upon some fact of which he felt sure. "Your wife is +yours. There has been no recapture. Besides, she doesn't believe that +Channing is here." + +Thresk laughed. + +"Do you think she would tell me if she did?" he asked. "No." + +He rose from his chair and, walking to the window, thrust back the +curtains and looked out. So he stood for the space of a minute. Then +he came back and, looking fixedly at Glynn, said with an air of +extraordinary cunning: + +"But I have a plan. Yes, I have a plan. I shall get on level terms +with Mr. Channing again one of these fine days, and then I'll prove to +him for a second time which of us two is the better man." + +He made a sign to Glynn, and looked towards the door. It was already +opening. He advanced to it as Linda came into the room. + +"You have come back, Linda! I have been talking to Glynn at such a +rate that he hasn't been able to get a word in edgeways," he said, +with a swift change to a gaiety of voice and manner. "However, I'll +show him a good day's sport to-morrow, Linda. We will shoot the bog, +and perhaps you'll come out with the luncheon to the sand-hills?" + +Linda Thresk smiled. + +"Of course I will," she said. She showed to Glynn a face of gratitude. +"It has done you good, Jim, to have a man to talk to," and she laid a +hand upon her husband's arm and laughed quite happily. Glynn turned +his back upon them and walked up to the window, leaving them standing +side by side in the firelight. Outside, the moon shone from a clear +sky upon the pools and the reeds of the marsh and the low white +sand-hills, chequered with their tufts of grass. But upon the sea +beyond, a white mist lay thick and low. + +"There's a sea-fog," said Glynn; and Thresk, at the fire, suddenly +lifted his head, and looked towards the window with a strange +intensity. One might have thought that a sea-fog was a strange, +unusual thing among the Outer Islands. + +"Watch it!" he said, and there was a vibration in his voice which +matched the intensity of his look. "You will see it suddenly creep +through the gaps in the sand-hills and pass over the marsh like an +army that obeys a command. I have watched it by the hour, time and +time again. It gathers on the level of the sea and waits and waits +until it seems that the word is given. Then it comes swirling through +the gaps of the sand-hills and eats up the marsh in a minute." + +Even as he spoke Glynn cried out: + +"That's extraordinary!" + +The fog had crept out through the gaps. Only the summits of the +sand-hills rose in the moonlight like little peaks above clouds; and +over the marsh the fog burst like cannon smoke and lay curling and +writhing up to the very reeds twenty yards from the house. The sapling +alone stood high above it, like the mast of a wreck in the sea. + +"How high is it?" asked Thresk. + +"Breast high," replied Glynn. + +"Only breast high," said Thresk, and there seemed to be a note of +disappointment in his voice. However, in the next moment he shook it +off. "The fog will be gone before morning," he said. "I'll go and tell +Donald to bring the dogs round at nine to-morrow, and have your guns +ready. Nine is not too early for you, I suppose?" + +"Not a bit," said Glynn; and Thresk, going up to the door which led +from the house, opened it, went out, and closed it again behind him. + +Glynn turned at once towards Linda Thresk. But she held up a warning +hand, and waited for the outer door to slam. No sound, however, broke +the silence. Glynn went to the inner door and opened it. A bank of +white fog, upon which he saw his own shadow most brightly limned by +the light behind him, filled the outer passage and crept by him into +the room. Glynn closed the latch quickly. + +"He has left the outer door open," he said, and, coming back into the +room he stood beside the fire looking down into Linda's face. + +"He has been talking to me," said Glynn. + +Linda looked at him curiously. + +"How much did he tell you?" + +"There can be little he left unsaid. He told me of the dog, of +Channing's death----" + +"Yes?" + +"Of Channing's return." + +"Yes?" + +"And of you." + +With each sentence Glynn's embarrassment had increased. Linda, +however, held him to his story. + +"What did he say of me?" + +"That but for Channing's death he would have held you. That since +Channing died--and came back--he had lost you." + +Linda nodded her head. Nothing in Glynn's words surprised her--that +was clear. It was a story already familiar to her which he was +repeating. + +"Is that all?" she said. + +"I think so. Yes," replied Glynn, glad to get the business over. Yet +he had omitted the most important part of Thresk's confession--the one +part which Linda did not already know. He omitted it because he had +forgotten it. There was something else which he had in his mind to +say. + +"When Thresk told me that Channing had won you back, I ventured to say +that no one watching you and Thresk, even with the most indifferent +eyes, could doubt that it was always and only of him that you were +thinking." + +"Thank you," said Linda, quietly. "That is true." + +"And now," said Glynn, "I want, in my turn, to ask you a question. I +have been a little curious. I want, too, to do what I can. Therefore, +I ask you, why did you send, for me? What is it that you think I can +do? That other friends of yours can't?" + +A slight colour came into Linda's cheeks; and for a moment she lowered +her eyes. She spoke with an accent of apology. + +"It is quite true that there are friends whom I see more constantly +than you, Mr. Glynn, and upon whom I have, perhaps, greater claims." + +"Oh, I did not mean you to think that I was reluctant to come," Glynn +exclaimed, and Linda smiled, lifting her eyes to his. + +"No," she said. "I remembered your kindness. It was that recollection +which helped me to appeal to you," and she resumed her explanation as +though he had never interrupted her. + +"Nor was there any particular thing which I thought you could do. +But--well, here's the truth--I have been living in terror. This house +has become a house of terror. I am frightened, and I have come almost +to believe----" and she looked about her with a shiver of her +shoulders, sinking her voice to a whisper as she spoke--"that Jim was +right--that _he is_ here after all." + +And Glynn recoiled. Just for a moment the same fancy had occurred to +him. + +"You don't believe that--really!" he cried. + +"No--no," she answered. "Once I think calmly. But it is so difficult +to think calmly and reasonably here. Oh----" and she threw up her arms +suddenly, and her whole face and eyes were alight with terror--"the +very air is to me heavy with fear in this house. It is Jim's quiet +certainty." + +"Yes, that's it!" exclaimed Glynn, catching eagerly at that +explanation because it absolved him to his own common sense for the +inexplicable fear which he had felt invade himself. "Yes, Jim's quiet, +certain, commonplace way in which he speaks of Channing's presence +here. That's what makes his illusion so convincing." + +"Well, I thought that if I could get you here, you who----" and she +hesitated in order to make her description polite--"are not afflicted +by fancies, who are pleasantly sensible"--thus did Linda express her +faith that Mr. Glynn was of the earth, earthy--"I myself should +lose my terror, and Jim, too, might lose his illusion. But now," she +looked at him keenly, "I think that Jim is affecting you--that you, +too--yes"--she sprang up suddenly and stood before him, with her dark, +terror-haunted eyes fixed upon him--"that you, too, believe Mildmay +Channing is here." + +"No," he protested violently--too violently unless the accusation were +true. + +"Yes," she repeated, nodding her head quietly. "You, too, believe that +Mildmay Channing is here." + +And before her horror-stricken face the protest which was on the tip +of his tongue remained unuttered. His eyes sought the floor. With a +sudden movement of despair Linda turned aside. Even the earthliness of +Mr. Glynn had brought her no comfort or security. He had fallen under +the spell, as she had done. It seemed that they had no more words to +speak to one another. They stood and waited helplessly until Thresk +should return. + +But that return was delayed. + +"He has been a long time speaking to the keeper," said Linda +listlessly, and rather to break a silence which was becoming +intolerable, than with any intention in the words. But they struck a +chord of terror in Glynn's thoughts. He walked quickly to the window, +and hastily tore the curtain aside. + +The flurry of his movements aroused Linda's attention. She followed +him with her eyes. She saw him curve his hands about his forehead and +press his face against the pane, even as Thresk had done an hour +before. She started forward from the fireplace and Glynn swung round +with his arms extended, barring the window. His face was white, his +lips shook. The one important statement of Thresk's he now recalled. + +"Don't look!" he cried, and as he spoke, Linda pushed past him. She +flung up the window. Outside the fog curled and smoked upon the marsh +breast high. The moonlight played upon it; above it the air was clear +and pure, and in the sky stars shone faintly. Above the mist the bare +sapling stood like a pointing finger, and halfway between the sapling +and the house Thresk's head and shoulders showed plain to see. But +they were turned away from the house. + +"Jim! Jim!" cried Linda, shaking the window-frame with her hand. Her +voice rang loudly out on the still air. But Thresk never so much as +turned his head. He moved slowly towards the sapling, feeling the +unstable ground beneath him with his feet. + +"Jim! Jim!" again she cried. And behind her she heard a strange, +unsteady whispering voice. + +"'On equal terms!' That's what he said--I did not understand. He said, +'On equal terms.'" + +And even as Glynn spoke, both Linda and he saw Thresk throw up his +arms and sink suddenly beneath the bog. Linda ran to the door, +stumbling as she ran, and with a queer, sobbing noise in her throat. + +Glynn caught her by the arm. + +"It is of no use. You know. Round the sapling--there is no chance of +rescue. It is my fault, I should have understood. He had no fear of +Channing--if only he could meet him on equal terms." + +Linda stared at Glynn. For a little while the meaning of the words did +not sink into her mind. + +"He said that!" she cried. "And you did not tell me." She crept back +to the fireplace and cowered in front of it, shivering. + +"But he said he would come back to me," she said in the voice of a +child who has been deceived. "Yes, Jim said he would come back to me." + +Of course it was a chance, accident, coincidence, a breath of +wind--call it what you will, except what Linda Thresk and Glynn called +it. But even as she uttered her complaint, "He said he would come back +to me," the latch of the door clicked loudly. There was a rush of cold +air into the room. The door swung slowly inwards and stood wide open. + +Linda sprang to her feet. Both she and Glynn turned to the open door. +The white fog billowed into the room. Glynn felt the hair stir and +move upon his scalp. He stood transfixed. Was it possible? he asked +himself. Had Thresk indeed come back to fight for Linda once more, and +to fight now as he had fought the first time--on equal terms? He stood +expecting the white fog to shape itself into the likeness of a man. +And then he heard a wild scream of laughter behind him. He turned in +time to catch Linda as she fell. + + + + + + THE BROWN BOOK + + + + + THE BROWN BOOK + + +A few friends of Murgatroyd, the physician, sat about his +dinner-table, discussing that perplexing question, "How much of the +truth should a doctor tell?" In the middle of the discussion a quiet +voice spoke up from a corner, and all turned towards a middle-aged man +of European reputation who sat fingering the stem of his wine-glass. + +"It is dangerous to lay down a general rule," said Sir James Kelsey. +"But I should say, if you want to keep a secret tell half the truth. +People accept it and pass on to their own affairs." He hesitated for a +moment and continued, rather slowly: "I am thinking of a tremendous +secret which has been kept that way for a good number of years. I call +it the story of the Brown Book." + +At once the discussion ceased. It was so seldom that Kelsey indulged +in anything like a confidence. Now on this one evening amongst his +brethren it seemed that he was in the mood to talk. + +"All of you will remember the name of John Rymer, and some of you +his meteoric career and the tragic circumstances of his death. There +was no doubt that he was a master of surgery. Yet at the age of +thirty-seven, at eleven o'clock on a July morning, after performing +three operations with all his accustomed skill, he walked into his +consulting-room and blew his brains out." + +Here and there a voice was raised. + +"Yes, I remember." + +"It was overwork, I think." + +Sir James Kelsey smiled. + +"Exactly," he said. "That's the half-truth. Overwork there was. I am +familiar with the details of the inquest, for I married John Rymer's +niece. It was proved, for instance, that during the last week of his +life he had been curtailing his operations and spending more time over +his dressings--a definite policy of his when the strain became too +heavy. Moreover, there was some mention made of a sudden reasonless +fear which had attacked him, a fear that his practice was dropping +away, and that he would be left with a wife and young family to +support, and no means to do it with. Well, we all know round this +table that that particular terror is one of the commonest results of +overwork. So overwork there undoubtedly was. A spell of tropical heat +no doubt, too, had its effect. Anyway, here was enough for a quite +acceptable verdict, and so the world thought. The usual platitudes +about the tension of modern life made their appearance. The public +read, accepted, and passed on to its own affairs. But behind John +Rymer's death there lay a tremendous secret." + +Once more he hesitated. Then he took a cigar from the box which his +host held out to him, and said, in a kind of rush: "No one could make +any use of it now. For there's no longer any evidence but my word, and +I should deny it. It's overwork John Rymer died of. Let us not forget +it." + +And then he told the story of the Brown Book. At the end of it his +cigar was still alight, for he smoked while he talked. But it was the +only cigar alight in that room. + + +I was twenty-five, and I had bought a practice at Chailsey, a village +deep amongst tall, dark trees in the very heart of the Berkshire +Downs. You'll hardly find a place more pastoral and remote in all that +country of remote villages. But a couple of training stables were +established there, and, what with kicks and jumping accidents, there +was a good deal of work at times. I quite liked the spot, and I liked +it still more when Bradley Rymer and his daughter took the big house +on the slope of the Down above the village. + +John Rymer, the surgeon, had then been dead eight months, and Bradley +Rymer was his brother, a shortish, broad man of forty-five with a big, +pleasant face. Gossip had it that he had been very poor, so poor, +indeed, that his daughter had made her living at a typewriting +machine. There was no doubt, however, that he was rich now. "Canada's +the country," he used to say. "I made my money out of Canadian land," +and when he fell into conversation of a morning with any of the +stable-boys on the gallops he was always urging them to better +themselves in that country. + +His daughter Violet--a good many of you know her as my wife--had +little of his fore-gathering disposition. She was an extremely pretty +girl of nineteen, with eyes which matched her name. But she held +herself apart. She seldom came down into the village, and even when +one met her in her own house there was a constraint in her manner and +a look upon her face which I was at a loss to understand. It wasn't +merely trouble. It was a kind of perplexity, as though she did not +know where to turn. For the rest, the couple did not entertain. + +"We have had hard lives," Bradley Rymer said to me one rare evening +when I dined there, "and a year or two of quiet is what we want beyond +everything." And never did man speak a truer word. + +Bradley Rymer had lived for three months at Chailsey when Queen +Victoria died, and all the great kings and the little kings flocked +from Europe to her funeral. We at Chailsey--like the rest of Great +Britain--determined to set up a memorial, and a committee of five was +appointed to determine the form it was to take. + +"It must be a drinking-fountain," said I. + +"No; a stained-glass window," the vicar interrupted; and there we +were, Grayly the trainer and I on one side, the vicar and Hollams the +grocer on the other. The fifth member of the committee was absent. + +"Well, I shall go up and see Mr. Bradley Rymer this afternoon," I +said. "He has the casting vote." + +"You may do just as you please," said the vicar, with some +acerbity--Bradley Rymer did not go to church; "but until Mr. Bradley +Rymer condescends to be present at our committee meetings, I shall pay +not the slightest attention to his opinion." + +Thereupon the committee broke up. I had a good many visits to pay to +patients, and it was close upon eight o'clock when I set out upon my +walk, and darker than it usually is at that time of the year. Bradley +Rymer, I knew, did not dine until late, and I hoped to catch him just +before he and Violet sat down. + +The house stood a good half-mile from the village, even by the short +cut which I took up the side of the Down. It was a big, square +Georgian house with rows of high, flat windows; a large garden of +lawns and flowers and beech trees surrounded it; and the whole +property was enclosed in high red-brick walls. I was kept for a little +while at the great wrought-iron gates. That always happened. You rang +the big bell, the corner of a white curtain was cautiously lifted in +the window of the lodge, you were inspected, and at last the gates +swung open. Berkshire people were slow in those days, and, like most +country-folk, curious. I walked up the drive to the house. The front +door stood open. I rang the bell. A big mastiff came out from the hall +and sniffed at me. But we were good friends, and he retired again to +the corner. Finally a maid-servant appeared. It was perhaps a curious +fact that Bradley Rymer had no man-servant living in the house. + +"A butler is a spy you set upon yourself," he once said to me. Another +case of the half-truth, you see. I accepted it, and passed on to my +own affairs. So when only a maid answered the bell I was not +surprised. + +"Can I see Mr. Rymer?" I asked. + +"He is in the library, I think, sir," she answered. + +"Very well. I know my way." And, putting down my hat, I climbed the +stairs. + +The library was a long, comfortably-furnished room upon the first +floor, lighted by a row of windows upon one side and lined to the +ceiling with bookshelves upon the other. Rymer had a wonderful +collection of books bound in vellum and calf, but he had bought the +lot at a sale, and I don't think he ever read one of them. However, he +liked the room, and it was the one which he usually used. + +I opened the door and went into the library. But the servant had been +mistaken. The library was empty. I waited, however, and while I waited +a noise in the next room attracted my attention. I don't think that I +was conscious of it at first, for when I did notice it, It seemed to +me that the room had perceptibly darkened. It was so familiar a noise, +too, that one wouldn't notice it unless there were some special +unsuitability of time and place to provoke one's curiosity. For +a busy man walks through life to the sound of it. It was the sharp +tack-tack-tack of a typewriting machine, with the little clang and +break when the end of a line is reached. I listened to it first of all +surprised at the relentless rapidity with which the machine was +worked, and then, wondering why at this hour, in this house of leisure +and wealth, so tremendous an assiduity was being employed. Then in a +rush the gossip of the village came back to me. Violet Rymer, in the +days of her father's poverty, had made her living in a typewriting +office. Yes; but why should she continue so monotonous a practice now? +I couldn't think that she, if it were she, was keeping up her +proficiency for amusement. You can always tell whether the typist is +interested or whether she is working against time from the sound of +the machine. In the former case it becomes alive, one is conscious of +a personality; in the latter one thinks of an absent-minded clergyman +gabbling through the Lessons in church. + +Well, it was just that last note which was being struck. The machine +was racing to the end of a wearisome task, and, since already Violet +Rymer was very much to me, I thought with a real discomfort of her +bending over the keys. Moreover, I seemed to be stumbling upon a +secret which I was not meant to know. Was this tack-tack-tacking the +explanation of why Chailsey saw so little of her? + +While I was asking myself this question a door opened and shut +violently. It was the door into that next room, and as it was banged +the typewriting ceased altogether. There was a moment's pause, and +then a voice was raised in passion. It was Bradley Rymer's voice, but +I hardly recognised it. + +"What is it now?" he cried, bitterly. "A novel, a volume of sermons, a +pamphlet? Am I never to see you, Violet? You remain hidden in this +room, breaking your back for sixpence an hour. Why, I bought this +house for you. My one aim was to get rich for you." And the girl +interrupted him with an agonised cry. + +"Oh, don't say that, father!" + +"But I do say it." And suddenly his voice softened. "It's true, Vi. +You know it's true. The one thing I hated was that you should lose all +the fun of your youth at that grinding work. And now you're still at +it. Why? Why?" + +And through the door came her voice, in a passionate, broken reply: + +"Because--because--I feel--that not even the clothes I am wearing +really belong to me." + +The dispute suddenly ceased. A third voice spoke so low that I could +not hear the words, but I heard Bradley Rymer's startled reply: + +"In the library?" + +I had just time to get away into the farthest window before he entered +the room. It was almost dark now, and he peered about in search of me. +I moved from the window towards him. + +"Oh, you are there, Kelsey," he said, suavely. "We'll have a light. +It's so confoundedly dark that I can hardly see you." + +He rang a bell and a lamp was brought, which he took from the hands of +the servant and set down on the corner of his writing-table between +us. + +"How long have you been here?" he asked, and--I can't account for +it--he stood facing me in his dinner-jacket, with his usual pleasant, +friendly smile; but I suddenly became quite sure that he was +dangerous. Yes, that's the word--dangerous. + +"Just a minute or so," I answered, as indifferently as I could, and +then, with a strangely swift movement, he crossed the room again to +the fireplace and rang the bell. "Will you tell Miss Violet that Dr. +Kelsey is here?" he said to the parlourmaid, as soon as she appeared. +"You will find her in the next room." + +He came softly back and seated himself at the writing-table. + +"And why do you want to see me?" he asked, in a queer voice. + +I spoke about the memorial, and he answered at random. He was +listening, but he was not listening to me. In a sort of abstraction he +drew open a drawer in his writing-table on a level with his hand, and +every now and then he shut it, and every now and then he drew it open +again. + +I cannot hope to make you realise the uncanny feeling of discomfort +which crept over me. Most of us at this table, I imagine, have some +knowledge of photography and its processes. We have placed a gaslight +paper in the developing-dish, and seen the face of our portrait flash +out in a second on the white surface. I can never get accustomed to +it. I can never quite look upon it as not a miracle. Well, just that +miracle seemed to me to be happening now. Bradley Rymer suddenly +became visible to me, a rogue, a murderous rogue, and I watched with +an increasing fear that drawer in his table. I waited for his hand to +slip into it. + +But while I waited the door of the next room was opened, and Rymer and +I both ceased to talk. We pretended no more. We listened, and, +_although we heard voices, we could not distinguish words_. Both +Violet and the servant were speaking in their ordinary tones, and +Rymer and I were now on the far side of the room. An expression of +immense relief shone upon Bradley Rymer's face for a moment, and he +rose up with the smile and the friendliness I knew. + +"Will you stay to dinner?" he asked. "Do!" But I dared not. I should +have betrayed the trouble I was in. I made a lame excuse and left the +house. + +It was now quite dark, and in the cool night air I began, before I had +reached the lodge, to wonder whether I had not been misled altogether +by some hallucination. Bradley Rymer brought to my memory the tragic +case of his brother, and I asked myself for a moment if the long and +late hours of a country practice were unbalancing me. But I looked +back towards the house as I took the track over the turf, and the +scene through which I had passed returned too vividly to leave me in +any doubt. I could see Bradley Rymer clearly as he opened and shut the +drawer of his writing-table. I could hear his voice raised in bitter +reproach to Violet and the click of the typewriting machine. No, I had +not been dreaming. + +I had walked about a hundred yards down the slope when a sharp whistle +of two notes sounded a little way off upon my right, and almost before +I had stopped a man sprang from the grass at my very feet with a +guttural cry like a man awakened from a doze. Had I taken another step +I should have trodden upon him. The next moment the light from an +electric torch flashed upon my face, blinding me. I stepped back and +put up my hand to my eyes. But even while I raised my hand the button +of the torch was released and the light went out. I stood for a moment +in utter blackness, then dimly I became aware of some one moving away +from in front of me. + +"What do you want?" I cried. + +"Nothing," was the word spoken in answer. + +I should have put the fellow down for one of the gipsies who infest +those Downs in the summer, and thought no more about him, but for one +reason. He had spoken with a pronounced German accent. Besides, there +was the warning whistle, the flash of the torch. I could not resist +the conviction that Bradley Rymer's house was being watched. + +I walked on without quickening my pace, for perhaps a hundred yards. +Then I ran, and as fast as I could, down to the village. I did not +stop to reason things out. I was in a panic. Violet was in that house, +and it was being watched by strangers. We had one policeman in the +village, and he not the brainiest of men. I got out my bicycle and +rode fourteen miles, walking up the hills and coasting down them until +I reached the town of Reading. I rode to the house of the Chief +Constable, whom I happened to know. + +"Is Captain Bowyer in?" I asked of the servant. + +"No, sir; he's dining out to-night." + +"In the town?" + +"Yes, sir." + +I was white with dust and wet through with sweat. The girl looked me +over and said: + +"I have orders to telephone for him if he is wanted." + +"He is," I replied, and she went off to the telephone at once. + +I began to cool down in more ways than one while I waited. It seemed +to me very likely that I had come upon a fool's errand. After all, +what had I got to go upon but a German accent, a low, sharp whistle, +and an electric torch? I waited about half an hour before Bowyer came +in. He was a big man, with a strong face and a fair moustache, +capable, but not imaginative; and I began my story with a good deal of +diffidence. But I had not got far before his face became serious, +though he said not a word until I had done. + +"Bradley Rymer's house," he then remarked. "I know it." He went out +into the passage, and I heard his voice at the telephone. He came back +in a moment. + +"I have sent for some men," he said, "and a car. Will you wait here +while I change?" + +"Yes." + +I glanced at the clock. For now that he took the affair seriously all +my fears had returned. + +"What time did you leave the house?" he asked. + +"Nine." + +"And it's now eleven. Yes, we must hurry. Bradley Rymer's house! So +that's where they are." + +He hurried away. But before he had changed his clothes a great touring +motor-car whirred and stopped in front of the door. When we went out +on to the steps of the house there were four constables waiting. We +climbed into the car, and the hilly road to Streatley, which had taken +me so long and painful a time to traverse, now rose and fell beneath +the broad wheels like the waves of a sea. At Streatley we turned +uphill along the Aldworth Road, and felt the fresh wind of the +downland upon our faces. Then for the first time upon the journey I +spoke. + +"You know these men?" I asked of Captain Bowyer. + +"I know of them," he answered, and he bent forwards to me. "With all +these kings and emperors in London for the funeral, of course a great +many precautions were taken on the Continent. All the known Anarchists +were marked down; most of them on some excuse or another were +arrested. But three slipped through the net and reached England." + +"But they would be in London," I urged. + +"So you would think. We were warned to-day, however, that they had +been traced into Berkshire and there lost sight of." + +A hundred questions rose to my lips, but I did not put them. We were +all in the dark together. + +"That's the house," I said at length, and Captain Bowyer touched the +chauffeur on the shoulder. + +"We'll stop, then, by the road." + +Very quietly we got out of the car and crept up the hill. The night +was dark; only here and there in a chink of the clouds a star shone +feebly. Down in the village a dog barked and the wind whistled amongst +the grasses under our feet. We met no one. The lodge at the gates was +dark; we could not see the house itself, but a glare striking upon the +higher branches of the trees in the garden showed that a room was +brightly lit. + +"Do you know which room that is?" Bowyer asked of me in a whisper. + +"The library." + +We spread out then and made a circuit of the garden wall. There was no +one any longer watching, and we heard no whistle. + +"They have gone," I said to Bowyer. + +"Or they are inside," he replied, and as he spoke we heard feet +brushing upon the grass and a constable loomed up in front of us. + +"This way, sir," he whispered. "They are inside." + +We followed him round to the back of the garden. Just about the middle +of that back wall the men stood in a cluster. We joined them, and saw +that an upright ladder rose to the parapet. On the other side of the +wall a thick coppice of trees grew, dark and high. Without a word, one +after another we mounted the ladder and let ourselves down by the +trees into the garden. A few paces took us to the edge of the coppice, +and the house stood in the open before us. Standing in the shadow of +the branches, we looked up. The house was in complete darkness but for +the long row of library windows upon the first floor. In these, +however, the curtains were not drawn, and the light blazed out upon +the green foliage. There was no sound, no sign of any disorder. Once +more I began to think that I had brought Bowyer and his men here upon +a fool's errand. I said as much to him in a whisper. + +"But the ladder?" he answered, "my men found it there." And even while +he spoke there appeared at one of these windows a stranger. It was as +much as I could do in that awful moment to withhold a cry, I gripped +Bowyer's arm with so much violence that he could show me the bruises +of my fingers a week afterwards. But he stood like a rock now. + +"Is that Rymer?" + +"No. I have never seen him in my life before." + +He was a dark man, and his hair and moustache were turning grey. He +had the look of a foreigner, and he lounged at the window with as much +assurance as if he owned the place. Then he turned his face towards +the room with a smile, and, as if in obedience to an order, carelessly +drew down the blinds. + +They were in the house, then--these men who had slipped through the +net of the Continental police; more, they were masters in the house; +and there was no sound. They were in peaceful possession. My heart +sank within me when I thought of Violet Rymer and her father. What had +become of them? In what plight were they? + +Bowyer made a sign, and, stepping carefully on the turf border and +keeping within the shadow of the trees, we crept round to the back of +the house. One of the party ran swiftly and silently across a gravel +path to the house-wall and followed it for a little way. Then as +swiftly he came back. + +"Yes, there's a window open," he said. We crossed to it. It yawned +upon black emptiness. We listened; not a sound reached us. + +"What does it give on to?" asked Bowyer. + +"A passage. At the end of the passage there's a swing door. Beyond the +swing door the hall." + +We climbed in through the window. + +"There should be a mastiff in the hall," I said. + +"Oh!" and Bowyer came to a stop. "Do you think Rymer expected these +men?" he asked. I had begun to ask myself that question already. It +was clear the dog had not given any alarm. But we found out the reason +when we crept into the hall. He was lying dead upon the stone floor, +with a piece of meat at his side. + +"Quick!" whispered Bowyer, and I led the way up the great staircase. +At the head of it at last we heard voices, and stopped, holding our +breath. A few words spoken in a foreign accent detached themselves +from the general murmur. + +"Where is it? You won't say! Very well, then!" A muffled groan +followed the words, and once more the voice spoke. "Wait, Adolf! He +gives in. We shall know now," and as the voice continued, some one, it +was clear, between each question asked, answered with a sign, a shake +of the head, or a nod. "It is in the bookcase? Yes. Behind the books? +Good. There? No. To the right? Yes. Higher? Yes. On that shelf? Good. +Search well, Adolf!" And with that Bowyer burst into the room with his +men behind him. He held a revolver in his hand. + +"I shall shoot the first man who moves," he said; and no one did move. +They stood like wax figures moulded in an attitude for ever. Imagine, +if you can, the scene which confronted me! On the library ladder, with +a hand thrust behind the books on one of the highest shelves, was +mounted one of the three foreigners. A second--he whom we had seen at +the window--stood over a chair into which Bradley Rymer was strapped +with a gag over his mouth. The third supported Violet. She was +standing in the middle of the room, with her hands tied behind her and +a rope in a noose about her neck. The end of the rope had been passed +through a big ring in the ceiling which had once carried a lamp. I +sprang towards her, cast off the noose, and she fainted there and then +in my arms. + +At the back of the bookshelf we found a slim little book of brown +morocco with a broken lock. + + +At this point in Sir James Kelsey's story Dr. Murgatroyd leaned +forward and interrupted. + +"John Rymer's private case-book," he said. + +"Exactly," replied Kelsey, "and also Bradley Rymer's boom in Canadian +land." + +There was a quick stir about that table, and then a moment of +uncomfortable silence. At last one spoke the thought in the minds of +all. + +"Blackmail!" + +"Yes." + +There was hardly a man in the room who had not some record of a case +locked away in a private drawer which was worth a fortune of gold, and +each one began to think of the security of his locks. + +"But where do your foreign revolutionaries come in?" asked Murgatroyd, +and Kelsey took up his tale again. + +"Bowyer and I went through that brown book together in my house, after +the prisoners had been sent off. For a long time we could find no +explanation. But right at the end of the book there was a case which +puzzled me. A Mr. Johnson had entered Rymer's nursing-home on June +17th of the year before at five o'clock in the morning, a strange time +to arrive. But there it was, noted down with every other particular of +his case. Three days later Mr. Johnson was operated on for cancer of +the throat. The operation was remarkably successful, and the patient +left the home cured seven weeks later. I think it was the unusual time +of Mr. Johnson's arrival which first directed my suspicions; and the +more I thought of them the more credible they became. I had lighted a +fire in the sitting-room, for the morning had come, and it was chilly. +I said to Bowyer: + +"'Just wait a moment here. I keep a file of _The Times_,' and I went +upstairs, blessing the methodical instinct which had made me for so +long keep in due order this record of events. I brought down the file +of June of the year before, and, turning over the pages, I found under +the date of June 14th the official paragraph of which I was in search. +I put it under Bowyer's eyes. He read it through and sprang to his +feet with a cry. The paragraph ran like this. I can remember every +word of it. I am inventing a name for the country, that's all, instead +of giving you the real one: + +"'The Crown Prince of Galicia left the capital yesterday for his +annual visit to his shooting-box in the Tyrol, where he will remain +for two months. This news effectually dispels the rumours that His +Royal Highness's recent indisposition was due to a malignant growth in +the throat.' + +"Underneath this paragraph there was an editorial note: + +"'The importance of this news cannot be overrated. For by the +constitution of Galicia no one suffering from or tainted by any +malignant disease can ascend the throne.' + +"Identify now Rymer's Mr. Johnson with the Crown Prince of Galicia, +and not only Bradley Rymer's fortune but the attack upon his house by +the revolutionaries was explained, for whether they meant to use the +Brown Book for blackmail as Bradley Rymer had done, or to upset a +monarchy, it would be of an inestimable value to them. + +"'What are we to do?' asked Bowyer. + +"'What John Rymer's executors would have done if the book had not been +stolen,' I answered, balancing it above the fire. + +"He hesitated. The official mind said 'No.' Then he realised the +stupendous character of the secret. He burst through forms and rules. + +"'Yes, by Heaven,' he cried, 'destroy it!' And we sat there till the +last sheet blackened and curled up in the flames. + +"I had not a doubt as to what had happened. I took the half-truth +which the public knew and it fitted like a piece of a Chinese puzzle +with our discovery. John Rymer, assailed with a causeless fear of +penury, had consented for a huge fee to take the Crown Prince into his +home under the false name. Bradley Rymer had got wind of the +operation, had stolen the record of the case, and had the Galician +Crown and Government at his mercy. John Rymer's suicide followed +logically. Accused of bad faith, and already unbalanced, aware that a +deadly secret which he should have guarded with his life had escaped, +he had put the muzzle of a revolver into his mouth and blown his +brains out." + +"What became of the foreigners?" asked one of the guests, as Kelsey +finished. + +"They were kept under lock and key until the funeral was over. Then +they were sent out of the country." + +Kelsey rose from his chair. The hands of the clock pointed to eleven. +But before anyone else got up Dr. Murgatroyd asked a final question: + +"And what of Mr. Johnson?" + +Kelsey laughed. + +"I told you Rymer was a great surgeon. Mr. Johnson has been King of +Galicia, as we are calling it, for the past ten years." + + + + + + THE REFUGE + + + + + THE REFUGE + + +The basket of _petits fours_ had been removed; cigars and cigarettes +had been passed round; one or two of the half-dozen people gathered +about the small round table, rashly careless of a sleepless night, +were drinking coffee with their liqueurs; the conversation was +sprightly, at all events, if it was not witty, and laughter ran easily +in ripples; the little supper-party, in a word, was at its gayest when +Harry Caston suddenly pushed back his chair. Though the movement was +abrupt, it was not conspicuous; it did not interrupt the light +interchange of chaff and pleasantries for a moment. It was probably +not noticed, and certainly not understood by more than one in that +small company. The one, however, was a woman to whom Harry Gaston's +movements were a matter of much greater interest than he knew. Mrs. +Wordingham was sitting next to him, and she remarked quietly: + +"So you are not going on to the Mirlitons' dance, after all?" + +Harry Caston turned to her in surprise. + +"You're a witch," he replied. "I have only just made up my mind to go +home instead." + +"I know," said Mrs. Wordingham. + +"Then you oughtn't to," retorted Harry Caston carelessly. Mrs. +Wordingham flushed. + +"I wish I didn't," she answered in a low, submissive voice. She was +not naturally a submissive woman, and it was only in his ears that +this particular note was sounded. + +"I meant that you had no right to be able to estimate so accurately +the hidden feelings of your brother-man," he answered awkwardly, and +wrapping up his awkwardness in an elaboration of words. + +Harry Caston looked about the supper-room, with its walls of white and +gold, its clusters of bright faces, its flash of silver, its running +noise of merriment. His fingers twitched restlessly. + +"Yes, I am going," he said. "I shall leave London to-morrow. I have a +house." + +"I know that too--in the Isle of Wight." + +"Not so very far, after all, is it?" he said. + +"As far as Timbuctoo when you are there," replied Mrs. Wordingham. Her +great dark eyes rested wistfully upon his face; she leaned the least +little bit towards him. Harry Caston was silent for a moment. Then he +turned to her with a smile of apology. + +"You know me----" + +"Oh, don't I!" she cried in a low voice. "We shall see you no more +for--how many months?" + +Harry Caston did not answer. His memories were busy with an afternoon +of early summer in that same year, when, as his motor-car slid down a +long straight slope into a village of red-brick cottages, he had seen, +on the opposite incline, a row of tall stone-pines, and glowing +beneath their shade the warm brown roof of a small and ancient house. + +"Tell me about it," said Mrs. Wordingham, once more interpreting his +silence. + +"There was a bridge at the bottom of the hill--a bridge across the +neck of a creek, with an old flour mill and a tiny roof at one side of +it. Inland of the bridge was a reach of quiet water running back +towards the downs through woods and meadows. Already I seemed to have +dropped from the crest of the hill into another century. Beyond the +bridge the road curved upwards. I went up on my second speed between +the hedge of a field which sloped down to the creek upon the one side, +and a low brick wall topped by a bank of grass upon the other. The +incline of the hill brought my head suddenly above the bank, and I +looked straight across a smooth lawn broken by great trees on to the +front of a house. And I stopped my car, believe me, almost with a +gasp. There was no fence or hedge to impede my view. I had come at +last across the perfect house, and I sat in the car and stared and +stared at it, not at first with any conscious desire to possess it, +but simply taken by the sheer beauty of the thing, just as one may +gaze at a jewel." + +The lights went suddenly out in the supper-room, as a gentle warning +that time was up, and then were raised again. Harry Caston, however, +seemed unaware of any change. He was at the moment neither of that +party nor of that room. + +"It was a small house of the E shape, raised upon a low parapet and +clothed in ivy. The middle part, set back a few feet behind flowers, +had big flat windows; the gabled ends had smaller ones and more of +them. Oh, I can't describe to you what I saw! The house in detail? +Yes. But that would not give you an idea of it. The woodwork of the +windows was painted white, and, where they stood open to the sunlight +and the air, they showed you deep embrasures of black oak within." + +He stumbled on awkwardly, impelled to describe the house, yet aware +that his description left all unsaid. The tiles of the roof were +mellowed by centuries, so that shade ran into shade; and here they +were almost purple, and there brown with a glint of gold. Two great +chimney stacks stood high, not rising from the roof, but from the +sides of the house, flanking it like sentinels, and over these, too, +the ivy climbed. + +But what had taken Caston by the throat was the glamour of repose on +that old house. Birds flickered about the lawn, and though the windows +stood open, and the grass was emerald green and smooth, no smoke rose +from any of the chimney-tops. + +"I ran on for a few yards," he went on, "until I saw a road which +branched off to the right. I drove up it, and came to a gate with a +notice that the house was to be sold. I went in, and at the back of +the house, in a second queer little grass garden, screened by big +trees upon three sides and a low red-brick wall upon the fourth, over +which you could see the upper reach of the estuary and the woods on +the further hill, I found a garrulous old gardener." + +Mrs. Wordingham leaned forward. + +"And what story had he to tell?" + +"Oh, none!" answered Caston with a laugh. "There's no tragic +or romantic history connected with the house. Of course, it's +haunted--that goes without saying. There's hardly a bedroom window +where the ivy does not tap upon the panes. But for history! Four old +ladies took it for a summer, and remained in it for forty years. The +last one of them died two years ago. That's all the history the +gardener knew. But he showed me over the house, the quaintest place +you ever dreamed of--a small stone-flagged hall, little staircases +rising straight and enclosed in the walls, great polished oak beams, +rooms larger than you would expect, and a great one on the first +floor, occupying the middle of the house and looking out upon the +grass garden at the back, and over the sunk road to the creek in +front. Anyway"--and he broke off abruptly--"I bought the house, and +I've furnished it, and now----" + +"Now you are going to shut yourself up in it," said Mrs. Wordingham. + +The lights were turned out now for the last time. The party sat almost +in darkness. Caston turned towards his companion. He could just see +the soft gleam of her dark eyes. + +"For a little," he replied. "I have to, you know. I can't help it. I +enjoy all this. I like running about London as much as any man; I--I +am fond of my friends." The lady smiled with a little bitterness, and +Caston went on: "But the time comes when everything suddenly jars on +me--noise, company, everything--when I must get away with my books +into some refuge of my own, when I must take my bath of solitude +without anyone having a lien upon a single minute of my time. The +need has come on me to-night. The house is ready--waiting. I shall go +to-morrow." + +Mrs. Wordingham glanced at him with a quick anxiety. There was a +trifle of exasperation in his voice. He was suddenly on wires. + +"Yes, you look tired," she said. The head waiter approached the table, +and the party broke up and mounted the steps into the hall. Caston +handed Mrs. Wordingham into her carriage. + +"I shall see you when I come back?" said he, and Mrs. Wordingham +answered with a well-assumed carelessness: + +"I shall be in London in the autumn. Perhaps you will have some story +to tell me of your old house. Has it a name?" + +"Oh, yes--Hawk Hill," replied Caston. "But there's no story about that +house," he repeated, and the carriage rolled away. Later on, however, +he was inclined to doubt the accuracy of his statement, confidently +though he had made it. And a little later still he became again aware +of its truth. + +Here, at all events, is what occurred. Harry Caston idled through his +mornings over his books, sailed his sloop down the creek and out past +the black booms into the Solent in the afternoon, and came back to a +solitary dinner in the cool of the evening. Thus he passed a month. He +was not at all tired with his own company. The inevitable demand for +comrades and a trifle of gaiety had not yet been whispered to his +soul. The fret of his nerves ceased; London sank away into the mists. +Even the noise of the motor-horns in the hidden road beneath his lawn +merely reminded him pleasantly that he was free of that whirlpool and +of all who whirled in it. If he needed conversation, there were +the boatmen on the creek, with their interest in tides and shoals, +or the homely politics of the village. But Caston needed very +little. He drifted back, as it seemed to him, into the reposeful, +lavender-scented life of a century and a half ago. For though the +house was of the true E shape, and had its origin in Tudor times, it +was with that later period that Caston linked it in his thoughts. +Tudor times were stirring, and the recollection of them uncongenial to +Caston's mood. + +He had furnished the house to suit his mood, and the room which he +chiefly favoured--a room at the back, with a great bay window thrown +out upon the grass, and the floor just a step below the level of the +garden--had the very look of some old parlour where Mr. Hardcastle +might have sipped his port, and Kate stitched at her samplers. Here he +was sitting at ten o'clock in the evening, about a month after he had +left London, when the first of the incidents occurred. It was nothing +very startling in itself--merely the sound of some small thing falling +upon the boards of the floor and rolling into a corner--a crisp, sharp +sound, as though a pebble had dropped. + +Caston looked up from his book, at the first hardly curious. But in a +minute or so, it occurred to him that he was alone, and that he had +dropped nothing. Moreover, the sound had travelled from the other side +of the room. He was not as yet curious enough to rise from his chair, +and a round satin-wood table impeded his view. But he looked about the +room, and could see nothing from which an ornament could have dropped. +He turned back to his book, but his attention wandered. Once or twice +he looked sharply up, as though he expected to find another occupant +in the room. Finally he rose, and walking round the table, he saw what +seemed to be a big glass bead sparkling in the lamplight on the +dark-stained boards in a corner of the room. He picked the object up, +and found it to be not a large bead, but a small knob or handle of +cut-glass. He knew now whence it had come. + +Against the wall stood a small Louis Seize table in white and gold, +which he remembered to have picked up at a sale, with some other +furniture, at some old mansion, across the water, in the New Forest. +He had paid no particular attention to the table, had never even +troubled to look inside of it. It had the appearance of being a lady's +secretaire or something of the kind. But there were three shallow +drawers, one above the other, in the middle part of it--it was what is +inelegantly called a kidney table--and these drawers were fitted with +small glass knobs such as that which he held in his hand. + +Caston went over to the table, and saw that one of the knobs was +missing. He stooped to replace it, and at once stood erect again, with +the knob in his hand and a puzzled expression upon his face. He had +expected that the handles would fit on to projecting screws. But he +found that they were set into brass rings, and firmly set. This one +which he held seemed to have been wrenched out of its setting by some +violent jerk. He tried the drawers, but they were locked. There were +some papers and books spread upon the top. He removed them, and found +upon the white polish a half-erased crest. It was plain that the +middle part of the top was a lid and lifted up, but it was now locked +down. Caston did not replace the books and papers. He returned to his +chair. The servants probably had been curious. No doubt they had tried +to open the drawers, and in the attempt had loosened one of the +handles. + +Caston was content with the explanation--for that night. But the next +evening, at the same hour, the legs of the table rattled on the wooden +floor. He sprang up from his seat. The table was shaking. He stepped +quickly across to it, and then stopped with his heart leaping in +his breast. The books and papers had not been replaced, and he had +seen--it might be that his eyes had played him a trick, but he had +_seen_--a small slim hand suddenly withdrawn from the lid of the +table. The hand had been lying flat upon its palm--Caston had just +time enough to see that--and it was the left hand. + +"That's exactly the position," he said to himself, "in which one would +place the left hand to hold the table steady while one tried to force +the drawers open with one's right." + +He stood without a movement, but the hand did not appear again; and +then he found himself saying in a quiet voice of reassurance: + +"Can I help at all?" + +The sound of his own words stirred him abruptly to laughter. Common +sense reasserted itself; his eyes had played him a trick. Too much +tobacco, very likely, was the cause and origin of his romantic vision. +But, none the less, he remained standing quite still, with his eyes +fixed upon the table's polished lid, for some minutes; and when he +went back at last to his chair, from time to time he glanced abruptly +from his book, in the hope that he might once more detect the hand +upon the table. But he was disappointed. + +The next morning he saw the old gardener sweeping the leaves from the +front lawn, and he at once and rather eagerly went out to him. + +"I think you told me, Hayes, that this house is supposed to be +haunted," he said, with a laugh at the supposition. + +The gardener took off his hat and scratched his head reflectively. + +"Well, they do say, sir, as it is. But I've never seen anything +myself, nor can I rightly say that I've ever come across anyone who +has. A pack o' nonsense, I call it." + +"Very likely, Hayes," said Caston. "And what sort of a person is it +who's supposed to walk?" + +"An old man in grey stockings," replied the gardener. "That's what +I've heard. But what he's supposed to be doing I don't know, sir, any +more than I know why there should be so much fuss about his wearing +grey stockings. Live men do that, after all." + +"To be sure," replied Caston. "You may count them by dozens on +bicycles if you stand for an hour or two above the road here." And he +went back to the house. It was quite clear that his visitant of last +night, if there had been one, was not the native spectre of this small +old manor-house. + +"The slim white hand I saw," Caston argued, "belonged to no old man in +grey stockings or out of them. It was the hand of a quite young woman. +But if she doesn't belong to the house, if she isn't one of the +fixtures to be taken on by the incoming tenant--if, in a word, she's a +trespasser--how in the world did she find her way here?" + +Caston suddenly saw an answer to the question--a queer and a rather +attractive answer, especially to a man who had fed for a month on +solitude and had grown liable to fancies. He had all through this +lonely month been gradually washing from his body and his mind the +dust of his own times. He had sought to reproduce the quiet of an +older age, and in the seeking had perhaps done more than reproduce. +That was his thought. He had, perhaps, by ever so little, penetrated +the dark veil which hides from men all days but their own--just +enough, say, to catch a glimpse of a hand. He himself was becoming +more and more harmonious with his house; the cries of the outer world +hardly reached his ears in that little parlour which opened on to the +hidden garden. It seemed to him that other times, through some +thinning out of the thick curtain of his senses, were becoming actual +and real just to him. + +"The first month passed," he said to himself. "I was undisturbed; no +sign was made. I was still too near to what I had left behind--London +and the rest of it. But now I pass more and more over the threshold +into that other century. First of all, I was only aware of a movement, +a presence; then I was able to see--nothing much, it is true--only a +small hand. But tonight I may see her to whom the hand belongs. In a +week I may be admitted into her company." + +Thus he argued, pretending to himself the while that he was merely +playing with his fancy, pursuing it like a ball in a game, and ready +to let it fall and lie the moment that he was tired. But the sudden +hum of a motor-car upon his drive, and a joyous outcry of voices, soon +dispelled the pretence. A party of his friends invaded him, clamouring +for luncheon, and in his mind there sprang up a fear so strong that it +surprised him. They would thicken the thinning curtain between himself +and her whose hand had lain upon the table. They would drag him back +into his own century. The whole process of isolation would have to +begin again. The talk at luncheon was all of regattas and the tonnage +of yachts. Caston sat at the table with his fear increasing. His +visitors were friends he would have welcomed five weeks ago, and he +would have gaily taken his part in their light talk. Now it was every +moment on his lips to cry out: + +"Hold your tongues and go!" + +They went off at three o'clock, and a lady of the party wisely nodded +a dainty head at him as he stood upon the steps, and remarked: + +"You hated us visiting you, Mr. Caston. You have someone in that +house--someone you won't show to us." + +Caston coloured to the roots of his hair. + +The lady laughed. "There--I knew I was right! Let me guess who it can +be." + +Caston raised his head in a quick protest. + +"No, there is no one." He tried to laugh easily. "That's my trouble. +There is no one, I am afraid." + +They had driven his visitor away, without a doubt; and though he sat +very still in his arm-chair that night, careful as a hunter by no +abrupt movement to scare away his quarry, he sat undisturbed. He +waited until the light was grey and the birds singing upon the lawn. +He went to bed disappointed as a lover whose mistress had failed to +keep her tryst. + +On the next day he searched for and found the catalogue of the sale at +which he had bought the table. The sale had been held at a house +called Bylanes, some five miles from the Beaulieu river, and the +furniture was advertised as the property of Geoffrey Trimingham, Esq., +deceased, and sold by his young widow. Caston's memory was quickened +by these meagre details. He recollected stories which he had heard +during the three days of the sale. The Triminghams were a branch of +the old Norfolk family of that name, and had settled in the New Forest +so far back as the reign of the first George. Geoffrey Trimingham, +however, had delayed marriage until well sped in years, and then had +committed the common fault of marrying a young woman, who, with no +children and no traditions to detain her in a neighbourhood which she +considered gloomy, had, as soon as she was free, sold off house and +furniture--lock, stock, and barrel--so that she might retire to what +she considered the more elegant neighbourhood of Blandford Square. + +This was all very well, but it did not bring Harry Gaston very much +nearer to the identification of his visitor. She was a Trimingham, +probably, but even that was by no means certain; and to what +generation of Triminghams she belonged, he knew no more than he knew +her Christian name. He searched the house for the keys of the table, +but nowhere could he find them. He had never opened the drawers, he +had never raised the lid. It seemed to him that he must have bought +the table without the keys at all. + +He might have broken it open, of course, and from time to time, as the +evenings passed in an expectation which was not fulfilled, he was +tempted to take a chisel in his hand and set to work. But he resisted. +The table was not his. It was _hers_, and in her presence alone it +must be opened. + +Thus Caston passed a week, and then one evening there fell a shadow +across the open page of his book. He looked swiftly up. He saw nothing +but the empty room, and the flame of the lamp burned bright and +steady. She was here, then, and as the conviction grew within him to a +veritable exultation, he was aware of rustling of a woman's gown. The +sound came from behind him. He turned with a leap of his heart, and +saw her--saw her from the crown of her small head, with its thick +brown hair, to the hem of her dress--not a shadow, not a vague shape +dimly to be apprehended, but as actual as flesh and blood could be. +She was dressed in a gown of pale blue satin of an ancient mode, and +was slender as a child. Her face, too, was the face of one little more +than a child, though pain and trouble had ravaged it. + +She stood as though she had just stepped from the garden on to the +window-seat, and so to the floor, and in her dark eyes there was a +look of the direst urgency. She moved swiftly across the room to the +table, pulled at the glass handles, and sought to lift the lid, and +all in a feverish haste, with her young and troubled face twitching as +though she were at pains to check her tears. Caston watched her +eagerly. He noticed that once more her left hand was pressed flat +upon the lid, as she tried to open the drawer, and then a flash of +gold caught and held his eyes. Young though she was, she wore a +wedding-ring. He had barely noticed it, when she turned from the table +and came straight towards him. Caston rose from his chair. He heard +himself saying once more: + +"Can I help?" + +But this time he did not laugh upon the words. She stood before him +with so pitiful an appeal, her hands clutched together in front of +her, her face convulsed. He spoke with the deference due to those who +have greatly suffered. Then came to him a whisper in reply, so low +that he barely heard it--so low that perhaps he only imagined it. + +"Yes." + +Caston went across to the table, and, opening his knife, inserted it +under the lid. The girl stood at his side, a gleam of hope in her +eyes. Caston ran the blade of the knife along to the lock and turned +it, prising up the lid. There was a sound of the splitting of wood, +and the lock gave. Caston lifted the lid. It rose on hinges, and had +upon the under-side a bevelled mirror, and it disclosed, when open, a +fixed tray lined with blue velvet. The tray was empty. + +But now that the lid was raised in the centre of the table, the +side-pieces could be opened too. The girl opened the one at her hand. +Caston saw a well, lined, like the rest, with velvet, and filled with +the knick-knacks and belongings of a girl. She took them out +hurriedly, heaping them together on the tray--a walnut-wood housewife +shaped and shut like a large card-case, with scissors, thimble, +needle-case, tiny penknife, all complete--for she opened it, as she +opened everything in the haste and urgency of her search--a large +needle-case of ivory, a walnut-wood egg, which unscrewed and showed +within a reel with silk still wound upon it, and a little oval box +with a label on the top of it, and the royal arms. Caston read the +label: + + + STRINGER'S CANDY. + PREPARED AND SOLD ONLY BY THE PROPRIETOR, + R. STRINGER, + DRUGGIST TO THE KING. + + +The top fell from the little box, and a shower of shells rattled out +of it. Bags of beads followed, wash-leather bags carefully tied up, +and some of them filled with the minutest of beads. It made Caston's +eyes ache to think of anyone stringing them together. In the end the +well was emptied, and, with a gesture of despair, the girl slipped +round to the other side of Caston. She turned back the flap upon this +side. + +On the other side were the implements of work; here was the finished +product. She lifted out two small anti-macassars, completely made up +of tiny beads in crystal and turquoise colours, and worked in the most +intricate patterns. They were extraordinarily heavy, and must have +taken months in the making. Under these were still more beads, in +boxes and in bags and coiled in long strings. She heaped them out upon +the tray, and looked into the well. Her face flashed into relief. She +thrust her hands in; she drew out from the very bottom a faded bundle +of letters. She clasped them for a moment close against her heart, +then very swiftly, as though she feared to be stopped, she took them +over to the fireplace. + +A fire was burning in the grate, for the night was chilly. She dropped +the bundle into the flames, and stood there while it was consumed. +Caston saw the glare of the flames behind the paper light up here and +there a word or a phrase, and then the edges curled over and the +sparks ran across the sheets, and the letters changed to white ashes +and black flakes. When all was done, she sighed and turned to Caston +with a wistful smile of thanks. She moved back to the table, and with +a queer orderliness which seemed somehow in keeping with her looks and +manner, she replaced the beads, the little boxes, and the +paraphernalia of her work carefully in the wells, and shut the table +up. She turned again to Caston at the end. Just for a second she stood +before him, her face not happy, but cleared of its trouble, and with a +smile upon her lips. She stood, surely a living thing. Caston advanced +to her. "You will stay now!" he cried, and she was gone. + +This is the story as Harry Caston told it to Mrs. Wordingham when he +returned to London in the autumn. She ridiculed it gently and with a +trifle of anxiety, believing that solitude had bred delusions. + +"Thank you," said Harry Caston grimly, and sitting up very erect. Mrs. +Wordingham changed her note. + +"It's the most wonderful thing to have happened to you," she said. "I +should have been frightened out of my life. And you weren't?" + +Harry Gaston's face hardly relaxed. + +"You don't believe a word of it," he asserted sternly. + +"Of course I do," she replied soothingly, "and I quite see that, with +us nowhere near you, all your senses became refined, and you +penetrated behind the curtain. Yes, I see all that, Harry. But she +might, perhaps, have told you a little more, mightn't she? As a story, +it almost sounds unfinished." + +Harry Caston rose to his feet. + +"I tell you what you are doing," he said, standing over her--"you are +getting a little of your own back." + +"But such a very little, Harry," murmured Mrs. Wordingham; and Harry +Caston flung out of the room. + +He did not refer to the subject again for some little while. But in +the month of December, on one foggy afternoon, he arrived with a new +book under his arm. He put it down on the floor beside his chair +rather ostentatiously, as one inviting questions. Mrs. Wordingham was +serenely unaware of the book. + +"Where have you been, Harry?" she asked as she gave him a cup of tea. + +"In Norfolk--shooting," he said. + +"Many birds?" + +"So few that we did not go out on the second day. We motored to a +church instead--a very old church with a beautiful clerestory." + +Mrs. Wordingham affected an intense interest. + +"Old churches are wonderful," she said. + +"You care no more about them than I do," said Harry Gaston brutally. +"I am not going to tell you about the church." + +"Oh, aren't you?" said Mrs. Wordingham. + +"No. What I am going to tell you is this. The vicar is a friend of my +host, and happened to be in the church when we arrived. He showed us +the building himself, and then, taking us into the vestry, got out the +parish register. It dates back a good many years. Well, turning over +the leaves, I noticed quite carelessly an entry made by the vicar in +the year 1786. It was a note of a donation which he had made to the +parish as a thanksgiving for his recovery from a severe operation +which had been performed upon him in Norwich by a famous surgeon of +the day named Twiddy." + +"Yes?" said Mrs. Wordingham. + +"That little entry occupied my mind much more than the church," +continued Caston. "I wondered what the vicar must have felt as he +travelled into Norwich in those days of no chloroform, no antiseptics, +of sloughing wounds, and hospital fevers. Not much chance of _his_ +ever coming back again, eh? And then the revulsion when he did +recover--the return home to Frimley-next-the-Sea alive and well! It +must all have been pretty wonderful to the vicar in 1786, eh?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Wordingham submissively. + +"I couldn't get him out of my head and when I returned to London a +couple of days ago, I saw in a bookseller's this book." + +Caston picked the volume up from the floor. + +"It seems that Twiddy was no end of a swell with his knife, so some +one of his devoted descendants has had a life written of him, with all +his letters included. He kept up an extensive correspondence, as +people did in those days. He had a shrewd eye and a knack of telling a +story. There's one here which I wish you to read if you will. No, not +now--when I have gone. I have put a slip of paper in at the page. I +think it will interest you." + +Harry Caston went away. Mrs. Wordingham had her curtains closed and +her lamps lit. She drew her chair up to the fire, and she opened "The +Life and Letters of Mr. Edmund Twiddy, Surgeon, of Norwich," with a +shrug of the shoulders and a little grimace of discontent. But the +grimace soon left her face, and when her maid came with a warning that +she had accepted an invitation for that night to dinner, she found her +mistress with the book still open upon her knees, and her eyes staring +with a look of wonder into the fire. For this is what she had read in +"The Life and Letters of Mr. Edmund Twiddy." + +"I have lately had a curious case under my charge, which has given me +more trouble than I care to confess. For sentiment is no part of the +equipment of a surgeon. It perplexed as well as troubled me, and some +clue to the explanation was only afforded me yesterday. Three months +ago my servant brought me word one evening that there was a lady very +urgent to see me, of the name of Mrs. Braxfield. I replied that my +work was done, and she must return at a more seasonable time. But +while I was giving this message the door was pushed open, and already +she stood in front of me. She was a slip of a girl, very pretty to +look at, and shrinking with alarm at her own audacity. Yet she held +her ground. + +"'Mrs. Braxfield,' I cried, 'you have no right to be married--you are +much too young! Young girls hooked at your age ought to be put back.' + +"'I am ill,' she said, and I nodded to the servant to leave us. + +"'Very well,' I said. 'What's the matter?' + +"'My throat,' said she. + +"I looked at it. There was trouble, but the trouble was not so very +serious, though I recognised that at some time treatment would be +advisable. + +"'There's no hurry at all about it,' I said, when my examination was +concluded, 'but, on the whole, you are right to get it looked to +soon.' I spoke roughly, for I shrank a little from having this tender +bit of a girl under my knife. 'Where's your husband?' + +"'He is in Spain,' she replied. + +"'Oh, indeed!' said I with some surprise. 'Well, when he returns, we +can talk about it.' + +"Mrs. Braxfield shook her head. + +"'No, I want it done now, while he's away,' she said, and nothing that +I could say would shake her from her purpose. I fathered her, and +bullied her, and lectured her, but she stood her ground. Her lips +trembled; she was afraid of me, and still more desperately afraid of +what waited for her. I could see her catch her breath and turn pale as +she thought upon the ordeal. But the same sort of timid courage which +had made her push into my room before I could refuse to see her, +sustained her now. I raised my hands at last in despair. + +"'Very well,' I said. 'Give me your husband's address. I will send a +letter to him, and if he consents, we will not wait for his return.' + +"'No,' she insisted stubbornly, 'I do not want him to know anything +about it. But if you will not attend me, no doubt someone else will.' + +"That was my trouble. The throat, look at it how you will, is a +ticklish affair. If she went away from me, Heaven knows into whose +hands she might fall. She had some money and was well dressed. Some +quack would have used his blundering knife. I could have shaken her +for her obstinacy, and would have, if I had had a hope that I would +shake it out of her. But she had screwed herself up to a pitch of +determination almost unbelievable in her. I could make her cry; I +could not make her draw back from her resolve. Nor, on the other hand, +could I allow her to go out of my house and hand herself over to be +butchered by any Tom, Dick, or Harry of a barber on the look-out for a +fat fee. So I gave in. + +"I got her a lodging in this town, and a woman to look after her, and +I did what needed to be done with as little pain as might be. + +"'You won't hurt me more than you can help,' she said in a sort of +childish wail. And then she shut her eyes and bore it with an +extraordinary fortitude; while, for my part, I never worked more +neatly or more quickly in my life, and in a few days she was quite +comfortable again. + +"But here she began to perplex me. For though the wound healed, and +there was no fever, she did not mend. She lay from day to day in an +increasing weakness, for which I could not account. I drew a chair up +to her bed one morning and took my seat. + +"'My dear,' I said, 'a good many of us are father-confessors as well +as doctors. We needs must be at times if our patients are to get well +and do us credit. You are lying here surely with a great trouble on +your mind. It shall be sacred to me, but I must know it if I am to +cure you.' + +"The girl looked at me with a poor little smile. + +"'No, there's nothing at all,' she said; and even while she spoke she +lifted her head from the pillow, and a light dawned in her eyes. + +"'Listen!' she said. + +"I heard a step coming nearer and nearer along the pavement outside. +As it grew louder, she raised herself upon her elbow, and when the +footsteps ceased outside the door, her whole soul leapt into her face. + +"'There will be a letter for me!' she cried, with a joyous clapping of +her hands. + +"The footsteps moved on and became fainter and more faint. The girl +remained propped up, with her eyes fixed upon the door. But no one +came. + +"'It has been left in the hall,' she said, turning wistfully to me. + +"'I will send it up if it is there,' said I. + +"I went downstairs rather heavy at heart. Here was the reason why she +did not mend. Here it was, and I saw no cure for it. There was no +letter in the hall, nor did I expect to find one. I sent for the woman +who waited upon her. 'Does she always expect a letter?' + +"The woman nodded. + +"'She knows the postman's step, sir, even when he is a long way off. +She singles it out from all other sounds. If he stops at the door, I +must run down upon the instant. But whether he stops or not, it is +always the same thing--there is no letter for her.' + +"I went upstairs again and into her room. The girl was lying upon her +side, with her faced pressed into the pillow, and crying. I patted her +shoulder. + +"'Come, Mrs. Braxfield, you must tell me what the trouble is, and we +will put our heads together and discover a remedy.' + +"But she drew away from me. 'There is nothing,' she repeated. 'I am +weak--that is all.' + +"I could get no more from her, and the next day I besought her to tell +me where I might find her husband. But upon that point, too, she was +silent. Then came a night, about a week later, when she fell into a +delirium, and I sat by her side and wrestled with death for her. I +fought hard with what resources I had, for there was no reason why she +should die but the extreme weakness into which she had fallen. + +"I sat by the bed, thinking that now at last I should learn the secret +which ravaged her. But there was no coherency in what she said. She +talked chiefly, I remember, of a work-table and of something hidden +there which she must destroy. She was continually, in her delirium, +searching its drawers, opening the lid and diving amongst her +embroidery and beads, as though she could not die and let the thing be +found. + +"So till the grey of the morning, when she came out of her delirium, +turned very wistfully to me with a feeble motion of her hands, and +said: + +"'You have been very good to me, doctor.' + +"She lay thus for a few moments, and then she cried in a low sad +voice: 'Oh, Arthur, Arthur!' And with that name upon her lips she +died. + +"She carried her secret with her, leaving me in the dark as to who she +was and how I was to lay my hands upon one of her relations. I buried +the poor girl here, and I advertised for her husband in _The London +Newsletter_, and I made inquiries of our ambassador in Spain. A week +ago Mr. Braxfield appeared at my house. He was a man of sixty years of +age, and his Christian name was Robert. + +"He gave me some few details about his marriage, and from them I am +able to put together the rest of the story. Mr. Braxfield is a Spanish +merchant of means, and the girl, a Trimingham of that branch of the +family which moved a long while since into Hampshire, was, no doubt, +pressed into marriage with him owing to the straitened position of her +parents. Mr. Braxfield and his young wife took up their residence in +Soho Square, in London, until, at the beginning of this year, business +called him once more to Spain for some months. + +"His wife thereupon elected to return to her home, and there Mr. +Braxfield believed her to be, until chance threw one of my +advertisements in his way. Her own parents, for their part, understood +that she had returned to her house in Soho Square. To me, then, the +story is clear. Having married without love, she had given her heart +to someone, probably after her return to her own home--someone called +Arthur. Whether he had treated her ill, I cannot say. But I take it +that he had grown cold, and she had looked upon this trouble with her +throat as her opportunity to hold him. The risk, the suffering--these +things, one can imagine her believing, must make their appeal. She had +pretended to return to London. She had travelled, instead, to Norwich, +letting him and him alone know what she was about. The great +experiment failed. She looked for some letter; no letter came. But had +letters passed? Are these letters locked up amongst the embroidery and +the beads in that work-table, I wonder? Let us hope that, if they are, +they trouble her no longer." + + + + + + PEIFFER + + + + + PEIFFER + + +For a moment I was surprised to see the stout and rubicund Slingsby in +Lisbon. He was drinking a vermouth and seltzer at five o'clock in the +afternoon at a cafe close to the big hotel. But at that time Portugal +was still a neutral country and a happy hunting ground for a good many +thousand Germans. Slingsby was lolling in his chair with such +exceeding indolence that I could not doubt his business was pressing +and serious. I accordingly passed him by as if I had never seen him in +my life before. But he called out to me. So I took a seat at his +table. + +Of what we talked about I have not the least recollection, for my eyes +were quite captivated by a strange being who sat alone fairly close to +Slingsby, at one side and a little behind him. This was a man of +middle age, with reddish hair, a red, square, inflamed face and a +bristly moustache. He was dressed in a dirty suit of grey flannel; +he wore a battered Panama pressed down upon his head; he carried +pince-nez on the bridge of his nose, and he sat with a big bock of +German beer In front of him. But I never saw him touch the beer. He +sat in a studied attitude of ferocity, his elbow on the table, his +chin propped on the palm of his hand, his head pushed aggressively +forward, and he glared at Slingsby through his glasses with the fixed +stare of hatred and fury which a master workman in wax might give to a +figure in a Chamber of Horrors. Indeed, it seemed to me that he must +have rehearsed his bearing in some such quarter, for there was nothing +natural or convinced in him from the brim of his Panama to the black +patent leather tips of his white canvas shoes. + +I touched Slingsby on the arm. + +"Who is that man, and what have you done to him?" + +Slingsby looked round unconcernedly. + +"Oh, that's only Peiffer," he replied. "Peiffer making frightfulness." + +"Peiffer?" + +The name was quite strange to me. + +"Yes. Don't you know him? He's a product of 1914," and Slingsby leaned +towards me a little. "Peiffer is an officer in the German Navy. You +would hardly guess it, but he is. Now that their country is at war, +officers in the German Navy have a marked amount of spare time which +they never had before. So Peiffer went to a wonderful Government +school in Hamburg, where in twenty lessons they teach the gentle art +of espionage, a sort of Berlitz school. Peiffer ate his dinners and +got his degrees, so to speak, and now he's at Lisbon putting obi on +me." + +"It seems rather infantile, and must be annoying," I said; but +Slingsby would only accept half the statement. "Infantile, yes. +Annoying, not at all. For so long as Peiffer is near me, being +frightful, I know he's not up to mischief." + +"Mischief!" I cried. "That fellow? What mischief can he do?" + +Slingsby viciously crushed the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray. + +"A deuce of a lot, my friend. Don't make any mistake. Peiffer's +methods are infantile and barbaric, but he has a low and fertile +cunning in the matter of ideas. I know. I have had some." + +And Slingsby was to have more, very much more: in the shape of a great +many sleepless nights, during which he wrestled with a dreadful +uncertainty to get behind that square red face and those shining +pince-nez, and reach the dark places of Peiffer's mind. + +The first faint wisp of cloud began to show six weeks later, when +Slingsby happened to be in Spain. + +"Something's up," he said, scratching his head. "But I'm hanged if I +can guess what it is. See what you can make of it"; and here is the +story which he told. + +Three Germans dressed in the black velvet corduroy, the white +stockings and the rope-soled white shoes of the Spanish peasant, +arrived suddenly in the town of Cartagena, and put up at an inn in a +side-street near the harbour. Cartagena, for all that it is one of the +chief naval ports of Spain, is a small place, and the life of it ebbs +and flows in one narrow street, the Calle Mayor; so that very little +can happen which is not immediately known and discussed. The arrival +of the three mysterious Germans provoked, consequently, a deal of +gossip and curiosity, and the curiosity was increased when the German +Consul sitting in front of the Casino loudly professed complete +ignorance of these very doubtful compatriots of his, and an exceeding +great contempt for them. The next morning, however, brought a new +development. The three Germans complained publicly to the Alcalde. +They had walked through Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia in search of +work, and everywhere they had been pestered and shadowed by the +police. + +"Our Consul will do nothing for us," they protested indignantly. "He +will not receive us, nor will any German in Cartagena. We are poor +people." And having protested, they disappeared in the night. + +But a few days later the three had emerged again at Almeria, and at a +mean cafe in one of the narrow, blue-washed Moorish streets of the old +town. Peiffer was identified as one of the three--not the Peiffer who +had practised frightfulness in Lisbon, but a new and wonderful +Peiffer, who inveighed against the shamelessness of German officials +on the coasts of Spain. At Almeria, in fact, Peiffer made a scene at +the German Vice-Consulate, and, having been handed over to the police, +was fined and threatened with imprisonment. At this point the story +ended. + +"What do you make of it?" asked Slingsby. + +"First, that Peiffer is working south; and, secondly, that he is +quarrelling with his own officials." + +"Yes, but quarrelling with marked publicity," said Slingsby. "That, I +think we shall find, is the point of real importance. Peiffer's +methods are not merely infantile; they are elaborate. He is working +down South. I think that I will go to Gibraltar. I have always wished +to see it." + +Whether Slingsby was speaking the truth, I had not an idea. But he +went to Gibraltar, and there an astonishing thing happened to him. He +received a letter, and the letter came from Peiffer. Peiffer was at +Algeciras, just across the bay in Spain, and he wanted an interview. +He wrote for it with the most brazen impertinence. + +"I cannot, owing to this with-wisdom-so-easily-to-have-been-avoided +war, come myself to Gibraltar, but I will remain at your disposition +here." + +"_That_," said Slingsby, "from the man who was making frightfulness at +me a few weeks ago, is a proof of some nerve. We will go and see +Peiffer. We will stay at Algeciras from Saturday to Monday, and we +will hear what he has to say." + +A polite note was accordingly dispatched, and on Sunday morning +Peiffer, decently clothed in a suit of serge, was shown into +Slingsby's private sitting-room. He plunged at once into the story of +his wanderings. We listened to it without a sign that we knew anything +about it. + +"So?" from time to time said Slingsby, with inflections of increasing +surprise, but that was all. Then Peiffer went on to his grievances. + +"Perhaps you have heard how I was treated by the Consuls?" he +interrupted himself to ask suddenly. + +"No," Slingsby replied calmly. "Continue!" + +Peiffer wiped his forehead and his glasses. We were each one, in his +way, all working for our respective countries. The work was +honourable. But there were limits to endurance. All his fatigue and +perils went for nothing in the eyes of comfortable officials sure of +their salary. He had been fined; he had been threatened with +imprisonment. It was _unverschaemt_ the way he had been treated. + +"So?" said Slingsby firmly. There are fine inflections by which that +simple word may be made to express most of the emotions. Slingsby's +"So?" expressed a passionate agreement with the downtrodden Peiffer. + +"Flesh and blood can stand it no longer," cried Peiffer, "and my heart +is flesh. No, I have had enough." + +Throughout the whole violent tirade, in his eyes, in his voice, in his +gestures, there ran an eager, wistful plea that we should take him at +his face value and believe every word he said. + +"So I came to you," he said at last, slapping his knee and throwing +out his hand afterwards like a man who has taken a mighty resolution. +"Yes. I have no money, nothing. And they will give me none. It is +_unverschaemt_. So," and he screwed up his little eyes and wagged a +podgy forefinger--"so the service I had begun for my Government I will +now finish for you." + +Slingsby examined the carpet curiously. + +"Well, there are possibly some shillings to be had if the service is +good enough. I do not know. But I cannot deal in the dark. What sort +of a service is it?" + +"Ah!" + +Peiffer hitched his chair nearer. + +"It is a question of rifles--rifles for over there," and, looking out +through the window, he nodded towards Gibel Musa and the coast of +Morocco. + +Slingsby did not so much as flinch. I almost groaned aloud. We were to +be treated to the stock legend of the ports, the new edition of the +Spanish prisoner story. I, the mere tourist in search of health, could +have gone on with Peiffer's story myself, even to the exact number of +the rifles. + +"It was a great plan," Peiffer continued. "Fifty thousand rifles, no +less." There always were fifty-thousand rifles. "They are buried--near +the sea." They always were buried either near the sea or on the +frontier of Portugal. "With ammunition. They are to be landed outside +Melilla, where I have been about this very affair, and distributed +amongst the Moors in the unsubdued country on the edge of the French +zone." + +"So?" exclaimed Slingsby with the most admirable imitation of +consternation. + +"Yes, but you need not fear. You shall have the rifles--when I know +exactly where they are buried." + +"Ah!" said Slingsby. + +He had listened to the familiar rigmarole, certain that behind it +there was something real and sinister which he did not know--something +which he was desperately anxious to find out. + +"Then you do not know where they are buried?" + +"No, but I shall know if--I am allowed to go into Gibraltar. Yes, +there is someone there. I must put myself into relations with him. +Then I shall know, and so shall you." + +So here was some part of the truth, at all events. Peiffer wanted to +get into Gibraltar. His disappearance from Lisbon, his reappearance in +corduroys, his quarrelsome progress down the east coast, his letter to +Slingsby, and his story, were all just the items of an elaborate piece +of machinery invented to open the gates of that fortress to him. +Slingsby's only movement was to take his cigarette-case lazily from +his pocket. + +"But why in the world," he asked, "can't you get your man in Gibraltar +to come out here and see you?" + +Peiffer shook his head. + +"He would not come. He has been told to expect me, and I shall give +him certain tokens from which he can guess my trustworthiness. If I +write to him, 'Come to me,' he will say 'This is a trap.'" + +Slingsby raised another objection: + +"But I shouldn't think that you can expect the authorities to give you +a safe conduct into Gibraltar upon your story." + +Peiffer swept that argument aside with a contemptuous wave of his +hand. + +"I have a Danish passport. See!" and he took the document from his +breast pocket. It was complete, to his photograph. + +"Yes, you can certainly come in on that," said Slingsby. He reflected +for a moment before he added: "I have no power, of course. But I have +some friends. I think you may reasonably reckon that you won't be +molested." + +I saw Peiffer's eyes glitter behind his glasses. + +"But there's a condition," Slingsby continued sharply. "You must +not leave Gibraltar without coming personally to me and giving me +twenty-four hours' notice." + +Peiffer was all smiles and agreement. + +"But of course. We shall have matters to talk over--terms to arrange. +I must see you." + +"Exactly. Cross by the nine-fifty steamer tomorrow morning. Is that +understood?" + +"Yes, sir." And suddenly Peiffer stood up and actually saluted, as +though he had now taken service under Slingsby's command. + +The unexpected movement almost made me vomit. Slingsby himself moved +quickly away, and his face lost for a second the mask of impassivity. +He stood at the window and looked across the water to the city of +Gibraltar. + + +Slingsby had been wounded in the early days of the war, and ever since +he had been greatly troubled because he was not still in the trenches +in Flanders. The casualty lists filled him with shame and discontent. +So many of his friends, the men who had trained and marched with him, +were laying down their gallant lives. He should have been with them. +But during the last few days a new knowledge and inspiration had come +to him. Gibraltar! A tedious, little, unlovely town of yellow houses +and coal sheds, with an undesirable climate. Yes. But above it was the +rock, the heart of a thousand memories and traditions which made it +beautiful. He looked at it now with its steep wooded slopes, scarred +by roads and catchments and the emplacements of guns. How much of +England was recorded there! To how many British sailing on great ships +from far dominions this huge buttress towering to its needle-ridge was +the first outpost of the homeland! And for the moment he seemed to be +its particular guardian, the ear which must listen night and day lest +harm come to it. Harm the Rock, and all the Empire, built with such +proud and arduous labour, would stagger under the blow, from St. Kilda +to distant Lyttelton. He looked across the water and imagined +Gibraltar as it looked at night, its houselights twinkling like a +crowded zone of stars, and its great search-beams turning the ships in +the harbour and the stone of the moles into gleaming silver, and +travelling far over the dark waters. No harm must come to Gibraltar. +His honour was all bound up in that. This was his service, and as he +thought upon it he was filled with a cold fury against the traitor who +thought it so easy to make him fail. But every hint of his anger had +passed from his face as he turned back into the room. + +"If you bring me good information, why, we can do business," he said; +and Peiffer went away. + +I was extremely irritated by the whole interview, and could hardly +wait for the door to close. + +"What knocks me over," I cried, "is the impertinence of the man. Does +he really think that any old yarn like the fifty thousand rifles is +going to deceive you?" + +Slingsby lit a cigarette. + +"Peiffer's true to type, that's all," he answered imperturbably. "They +are vain, and vanity makes them think that you will at once believe +what they want you to believe. So their deceits are a little crude." +Then a smile broke over his face, and to some tune with which I was +unfamiliar he sang softly: "But he's coming to Gibraltar in the +morning." + +"You think he will?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"And," I added doubtfully--it was not my business to criticise--"on +conditions he can walk out again?" + +Slingsby's smile became a broad grin. + +"His business in Gibraltar, my friend, is not with me. He will not +want to meet us any more; as soon as he has done what he came for he +will go--or try to go. He thinks we are fools, you see." + +And in the end it seemed almost as though Peiffer was justified of his +belief. He crossed the next morning. He went to a hotel of the second +class; he slept in the hotel, and next morning he vanished. Suddenly +there was no more Peiffer. Peiffer was not. For six hours Peiffer was +not; and then at half-past five in the afternoon the telephone bell +rang in an office where Slingsby was waiting. He rushed to the +instrument. + +"Who is it?" he cried, and I saw a wave of relief surge into his face. +Peiffer had been caught outside the gates and within a hundred yards +of the neutral zone. He had strolled out in the thick of the dockyard +workmen going home to Linea in Spain. + +"Search him and bring him up here at once," said Slingsby, and he +dropped into his chair and wiped his forehead. "Phew! Thirty seconds +more and he might have snapped his fingers at us." He turned to me. "I +shall want a prisoner's escort here in half an hour." + +I went about that business and returned in time to see Slingsby giving +an admirable imitation of a Prussian police official. + +"So, Peiffer," he cried sternly, "you broke your word. Do not deny it. +It will be useless." + +The habit of a lifetime asserted itself in Peiffer. He quailed before +authority when authority began to bully. + +"I did not know I was outside the walls," he faltered. "I was taking a +walk. No one stopped me." + +"So!" Slingsby snorted. "And these, Peiffer--what have you to say of +these?" + +There were four separate passports which had been found in Peiffer's +pockets. He could be a Dane of Esbjerg, a Swede of Stockholm, a +Norwegian of Christiania, or a Dutchman from Amsterdam. All four +nationalities were open to Peiffer to select from. + +"They provide you with these, no doubt, in your school at Hamburg," +and Slingsby paused to collect his best German. "You are a prisoner of +war. _Das ist genug_," he cried, and Peiffer climbed to the internment +camp. + +So far so good. Slingsby had annexed Peiffer, but more important than +Peiffer was Peiffer's little plot, and that he had not got. Nor did +the most careful inquiry disclose what Peiffer had done and where he +had been during the time when he was not. For six hours Peiffer had +been loose in Gibraltar, and Slingsby began to get troubled. He tried +to assume the mentality of Peiffer, and so reach his intention, but +that did not help. He got out all the reports in which Peiffer's name +was mentioned and read them over again. + +I saw him sit back in his chair and remain looking straight in front +of him. + +"Yes," he said thoughtfully, and he turned over the report to me, +pointing to a passage. It was written some months before, at Melilla, +on the African side of the Mediterranean, and it ran like this: + + +"Peiffer frequents the low houses and cafes, where he spends a good +deal of money and sometimes gets drunk. When drunk he gets very +arrogant, and has been known to boast that he has been three times in +Bordeaux since the war began, and, thanks to his passports, can travel +as easily as if the world were at peace. On such occasions he +expresses the utmost contempt for neutral nations. I myself have heard +him burst out: 'Wait until we have settled with our enemies. Then we +will deal properly with the neutral nations. They shall explain to us +on their knees. Meanwhile,' and he thumped the table, making the +glasses rattle, 'let them keep quiet and hold their tongues. We shall +do what we like in neutral countries.'" + +I read the passage. + +"Do you see that last sentence? 'We shall do what we like in neutral +countries.' No man ever spoke the mind of his nation better than +Peiffer did that night in a squalid cafe in Melilla." + +Slingsby looked out over the harbour to where the sun was setting on +the sierras. He would have given an arm to be sure of what Peiffer had +set on foot behind those hills. + +"I wonder," he said uneasily, and from that day he began to sleep +badly. + +Then came another and a most disquieting phase of the affair. Peiffer +began to write letters to Slingsby. He was not comfortable. He was not +being treated as an officer should be. He had no amusements, and his +food was too plain. Moreover, there were Germans and Austrians up in +the camp who turned up their noses at him because their birth was +better than his. + +"You see what these letters mean?" said Slingsby. "Peiffer wants to be +sent away from the Rock." + +"You are reading your own ideas into them," I replied. + +But Slingsby was right. Each letter under its simple and foolish +excuses was a prayer for translation to a less dangerous place. For as +the days passed and no answer was vouchsafed, the prayer became a real +cry of fear. + +"I claim to be sent to England without any delay. I must be sent," he +wrote frankly and frantically. + +Slingsby set his teeth with a grim satisfaction. + +"No, my friend, you shall stay while the danger lasts. If it's a year, +if you are alone in the camp, still you shall stay. The horrors you +have planned you shall share with every man, woman and child in the +town." + +We were in this horrible and strange predicament. The whole colony was +menaced, and from the Lines to Europa Point only two men knew of the +peril. Of those two, one, in an office down by the harbour, +ceaselessly and vainly, with a dreadful anxiety, asked "When?" The +other, the prisoner, knew the very hour and minute of the catastrophe, +and waited for it with the sinking fear of a criminal awaiting the +fixed moment of his execution. + +Thus another week passed. + +Slingsby became a thing of broken nerves. If you shut the door noisily +he cursed; if you came in noiselessly he cursed yet louder, and one +evening he reached the stage when the sunset gun made him jump. + +"That's enough," I said sternly. "To-day is Saturday. To-morrow we +borrow the car"--there is only one worth talking about on the +Rock--"and we drive out." + +"I can't do it," he cried. + +I continued: + +"We will lunch somewhere by the road, and we will go on to the country +house of the Claytons, who will give us tea. Then in the afternoon we +will return." + +Slingsby hesitated. It is curious to remember on how small a matter so +much depended. I believe he would have refused, but at that moment the +sunset gun went off and he jumped out of his chair. + +"Yes, I am fairly rocky," he admitted. "I will take a day off." + +I borrowed the car, and we set off and lunched according to our +programme. It was perhaps half an hour afterwards when we were going +slowly over a remarkably bad road. A powerful car, driven at a furious +pace, rushed round a corner towards us, swayed, lurched, and swept +past us with a couple of inches to spare, whilst a young man seated at +the wheel shouted a greeting and waved his hand. + +"Who the dickens was that?" I asked. + +"I know," replied Slingsby. "It's Morano. He's a count, and will be a +marquis and no end of a swell if he doesn't get killed motoring. +Which, after all, seems likely." + +I thought no more of the man until his name cropped up whilst we were +sitting at tea on the Claytons' veranda. + +"We passed Morano," said Slingsby. And Mrs. Clayton said with some +pride--she was a pretty, kindly woman, but she rather affected the +Spanish nobility: + +"He lunched with us to-day. You know he is staying in Gibraltar." + +"Yes, I know that," said Slingsby. "For I met him a little time ago. +He wanted to know if there was a good Government launch for sale." + +Mrs. Clayton raised her eyebrows in surprise. + +"A launch? Surely you are wrong. He is devoting himself to aviation." + +"Is he?" said Slingsby, and a curious look flickered for a moment over +his face. + +We left the house half an hour afterwards, and as soon as we were out +of sight of it Slingsby opened his hand. He was holding a visiting +card. + +"I stole this off the hall table," he said. "Mrs. Clayton will never +forgive me. Just look at it." + +His face had become extraordinarily grave. The card was Morano's, and +it was engraved after the Spanish custom. In Spain, when a woman +marries she does not lose her name. She may be in appearance more +subject to her husband than the women of other countries, though you +will find many good judges to tell you that women rule Spain. In any +case her name is not lost in that of her husband; the children will +bear it as well as their father's, and will have it printed on their +cards. Thus, Mr. Jones will call on you, but on the card he leaves he +will be styled: + + + Mr. Jones and Robinson, + + +if Robinson happens to be his mother's name, and if you are scrupulous +in your etiquette you will so address him. + +Now, on the card which Slingsby had stolen, the Count Morano was +described: + + + MORANO Y GOLTZ + + +"I see," I replied. "Morano had a German mother." + +I was interested. There might be nothing in it, of course. A noble of +Spain might have a German mother and still not intrigue for the +Germans against the owners of Gibraltar. But no sane man would take a +bet about it. + +"The point is," said Slingsby, "I am pretty sure that is not the card +which he sent in to me when he came to ask about a launch. We will go +straight to the office and make sure." + +By the time we got there we were both somewhat excited, and we +searched feverishly in the drawers of Slingsby's writing-table. + +"I shouldn't be such an ass as to throw it away," he said, turning +over his letters. "No! Here it is!" and a sharp exclamation burst from +his lips. + +"Look!" + +He laid the card he had stolen side by side with the card which he had +just found, and between the two there was a difference--to both of us +a veritable world of difference. For from the second card the "y +Goltz," the evidence that Morano was half-German, had disappeared. + +"And it's not engraved," said Slingsby, bending down over the table. +"It's just printed--printed in order to mislead us." + +Slingsby sat down in his chair. A great hope was bringing the life +back to his tired face, but he would not give the reins to his hope. + +"Let us go slow," he said, warned by the experience of a hundred +disappointments. "Let us see how it works out. Morano comes to +Gibraltar and makes a prolonged stay in a hotel. Not being a fool, he +is aware that I know who is in Gibraltar and who is not. Therefore he +visits me with a plausible excuse for being in Gibraltar. But he takes +the precaution to have this card specially printed. Why, if he is +playing straight? He pretends he wants a launch, but he is really +devoting himself to aviation. Is it possible that the Count Morano, +not forgetting Goltz, knows exactly how the good Peiffer spent the six +hours we can't account for, and what his little plan is?" + +I sprang up. It did seem that Slingsby was getting at last to the +heart of Peiffer's secret. + +"We will now take steps," said Slingsby, and telegrams began to fly +over the wires. In three days' time the answers trickled in. + +An agent of Morano's had bought a German aeroplane in Lisbon. A German +aviator was actually at the hotel there. Slingsby struck the table +with his fist. + +"What a fool I am!" he cried. "Give me a newspaper." + +I handed him one of that morning's date. Slingsby turned it feverishly +over, searching down the columns of the provincial news until he came +to the heading "Portugal." + +"Here it is!" he cried, and he read aloud. "'The great feature of the +Festival week this year will be, of course, the aviation race from +Villa Real to Seville. Amongst those who have entered machines is the +Count Morano y Goltz.'" + +He leaned back and lit a cigarette. + +"We have got it! Morano's machine, driven by the German aviator, rises +from the aerodrome at Villa Real in Portugal with the others, heads +for Seville, drops behind, turns and makes a bee-line for the Rock, +Peiffer having already arranged with Morano for signals to be made +where bombs should be dropped. When is the race to be?" + +I took the newspaper. + +"Ten days from now." + +"Good!" + +Once more the telegrams began to fly. A week later Slingsby told me +the result. + +"Owing to unforeseen difficulties, the Festival committee at Villa +Real has reorganised its arrangements, and there will be no aviation +race. Oh, they'll do what they like in neutral countries, will they? +But Peiffer shan't know," he added, with a grin. "Peiffer shall eat of +his own frightfulness." + + + + + + THE EBONY BOX + + + + + THE EBONY BOX + + +"No, no," said Colonel von Altrock, abruptly. "It is not always true." + +The conversation died away at once, and everyone about that dinner +table in the Rue St. Florentin looked at him expectantly. He played +nervously with the stem of his wineglass for a few moments, as though +the complete silence distressed him. Then he resumed with a more +diffident air: + +"War no doubt inspires noble actions and brings out great qualities in +men from whom you expected nothing. But there is another side to it +which becomes apparent, not at once, but after a few months of +campaigning. Your nerves get over-strained, fatigue and danger tell +their tale. You lose your manners, sometimes you degenerate into a +brute. I happen to know. Thirty years have passed since the siege of +Paris, yet even to-day there is no part of my life which I regret so +much as the hours between eleven and twelve o'clock of Christmas night +in the year 'Seventy. I will tell you about it if you like, although +the story may make us late for the opera." + +The opera to be played that evening was "Faust," which most had heard, +and the rest could hear when they would. On the other hand Colonel von +Altrock was habitually a silent man. The offer which he made now he +was not likely to repeat. It was due, as his companions understood, to +the accident that this night was the first which he had spent in Paris +since the days of the great siege. + +"It will not matter if we are a little late," said his hostess, the +Baroness Hammerstein, and her guests agreed with her. + +"It is permitted to smoke?" asked the Colonel. For a moment the flame +of a match lit up and exaggerated the hollows and the lines upon his +lean, rugged face. Then, drawing his chair to the table, he told his +story. + +I was a lieutenant of the fifth company of the second battalion of the +103rd Regiment, which belonged to the 23rd Infantry Division. It is as +well to be exact. That division was part of the 12th Army Corps under +the Crown Prince of Saxony, and in the month of December formed the +south-eastern segment of our circle about Paris. On Christmas night I +happened to be on duty at a forepost in advance of Noisy-le-Grand. The +centrigrade thermometer was down to twelve degrees below zero, and our +little wooden hut with the sloping roof, which served us at once as +kitchen, mess-room, and dormitory, seemed to us all a comfortable +shelter. Outside its door the country glimmered away into darkness, a +white silent plain of snow. Inside, the camp-bedsteads were neatly +ranged along the wall where the roof was lowest. A long table covered +with a white cloth--for we were luxurious on Christmas night--occupied +the middle of the floor. A huge fire blazed up the chimney, chairs of +any style, from a Louis Quatorze fauteuil borrowed from the _salon_ of +a chateau to the wooden bench of a farm-house, were placed about the +table, and in a corner stood a fine big barrel of Bavarian beer which +had arrived that morning as a Christmas present from my mother at +Leipzig. We were none of us anxious to turn out into the bitter cold, +I can tell you. But we were not colonels in those days, and while the +Hauptmann was proposing my mother's health the door was thrust open +and an orderly muffled up to the eyes stood on the threshold at the +salute. + +"The Herr Oberst wishes to see the Herr Lieutenant von Altrock," said +he, and before I had time even to grumble he turned on his heels and +marched away. + +I took down my great-coat, drew the cape over my head, and went out of +the hut. There was no wind, nor was the snow falling, but the cold was +terrible, and to me who had come straight from the noise of my +companions the night seemed unnaturally still. I plodded away through +the darkness. Behind me in the hut the Hauptmann struck up a song, and +the words came to me quite clearly and very plaintively across the +snow: + + + Ich hatte einen Kamaraden + Einen besseren findest du nicht. + + +I wondered whether in the morning, like that comrade, I should be a +man to be mentioned in the past tense. For more than once a sentinel +had been found frozen dead at his post, and I foresaw a long night's +work before me. My Colonel had acquired a habit of choosing me for +special services, and indeed to his kindness in this respect I owed my +commission. For you must understand that I was a student at Heidelberg +when the newsboys came running down the streets one evening in July +with the telegram that M. Benedetti had left Ems. I joined the army as +a volunteer, and I fought in the ranks at Gravelotte. However, I felt +no gratitude to my Colonel that Christmas night as I tramped up the +slope of Noisy-le-Grand to the chateau where he had his quarters. + +I found him sitting at a little table drawn close to the fire in a +bare, dimly-lighted room. A lamp stood on the table, and he was +peering at a crumpled scrap of paper and smoothing out its creases. So +engrossed was he, indeed, in his scrutiny that it was some minutes +before he raised his head and saw me waiting for his commands. + +"Lieutenant von Altrock," he said, "you must ride to Raincy." + +Raincy was only five miles distant, as the crow flies. Yes, but the +French had made a sortie on the 21st, they had pushed back our lines, +and they now held Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche between Raincy and +Noisy-le-Grand. I should have to make a circuit; my five miles became +ten. I did not like the prospect at all. I liked it still less when +the Colonel added: + +"You must be careful. More than one German soldier has of late been +killed upon that road. There are _francs-tireurs_ about, and you +_must_ reach Raincy." + +It was a verbal message which he gave me, and I was to deliver it in +person to the commandant of the battery at Raincy. It bore its fruit +upon the 27th, when the cross-fire from Raincy and Noisy-le-Grand +destroyed the new French fort upon Mount Avron in a snowstorm. + +"There is a horse ready for you at the stables," said the Colonel, and +with a nod he turned again to his scrap of paper. I saluted and walked +to the door. As my hand was on the knob he called me back. + +"What do you make of it?" he asked, holding the paper out to me. "It +was picked out of the Marne in a sealed wine-bottle." + +I took the paper, and saw that a single sentence was written upon it +in a round and laborious hand with the words mis-spelt. The meaning of +the sentence seemed simple enough. It was apparently a message from a +M. Bonnet to his son in the Mobiles at Paris, and it stated that the +big black sow had had a litter of fifteen. + +"What do you make of it?" repeated the Colonel. + +"Why, that M. Bonnet's black sow has farrowed fifteen," said I. + +I handed the paper back. The Colonel looked at it again, shrugged his +shoulders, and laughed. + +"Well, after all, perhaps it does mean no more than that," said he. + +But for the Colonel's suspicions I should not have given another +thought to that mis-spelt scrawl. M. Bonnet was probably some little +farmer engrossed in his pigs and cows, who thought that no message +could be more consoling to his son locked up in Paris than this great +news about the black sow. The Colonel's anxiety, however, fixed it for +awhile in my mind. + +The wildest rumours were flying about our camp at that time, as I +think will always happen when you have a large body of men living +under a great strain of cold and privation and peril. They perplexed +the seasoned officers and they were readily swallowed by the +youngsters, of whom I was one. Now, this scrap of paper happened to +fit in with the rumour which most of all exercised our imaginations. + +It was known that in spite of all our precautions news was continually +leaking into Paris which we did not think it good for the Parisians to +have. What we did think good for them--information, for instance, of +the defeat of the Army of the Loire--we ourselves sent in without +delay. But we ascertained from our prisoners that Paris was +enlightened with extraordinary rapidity upon other matters which we +wished to keep to ourselves. On that very Christmas Day they already +knew that General Faidherbe, at Pont Noyelles, had repulsed a portion +of our first army under General Manteuffel. How did they know? We were +not satisfied that pigeons and balloons completely explained the +mystery. No, we believed that the news passed somewhere through our +lines on the south-east of Paris. There was supposed to exist a +regular system like the underground road in the Southern States of +America during the slavery days. There the escaped slave was quickly +and secretly passed on from appointed house to appointed house, until +he reached freedom. Here it was news in cipher which was passed on and +on to a house close to our lines, whence, as occasion served, it was +carried into Paris. + +That was the rumour. There may have been truth in it, or it may have +been entirely false. But, at all events, it had just the necessary +element of fancy to appeal to the imagination of a very young man, and +as I walked to the stables and mounted the horse which the Colonel had +lent me, I kept wondering whether this message, so simple in +appearance, had travelled along that underground road and was covering +its last stage between the undiscovered chateau and Paris in the +sealed wine-bottle. I tried to make out what the black sow stood for +in the cipher, and whose identity was concealed under the pseudonym of +M. Bonnet. So I rode down the slope of Noisy-le-Grand. + +But at the bottom of the slope these speculations passed entirely from +my mind. In front, hidden away in the darkness, lay the dangers of +Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche. German soldiers had ridden along this +path and had not returned; the _francs-tireurs_ were abroad. Yet I +must reach Raincy. Moreover, in my own mind, I was equally convinced +that I must return. I saw the little beds against the wall of the hut +under the sloping roof. I rode warily, determined to sleep in one of +them that night, determined to keep my life if it could be kept. I +believe I should have pistolled my dearest friend without a tinge of +remorse had he tried to delay me for a second. Three months of +campaigning, in a word, had told their tale. + +I crossed the Marne and turned off the road into a forest path. Ville +Evrart with its French garrison lay now upon my left behind the screen +of trees. Fortunately there was no moon that night, and a mist hung in +the air. The snow, too, deadened the sound of my horse's hoofs. But I +rode, nevertheless, very gently and with every sense alert. Each +moment I expected the challenge of a sentinel in French. From any of +the bushes which I passed I might suddenly see the spurt of flame from +a _franc-tireur's chassepot_. If a twig snapped in the frost at my +side I was very sure the foot of an enemy was treading there. + +I came to the end of the wood and rode on to Chesnay. Here the country +was more open, and I had passed Ville Evrart. But I did not feel any +greater security. I was possessed with a sort of rage to get my +business done and live--yes, at all costs live. A mile beyond Chesnay +I came to cross-roads, and within the angle which the two roads made a +little cabin stood upon a plot of grass. I was in doubt which road to +take. The cabin was all dark, and riding up to the door I hammered +upon it with the butt of my pistol. It was not immediately opened. +There must indeed have been some delay, since the inmates were +evidently in bed. But I was not in any mood to show consideration. I +wanted to get on--to get on and live. A little window was within my +reach. I dashed the butt of the pistol violently through the glass. + +"Will that waken you, eh?" I cried, and almost before I had finished I +heard a shuffling footstep in the passage and the door was opened. A +poor old peasant-woman, crippled with rheumatism, stood in the doorway +shading a lighted candle with a gnarled, trembling hand. In her haste +to obey she had merely thrown a petticoat over the shoulders of her +nightdress, and there she stood with bare feet, shivering in the cold, +an old bent woman of eighty, and apologised. + +"I am sorry, monsieur," she said, meekly. "But I cannot move as +quickly as I could when I was young. How can I serve monsieur?" + +Not a word of reproach about her broken window. You would think that +the hardest man must have felt some remorse. I merely broke in upon +her apologies with a rough demand for information. + +"The road upon your right leads to Chelles, monsieur," she answered. +"That upon your left to Raincy." + +I rode off without another word. It is not a pretty description which +I am giving to you, but it is a true one. That is my regret--it is a +true one. I forgot the old peasant woman the moment I had passed the +cabin. I thought only of the long avenues of trees which stretched +across that flat country, and which could hide whole companies of +_francs-tireurs_. I strained my eyes forwards. I listened for the +sound of voices. But the first voice which I heard spoke in my own +tongue. + +It was the voice of a sentry on the outposts of Raincy, and I could +have climbed down from my saddle and hugged him to my heart. Instead, +I sat impassively in my saddle and gave him the countersign. I was +conducted to the quarters of the commandant of artillery and I +delivered my message. + +"You have come quickly," he said. "What road did you take?" + +"That of Chesnay and Gagny." + +The commandant looked queerly at me. + +"Did you?" said he. "You are lucky. You will return by Montfermeil +and Chelles, Lieutenant von Altrock, and I will send an escort with +you. Apparently we are better informed at Raincy than you are at +Noisy-le-Grand." + +"I knew there was danger, sir," I replied. + +A regiment of dragoons was quartered at Raincy, and from it two +privates and a corporal were given me for escort. In the company of +these men I started back by the longer road in the rear of our lines. +And it was a quarter to ten when I started. For I noticed the time of +a clock in the commandant's quarters. I should think that it must have +taken three-quarters of an hour to reach Montfermeil, for the snow was +deep here and the mist very thick. Beyond Montfermeil, however, we +came to higher ground; there were fewer drifts of snow, and the +night began to clear, so that we made better going. We were now, of +course, behind our lines, and the only risk we ran was that a few +peasants armed with rifles from a battlefield or a small band of +_francs-tireurs_ might be lurking on the chance of picking off a +straggler. But that risk was not very great now that there were four +of us. I rode therefore with an easier mind, and the first thing which +entered my thoughts was--what do you think? The old peasant-woman's +cabin with the broken window? Not a bit of it. No, it was M. Bonnet's +black sow. Had M. Bonnet's sow farrowed fifteen? Or was that litter of +fifteen intended to inform the people in Paris by some system of +multiplication of the exact number of recruits which had joined one of +the French armies still in the field--say, General Faidherbe's, at +Bapaume, and so to keep up their spirits and prolong the siege? I was +still puzzling over this problem when in a most solitary place I came +suddenly upon a chateau with lighted windows. This was the Chateau +Villetaneuse. I reined in my horse and stopped. My escort halted +behind me. It was after all an astonishing sight. There were many +chateaux about Paris then, as there are now, but not one that I had +ever come across was inhabited by more than a caretaker. The owners +had long since fled. Breached walls, trampled gardens, gaping roofs, +and silence and desertion--that is what we meant when we spoke of a +chateau near Paris in those days. But here was one with lighted +windows on the first and second storeys staring out calmly on the snow +as though never a Prussian soldier had crossed the Rhine. A thick +clump of trees sheltered it behind, and it faced the eastern side of +the long ridge of Mont Guichet, along the foot of which I rode--the +side farthest from Paris. From the spot where I and my escort had +halted an open park stretched level to the door. The house had, no +doubt, a very homelike look on that cold night. It should have spoken +to me, no doubt, of the well-ordered family life and the gentle +occupations of women. But I was thinking of M. Bonnet's black sow. I +was certain that none of our officers were quartered there and making +the best of their Christmas night in France. Had that been the case, +black paths and ruts would have been trampled in the snow up to the +door, and before now I should have been challenged by a sentinel. No! +The more I looked at the house and its lighted windows, the more I +thought of M. Bonnet's sow. Was this solitary chateau the undiscovered +last station on the underground road through which the news passed +into Paris? If not, why was it still inhabited? Why did the lights +blaze out upon the snow so late? + +I commanded my escort to be silent. We rode across the park, and +half-way to the door we came upon a wire fence and a gate. There we +dismounted, and walked our horses. We tethered them to a tree about +twenty yards from the house. I ordered one of my dragoons to go round +the house, and watch any door which he might find at the back. I told +the other two to stay where they were, and I advanced alone to the +steps, but before I had reached them the front door was thrown open, +and a girl with a lantern in her hand came out. + +She held the lantern high above her head and peered forward, so that +the light fell full upon her hair, her face, and dress. She was a tall +girl and slight of figure, with big, dark eyes, and a face pretty and +made for laughter. It was very pale now, however, and the brows were +drawn together in a frown. She wore a white evening frock, which +glistened in the lantern light, and over her bare shoulders she had +flung a heavy, black, military cloak. So she stood and swung the +lantern slowly from side to side as she stared into the darkness, +while the lights and shadows chased each other swiftly across her +white frock, her anxious face, and the waves of her fair hair. + +"Whom do you expect at this hour, mademoiselle?" I asked. + +I was quite close to her, but she had not seen me, for I stood at the +bottom of the steps and she was looking out over my head. Yet she did +not start or utter any cry. Only the lantern rattled in her hand. Then +she stood quite still for a moment or two, and afterwards lowered her +arm until the light shone upon me. + +"You are Prussian?" she said. + +"A lieutenant of foot," I answered. "You have nothing to fear." + +"I am not afraid," she replied, quietly. + +"Yet you tremble, mademoiselle. Your hand shakes." + +"That is the cold," said she. + +"Whom did you expect?" + +"No one," she replied. "I thought that I heard the rattle of iron as +though a horse moved and a stirrup rang. It is lonely here since our +neighbours have fled. I came out to see." + +"The lantern then was not a signal, mademoiselle?" I asked. + +She looked at me in perplexity, and certainly the little piece of +acting, I thought, was very well done. Many a man might have been +taken in by it. But it was thrown away upon me, for I had noticed that +heavy military cloak. How did it come to lie so conveniently to her +hand in the hall? + +"A signal?" she repeated. "To whom?" + +"To some man hiding in the woods of Mont Guichet, a signal to him +that he may come and fetch the news for Paris that has lately--very +lately--been brought to the house." + +She bent forward and peered down at me, drawing the cloak closer about +her neck. + +"You are under some strange mistake, monsieur," she said. "No news for +Paris has been brought to this house by anyone." + +"Indeed?" I answered. "And is that so?" Then I stretched out my hand +and said triumphantly: "You will tell me perhaps that the cloak upon +your shoulders is a woman's cloak?" + +And she laughed! It was humiliating; it is always humiliating to a +young man not to be taken seriously, isn't--especially if he is a +conqueror? There was I thinking that I had fairly cross-examined her +into a trap, and she laughed indulgently. Of course, a girl always +claims the right to be ever so much older than a man of her own age, +but she stood on the top of the steps and laughed down at me as though +she had the advantage of as many years as there were steps between us. +And she explained indulgently, too. + +"The cloak I am wearing belongs to a wounded French officer who was +taken prisoner and released upon parole. He is now in our house." + +"Then I think I will make his acquaintance," I said, and over my +shoulder I called to the corporal. As he advanced to my side a look of +alarm came into the girl's face. + +"You are not alone," she said, and suddenly her face became wistful +and her voice began to plead. "You have not come for him? He has done +no harm. He could not, even if he would. And he would not, for he has +given his parole. Oh, you are not going to take him away?" + +"That we shall see, mademoiselle." + +I left one dragoon at the door. I ordered the corporal to wait in the +hall, and I followed the girl up the stairs to the first floor. All +her pride had gone; she led the way with a submission of manner which +seemed to me only a fresh effort to quiet my suspicions. But they were +not quieted. I distrusted her; I believed that I had under my fingers +the proof of that rumour which flew about our camp. She stopped at a +door, and as she turned the handle she said: + +"This is my own parlour, monsieur. We all use it now, for it is warmer +than the others, and all our servants but one have fled." + +It was a pretty room, and cheery enough to a young man who came into +it from the darkness and the snow. A piano stood open in a corner with +a rug thrown upon it to protect the strings from the cold; books lay +upon the tables, heavy curtains were drawn close over the windows, +there were cushioned sofas and deep armchairs, and a good fire of logs +blazed upon the hearth. These details I took in at once. Then I looked +at the occupants. A youth lay stretched upon a sofa close to the fire +with a wrap covering his legs. The wrap was raised by a cradle to keep +off its weight. His face must have been, I think, unusually handsome +when he had his health; at the moment it was so worn and pale, and the +eyes were so sunk, that all its beauty had gone. The pallor was +accentuated by a small black moustache he wore and his black hair. He +lay with his head supported upon a pillow, and was playing a game of +chess with an old lady who sat at a little table by his side. This old +lady was actually making a move as I entered the room, for as she +turned and stared at me she was holding a chessman in her hand. I +advanced to the fire and warmed my hands at it. + +"You, sir, are the wounded officer on parole?" I said in French. The +officer bowed. + +"And you, madame?" I asked of the old lady. The sight of my uniform +seemed to have paralysed her with terror. She sat still holding the +chessman in her hand, and staring at me with her mouth half-open. + +"Come, come, madame," I explained, impatiently; "it is a simple +question." + +"Monsieur, you frighten her," said the young lady. "It is my aunt, the +Baroness Granville." + +"You tell me nothing of yourself," I said to her, and she looked at me +in surprise. + +"Since you have come with an escort to this house I imagined you must +know to whom it belonged. I am Sophie de Villetaneuse." + +"Exactly," I replied, as though I had known all along, and had merely +asked the question to see whether she would speak the truth. "Now, +mademoiselle, will you please explain to me how it is that while your +neighbours have fled you remain at your chateau?" + +"It is quite simple," she answered. "My mother is bedridden. She could +not be moved. She could not be left alone." + +"You will pardon me," said I, "if I test the statement." + +The wounded officer raised himself upon his elbow as though to +protest, but Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse put out a hand and checked +him. She showed me a face flushed with anger, but she spoke quite +quietly. + +"I will myself take you to my mother's room." + +I laughed. I said: "That is just what I expected. You will take me to +your mother's room and leave your friends here to make any little +preparations in the way of burning awkward letters which they may +think desirable. Thank you, no! I am not so easily caught." + +Mademoiselle Sophie was becoming irritated. + +"There are no awkward letters!" she exclaimed. + +"That statement, too, I shall put to the test." + +I went to the door, and standing so that I could still keep an eye +upon the room, I called the corporal. + +"You will search the house thoroughly," I said, "and quickly. Bring me +word how many people you find in it. You, mademoiselle, will remain in +the room with us." + +She shrugged her shoulders as I closed the door and came back into the +room. + +"You were wounded, monsieur," I said to the Frenchman. "Where?" + +"In the sortie on Le Bourget." + +"And you came here the moment you were released on your parole?" + +The wounded officer turned with a smile to Mademoiselle Sophie. + +"Yes, for here live my best friends." + +He took her hand, and with a Frenchman's grace he raised it to his +lips and kissed it. And I was suddenly made acquainted with the +relationship in which these two, youth and maid, stood to one another. +Mademoiselle Sophie had cried out on the steps against the possibility +that I might have come to claim my prisoner. But though she spoke no +word, she was still more explicit now. With the officer that caress +was plainly no more than a pretty way of saying thanks; it had the +look of a habit, it was so neatly given, and he gave it without +carelessness, it is true, but without warmth. She, however, received +it very differently. He did not see, because his head was bent above +her hand, but I did. + +I saw the look of pain in her face, the slight contraction of her +shoulders and arms, as if to meet a blow. The kiss hurt her--no, not +the kiss, but the finished grace with which it was given, the proof, +in a word, that it was a way of saying "Thanks"--and nothing more. +Here was a woman who loved and a man who did not love, and the woman +knew. So much was evident to me who looked on, but when the officer +raised his head there was nothing for him to see, and upon her lips +only the conventional remark: + +"We should have been hurt if you had not come." + +I resumed my questions: + +"Your doctor, monsieur, is in the house?" + +"At this hour? No." + +"Ah. That is a pity." + +The young man lifted his head from his pillow and looked me over from +head to foot with a stare of disdain. + +"I do not quite understand. You doubt my word, monsieur?" + +"Why not?" I asked sharply. + +It was quite possible that the cradle, this rug across his legs, the +pillow, were all pretences. Many a soldier in those days was pale and +worn and had sunken eyes, and yet was sound of limb and could do a +day's work of twenty-four hours if there were need. I had my theory +and as yet I had come upon nothing to disprove it. This young officer +might very well have brought in a cipher message to the Chateau +Villetaneuse. Mademoiselle Sophie might very well have waved her +lantern at the door to summon a fresh messenger. + +"No; why should I not doubt your word?" I repeated. + +He turned his face to the old lady. "It is your move, Baronne," he +said, and she placed the piece she held upon a square of the board. +Mademoiselle Sophie took her stand by the table between the players, +and the game went on just as though there were no intruder in the +room. It was uncomfortable for me. I shifted my feet. I tried to +appear at my ease; finally I sat down in a chair. They took no notice +of me whatever. But that I felt hot upon a discovery, but that I knew +if I could bring back to Noisy-le-Grand proof of where the leakage +through our lines occurred, I should earn approval and perhaps +promotion, I should very deeply have regretted my entrance into the +Chateau Villetaneuse. And I was extremely glad when at last the +corporal opened the door. He had searched the house--he had found no +one but Madame de Villetaneuse and an old servant who was watching by +her bed. + +"Very well," said I, and the corporal returned to the hall. + +Mademoiselle Sophie moved away from the chess-table. She came and +stood opposite to me, and though her face was still, her eyes were +hard with anger. + +"And now perhaps you will tell me to what I owe your visit?" she said. + +"Certainly," I returned. I fixed my eyes on her, and I said slowly, "I +have come to ask for more news of M. Bonnet's black sow." + +Mademoiselle Sophie stared as if she were not sure whether I was mad +or drunk, but was very sure I was one or the other. The young +Frenchman started upon his couch, with the veins swelling upon his +forehead and a flushed face. + +"This is an insult," he cried savagely, and no less savagely I +answered him. + +"Hold your tongue!" I cried. "You forget too often that though you are +on parole you are still a prisoner." + +He fell back upon the sofa with a groan of pain, and the girl hurried +to his side. + +"Your leg hurts you. You should not have moved," she cried. + +"It is nothing," he said, faintly. + +Meanwhile I had been looking about the room for a box or a case where +the cipher messages might be hid. I saw nothing of the kind. Of course +they might be hidden between the pages of a book. I went from table to +table, taking them by the boards and shaking the leaves. Not a scrap +of paper tumbled out. There was another door in the room besides that +which led on to the landing. + +"Mademoiselle, what room is that?" I asked. + +"My bedroom," she answered, simply, and with a gesture full of dignity +she threw open the door. + +I carried the mud and snow and the grime of a camp without a scruple +of remorse into that neat and pretty chamber. Mademoiselle Sophie +followed me as I searched wardrobe and drawer and box. At last I came +to one drawer in her dressing-table which was locked. I tried the +handle again to make sure. Yes, it was locked. I looked suddenly at +the young lady. She was watching me out of the corners of her eyes +with a peculiar intentness. I felt at once that I was hot. + +"Open that drawer, mademoiselle," I said. + +"It contains only some private things." + +"Open that drawer or I burst it open." + +"No," she cried, as I jerked the handle. "I will open it." + +She fetched the key out of another drawer which was unlocked, and +fitted it into the lock of the dressing-table. And all the while I saw +that she was watching me. She meant to play me some trick, I was +certain. So I watched too, and I did well to watch. She turned the +key, opened the drawer, and then snatched out something with +extraordinary rapidity and ran as hard as she could to the door--not +the door through which we had entered, but a second door which gave on +to the passage. She ran very fast and she ran very lightly, and she +did not stumble over a chair as I did in pursuit of her. But she had +to unlatch the door and pull it open. I caught her up and closed my +arms about her. It was a little, carved, ebony box which she held, the +very thing for which I searched. + +"I thought so," I cried with a laugh. "Drop the box, mademoiselle. +Drop it on the floor!" + +The noise of our struggle had been heard in the next room. The +Baroness rushed through the doorway. + +"What has happened?" she cried. "Mon Dieu! you are killing her!" + +"Drop the box, mademoiselle!" + +And as I spoke she threw it away. She threw it through the doorway; +she tried to throw it over the banisters of the stairs, but my arms +were about hers, and it fell into the passage just beyond the door. I +darted from her and picked it up. When I returned with it she was +taking a gold chain from her neck. At the end of the chain hung a +little golden key. This she held out to me. + +"Open it here," she said in a low, eager voice. + +The sudden change only increased my suspicions, or rather my +conviction that I had now the proof which I needed. A minute ago she +was trying as hard as she could to escape with the box, now she was +imploring me to open it. + +"Why, if you are so eager to show me the contents, did you try to +throw it away?" I asked. + +"I tried to throw it down into the hall," she answered. + +"My corporal would have picked it up." + +"Oh, what would that matter?" she exclaimed, impatiently. "You would +have opened it in the hall. That was what I wanted. Open it here! At +all events open it here!" + +The very urgency of her pleading made me determined to refuse the +plea. + +"No, you have some other ruse, mademoiselle," said I. "Perhaps you +wish to gain time for your friend in the next room. No, we will return +here and open it comfortably by the fire." + +I kept a tight hold upon the box. I shook it. To my delight I felt +that there were papers within it. I carried it back to the fireside +and sat down on a chair. Mademoiselle Sophie followed me close, and as +I fixed the little gold key into the lock she laid her hand very +gently upon my arm. + +"I beg you not to unlock that box," she said; "if you do you will +bring upon me a great humiliation and upon yourself much remorse. +There is nothing there which concerns you. There are just my little +secrets. A girl may have secrets, monsieur, which are sacred to her." + +She was standing quite close to me, and her back was towards the +French officer and her aunt. They could not see her face and they +could hardly have heard more than a word here and there of what she +said. For always she spoke in a low voice, and at times that low voice +dropped to a whisper, so that I myself had to watch her lips. I +answered her only by turning the key in the lock. She took her hand +from my arm and laid it on the lid to hinder me from opening it. + +"I wore the key on a chain about my neck, monsieur," she whispered. +"Does that teach you nothing? Even though you are young, does it teach +you nothing? I said that if you unlocked that box you would cause me +great humiliation, thinking that would be enough to stop you. But I +see I must tell you more. Read the letters, monsieur, question me +about them, and you will make my life a very lonely one. I think so. I +think you will destroy my chance of happiness. You would not wish +that, monsieur? It is true that we are enemies, but some day this war +will end, and you would not wish to prolong its sufferings beyond the +end. Yet you will be doing that, monsieur, if you open that box. You +would be sorry afterwards when you were back at home to know that a +girl in France was suffering from a needless act of yours. Yes, you +will be sorry if you open that box." + +It seems now almost impossible to me that I could have doubted her +sincerity; she spoke with so much simplicity, and so desperate an +appeal looked out from her dark eyes. Ever since that Christmas night +I can see her quite clearly at will, standing as she stood then--all +the sincerity of her which I would not acknowledge, all the appeal +which I would not hear; and I see her many times when for my peace I +would rather not. Much remorse, she said very wisely, would be the +consequence for me. She was pleading for her pride, and to do that the +better she laid her pride aside; yet she never lost her dignity. She +was pleading for her chance of happiness, foreseeing that it was +likely to be destroyed, without any reason or any profit to a living +being, by a stranger who would the next moment pass out of her life. +Yet there was no outcry, and there were no tears. Had it been a +trick--I ask the ladies--would there not have been tears? + +But I thought it was a trick and a cheap one. She was trying to make +me believe that there were love-letters in the box--compromising +love-letters. Now, I _know_ that there were no love-letters in the +box. I had seen the Frenchman's pretty way of saying thanks. I had +noticed how the caress hurt her just through what it lacked. He was +the friend, you see, and nothing more; she was the lover and the only +lover of the pair. There could be no love-letters in the box unless +she had written them herself and kept them. But I did not think she +was the girl to do that. There was a dignity about her which would +have stopped her pen. + +I opened the box accordingly. Mademoiselle Sophie turned away +abruptly, and sitting down in a chair shaded her eyes with her hand. I +emptied the letters out on to a table, turning the box upside down, +and thus the first which I took up and read was the one which lay at +the very bottom. As I read it it seemed that every suspicion I had +formed was established. She had hinted at love-letters, she had spoken +of secrets sacred to a girl; and the letter was not even addressed to +her. It was addressed to Madame de Villetaneuse; it was a letter +which, if it meant no more than what was implied upon the surface, +would have long since found destruction in the waste-paper basket. For +it purported to be merely the acceptance of an invitation to dinner at +the town house of Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain. +It was signed only by a Christian name, "Armand," and the few +sentences which composed the letter explained that M. Armand was a +distant kinsman of Madame de Villetaneuse who had just come to Paris +to pursue his studies, and who, up till now, had no acquaintance with +the family. + +I looked at Mademoiselle Sophie sternly. "So all this pother was about +a mere invitation to dinner! Once let it be known that M. Armand will +dine with Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain, and you +are humiliated, you lose your chance of happiness, and I, too, shall +find myself in good time suffering the pangs of remorse," and I read +the letter slowly aloud to her, word by word. + +She returned no answer. She sat with her hand shading her face, and +she rocked her head backwards and forwards continually and rather +quickly, like a child with a racking headache. Of course, to my mind +all that was part of the game. The letter was dated two years back, +but the month was December, and, of course, to antedate would be the +first precaution. + +"Come, mademoiselle," I said, changing my tone, "I invite you very +seriously to make a clean breast of it. I wish to take no harsh +measures with you if I can avoid them. Tell me frankly what news this +letter plainly translated gives to General Trochu in Paris." + +"None," she answered. + +"Very well," said I, and I took up the next letter. Ah, M. Armand +writes again a week later. It was evidently a good dinner and M. +Armand is properly grateful. + +The gratitude, indeed, was rather excessive, rather provincial. +It was just the effusion which a young man who had not yet learned +self-possession might have written on his first introduction to the +highest social life of Paris. Certainly the correspondence was very +artfully designed. But what did it hide? I puzzled over the question; +I took the words and the dates, and it seemed to me that I began to +see light. So much stress was laid upon the dinner, that the word must +signify some event of importance. The first letter spoke of a dinner +in the future. I imagined that it had not been possible to pass this +warning into Paris. The second letter mentioned with gratitude that +the dinner had been successful. Well, suppose "dinner" stood for +"engagement"! The letter would refer to the sortie from Paris which +pushed back our lines and captured Ville Evrart and Maison Blanche. +That seemed likely. Madame de Villetaneuse gave the dinner; General +Trochu made the sortie. Then "Madame de Villetaneuse" stood for +"General Trochu." Who would be Armand? Why, the French people outside +Paris--the provincials! I had the explanation of that provincial +expression of gratitude. Ah, no doubt it all seems far-fetched now +that we sit quietly about this table. But put yourselves in the thick +of war and take twenty years off your lives! Suppose yourselves young +and green, eager for advancement, and just off your balance for want +of sleep, want of food, want of rest, want of everything, and brutal +from the facts of war. There are very few things which would seem +far-fetched. It seemed to me that I was deciphering these letters with +absolute accuracy. I saw myself promoted to captain, seconded to the +General Staff. M. Armand represented the French people in the +provinces. No doubt they would be grateful for that sortie. The only +point which troubled me arose from M. Armand's presence at that +dinner-party. Now, the one defect from the French point of view in +that sortie on Ville Evrart was that the French outside Paris did not +come to General Trochu's help. They were expected, but they did not +take part in that dinner-party. + +I went on with the letters, hoping to find an explanation there. The +third letter was addressed to Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse, who had +evidently written to M. Armand on behalf of her mother, inviting him +to her box at the opera. M. Armand regretted that he had not been +fortunate enough to call at a time when mademoiselle was at home, and +would look forward to the pleasure of seeing her at the opera. Was +that an apology? I asked myself. An apology for absence at Ville +Evrart and a pledge to be present at the next engagement! + +"Mademoiselle," I cried, "what does the opera stand for?" + +Mademoiselle Sophie laughed disdainfully. + +"For music, monsieur, for art, for refinement, for many things you do +not understand." + +I sprang up in excitement. What did it matter what she said? M. Armand +stood for the Army of the Loire. It was that army which had been +expected at Ville Evrart. Here was a pledge that it would be reformed, +that it would come to the help of Paris at the next sortie. That was +valuable news--it could not but bring recognition to the man who +brought evidence of it into the Prussian lines. I hurriedly read +through the other letters, quoting a passage here and there, trying to +startle Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse into a confession. But she never +changed her attitude, she did not answer a word. + +Her conduct was the more aggravating, for I began to get lost among +these letters. They were all in the same handwriting; they were all +signed "Armand," and they seemed to give a picture of the life of a +young man in Paris during the two years which preceded the war. They +recorded dinner-parties, visits to the theatres, examinations passed, +prizes won and lost, receptions, rides in the Bois, and Sunday +excursions into the country. All these phrases, these appointments, +these meetings, might have particular meanings. But if so, how +stupendous a cipher! Besides, how was it that none of these messages +had been passed into Paris? Very reluctantly I began to doubt my own +conjecture. I read some more letters, and then I suddenly turned back +to the earlier ones. I compared them with the later notes. I began to +be afraid the correspondence after all was genuine, for the tone of +the letters changed and changed so gradually, and yet so clearly, that +the greatest literary art could hardly have deliberately composed +them. I seemed to witness the actual progress of M. Armand, a +hobbledehoy from the provinces losing his awkwardness, acquiring ease +and polish in his contact with the refinement of Paris. Gratitude was +now expressed without effusion, he was no longer gaping with +admiration at the elegance of the women, a knowledge of the world +began to show itself in his comments. M. Armand was growing master of +himself, he had gained a facility of style and a felicity of phrase. +The last letters had the postmark of Paris, the first that of +Auvergne. + +They were genuine, then. And they were not love-letters. I looked at +Mademoiselle Sophie with an increased perplexity. Why did she now sit +rocking her head like a child in pain? Why had she so struggled to +hinder me from opening them? They recorded a beginning of +acquaintanceship and the growth of that into friendship between a +young man and a young girl--nothing more. The friendship might +eventually end in marriage no doubt if left to itself, but there was +not a word of that in the letters. I was still wondering, when the +French officer raised himself from his sofa and dragged himself across +the room to Mademoiselle Sophie's chair. His left trouser leg had been +slit down the side from the knee to the foot and laced lightly so as +to make room for a bandage. He supported himself from chair to chair +with evident pain, and I could not doubt that his wound was as genuine +as the letters. + +He bent down and gently took her hand away from her face. + +"Sophie," he said, "I did not dare to think that you kept this place +for me in your thoughts. A little more courage and I should long since +have said to you what I say now. I beg your permission to ask Madame +de Villetaneuse to-morrow for your hand in marriage." + +My house of cards tumbled down in a second. The French officer was M. +Armand. With the habit women have of treasuring tokens of the things +which have happened, Mademoiselle Sophie had kept all these trifling +notes and messages, and had even gathered to them the letters written +by him to her mother, so that the story might be complete. But without +M. Armand's knowledge; he was not to know; her pride must guard her +secret from him. For she was the lover and he only the friend, and she +knew it. Even in the little speech which he had just made, there was +just too much formality, just too little sincerity of voice. I +understood why she had tried to throw the ebony box down into the hall +so that I might open it there--I understood that I had caused her +great humiliation. But that was not all there was for me to +understand. + +In answer to Armand she raised her eyes quietly, and shook her head. + +"You wish to spare me shame," she said, "and I thank you very much. +But it is because of these letters that you spoke. I must think that. +I must always think it." + +"No!" he exclaimed. + +"But yes," she replied firmly. "If monsieur had not unlocked that +box--I don't know--but some day perhaps--oh, not yet, no, not yet--but +some day perhaps you might have come of your own accord and said what +you have just said. And I should have been very happy. But now you +never must. For you see I shall always think that the letters are +prompting you." + +And M. Armand bowed. + +I had taken from her her chance of happiness. The friendship between +them might have ended in marriage if left to itself. But I had not +left it to itself. + +"Mademoiselle," I said, "I am very sorry." + +She turned her dark eyes on me. + +"Monsieur, I warned you. It is too late to be sorry," and as I stood +shuffling awkwardly from one foot to the other, she added, gently, +"Will you not go, monsieur?" + +I went out of the room, called together my escort, mounted and rode +off. It was past midnight now, and the night was clear. But I thought +neither of the little beds under the slope of the roof nor of any +danger on the road. There might have been a _franc-tireur_ behind +every tree. I would never have noticed it until one of them had +brought me down. Remorse was heavy upon me. I had behaved without +consideration, without chivalry, without any manners at all. I had not +been able to distinguish truth when it stared me in the face, or to +recognise honesty when it looked out from a young girl's dark eyes. I +had behaved, in a word, like the brute six months of war had made of +me. I wondered with a vague hope whether after all time might not set +matters right between M. Armand and Mademoiselle Sophie. And I wonder +now whether it has. But even if I knew that it had, I should always +remember that Christmas night of 1870 with acute regret. The only +incident, indeed, which I can mention with the slightest satisfaction +is this: On the way back to Noisy-le-Grand I came to a point where the +road from Chelles crossed the road from Montfermeil. I halted at a +little cabin which stood upon a grass-plot within the angle of the +roads, and tying up all the money I had on me in a pocket-handkerchief +I dropped the handkerchief through a broken window-pane. + + +The Colonel let the end of his cigar fall upon his plate, and pushed +back his chair from the table. "But I see we shall be late for the +opera," he said, as he glanced at the clock. + +_November_, 1905. + + + + + + THE AFFAIR + AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL + + + + + THE AFFAIR + AT THE SEMIRAMIS HOTEL + + + I + +Mr. Ricardo, when the excitements of the Villa Rose were done with, +returned to Grosvenor Square and resumed the busy, unnecessary life of +an amateur. But the studios had lost their savour, artists their +attractiveness, and even the Russian opera seemed a trifle flat. Life +was altogether a disappointment; Fate, like an actress at a +restaurant, had taken the wooden pestle in her hand and stirred all +the sparkle out of the champagne; Mr. Ricardo languished--until one +unforgettable morning. + +He was sitting disconsolately at his breakfast-table when the door was +burst open and a square, stout man, with the blue, shaven face of a +French comedian, flung himself into the room. Ricardo sprang towards +the new-comer with a cry of delight. + +"My dear Hanaud!" + +He seized his visitor by the arm, feeling it to make sure that here, +in flesh and blood, stood the man who had introduced him to the +acutest sensations of his life. He turned towards his butler, who was +still bleating expostulations in the doorway at the unceremonious +irruption of the French detective. + +"Another place, Burton, at once," he cried, and as soon as he and +Hanaud were alone: "What good wind blows you to London?" + +"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the +line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a +holiday." + +"Business, my friend. The disappearance of bullion somewhere on the +line between Paris and London. But it is finished. Yes, I take a +holiday." + +A light had suddenly flashed in Mr. Ricardo's eyes, and was now no +less suddenly extinguished. Hanaud paid no attention whatever to his +friend's disappointment. He pounced upon a piece of silver which +adorned the tablecloth and took it over to the window. + +"Everything is as it should be, my friend," he exclaimed, with a grin. +"Grosvenor Square, the _Times_ open at the money column, and a false +antique upon the table. Thus I have dreamed of you. All Mr. Ricardo is +in that sentence." + +Ricardo laughed nervously. Recollection made him wary of Hanaud's +sarcasms. He was shy even to protest the genuineness of his silver. +But, indeed, he had not the time. For the door opened again and once +more the butler appeared. On this occasion, however, he was alone. + +"Mr. Calladine would like to speak to you, sir," he said. + +"Calladine!" cried Ricardo in an extreme surprise. "That is the most +extraordinary thing." He looked at the clock upon his mantelpiece. It +was barely half-past eight. "At this hour, too?" + +"Mr. Calladine is still wearing evening dress," the butler remarked. + +Ricardo started in his chair. He began to dream of possibilities; and +here was Hanaud miraculously at his side. + +"Where is Mr. Calladine?" he asked. + +"I have shown him into the library." + +"Good," said Mr. Ricardo. "I will come to him." + +But he was in no hurry. He sat and let his thoughts play with this +incident of Calladine's early visit. + +"It is very odd," he said. "I have not seen Calladine for months--no, +nor has anyone. Yet, a little while ago, no one was more often seen." + +He fell apparently into a muse, but he was merely seeking to provoke +Hanaud's curiosity. In this attempt, however, he failed. Hanaud +continued placidly to eat his breakfast, so that Mr. Ricardo was +compelled to volunteer the story which he was burning to tell. + +"Drink your coffee, Hanaud, and you shall hear about Calladine." + +Hanaud grunted with resignation, and Mr. Ricardo flowed on: + +"Calladine was one of England's young men. Everybody said so. He was +going to do very wonderful things as soon as he had made up his mind +exactly what sort of wonderful things he was going to do. Meanwhile, +you met him in Scotland, at Newmarket, at Ascot, at Cowes, in the box +of some great lady at the Opera--not before half-past ten in the +evening _there_--in any fine house where the candles that night +happened to be lit. He went everywhere, and then a day came and he +went nowhere. There was no scandal, no trouble, not a whisper against +his good name. He simply vanished. For a little while a few people +asked: 'What has become of Calladine?' But there never was any answer, +and London has no time for unanswered questions. Other promising young +men dined in his place. Calladine had joined the huge legion of the +Come-to-nothings. No one even seemed to pass him in the street. Now +unexpectedly, at half-past eight in the morning, and in evening dress, +he calls upon me. 'Why?' I ask myself." + +Mr. Ricardo sank once more into a reverie. Hanaud watched him with a +broadening smile of pure enjoyment. + +"And in time, I suppose," he remarked casually, "you will perhaps ask +him?" + +Mr. Ricardo sprang out of his pose to his feet. + +"Before I discuss serious things with an acquaintance," he said with a +scathing dignity, "I make it a rule to revive my impressions of his +personality. The cigarettes are in the crystal box." + +"They would be," said Hanaud, unabashed, as Ricardo stalked from the +room. But in five minutes Mr. Ricardo came running back, all his +composure gone. + +"It is the greatest good fortune that you, my friend, should have +chosen this morning to visit me," he cried, and Hanaud nodded with a +little grimace of resignation. + +"There goes my holiday. You shall command me now and always. I will +make the acquaintance of your young friend." + +He rose up and followed Ricardo into his study, where a young man was +nervously pacing the floor. + +"Mr. Calladine," said Ricardo. "This is Mr. Hanaud." + +The young man turned eagerly. He was tall, with a noticeable elegance +and distinction, and the face which he showed to Hanaud was, in spite +of its agitation, remarkably handsome. + +"I am very glad," he said. "You are not an official of this country. +You can advise--without yourself taking action, if you'll be so good." + +Hanaud frowned. He bent his eyes uncompromisingly upon Calladine. + +"What does that mean?" he asked, with a note of sternness in his +voice. + +"It means that I must tell someone," Calladine burst out in quivering +tones. "That I don't know what to do. I am in a difficulty too big for +me. That's the truth." + +Hanaud looked at the young man keenly. It seemed to Ricardo that he +took in every excited gesture, every twitching feature, in one +comprehensive glance. Then he said in a friendlier voice: + +"Sit down and tell me"--and he himself drew up a chair to the table. + +"I was at the Semiramis last night," said Calladine, naming one of the +great hotels upon the Embankment. "There was a fancy-dress ball." + +All this happened, by the way, in those far-off days before the +war--nearly, in fact, three years ago today--when London, flinging +aside its reticence, its shy self-consciousness, had become a city of +carnivals and masquerades, rivalling its neighbours on the Continent +in the spirit of its gaiety, and exceeding them by its stupendous +luxury. "I went by the merest chance. My rooms are in the Adelphi +Terrace." + +"There!" cried Mr. Ricardo in surprise, and Hanaud lifted a hand to +check his interruptions. + +"Yes," continued Calladine. "The night was warm, the music floated +through my open windows and stirred old memories. I happened to have a +ticket. I went." + +Calladine drew up a chair opposite to Hanaud and, seating himself, +told, with many nervous starts and in troubled tones, a story which, +to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was as fabulous as any out of the "Arabian +Nights." + +"I had a ticket," he began, "but no domino. I was consequently stopped +by an attendant in the lounge at the top of the staircase leading down +to the ballroom. + +"'You can hire a domino in the cloakroom, Mr. Calladine,' he said to +me. I had already begun to regret the impulse which had brought me, +and I welcomed the excuse with which the absence of a costume provided +me. I was, indeed, turning back to the door, when a girl who had at +that moment run down from the stairs of the hotel into the lounge, +cried gaily: 'That's not necessary'; and at the same moment she flung +to me a long scarlet cloak which she had been wearing over her own +dress. She was young, fair, rather tall, slim, and very pretty; her +hair was drawn back from her face with a ribbon, and rippled down her +shoulders in heavy curls; and she was dressed in a satin coat and +knee-breeches of pale green and gold, with a white waistcoat and +silk stockings and scarlet heels to her satin shoes. She was as +straight-limbed as a boy, and exquisite like a figure in Dresden +china. I caught the cloak and turned to thank her. But she did not +wait. With a laugh she ran down the stairs a supple and shining +figure, and was lost in the throng at the doorway of the ballroom. I +was stirred by the prospect of an adventure. I ran down after her. She +was standing just inside the room alone, and she was gazing at the +scene with parted lips and dancing eyes. She laughed again as she saw +the cloak about my shoulders, a delicious gurgle of amusement, and I +said to her: + +"'May I dance with you?' + +"'Oh, do!' she cried, with a little jump, and clasping her hands. She +was of a high and joyous spirit and not difficult in the matter of an +introduction. 'This gentleman will do very well to present us,' she +said, leading me in front of a bust of the God Pan which stood in a +niche of the wall. 'I am, as you see, straight out of an opera. My +name is Celymene or anything with an eighteenth century sound to it. +You are--what you will. For this evening we are friends.' + +"'And for to-morrow?' I asked. + +"'I will tell you about that later on,' she replied, and she began to +dance with a light step and a passion in her dancing which earned me +many an envious glance from the other men. I was in luck, for Celymene +knew no one, and though, of course, I saw the faces of a great many +people whom I remembered, I kept them all at a distance. We had been +dancing for about half an hour when the first queerish thing happened. +She stopped suddenly in the midst of a sentence with a little gasp. I +spoke to her, but she did not hear. She was gazing past me, her eyes +wide open, and such a rapt look upon her face as I had never seen. She +was lost in a miraculous vision. I followed the direction of her eyes +and, to my astonishment, I saw nothing more than a stout, short, +middle-aged woman, egregiously over-dressed as Marie Antoinette. + +"'So you do know someone here?' I said, and I had to repeat the words +sharply before my friend withdrew her eyes. But even then she was not +aware of me. It was as if a voice had spoken to her whilst she was +asleep and had disturbed, but not wakened her. Then she came +to--there's really no other word I can think of which describes her at +that moment--she came to with a deep sigh. + +"'No,' she answered. 'She is a Mrs. Blumenstein from Chicago, a widow +with ambitions and a great deal of money. But I don't know her.' + +"'Yet you know all about her,' I remarked. + +"'She crossed in the same boat with me,' Celymene replied. 'Did I tell +you that I landed at Liverpool this morning? She is staying at the +Semiramis too. Oh, let us dance!' + +"She twitched my sleeve impatiently, and danced with a kind of +violence and wildness as if she wished to banish some sinister +thought. And she did undoubtedly banish it. We supped together and +grew confidential, as under such conditions people will. She told me +her real name. It was Joan Carew. + +"'I have come over to get an engagement if I can at Covent Garden. I +am supposed to sing all right. But I don't know anyone. I have been +brought up in Italy.' + +"'You have some letters of introduction, I suppose?' I asked. + +"'Oh, yes. One from my teacher in Milan. One from an American +manager.' + +"In my turn I told her my name and where I lived, and I gave her my +card. I thought, you see, that since I used to know a good many +operatic people, I might be able to help her. + +"'Thank you,' she said, and at that moment Mrs. Blumenstein, followed +by a party, chiefly those lap-dog young men who always seem to gather +about that kind of person, came into the supper-room and took a table +close to us. There was at once an end of all confidences--indeed, of +all conversation. Joan Carew lost all the lightness of her spirit; she +talked at random, and her eyes were drawn again and again to the +grotesque slander on Marie Antoinette. Finally I became annoyed. + +"'Shall we go?' I suggested impatiently, and to my surprise she +whispered passionately: + +"'Yes. Please! Let us go.' + +"Her voice was actually shaking, her small hands clenched. We went +back to the ballroom, but Joan Carew did not recover her gaiety, and +half-way through a dance, when we were near to the door, she stopped +abruptly--extraordinarily abruptly. + +"'I shall go,' she said abruptly. 'I am tired. I have grown dull.' + +"I protested, but she made a little grimace. + +"'You'll hate me in half an hour. Let's be wise and stop now while we +are friends,' she said, and whilst I removed the domino from my +shoulders she stooped very quickly. It seemed to me that she picked up +something which had lain hidden beneath the sole of her slipper. She +certainly moved her foot, and I certainly saw something small and +bright flash in the palm of her glove as she raised herself again. But +I imagined merely that it was some object which she had dropped. + +"'Yes, we'll go,' she said, and we went up the stairs into the lobby. +Certainly all the sparkle had gone out of our adventure. I recognized +her wisdom. + +"'But I shall meet you again?' I asked. + +"'Yes. I have your address. I'll write and fix a time when you will be +sure to find me in. Good-night, and a thousand thanks. I should have +been bored to tears if you hadn't come without a domino.' + +"She was speaking lightly as she held out her hand, but her grip +tightened a little and--clung. Her eyes darkened and grew troubled, +her mouth trembled. The shadow of a great trouble had suddenly closed +about her. She shivered. + +"'I am half inclined to ask you to stay, however dull I am; and dance +with me till daylight--the safe daylight,' she said. + +"It was an extraordinary phrase for her to use, and it moved me. + +"'Let us go back then!' I urged. She gave me an impression suddenly of +someone quite forlorn. But Joan Carew recovered her courage. 'No, no,' +she answered quickly. She snatched her hand away and ran lightly up +the staircase, turning at the corner to wave her hand and smile. It +was then half-past one in the morning." + +So far Calladine had spoken without an interruption. Mr. Ricardo, it +is true, was bursting to break in with the most important questions, +but a salutary fear of Hanaud restrained him. Now, however, he had an +opportunity, for Calladine paused. + +"Half-past one," he said sagely. "Ah!" + +"And when did you go home?" Hanaud asked of Calladine. + +"True," said Mr. Ricardo. "It is of the greatest consequence." + +Calladine was not sure. His partner had left behind her the strangest +medley of sensations in his breast. He was puzzled, haunted, and +charmed. He had to think about her; he was a trifle uplifted; sleep +was impossible. He wandered for a while about the ballroom. Then he +walked to his chambers along the echoing streets and sat at his +window; and some time afterwards the hoot of a motor-horn broke the +silence and a car stopped and whirred in the street below. A moment +later his bell rang. + +He ran down the stairs in a queer excitement, unlocked the street door +and opened it. Joan Carew, still in her masquerade dress with her +scarlet cloak about her shoulders, slipped through the opening. + +"Shut the door," she whispered, drawing herself apart in a corner. + +"Your cab?" asked Calladine. + +"It has gone." + +Calladine latched the door. Above, in the well of the stairs, the +light spread out from the open door of his flat. Down here all was +dark. He could just see the glimmer of her white face, the glitter of +her dress, but she drew her breath like one who has run far. They +mounted the stairs cautiously. He did not say a word until they were +both safely in his parlour; and even then it was in a low voice. + +"What has happened?" + +"You remember the woman I stared at? You didn't know why I stared, but +any girl would have understood. She was wearing the loveliest pearls I +ever saw in my life." + +Joan was standing by the edge of the table. She was tracing with her +finger a pattern on the cloth as she spoke. Calladine started with a +horrible presentiment. + +"Yes," she said. "I worship pearls. I always have done. For one thing, +they improve on me. I haven't got any, of course. I have no money. But +friends of mine who do own pearls have sometimes given theirs to me to +wear when they were going sick, and they have always got back their +lustre. I think that has had a little to do with my love of them. Oh, +I have always longed for them--just a little string. Sometimes I have +felt that I would have given my soul for them." + +She was speaking in a dull, monotonous voice. But Calladine recalled +the ecstasy which had shone in her face when her eyes first had fallen +on the pearls, the longing which had swept her quite into another +world, the passion with which she had danced to throw the obsession +off. + +"And I never noticed them at all," he said. + +"Yet they were wonderful. The colour! The lustre! All the evening they +tempted me. I was furious that a fat, coarse creature like that should +have such exquisite things. Oh, I was mad." + +She covered her face suddenly with her hands and swayed. Calladine +sprang towards her. But she held out her hand. + +"No, I am all right." And though he asked her to sit down she would +not. "You remember when I stopped dancing suddenly?" + +"Yes. You had something hidden under your foot?" + +The girl nodded. + +"Her key!" And under his breath Calladine uttered a startled cry. + +For the first time since she had entered the room Joan Carew raised +her head and looked at him. Her eyes were full of terror, and with the +terror was mixed an incredulity as though she could not possibly +believe that that had happened which she knew had happened. + +"A little Yale key," the girl continued. "I saw Mrs. Blumenstein +looking on the floor for something, and then I saw it shining on the +very spot. Mrs. Blumenstein's suite was on the same floor as mine, and +her maid slept above. All the maids do. I knew that. Oh, it seemed to +me as if I had sold my soul and was being paid." + +Now Calladine understood what she had meant by her strange +phrase--"the safe daylight." + +"I went up to my little suite," Joan Carew continued. "I sat there +with the key burning through my glove until I had given her time +enough to fall asleep"--and though she hesitated before she spoke the +words, she did speak them, not looking at Calladine, and with a +shudder of remorse making her confession complete. "Then I crept out. +The corridor was dimly lit. Far away below the music was throbbing. Up +here it was as silent as the grave. I opened the door--her door. I +found myself in a lobby. The suite, though bigger, was arranged like +mine. I slipped in and closed the door behind me. I listened in the +darkness. I couldn't hear a sound. I crept forward to the door in +front of me. I stood with my fingers on the handle and my heart +beating fast enough to choke me. I had still time to turn back. But I +couldn't. There were those pearls in front of my eyes, lustrous and +wonderful. I opened the door gently an inch or so--and then--it all +happened in a second." + +Joan Carew faltered. The night was too near to her, its memory too +poignant with terror. She shut her eyes tightly and cowered down in a +chair. With the movement her cloak slipped from her shoulders and +dropped on to the ground. Calladine leaned forward with an exclamation +of horror; Joan Carew started up. + +"What is it?" she asked. + +"Nothing. Go on." + +"I found myself inside the room with the door shut behind me. I had +shut it myself in a spasm of terror. And I dared not turn round to +open it. I was helpless." + +"What do you mean? She was awake?" + +Joan Carew shook her head. + +"There were others in the room before me, and on the same +errand--men!" + +Calladine drew back, his eyes searching the girl's face. + +"Yes?" he said slowly. + +"I didn't see them at first. I didn't hear them. The room was quite +dark except for one jet of fierce white light which beat upon the door +of a safe. And as I shut the door the jet moved swiftly and the light +reached me and stopped. I was blinded. I stood in the full glare of +it, drawn up against the panels of the door, shivering, sick with +fear. Then I heard a quiet laugh, and someone moved softly towards me. +Oh, it was terrible! I recovered the use of my limbs; in a panic I +turned to the door, but I was too late. Whilst I fumbled with the +handle I was seized; a hand covered my mouth. I was lifted to the +centre of the room. The jet went out, the electric lights were turned +on. There were two men dressed as apaches in velvet trousers and red +scarves, like a hundred others in the ballroom below, and both were +masked. I struggled furiously; but, of course, I was like a child in +their grasp. 'Tie her legs,' the man whispered who was holding me; +'she's making too much noise.' I kicked and fought, but the other man +stooped and tied my ankles, and I fainted." + +Calladine nodded his head. + +"Yes?" he said. + +"When I came to, the lights were still burning, the door of the safe +was open, the room empty; I had been flung on to a couch at the foot +of the bed. I was lying there quite free." + +"Was the safe empty?" asked Calladine suddenly. + +"I didn't look," she answered. "Oh!"--and she covered her face +spasmodically with her hands. "I looked at the bed. Someone was lying +there--under a sheet and quite still. There was a clock ticking in the +room; it was the only sound. I was terrified. I was going mad with +fear. If I didn't get out of the room at once I felt that I should +go mad, that I should scream and bring everyone to find me alone +with--what was under the sheet in the bed. I ran to the door and +looked out through a slit into the corridor. It was still quite empty, +and below the music still throbbed in the ballroom. I crept down the +stairs, meeting no one until I reached the hall. I looked into the +ballroom as if I was searching for someone. I stayed long enough to +show myself. Then I got a cab and came to you." + +A short silence followed. Joan Carew looked at her companion in +appeal. "You are the only one I could come to," she added. "I know no +one else." + +Calladine sat watching the girl in silence. Then he asked, and his +voice was hard: + +"And is that all you have to tell me?" + +"Yes." + +"You are quite sure?" + +Joan Carew looked at him perplexed by the urgency of his question. She +reflected for a moment or two. + +"Quite." + +Calladine rose to his feet and stood beside her. + +"Then how do you come to be wearing this?" he asked, and he lifted a +chain of platinum and diamonds which she was wearing about her +shoulders. "You weren't wearing it when you danced with me." + +Joan Carew stared at the chain. + +"No. It's not mine. I have never seen it before." Then a light came +into her eyes. "The two men--they must have thrown it over my head +when I was on the couch--before they went." She looked at it more +closely. "That's it. The chain's not very valuable. They could spare +it, and--it would accuse me--of what they did." + +"Yes, that's very good reasoning," said Calladine coldly. + +Joan Carew looked quickly up into his face. + +"Oh, you don't believe me," she cried. "You think--oh, it's +impossible." And, holding him by the edge of his coat, she burst into +a storm of passionate denials. + +"But you went to steal, you know," he said gently, and she answered +him at once: + +"Yes, I did, but not this." And she held up the necklace. "Should I +have stolen this, should I have come to you wearing it, if I had +stolen the pearls, if I had"--and she stopped--"if my story were not +true?" + +Calladine weighed her argument, and it affected him. + +"No, I think you wouldn't," he said frankly. + +Most crimes, no doubt, were brought home because the criminal had made +some incomprehensibly stupid mistake; incomprehensibly stupid, that +is, by the standards of normal life. Nevertheless, Calladine was +inclined to believe her. He looked at her. That she should have +murdered was absurd. Moreover, she was not making a parade of remorse, +she was not playing the unctuous penitent; she had yielded to a +temptation, had got herself into desperate straits, and was at her +wits' ends how to escape from them. She was frank about herself. + +Calladine looked at the clock. It was nearly five o'clock in the +morning, and though the music could still be heard from the ballroom +in the Semiramis, the night had begun to wane upon the river. + +"You must go back," he said. "I'll walk with you." + +They crept silently down the stairs and into the street. It was only a +step to the Semiramis. They met no one until they reached the Strand. +There many, like Joan Carew in masquerade, were standing about, or +walking hither and thither in search of carriages and cabs. The whole +street was in a bustle, what with drivers shouting and people coming +away. + +"You can slip in unnoticed," said Calladine as he looked into the +thronged courtyard. "I'll telephone to you in the morning." + +"You will?" she cried eagerly, clinging for a moment to his arm. + +"Yes, for certain," he replied. "Wait in until you hear from me. I'll +think it over. I'll do what I can." + +"Thank you," she said fervently. + +He watched her scarlet cloak flitting here and there in the crowd +until it vanished through the doorway. Then, for the second time, he +walked back to his chambers, while the morning crept up the river from +the sea. + + + * * * * * + + +This was the story which Calladine told in Mr. Ricardo's library. Mr. +Ricardo heard it out with varying emotions. He began with a thrill of +expectation like a man on a dark threshold of great excitements. The +setting of the story appealed to him, too, by a sort of brilliant +bizarrerie which he found in it. But, as it went on, he grew puzzled +and a trifle disheartened. There were flaws and chinks; he began to +bubble with unspoken criticisms, then swift and clever thrusts which +he dared not deliver. He looked upon the young man with disfavour, as +upon one who had half opened a door upon a theatre of great promise +and shown him a spectacle not up to the mark. Hanaud, on the other +hand, listened imperturbably, without an expression upon his face, +until the end. Then he pointed a finger at Calladine and asked him +what to Ricardo's mind was a most irrelevant question. + +"You got back to your rooms, then, before five, Mr. Calladine, and it +is now nine o'clock less a few minutes." + +"Yes." + +"Yet you have not changed your clothes. Explain to me that. What did +you do between five and half-past eight?" + +Calladine looked down at his rumpled shirt front. + +"Upon my word, I never thought of it," he cried. "I was worried out of +my mind. I couldn't decide what to do. Finally, I determined to talk +to Mr. Ricardo, and after I had come to that conclusion I just waited +impatiently until I could come round with decency." + +Hanaud rose from his chair. His manner was grave, but conveyed no +single hint of an opinion. He turned to Ricardo. + +"Let us go round to your young friend's rooms in the Adelphi," he +said; and the three men drove thither at once. + + + II + +Calladine lodged in a corner house and upon the first floor. His +rooms, large and square and lofty, with Adams mantelpieces and a +delicate tracery upon their ceilings, breathed the grace of the +eighteenth century. Broad high windows, embrasured in thick walls, +overlooked the river and took in all the sunshine and the air which +the river had to give. And they were furnished fittingly. When the +three men entered the parlour, Mr. Ricardo was astounded. He had +expected the untidy litter of a man run to seed, the neglect and the +dust of the recluse. But the room was as clean as the deck of a yacht; +an Aubusson carpet made the floor luxurious underfoot; a few coloured +prints of real value decorated the walls; and the mahogany furniture +was polished so that a lady could have used it as a mirror. There was +even by the newspapers upon the round table a china bowl full of fresh +red roses. If Calladine had turned hermit, he was a hermit of an +unusually fastidious type. Indeed, as he stood with his two companions +in his dishevelled dress he seemed quite out of keeping with his +rooms. + +"So you live here, Mr. Calladine?" said Hanaud, taking off his hat and +laying it down. + +"Yes." + +"With your servants, of course?" + +"They come in during the day," said Calladine, and Hanaud looked at +him curiously. + +"Do you mean that you sleep here alone?" + +"Yes." + +"But your valet?" + +"I don't keep a valet," said Calladine; and again the curious look +came into Hanaud's eyes. + +"Yet," he suggested gently, "there are rooms enough in your set of +chambers to house a family." + +Calladine coloured and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the +other. + +"I prefer at night not to be disturbed," he said, stumbling a little +over the words. "I mean, I have a liking for quiet." + +Gabriel Hanaud nodded his head with sympathy. + +"Yes, yes. And it is a difficult thing to get--as difficult as +my holiday," he said ruefully, with a smile for Mr. Ricardo. +"However"--he turned towards Calladine--"no doubt, now that you are at +home, you would like a bath and a change of clothes. And when you are +dressed, perhaps you will telephone to the Semiramis and ask Miss +Carew to come round here. Meanwhile, we will read your newspapers and +smoke your cigarettes." + +Hanaud shut the door upon Calladine, but he turned neither to the +papers nor the cigarettes. He crossed the room to Mr. Ricardo, who, +seated at the open window, was plunged deep in reflections. + +"You have an idea, my friend," cried Hanaud. "It demands to express +itself. That sees itself in your face. Let me hear it, I pray." + +Mr. Ricardo started out of an absorption which was altogether assumed. + +"I was thinking," he said, with a faraway smile, "that you might +disappear in the forests of Africa, and at once everyone would be very +busy about your disappearance. You might leave your village in +Leicestershire and live in the fogs of Glasgow, and within a week the +whole village would know your postal address. But London--what a city! +How different! How indifferent! Turn out of St. James's into the +Adelphi Terrace and not a soul will say to you: 'Dr. Livingstone, I +presume?'" + +"But why should they," asked Hanaud, "if your name isn't Dr. +Livingstone?" + +Mr. Ricardo smiled indulgently. + +"Scoffer!" he said. "You understand me very well," and he sought to +turn the tables on his companion. "And you--does this room suggest +nothing to you? Have you no ideas?" But he knew very well that Hanaud +had. Ever since Hanaud had crossed the threshold he had been like a +man stimulated by a drug. His eyes were bright and active, his body +alert. + +"Yes," he said, "I have." + +He was standing now by Ricardo's side with his hands in his pockets, +looking out at the trees on the Embankment and the barges swinging +down the river. + +"You are thinking of the strange scene which took place in this room +such a very few hours ago," said Ricardo. "The girl in her masquerade +dress making her confession with the stolen chain about her +throat----" + +Hanaud looked backwards carelessly. "No, I wasn't giving it a +thought," he said, and in a moment or two he began to walk about the +room with that curiously light step which Ricardo was never able to +reconcile with his cumbersome figure. With the heaviness of a bear he +still padded. He went from corner to corner, opened a cupboard here, a +drawer of the bureau there, and--stooped suddenly. He stood erect +again with a small box of morocco leather in his hand. His body from +head to foot seemed to Ricardo to be expressing the question, "Have I +found it?" He pressed a spring and the lid of the box flew open. +Hanaud emptied its contents into the palm of his hand. There were two +or three sticks of sealing-wax and a seal. With a shrug of the +shoulders he replaced them and shut the box. + +"You are looking for something," Ricardo announced with sagacity. + +"I am," replied Hanaud; and it seemed that in a second or two he found +it. Yet--yet--he found it with his hands in his pockets, if he had +found it. Mr. Ricardo saw him stop in that attitude in front of the +mantelshelf, and heard him utter a long, low whistle. Upon the +mantelshelf some photographs were arranged, a box of cigars stood at +one end, a book or two lay between some delicate ornaments of china, +and a small engraving in a thin gilt frame was propped at the back +against the wall. Ricardo surveyed the shelf from his seat in the +window, but he could not imagine which it was of these objects that so +drew and held Hanaud's eyes. + +Hanaud, however, stepped forward. He looked into a vase and turned it +upside down. Then he removed the lid of a porcelain cup, and from the +very look of his great shoulders Ricardo knew that he had discovered +what he sought. He was holding something in his hands, turning it +over, examining it. When he was satisfied he moved swiftly to the door +and opened it cautiously. Both men could hear the splashing of water +in a bath. Hanaud closed the door again with a nod of contentment and +crossed once more to the window. + +"Yes, it is all very strange and curious," he said, "and I do not +regret that you dragged me into the affair. You were quite right, my +friend, this morning. It is the personality of your young Mr. +Calladine which is the interesting thing. For instance, here we are in +London in the early summer. The trees out, freshly green, lilac and +flowers in the gardens, and I don't know what tingle of hope and +expectation in the sunlight and the air. I am middle-aged--yet there's +a riot in my blood, a recapture of youth, a belief that just round the +corner, beyond the reach of my eyes, wonders wait for me. Don't you, +too, feel something like that? Well, then--" and he heaved his +shoulders in astonishment. + +"Can you understand a young man with money, with fastidious tastes, +good-looking, hiding himself in a corner at such a time--except for +some overpowering reason? No. Nor can I. There is another thing--I put +a question or two to Calladine." + +"Yes," said Ricardo. + +"He has no servants here at night. He is quite alone and--here is what +I find interesting--he has no valet. That seems a small thing to you?" +Hanaud asked at a movement from Ricardo. "Well, it is no doubt a +trifle, but it's a significant trifle in the case of a young rich man. +It is generally a sign that there is something strange, perhaps even +something sinister, in his life. Mr. Calladine, some months ago, +turned out of St. James's into the Adelphi. Can you tell me why?" + +"No," replied Mr. Ricardo. "Can you?" + +Hanaud stretched out a hand. In his open palm lay a small round hairy +bulb about the size of a big button and of a colour between green and +brown. + +"Look!" he said. "What is that?" + +Mr. Ricardo took the bulb wonderingly. + +"It looks to me like the fruit of some kind of cactus." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"It is. You will see some pots of it in the hothouses of any really +good botanical gardens. Kew has them, I have no doubt. Paris certainly +has. They are labelled. 'Anhalonium Luinii.' But amongst the Indians +of Yucatan the plant has a simpler name." + +"What name?" asked Ricardo. + +"Mescal." + +Mr. Ricardo repeated the name. It conveyed nothing to him whatever. + +"There are a good many bulbs just like that in the cup upon the +mantelshelf," said Hanaud. + +Ricardo looked quickly up. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"Mescal is a drug." + +Ricardo started. + +"Yes, you are beginning to understand now," Hanaud continued, "why +your young friend Calladine turned out of St. James's into the Adelphi +Terrace." + +Ricardo turned the little bulb over in his fingers. + +"You make a decoction of it, I suppose?" he said. + +"Or you can use it as the Indians do in Yucatan," replied Hanaud. +"Mescal enters into their religious ceremonies. They sit at night in a +circle about a fire built in the forest and chew it, whilst one of +their number beats perpetually upon a drum." + +Hanaud looked round the room and took notes of its luxurious carpet, +its delicate appointments. Outside the window there was a thunder in +the streets, a clamour of voices. Boats went swiftly down the river on +the ebb. Beyond the mass of the Semiramis rose the great grey-white +dome of St. Paul's. Opposite, upon the Southwark bank, the giant +sky-signs, the big Highlander drinking whisky, and the rest of them +waited, gaunt skeletons, for the night to limn them in fire and give +them life. Below the trees in the gardens rustled and waved. In the +air were the uplift and the sparkle of the young summer. + +"It's a long way from the forests of Yucatan to the Adelphi Terrace of +London," said Hanaud. "Yet here, I think, in these rooms, when the +servants are all gone and the house is very quiet, there is a little +corner of wild Mexico." + +A look of pity came into Mr. Ricardo's face. He had seen more than one +young man of great promise slacken his hold and let go, just for this +reason. Calladine, it seemed, was another. + +"It's like bhang and kieff and the rest of the devilish things, I +suppose," he said, indignantly tossing the button upon the table. + +Hanaud picked it up. + +"No," he replied. "It's not quite like any other drug. It has a +quality of its own which just now is of particular importance to you +and me. Yes, my friend"--and he nodded his head very seriously--"we +must watch that we do not make the big fools of ourselves in this +affair." + +"There," Mr. Ricardo agreed with an ineffable air of wisdom, "I am +entirely with you." + +"Now, why?" Hanaud asked. Mr. Ricardo was at a loss for a reason, but +Hanaud did not wait. "I will tell you. Mescal intoxicates, yes--but it +does more--it gives to the man who eats of it colour-dreams." + +"Colour-dreams?" Mr. Ricardo repeated in a wondering voice. + +"Yes, strange heated charms, in which violent things happen vividly +amongst bright colours. Colour is the gift of this little prosaic +brown button." He spun the bulb in the air like a coin, and catching +it again, took it over to the mantelpiece and dropped it into the +porcelain cup. + +"Are you sure of this?" Ricardo cried excitedly, and Hanaud raised his +hand in warning. He went to the door, opened it for an inch or so, and +closed it again. + +"I am quite sure," he returned. "I have for a friend a very learned +chemist in the College de France. He is one of those enthusiasts who +must experiment upon themselves. He tried this drug." + +"Yes," Ricardo said in a quieter voice. "And what did he see?" + +"He had a vision of a wonderful garden bathed in sunlight, an old +garden of gorgeous flowers and emerald lawns, ponds with golden lilies +and thick yew hedges--a garden where peacocks stepped indolently and +groups of gay people fantastically dressed quarrelled and fought with +swords. That is what he saw. And he saw it so vividly that, when the +vapours of the drug passed from his brain and he waked, he seemed to +be coming out of the real world into a world of shifting illusions." + +Hanaud's strong quiet voice stopped, and for a while there was a +complete silence in the room. Neither of the two men stirred so much +as a finger. Mr. Ricardo once more was conscious of the thrill of +strange sensations. He looked round the room. He could hardly believe +that a room which had been--nay was--the home and shrine of mysteries +in the dark hours could wear so bright and innocent a freshness in the +sunlight of the morning. There should be something sinister which +leaped to the eyes as you crossed the threshold. + +"Out of the real world," Mr. Ricardo quoted. "I begin to see." + +"Yes, you begin to see, my friend, that we must be very careful not to +make the big fools of ourselves. My friend of the College de France +saw a garden. But had he been sitting alone in the window-seat where +you are, listening through a summer night to the music of the +masquerade at the Semiramis, might he not have seen the ballroom, the +dancers, the scarlet cloak, and the rest of this story?" + +"You mean," cried Ricardo, now fairly startled, "that Calladine came +to us with the fumes of mescal still working in his brain, that the +false world was the real one still for him." + +"I do not know," said Hanaud. "At present I only put questions. I ask +them of you. I wish to hear how they sound. Let us reason this problem +out. Calladine, let us say, takes a great deal more of the drug than +my professor. It will have on him a more powerful effect while it +lasts, and it will last longer. Fancy dress balls are familiar things +to Calladine. The music floating from the Semiramis will revive old +memories. He sits here, the pageant takes shape before him, he sees +himself taking his part in it. Oh, he is happier here sitting quietly +in his window-seat than if he was actually at the Semiramis. For he is +there more intensely, more vividly, more really, than if he had +actually descended this staircase. He lives his story through, the +story of a heated brain, the scene of it changes in the way dreams +have, it becomes tragic and sinister, it oppresses him with horror, +and in the morning, so obsessed with it that he does not think to +change his clothes, he is knocking at your door." + +Mr. Ricardo raised his eyebrows and moved. + +"Ah! You see a flaw in my argument," said Hanaud. But Mr. Ricardo was +wary. Too often in other days he had been leaped upon and trounced for +a careless remark. + +"Let me hear the end of your argument," he said. "There was then to +your thinking no temptation of jewels, no theft, no murder--in a word, +no Celymene? She was born of recollections and the music of the +Semiramis." + +"No!" cried Hanaud. "Come with me, my friend. I am not so sure that +there was no Celymene." + +With a smile upon his face, Hanaud led the way across the room. He had +the dramatic instinct, and rejoiced in it. He was going to produce a +surprise for his companion and, savouring the moment in advance, he +managed his effects. He walked towards the mantelpiece and stopped a +few paces away from it. + +"Look!" + +Mr. Ricardo looked and saw a broad Adams mantelpiece. He turned a +bewildered face to his friend. + +"You see nothing?" Hanaud asked. + +"Nothing!" + +"Look again! I am not sure--but is it not that Celymene is posing +before you?" + +Mr. Ricardo looked again. There was nothing to fix his eyes. He saw a +book or two, a cup, a vase or two, and nothing else really expect a +very pretty and apparently valuable piece of--and suddenly Mr. Ricardo +understood. Straight in front of him, in the very centre of the +mantelpiece, a figure in painted china was leaning against a china +stile. It was the figure of a perfectly impossible courtier, feminine +and exquisite as could be, and apparelled also even to the scarlet +heels exactly as Calladine had described Joan Carew. + +Hanaud chuckled with satisfaction when he saw the expression upon Mr. +Ricardo's face. + +"Ah, you understand," he said. "Do you dream, my friend? At +times--yes, like the rest of us. Then recollect your dreams? Things, +people, which you have seen perhaps that day, perhaps months ago, pop +in and out of them without making themselves prayed for. You cannot +understand why. Yet sometimes they cut their strange capers there, +logically, too, through subtle associations which the dreamer, once +awake, does not apprehend. Thus, our friend here sits in the window, +intoxicated by his drug, the music plays in the Semiramis, the curtain +goes up in the heated theatre of his brain. He sees himself step upon +the stage, and who else meets him but the china figure from his +mantelpiece?" + +Mr. Ricardo for a moment was all enthusiasm. Then his doubt returned +to him. + +"What you say, my dear Hanaud, is very ingenious. The figure upon the +mantelpiece is also extremely convincing. And I should be absolutely +convinced but for one thing." + +"Yes?" said Hanaud, watching his friend closely. + +"I am--I may say it, I think, a man of the world. And I ask +myself"--Mr. Ricardo never could ask himself anything without assuming +a manner of extreme pomposity--"I ask myself, whether a young man who +has given up his social ties, who has become a hermit, and still more +who has become the slave of a drug, would retain that scrupulous +carefulness of his body which is indicated by dressing for dinner when +alone?" + +Hanaud struck the table with the palm of his hand and sat down in a +chair. + +"Yes. That is the weak point in my theory. You have hit it. I knew it +was there--that weak point, and I wondered whether you would seize it. +Yes, the consumers of drugs are careless, untidy--even unclean as a +rule. But not always. We must be careful. We must wait." + +"For what?" asked Ricardo, beaming with pride. + +"For the answer to a telephone message," replied Hanaud, with a nod +towards the door. + +Both men waited impatiently until Calladine came into the room. He +wore now a suit of blue serge, he had a clearer eye, his skin a +healthier look; he was altogether a more reputable person. But he was +plainly very ill at ease. He offered his visitors cigarettes, he +proposed refreshments, he avoided entirely and awkwardly the object of +their visit. Hanaud smiled. His theory was working out. Sobered by his +bath, Calladine had realised the foolishness of which he had been +guilty. + +"You telephone, to the Semiramis, of course?" said Hanaud cheerfully. + +Calladine grew red. + +"Yes," he stammered. + +"Yet I did not hear that volume of 'Hallos' which precedes telephonic +connection in your country of leisure," Hanaud continued. + +"I telephoned from my bedroom. You would not hear anything in this +room." + +"Yes, yes; the walls of these old houses are solid." Hanaud was +playing with his victim. "And when may we expect Miss Carew?" + +"I can't say," replied Calladine. "It's very strange. She is not in +the hotel. I am afraid that she has gone away, fled." + +Mr. Ricardo and Hanaud exchanged a look. They were both satisfied now. +There was no word of truth in Calladine's story. + +"Then there is no reason for us to wait," said Hanaud. "I shall have +my holiday after all." And while he was yet speaking the voice of a +newsboy calling out the first edition of an evening paper became +distantly audible. Hanaud broke off his farewell. For a moment he +listened, with his head bent. Then the voice was heard again, +confused, indistinct; Hanaud picked up his hat and cane and, without +another word to Calladine, raced down the stairs. Mr. Ricardo followed +him, but when he reached the pavement, Hanaud was half down the little +street. At the corner, however, he stopped, and Ricardo joined him, +coughing and out of breath. + +"What's the matter?" he gasped. + +"Listen," said Hanaud. + +At the bottom of Duke Street, by Charing Cross Station, the newsboy +was shouting his wares. Both men listened, and now the words came to +them mispronounced but decipherable. + +"Mysterious crime at the Semiramis Hotel." + +Ricardo stared at his companion. + +"You were wrong then!" he cried. "Calladine's story was true." + +For once in a way Hanaud was quite disconcerted. + +"I don't know yet," he said. "We will buy a paper." + +But before he could move a step a taxi-cab turned into the Adelphi +from the Strand, and wheeling in front of their faces, stopped at +Calladine's door. From the cab a girl descended. + +"Let us go back," said Hanaud. + + + III + +Mr. Ricardo could no longer complain. It was half-past eight when +Calladine had first disturbed the formalities of his house in +Grosvenor Square. It was barely ten now, and during that short time he +had been flung from surprise to surprise, he had looked underground on +a morning of fresh summer, and had been thrilled by the contrast +between the queer, sinister life below and within and the open call to +joy of the green world above. He had passed from incredulity to +belief, from belief to incredulity, and when at last incredulity was +firmly established, and the story to which he had listened proved the +emanation of a drugged and heated brain, lo! the facts buffeted him in +the face, and the story was shown to be true. + +"I am alive once more," Mr. Ricardo thought as he turned back with +Hanaud, and in his excitement he cried his thought aloud. + +"Are you?" said Hanaud. "And what is life without a newspaper? If you +will buy one from that remarkably raucous boy at the bottom of the +street I will keep an eye upon Calladine's house till you come back." + +Mr. Ricardo sped down to Charing Cross and brought back a copy of the +fourth edition of the _Star_. He handed it to Hanaud, who stared at it +doubtfully, folded as it was. + +"Shall we see what it says?" Ricardo asked impatiently. + +"By no means," Hanaud answered, waking from his reverie and tucking +briskly away the paper into the tail pocket of his coat. "We will hear +what Miss Joan Carew has to say, with our minds undisturbed by any +discoveries. I was wondering about something totally different." + +"Yes?" Mr. Ricardo encouraged him. "What was it?" + +"I was wondering, since it is only ten o'clock, at what hour the first +editions of the evening papers appear." + +"It is a question," Mr. Ricardo replied sententiously, "which the +greatest minds have failed to answer." + +And they walked along the street to the house. The front door stood +open during the day like the front door of any other house which is +let off in sets of rooms. Hanaud and Ricardo went up the staircase and +rang the bell of Calladine's door. A middle-aged woman opened it. + +"Mr. Calladine is in?" said Hanaud. + +"I will ask," replied the woman. "What name shall I say?" + +"It does not matter. I will go straight in," said Hanaud quietly. "I +was here with my friend but a minute ago." + +He went straight forward and into Calladine's parlour. Mr. Ricardo +looked over his shoulder as he opened the door and saw a girl turn to +them suddenly a white face of terror, and flinch as though already she +felt the hand of a constable upon her shoulder. Calladine, on the +other hand, uttered a cry of relief. + +"These are my friends," he exclaimed to the girl, "the friends of whom +I spoke to you"; and to Hanaud he said: "This is Miss Carew." + +Hanaud bowed. + +"You shall tell me your story, mademoiselle," he said very gently, and +a little colour returned to the girl's cheeks, a little courage +revived in her. + +"But you have heard it," she answered. + +"Not from you," said Hanaud. + +So for a second time in that room she told the history of that night. +Only this time the sunlight was warm upon the world, the comfortable +sounds of life's routine were borne through the windows, and the girl +herself wore the inconspicuous blue serge of a thousand other girls +afoot that morning. These trifles of circumstance took the edge of +sheer horror off her narrative, so that, to tell the truth, Mr. +Ricardo was a trifle disappointed. He wanted a crescendo motive in his +music, whereas it had begun at its fortissimo. Hanaud, however, was +the perfect listener. He listened without stirring and with most +compassionate eyes, so that Joan Carew spoke only to him, and to him, +each moment that passed, with greater confidence. The life and sparkle +of her had gone altogether. There was nothing in her manner now to +suggest the waywardness, the gay irresponsibility, the radiance, which +had attracted Calladine the night before. She was just a very young +and very pretty girl, telling in a low and remorseful voice of the +tragic dilemma to which she had brought herself. Of Celymene all that +remained was something exquisite and fragile in her beauty, in the +slimness of her figure, in her daintiness of hand and foot--something +almost of the hot-house. But the story she told was, detail for +detail, the same which Calladine had already related. + +"Thank you," said Hanaud when she had done. "Now I must ask you two +questions." + +"I will answer them." + +Mr. Ricardo sat up. He began to think of a third question which he +might put himself, something uncommonly subtle and searching, which +Hanaud would never have thought of. But Hanaud put his questions, and +Ricardo almost jumped out of his chair. + +"You will forgive me. Miss Carew. But have you ever stolen before?" + +Joan Carew turned upon Hanaud with spirit. Then a change swept over +her face. + +"You have a right to ask," she answered. "Never." She looked into his +eyes as she answered. Hanaud did not move. He sat with a hand upon +each knee and led to his second question. + +"Early this morning, when you left this room, you told Mr. Calladine +that you would wait at the Semiramis until he telephoned to you?" + +"Yes." + +"Yet when he telephoned, you had gone out?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"I will tell you," said Joan Carew. "I could not bear to keep the +little diamond chain in my room." + +For a moment even Hanaud was surprised. He had lost sight of that +complication. Now he leaned forward anxiously; indeed, with a greater +anxiety than he had yet shown in all this affair. + +"I was terrified," continued Joan Carew. "I kept thinking: 'They must +have found out by now. They will search everywhere.' I didn't reason. +I lay in bed expecting to hear every moment a loud knocking on the +door. Besides--the chain itself being there in my bedroom--her +chain--the dead woman's chain--no, I couldn't endure it. I felt as if +I had stolen it. Then my maid brought in my tea." + +"You had locked it away?" cried Hanaud. + +"Yes. My maid did not see it." + +Joan Carew explained how she had risen, dressed, wrapped the chain in +a pad of cotton-wool and enclosed it in an envelope. The envelope had +not the stamp of the hotel upon it. It was a rather large envelope, +one of a packet which she had bought in a crowded shop in Oxford +Street on her way from Euston to the Semiramis. She had bought the +envelopes of that particular size in order that when she sent her +letter of introduction to the Director of the Opera at Covent Garden +she might enclose with it a photograph. + +"And to whom did you send it?" asked Mr. Ricardo. + +"To Mrs. Blumenstein at the Semiramis. I printed the address +carefully. Then I went out and posted it." + +"Where?" Hanaud inquired. + +"In the big letter-box of the Post Office at the corner of Trafalgar +Square." + +Hanaud looked at the girl sharply. + +"You had your wits about you, I see," he said. + +"What if the envelope gets lost?" said Ricardo. + +Hanaud laughed grimly. + +"If one envelope is delivered at its address in London to-day, it will +be that one," he said. "The news of the crime is published, you see," +and he swung round to Joan. + +"Did you know that, Miss Carew?" + +"No," she answered in an awe-stricken voice. + +"Well, then, it is. Let us see what the special investigator has to +say about it." And Hanaud, with a deliberation which Mr. Ricardo found +quite excruciating, spread out the newspaper on the table in front of +him. + + + IV + +There was only one new fact in the couple of columns devoted to the +mystery. Mrs. Blumenstein had died from chloroform poisoning. She was +of a stout habit, and the thieves were not skilled in the +administration of the anaesthetic. + +"It's murder none the less," said Hanaud, and he gazed straight at +Joan, asking her by the direct summons of his eyes what she was going +to do. + +"I must tell my story to the police," she replied painfully and +slowly. But she did not hesitate; she was announcing a meditated plan. + +Hanaud neither agreed nor differed. His face was blank, and when he +spoke there was no cordiality in his voice. "Well," he asked, "and +what is it that you have to say to the police, miss? That you went +into the room to steal, and that you were attacked by two strangers, +dressed as apaches, and masked? That is all?" + +"Yes." + +"And how many men at the Semiramis ball were dressed as apaches and +wore masks? Come! Make a guess. A hundred at the least?" + +"I should think so." + +"Then what will your confession do beyond--I quote your English +idiom--putting you in the coach?" + +Mr. Ricardo now smiled with relief. Hanaud was taking a definite line. +His knowledge of idiomatic English might be incomplete, but his heart +was in the right place. The girl traced a vague pattern on the +tablecloth with her fingers. + +"Yet I think I must tell the police," she repeated, looking up and +dropping her eyes again. Mr. Ricardo noticed that her eyelashes were +very long. For the first time Hanaud's face relaxed. + +"And I think you are quite right," he cried heartily, to Mr. Ricardo's +surprise. "Tell them the truth before they suspect it, and they will +help you out of the affair if they can. Not a doubt of it. Come, I +will go with you myself to Scotland Yard." + +"Thank you," said Joan, and the pair drove away in a cab together. + +Hanaud returned to Grosvenor Square alone and lunched with Ricardo. + +"It was all right," he said. "The police were very kind. Miss Joan +Carew told her story to them as she had told it to us. Fortunately, +the envelope with the aluminium chain had already been delivered, and +was in their hands. They were much mystified about it, but Miss Joan's +story gave them a reasonable explanation. I think they are inclined to +believe her; and, if she is speaking the truth, they will keep her out +of the witness-box if they can." + +"She is to stay here in London, then?" asked Ricardo. + +"Oh, yes; she is not to go. She will present her letters at the Opera +House and secure an engagement, if she can. The criminals might be +lulled thereby into a belief that the girl had kept the whole strange +incident to herself, and that there was nowhere even a knowledge of +the disguise which they had used." Hanaud spoke as carelessly as if +the matter was not very important; and Ricardo, with an unusual flash +of shrewdness, said: + +"It is clear, my friend, that you do not think those two men will ever +be caught at all." + +Hanaud shrugged his shoulders. + +"There is always a chance. But listen. There is a room with a +hundred guns, one of which is loaded. Outside the room there are a +hundred pigeons, one of which is white. You are taken into the room +blind-fold. You choose the loaded gun and you shoot the one white +pigeon. That is the value of the chance." + +"But," exclaimed Ricardo, "those pearls were of great value, and I +have heard at a trial expert evidence given by pearl merchants. All +agree that the pearls of great value are known; so, when they come +upon the market----" + +"That is true," Hanaud interrupted imperturbably. "But how are they +known?" + +"By their weight," said Mr. Ricardo. + +"Exactly," replied Hanaud. "But did you not also hear at this trial of +yours that pearls can be peeled like an onion? No? It is true. Remove +a skin, two skins, the weight is altered, the pearl is a trifle +smaller. It has lost a little of its value, yes--but you can no longer +identify it as the so-and-so pearl which belonged to this or that +sultan, was stolen by the vizier, bought by Messrs. Lustre and +Steinopolis, of Hatton Garden, and subsequently sold to the wealthy +Mrs. Blumenstein. No, your pearl has vanished altogether. There is a +new pearl which can be traded." He looked at Ricardo. "Who shall say +that those pearls are not already in one of the queer little back +streets of Amsterdam, undergoing their transformation?" + +Mr. Ricardo was not persuaded because he would not be. "I have some +experience in these matters," he said loftily to Hanaud. "I am sure +that we shall lay our hands upon the criminals. We have never failed." + +Hanaud grinned from ear to ear. The only experience which Mr. Ricardo +had ever had was gained on the shores of Geneva and at Aix under +Hanaud's tuition. But Hanaud did not argue, and there the matter +rested. + +The days flew by. It was London's play-time. The green and gold of +early summer deepened and darkened; wondrous warm nights under +England's pale blue sky, when the streets rang with the joyous feet of +youth, led in clear dawns and lovely glowing days. Hanaud made +acquaintance with the wooded reaches of the Thames; Joan Carew sang +"Louise" at Covent Garden with notable success; and the affair of the +Semiramis Hotel, in the minds of the few who remembered it, was +already added to the long list of unfathomed mysteries. + +But towards the end of May there occurred a startling development. +Joan Carew wrote to Mr. Ricardo that she would call upon him in +the afternoon, and she begged him to secure the presence of Hanaud. +She came as the clock struck; she was pale and agitated; and in the +room where Calladine had first told the story of her visit she told +another story which, to Mr. Ricardo's thinking, was yet more strange +and--yes--yet more suspicious. + +"It has been going on for some time," she began. "I thought of coming +to you at once. Then I wondered whether, if I waited--oh, you'll never +believe me!" + +"Let us hear!" said Hanaud patiently. + +"I began to dream of that room, the two men disguised and masked, the +still figure in the bed. Night after night! I was terrified to go to +sleep. I felt the hand upon my mouth. I used to catch myself falling +asleep, and walk about the room with all the lights up to keep myself +awake." + +"But you couldn't," said Hanaud with a smile. "Only the old can do +that." + +"No, I couldn't," she admitted; "and--oh, my nights were horrible +until"--she paused and looked at her companions doubtfully--"until one +night the mask slipped." + +"What--?" cried Hanaud, and a note of sternness rang suddenly in his +voice. "What are you saying?" + +With a desperate rush of words, and the colour staining her forehead +and cheeks, Joan Carew continued: + +"It is true. The mask slipped on the face of one of the men--of +the man who held me. Only a little way; it just left his forehead +visible--no more." + +"Well?" asked Hanaud, and Mr. Ricardo leaned forward, swaying between +the austerity of criticism and the desire to believe so thrilling a +revelation. + +"I waked up," the girl continued, "in the darkness, and for a moment +the whole scene remained vividly with me--for just long enough for me +to fix clearly in my mind the figure of the apache with the white +forehead showing above the mask." + +"When was that?" asked Ricardo. + +"A fortnight ago." + +"Why didn't you come with your story then?" + +"I waited," said Joan. "What I had to tell wasn't yet helpful. I +thought that another night the mask might slip lower still. Besides, +I--it is difficult to describe just what I felt. I felt it important +just to keep that photograph in my mind, not to think about it, not to +talk about it, not even to look at it too often lest I should begin to +imagine the rest of the face and find something familiar in the man's +carriage and shape when there was nothing really familiar to me at +all. Do you understand that?" she asked, with her eyes fixed in appeal +on Hanaud's face. + +"Yes," replied Hanaud. "I follow your thought." + +"I thought there was a chance now--the strangest chance--that the +truth might be reached. I did not wish to spoil it," and she turned +eagerly to Ricardo, as if, having persuaded Hanaud, she would now turn +her batteries on his companion. "My whole point of view was changed. I +was no longer afraid of falling asleep lest I should dream. I wished +to dream, but----" + +"But you could not," suggested Hanaud. + +"No, that is the truth," replied Joan Carew. "Whereas before I was +anxious to keep awake and yet must sleep from sheer fatigue, now that +I tried consciously to put myself to sleep I remained awake all +through the night, and only towards morning, when the light was coming +through the blinds, dropped off into a heavy, dreamless slumber." + +Hanaud nodded. + +"It is a very perverse world, Miss Carew, and things go by +contraries." + +Ricardo listened for some note of irony in Hanaud's voice, some look +of disbelief in his face. But there was neither the one nor the other. +Hanaud was listening patiently. + +"Then came my rehearsals," Joan Carew continued, "and that wonderful +opera drove everything else out of my head. I had such a chance, if +only I could make use of it! When I went to bed now, I went with that +haunting music in my ears--the call of Paris--oh, you must remember +it. But can you realise what it must mean to a girl who is going to +sing it for the first time in Covent Garden?" + +Mr. Ricardo saw his opportunity. He, the connoisseur, to whom the +psychology of the green room was as an open book, could answer that +question. + +"It is true, my friend," he informed Hanaud with quiet authority. "The +great march of events leaves the artist cold. He lives aloof. While +the tumbrils thunder in the streets he adds a delicate tint to the +picture he is engaged upon or recalls his triumph in his last great +part." + +"Thank you," said Hanaud gravely. "And now Miss Carew may perhaps +resume her story." + +"It was the very night of my debut," she continued. "I had supper with +some friends. A great artist. Carmen Valeri, honoured me with her +presence. I went home excited, and that night I dreamed again." + +"Yes?" + +"This time the chin, the lips, the eyes were visible. There was only a +black strip across the middle of the face. And I thought--nay, I was +sure--that if that strip vanished I should know the man." + +"And it did vanish?" + +"Three nights afterwards." + +"And you did know the man?" + +The girl's face became troubled. She frowned. + +"I knew the face, that was all," she answered. "I was disappointed. I +had never spoken to the man. I am sure of that still. But somewhere I +have seen him." + +"You don't even remember when?" asked Hanaud. + +"No." Joan Carew reflected for a moment with her eyes upon the carpet, +and then flung up her head with a gesture of despair. "No. I try all +the time to remember. But it is no good." + +Mr. Ricardo could not restrain a movement of indignation. He was being +played with. The girl with her fantastic story had worked him up to a +real pitch of excitement only to make a fool of him. All his earlier +suspicions flowed back into his mind. What if, after all, she was +implicated in the murder and the theft? What if, with a perverse +cunning, she had told Hanaud and himself just enough of what she knew, +just enough of the truth, to persuade them to protect her? What if her +frank confession of her own overpowering impulse to steal the necklace +was nothing more than a subtle appeal to the sentimental pity of men, +an appeal based upon a wider knowledge of men's weaknesses than a girl +of nineteen or twenty ought to have? Mr. Ricardo cleared his throat +and sat forward in his chair. He was girding himself for a singularly +searching interrogatory when Hanaud asked the most irrelevant of +questions: + +"How did you pass the evening of that night when you first dreamed +complete the face of your assailant?" + +Joan Carew reflected. Then her face cleared. + +"I know," she exclaimed. "I was at the opera." + +"And what was being given?" + +"_The Jewels of the Madonna_." + +Hanaud nodded his head. To Ricardo it seemed that he had expected +precisely that answer. + +"Now," he continued, "you are sure that you have seen this man?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well," said Hanaud. "There is a game you play at children's +parties--is there not?--animal, vegetable, or mineral, and always you +get the answer. Let us play that game for a few minutes, you and I." + +Joan Carew drew up her chair to the table and sat with her chin +propped upon her hands and her eyes fixed on Hanaud's face. As he put +each question she pondered on it and answered. If she answered +doubtfully he pressed it. + +"You crossed on the _Lucania_ from New York?" + +"Yes." + +"Picture to yourself the dining-room, the tables. You have the picture +quite clear?" + +"Yes." + +"Was it at breakfast that you saw him?" + +"No." + +"At luncheon?" + +"No." + +"At dinner?" + +She paused for a moment, summoning before her eyes the travellers at +the tables. + +"No." + +"Not in the dining-table at all, then?" + +"No." + +"In the library, when you were writing letters, did you not one day +lift your head and see him?" + +"No." + +"On the promenade deck? Did he pass you when you sat in your +deck-chair, or did you pass him when he sat in his chair?" + +"No." + +Step by step Hanaud took her back to New York to her hotel, to +journeys in the train. Then he carried her to Milan where she had +studied. It was extraordinary to Ricardo to realise how much Hanaud +knew of the curriculum of a student aspiring to grand opera. From +Milan he brought her again to New York, and at the last, with a start +of joy, she cried: "Yes, it was there." + +Hanaud took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. + +"Ouf!" he grunted. "To concentrate the mind on a day like this, it +makes one hot, I can tell you. Now, Miss Carew, let us hear." + +It was at a concert at the house of a Mrs. Starlingshield in Fifth +Avenue and in the afternoon. Joan Carew sang. She was a stranger to +New York and very nervous. She saw nothing but a mist of faces whilst +she sang, but when she had finished the mist cleared, and as she left +the improvised stage she saw the man. He was standing against the wall +in a line of men. There was no particular reason why her eyes should +single him out, except that he was paying no attention to her singing, +and, indeed, she forgot him altogether afterwards. + +"I just happened to see him clearly and distinctly," she said. "He was +tall, clean-shaven, rather dark, not particularly young--thirty-five +or so, I should say--a man with a heavy face and beginning to grow +stout. He moved away whilst I was bowing to the audience, and I +noticed him afterwards walking about, talking to people." + +"Do you remember to whom?" + +"No." + +"Did he notice you, do you think?" + +"I am sure he didn't," the girl replied emphatically. "He never looked +at the stage where I was singing, and he never looked towards me +afterwards." + +She gave, so far as she could remember, the names of such guests and +singers as she knew at that party. "And that is all," she said. + +"Thank you," said Hanaud. "It is perhaps a good deal. But it is +perhaps nothing at all." + +"You will let me hear from you?" she cried, as she rose to her feet. + +"Miss Carew, I am at your service," he returned. She gave him her hand +timidly and he took it cordially. For Mr. Ricardo she had merely a +bow, a bow which recognised that he distrusted her and that she had no +right to be offended. Then she went, and Hanaud smiled across the +table at Ricardo. + +"Yes," he said, "all that you are thinking is true enough. A man who +slips out of society to indulge a passion for a drug in greater peace, +a girl who, on her own confession, tried to steal, and, to crown all, +this fantastic story. It is natural to disbelieve every word of it. +But we disbelieved before, when we left Calladine's lodging in the +Adelphi, and we were wrong. Let us be warned." + +"You have an idea?" exclaimed Ricardo. + +"Perhaps!" said Hanaud. And he looked down the theatre column of the +_Times_. "Let us distract ourselves by going to the theatre." + +"You are the most irritating man!" Mr. Ricardo broke out impulsively. +"If I had to paint your portrait, I should paint you with your finger +against the side of your nose, saying mysteriously: '_I_ know,' when +you know nothing at all." + +Hanaud made a schoolboy's grimace. "We will go and sit in your box at +the opera to-night," he said, "and you shall explain to me all through +the beautiful music the theory of the tonic sol-fa." + +They reached Covent Garden before the curtain rose. Mr. Ricardo's box +was on the lowest tier and next to the omnibus box. + +"We are near the stage," said Hanaud, as he took his seat in the +corner and so arranged the curtain that he could see and yet was +hidden from view. "I like that." + +The theatre was full; stalls and boxes shimmered with jewels and +satin, and all that was famous that season for beauty and distinction +had made its tryst there that night. + +"Yes, this is wonderful," said Hanaud. "What opera do they play?" He +glanced at his programme and cried, with a little start of surprise: +"We are in luck. It is _The Jewels of the Madonna_." + +"Do you believe in omens?" Mr. Ricardo asked coldly. He had not yet +recovered from his rebuff of the afternoon. + +"No, but I believe that Carmen Valeri is at her best in this part," +said Hanaud. + +Mr. Ricardo belonged to that body of critics which must needs spoil +your enjoyment by comparisons and recollections of other great +artists. He was at a disadvantage certainly to-night, for the opera +was new. But he did his best. He imagined others in the part, and when +the great scene came at the end of the second act, and Carmen Valeri, +on obtaining from her lover the jewels stolen from the sacred image, +gave such a display of passion as fairly enthralled that audience, Mr. +Ricardo sighed quietly and patiently. + +"How Calve would have brought out the psychological value of that +scene!" he murmured; and he was quite vexed with Hanaud, who sat with +his opera glasses held to his eyes, and every sense apparently +concentrated on the stage. The curtains rose and rose again when the +act was concluded, and still Hanaud sat motionless as the Sphynx, +staring through his glasses. + +"That is all," said Ricardo when the curtains fell for the fifth time. + +"They will come out," said Hanaud. "Wait!" And from between the +curtains Carmen Valeri was led out into the full glare of the +footlights with the panoply of jewels flashing on her breast. Then at +last Hanaud put down his glasses and turned to Ricardo with a look of +exultation and genuine delight upon his face which filled that +season-worn dilettante with envy. + +"What a night!" said Hanaud. "What a wonderful night!" And he +applauded until he split his gloves. At the end of the opera he cried: +"We will go and take supper at the Semiramis. Yes, my friend, we will +finish our evening like gallant gentlemen. Come! Let us not think of +the morning." And boisterously he slapped Ricardo in the small of the +back. + +In spite of his boast, however, Hanaud hardly touched his supper, and +he played with, rather than drank, his brandy and soda. He had a +little table to which he was accustomed beside a glass screen in the +depths of the room, and he sat with his back to the wall watching the +groups which poured in. Suddenly his face lighted up. + +"Here is Carmen Valeri!" he cried. "Once more we are in luck. Is it +not that she is beautiful?" + +Mr. Ricardo turned languidly about in his chair and put up his +eyeglass. + +"So, so," he said. + +"Ah!" returned Hanaud. "Then her companion will interest you still +more. For he is the man who murdered Mrs. Blumenstein." + +Mr. Ricardo jumped so that his eyeglass fell down and tinkled on its +cord against the buttons of his waistcoat. + +"What!" he exclaimed. "It's impossible!" He looked again. "Certainly +the man fits Joan Carew's description. But--" He turned back to Hanaud +utterly astounded. And as he looked at the Frenchman all his earlier +recollections of him, of his swift deductions, of the subtle +imagination which his heavy body so well concealed, crowded in upon +Ricardo and convinced him. + +"How long have you known?" he asked in a whisper of awe. + +"Since ten o'clock to-night." + +"But you will have to find the necklace before you can prove it." + +"The necklace!" said Hanaud carelessly. "That is already found." + +Mr. Ricardo had been longing for a thrill. He had it now. He felt it +in his very spine. + +"It's found?" he said in a startled whisper. + +"Yes." + +Ricardo turned again, with as much indifference as he could assume, +towards the couple who were settling down at their table, the man with +a surly indifference, Carmen Valeri with the radiance of a woman who +has just achieved a triumph and is now free to enjoy the fruits of it. +Confusedly, recollections returned to Ricardo of questions put that +afternoon by Hanaud to Joan Carew--subtle questions into which the +name of Carmen Valeri was continually entering. She was a woman of +thirty, certainly beautiful, with a clear, pale face and eyes like the +night. + +"Then she is implicated too!" he said. What a change for her, he +thought, from the stage of Covent Garden to the felon's cell, from the +gay supper-room of the Semiramis, with its bright frocks and its babel +of laughter, to the silence and the ignominious garb of the workrooms +in Aylesbury Prison! + +"She!" exclaimed Hanaud; and in his passion for the contrasts of drama +Ricardo was almost disappointed. "She has nothing whatever to do with +it. She knows nothing. Andre Favart there--yes. But Carmen Valeri! +She's as stupid as an owl, and loves him beyond words. Do you want to +know how stupid she is? You shall know. I asked Mr. Clements, the +director of the opera house, to take supper with us, and here he is." + +Hanaud stood up and shook hands with the director. He was of the world +of business rather than of art, and long experience of the ways of +tenors and prima-donnas had given him a good-humoured cynicism. + +"They are spoilt children, all tantrums and vanity," he said, "and +they would ruin you to keep a rival out of the theatre." + +He told them anecdote upon anecdote. + +"And Carmen Valeri," Hanaud asked in a pause; "is she troublesome this +season?" + +"Has been," replied Clements dryly. "At present she is playing at +being good. But she gave me a turn some weeks ago." He turned to +Ricardo. "Superstition's her trouble, and Andre Favart knows it. She +left him behind in America this spring." + +"America!" suddenly cried Ricardo; so suddenly that Clements looked at +him in surprise. + +"She was singing in New York, of course, during the winter," he +returned. "Well, she left him behind, and I was shaking hands with +myself when he began to deal the cards over there. She came to me in a +panic. She had just had a cable. She couldn't sing on Friday night. +There was a black knave next to the nine of diamonds. She wouldn't +sing for worlds. And it was the first night of _The Jewels of the +Madonna!_ Imagine the fix I was in!" + +"What did you do?" asked Ricardo. + +"The only thing there was to do," replied Clements with a shrug of the +shoulders. "I cabled Favart some money and he dealt the cards again. +She came to me beaming. Oh, she had been so distressed to put me in +the cart! But what could she do? Now there was a red queen next to the +ace of hearts, so she could sing without a scruple so long, of course, +as she didn't pass a funeral on the way down to the opera house. +Luckily she didn't. But my money brought Favart over here, and now I'm +living on a volcano. For he's the greatest scoundrel unhung. He never +has a farthing, however much she gives him; he's a blackmailer, he's a +swindler, he has no manners and no graces, he looks like a butcher and +treats her as if she were dirt, he never goes near the opera except +when she is singing in this part, and she worships the ground he walks +on. Well, I suppose it's time to go." + +The lights had been turned off, the great room was emptying. Mr. +Ricardo and his friends rose to go, but at the door Hanaud detained +Mr. Clements, and they talked together alone for some little while, +greatly to Mr. Ricardo's annoyance. Hanaud's good humour, however, +when he rejoined his friend, was enough for two. + +"I apologise, my friend, with my hand on my heart. But it was for your +sake that I stayed behind. You have a meretricious taste for melodrama +which I deeply deplore, but which I mean to gratify. I ought to leave +for Paris to-morrow, but I shall not. I shall stay until Thursday." +And he skipped upon the pavement as they walked home to Grosvenor +Square. + +Mr. Ricardo bubbled with questions, but he knew his man. He would get +no answer to any one of them to-night. So he worked out the problem +for himself as he lay awake in his bed, and he came down to breakfast +next morning fatigued but triumphant. Hanaud was already chipping off +the top of his egg at the table. + +"So I see you have found it all out, my friend," he said. + +"Not all," replied Ricardo modestly, "and you will not mind, I am +sure, if I follow the usual custom and wish you a good morning." + +"Not at all," said Hanaud. "I am all for good manners myself." + +He dipped his spoon into his egg. + +"But I am longing to hear the line of your reasoning." + +Mr. Ricardo did not need much pressing. + +"Joan Carew saw Andre Favart at Mrs. Starlingshield's party, and saw +him with Carmen Valeri. For Carmen Valeri was there. I remember that +you asked Joan for the names of the artists who sang, and Carmen +Valeri was amongst them." + +Hanaud nodded his head. + +"Exactly." + +"No doubt Joan Carew noticed Carmen Valeri particularly, and so took +unconsciously into her mind an impression of the man who was with her, +Andre Favart--of his build, of his walk, of his type." + +Again Hanaud agreed. + +"She forgets the man altogether, but the picture remains latent in her +mind--an undeveloped film." + +Hanaud looked up in surprise, and the surprise flattered Mr. Ricardo. +Not for nothing had he tossed about in his bed for the greater part of +the night. + +"Then came the tragic night at the Semiramis. She does not consciously +recognise her assailant, but she dreams the scene again and again, and +by a process of unconscious cerebration the figure of the man becomes +familiar. Finally she makes her debut, is entertained at supper +afterwards, and meets once more Carmen Valeri." + +"Yes, for the first time since Mrs. Starlingshield's party," +interjected Hanaud. + +"She dreams again, she remembers asleep more than she remembers when +awake. The presence of Carmen Valeri at her supper-party has its +effect. By a process of association, she recalls Favart, and the mask +slips on the face of her assailant. Some days later she goes to the +opera. She hears Carmen Valeri sing in _The Jewels of the Madonna_. No +doubt the passion of her acting, which I am more prepared to +acknowledge this morning than I was last night, affects Joan Carew +powerfully, emotionally. She goes to bed with her head full of Carmen +Valeri, and she dreams not of Carmen Valeri, but of the man who is +unconsciously associated with Carmen Valeri in her thoughts. The mask +vanishes altogether. She sees her assailant now, has his portrait +limned in her mind, would know him if she met him in the street, +though she does not know by what means she identified him." + +"Yes," said Hanaud. "It is curious the brain working while the body +sleeps, the dream revealing what thought cannot recall." + +Mr. Ricardo was delighted. He was taken seriously. + +"But of course," he said, "I could not have worked the problem out but +for you. You knew of Andre Favart and the kind of man he was." + +Hanaud laughed. + +"Yes. That is always my one little advantage. I know all the +cosmopolitan blackguards of Europe." His laughter ceased suddenly, and +he brought his clenched fist heavily down upon the table. "Here is one +of them who will be very well out of the world, my friend," he said +very quietly, but there was a look of force in his face and a hard +light in his eyes which made Mr. Ricardo shiver. + +For a few moments there was silence. Then Ricardo asked: "But have you +evidence enough?" + +"Yes." + +"Your two chief witnesses, Calladine and Joan Carew--you said it +yourself--there are facts to discredit them. Will they be believed?" + +"But they won't appear in the case at all," Hanaud said. "Wait, wait!" +and once more he smiled. "By the way, what is the number of +Calladine's house?" + +Ricardo gave it, and Hanaud therefore wrote a letter. "It is all for +your sake, my friend," he said with a chuckle. + +"Nonsense," said Ricardo. "You have the spirit of the theatre in your +bones." + +"Well, I shall not deny it," said Hanaud, and he sent out the letter +to the nearest pillar-box. + +Mr. Ricardo waited in a fever of impatience until Thursday came. At +breakfast Hanaud would talk of nothing but the news of the day. At +luncheon he was no better. The affair of the Semiramis Hotel seemed a +thousand miles from any of his thoughts. But at five o'clock he said +as he drank his tea: + +"You know, of course, that we go to the opera to-night?" + +"Yes. Do we?" + +"Yes. Your young friend Calladine, by the way, will join us in your +box." + +"That is very kind of him, I am sure," said Mr. Ricardo. + +The two men arrived before the rising of the curtain, and in the +crowded lobby a stranger spoke a few words to Hanaud, but what he said +Ricardo could not hear. They took their seats in the box, and Hanaud +looked at his programme. + +"Ah! It is _Il Ballo de Maschera_ to-night. We always seem to hit upon +something appropriate, don't we?" + +Then he raised his eyebrows. + +"Oh-o! Do you see that our pretty young friend, Joan Carew, is singing +in the role of the page? It is a showy part. There is a particular +melody with a long-sustained trill in it, as far as I remember." + +Mr. Ricardo was not deceived by Hanaud's apparent ignorance of the +opera to be given that night and of the part Joan Carew was to take. +He was, therefore, not surprised when Hanaud added: + +"By the way, I should let Calladine find it all out for himself." + +Mr. Ricardo nodded sagely. + +"Yes. That is wise. I had thought of it myself." But he had +done nothing of the kind. He was only aware that the elaborate +stage-management in which Hanaud delighted was working out to the +desired climax, whatever that climax might be. Calladine entered the +box a few minutes later and shook hands with them awkwardly. + +"It was kind of you to invite me," he said and, very ill at ease, he +took a seat between them and concentrated his attention on the house +as it filled up. + +"There's the overture," said Hanaud. The curtains divided and were +festooned on either side of the stage. The singers came on in their +turn; the page appeared to a burst of delicate applause (Joan Carew +had made a small name for herself that season), and with a stifled cry +Calladine shot back in the box as if he had been struck. Even then Mr. +Ricardo did not understand. He only realised that Joan Carew was +looking extraordinarily trim and smart in her boy's dress. He had to +look from his programme to the stage and back again several times +before the reason of Calladine's exclamation dawned on him. When it +did, he was horrified. Hanaud, in his craving for dramatic effects, +must have lost his head altogether. Joan Carew was wearing, from the +ribbon in her hair to the scarlet heels of her buckled satin shoes, +the same dress as she had worn on the tragic night at the Semiramis +Hotel. He leaned forward in his agitation to Hanaud. + +"You must be mad. Suppose Favart is in the theatre and sees her. He'll +be over on the Continent by one in the morning." + +"No, he won't," replied Hanaud. "For one thing, he never comes to +Covent Garden unless one opera, with Carmen Valeri in the chief part, +is being played, as you heard the other night at supper. For a second +thing, he isn't in the house. I know where he is. He is gambling in +Dean Street, Soho. For a third thing, my friend, he couldn't leave by +the nine o'clock train for the Continent if he wanted to. Arrangements +have been made. For a fourth thing, he wouldn't wish to. He has really +remarkable reasons for desiring to stay in London. But he will come to +the theatre later. Clements will send him an urgent message, with the +result that he will go straight to Clements' office. Meanwhile, we can +enjoy ourselves, eh?" + +Never was the difference between the amateur dilettante and the +genuine professional more clearly exhibited than by the behaviour of +the two men during the rest of the performance. Mr. Ricardo might have +been sitting on a coal fire from his jumps and twistings; Hanaud +stolidly enjoyed the music, and when Joan Carew sang her famous solo +his hands clamoured for an encore louder than anyone's in the boxes. +Certainly, whether excitement was keeping her up or no, Joan Carew had +never sung better in her life. Her voice was clear and fresh as a +bird's--a bird with a soul inspiring its song. Even Calladine drew his +chair forward again and sat with his eyes fixed upon the stage and +quite carried out of himself. He drew a deep breath at the end. + +"She is wonderful," he said, like a man waking up. + +"She is very good," replied Mr. Ricardo, correcting Calladine's +transports. + +"We will go round to the back of the stage," said Hanaud. + +They passed through the iron door and across the stage to a long +corridor with a row of doors on one side. There were two or three men +standing about in evening dress, as if waiting for friends in the +dressing-rooms. At the third door Hanaud stopped and knocked. The door +was opened by Joan Carew, still dressed in her green and gold. Her +face was troubled, her eyes afraid. + +"Courage, little one," said Hanaud, and he slipped past her into the +room. "It is as well that my ugly, familiar face should not be seen +too soon." + +The door closed and one of the strangers loitered along the corridor +and spoke to a call-boy. The call-boy ran off. For five minutes more +Mr. Ricardo waited with a beating heart. He had the joy of a man in +the centre of things. All those people driving homewards in their +motor-cars along the Strand--how he pitied them! Then, at the end of +the corridor, he saw Clements and Andre Favart. They approached, +discussing the possibility of Carmen Valeri's appearance in London +opera during the next season. + +"We have to look ahead, my dear friend," said Clements, "and though I +should be extremely sorry----" + +At that moment they were exactly opposite Joan Carew's door. It +opened, she came out; with a nervous movement she shut the door behind +her. At the sound Andre Favart turned, and he saw drawn up against the +panels of the door, with a look of terror in her face, the same gay +figure which had interrupted him in Mrs. Blumenstein's bedroom. There +was no need for Joan to act. In the presence of this man her fear was +as real as it had been on the night of the Semiramis ball. She +trembled from head to foot. Her eyes closed; she seemed about to +swoon. + +Favart stared and uttered an oath. His face turned white; he staggered +back as if he had seen a ghost. Then he made a wild dash along the +corridor, and was seized and held by two of the men in evening dress. +Favart recovered his wits. He ceased to struggle. + +"What does this outrage mean?" he asked, and one of the men drew a +warrant and notebook from his pocket. + +"You are arrested for the murder of Mrs. Blumenstein in the Semiramis +Hotel," he said, "and I have to warn you that anything you may say +will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you." + +"Preposterous!" exclaimed Favart. "There's a mistake. We will go along +to the police and put it right. Where's your evidence against me?" + +Hanaud stepped out of the doorway of the dressing-room. + +"In the property-room of the theatre," he said. + +At the sight of him Favart uttered a violent cry of rage. "You are +here, too, are you?" he screamed, and he sprang at Hanaud's throat. +Hanaud stepped lightly aside. Favart was borne down to the ground, and +when he stood up again the handcuffs were on his wrists. + +Favart was led away, and Hanaud turned to Mr. Ricardo and Clements. + +"Let us go to the property-room," he said. They passed along the +corridor, and Ricardo noticed that Calladine was no longer with them. +He turned and saw him standing outside Joan Carew's dressing-room. + +"He would like to come, of course," said Ricardo. + +"Would he?" asked Hanaud. "Then why doesn't he? He's quite grown up, +you know," and he slipped his arm through Ricardo's and led him back +across the stage. In the property-room there was already a detective +in plain clothes. Mr. Ricardo had still not as yet guessed the truth. + +"What is it you really want, sir?" the property-master asked of the +director. + +"Only the jewels of the Madonna," Hanaud answered. + +The property-master unlocked a cupboard and took from it the sparkling +cuirass. Hanaud pointed to it, and there, lost amongst the huge +glittering stones of paste and false pearls, Mrs. Blumenstein's +necklace was entwined. + +"Then that is why Favart came always to Covent Garden when _The Jewels +of the Madonna_ was being performed!" exclaimed Ricardo. + +Hanaud nodded. + +"He came to watch over his treasure." + +Ricardo was piecing together the sections of the puzzle. + +"No doubt he knew of the necklace in America. No doubt he followed it +to England." + +Hanaud agreed. + +"Mrs. Blumenstein's jewels were quite famous in New York." + +"But to hide them here!" cried Mr. Clements. "He must have been mad." + +"Why?" asked Hanaud. "Can you imagine a safer hiding-place? Who is +going to burgle the property-room of Covent Garden? Who is going to +look for a priceless string of pearls amongst the stage jewels of an +opera house?" + +"You did," said Mr. Ricardo. + +"I?" replied Hanaud, shrugging his shoulders. "Joan Carew's dreams led +me to Andre Favart. The first time we came here and saw the pearls of +the Madonna, I was on the look-out, naturally. I noticed Favart at the +back of the stalls. But it was a stroke of luck that I noticed those +pearls through my opera glasses." + +"At the end of the second act?" cried Ricardo suddenly. "I remember +now." + +"Yes," replied Hanaud. "But for that second act the pearls would have +stayed comfortably here all through the season. Carmen Valeri--a fool +as I told you--would have tossed them about in her dressing-room +without a notion of their value, and at the end of July, when the +murder at the Semiramis Hotel had been forgotten, Favart would have +taken them to Amsterdam and made his bargain." + +"Shall we go?" + +They left the theatre together and walked down to the grill-room of +the Semiramis. But as Hanaud looked through the glass door he drew +back. + +"We will not go in, I think, eh?" + +"Why?" asked Ricardo. + +Hanaud pointed to a table. Calladine and Joan Carew were seated at it +taking their supper. + +"Perhaps," said Hanaud with a smile, "perhaps, my friend--what? Who +shall say that the rooms in the Adelphi will not be given up?" + +They turned away from the hotel. But Hanaud was right, and before the +season was over Mr. Ricardo had to put his hand in his pocket for a +wedding present. + + + + + + UNDER BIGNOR HILL + + + + + UNDER BIGNOR HILL[1] + + +The action of the play takes place on a night in summer at the foot of +Bignor Hill on the north side of the Sussex Downs. The time is that of +the Roman occupation of England. In the foreground is an open space of +turf surrounded with gorse-bushes. The turf rises in a steep bank at +the back and melts into the side of the hill. The left of the stage is +closed in by a wooded spur of the hill. The scene is wild and revealed +by a strong moonlight. A fallen tree-trunk lies on the right, and a +raised bank is at the left of the stage. + +On the summit of the hill the glow of a camp-fire is seen, and from +time to time a flame leaps up as though fuel had been added. Towards +the end of the play the fire dies down and goes out. + +When the curtain rises the stage is empty, but a sound of men marching +is faintly heard. The sound is heard in pauses throughout the first +part of the play. + + [_Gleva enters from the R. She is a British princess, clothed in + skins. But she has added to her dress some of the refinements of + the conquerors--a shirt of fine linen, the high sandals of the + Roman lady, the Roman comb in her hair, some jewellery, a necklace + of stones, and bracelets. She is followed by three men of her + tribe, wild men in skins, armed with knives, and flint axes carried + at the waist. Gleva comes forward silently into the open space of + turf_.] +Gleva: No one! + +Bran: The trumpet has not sounded the last call on the hill. + +Gleva: No. Yet the hour for it is past. By now the camp should be +asleep. (_She looks up the hill and then turns to her men_.) Be ready +to light the torch. + +Caransius: Everything is strange to-day. + + [_He sits R. under the shelter of a bush, and with a flint and + steel kindles a tiny flame during the following scene. He has a + torch in his hand which he lays by his side. When the fire is + lighted he blows on it from time to time to keep it alight_.] + +Bran: Yes. And yesterday. For many months we have been left in quiet. +Now once more the soldiers march through Anderida. + +Gleva (_holds up her hand_): Listen! + + [_A pause. The sound of marching is heard quite clearly, but at a + distance_.] + +Bran: It does not stop, Princess. + +Gleva: All yesterday, all through last night, all through this long +day! Listen to it, steady as a heart beating, steady and terrible. +(_She speaks with great discouragement, moving apart, L., and sitting +on tree bole_.) + +Caransius (_lighting fire_): I crept to the edge of the forest to-day. +I lay very quiet behind the bushes and looked out across the clearing +to the road. + +Gleva: You! + + [_A general exclamation of astonishment._] + +Caransius: Oh, it's not easy to frighten me, I can tell you. I fought +at Verulanium with the Iceni. I know. I carried a sling. (_He nods +majestically at his companions._) And there you have it. + +Gleva: Yes, yes, good friend. But which way did the soldiers march? +What of the road? + + [_She goes over to him._] + +Caransius: Mistress, there wasn't any road. There were only soldiers. +As far as my eyes could see, bright helmets and brown faces and +flashing shoulder plates bobbing up and down between the trees and a +smother of dust until my head whirled. + +Bran and Both Attendants: Oh! + +Gleva: But which way did they go? + +Caransius: I lost my dog, too--the brute. He ran from me and joined +the marching men. I dared not call to him. + +Bran: Yes, that is the way of dogs. + +Gleva: Did they go north towards the Wall? (_She shakes him._) + +Caransius (_who has been blowing on the fire, now sits up comfortably +and smiles upon Gleva, who is tortured with impatience_): God bless +you, mistress, there isn't any Wall. I know about the Romans; I know! +I fought at Verulanium. Now! + + [_Gleva turns away in despair of getting any sense out of him. A + trumpet sounds on the top of Bignor Hill, faintly. All turn swiftly + towards it_.] + +Gleva: Ready! + + [_A sound of armed men moving, a clash of shields is heard from the + top of Bignor Hill._] +Now fire the torch. Give it me! (_She springs on to the bank and waves +it three times from side to side, steps down, and gives it back to an +attendant, who puts it out._) + +Caransius (_continuing placidly_): No, there's no Wall. There are a +great many mistakes made about the Romans. They are no longer the men +they were. I carried a sling at Verulanium, and there you have it. +I'll tell you something. The soldiers were marching to Regnum. + +Gleva: To Regnum? Are you sure? + +Caransius: Yes. Up over the great Down they went. I saw their armour +amongst the trees on the side of the hill, and the smoke of their +marching on the round bare top. + +Gleva: They were going to Regnum and the sea. (_She speaks in +despair._) + +Third Attendant: I am afraid. + +Gleva (_turns on him scornfully_): You! Why should you fear if they +are marching to the sea? + +Third Attendant: I have been afraid ever since yesterday. The noise of +the marching scattered my wits. + + [_Gleva and the others laugh contemptuously._] + +And because I was afraid--I killed. (_A low cry of consternation +bursts from Bran and Caransius._) + +Bran: Madman! Madman! + +Gleva: You killed one of the Romans! + +Third Attendant (_stands before her_): I was afraid. It was by the old +forge in the forest. There's a brook by the forge. + +Bran: Yes. + +Third Attendant: He had fallen out of the ranks. He was stooping over +the brook. I saw the sun sparkle upon his helmet as he dipped it into +the water, and his strong, brown neck as he raised it. I crept close +to him and struck at his neck as he drank. + +Caransius: That was a good stroke. + +Bran: A mad stroke. + +Third Attendant: He fell over without a cry, and all his armour +rattled once. + +Bran: It will be the fire for our barns, and death for every tenth man +of the tribe. + +Third Attendant: No one saw. + +Gleva: Stand here! + + [_The third attendant stands before her._] + +I gave an order. + +Caransius: Yet, mistress, it is better to strike against orders than +to leave one's friends and, like my dog, follow the marching men. + + [_A cry bursts from Bran. He seizes Caransius. Gleva stands with + her hand upon her knife. Then she turns away, and buries her face + in her hands. A whistle is heard from the hillside above her on the + left. She looks up, and her face changes. She turns to third + attendant._] + +Gleva: Go up the hill--close to the camp, as close as you can creep, +and watch. So may you earn your pardon. (_He goes off_.) You two stand +aside--but not so far but that a cry may bring you instantly. + +Bran: We will be ready. (_Exeunt R._) + + [_Gleva faces the spur of the hill on her left as if all her world + was there. There is a movement among the trees on the spur, a flash + of armour in the moonlight, and at the edge of the trees appears + Quintus Calpurnius Aulus, a Captain about thirty-five years old, + handsome, but in repose his face is stern and inscrutable. He is + active, lithe, self-confident. He comes out into the open just + below the trees, and stands quite still. His very attitude should + suggest strength._] + +Quintus: I am here. (_He speaks with the voice of a man accustomed to +command, and to have his orders obeyed without question. Gleva stands +erect questioning his authority. Then she crosses her hands upon her +bosom and bows her head._) + +Gleva: My Lord Calpurnius. + + [_Calpurnius laughs. He runs down the slope._] + +Calpurnius: That's well. (_He takes her in his arms._) You have a +trick of saying "Calpurnius." I shall remember it till I die. + + [_Gleva draws away from him._] + +Say it again. + +Gleva: With all my soul in the word. It is a prayer. Calpurnius! + + [_Calpurnius is moved by the passion of her voice. He takes her + hands in his._] + +Calpurnius: Yes. I shall remember till I die. (_They move towards the +bank._) + +Gleva: My lord is late to-night. + +Calpurnius: Late! A Roman soldier of fifteen years' service late. My +dear, let us talk sense. Come! + + [_The trumpet sounds again from the hill. Calpurnius stops._] + +Gleva: Why does the trumpet sound? + +Calpurnius: To call some straggler back to Rome. + +Gleva: Rome! (_With a cry._) + +Calpurnius: Yes. For every one of us, the camp on the empty hill-top +there is Rome, and all Rome's in the trumpet call. + +Gleva: Is the sound so strange and moving? + +Calpurnius: Yes. Most strange, most moving. For I know that at this +actual minute every Roman soldier on guard throughout the world has +the sound of it in his ears, here in the forest of Anderida, far away +on some fortress wall in Syria. (_Throws off his seriousness._) But I +am talking of sacred things, and that one should be shy to do. Come, +Gleva. We have little time. When the moon touches those trees I climb +again. + +Gleva: Yet, my lord, for one more moment think of me not as the +foolish, conquered slave. Listen! Turn your head this way and listen. + +Calpurnius: What shall I hear? Some nightingale pouring out love upon +a moonlit night? He'll not say "Calpurnius" with so sweet a note as +you. + +Gleva: You'll hear no nightingale, nor any sound that has one memory +of me in it. Listen, you'll hear--all Rome. + + [_He looks at her quickly. In the pause is heard the sound of men + marching._] + +That speaks louder than the trumpets. + + [_He is very still._] + +Calpurnius! (_She sits by him, and puts an arm about his shoulder. She +speaks his name as if she were afraid._) The Romans flee from Britain. + +Calpurnius (_with a start of contempt_): Madness! It's one legion +going home. Another, with its rest still to earn, will take its place. + +Gleva: Which legion goes? + +Calpurnius: How should I know? (_A pause._) The Valeria Victrix. + +Gleva: Yours! (_She starts away from him._) Calpurnius, yours! + +Calpurnius: Yes, mine. My legion goes to Rome. (_His voice thrills +with eagerness. He has been troubled through the scene how he shall +break the news. Now it is out, he cannot conceal his joy._) + +Gleva: But you--you stay behind. + +Calpurnius (_gently_): This is our last night together. Let us not +waste it. Never was there a night so made for love. (_He draws her +towards him._) + +Gleva: You go with your legion? + +Calpurnius: Before the dawn. + +Gleva: It's impossible. No. You'll stay behind. + +Calpurnius: No. + +Gleva: Listen to me. You shall be King with me. + +Calpurnius (_in a burst of contempt_): King here! In the forests of +Britain! I! + +Gleva: Yes. You'll lie quiet here. I by your side. Your hand in mine. +See! We'll forget the hours. The dawn will come. + +Calpurnius: And find me a traitor! + +Gleva: I am already one. There was a servant with me. He told me I was +like a dog that leaves its own people to follow the marching men. + +Calpurnius (_sits up_): And you let him live, with this knife ready in +your girdle? + +Gleva: He spoke the truth. + +Calpurnius: The truth! (_Contemptuously._) There's a word for you! +Child! There's a greater thing in the world than truth. Truth wins no +battles. + +Gleva: What's this greater thing? + +Calpurnius: Discipline! You should have struck. + +Gleva: I wish I had. For he might have struck back. + +Calpurnius: Discipline! So I go with my legion. + +Gleva (_with a cry accusingly_): You want to go. + +Calpurnius (_springs up_): By all the gods I do. For ten years I have +toiled in Britain building roads--roads--roads--till I'm sick of them. +First the pounded earth, then the small stones, next the rubble, then +the concrete, and last of all the pavement; here in Anderida, there +across the swamps to Londinium, northwards through the fens to +Eboracum--ten years of it. And now--Rome--the mother of me! + +Gleva: Rome? (_She speaks despairingly. Calpurnius has forgotten her: +he answers her voice, not her._) + +Calpurnius: Just for a little while. Oh, I shall go out again, but +just for a little while--to rise when I want to, not at the trumpet's +call, the house all quiet till I clap my hands--to have one's mornings +free--to saunter through the streets, picking up the last new thing of +Juvenal in the Argiletum, or some fine piece of Corinthian bronze in +the Campus Martius, and stopping on the steps of the Appian Way to +send a basket of flowers or a bottle of new scent to some girl that +has caught one's fancy. To go to the theatre, and see the new play, +though, to be sure, people write to me that there are no plays +nowadays. + +Gleva: Plays? + +Calpurnius: And in the evening with a party of girls in their bravest, +all without a care, to gallop in the cool along the Appian Way to +Baiae and crowned with roses and violets have supper by the sea. Oh, +to see one's women again--Lydia'll be getting on, by the way!--women +dressed, jewelled, smelling of violets. Oh, just for a little while! +By Castor and Pollux, I have deserved it. + +Gleva (_who has been listening in grief_): Yes, you must go. (_She +goes to him and sits at his side._) I have a plan. + +Calpurnius: Yes. (_Absently._) + +Gleva: Listen to me!--Calpurnius. + + [_He laughs affectionately at her pronunciation of his name._] + +Calpurnius: Let me hear this wise plan! + +Gleva: I will go with you. + +Calpurnius (_rising_): What? + + [_Gleva pulls him down._] + +Gleva: Yes, I'll give up my kingdom here, sacrifice it all, and go to +Rome with you. Calpurnius (_in a whisper_), I'll be your Lydia. Oh, to +drive with you on such a night as this, all crowned with roses, from +Rome to Baiae on the sea. + +Calpurnius: These are dreams. + +Gleva (_passionately_): Why? Why? Are these women in Rome more +beautiful than I? Look! (_She rises._) I can dress, too, as the Roman +women do. I wear the combs you gave me. I don't think they are pretty, +but I wear them. See, I wear, too, the sandals, the bracelets. + +Calpurnius: No. There are no women in Rome more beautiful than +you--but--but---- + +Gleva (_all her passion dying away_): You would be ashamed of me. + + [_Calpurnius is uncomfortable._] + +Calpurnius: You would be--unusual. People would turn and stare. Other +women would laugh. Some scribbler would write a lampoon. Oh, you are +beautiful, but this is your place, not Rome. Each to his own in the +end, Gleva. I to Rome--you to your people. + +Gleva: My people! Oh, you did right to laugh at the thought of +reigning here. What are my people? Slaves for your pleasure. It can't +be! You to Rome, the lights, the women--oh, how I hate them! You would +not reproach me because my knife hangs idle, had I your Roman women +here! Calpurnius, be kind. From the first morning when I saw you in +the forest, shining in brass, a god, there has been no kingdom, no +people for me but you. I have watched you, learnt from you. Oh! I am +of the Romans--I'll---- + +Calpurnius: Each to his own in the end. That's the law. + +Gleva: A bitter, cruel one. + +Calpurnius: Very likely. But it can't be changed. So long as the world +lasts, centuries hence, wherever soldiers are, still it will be the +law. + +Gleva: Soldiers! Say soldiers, and all must be forgiven! + +Calpurnius: Much, at all events, by those with understanding. Hear +what a soldier is. You see him strong, browned by the sun, flashing in +armour, tramping the earth, a conqueror--a god, yes, a god! Ask his +centurion who drills him in the barrack square. + +Gleva: But the centurion---- + +Calpurnius: The centurion's the god, then? Ask me, his Captain, who +tells him off. Am I the god, then? Ask my Colonel, who tells me off. +Is it my Colonel, my General? Ask the Emperor in Rome who, for a +fault, strips them of their command and brings them home. Soldiers are +men trained to endurance by a hard discipline, cursed, ridiculed, +punished like children but with a man's punishments, so that when the +great ordeal comes they may move, fight, die, like a machine. The +soldier! He suffers discomfort, burns in the desert, freezes in the +snow at another's orders. He has no liberty, he must not argue, he +must not answer; and he gets an obol a day, and in the end--in the +end, a man, he gives his life without complaint, without faltering, +gladly as a mere trifle in the business of the day, so that his +country may endure. And what's his reward? What does he get? A woman's +smile in his hour of furlough. That's his reward. He takes it. Blame +him who will. The woman thinks him a god, and he does not tell her of +the barrack square. Good luck to him and her, I say. But at the last, +there's the long parting, just as you and I part in the forest of +Anderida to-night. Other soldiers will say good-bye here on this spot +to other women in centuries from now. Their trouble will be heavy, my +dear, but they'll obey the soldier's law. + +Gleva: Very well, then! Each to his own! I, too, will obey that law. +(_She confronts him, erect and, strong._) + +Calpurnius: You will? (_Doubtfully._) + +Gleva: To the letter. To the very last letter. I'll gather my men. +There shall be no more Romans in Anderida. There shall be only stubble +in the fields where the scythes of my chariots have run. + +Calpurnius: Silence! (_Sternly._) + +Gleva: I learn my lesson from my Lord Calpurnius. Why should my +teacher blame me if I learn it thoroughly? + +Calpurnius: Gleva, you cannot conquer Rome. (_He speaks gently. She +stands stubbornly._) How shall I prove it to you--you who know only +one wild corner of Britain! (_Thinks._) There is that road where the +soldiers march. You know--how much of it?--a few miles where it passes +through the forest. That's all. But it runs to the Wall in the north. + +Gleva (_scornfully_): Is there a Wall? + +Calpurnius: Is there a Wall? Ye gods! I kept my watch upon it through +a winter under the coldest stars that ever made a night unfriendly. I +freeze now when I think of it. Yes, there's a Wall in the north, and +that road runs to it; and in the south, it does not end at Regnum. + +Gleva: Doesn't it? Wonderful road! + +Calpurnius: Yes, wonderful road. For on the other side at the very +edge of the sea in Gaul it lives again--yes, that's the word--the +great road lives and runs straight as a ruled line to Rome. For forty +days you drive, inns by the road-side, post horses ready and a cloud +of traffic, merchants on business, governors on leave, pedlars, +musicians and actors for the fairs, students for the universities, +Jews, explorers, soldiers, pack-horses and waggons, gigs and litters. +Oh, if I could make you see it--always on each side the shade of +trees, until on its seven hills springs Rome. Nor does the road end +there. + +Gleva: This same road? (_Her scorn has gone. She speaks doubtfully._) + +Calpurnius: This same road which runs by the brook down here in the +forest. (_Pointing L._) It crosses Rome and goes straight to the sea +again--again beyond the sea it turns and strikes to Jerusalem four +thousand miles from where we stand to-night, Rome made it. Rome guards +it, and where it runs Rome rules. You cannot conquer Rome--until the +road's destroyed. + +Gleva: I will destroy it. + +Calpurnius: Only Rome can destroy it. (_A pause._) Gleva, let what I +say sink deep into your heart. A minute ago I sneered at the road. I +blasphemed. The roads are my people's work. While it builds roads, +it's Rome, it's the Unconquerable. But when there are no new roads in +the making and the weeds sprout between the pavements of the old ones, +then your moment's coming. When the slabs are broken and no company +marches down from the hill to mend them, it has come. Launch your +chariots then, Gleva! Rome's day is over, her hand tired. She has +grown easy and forgotten. But while Rome does Rome's appointed work, +beware of her! Not while the road runs straight from Regnum to the +Wall, shall you or any of you prevail. + +Gleva (_looking inscrutably._) No, I cannot conquer Rome. + + [_A moment's pause._] + +Calpurnius: Listen! + +Gleva: The sound upon the road has ceased. + +Calpurnius: There are no longer men marching. + +Gleva: All have gone over the hill to the sea. + +Calpurnius: Yes. There's a freshness in the air, a breath of wind. The +morning comes---- + +Gleva: I cannot conquer Rome. + + [_A trumpet rings out clear from the top of the hill. The morning + is beginning to break. There is the strange light which comes when + moonlight and the dawn meet._] + +Calpurnius: The reveille! (_He turns to her._) + +Gleva: And---- + +Calpurnius (_nods_): My summons. Gleva! + +Gleva: My Lord will bid farewell to his slaves. (_She calls aloud_): +Bran, Caransius. + +Calpurnius: Oh, before they come! (_He holds out his arms to her._) +Gleva! (_She comes slowly into his embrace._) I shall remember this +night. Some of our poets say that we are born again in another age. So +may it be with us! We shall grow old and die, you here, I where my +Emperor shall send me. May we be born again, love again, under a +happier star. + + [_He kisses her, she clings to him. Behind enter Bran, Caransius. + They approach carefully._] + +But now there's Rome in front of me. + + [_He tries to draw away from her. She clings about his neck._] + +And I must go. + +Gleva: Not yet, my Lord--Calpurnius. + +Calpurnius: Farewell! and the Gods prosper you. (_He is seized from +behind on a gesture from Gleva. She utters a cry._) + +Gleva: Do him no hurt! Yet hold him safe. (_They bind him. Calpurnius +struggles._) + +Calpurnius: Help! Romans, help! + + [_The two men gag him._] + +Gleva: Do him no hurt! + + [_They lay him on the bank. Gleva goes to him._] + +No, I cannot conquer Rome, but one Roman--yes. You taught me, +Calpurnius, the lesson of the road. I thank you. I learn another +lesson. (_She is speaking very gently._) On that long, crowded way +from the edge of Gaul to Rome many a soldier of your legion will be +lost--lost and remain unheard of. Calpurnius, you shall stay with me, +reign with me, over me. You shall forget Rome. + + [_Once more the trumpet sounds only more faintly. Calpurnius utters + a stifled groan. The morning broadens. A cracking of bushes is + heard. From the right enters third attendant excitedly._] + +Attendant: Mistress! Mistress! + +Gleva: Well? + + [_She turns, stands between Calpurnius and attendants, e. g._: + + Bran. + + Third Attendant. Gleva. Calpurnius. + + Caransius.] + + [_Footlights._] + +Attendant: They have gone! The hill is empty; the camp is scattered. + +Gleva: They march to the coast. The Valeria Victrix. + + [_A movement from Calpurnius, who is working his hands free._] + +Third Attendant: They are putting out to sea. The harbour's black with +ships. Some have reached the open water. + +Gleva: All have gone. + +Third Attendant: All. Already there's a wolf in the camp on the hill. + +Calpurnius (_freeing his hands and mouth, plucks out his sword. He +buries it in his heart._) Rome! Rome! (_In a whisper._) + + [_Gleva turns and sees Calpurnius dead. She stands motionless. Then + she waves her attendants away. They go silently. Gleva seats + herself by Calpurnius's side. She runs her hand over his hair._] + +Gleva (_with a sob_): My Lord Calpurnius! + + [The Curtain Falls Slowly.] + + + FOOTNOTE: +[Footnote 1: Acting rights of this play are reserved.] + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Four Corners of the World, by +A. E. W. 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